Essence determines itself as ground.
Just as nothing is at first in simple immediate unity with being, so here too the simple identity of essence is at first in immediate unity with its absolute negativity. Essence is only this its negativity, which is pure reflection. It is this pure negativity as the return of being into itself; as such, it is determined in itself, or for us, as ground in which being is dissolved. But this determinateness is not posited by essence itself; in other words, essence is not ground except in so far as it has itself posited this its determinateness. Its reflection, however, consists in its positing and determining itself as that which it is in itself, as a negative. The positive and negative constitute that determination of essence in which essence is lost in its negation. These self-subsistent determinations of reflection sublate themselves, and the determination that has fallen to the ground [zugrunde gegangene] is the true determination of essence.
Consequently, ground is itself one of the reflected determinations of essence; but it is the last of them, or rather the meaning of this determination is merely that it is a sublated determination. The reflected determination, in falling to the ground, acquires its true meaning, namely, to be within itself the absolute recoil upon itself, that is to say, the positedness that belongs to essence is only a sublated positedness, and conversely, only self-sublating positedness is the positedness of essence. Essence, in determining itself as ground, is determined as the non-determined; its determining is only the sublating of its being determined. Essence, in being determined thus as self-sublating, has not proceeded from another, but is, in its negativity, self-identical essence.
In so far as the determination of a first, an immediate, is the starting point of the advance to ground (through the nature of the determination itself which sublates itself or falls to the ground), ground is, in the first instance, determined by that first. But this determining is, on the one hand, as a sublating of the determining, only the restored, purified or manifested identity of essence which the reflected determination is in itself; on the other hand it is this negating movement as a determining that first posits that reflected determinateness which appeared as immediate, but which is posited only by the self-excluding reflection of ground and therein is posited as only a posited or sublated determination. Thus essence, in determining itself as ground, proceeds only from itself. As ground, therefore, it posits itself as essence, and it is in positing itself as essence that its determining consists. This positing is the reflection of essence, a reflection which in its determining sublates itself, on that side is a positing, on this side is the positing of essence, hence both in a single act.
Reflection is pure mediation in general, ground is real mediation of essence with itself. The former, the movement of nothing through nothing back to itself, is the reflection of itself in an other; but because the opposition in the reflection has not as yet any self-subsistence, the one that reflects is not a positive, nor is the other in which it is reflected a negative. Both are substrates, strictly speaking, only of imagination; they are not as yet self-related determinations. Pure mediation is only pure relation, without any related terms. Determining reflection, it is true, posits determinations that are self-identical, but at the same time they are only determinate relations. Ground, on the other hand, is real mediation because it contains reflection as sublated reflection; it is essence that, through its non-being, returns into and posits itself. In accordance with this moment of sublated reflection, the posited receives the determination of immediacy, of an immediate that, apart from the relation, or its illusory being, is self-identical. This immediate is being which has been restored by essence, the non-being of reflection through which essence mediates itself. Essence returns into itself as a negating activity; therefore in its return into itself, it gives itself determinateness, which is for this very reason the self-identical negative, sublated positedness, and consequently is equally an affirmative being [seiendes] as the identity of essence with itself as ground.
Ground is first, absolute ground, in which essence is, in the first instance, a substrate for the ground relation; but it further determines itself as form and matter and gives itself a content.
Secondly, it is a determinate ground as ground of a determinate content; in that the ground relation in its realisation as such becomes external to itself, it passes over into conditioning mediation.
Thirdly, ground presupposes a condition; but the condition no less presupposes the ground; the unconditioned is their unity, the fact in itself, which through the mediation of the conditioning relation passes over into Existence.
Ground, like the other determinations of reflection, has been expressed in the form of a law: everything has its sufficient ground. This means in general nothing else but: what is, is not to be regarded as a merely affirmative immediate but as something posited; we must not stop at immediate determinate being or determinateness as such, but must go back from this into ground, in which reflection-into-self in contrast to mere being is expressed. To add that the ground must be sufficient is really quite superfluous for it is self-evident; that for which the ground is not sufficient would not have a ground, but everything is supposed to have a ground. Leibnitz, however, who had the principle of the sufficient ground very much at heart and even made it the basis of his entire philosophy, associated with it a profounder meaning and more important concept than is usually connected with it when no advance is made beyond the immediate expression; although even with this meaning, the law must be considered important, for it declares being as such in its immediacy to be untrue and essentially something posited, and ground is declared to be the true immediate. But Leibnitz opposed the sufficiency of ground mainly to causality in its strict sense as mechanical mode of action. Since this is an altogether external activity, restricted as regards content to a single determinateness, the determinations are comprehended by their causes, but their connection, which constitutes the essential feature of an existent, is not contained in causes belonging to the sphere of mechanism. This relationship in which the whole is an essential unity, lies only in the Notion, in end. Mechanical causes are not sufficient for this unity because their basis is not end as the unity of the determinations. Accordingly, by sufficient ground, Leibnitz understood one that was also sufficient for this unity and which therefore comprehended not merely causes, but final causes.
But this is not yet the proper place for this determination of ground; teleological ground is a property of the Notion and of mediation by the Notion, which is reason.
The determination of reflection, in so far as it withdraws into ground, is a first, an immediate determinate being in general, which forms the starting point. But determinate being still has only the meaning of positedness and essentially presupposes a ground-in the sense that it does not really posit a ground, that this positing is a sublating of itself, that really it is the immediate that is the posited, and ground the not-posited. As we have seen, this presupposing is positing that recoils on that which posits: ground, as the determination that has been sublated, is not indeterminate; it is essence determined through itself, but determined as undetermined, or as a sublated positedness. Ground is essence that in its negativity is identical with itself.
The determinateness of essence as ground is therefore twofold, that of ground and the grounded. It is first, essence as ground, determined as essence over against positedness, determined, that is, as a not-positedness. Secondly, it is the grounded, the immediate, which however is not in and for itself; it is positedness qua positedness. This, therefore, is likewise self-identical, but is the identity of the negative with itself. The self-identical negative and the self-identical positive is now one and the same identity. For ground is the identity of the positive or even of positedness, too, with itself; the grounded is positedness qua positedness, but this its reflection-into-self is the identity of the ground. This simple identity is therefore not itself ground, for ground is essence posited as the not-posited over against positedness. As the unity of this determinate identity (of the ground) and of the negative identity (of the grounded), it is essence as such as distinguished from its mediation.
This mediation, compared with the preceding reflection from which it has proceeded, is first, not pure reflection, which is not distinguished from essence and is the negative, consequently also does not as yet contain the independence of the determinations. In ground as sublated reflection, however, these determinations do persist. Nor is it determining reflection, whose determinations have an essential self-subsistence; for this has fallen to the ground [zugrunde gegangen] in the ground, in whose unity the determinations are only posited ones. This mediation of the ground is therefore the unity of the pure and the determining reflection; their determinations or the posited, has a subsistence, and conversely, their subsistence is a posited. Because this their subsistence is itself a posited or has a determinateness, they are distinguished from their simple identity, and constitute the form as against essence.
Essence has a form and determinations of the form. It is only as ground that it has a fixed immediacy or is a substrate [Substrat]. Essence as such is one with its reflection and inseparable from the movement of reflection itself. Consequently, it is not essence through which the reflective movement runs; nor is essence a first from which reflection begins. This circumstance makes the exposition of reflection in general more difficult; for we cannot really say that essence withdraws into itself, that essence inwardly reflects itself, because it is not before or in its movement, and this has no substrate on which it runs its course. A related determination only makes its appearance in ground conformably to the moment of sublated reflection. But essence as related substrate is determinate essence; by virtue of this positedness it essentially contains form. The form determinations, on the other hand, are now determinations as in essence; the latter lies at their base as the indeterminate which, in its determination, is indifferent towards them; in it they have their reflection-into-self. The determinations of reflection ought to have their subsistence within themselves and to be self-subsistent; but their self-subsistence is their dissolution; they have it in an other; but this dissolution is itself this self-identity or the ground of their subsistence that they give to themselves.
To form belongs in general everything determinate; it is a form determination in so far as it is something posited and consequently distinct from that of which it is the form; determinateness as quality is one with its substrate, with being; being is the immediately determinate that is not yet distinct from its determinateness-or which in it is not yet reflected into itself, and this determinateness, therefore, is a simply affirmative [seiende], not yet a posited, one. Further, the form-determinations of essence, as determinatenesses of reflection, are, in their more precise determinateness, the moments of reflection considered above, identity and difference, the latter partly as diversity, partly as opposition. But, again, the ground relation also belongs to form since, although it is the sublated determination of reflection, essence is thereby made into something posited. On the other hand, the identity possessed by ground does not belong to form, for in this, positedness as sublated and positedness as such — ground and the grounded — is a single reflection that constitutes essence as the simple substrate which is the subsisting of form. But this subsistence is posited in ground; or this essence is essentially determinate and is thus once again the moment of ground-relation and form. This is the absolute reciprocal relation of form and essence, that essence is this simple unity of ground and grounded, but in this very unity is itself determined, or a negative, and distinguishes itself as substrate from form, but thus at the same time itself becomes ground and moment of form.
Form is therefore the completed whole of reflection; it also contains this determination of reflection, namely, to be a sublated determination; consequently, as well as being a unity of its determining, it is also just as much related to its sublatedness, to an other which is not itself form, but form is in it. As essential self-related negativity over against this simple negative, form is the positing and determining principle; simple essence, on the other hand, is the indeterminate and inactive substrate in which the form-determinations subsist and are reflected into themselves. External reflection usually does not go beyond this distinction of essence and form; the distinction is necessary, but this distinguishing is itself their unity, just as this basic unity is essence which repels itself from itself and makes itself into a positedness. Form is absolute negativity or negative absolute self-identity through which precisely essence is not being but essence. This identity, taken abstractly, is essence as against form; just as negativity, taken abstractly, as positedness, is the single determination of form. But the determination, as we have seen, is, in its truth, the total, self-related negativity which, therefore, as this identity is in its own self simple essence. Consequently, form has in its own identity essence, just as essence has in its negative nature absolute form.
The question cannot therefore be asked, how form is added to essence, for it is only the reflection of essence into essence itself, essence's own immanent reflection. Form is in its own self equally the reflection that returns into itself, or identical essence; in its determining, form makes the determination into positedness as positedness. It does not therefore determine essence as if truly presupposed by the latter and as if separate from it, for thus it is the unessential determination of reflection that hastens without pause to destruction., on the contrary, it is itself the ground of its sublating or the identical connection of its determinations. To say that form determines essence means, therefore, that form in its distinguishing sublates this very distinguishing and is the self-identity which essence is as the subsistence of the determination; it is the contradiction of being sublated in its positedness and of persisting in this sublatedness; it is accordingly ground as the essence that, in being determined or negated, is identical with itself.
These distinctions of form and essence are therefore only moments of the simple form relation itself. But they are to be more closely considered and held fast. The determining form is self-related as a sublated positedness, and is therefore related to its identity as to an other. It posits itself as sublated; in doing so it presupposes its identity; according to this moment, essence is the indeterminate for which form is an other. As such, it is not essence, which is in its own self absolute reflection, but is determined as formless identity; it is matter.
Essence becomes matter in that its reflection is determined as relating itself to essence as to the formless indeterminate. Matter is therefore the differenceless identity which is essence, with the determination of being the other form. It is consequently the real basis or substrate of form, because it constitutes the reflection-into-self of the form-determinations, or the self-subsistent element to which the latter are related as to their positive subsistence.
1. If abstraction is made from every determination, from all form of anything, what is left over is indeterminate matter. Matter is a sheer abstraction. (Matter cannot be seen, felt, and so on — what is seen, felt, is a determinate matter, that is, a unity of matter and form). This abstraction from which matter proceeds is, however, not merely an external removal and sublating of form, rather does form, as we have seen, spontaneously reduce itself to this simple identity.
Further, form presupposes a matter to which it relates itself. But the two are not on that account simply present as externally and contingently opposite to one another; neither matter nor form is self-originated, or, in another terminology, eternal Matter is that which is indifferent to form, but this indifference is the determinateness of self-identity into which form withdraws as into its basis. Form presupposes matter in the very fact that it posits itself as sublated and consequently relates itself to this its identity as to an other. Conversely, form is presupposed by matter; for the latter is not simple essence, which is immediately itself absolute reflection, but it is essence determined as the positive, that is, essence that only is as sublated negation. But from the other side, because form posits itself as matter only in so far as it sublates, hence presupposes, matter, matter is also determined as a groundless subsistence. Equally matter is not determined as the ground of form; but since matter posits itself as the abstract identity of the sublated form determination, it is not identity as ground, and, in so far, form is groundless relatively to it. Form and matter alike are accordingly determined as being not posited by one another, as not being the ground of one another. Matter is rather the identity of the ground and the grounded, as a basis which stands over against this form relation. This their common determination of indifference is the determination of matter as such and constitutes, too, the mutual connection of both. Similarly, the determination of form to be the relation of the two as distinct sides, is also the other moment of their mutual relationship. Matter, the indifferently determinate, is the passive side over against form as the active side. The latter, as the self-related negative is the internal contradiction: it is self-resolving, self-repelling and self-determining. It relates itself to matter and is posited as relating itself to this its subsistence as to an other. Matter, on the other hand, is posited as being related only to itself and as indifferent to other; but it is implicitly related to form; for it contains sublated negativity and is matter only through this determination. It is related to form as to an other only because form is not posited in it, because it is only implicitly form. Matter contains form locked up within it and is absolute susceptibility to form only because it has form absolutely within itself, only because form is its implicit determination. Matter must therefore be formed, and form must therefore materialise itself, must give itself in matter self-identity or subsistence.
2. Hence form determines matter, and matter is determined by form. Now because form itself is absolute identity-with-self and therefore contains matter within it, and equally, because matter in its pure abstraction or absolute negativity possesses within itself form, therefore the action of form on matter and the passivity of matter in its determining by form is, in effect, only the removal of the illusion of their indifference and distinguishedness. This relation of the determining Is thus the mediation of each with itself through its own non-being; but these two mediations are one movement and the restoration of their original identity-the inwardising of their outwardness. [Entäusserung.]
At first, form and matter presuppose one another. As we have seen, this simply means that the one essential unity is negative self-relation which thus sunders itself into essential identity, determined as the indifferent basis, and into essential difference or negativity, as the determining form. That unity of essence and form that confront one another as form and matter, is the absolute ground that determines itself. The relation, in differentiating itself, becomes by virtue of the fundamental identity of the different sides, reciprocal presupposition.
Secondly, form as self-subsistent is, besides, the self-sublating contradiction; but it is also posited as such, for it is at the same time both self-subsistent and essentially related to an other; it thus sublates itself. Since it is itself two-sided, this sublating, too, has a double aspect: first, it sublates its self-subsistence, converts itself into something posited, into something that is in an other, and this its other is matter. Secondly, it sublates its determinateness relatively to matter, its relation to it, and consequently its positedness, and in doing so gives itself a subsistence. Since form sublates its positedness, this its reflection is its own identity into which it passes; but since, at the same time, it divests itself of this identity and opposes itself to itself as matter, this reflection of the positedness into itself is a union with a matter in which it obtains a subsistence; in this union, therefore, it is just as much united with matter as an other — in accordance with the first aspect whereby it converts itself into something posited-as also, in that other, it is united with its own identity.
Thus the activity of form through which matter is determined consists in a negative bearing of form towards itself. But, conversely, in doing so, form also bears itself negatively towards matter; yet this activity by which matter is determined is just as much a movement belonging to form itself. Form is free from matter, but it sublates this its self-subsistence; but its self-subsistence is matter itself, for in this it has its essential identity. Therefore the conversion of itself into something posited is the same thing as its making matter into something determinate. But looked at from the other side, form is at the same time divested of its own identity, and matter is its other; and to this extent, matter is also not determined, since form sublates its own self-subsistence. But matter is self-subsistent only as against form; the negative, in sublating itself, also sublates the positive. Form, therefore, having sublated itself, the determinateness which matter has as against form also disappears, namely, to be an indeterminate subsistence.
This, which appears as activity of form, is also no less a movement belonging to matter itself. The implicit determination of matter or what it ought to be, is its absolute negativity. Through this, matter is not related to form simply as to an other: on the contrary, this external other is the form that lies concealed within matter itself. Matter is the same internal contradiction that form contains, and this contradiction, like its resolution, is only one. But matter is internally contradictory because, as indeterminate self-identity, it is also absolute negativity; it therefore sublates itself internally and its identity disintegrates in its negativity and the latter obtains from the former its subsistence. Therefore matter, in being determined by form as by something external, thereby achieves its determination, and the externality of the relationship both for form and matter consists in the fact that each, or rather their original unity, in its positing is at the same time presupposing, with the result that the relation to itself is at the same time a relation to itself as sublated, or a relation to its other.
Thirdly, through this movement of form and matter, their original unity is, on the one hand, restored, and on the other hand, it is now a posited unity. Matter is just as much self-determined, as this determining is for it an external activity of the form; conversely, form determines only itself or has within itself the matter that is determined by it, just as much as in its determining it relates itself to an other; and both, the activity of form and the movement of matter, are the same, save that the former is an activity, that is, negativity as posited, whereas the latter is a movement or becoming, negativity as an implicit determination. The result is accordingly the unity of implicit being of the in-itself, and positedness. Matter is as such determinate or necessarily has a form, and form is simply material, subsistent form.
Form, in so far as it presupposes a matter as its other, is finite. It is not ground but only the active principle. Similarly, matter, in so far as it presupposes form as its non-being, is finite matter; just as little is it ground of its unity with form, but only the basis for form. But this finite matter as well as the finite form has no truth; each relates itself to the other, in other words, only their unity is their truth. Into this unity both these determinations withdraw and therein sublate their self-subsistence: this unity thus demonstrates itself to be their ground. Matter is therefore ground of its form-determination only in so far as it is not matter as matter, but the absolute unity of essence and form; similarly, form is ground of the subsistence of its determinations only in so far as it is the same one unity. But this one unity as absolute negativity, and more specifically, as exclusive unity is, in its reflection, presupposing; or, there is but a single activity: form in its positing both preserves itself, as posited, in the unity, and also repels itself from itself; it is related to itself as itself and also to itself as an other. Or, the process by which matter is determined by form is the mediation of essence as ground with itself in a unity, through its own self and through the negation of itself.
Formed matter, or the form that has a subsistence, is now not only this absolute unity of the ground with itself, but also the posited unity. It is the movement just considered in which absolute ground has exhibited its moments as at the same time self-sublating and therefore also as posited. Or the restored unity, in uniting with itself has just as much repelled and determined itself; for since its unity is the outcome of negation, it is also a negative unity. It is therefore the unity of form and matter as their basis, but as their determinate basis, which is formed matter, but which is at the same time indifferent to form and matter, these being sublated and unessential determinations. It is content.
At first, form stands opposed to essence; it is then the simple ground relation, and its determinations are the ground and the grounded. Secondly, it stands opposed to matter; it is then determining reflection, and its determinations are the reflected determination itself and the subsistence of the determination. Lastly, it stands opposed to content; and then its determinations are again form itself and matter. What was previously the self-identical — at first ground, then simple subsistence, and finally matter — comes under the dominance of form and is once more one of its determinations.
The content is, first, a form and a matter which belong to it and are essential; it is their unity. But since this unity is at the same time a determinate or posited unity, the content stands opposed to the form; this constitutes the positedness and is the unessential over against the content. The latter is therefore indifferent to form; form embraces both form as such and also matter; and the content therefore has a form and a matter of which it is the substrate, and which are to the content a mere positedness.
The content is, secondly, the identical element in form and matter, so that these would be only indifferent external determinations. They are positedness in general which, however, in it the content has withdrawn into its unity or its ground. The identity of the content with itself is, therefore, first that identity which is indifferent to the form; but secondly, it is the identity of the ground. The ground has, in the first instance, vanished in the content; but the content is at the same time the negative reflection of the form-determinations into themselves; therefore its unity which is, at first, only the unity that is indifferent to the form, is also the formal unity or the ground relation as such. The content has, therefore, the latter for its essential form, and the ground conversely has a content.
The content of the ground is, therefore, the ground that has returned into its unity with itself; ground is at first the essence that in its positedness is self-identical; as different from and indifferent to its positedness it is indeterminate matter; but as content it is also formed identity and this form becomes ground relation because the determinations of its opposition are also posited as negated in the content. Further, the content is determinate in its own self; not merely like matter as the indifferent in general but as formed matter, so that the determinations of form have a material indifferent subsistence. On the one hand, content is the essential identity of ground with itself in its positedness; on the other hand, it is the posited identity over against the ground relation; this positedness, which is present in this identity as a form-determination, stands over against the free positedness, that is to say, over against the form as a whole relation of ground and grounded; this form is the total positedness that has returned into itself, and the former is therefore only positedness as immediate, determinateness as such.
The ground has thereby simply converted itself into determinate ground, and the determinateness itself is twofold: first, that of form, and secondly, that of content. The former is its determinateness of being external to the content as such which is indifferent to this relation. The latter is the determinateness of the content possessed by the ground.
The ground has a determinate content. The determinateness of the content is, as we have seen, the substrate for the form, the simple immediate over against the mediation of the form. The ground is negatively self-related identity, which thereby makes itself into positedness; it is negatively related to itself, in that it is self-identical in this its negativity; this identity is the substrate or the content, which in this way constitutes the indifferent or positive unity of the ground relation and is the mediating principle of this unity.
In this content, the determinateness of the ground and the grounded over against one another has at first vanished. But the mediation is further a negative unity. The negative element in the above indifferent substrate is the latter's immediate determinateness whereby the ground has a determinate content. But then this negative element is the negative relation of the form to itself. On the one hand, what has been posited sublates itself and withdraws into its ground; but the ground, the essential self-subsistence, relates itself negatively to itself and makes itself into a positedness. This negative mediation of the ground and the grounded is the characteristic mediation of the form as such, formal mediation. Now both sides of the form, because each passes over into the other, mutually posit themselves as sublated in one identity; in doing so they at the same time presuppose this identity. It is the determinate content to which, therefore, the formal mediation is related through itself as to the positive mediating principle. This content is the identical element of both, and since they are distinguished, but each in its difference is relation to the other, it is their subsistence, the subsistence of each as the whole itself.
It follows from the above that what is present in the determinate ground is this: first, a determinate content is considered from two sides in so far as it is posited first as ground and again as the grounded. The content itself is indifferent to this form; in both it is simply one determination only. Secondly, the ground itself is just as much a moment of the form as that which is posited by it; this is its identity in respect of the form. It does not matter which of the two determinations is made the first, whether the transition is made from the posited to the other as ground, or from the one as ground to the other as the posited. The grounded considered on its own is the sublating of itself; through this it makes itself on the one hand into a posited, and is at the same time a positing of the ground. The same movement is the ground as such, it makes itself into a posited and thereby becomes the ground of something, that is, in this movement it is present both as a posited and also first as ground. The posited is the ground that there is a ground, and conversely the ground is therefore a posited. The mediation begins just as much from the one as from the other, each side is just as much ground as posited, and each is the whole mediation or the whole form. Furthermore the whole form itself is, as the self-identical, the substrate of the determinations which are the two sides of the ground and the grounded, and thus form and content are themselves one and the same identity.
Because of this identity of the ground and the grounded, both as regards content and form, the ground is sufficient (the sufficiency of the ground being restricted to this relationship); there is nothing in the ground that is not in the grounded, and there is nothing in the grounded that is not in the ground. When we ask for a ground, we want to see the same determination that is content, double, once in the form of something posited, and again in the form of a determinate being reflected into itself, of essentiality.
Now since in the determinate ground, the ground and the grounded are each the whole form, and their content, though determinate, is one and the same, it follows that there is as yet no real determination of the sides of the ground, they have no distinct content; the determinateness is as yet only simple, it has not yet passed over into the sides; what is present is the determinate ground at first in its pure form, the formal ground. Because the content is only this simple determinateness which does not possess within itself the form of the ground-relation, this determinateness is the self-identical content, indifferent to the form, which is external to it; the content is other than the form.
When reflection, in dealing with determinate grounds, sticks to that form of the ground we have reached here, then the assignment of a ground remains a mere formalism and empty tautology which expresses in the form of reflection-into-self, of essentiality, the same content that is already present in the form of an immediate being, of a being considered as posited. Such an assigning of grounds is therefore accompanied by the same emptiness as the talk which restricts itself to the law of identity. The sciences, especially the physical sciences, are full of tautologies of this kind which constitute as it were a prerogative of science. For example, the ground of the movement of the planets round the sun is said to be the attractive force of the earth and sun on one another. As regards content, this expresses nothing other than what is contained in the phenomenon, namely the relation of these bodies to one another, only in the form of a determination reflected into itself, the form of force. If one asks what kind of a force the attractive force is, the answer is that it is the force that makes the earth move round the sun; that is, it has precisely the same content as the phenomenon of which it is supposed to be the ground; the relation of the earth and sun in respect of motion is the identical substrate of the ground and the grounded. When a crystalline form is explained by saying that it has its ground in the particular arrangement which the molecules form with one another, the fact is that the existent crystalline form is this very arrangement that is adduced as ground. In ordinary life, these aetiologies, which are the prerogative of the sciences, count for what they are, tautological empty talk.
To answer the question, why is this person going to town, with the reason, the ground, that it is because there is an attractive force in the town which urges him in that direction, is to give the kind of reply that is sanctioned in the sciences but outside them is counted absurd. Leibniz objected to the Newtonian force of attraction that it was the same kind of occult quality that the scholastics used for the purpose of explanation. Rather is it the opposite objection which must be made to it, namely, that it is a too familiar quality; for it has no other content than the phenomenon itself. What commends this mode of explanation is precisely its great clarity and intelligibility; for there is nothing clearer or more intelligible than that, for example, a plant has its ground in a vegetative, that is, plant-producing force. It could be called an occult quality only in the sense that the ground is supposed to have another content than the thing to be explained, and such a ground is not adduced; the force used for the purpose of explanation is of course a concealed or occult ground in so far as the kind of ground demanded is not adduced. Something is no more explained by this formalism than the nature of a plant is known when I say that it is a plant; or that it has its ground in a plant-producing force; this statement with all its clarity can therefore be called a very occult mode of explanation.
Secondly, as regards form, in this mode of explanation the two opposite directions of the ground relation are present without being apprehended in their determinate relation. The ground is, on the one hand, ground as the reflection-into-self of the determination of the content of the phenomenon which it grounds, on the other hand, it is the posited. It is that from which the phenomenon is to be understood; but conversely, it is the ground that is inferred from the phenomenon and the former is understood from the latter. The main business of this reflection consists, namely, in finding the grounds from the phenomenon, that is, converting the immediate phenomenon into the form of reflected being; consequently the ground, instead of being in and for itself and self-subsistent, is, on the contrary, the posited and derived. Now since in this procedure the ground is derived from the phenomenon and its determinations are based on it, the phenomenon certainly flows quite smoothly and with a favourable wind from its ground. But in this way, knowledge has not advanced a step; its movement is confined within a difference of form which this same procedure inverts and sublates.
Accordingly one of the main difficulties in the study of the sciences in which this method prevails comes from this perverse method of premising as ground what is in fact derived, and then actually placing in the consequents the ground of these supposed grounds. The exposition begins with grounds which are placed in mid-air as principles and primary concepts; they are simple determinations devoid of any necessity in and for themselves; what follows is supposed to be based on them. Therefore he who aims to penetrate such sciences must begin by instilling his mind with these grounds, a distasteful business for reason because it is asked to treat what is groundless as a valid foundation. Success comes most easily when, without much reflection, the principles are simply accepted as given and one then proceeds to use them as fundamental rules of one's understanding. Without this method one cannot make a start; nor without it can any progress be made. But progress is hindered by the fact that it reveals how the method counteracts itself: it proposes to demonstrate in the consequent what is derived, but in fact it is only in the derived that the grounds of the above presuppositions are contained. Also because the consequent shows itself to be the phenomenon from which the ground was derived, this relation in which the phenomenon is presented awakens a distrust of the exposition of it; for the relation presents itself not as expressed in its immediacy but as a support for the ground. But because this again is derived from the phenomenon one demands rather to see it in its immediacy in order to be able to derive the ground from it. In such an exposition, therefore, one does not know how to take either ground or phenomenon. Uncertainty is increased, especially if the exposition is not rigorously consistent but is more honest, by the fact that one comes across traces and features of the phenomenon which point to more and different things than are contained in the principles alone. Lastly, confusion becomes still greater when reflected and merely hypothetical determinations are mingled with immediate determinations of the phenomenon itself, and the former are spoken of as though they belonged to immediate experience. Many who come to these sciences with an honest belief may well imagine that molecules, empty interstices, centrifugal force, the ether, the single, separate ray of light, electrical and magnetic matter, and a host of other such things which are spoken of as though they had an immediate existence, are things or relations actually present in perception. They serve as primary grounds for something else, are enunciated as actualities and confidently applied; one lets them count as such in good faith before coming aware that they are, on the contrary, determinations inferred from that of which they are supposed to be the grounds, hypotheses and fictions derived from an uncritical reflection. In fact, one finds oneself in a kind of witches' circle in which determinations of real being and determinations of reflection, ground and grounded, phenomena and phantoms, run riot in indiscriminate company and enjoy equal rank with one another.
Along with the formal business of this mode of explanation from grounds, we at the same time hear it repeated — in spite of all the explaining based on well-known forces and matters — that we do not know the inner nature (Wesen) of these forces and matters themselves. This amounts only to a confession that this assigning of grounds is itself completely inadequate; that something quite different from such grounds is required. Only then it is not apparent why this trouble is taken with such explaining, why the something quite different is not sought for, or at least why this mode of explanation is not set aside and the facts left to speak for themselves.
As we have seen, the determinateness of the ground is partly determinateness of the substrate or determination of the content, and partly the otherness in the ground-relation itself, namely, the distinction between the content and form; the relation of ground and grounded comes to be an external form imposed on the content which is indifferent to these determinations. But in point of fact the two are not external to one another; for the content is this, to be the identity of the ground with itself in the grounded, and of the grounded in the ground. The side of the ground has shown that it is itself a posited, and the side of the grounded that it is itself ground; each is in itself this identity of the whole. But because they belong at the same time to the form and constitute the form's determinate difference each is, in its determinateness, the identity of the whole with itself. Consequently each has a distinctive content of its own. Or, considered from the side of the content, because this is the identity of the ground-relation with itself, it essentially possesses this difference of the form within itself, and then is, as ground, other than what it is as grounded.
Now since ground and grounded have a distinctive content, the ground relation has ceased to be formal; the retreat into the ground and the emergence from it of the posited is no longer a tautology; the ground is realised. Therefore when we ask for a ground, we really demand that the content of the ground be a different determination from that of the phenomenon whose ground we are seeking.
Now this relation is further determined. Namely, in so far as the two sides have a different content, they are indifferent to one another; each is an immediate, self-identical determination. Further, in their relationship as ground and grounded, the ground, in being reflected into the other as into its positedness, is reflected into itself; the content, therefore, possessed by the side of the ground, is equally in the grounded; the latter, as the posited, has its self-identity and subsistence only in the ground. But apart from this content of the ground, the grounded now also has its own distinctive content and is accordingly the unity of a twofold content. Now this, as the unity of distinct sides, is indeed their negative unity, but because the determinations of the content are mutually indifferent, the unity is only their empty, intrinsically contentless relation, not their mediation; a one or a something as an external combination of them.
Therefore in the real ground relation, what is present is twofold: first, the determination of the content, which is ground, is in continuity with itself in the positedness, so that it constitutes the simple identical element of the ground and the grounded; the grounded thus completely contains within itself the ground, their relation is an undifferentiated essential compactness. Therefore, what more is added in the grounded to this simple essence, is only an unessential form, external determinations of the content which, as such, are free from the ground and are an immediate manifoldness. Of this unessential side, therefore, the essential is not the ground, nor is it ground of the relation of both to one another in the grounded. It is a positively identical that indwells the grounded, but does not posit itself therein in any difference of form, but, as self-related content, is an indifferent positive substrate. Secondly, what is combined with this substrate in the something is an indifferent content, but as the unessential side. The main thing is the relation of the substrate and the unessential manifoldness. But because the related determinations are an indifferent content, this relation is also not ground; true, one of them is determined as essential and the other as unessential or posited content, but as self-related content this form is external to both. The one of the something that constitutes their relation is therefore not a form relation but only an external bond which does not contain the unessential manifold content as posited; it is therefore likewise only a substrate.
Ground, in determining itself as real, consequently breaks up, on account of the diversity of content which constitutes its reality, into external determinations. The two relations, the essential content as the simple immediate identity of the ground and grounded, and then the something as relation of the diversified content, are two different substrates; the self-identical form of the ground, namely, that the something is, on the one hand, essential and, on the other hand, posited, has vanished; the ground relation has thus become external to itself.
Consequently there is now an external ground which brings the diversified content into combination and determines which is ground and which is posited by the ground; this determination does not lie in the double-sided content itself. The real ground is therefore relation to an other, on the one hand, of the content to another content, on the other hand, of the ground relation itself (of the form) to an other, namely, to an immediate, to something not posited by it.
The formal ground-relation contains only one content for ground and grounded; in this identity lies their necessity, but at the same time their tautology. Real ground contains a diversified content; but this brings with it the contingency and externality of the ground relation. On the one hand, that which is considered as the essential and therefore as the fundamental determination, is not the ground of the other determinations connected with it. On the other hand, it is also undetermined which of the several determinations of the content of a concrete thing ought to be taken as essential and as ground; hence the choice between them is free. Thus in the former respect, for example, the ground of a house is its foundation; this is the ground by virtue of the gravity which is inherent in sensuous matter and which is the purely identical principle in both ground and the house which is grounded. Now that there is in heavy matter such a distinction as that of a foundation and a modification distinct from it through which it constitutes a house, this fact is a matter of complete indifference to the heavy matter itself; its relation to other determinations of the content, of the end, of the furnishing of the house, and so on, is external to it; consequently, though it is indeed the foundation, it is not the ground of these determinations. Gravity, which is the ground for a house standing, is no less also the ground for a stone falling; the stone has this ground, gravity, within it; but that the stone has a further determination of its content by virtue of which it is not merely something heavy but a stone, this is external to gravity; further, it is something else that has caused the stone to be placed beforehand at a distance from the body upon which it falls; similarly time, space, and their relation, which is motion, are another content than gravity and can be conceived of without it (as the saying is), and consequently are not essentially posited by it. Gravity is also equally the ground which makes a projectile describe a trajectory opposite to that of a falling body. From the variety of determinations of which it is the ground, it is clear that something else is also required to make it the ground of this or some other determination.
When it is said of Nature, that it is the ground of the world, what is called Nature is, on the one hand, one with the world, and the world is nothing but Nature itself. But they are also different, nature being rather the indeterminate, or at least is determinate, only in the universal differences which are laws, the self-identical essence of the world, and before Nature can be the world a multiplicity of determinations must be externally added to it. But these do not have their ground in nature as such; on the contrary, nature is indifferent to them as contingencies. It is the same relationship as when God is characterised as the ground of nature. As ground, he is its essence; nature contains this essence and is identical with it; but nature has yet a further manifoldness which is distinct from the ground itself and is the third in which these two distinct sides are conjoined; that ground is neither ground of the manifoldness distinguished from it nor of its connection with it. The cognition of nature is therefore not from God as ground, for as ground he would only be nature's universal essence, and nature as a determinate essence is not contained in the ground.
Because of this diversity of the content of the ground, or strictly speaking of the substrate, and of what is connected with it in the grounded, the assigning of real grounds is just as much a formalism as the formal ground itself. In the latter, the self-identical content is indifferent to the form; in real ground this is equally true. Now the result of this is, further, that the real ground does not itself indicate which of the manifold determinations ought to be taken as essential. Something is a concrete of manifold determinations which show themselves to be equally fixed and permanent in it. One as much as another can therefore be determined as ground, namely, as essential, compared with which the other is then only a posited. This links up with what has already been mentioned, namely, from the fact that in one case a determination is present as ground of another, it does not follow that this other is posited with it in another case or at all. Punishment, for example, has various determinations: it is retribution, a deterrent example as well, a threat used by the law as a deterrent, and also it brings the criminal to his senses and reforms him. Each of these different determinations has been considered the ground of punishment, because each is an essential determination, and therefore the others, as distinct from it, are determined as merely contingent relatively to it. But the one which is taken as ground is still not the whole punishment itself; this concrete also contains those others which, whilst associated with the ground in the punishment, do not have their ground in the latter. Again, an official has an aptitude for his office, as an individual has relationships with others, has a circle of acquaintances, a particular character, made an appearance in such and such circumstances and on such and such occasions, and so on. Each of these attributes can be, or can be regarded as, the ground for his holding his office; they are a diverse content which is joined together in a third; the form, in which they are determined as being either essential or posited in relation to one another, is external to the content. Each of these attributes is essential to the official because through it he is the specific individual that he is; in so far as the office can be regarded as an external, posited determination, each can be determined as ground relatively to it, but also conversely, they can be regarded as posited and the office as their ground. How they are actually related, that is, in the individual case, this is a determination external to the ground relation and to the content itself; it is a third that imparts to them the form of ground and grounded.
So in general anything can have a variety of grounds; each determination of its content, as self-identical, pervades the whole and can therefore be considered essential; the door is wide open to innumerable aspects, that is, determinations, lying outside the thing itself, on account of the contingency of their mode of connection. Therefore whether a ground has this or that consequent is equally contingent. Moral motives, for example, are essential determinations of the ethical nature, but what follows from them is at the same time an externality distinct from them, which follows and also does not follow from them; it is only through a third that it is attached to them. More accurately this is to be understood in this way, that if the moral motive is a ground, it is not contingent to it whether it has or has not a consequent or a grounded, but it is contingent whether it is or is not made a ground at all. But again, since the content which is the consequent of the moral motive, if this has been made the ground, has the nature of externality, it can be immediately sublated by another externality. Therefore an action may, or may not, issue from a moral motive. Conversely, an action can have various grounds; as a concrete, it contains manifold essential determinations, each of which can therefore be assigned as ground. The search for and assignment of grounds, in which argumentation mainly consists, is accordingly an endless pursuit which does not reach a final determination; for any and every thing one or more good grounds can be given, and also for its opposite; and a host of grounds can exist without anything following from them. What Socrates and Plato call sophistry is nothing else but argumentation from grounds; to this, Plato opposes the contemplation of the Idea, that is, of the subject matter in and for itself or in its Notion. Grounds are taken only from essential determinations of a content, essential relationships and aspects, and of these every subject matter, just like its opposite, possesses several; in their form of essentiality, one is as valid as another; because it does not embrace the whole extent of the subject matter, each is a one-sided ground, the other particular sides having on their part particular grounds, and none of them exhausts the subject matter which constitutes their togetherness [Verknüpfung] and contains them all; none is a sufficient ground, that is, the Notion.
1. In real ground, ground as content and ground as relation are only substrates. The former is only posited as essential and as ground; the relation is the something of the grounded as the ' indeterminate substrate of a varied content, a 'togetherness' of ' it which is not its own reflection but an external and therefore only posited reflection. Hence the real ground-relation is rather the ground as sublated; consequently it constitutes rather the side of the grounded or of positedness. But as positedness, the ground itself has now withdrawn into its ground; it is now a grounded and this has another ground. In consequence, the latter so determines itself that, first, it is that which is identical with the real ground as its grounded; in conformity with this determination both sides have one and the same content; and the two determinations of the content and the 'togetherness' in the something are likewise present in the new ground. But secondly, the new ground into which that merely posited, external 'togetherness' has sublated itself is, as its reflection-into-self, the absolute relation of the two determinations of the content.
In consequence of the real ground itself having withdrawn into its ground, the identity of ground and grounded, or formal ground, is restored in it. The resultant ground-relation is therefore the complete ground relation, which embraces both formal and real ground and which mediates the determinations of the content which, in the latter, confront one another as immediate.
2. The ground-relation has thus determined itself more precisely in the following manner. First, something has a ground; it contains the determination of the content which is the ground, and, in addition a second determination, one which is posited by the ground. But each is an indifferent content, so that the one determination is not in its own self ground, nor is the other in its own self that which is grounded by the first; the fact is, that in the immediacy of the content, this relation is a sublated or posited relation and has, as such, its ground in another. This second relation, as different only in respect of form, has the same content as the first, namely, the two determinations of the content, but it is their immediate 'togetherness'. However, the determinations thus connected constitute a simply varied content, and are therefore determined as indifferent to one another; consequently, this relation is not their truly absolute relation in which one of the determinations would be self-identical in positedness, and the other only this positedness of the same self-identical determination.
On the contrary, they are supported by a something which constitutes their merely immediate, not reflected, relation which is, therefore, only a relative ground in relation to the 'togetherness' in the other something. The two somethings are therefore the two distinct relations of the content which have been brought to view. They stand in the identical ground-relation of form; they are one and the same whole content, namely, the two determinations of the content and their relation; they are distinguished only by the kind of this relation, which in the one is an immediate, in the other a posited relation; through this, they are distinguished one from the other as ground and grounded only in respect of form. Secondly, this ground-relation is not merely formal, but also real. The formal ground passes over into real ground as we have seen; the moments of form are reflected into themselves; they are a self-subsistent content, and the ground relation also contains one peculiar content as ground, and another as grounded. The content, in the first instance, constitutes the immediate identity of the two sides of the formal ground which thus have one and the same content. But it also has form within it and is thus a twofold content which has the nature of ground and grounded. One of the two determinations of the two somethings is therefore determined as being, not merely common to them as in an external comparison, but as being their identical substrate and the foundation of their relation. As against the other determination of the content, this determination is essential and is the ground of the other which is posited, namely, in the something, of which the grounded determination is the relation. In the first something, which is the ground-relation, this second determination of the content is immediately and in itself connected with the first. But the other something only contains the one in itself as that in which it is immediately identical with the first something, but the other as the determination posited in it. The former determination of the content is its ground by virtue of its being originally connected with the other determination in the first something.
The ground-relation of the determinations of the content in the second something is thus mediated by the first, implicit relation of the first something. The inference is as follows: in one something, the determination B is implicitly connected with determination A; therefore, in the second something to which only the one determination A immediately belongs, B is also linked with A. In the second something, not only is this second determination a mediated one, but the fact that its immediate determination is ground is also mediated, namely, by its original connection with B in the first something. This connection is thus the ground of ground A, and the whole ground-relation is, in the second something, a posited or a grounded.
3. Real ground shows itself to be the self-external reflection of ground; the complete mediation of ground is the restoration of its self-identity. But since this self-identity has thereby also acquired the externality of real ground, the formal ground-relation in this unity of itself and real ground is just as much self-positing as self-sublating ground; the ground-relation mediates itself with itself through its negation. First, ground as the original relation, is the relation of immediate content-determinations. The ground-relation, being essential form, its sides are determined as sublated or as moments. Therefore, as form of immediate determinations, it is self-identical relation at the same time that it is the relation of its negation; hence it is ground, not in and for itself, but as relation to the sublated ground-relation. Secondly, the sublated relation or the immediate which, in the original and the posited relation, is the identical substrata, is likewise not in and for itself real ground; on the contrary, it is posited as being ground through that original connection.
The ground-relation in its totality is therefore essentially presupposing reflection; the formal ground presupposes the immediate content determination and this, as real ground, presupposes form. Ground is therefore form as an immediate 'togetherness' but in such a manner that the form repels itself from itself and rather presupposes immediacy, in which it is related to itself as to an other. This immediate is the content determination, the simple ground; but as this, namely, as ground, it is equally repelled from itself and likewise is related to itself as to an other. Thus the total ground-relation has determined itself to be conditioning mediation.
1. Ground is the immediate, and the grounded the mediated. But it is positing reflection; as such it makes itself into a positedness and is presupposing reflection; thus it relates itself to itself as to a sublated moment, to an immediate by which it is itself mediated. This mediation, as the progress from the immediate to the ground, is not an external reflection but, as we have seen, the native act of the ground itself, or, what is the same thing, the ground-relation, as reflection into self-identity, is equally essentially self-alienating reflection. The immediate to which the ground is related as to its essential presupposition is condition; real ground is therefore essentially conditioned. The determinateness which it contains is the otherness of itself.
Condition is, therefore, first, an immediate manifold something. Secondly, this something is related to another, to something that is ground, not of the first something, but in some other respect; for the first something is itself immediate and without a ground. According to that relation it is posited; the immediate something ought to be, as condition, not for itself but for something else. But at the same time, the fact that it is thus for another, is itself only a positedness; this fact that it is a posited is sublated in its immediacy, and a something is indifferent to its being a condition. Thirdly, condition is an immediate in such a manner that it constitutes the presupposition of the ground. In this determination it is the form relation of the ground, withdrawn into identity with itself, and is consequently the content of the ground. But the content as such is only the indifferent unity of the ground, as in form - without form there is no content. Further, it frees itself from this indifferent unity in that, in the complete ground, the ground relation becomes a relation external to its identity, whereby the content acquires immediacy. In so far, therefore, as condition is that in which the ground-relation has its self-identity, it constitutes the content of the ground; but because the content is indifferent to this form, it is only implicitly its content, something which has yet to become content and hence constitutes material for the ground. Posited as condition, something has the determination (in accordance with the second moment) of losing its indifferent immediacy and becoming moment of something else. Through its immediacy it is indifferent to this relation; but, in so far as it enters into this relation, it constitutes the in-itself of the ground and is for the latter the unconditioned. In order to be condition, it has in the ground its presupposition and is itself conditioned; but this determination is external to it.
2. Something is not through its condition; its condition is not its ground. Condition is the moment of unconditioned immediacy for the ground, but is not itself the movement and the positing that is negatively self-related and that makes itself into positedness. The ground-relation, therefore, stands over against condition. Something has, apart from its condition, also a ground. This is the empty movement of reflection, because reflection has the immediacy that is its presupposition, outside it. But it is the whole form and the self-subsistent mediating process; for the condition is not its ground. Since this mediating process is, as a positing, self-related, it is from this side also an immediate and unconditioned; true, it presupposes itself, but as a discarded or sublated positing; on the other hand, what it is according to its determination, that it is in and for itself. In so far as the ground relation is a self-subsistent relation-to-self, and it has within it the identity of reflection, it has its own peculiar content over against the content of the condition. The former is content of the ground and therefore essentially formed; the latter, on the other hand, is only an immediate material, whose relation to the ground is external to it while, at the same time, it no less constitutes the in-itself of the ground. It is thus a mixture of the self-subsistent content which has no relation to the content of the ground-determination, and of such content that enters into the ground-determination and, as its material, is meant to become a moment of it.
3. The two sides of the whole, condition and ground, are, then, on the one hand, indifferent and unconditioned in relation to each other; the one, as the unrelated, to which the relation in which it is condition is external, the other as the relation or form, for which the determinate being of the condition exists only as material, as something passive, whose form, which it possesses on its own account, is unessential. But further, the two sides are also mediated. Condition is the in-itself of the ground; so much is it an essential moment of the ground-relation, that it is the simple self-identity of the ground. But this, too, is sublated; this in-itself is only a positedness; the immediate determinate being is indifferent to the fact that it is condition. The fact, therefore, that the condition is an in-itself for the ground constitutes that side of it which makes it mediated. Similarly, the ground-relation, in its self-subsistence, also has a presupposition, and has its in-itself outside it. Thus each of the two sides is the contradiction of indifferent immediacy and essential mediation, both in a single relation-or the contradiction of self-subsistent existence and the determination of being only a moment.
At first, each of the two relatively unconditioned sides is reflected into the other; condition, as an immediate, into the form relation of the ground, and the latter into the immediate determinate being as its positedness; but each, apart from this reflected being of its other in it, is self-subsistent and has its own peculiar content.
At first, condition is an immediate determinate being; its form has the two moments, (a) of positedness, according to which it is, as condition, material and moment of the ground, and (b) of the in-itself, according to which it constitutes the essentiality of the ground or its simple reflection into itself. Both sides of the form are external to the immediate determinate being; for this is the sublated ground relation. But, first, determinate being is in its own self only this, to sublate itself in its immediacy and to fall to the ground [zugrunde zu gehen]. Being is simply only the becoming of essence; it is its essential nature to make itself into a positedness and into an identity which, through negation of itself, is the immediate. The form-determinations, therefore, of positedness and of the self-identical in-itself, the form through which the immediate determinate being is condition, are therefore not external to it; on the contrary, it is this reflection itself. Secondly, as condition, being is now also posited as that which it essentially is, namely, as moment, hence as moment of an other, and at the same time, as an in-itself, likewise of an other; but in itself being only is through the negation of itself, namely, through ground and through ground's self-sublating, and therefore presupposing, reflection; the in-itself of being is accordingly only a posited. This in-itself of condition has two sides: one is its essentiality as essentiality of the ground, while the other is the immediacy of its determinate being. Or rather, both are the same. Determinate being is an immediate, but the immediacy is essentially the mediated, namely, through the self-sublating ground. As this immediacy that is mediated by a self-sublating process of mediation, it is at the same time the in-itself of the ground and the unconditioned of its unconditioned side; but this in-itself is itself in turn also no less only a moment or a positedness, for it is mediated. Condition is accordingly the whole form of the ground relation; it is its presupposed in-itself, but as presupposed it is itself a positedness and its immediacy is this, to make itself into a positedness and so to repel itself from itself, in such a manner that it both falls to the ground and is ground, the ground making itself into a positedness and thus also into a grounded, and these two are one and the same thing.
Similarly, in the conditioned ground, the in-itself is not only the reflection [Scheinen] of an other in it. This ground is the self-subsistent, that is, the self-relating, reflection of the positing, and consequently the self-identical; or, it is in its own self its in-itself and its content. But it is also presupposing reflection; it is negatively related to itself and opposes its in-itself to itself as to an other, and condition, according to its moment of in-itself as well as according to its moment of immediate determinate being, is the ground-relation's own moment; the immediate determinate being is essentially only through its ground and is moment of itself as a presupposing. This ground, therefore, is equally the whole itself.
What is present, therefore, is simply only one whole of form, but equally only one whole of content. For the peculiar content of condition is essential content only in so far as it is the self-identity of reflection in the form, or, as this immediate determinate being is in its own self the ground-relation. Further, this immediate determinate being is only condition through the presupposing reflection of the ground; it is the self-identity of the ground, or its content, to which it opposes itself. Therefore the determinate being is not merely formless material for the ground relation; on the contrary, because it has in its own self this form it is a formed matter, and since also in its identity with it, it is indifferent to it, it is content. Finally, it is the same content as that possessed by ground, for it is content precisely as that which is self-identical in the form relation.
The two sides of the whole, condition and ground, are therefore one essential unity, equally as content and as form. They spontaneously pass over into one another or, since they are reflections, they posit themselves as sublated, relate themselves to this their negation and reciprocally presuppose one another. But at the same time this is only a single reflection of both and therefore their presupposing is also only one; or rather this reciprocal presupposing becomes a presupposing of their one identity as their subsistence and substrate. This identity of their common content and unity of form is the truly unconditioned, the fact in its own self. As we saw above, condition is only the relatively unconditioned. It is therefore usually regarded as itself conditioned and a fresh condition is asked for, and thus the usual infinite progress from condition to condition is introduced. Now why does a condition prompt us to ask for a fresh condition, that is, why is a condition regarded as a conditioned? Because it is some finite determinate being or other. But this is a further determination, which is not contained in its Notion. Condition as such is conditioned, solely because it is a posited in-itself; it is therefore sublated in the absolutely unconditioned.
Now this contains within itself the two sides, condition and ground, as its moments; it is the unity into which these have withdrawn. Together they constitute its form or positedness. The unconditioned fact is condition of both, but it is absolute condition, that is, condition that is itself ground. Now as ground, it is the negative identity that has repelled itself into these two moments; first, into the shape of the sublated ground relation, of an immediate, self-external manifoldness, without unity, which relates itself to the ground as something other to it, and at the same time constitutes the ground's in-itself; secondly, into the shape of an internal, simple form, which is ground, but relates itself to the self-identical immediate as to an other and determines it as condition, that is, determines this its in-itself as its own moment. These two sides presuppose the totality in such a manner that it is that which posits them. Conversely, because they presuppose the totality, this in turn also seems to be conditioned by them, and the fact seems to arise from its condition and from its ground. But since these two sides have shown themselves to be an identity, the relation of condition and ground has vanished; they are reduced to an illusory being; the absolutely unconditioned in its movement of positing and presupposing is only the movement in which this illusory being sublates itself. It is the fact's own act to condition itself and to oppose itself as ground to its conditions; but its relation, as a relation between conditions and ground, is a reflection into itself, and its relation to them is its union with itself.
The absolutely unconditioned is the absolute ground that is identical with its condition, the immediate fact in its truly essential nature. As ground, it relates itself negatively to itself, makes itself into a positedness; but this positedness is a reflection that is complete in both its aspects and a form-relation that is self-identical in them as we have seen from their Notion. This positedness is accordingly, first, the sublated ground, the fact as the reflectionless immediate-the side of conditions. This is the totality of the determinations of the fact-the fact itself, but cast out into the externality of being, the restored sphere of being. In condition, essence releases the unity of its reflection-into-self as an immediacy, which however from now on has the character of being a conditioning presupposition and of essentially constituting only one of the sides of essence. The conditions are, therefore, the whole content of the fact, because they are the unconditioned in the form of formless being. But they also have, by reason of this form, another shape besides the determinations of the content as it is in the fact as such. They appear as a multiplicity without unity, mixed with non-essentials and other circumstances that do not belong to the sphere of determinate being in so far as this constitutes the conditions of this specific fact. For the absolute, unrestricted fact, the sphere of being itself is the condition. The ground, which withdraws into itself, posits condition as the first immediacy and it relates itself to this as to its unconditioned. This immediacy as sublated reflection is reflection in the element of being, which thus develops itself as such into a whole; the form, as a determinateness of being, goes on to multiply itself and thus appears as a manifold content distinct from and indifferent to the determination of reflection. The unessential, which belongs to the sphere of being and which the latter, in so far as it is condition, strips off, is the determinateness of immediacy in which the unity of form is submerged. This form unity, as the relation of being, is present in it at first as becoming-the transition of one determinateness of being into another. But the becoming of being is further the transition to essence and the withdrawal into ground. The determinate being, therefore, that constitutes the conditions is, in truth, not determined as condition by something else and used by it as material; on the contrary, it is through its own act that it makes itself into a moment of another. Also, far from its becoming starting from itself as the true first and immediate, the truth is that its immediacy is only something presupposed, and the movement of its becoming is the act of reflection itself. Accordingly the truth of determinate being is to be condition; its immediacy is, solely through the reflection of the ground-relation which posits itself as sublated. Becoming is, therefore, like immediacy, only the illusory being of the unconditioned, in that this presupposes itself and therein has its form; and the immediacy of being is accordingly essentially only a moment of the form.
The other side of this reflective movement [Scheinen] of the unconditioned is the ground-relation as such, determined as form over against the immediacy of the conditions and the content. But it is the form of the absolute fact, and it possesses within itself the unity of its form with itself, or its content; and in the very act of determining this content to be condition it sublates the diversity of the content and reduces it to a moment, just as, conversely, as essenceless form it gives itself the immediacy of a subsistence in this self-identity. The reflection of the ground sublates the immediacy of the conditions and relates them, so making them moments in the unity of the fact; but the conditions are presupposed by the unconditioned fact itself, which thus sublates its own positing, or its positing directly converts itself equally into a becoming. The two are therefore one unity; the immanent movement of the conditions is a becoming, a withdrawal into ground to the positing of ground; but the ground as posited, that is to say, as sublated, is the immediate. The ground relates itself negatively to itself, makes itself into a positedness and grounds the conditions; but in thus determining immediate determinate being as a posited, the ground sublates it and thereby first constitutes itself ground. This reflection is accordingly the mediation of the unconditioned fact with itself through its negation. Or rather, the reflection of the unconditioned is at first a presupposing-but this sublating of itself is immediately a positing which determines; secondly, in this presupposing, reflection is immediately a sublating of what is presupposed and a determining from within itself; thus this determining is again a sublating of the positing and is in its own self a becoming. In this, the mediation as a return-to-self through negation has vanished; it is the simple, internal movement of reflection [einfache, in sich scheinende Reflexion] and groundless absolute becoming. The movement of the fact to become posited, on the one hand through its conditions, and on the other through its ground, is merely the vanishing of the illusion of mediation. The process by which the fact is posited is accordingly an emergence, the simple entry of the fact into Existence, the pure movement of the fact to itself.
When all the conditions of a fact are present, it enters into Existence. The fact is, before it exists; it is, in fact, as essence or as an unconditioned; secondly, it has determinate being or is determinate, and this in the two-fold manner above considered, on the one hand, in its conditions, and on the other, in its ground. In the former, it has given itself the form of external groundless being because it is, as absolute reflection, negative self-relation, and it makes itself into its own presupposition.
This presupposed un-conditioned is therefore the groundless immediate, whose being is nothing except to be present as something groundless. When, therefore, all the conditions of the fact are present, that is when the totality of the fact is posited as a groundless immediate, this scattered multiplicity inwardises [erinnert] itself in its own self. The whole fact must be present in its conditions, or all the conditions belong to its Existence, for all of them constitute the reflection; or, determinate being, because it is condition, is determined by form; consequently its determinations are determinations of reflection and the positing of one essentially involves the positing of the others. The inwardisation of the conditions is at first the falling to the ground [das Zugrundegehen] of immediate determinate being and the becoming of the ground. But this makes the ground a posited ground, that is, it is just as much sublated ground and immediate being, as it is ground. When therefore all the conditions of the fact are present, they sublate themselves as immediate being and presupposition, and equally ground sublates itself. Ground emerges merely as an illusory being that immediately vanishes; accordingly, this emergence is the tautological movement of the fact to itself, and its mediation by conditions and ground is the vanishing of both. The emergence into Existence is therefore immediate in such a manner that it is mediated only by the vanishing of mediation.
The fact emerges from the ground. It is not grounded or posited by it in such a manner that ground remains as a substrate; on the contrary, the positing is the movement of the ground outwards to itself and its simple vanishing. Through its union with the conditions, ground receives an external immediacy and the moment of being. But it receives this not as something external, nor through an external relation; on the contrary, as ground, it makes itself into a positedness, its simple essentiality unites with itself in the positedness and is, in this sublation of itself, the vanishing of its difference from its positedness, and is thus simple essential immediacy. Ground, therefore, does not remain behind as something distinct from the grounded, but the truth of grounding is that in it ground is united with itself, so that its reflection into another is its reflection into itself. Consequently, the fact is not only the unconditioned but also the groundless, and it emerges from ground only in so far as ground has 'fallen to the ground' and ceased to be ground: it emerges from the groundless, that is, from its own essential negativity or pure form.
This immediacy that is mediated by ground and condition and is self-identical through the sublating of mediation, is Existence.