Essence that issues from being seems to confront it as an opposite; this immediate being is, in the first instance, the unessential.
But secondly, it is more than merely unessential being, it is essenceless being, it is illusory being.
Thirdly, this illusory being is not something external to or other than essence; on the contrary, it is essence's own illusory being. The showing of this illusory being within essence itself is reflection.
Essence is sublated being. It is simple equality with itself, but only in so far as it is the negation of the sphere of being in general. Essence thus has immediacy confronting it as an immediacy from which it has become and which in this sublating has preserved and maintained itself. In this determination, essence itself is simply affirmative [seiendes], immediate essence, and being is only a negative in relation to essence, not in and for itself; therefore essence is a determinate negation. In this way, being and essence are again related to each other as others; for each has a being, an immediacy, and these are indifferent to each other, and with respect to this being, being and essence are equal in value.
But at the same time, being, as contrasted with essence, is the unessential; in relation to essence, it has the determination of sublated being. Yet in so far as it is only related to essence simply as an other, essence is not strictly essence but only a differently determined being, the essential.
The distinction of essential and unessential has caused essence to relapse into the sphere of determinate being, since essence in its initial phase is determined as immediate, simply affirmative [seiendes] essence and hence only as other over against being. The sphere of determinate being is thereby made the base, and the fact that the being in this determinate being is being-in-and-for-itself, is a further determination external to determinate being itself; and conversely, while essence is indeed being-in-and-for-itself, it is so only in relation to an other, in a specific reference. Accordingly, in so far as the distinction is made of an essential and an unessential side in something [Dasein], this distinction is externally posited, a separation of one part of it from another that does not affect the something itself, a division which has its origin in a third. Such a division does not settle what is essential and what is unessential. It originates in some external standpoint and consideration and the same content can therefore be regarded now as essential and again as unessential.
Closer consideration shows that when essence is characterised as essential only relatively to what is unessential, it is because it is taken only as sublated being or determinate being. In this way, essence is only the first negation, or the negation which is a determinateness through which being becomes only determinate being, or the latter becomes only an other. But essence is the absolute negativity of being; it is being itself, but not determined only as an other, but being that has sublated itself both as immediate being and also as immediate negation, as negation that is infected with otherness. Thus being, or determinate being, has not preserved itself as an other — for we are in the sphere of essence — and the immediate that is still distinguished from essence is not merely an unessential determinate being but the immediate that is in and for itself a nullity; it is only a non-essence, illusory being.
1. Being is illusory being. The being of illusory being consists solely in the sublatedness of being, in its nothingness; this nothingness it has in essence and apart from its nothingness, apart from essence, illusory being is not. It is the negative posited as negative.
Illusory being is all that still remains from the sphere of being. But it seems still to have an immediate side that is independent of essence and to be simply an other of essence. The other contains in general the two moments of determinate being and negated determinate being. Since the unessential no longer has a being, all that remains to it of otherness is the pure moment of negated determinate being; illusory being is this immediate, negated determinate being in the determinateness of being, in such wise that it has determinate being only in relation to an other, only in its negated determinate being; the non-self-subsistent which is only in its negation. All that is left to it, therefore, is the pure determinateness of immediacy; it is reflected immediacy, that is, immediacy which is only by means of its negation and which, when contrasted with its mediation, is nothing but the empty determination of the immediacy of negated determinate being.
Thus illusory being is the phenomenon of scepticism, and the Appearance of idealism, too, is such an immediacy which is not a something or a thing, in general, not an indifferent being that would still be, apart from its determinateness and connection with the subject. Scepticism did not permit itself to say 'It is'; modern idealism did not permit itself to regard knowledge as a knowing of the thing-in-itself; the illusory being of scepticism was supposed to lack any foundation of being, and in idealism the thing-in-itself was not supposed to enter into knowledge. But at the same time scepticism admitted a multitude of determinations of its illusory being, or rather its illusory being had for content the entire manifold wealth of the world. In idealism, too, Appearance embraces within itself the range of these manifold determinatenesses. This illusory being and this Appearance are immediately thus manifoldly determined. This content, therefore, may well have no being, no thing-in-itself at its base; it remains on its own account as it is; the content has only been transferred from being into an illusory being, so that the latter has within itself those manifold determinatenesses, which are immediate, simply affirmative, and mutually related as others. Illusory being is, therefore, itself immediately determinate. It can have this or that content; whatever content it has, illusory being does not posit this itself but has it immediately. The various forms of idealism, Leibnizian, Kantian, Fichtean, and others, have not advanced beyond being as determinateness, have not advanced beyond this immediacy, any more than scepticism did. Scepticism permits the content of its illusory being to be given to it; whatever content it is supposed to have, for scepticism it is immediate. The monad of Leibnitz evolves its ideas and representations out of itself; but it is not the power that generates and binds them together, rather do they arise in the monad like bubbles; they are indifferent and immediate over against one another and the same in relation to the monad itself. Similarly, the Kantian Appearance is a given content of perception; it presupposes affections, determinations of the subject, which are immediate relatively to themselves and to the subject. It may well be that the infinite obstacle of Fichte's idealism has no underlying thing-in-itself, so that it becomes purely a determinateness in the ego; but for the ego, this determinateness which it appropriates and whose externality it sublates is at the same time immediate, a limitation of the ego, which it can transcend but which has in it an element of indifference, so that although the limitation is on the ego, it contains an immediate non-being of the ego.
2. Illusory being, therefore, contains an immediate presupposition, a side that is independent of essence. But it does not have to be shown that illusory being, in so far as it is distinct from essence, sublates itself and withdraws into essence; for being in its totality has withdrawn into essence; illusory being is in itself a nullity; all that has to be shown is that the determinations which distinguish it from essence are determinations of essence itself, and further, that this determinateness of essence which illusory being is, is sublated in essence itself.
It is the immediacy of non-being that constitutes illusory being; but this non-being is nothing else but the negativity of essence present within it. In essence, being is non-being. Its intrinsic nothingness is the negative nature of essence itself. But the immediacy or indifference which this non-being contains is essence's own absolute being-in-itself. The negativity of essence is its equality with itself or its simple immediacy and indifference. Being has preserved itself in essence in so far as the latter in its infinite negativity has this equality with itself; it is through this that essence itself is being. The immediacy of the determinateness in illusory being over against essence is consequently nothing other than essence's own immediacy; but the immediacy is not simply affirmative [seiend], but is the purely mediated or reflected immediacy that is illusory being-being, not as being, but only as the determinateness of being as opposed to mediation; being as a moment.
These two moments, namely the nothingness which yet is and the being which is only a moment, or the implicit negativity and the reflected immediacy that constitute the moments of illusory being, are thus the moments of essence itself. What we have here is not an illusory show of being in essence, or an illusory show of essence in being; the illusory being in essence is not the illusory being of an other, but is illusory being per se, the illusory being of essence itself.What we have here is not an illusory show of being in essence, or an illusory show of essence in being; the illusory being in essence is not the illusory being of an other, but is illusory being per se, the illusory being of essence itself.
Illusory being is essence itself in the determinateness of being. Essence has an illusory being because it is determinate within itself and thereby distinguished from its absolute unity. But equally this determinateness is absolutely sublated in its own self. For essence is the self-subsistent, which is as self-mediated through its negation, which negation essence itself is; it is therefore the identical unity of absolute negativity and immediacy. The negativity is negativity per se; it is its relation to itself and is thus in itself immediacy; but it is negative self-relation, a negating that is a repelling of itself, and the intrinsic immediacy is thus negative or determinate in regard to it. But this determinateness is itself absolute negativity, and this determining which is, as determining, immediately the sublating of itself, is a return-into-self.
Illusory being is the negative that has a being, but in an other, in its negation; it is a non-self-subsistent being which is in its own self-sublated and null. As such, it is the negative returned into itself, non-self-subsistent being as in its own self not self-subsistent. This self-relation of the negative or of non-self-subsistent being is its immediacy; it is an other than the negative itself; it is its determinateness over against itself; or it is the negation directed against the negative. But negation directed against the negative is purely self-related negativity, the absolute sublating of the determinateness itself.
The determinateness, therefore, which illusory being is in essence is infinite determinateness; it is the purely self-coincident negative; it is thus the determinateness which as such is self-subsistent and indeterminate. Conversely, the self-subsistent, as self-related immediacy, is equally sheer determinateness and moment and is only as self-related negativity. This negativity that is identical with immediacy and immediacy that is thus identical with negativity, is essence. Illusory being, therefore, is essence itself, but essence in a determinateness, in such a manner, however, that this is only a moment of essence and essence is the reflection of itself within itself.
In the sphere of being, there arises over against being as an immediacy, non-being, which is likewise an immediacy, and their truth is becoming. In the sphere of essence, we have first essence opposed to the unessential, then essence opposed to illusory being, that is, to the unessential and to illusory being as the remainder of being. But both essence and illusory being, and also the difference of essence from them, derive solely from the fact that essence is at first taken as an immediate, not as it is in itself, namely, not as an immediacy that is as pure mediation or absolute negativity. The first immediacy is thus only the determinateness of immediacy. The sublating of this determinateness of essence, therefore, consists simply and solely in showing that the unessential is only illusory being and that the truth is rather that essence contains the illusory being within itself as the infinite immanent movement that determines its immediacy as negativity and its negativity as immediacy, and is thus the reflection of itself within itself. Essence in this its self-movement is reflection.
Illusory being is the same thing as reflection; but it is reflection as immediate. For illusory being that has withdrawn into itself and so is estranged from its immediacy, we have the foreign word reflection.
Essence is reflection, the movement of becoming and transition that remains internal to it, in which the differentiated moment is determined simply as that which in itself is only negative, as illusory being. At the base of becoming in the sphere of being, there lies the determinateness of being, and this is relation to other. The movement of reflection, on the other hand, is the other as the negation in itself, which has a being only as self-related negation. Or, since the self-relation is precisely this negating of negation, the negation as negation is present in such wise that it has its being in its negatedness, as illusory being. Here, therefore, the other is not being with a negation, or limit, but negation with the negation. But the first, over against this other, the immediate or being, is only this very equality of the negation with itself, the negated negation, absolute negativity. This equality with itself, or immediacy, is consequently not a first from which the beginning was made and which passed over into its negation; nor is it an affirmatively present substrate that moves through reflection; on the contrary, immediacy is only this movement itself.
Consequently, becoming is essence, its reflective movement, is the movement of nothing to nothing, and so back to itself. The transition, or Becoming, sublates itself in its transition: that Other which arises in the course of this transition is not the Not-being of a Being, but the nothingness of a Nothing, and this, to be the negation of a nothing, constitutes Being — Being only is as the movement of Nothing to Nothing, and as such it is Essence; and Essence does not have this movement within it but is this movement, as a being that is itself absolutely illusory, pure negativity, which has nothing without it that could negate it, but negates only its own negativity, which is only in this negation, which latter is only in this negating.
This pure absolute reflection that is the movement from nothing to nothing determines itself further.
It is first, positing reflection.
Secondly, it forms the starting point of the presupposed immediate and is thus external reflection.
But thirdly, it sublates this presupposition; and since reflection in sublating the presupposition at the same time presupposes it, it is determining reflection.
Illusory being is nothingness or the essenceless; but this nothingness or the essenceless does not have its being in an other in which its illusory being is reflected: on the contrary, its being is its own equality with itself. This interchange of the negative with itself has determined itself as the absolute reflection of essence.
This self-related negativity of essence is therefore the negating of its own self. Hence it is just as much sublated negativity as it is negativity; or it is itself both the negative, and simple equality with itself or immediacy. It consists, therefore, in being itself and not itself and that, too, in a single unity.
In the first place, reflection is the movement of nothing to nothing and is the negation that coincides with itself. This coincidence with itself is, in general, simple equality-with-self, immediacy. But this coincidence is not a transition of the negation into equality-with-self as into its otherness: on the contrary, reflection is transition as sublating of the transition; for reflection is immediate coincidence of the negative with itself. This coincidence is thus first, equality-with-self or immediacy; but secondly, this immediacy is the equality of the negative with itself, hence self-negating equality, the immediacy that is in itself the negative, the negative of itself, that consists in being that which it is not.
The self-relation of the negative is, therefore, its return into itself; it is immediacy as the sublating of the negative; but immediacy simply and solely as this relation or as return from a negative, and hence a self-sublating immediacy. This is posited being or positedness, immediacy purely and simply as determinateness or as self-reflecting. This immediacy which is only as return of the negative into itself, is that immediacy which constitutes the determinateness of illusory being and which previously seemed to be the starting point of the reflective moment. But this immediacy, instead of being able to form the starting point is, on the contrary, immediacy only as the return or as reflection itself. Reflection therefore is the movement that starts or returns only in so far as the negative has already returned into itself.
It is a positing in so far as it is immediacy as a returning movement; for there is no other on hand, either an other from which or into which immediacy returns; it is, therefore, only as a returning movement, or as the negative of itself. Furthermore, this immediacy is the sublated negation and the sublated return-into-self. Reflection, as sublating the negative, is a sublating of its other, of immediacy. Since, therefore, it is immediacy as a returning movement, as a coincidence of the negative with itself, it is equally a negative of the negative as negative. Thus it is a presupposing. Or immediacy, as a returning movement, is only the negative of itself, only this, to be not immediacy; but reflection is the sublating of the negative of itself, it is a coincidence with itself; it therefore sublates its positing, and since in its positing it sublates its positing, it is a presupposing. Reflection, in its presupposing, determines the return-into-self as the negative of itself, as that, the sublating of which is essence. The presupposing is the manner in which it relates itself to itself, but to itself as the negative of itself; only thus is it the self-relating negativity that remains internal to itself. Immediacy presents itself simply and solely as a return and is that negative which is the illusory being of the beginning, the illusory being which is negated by the return. Accordingly, the return of essence is its self-repulsion. In other words, reflection-into-self is essentially the presupposing of that from which it is the return.
It is only when essence has sublated its equality-with-self that it is equality-with-self. It presupposes itself and the sublating of this presupposition is essence itself; conversely, this sublating of its presupposition is the presupposition itself. Reflection therefore finds before it an immediate which it transcends and from which it is the return. But this return is only the presupposing of what reflection finds before it. What is thus found only comes to be through being left behind; its immediacy is sublated immediacy. Conversely, the sublated immediacy is the return-into-self, the coming-to-itself of essence, simple, self-equal being. Hence this coming-to-itself is the sublating of itself and is the self-repelling, presupposing reflection, and its self-repelling is the coming-to-itself of reflection.
It follows, therefore, from the foregoing considerations that the reflective movement is to be taken as an absolute recoil upon itself. For the presupposition of the return-into-self-that from which essence comes, and is only as this return-is only in the return itself. The transcending of the immediate from which reflection starts is rather the outcome of this transcending; and the transcending of the immediate is the arrival at it. The movement, as an advance, immediately turns round upon itself and only so is self-movement — a movement which comes from itself in so far as positing reflection is presupposing, but, as presupposing reflection, is simply positing reflection.
Thus reflection is itself and its non-being, and is only itself, in that it is the negative of itself, for only thus is the sublating of the negative at the same time a coincidence with itself.
The immediacy that reflection, as a process of sublating, presupposes for itself is purely and simply a positedness, an immediacy that is in itself sublated, that is not distinct from the return-into-self and is itself only this movement of return. But at the same time it is determined as negative, as immediately opposed to something, therefore to an other. Thus reflection is determinate; and since, in accordance with this determinateness, it has a presupposition and starts from the immediate as its other, it is external reflection.
Reflection, as absolute reflection, is essence that reflects its illusory being within itself and presupposes for itself only an illusory being, only positedness; as presupposing reflection, it is immediately only positing reflection. But external or real reflection presupposes itself as sublated, as the negative of itself. In this determination it is doubled: it is what is presupposed, or reflection-into-self, which is the immediate; and also it is reflection that is negatively self-related; it is related to itself as to its non-being.
External reflection therefore presupposes a being, first, not in the sense that its immediacy is only positedness or a moment, but, on the contrary, that this immediacy is self-relation and the determinateness is only a moment. Its relationship to its presupposition is such that the latter is the negative of reflection, but so that this negative as negative is sublated. Reflection in its positing, immediately sublates its positing and thus has an immediate presupposition. It therefore finds this before it as something from which it starts, and from which it is first the return-into-self, the negating of this its negative. But the fact that what is thus presupposed is a negative or is posited does not concern it; this determinateness belongs only to the positing reflection, but in the presupposing the positedness is present only as sublated. The determinations posited by the external reflection in the immediate are to that extent external to the latter. This external reflection in the sphere of being was the infinite; the finite ranked as the first, as the real; as the foundation, the abiding foundation, it forms the starting point and the infinite is the reflection-into-self over against it.
This external reflection is the syllogism in which are the two extremes, the immediate and reflection-into-self; the middle term of the syllogism is the connection of the two, the determinate immediate, so that one part of the middle term, immediacy, belongs only to one of the extremes, the other, determinateness or negation, belongs only to the other extreme.
But a closer consideration of the action of external reflection shows it to be secondly, a positing of the immediate, which consequently becomes the negative or the determinate; but external reflection is immediately also the sublating of this its positing; for it presupposes the immediate; in negating, it is the negating of this its negating. But in doing so it is immediately equally a positing, a sublating of the immediate negatively related to it, and this immediate from which it seemed to start as from something alien, is only in this its beginning. In this way, the immediate is not only in itself — that means, for us, or in external reflection — identical with reflection, but this identicalness is posited. For the immediate is determined by reflection as its negative or its other, but it is reflection itself that negates this determining. Hence the externality of reflection over against the immediate is sublated; its positing in which it negates itself, is the union of itself with its negative, with the immediate, and this union is the immediacy of essence itself. The fact is, therefore, that external reflection is not external, but is no less the immanent reflection of immediacy itself; in other words, the outcome of positing reflection is essence in and for itself. Reflection is thus determining reflection.
Reflection is usually taken in a subjective sense as the movement of the faculty of judgement that goes beyond a given immediate conception and seeks universal determinations for it or compares such determinations with it. Kant opposes reflective judgement to determining judgement. He defines the faculty of judgement in general as the ability to think the particular as subsumed under the universal. If the universal is given (the rule, principle, law), then the faculty of judgement that subsumes the particular under it is determinative. But if only the particular is given for which the universal is to be found, then judgement is merely reflective. Here, then, to reflect is likewise to go beyond an immediate to the universal. On the one hand, it is only through this reference of the immediate to its universal that it is determined as a particular; by itself, it is only an individual or an immediate, simply affirmative being [unmittelbares Seiendes]. On the other hand, that to which it is referred is its universal, its rule, principle, law, in general, that which is reflected into itself, is self-related, essence or the essential.
But what is under discussion here is neither reflection at the level of consciousness, nor the more specific reflection of the understanding, which has the particular and the universal for its determinations, but of reflection generally. That reflection to which Kant ascribes the search of the universal of a given particular is clearly also only external reflection, which is related to the immediate as to something given. But in external reflection there is also implicit the notion of absolute reflection; for the universal, the principle or rule and law to which it advances in its determining, counts as the essence of that immediate which forms the starting point; and this immediate therefore counts as a nullity, and it is only the return from it, its determining by reflection, that is the positing of the immediate in accordance with its true being. Therefore, what reflection does to the immediate, and the determinations which issue from reflection, are not anything external to the immediate but are its own proper being.
It was external reflection, too, that recent philosophy had in mind when, as was the fashion for a while, it ascribed everything bad to reflection generally, regarding it and all its works as the polar opposite and hereditary foe of the absolute method of philosophising. And intellectual reflection, in so far as it operates as external reflection, does in fact start from something immediately given which is alien to it, regarding itself as a merely formal activity which receives its content and material from outside and which, by itself, is only the movement conditioned by that content and material. Further, as will become more evident as soon as we come to consider determining reflection, the reflected determinations are of a different kind from the merely immediate determinations of being. The latter are more readily granted to be transient, merely relative and standing in relation to other; but the reflected determinations have the form of being-in-and-for-self. This makes them count as essential, and instead of passing over into their opposites they appear rather as absolute, free, and indifferent towards each other. Consequently, they are stubbornly opposed to their movement, their being is their self-identity in their determinateness, in accordance with which, even though they presuppose each other, they maintain themselves completely separate in this relation.
Determining reflection is in general the unity of positing and external reflection. This is to be considered in more detail.
1. External reflection starts from immediate being, positing reflection from nothing. External reflection, when it determines, posits an other-but this is essence-in the place of the sublated being; but the determination thus posited is not put in the place of an other; the positing has no presupposition. But that is why it is not the completed, determining reflection; the determination that it posits is consequently only something posited; it is an immediate, but not as equal to itself but as negating itself; it has an absolute relation to the return-into-self; it is only in reflection-into-self, but it is not this reflection itself.
What is posited is consequently an other, but in such a manner that the equality of reflection with itself is completely preserved; for what is posited is only as sublated, as a relation to the return-into-self. In the sphere of being, determinate being was the being in which negation was present, and being was the immediate base and element of this negation, which consequently was itself immediate. In the sphere of essence, positedness corresponds to determinate being. It is likewise a determinate being but its base is being as essence or as pure negativity; it is a determinateness or negation, not as affirmatively present [seiend] but immediately as sublated. Determinate being is merely posited being or positedness; this is the proposition of essence about determinate being. Positedness stands opposed, on the one hand, to determinate being, and on the other, to essence, and is to be considered as the middle term which unites determinate being with essence, and conversely, essence with determinate being. Accordingly, when it is said that a determination is only a positedness, this can have a twofold meaning; it is a positedness as opposed to determinate being or as opposed to essence. In the former meaning, determinate being is taken to be superior to positedness and the latter is ascribed to external reflection, to the subjective side. But in fact positedness is the superior; for as positedness, determinate being is that which it is in itself, a negative, something that is simply and solely related to the return-into-self. It is for this reason that positedness is only a positedness with respect to essence, as the negation of the accomplished return-into-self.
2. Positedness is not yet a determination of reflection; it is only determinateness as negation in general. But the positing is now in unity with external reflection; the latter is, in this unity, an absolute presupposing, that is, the repelling of reflection from itself, or the positing of the determinateness as determinateness of itself. Consequently, positedness is, as such, negation; but, as presupposed, it is also reflected into itself. Positedness is thus a determination of reflection.
The determination of reflection is distinct from the determinateness of being, from quality. The latter is immediate relation to other in general; positedness, too, is a relation to other, but to reflectedness-into-self. Negation as quality, is negation simply as affirmative [seiend]; being constitutes its ground and element. The determination of reflection, on the other hand, has for this ground reflectedness-into-self. Positedness fixes itself into a determination precisely because reflection is equality-with-self in its negatedness; its negatedness is consequently itself a reflection-into-self. Here the determination persists not through being but through its equality with itself. Because being, which supports quality, is not equal to the negation, quality is unequal within itself and hence a transitory moment vanishing in the other. The determination of reflection, on the other hand, is positedness as negation, negation which has negatedness as its ground; it is therefore not unequal within itself, and hence is essential, not transitory determinateness. It is the equality of reflection with itself that possesses the negative only as negative, as sublated or posited being, that enables the negative to persist.
By virtue of this reflection-into-self the determinations of reflection appear as free essentialities floating in the void without attracting or repelling one another. In them the determinateness has established and infinitely fixed itself through the relation-to-self. It is the determinate that has brought into subjection its transitoriness and its mere positedness, or has bent back its reflection-into-other into reflection-into-self. These determinations hereby constitute determinate illusory being as it is in essence, essential illusory being. Because of this, determining reflection is reflection that has come forth from itself; the equality of essence with itself has perished in the negation, which is the dominant factor.
In the determination of reflection, therefore, there are two sides which at first are distinguished from one another. First, the determination is positedness, negation as such; secondly, it is reflection-into-self. As positedness, it is negation as negation; this accordingly is already its unity with itself. But at first, it is this only in itself or in principle [an sich], or, it is the immediate as sublating itself in its own self, as the other of itself. To this extent, reflection is an immanent determining. In the process, essence does not go outside itself; the differences are simply posited, taken back into essence. But according to the other side, they are not posited but reflected into themselves; the negation as negation is in an equality with itself, is not reflected into its other, into its non-being.
3. Now since the determination of reflection is as much a reflected relation within itself as it is positedness, this fact immediately throws more light on its nature. For as positedness, it is negation as such, a non-being over against an other, namely, over against absolute reflection-into-self, or over against essence. But as self-relation it is reflected into itself. This its reflection and the above positedness are distinct; its positedness is rather its sublatedness; but its reflectedness-into-self is its subsistence. In so far, therefore, as it is the positedness that is at the same time reflection-into-self, the determinateness of reflection is the relation to its otherness within itself. It is not an affirmative [seiende], quiescent determinateness, which would be related to an other in such a way that the related term and its relation are distinct from each other, the former a being-within-self, a something that excludes its other and its relation to this other from itself; on the contrary, the determination of reflection is in its own self the determinate side and the relation of this determinate side as determinate, that is, to its negation. Quality, through its relation, passes over into an other; in its relation its alteration begins. The determination of reflection, on the other hand, has taken its otherness back into itself. It is positedness, negation, which however bends back into itself the relation to other, and negation which is equal to itself, the unity of itself and its other, and only through this is an essentiality. It is, therefore, positedness, negation; but as reflection-into-self it is at the same time the sublatedness of this positedness, infinite self-relation.