'All things in the world are fleeting and fluctuating'
by Felix Ludwig Julius Dahn (1834 - 1912)
All things in the world are fleeting and fluctuating as gossamer:
Only true love -- it alone endures; God holds it high in grace.
I know a shrine of the Mother of God; it stands out in the open on the rugged height;
From the wind and the wild weather it ought to be faded, ah, how soon!
The wreath of cornflowers about its rim, it has quickly wilted:
The image itself stands on and on, resplendent in glory and brightness,
Because with His own hand the Lord God repels storm and rain: --
Thus, too, He keeps true love in bloom and existence with His blessing.
All' Ding' der Welt vergänglich sein und schwank wie Sommerfaden:
Nur treue Lieb, die währt allein, Gott hält sie hoch in Gnaden.
Ich weiß ein Muttergottesbild, steht frei auf rauher Halde,
Das müßt' vor Wind und Wetter wild verblaßt sein, ach wie balde!
Sein Kornblumkranz, der ist verdorrt um seinen Rahmen schnelle:
Das Bildnis selbst prangt fort und fort in frischer Pracht und Helle,
Weil Gott der Herr mit eigner Hand ihm abwehrt Sturm und Regen: --
So hält er auch in Flor und Stand Treulieb' mit seinem Segen.
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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770 - 1831). The Philosophy of Nature' and 'Jena System III'. 'Physics'
In his 'Jena System III' Hegel describes the formation of mass through its internal activity in the second chapter of ‘Mechanics’ which he calls ‘Formation and Chemistry’ and ‘Formation’ (Gestaltung) accounts for how material bodies come to exist according to common powers and what is the material effect of these powers on individual bodies.
'... matter as immediate pure totality enters in opposition between what it is within itself and what it is for another— this constitutes its determinate existence (Dasein); for its determinate existence does not yet have inherence within itself. Matter, as it has been conceived, exists as both the unrest of this swirl, which belongs to the self-connecting movement, and as the return to being on its own account...'
- 'Jena System III'
Dasein is a logical category for the qualitative determination of the concept, as opposed to a quantitative determination, which defined Träge, it is the category that shows how a body exists as something for-itself, achieving being on its own account, and to define the motion of the individual in and through Dasein is to penetrate into the essence of material reality, and further, matter exists in determinacy because of the unrest in its internal continuum and the striving to overcome that unrest in producing equilibrium and the common powers of matter by which a body gains shape are simply the expression of this motion and common power from an empirical point of view is a complex idea of primary and secondary qualities and it is noted because of perception but its real existence is due to the way material substances interact. In the Phenomenology in the section on the Thing and its properties discusses explicitly two such powers, the one that provides perceptual identity and the also which provides cohesion of matter.
'At first, then, I become aware of the Thing as a One, and have to hold fast to it in this its true character; if, in the course of perceiving it, something turns up which contradicts it, this is to be recognized as a reflection of mine. Now, there also occur in the perception various properties which seem to be properties of the Thing; but the Thing fs a One, and we are conscious that this diversity by which it would cease to be a One falls in us. So in point of fact, the Thing is white only to our eyes, also tart to our tongue, also cubical to our touch, and so on. We get the entire diversity of these aspects, not from the Thing, but from ourselves; and they fall asunder in this way for us, because the eye is quite distinct from the tongue, and so on. We are thus the universal medium in which such moments are kept apart and exist each on its own, Through the fact, then, that we regard the characteristic of being a universal medium as our reflection, we preserve the self.. identity and truth of the Thing, its being a One'.
- 'Phenomenology of Spirit'
The distinctions continue to be developed throughout the chapter 'Force and Understanding', the One becomes identified with the essence or form of the material substrate.
'What appears as an 'other' and solicits Force, both to expression and to a return in to itself, directly proves to be itself Force; for the 'other' shows itself to he as much a universal medium as a One, and in such a way that each of these forms at the same time appears only as a vanishing moment. Consequently, Force, in that there is an 'other' for it, and it is for an 'other', has not yet altogether emerged from its Notion. There are at the same time two Forces present; the Notion of both is no doubt the same, but it has gone forth from its unity into a duality. Instead of the antithesis remaining entirely and essentially only a moment, it seems, by its self-diremption into two wholly independent forces, to have withdrawn from the controlling unity'.
- 'Phenomenology of Spirit'
Within the context of the Naturphilosophie the qualities that are ascribed to a body do not belong to a perceptual quality, that which the empiricists took to be secondary and primary qualities, but rather that which belongs to the oscillating movement of material fluidity and these powers are those common characteristics that involve both actions and passions of bodies in their essential fluidity and these powers can be summed up by describing a body according to its degree of elasticity.
'When one corporeality gives way to the violence of another, and at the same time asserts its distinctiveness, it is giving way to another corporeal individual. In its coherence, the body in itself is also a juxtaposing materiality however, and as the whole is submitted to violence, the parts of this materiality do violence to, and give way to one another. As they are equally independent however, they sublate the negation to which they have been submitted, and re-instate themselves. This giving way, with its own exterior self-preservation, is therefore directly bound up with this inner activity of giving way and preserving itself in the face of itself, i.e. with elasticity'.
'Addition. Elasticity is cohesion displaying itself in motion. It is the whole of cohesion. We already encountered it in the first section, where we dealt with matter in general, in which numbers of bodies press and touch one another in mutual resistance, negating their spatiality, and at the same time re-instating it. That was abstract elasticity, and was directed outwards. This elasticity is internal to the self-individualizing body'.
- 'Philosophy of Nature'
This degree is that which provides the body its observed shape, shape (Gestalt) is hence a consequence of the interaction among many bodies in a restless continuum of motion and among these qualities light is exceptional for it is a power that comes-to-be outside of terrestrial interactions, it occurs from the excitement of matter and it operates independently of inertial heaviness, and the account of how an individual entity comes to sustain its existence as a being-for-itself, that is to say, as an independent thing, is grounded upon the opposition present between a body’s external movement toward death and the exciting phenomenon of light, light is the shape of matter which seems to have none of the common characteristics belonging to the other externally moving shapes, its Gestalt has an antithetical motion compared to theirs and whereas the determinate existence of external motion is cyclical and returns only to inertial characteristics, light '...is the pure existing force of filling space; its being is absolute velocity’. Its motion is constant and has no internal rotation, and no motion exceeds it, light is against determinate existence which is to say pure light is free of inertial tendencies and yet in the absence of light there would be no shaping of terrestrial matter either. The occurrence of common forces, as identifying the way that matter exists, depends upon the agency of light, shape is seen and attributed to bodies only because light is either reflected or absorbed by them, matter considered apart from light is only darkness or abstraction, light absorbed by and reflected off rigid matter provides the chemical shape of individual entities and as this reaction occurs light will take shape in reciprocity with its effects, that is to say, pure light becomes fractured by its interactions with dark, cold matter, and it becomes part of the inertial cosmos, this process is the pure force that loses its force or the force that becomes impotent and subsequently:
'The determinate actuality of light, its subjectivity, is henceforth the tearing into innumerable points of the bad infinite [i.e., quantitative determinacy]. This impotently internally-existing force has, however, essentially an externality named ‘reality’; it is the sun, the celestial sphere that is the midpoint of motion, that becomes the light which is the source of life but not life itself'.
- 'Jena System III'
'Saint Catherine Reading', after Correggio (c.1489 - 1534)
Light is fractured into innumerable particles since it has been absorbed into and reflected out of dark, lifeless matter and it becomes seen as a corporeal entity only as it is drawn into the centre of a system by an extreme inertial force, namely, the sun, and from this centre point light takes on its corporeal particular ‘shape’ as particles and spreads out away from the centre, filling space and producing heat, and yet since it has entered into and gone out of the centre, light enters into a cycle of decay, it acquires inertial mass as moving particles, and yet it is from light that a necessary condition of life is hammered out and from light comes warmth and the generation of heat in matter forms the most important condition of nature since it leads to the creation of organic molecules. Such a cosmic account thereby refers to light and upon turning to the 'Chemistry’ section an account is to be given for what physicists describe as caloric matter. Sunlight brings with it warmth and in chemical interactions which account for the relative elasticity of bodies the warmth of certain chemical reactions he believes comes from the residual effect of light being absorbed in dark, cold matter. For instance: ‘Als Schwingen ist es diese Negativität, diß Erzittern in ihr selbst die achsendrehende Bewegung, oder das unruhige Licht, das itzt zum Daseyn herausdringt'.
Only the real account of chemists as providing the material principle for why matter is formed specifically through reactions is to be accepted but light while being material is a phenomenon set apart from other matter, it is associated with aether, a divine element, from which the cosmos receives its impetus to grow and evolve. Aether is the element that Isaac Newton, (1642 – 1726/27), and the Cambridge Platonists favoured in order to account for gravity and Hegel took over this idea, Newton elaborated on aether in his 'Optiks', 1704, Henry More, (1614 – 1687), championed aether as the divine element against Descartes’ mechanics, and Hegel turned to Henrich Steffens, (1773-1845), a follower of Schelling who is also cited in Schelling’s Ideas, 1797, and 'On the World-Soul', 1798, treatises, and reports on his theory that ordinary matter is formed through a cohesion of fluidity, Steffens believing that the earth was held together by magnetic forces. Since Benjamin Franklin’s, (1706 - 1790), discovery of electricity in 1752 and Leonard Euler (1707-1783) investigations into magnetic forces the energy of the magnet was considered to be a caloric fluid that permeated all matter a belief supported by John Dalton, (1766 - 1844), the father of modern atomic theory who speculated that the atmosphere of the earth is held onto its surface by magnetic powers in the stratosphere hence Hegel treated magnetism as the force of cohesion. The earth’s magnetic poles account for the planet’s ellipsoidal shape, the magnetic force pulls towards the centre along the north/south axis, while pushing outward at the poles, thus elongating the earth’s body, and Schelling had already noted this point in 'On the World-Soul' and Hegel alludes to Schelling when he states that:
'The whole body, the earth, is a magnet, which means that the magnetic axis does not pass through it or that the magnetic force is a line. The magnet and the various intensities of it are represented according to the determinate points of decline or incline of the magnetic needle connected to such an axis. . . .The physicists have returned to the position that the iron rod, or the determined existence in the direction of the axes, should be surrendered. They have discovered that practically speaking the only acceptable location of the magnet is in the middle of the earth, which has infinite intensity but is without extension; that is, it is hardly a line as such.…Magnetism is instead the total universal earth….In the earth the magnet is everywhere'.
- 'The Jena System III
Drawing upon Johann Ritter’s investigations concerning the magnetic properties of the earth Hegel repeats the points about the terrestrial magnet that Dalton makes in his essay 'Meteorological Observations and Essays' and one of the more significant philosophical problems raised concerns that which constitutes the focal point of philosophical natural science, one must reject any formalism placing a model in a privileged position against the totality of nature itself for the ]iron rod...should be surrendered' meaning a denial that natural philosophy ought to be be married to artificial models or paradigms given that the whole earth is the paradigm and the same point is raised in the Phenomenology also in connection to magnetism and the earth’s poles when the inversion of worlds in , ‘Force and Understanding' is described, the connection in this section of the natural philosophy to Schelling’s treatment of magnetism is significant since Schelling in the 'Ideas of Nature' and 'On the World-Soul' essays relied upon occult models the very paradigms that science comes to reject and is rejected in the Phenomenology:
'Total individuality is: (a) the Notion of immediate shape as such, and the abstract principle of this appearing in free existence, i.e. magnetism. (b) It determines itself into difference, into the particular forms of corporeal totality; heightened to its extreme, this individual particularization is electricity. (c) The reality of this particularization constitutes the chemically differentiated body and its relatedness; it constitutes the individuality which, while realizing itself as a totality, has bodies as its moments, i.e. the chemical process'.
'Addition. In shape, infinite form is the determining principle of the material parts, which are now no longer merely related indifferently in space. This is the Notion of shape, but as shape is not quiescent subsistence but is self-differentiating, it does not remain with it, but unfolds its essence into real properties. These properties are not held within the unity in an ideal manner, but are also endowed with a particular existence. These differences are determined as having qualitative individuality, and constitute the elements. They are specified by belonging to the sphere of individuality however, and are therefore united with individual corporeality, or rather transformed into it. In this way, the defect still attaching to form has implicitly overcome itself within the Notion. Necessity now demands a further positing of this implicitness however, influencing the way in which shape engenders itself, so that the transition also has to be made within existence. It is as the result of this transition that shape is engendered. A return is made to the primality therefore, although this now appears as being engendered. Consequently, this return is at the same time a progressive transition, and the chemical process therefore contains in its Notion the transition into the organic sphere. At first, we found process in the sphere of mechanics, as motion; then in the process of the elements, and now in the process of individualized matter'.
- 'Philosophy of Nature'
It is not natural science or scientific objectivism that is complained about in ‘Force and Understanding’ but rather arbitrary and occult models that are not truly grounded upon earth science for natural science has already made the turn to the naturalistic earth model.
'The law is thereby present in a twofold manner: once, as law in which the differences are expressed as independent moments; and also in the form of a simple withdrawal in to itself which again can be called Force, but in the sense not of a Force that is driven back into itself, but Force as such, or the Notion of Force, an abstraction which absorbs the differences themselves of what attracts and what is attracted. In this sense, simple electricity, e.g., is Force; but the expression of difference falls within the law; this difference is positive and negative electricity. In the case of the motion of falling, Force is the simple factor, gravity, whose law is that the magnitudes of the different moments of the motion, the time elapsed and the space traversed, are related to one another as root and square. Electricity itself is not difference per se, or is not in its essence the dual essence of positive and negative electricity; hence, it is usually said that it has the law of this mode of being, and, too, that it has the property of expressing itself in this way. It is true that this property is the essential and sole property of this Force, or that it belongs to it necessarily. But necessity here is an empty word; Force must, just because it must, duplicate itself in this way. Of course, given positive electricity, negative too is given in principle; for the positive is, only as related to a negative, or, the positive is in its own self the difference from itself; and similarly with the negative. But that electricity as such should divide itself in this way is not in itself a necessity. Electricity, as simple Force, is indifferent to its law-to be positive and negative; and if we call the former its Notion but the latter its being, then its Notion is indifferent to its being. It merely has this property, which just means that this property is not in itself necessary to it. This indifference is given another form when it is said that to be positive and negative belongs to the definition of electricity, and that this is simply its Notion and essence. In that case, its being would simply mean its actual existence. But that definition does not contain the necessity of its existence; it exists, either because we find it, i. e. its existence is not necessary at all, or else it exists through, or by means of, other Forces, i.e. its necessity is an external necessity. But, in basing this necessity on the determinateness of being through another, we relapse again into the plurality of specific laws which we have just left behind in order to consider law as law. It is only with law as law that we are to compare its Notion as Notion, or its necessity. But in all these forms, necessity has shown itself to be only an empty word'.
- 'Phenomenology of Spirit'
The new movement of science is to return to totality which is to say to the earth as the basis of scientific experience and magnetism has a special function in this regard, it demonstrates how the whole earth is shaped and also the direction that the concept should follow and that direction is to form distinctions in the earth’s constitution.
'The distinction that is present here is, however, the determination of specific gravity; the poles are of various specific weights. There are also electrical divisions, and chemical, etc. …This is above all else the occupation of physicists, namely, to investigate and present the identity of the concept as the identity of the appearances. The variation of the poles is therefore a delineation of a universal determination'.
- 'The Jena System III'
Physics is in effect showing the development and direction of the concept and physicists have returned to the philosophical understanding of the whole replacing abstract conjectural models of how nature works, their endeavours finding favour with Hegel. Previously the magnet might have been approached through seeing how a needle is affected by loadstone but now that the entire earth is viewed as a magnet one acquires a better appreciation for the true fluid dynamic of magnetic force and hence we can see how the rigidity of the earth’s mass arises from the suppression of its fluidity, it is the force of magnetism that provides tone (Ton) to matter.
'The magnet moves itself further. Its essence is the universal self-resting total dimensionality of fluidity inwardly extinguishing itself, in which it has tone within itself. Nonetheless, the movement of the magnet is something external, insofar as even its negativity does not yet have a real substantial side, or the moment of totality is not yet free.
- 'The Jena System III'
Surge o felix anima!
In the earth the metals and crystals demonstrate the structure of the magnetic lines:
‘The lines of the crystal constitute this indifference; one can be separated from another and the lines remain, but they have absolute significance only in connection to another’ The purpose of the universal magnet is to form these lines in the earth’s crust and to indicate that the inner earth, the core, is the source of the force. ‘The purpose [of the lines] is this unity and absolute significance’. The magnetic forces that have shaped the whole of the earth are, however, also responsible for shaping its parts, and for Hegel the bones of the earth are the rocks, especially metals and crystals, that should be seen as formed through force. This is the way the parts of the earth are formed due to the total effect of magnetism on the whole body. Internal cohesion expresses itself externally as our globe that has a rigid, hard crust.
The composition of the earth is externally presented in the physicists’ understanding of the magnetic globe but Hegel turns the question of the body’s composition back to its internal unity or that which accounts for the gravity (Schwere) of the whole and he observes that this question takes us back to light and its absorption in dark, cold matter and in this absorption light warms the minerals. In this warmth light is present '... as the forceful determinate existence or the pure material force which constitutes the moments of substance - pure chemical stuff’. This ‘pure material force’ is caloric matter (Wärme) and light is what brings warmth to matter and thus matter to substance, that is to say, to its genuine actuality as existing on its own account and the effect of light is an internal force, and chemistry investigates it and this is why the section on ‘Chemistry’ reveals the true substance of things to be caloric matter.
We can see why such an account of formation in the natural philosophy is important for the Phenomenology, the Naturephilosophie of 1805-6 was written with the Phenomenology in mind the Phenomenology is the introduction to it and it is to be expected that at least some sections of the Phenomenology would approach the question of how the natural world is formed internally, indeed in Hegel's ‘Self-Advertisement’ for his courses he lists the volumes of the 'System of Science': vol. 1, the 'Phenomenology of Spirit'; vol. 2, the Logic, and Philosophies of Nature and Spirit and the Phenomenology was written in part as a recollection of his real philosophy and the development of the concept there as a concept of the self that is connecting itself to world has to include nature within the development or else there would be no such entities and no unity between them.
The sections of the Phenomenology that specifically deal with the natural world occur 'Force and Understanding', 'Observing Nature', 'Truth and Certainty of Reason’. ‘Force and Understanding’ concerns our conception of the natural world as a whole wherein is discussed the manner whereby natural philosophers think of the material substratum, what concepts they use, and what natural laws are formed, and the treatment of nature there is a recollection of his treatment in the Naturphilosophie, it is the same concept with the same references. In ‘Force and Understanding’ the two central phenomena which bridge nature and Spirit are magnetism and electricity (see above passage) and the reason why these phenomena are emphasized in the Phenomenology is explained in the ‘Formation and Chemistry’ section of his Naturphilosophie because within these phenomena caloric matter puts in an appearance as the agent of attraction that accounts for shape.
'Svatá Kateřina, patronka filozofů', Karel Škréta Šotnovsky of Závořice, (1610 – 1674)
'As total individuality, body in its immediacy is quiescent totality. It is therefore a form of the spatial assemblage of material being, and initially therefore, it constitutes a further form of mechanism. Shape is thus the material mechanism of individuality, which is now unconditioned and free in its determining. It is the body which is determined by the activity of immanent and developed form, not only in the specific mode of its interior consistence, but also in its external limitation in space. It is in this way that form itself is made manifest, and shows itself as something more than a characteristic of the resistance offered to an alien force'.
'Addition. Formerly, being-in-self only displayed itself through an external impetus and the corresponding reaction. Here on the contrary, form manifests itself neither through external force, nor as the destruction of materiality. The body has a concealed and tacit geometer within it, which as form is all-pervading, and which, without impulse, organizes it both externally and internally. This interior and exterior limitation is necessary to individuality, as is the surface of the body, which is limited by its form. The body is sealed off from others, and displays its specific determinateness in its quiescent subsistence, independently of external influence. The crystal is certainly not mechanically compounded; nevertheless, mechanism is resumed here as an individual factor, for this is precisely the sphere of the quiescent subsistence of extrinsicality, despite the relation of the parts being determined by immanence of form. That which is shaped in this way is withdrawn from gravity and can grow upwards for example. It is possible to observe the thoroughgoing reticulation of natural crystals. We do not yet find soul here as we find it in life however, because the individual here is not yet distinct from itself. It is this distinctness which constitutes the difference between inorganic and organic being. Individuality is not yet subjectivity; if it were, the infinite form which is differentiated within itself and holds together its differentiation, would also be for itself. This first occurs in sentient being; here however, individuality is still immersed within matter; it is not yet free, it merely is'.
- 'Phenomenology of Nature'
Chemistry is the science of material essence but the presentation of its concept occurs as a syllogism determining all natural processes. Chemistry has three moments:
'a) shape in respect to caloric matter, b) caloric matter, [that is] its internal determinacy; and c) shape, which later is cohesion; initially it is where caloric matter becomes real according to its elastic fluidity, or [where] temperature becomes the determinate existence, and thus caloric matter becomes the object that is not divided from references to sensation...'
- 'The Jena System III'
Chemistry is not simply an empirical science it is the natural philosophy that looks to the reactive processes underlying material formation, it seeks to discover that which cannot be discovered through the ordinary sense qualities of the body, even as it accounts for our sensation of them and there is a commitment here to the principle that the cohesion of the earth’s body and the observation of qualities can only be explained through caloric matter which is responsible for the specific gravitational pull of the poles. ‘Das Wärme ist durch das Princip der Cohäsion das sich in sich selbst bewegende, dem die Bewegung weder mehr ein Fremdes noch Innres ist. Seine Bewegung in der Gestaltung hat daher die Form daß das Warme zu sich selbst hinzutritt, als allgemeine zum Besondern, als freyes zum Bestimmten – (wie das Schwere zum Schweren)’.
System III is proposed hot upon the heels of one of the great controversies in modern chemistry namely whether or not there exists the element phlogiston, caloric matter is typically the other name for phlogiston, hence Hege in his explication is drawing upon an inaccurate description of a process that was already outmoded several years before he composed his treatises knowing phlogiston to have been refuted but persisting in the language of phlogiston in order to describe the basis of chemistry. But he has his reasons. Joseph Priestly, (1733 - 1804), whose work ultimately led to the refutation of phlogiston, defended its existence and necessity in natural philosophy most notably in 'The Doctrine of Phlogiston and the Decomposition of Water' which sounds like a riveting read.
Light is the principle element for internal action, it conveys warmth to cold celestial matter, and caloric matter is the stuff that light has conveyed to inert matter, it is supposed to be that which accounts for attraction and ultimately for cohesion among material particles and there has to be some kind of energy at the atomic level which is the energy that light gives to matter and such particles of energy are called caloric matter albeit there is no real way of describing it and as with most scientists the belief is that the effects tell us something about causes hence the effects of chemical actions that are measured by temperature, pressure, rates of combustion, and so on are looked into to. Within the internal essence of matter, that is to say within chemical interactions themselves, there is a duality, there is darkness and light, there is cold and heat, and this duality accounts for the two kinds of pull that naturally occur in nature, the centripetal and centrifugal tendencies, albeit they are occurring internally in the chemical reactions of the body.
How matter interacts with this duality can best be explained through the work of chemists on the gases in particular Claude Berthollet, (1748 - 1822) and Dalton have contributed most to Hegelian understanding of matter as essentially porous, fluid, capable of interpenetration, and when compressed the gases form rectilinear shapes, not unlike crystals, and produce heat. Hegel names Dalton and Berthollet in System III and there are evident allusions to Dalton’s work on the nature of mixed gases in ‘Force and Understanding’, hence caloric matters are the particles of energy that cause interactions that stabilize atomic relationships and bring forth stable molecules and it is their electrical charge that produces magnetic force.
The interaction itself by which the fluidity of matter becomes stable and takes on a shape Hegel calls the Process of which there are two kinds, the first, which is the subject of chemistry as empirical science, is the real process and it examines the constitution of the elements, their weight, their relative stability, and it treats them as molecules that compose the everyday substances of perception, and the second kind is of especial interest as it demonstrates a divine presence in the planet. It is the ideal process that deals with combinations of ideal elements, earth, air, water, and fire, and the ideal process comes from the real process, it is not actually a different system but a different appearance of the real interactions. Chemistry as the empirical science is only concerned with how the parts work, what, for example, will occur if hydrogen is combined with oxygen when ignited. The ideal process is not about how the parts work or what they form when ignited but what is occurring for the whole when all real processes are occurring continuously or to put it another way this second process is about how the whole works and what will happen to the earth when all real interactions are occurring continuously.
Skinny Puppy: The Process: Candle
The ideal elements are analogies for global interactions, for example the element earth is not simply the planet or the ground we walk upon, it is by this analogy the combination of warmth and cold parts of matter that form the solids of the crust and these solids are in reality rocks, sand, and soil, and the earth is the symbol for the whole of them, and similarly the element air is not merely the layers of gases that form the atmosphere, it is in accordance with this metaphor the combination of warm and cold elements that absorb moisture from the sea, form the intercontinental winds, and thereby that which brings forth the changes in climate, temperature, and seasons. In the Phenomenology the ideal elements take precedence over the real elements for they are what we first observe and they form the planet’s biosphere and in the absence of them there would be no life and they account for the colour of water and sky, the seasonal temperatures in the temperate zones, and the rain that nourishes the soil and dissolves the rocks which release nutrients for plant growth.
For ordinary natural consciousness these are the elements that count as the show of appearances but they are not the real appearance of atomic unities of chemistry that constitute the actuality of appearing things, ordinary consciousness is aware of the show (Schein) but only scientific consciousness is aware of the real appearance (Erscheinung) and the distinction appears in ‘Force and Understanding’ and such common elements will account for the symbolic manifestations of Divine Providence in reflective consciousness. Consider the literature on nature before Immanuel Kant such as Thomas Burnet’s 'Sacred Theology of Earth', 1681, Johann Albert Fabricius’s 'Hydro-Theology', 1734, and Jean Robinet’s 'Of Nature', 1763, and note that the common elements are thought to represent divine handiwork. Hegel quotes Robinet’s treatise on natural philosophy particularly to the mixing of metals that forms natural composites in Phenomenology with additional allusions to this work elsewhere, indeed, social consciousness is formed by mixing together the nobility and baseness of class consciousness as he explains in the ‘Culture’ section of the chapter ‘Spirit’.
Such earlier occult writings are acknowledged in the Phenomenology but they are seen as ideal elements representing subjectivity in nature and in System III he spoke of the water that rents itself or light as pure subject as if he is speaking of a living thing, not because he believes that an element is alive rather he wishes to demonstrate that subjectivity is already present in nature, it is there in the wind, sky, light, and night that make the planet inhabitable. Chemistry as the study of real processes, parts outside of parts, does not reflect upon the connection between the chemical reaction that forms H20 and the existence of warm blue water, it is not the chemical compound but the blue water that is the common element for living things including Spirit because all life is water based.
The real and ideal processes belong to one whole and this is the total process which is where shape re-emerges in the form of substance. ‘Die Substanz ist die vom Lichte durchdrunge Gestalt’. 'Total Process', the last section before ‘Organism’, contains Hegel’s theory of how through the real and ideal processes the earth and moon are formed, the shape of substance involves sublunary phenomena because only this Shape consists of the unique cosmic process that leads directly towards life. Hegel does not belief that life occurs beyond the earth and his treatment of this section concerns the uniqueness of the earth among all planets since it retains the warmth of the sun within the internal cohesion of the planet and this internal warmth yields the necessary energy for life.
'Fillide Melandroni as Catherine of Alexandria', c. 1598, Caravaggio
In Hegel’s account of Total Process the earth starts off as a dark cold crystal that is warmed by sunlight and the warming breaks down the rigidity of the crystal, releasing gases and water vapour which form an oxygenated atmosphere and the gases expand and interact with each other hence they compose the sufficient condition for wind and rain. The water carried across the face of the earth by the wind returns to the mineral earth and begins to dissolve the surface of the crystal and the erosion fills the seas with minerals and in the sea the first organic substances are formed. Each stage of the earth’s formation is marked by the predominance of one of the ideal elements, the epoch of the sun’s warmth is marked by fire, the epoch of the expansion by which gases are released forming the atmosphere is marked by air, and so on, and even though the Total Process is real in terms of actual physical alterations on the earth the more significant features of it are ideal because they demonstrate a turn towards life and subjectivity, and upon our planet being finally formed as the fertile earth from which flora and fauna evolve the universal individual or Self has also emerged. This refers to Spirit that is being born from the earth’s cycle of ideal elements.
The fertile earth ... how does it becomes vitalized? Its initial condition posits a lifeless rock but the vitalizing activity comes through electricity and the earth is itself a bipolar cell in the great battery of the solar system, this is an adaptation of contemporary discoveries at the University of Jena. Johann Ritter’s. (1776 - 1810), proto-battery was first constructed in Jena in 1801 composed of dozens of cups whereby each one had either a base or acidic solution and in each cup Ritter experimented with different metals and minerals such as gold, silver, and zinc to see how an electrical current could be established by either wires or foil running from cup to cup. Hegel thinking through Ritter’s experiments thought of the earth itself as composed of cells of metals mixing with acidic or base fluids producing electrical currents that flow among them. Reporting on his experiments with the voltaic pile Ritter wrote:
'. . . so at present it has been shown that, as was earlier discovered as a possibility, in all bodies there resides a conflict where their electricities yield an inverted order; these bodies in this manner picture a complete inverted series—what previously in one was the most positive body becomes now the most negative, which inverts the series or order precisely because it is completely inverted. . . what in the first external electrical process was the 'positive' side of the series now in the result is the second inward [side] that becomes 'negative', but what was previously the 'negative side' now becomes 'positive'.’
- 'The Electrical System of the Body'
He points to the same shifts of polarity in hydrolysis and also in magnetism and Hegel uses Ritter’s example of electrical inversion in ‘Force and Understanding’. Not only is the earth thus composed but it is part of a cosmic electrical interaction or is a kind of solar battery and electrical atmospheric discharges originally came about through the relation between the earth’s crystalline structure and the crystals of the comets and the moon. ‘Im Processe aber, oder an der realen Erde sind sie nicht selbständige Wirklichkeiten, sondern sie ist das Werden zum Monde und zum Kometen; diese getrennten Selbständigkeiten bleiben in ihrer Sphäre eingeschlossen. Sie sind nur gespannt gegeneinander, oder sie als diese ganze Individuum ist es, das nur in der Form der Krystalls, und der Kometen wird. (Ihre Wirklichkeiten sind gesannt; d. h. sie sind im elektrischen Verhältnisse gegeneinander)’.
The electrical relationship is explained thus: there is a friction due to the reflection of light and the expansion of the gases among many celestial bodies and this friction produces electrical discharge and the earth is a cell in this exchange and it is a level of the solar voltaic pile having the sun at the centre continuously generating light particles. Cosmic electricity has the power to dissolve the crystalline structure of the earth and it as part of a greater system allows the free exchange of current to pass along it and this changing current may account for the intensity of the thunderstorms and the exploding meteorite showers. The solar system constitutes an open system of reciprocating electrical forces.
In ‘Total Process’ the earth is not itself a perfect system. it is only a part of the cosmic whole, in terms of its own totality the earth begins as a lifeless mass but develops its own cycle due to its position in relation to the sun and other cosmic bodies, its cycle arising from the cosmic electrical current becomes closed in the sense that it will perpetuate itself and the earth becomes a kind of self-recharging battery. Magnetism is generated from the electrical currents and the tension between the opposing poles centred at the middle of the earth accounts for earth recharging itself and the earth process has the potential for life, it will reach its apex only with the cycle of Spirit in the development of the human species. Total Process brings the dialectical account to the fruition of a planet that has the potential for life as Hegel explains: 'It is perfectly actualized matter. Its absolute actuality is here light, or pure subject, that is, the qualitative simplicity of essence, or soul qua life'. Once pure subject or soul qua life is conceptually present Total Process shifts towards self-determination and the earth’s world-body begins to acquire sentient features, it has colour, tactile qualities, and odour. 'Die Natur welche zuerst sich als ihren Sinn der Gefühl entwickelte, entwickelte itzt ihren Sinn des Gesichts, von diesem geht sie zum Geruche und Geschmack über, und kehrt in dem Gehöre endliche in sich selbst zurück'.
Physical nature having sentient qualities does not imply that the earth itself is alive rather it is the prologue to life which is to say the first analogue in the ideal relations that result in sentient life forms, and what had been its inert qualities are now described in terms of their significance for sentience. 'The determined physical body is therefore a colour...colour is in itself dissolved gravity' which is to say individual sentient beings have their living capacities as a consequence of nature’s fecundity to produce colours, shapes, and odours and the conclusion here has significance for the Phenomenology for chapter two contains a thesis that the thing is nothing other than its properties and from the perspective of the Naturphilosophie we can see why this claim is taken to be true as it relates to sentience albeit a thing is only sustained through its chemical properties. Later in the chapter the thing is dissolved into the indifferent medium composed of countless free matters whereby the materialism of atomic structure is taken on board and in chapter three the atomic structure is bonded together by forces of attraction and repulsion due to magnetism and the phenomenological odyssey from chapter two to three is a recollection of understanding matter as presented in Total Process thereby anticipating the ‘Self-Certainty’ chapter whereupon individuated life emerges.
'Saint Catherine of Alexandria Dominating the Emperor Maxentius', Claudio Coello, (1642 – 1693)
Dedicated to the One, our love is a process, a thrilling and active interchange, we learn and we grow together and we thrive with a passion that never wanes ....
Every night in my dreams
I see you, I feel you
That is how I know you go on
Far across the distance
And spaces between us
You have come to show you go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on
Once more, you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
Love can touch us one time
And last for a lifetime
And never let go 'til we're gone
Love was when I loved you
One true time I'd hold to
In my life, we'll always go on
Near, far, wherever you are
I believe that the heart does go on (why does the heart go on?)
Once more, you open the door
And you're here in my heart
And my heart will go on and on
You're here, there's nothing I fear
And I know that my heart will go on
We'll stay forever this way
You are safe in my heart and
My heart will go on and on
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Coming up next:
The Process continues ...
To be continued ...
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Skinny Puppy: 'The Process':
It may stop but it never ends .......