tion and émptiness, it has the There-being in general, the fullness of the natural and spiritual universe, over against it as a Beyond. There manifests itself the same contradiction which is implied in the infinite progress; namely, a returnedness into itself which is immediately at the same time out-of-itself-ness, reference to its other as to its non-being; which reference remains a longing, because Ego has fixed for itself its intent-less and untenable void on one side, and as its Beyond the fullness which in the negation still remains present.

To both Sublimes Kant adds the remark, "that admiration (of the former, external) and awe (before the second, internal) sublime, may stimulate, indeed, to inquiry, but cannot compensate for the deficiency of the same."-He thus declares said elevations insufficient for reason, which cannot rest by them and the feelings connected with them, nor accept the Beyond and the Void for what is ultimate.

"The infinite progress has been taken as an ultimate, especially in its moral application. The just-enunciated second antithesis of the Finite and the Infinite, as of the complex world and of the Ego raised into its freedom, is properly qualitative. The self-determination of the Ego aims, at the same time, at the determination of Nature, and the emancipation of itself from her; it thus refers itself through itself to its other which is, as external There-being, a manifold and quantitative. Reference to what is quantitative becomes itself quantitative; the negative reference of the Ego thereon, the power of the Ego over the Non-Ego, over sense and external nature, comes therefore to be conceived in this way, that morality can and shall become ever greater-the power

of sense, on the other hand, always less. The complete adequacy, however, of the will to the moral law is misplaced in the infinite progress, that is to say, it is represented as an absolutely unreachable Beyond, and just this is to be the true anchor and the legitimate consolation, that it is unreachable; for morality is to be as conflict; this conflict, again, is only from the inadequacy of the will to the law, and the law, therefore, is absolutely a Beyond for the will.

In this antagonism, Ego and Non-Ego, or the pure will and the moral law, and the sensuousness and mere nature of the will, are presupposed as completely independent and mutually indifferent. This pure will has its peculiar law which stands in essential connexion with Sense; and Nature, or Sense, has on its side laws which are neither derived from the will nor correspondent to it, nor can have even only, however different from it, in themselves an essential connexion with it, but they are in general determined for themselves, full and complete within themselves. But both, at the same time, are moments of one and the same single Being, the Ego; the will is determined as the negative against Nature, so that it (the will) is only so far as there is such an element different from it that shall become sublated by it, with which, however, it (the will) comes thus in contact, and by which it is even affected. To nature and to nature as human Sense, limitation through another is indifferent, as to an independent system of laws; she maintains herself in this limitation, enters independently into the relation, and limits the will of the law quite as much as it limits her. It is one act, the self-determination of the will with the sublation of the otherwiseness of a nature, and the assumption of this otherwiseness as there-beënt, as continuing itself in

its sublation and as not sublated. The contradiction that lies in this is not eliminated in the infinite progress, but, on the contrary, is expressed and maintained as not eliminated and as incapable of elimination; the conflict of Morality and Sense is represented as the absolute relation that in and for itself is.

6

The incapacity to become master of the qualitative antithesis of the Finite and Infinite, and to comprehend the Idea of the true will, substantial freedom, has recourse to Quantity, in order to use it as mediatrix, because it is the sublated Qualitative, the difference become indifferent. But in that both members of the antithesis remain implied as qualitatively different, each rather becomes manifest at once as indifferent to this alteration, and just by this that in their mutual reference it is as Quanta that they now relate themselves. Nature is determined by Ego, Sense by the Will of the Good; the change produced by the Will in Sense is only a quantitative difference, such a difference as allows it (Sense) to remain what it is.

=

In the abstracter statement of the Kantian Philosophy, or at least of its principles, that is, in the Wissenschaftslehre of Fichte, the infinite progress constitutes in the same manner the fundamental principle and the Ultimate. The first axiom of this statement, Ego Ego, is followed by a second independent of the first, the opposition of the Non-Ego; the connexion of both is taken at once also as quantitative difference, that Non-Ego is partly determined by Ego, partly also not. The Non-Ego continues itself in this way into its non-being, so that in its nonbeing it remains opposed, as what is not sublated. When, therefore, the contradictions thus involved have been developed in the system, the concluding result is

the same relation that was the commencement; the Non-Ego remains an infinite appulse, an absolutely other; the ultimate mutual connexion of it and of the Ego is the infinite progress, longing and struggle, seeking and searching,-the same contradiction which was begun with.

'Because the quantitative element is the determinateness that is express as sublated, it was believed that much, or rather all, had been won for the unity of the Absolute, for the One Substantiality, when the antithesis in general was set down to a difference only quantitative. Every antithesis is only quantitative, was for a time a main position of the later Philosophy; the opposed determinations have the same nature, the same substance; they are real sides of the antithesis, so far as each of them has within it both values, both factors of the antithesis, only that on the one side the one factor, on the other the other, is preponderant; on the one side the one factor, a matter or power, is present in greater quantity or in stronger degree than on the other. So far as different matters or powers are presupposed, the quantitative difference rather confirms and completes their externality and indifference to each other and to their unity. The difference of the absolute Unity is to be only quantitative; Quantitativity is indeed the sublated immediate determinateness, but it is only the uncompleted, only the first negation, not the infinite, not the negation of the negation. In that Being and Thought are represented as quantitative determinations of the Absolute Substance, even they, as Quanta, become, just like Carbon, Azote, &c., in a subordinate sphere, perfectly external to each other and void of connexion. It is a Third (party), an external reflexion, which abstracts from their difference and

perceives their inner unity, that is only in itself and not equally for itself. This unity, consequently, is represented in effect only as first immediate unity, or only as Being, which, in its quantitative difference, remains equal to itself, but does not set itself equal to itself through itself; it is thus not comprehended as negation of negation, as infinite unity. Only in the qualitative antithesis arises the explicit Infinite, the Being-for-self, and the quantitative determination itself passes over, as will presently more particularly yield itself, into the Qualitative.'

REMARK 2,

Which occurs here, concerns Kant, and is reserved for the present. It is again one of those miracles of analysis of which, as yet, no man but Hegel has set the example-a perspicacity absolutely irresistible!-a singleness of statement absolutely annihilative!

c. The Infinitude of the Quantum.

1. The infinite Quantum, as infinitely great or infinitely little, is itself an sich the infinite Progress; it is Quantum as great or small, and it is at the same time non-being of Quantum. The infinitely great and infinitely little are therefore images of figurate conception, which, on closer consideration, show themselves as idle mist and shadow. But in the infinite Progress this contradiction is explicitly present, and withal that also that is the nature of the Quantumwhich as intensive magnitude has reached its reality, and in its There-being is now explicitly set as it is in its Notion. This identity is what we have to consider.

"The Quantum as degree is simple, unal, referred to itself and as determined in itself. In that through this