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next place, the existence for another, the specific character of the real embodied form, is taken up into this
simple universality, in which its nature lies, a specificity that is likewise of a simple universal non-sensuous
kind, and can only be that which finds expression in number. Number is the middle term of the organic form,
which links indeterminate life with actual concrete life, simple like the former and determinate like the latter.
That which in the case of the former, the inner, would have the sense of number, the outer would require to
express after its manner as multiform reality--kinds of life, colour, and so on, in general as the whole host of
differences which are developed as phenomena of life.
If the two aspects of the organic whole-the one being the inner, while the other is the outer, in such a way
that each again has in it an inner and an outer--are compared with reference to the inner both sides have, we
find that the inner of the first is the notion, in the sense of the restless activity of abstraction; the second has
for its inner, however, inactive universality, which involves also the constant characteristic-number. Hence,
if , because the notion develops its moments in the former, this aspect made a delusive promise of laws owing
to the semblance of necessity in the relation, the latter directly disclaims doing so, since number shows itself
to be the. determining feature of one aspect of its laws. For number is just that entirely inactive, inert, and
indifferent characteristic in which every movement and relational process is extinguished, and which has
broken the bridge leading to the living expression of impulses, manner of life, and whatever other sensuous
existence there is.
a (2). OBSERVATION OF ORGANIC NATURE 99
 THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND
This way of considering the embodied organic shape as such and the inner qua inner merely of that embodied
form, is, however, in point of fact, no longer a consideration of organic existence. For both the aspects, which
were to be related, are merely taken thereby reflection into indifferent to one another, and self, the essential
nature of organism, is done away with. What we have done here is rather to transfer that attempted
comparison of inner and outer to the sphere of inorganic nature. The notion with its infinity is here merely the
inner essence, which lies hidden away within or falls outside in self-consciousness, and no longer, as in the
case of the organism, has its presence in an object. This relation of inner and outer has thus still to be
considered in its own proper sphere.
In the first place, that inner element of the form, being the simple individual existence of an inorganic thing,
is the specific gravity. As a simply existing fact, this can be observed just as much as the characteristic of
number, which is the only one of which it is capable; or properly speaking can be found by comparing
observations; and it seems in this way to furnish one aspect of the law. The embodied form, colour, hardness,
toughness, and an innumerable host of other properties, would together constitute the outer aspect, and would
have to give expression to the characteristic of the inner, number, so that the one should find its counterpart in
the other.
Now because negativity is here taken not in the sense of a movement of the process, but as an inoperative
unity, or as simple self-existence, it appears really as that by which the thing resists the process, and
maintains itself within itself, and in a condition of indifference towards it. By the fact, however, that this
simple self -existence is an inactive indifference towards an other, specific gravity appears as one property
alongside others; and therewith all necessary relation on its part to this plurality, or, in other words, all
conformity to law, ceases.
The specific gravity in the sense of this simple inner aspect does not contain difference in itself, or the
difference it has is merely non-essential; for its bare simplicity just cancels every distinction of an essential
kind. This non-essential difference, quantity, was thus bound to find its other or counterpart in the other
aspect, the plurality of properties, since it is only by doing so that it is difference at all . If this plurality itself
is held together within the simple form of opposition, and is determined, say, as cohesion, so that this
cohesion is self-existence in otherness, as specific gravity is pure self-existence, then cohesion here is in the
first place this pure conceptually constituted characteristic as against the previous characteristic. The mode of
framing the law would thus be what we discussed above, in dealing with the relation of sensibility to
irritability. In the next place, cohesion, qua conception of self-existence in otherness, is merely the
abstraction of the aspect opposed to specific gravity, and as such has no existential reality. For self-existence
in otherness is the process wherein the inorganic would have to express its self-existence as a form of
self-conservation, which on the other hand would prevent it emerging from the process as a constituent
moment of a product. But this goes directly against its nature, which has no purpose or universality in it.
Rather, its process is simply the determinate course of action by which its self-existence, in the sense of its
specific gravity, cancels itself. This determinate action, which in that case would constitute the true principle
implied in its cohesion, is itself however entirely indifferent to the other notion, that of the determinate
quantity of its specific gravity. If the mode of action were left entirely out of account, and attention confined
to the idea of quantity, we might be able to think of a feature like this: the greater specific weight, as it is a
higher intensiveness of being (Insichseyn), would resist entering into the process more than a less specific
weight. But on the contrary, freedom of self-existence (Fersichseyn) shows itself only in facility to establish
connexion with everything, and maintain itself throughout this manifold variety. That intensity without
extension of relations is an abstraction with no substance in it, for extension constitutes the existence of
intensity. The self-conservation of the inorganic element in its relation lies however, as already mentioned,
outside its nature, since it does not contain the principle of movement within it or because its being is not
absolute negativity and not a notion.
a (2). OBSERVATION OF ORGANIC NATURE 100
 THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND
When this other aspect of the inorganic, on the other hand, is considered not as a process, but as an inactive
being, it is ordinary cohesion. It is a simple sense property standing on one side over against the free and
detached moment of otherness, which lies dispersed into a plurality of properties indifferent to and apart from
one another, and which itself comes under this (cohesion) as does specific gravity. The multiplicity of
properties together, then, constitutes the other side to cohesion. In its case, however, as in the case of the
multiplicity, number is the only characteristic feature. which not merely does not bring out a relation and a
transition from one to another of these properties, but consists essentially in having no necessary relation; its
nature is rather to make manifest the absence of all conformity to law, for it expresses the determinate
character as one that is non-essential. Thus we see that a series of bodies, whose difference is expressed as a
numerical difference of their specific weights, by no means runs parallel to a series where the difference is
constituted by the other properties, even if, for purposes of simplification, we select merely one or some of
them. For, as a matter of fact, it could only be the tout ensemble of the properties which would have to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]