‘Like a sunbeam’
(Anonymous)
Like a sunbeam, mild and serene,
upon placid waves seeks repose,
whilst within the sea's deep clutches
a tempest lies hidden:
So a blithe and calm smile sometimes
lets one's lips exude contentment,
midst the hidden sufferings of a wounded heart.
‘Come raggio di sol’
Come raggio di sol mite e sereno,
Sovre placidi flutti si riposa,
Mentre del mare nel profondo seno
Sta la tempesta ascosa:
Così riso talor gaio e pacato
Di contento, di gioia un labbro infiora,
Mentre nel suo segreto il cor piagato
S'angoscia e si martora.
'Italian - Portrait of a Woman as Cleopatra', unknown artist, second half of 16th century.
MESSENGER:
Good madam, hear me.
CLEOPATRA:
Well, go to, I will.
But there’s no goodness in thy face- if Antony
Be free and healthful, so tart a favour
To trumpet such good tidings! If not well,
Thou shouldst come like a Fury crowned with snakes,
Not like a formal man.
MESSENGER:
Will ’t please you hear me?
CLEOPATRA:
I have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak’st.
Yet if thou say Antony lives, ⌜is⌝ well,
Or friends with Caesar or not captive to him,
I’ll set thee in a shower of gold and hail
Rich pearls upon thee.
MESSENGER:
Madam, he’s well.
CLEOPATRA:
Well said.
MESSENGER:
And friends with Caesar.
CLEOPATRA:
Th’ art an honest man.
MESSENGER:
Caesar and he are greater friends than ever.
CLEOPATRA:
Make thee a fortune from me.
MESSENGER:
But yet, madam -
CLEOPATRA:
I do not like 'But yet'. It does allay
The good precedence. Fie upon 'But yet'.
'But yet' is as a jailer to bring forth
Some monstrous malefactor. Prithee, friend,
Pour out the pack of matter to mine ear,
The good and bad together: he’s friends with Caesar,
In state of health, thou say’st, and, thou say’st, free.
MESSENGER:
Free, madam, no. I made no such report.
He’s bound unto Octavia.
CLEOPATRA:
For what good turn?
MESSENGER:
For the best turn i’ th’ bed.
CLEOPATRA:
I am pale, Charmian.
MESSENGER:
Madam, he’s married to Octavia.
CLEOPATRA:
The most infectious pestilence upon thee!
[Strikes him down]
- William Shakespeare, (1564 – 1616), 'Antony and Cleopatra', Act 2, Scene 5
['For what good turn? ... For the best turn i’ th’ bed'. Funniest moment in Shakespeare. It always makes me laugh 😂]
Anyway, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770 - 1831), 'The Science of Logic'. Action and Reaction
The Understanding proposes that Substance has two natures - passive and active. Passive Substance (Substrate) is for another, not for itself. It is indifferent if some outside will designates it Cause or Effect. For this reason, passive Substance is confronted by the power of accidentality as itself substantial activity.
'Causality is a presupposing activity. The cause is conditioned; it is a negative reference to itself as a presupposed, as an external other which in itself, but only in itself, is causality itself. This other is, as we have seen, the substantial identity into which formal causality passes over, which now has determined itself as against this causality as its negative.Or it is the same as the substance of the causal relation, but a substance which is confronted by the power of accidentality as itself substantial activity. – It is the passive substance. – Passive is that which is immediate, or which exists-in-itself but is not also for itself – pure being or essence in just this determinateness of abstract selfidentity. – Confronting the passive substance is the negatively self-referring substance, the efficient substance. It is cause inasmuch as in determinate causality it has restored itself out of the effect through the negation of itself – a reflected being which in its otherness or as an immediate behaves essentially as a positing activity and through its negation mediates itself. Here, therefore, causality no longer has a substrate in which it inheres; it is not a determination of form as against this identity but is itself substance, or in other words, causality alone is at the origin. – The substrate is the passive substance which causality has presupposed for itself'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
Active Substance stands over against Passive Substance. Active Substance is Cause that has restored itself through the negation of itself. It is a reflected being - a positing activity, originative of causal relations. It acts on itself as on an other, on the passive substance.
'This cause now acts, for it is the negative power over itself; at the same time it is its own presupposition; thus it acts upon itself as upon an other, upon the passive substance. – Hence, it first sublates the otherness of this substance and returns in it back to itself; second, it determines this same substance, posits this sublation of its otherness or the substance’s turning back into itself as a determinateness. This positedness, because it is at the same time the substance’s turning back into itself, is at first its effect. But conversely, because as presupposing it determines itself as its other, it then posits the effect in this other, in the passive substance. – Or again, because the passive substance is itself this double – namely a self-subsistent other, and at the same time something presupposed and already implicitly identical with the efficient cause – because of this, the action of the passive substance is therefore itself double. It is at once both the sublation of its determinateness, namely of its condition, or the sublation of the self-subsistence of the passive substance; and also, in sublating its identity as it sublates this substance, the pre-supposing of itself, that is, the positing or supposing of itself as other. – Through this last moment, the passive substance is preserved; that first sublation of it appears in this respect at the same time also in this way, namely that only some determinations are sublated in it, and its identity in the effect with the efficient cause occurs in it externally'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
Active and Passive Substance
This act, Hegel says, is double. First, it sublates the other and returns to itself; it announces, I am not passive. But its activity reveals a dependence
on otherness. Its being is therefore in passivity. Hegel equates the interaction of Active and Passive Substance with violence. When Active Substance announces that it is not passive, it sublates the self-subsistence of the passive substance. This first sublating of it also appears in relation to the substance in such a manner that only some determinations in it are sublated and the identity of the passive substance with the active substance in the effect takes place externally in it. That is to say, Active Substance announces that it is not Passive Substance and thereby sublates it. This sublation requires that the passive other be determined. But, of the many determinations of Active Substance, only some are sublated. Active Substance says, I am not that passive thing. In so saying, many passive things are unsublated, for the time being. For us, however, we know that Active Substance is Passive Substance, and negation of Passive Substance is self-negation. There is an identity of Passive and Active Substance, but this is only an external reflection at this point.
The sublation of Passive Substance is violence itself.
'To this extent it suffers violence. – Violence is the appearance of power, or power as external. But power is something external only in so far as in its action, that is, in the positing of itself, the causal substance is at the same time a presupposing, that is, posits itself as sublated. Conversely, the act of violence is therefore equally an act of power. The violent cause acts only on an other which it presupposes; its effect on it is its negative self-reference, or the manifestation of itself. The passive is the self-subsistent which is only a posited, something internally fractured – an actuality which is condition, though a condition that now is in its truth as an actuality that is only a possible, or, conversely, an in-itself that is only the determinateness of the in-itself, is only passive. To that which suffers violence, therefore, not only is it possible to do violence, but violence must be done to it; that which has dominion over an other, only has it because its power is that of the other, a power which in that dominion manifests both itself and the other. Through violence the passive substance is only posited as what it is in truth, namely, that because it is the simple positive or the immediate substance, for that very reason it is only something posited; the 'pre-' that it has as condition is the reflective shine of immediacy that the efficient causality strips off from it'
- 'The Science of Logic'
['pre - ' : das Voraus, beforehand}
Violence is the manifestation of power, or power as external. As an act of power, violence is visited only on an other presupposed by itself. Violence is the proof of Active Substance. Passive Substance proves itself passive by submitting to violence. Therefore not only is it possible to do violence to that which suffers it, but also violence must be done to it.
Passive substance therefore only receives its due through the action on it of another power.
'Passive substance, therefore, is only given its due by the action on it of another power. What it loses is the immediacy it had, the substantiality alien to it. What comes to it as an alien something, namely that it is determined as a positedness, is its own determination. – But now in being determined in its positedness, or in its own determination, the result is that it is not sublated but rather that it only rejoins itself and in its being determined is, therefore, an originariness. – On the one hand, therefore, the passive substance is preserved or posited by the active, namely in so far as the latter sublates itself; but, on the other hand, it is the act of the passive substance itself to rejoin itself and thus to make itself into what is originary and a cause. The being posited by an other and its own becoming are one and the same'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
But this violence has its positive side. In it, Passive Substance loses its immediacy. It becomes a positedness, in which it shares an identity with Active Substance. This identity proves that violence is always self-violence. The (Conditioned Causality) externality of this violent power is an illusion. This is passivity's scant revenge. When Active Substance shows its identity with its other, Passive Substance is converted into cause.
'Now, because the passive substance has been converted into a cause, it follows, first, that the effect is sublated in it; therein consists its reaction in general. As passive substance, it is in itself as positedness; also, positedness has been posited in it by the other substance, namely in so far as it received its effect within it. Its reaction contains, therefore, a twofold aspect. For one, what it is in itself is posited. And two, what it is as posited displays itself as its in-itself; it is positedness in itself, hence through the other substance it receives an effect within; but, conversely, this positedness is its own in-itself, it is thus its own effect, it itself displays itself as a cause'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
'This is the decisive move that takes us forward to the concept: for it introduces the strict identity of the positing and posited moments', explains Stephen Houlgate. This conversion Hegel calls Reaction.
'Viola and the Countess', 1859, F. R. Pickersgill
OLIVIA:
How does he love me?
VIOLA:
With adorations, fertile tears,
With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.
OLIVIA:
Your lord does know my mind. I cannot love him.
Yet I suppose him virtuous, know him noble,
Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;
In voices well divulged, free, learned, and valiant,
And in dimension and the shape of nature
A gracious person. But yet I cannot love him.
He might have took his answer long ago.
VIOLA:
If I did love you in my master’s flame,
With such a suff’ring, such a deadly life,
In your denial I would find no sense.
I would not understand it.
OLIVIA:
Why, what would you?
VIOLA:
Make me a willow cabin at your gate
And call upon my soul within the house,
Write loyal cantons of contemnèd love
And sing them loud even in the dead of night,
Hallow your name to the reverberate hills
And make the babbling gossip of the air
Cry out 'Olivia!' O, you should not rest
Between the elements of air and earth
But you should pity me.
......
OLIVIA (after Viola has left):
Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions, and spirit
Do give thee fivefold blazon. Not too fast! Soft, soft!
Unless the master were the man. How now?
Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
....
Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections
With an invisible and subtle stealth
To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.—
....
I do I know not what, and fear to find
Mine eye too great a flatterer for my mind.
Fate, show thy force. Ourselves we do not owe.
What is decreed must be, and be this so.
Unless the master were the man. How now?
Even so quickly may one catch the plague?
- William Shakespeare, 'Twelfth Night', act 1, Scene 5
There are two outcomes from the promotion of Passive Substance into Reaction. First, Passive Substance was supposed to be an immediacy, but it is now revealed to be a positedness. Cause always acts on an other, and this other is covertly in charge of the operation. Immediate passivity is now the real Cause.
Action and Reaction (Conditioned Causality)
The second outcome stems from the fact that the passive other on which reaction works is itself active. The active therefore becomes the passive. We have the typical dilemma of Dialectical Reason. Neither of the extremes can identify what they are on their own. Since the two extremes, then, are both passive and active, any distinction between them has already been sublated.
'At first, the reciprocity of action takes on the form of a reciprocal causality of substances that are presupposed and that condition each other; each is with respect to the other both active and passive substance. Since the two are thus passive and active at once, their difference is thereby already sublated; it is a totally transparent reflective shine; they are substances only in being the identity of the active and the passive. The reciprocity of action is itself, therefore, only a still empty way and manner, and all that is still needed is merely the external bringing together of what is already there, both in itself and as posited. First of all, it is no longer substrates that are referred to each other but substances; in the movement of conditional causality, the still left over presupposed immediacy has been sublated, and what conditions the causing activity is only an influence, or its own passivity. But this influence, moreover, does not come from another substance originating it but from precisely a causality which is conditioned by influence, or one which is mediated. This at first external factor that accrues to the cause and constitutes the side of its passivity is therefore mediated through the causality itself, is produced through its own activity and is, consequently, a passivity posited by its own very activity. – Causality is conditioned and conditioning. As conditioning, it is passive; but it is equally so as conditioned. This conditioning or passivity is the negation of the cause through itself in that it makes itself essentially into an effect and is cause precisely for that reason. Reciprocity of action is, therefore, only causality itself; the cause does not just have an effect but, in the effect, refers as cause back to itself'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
Compare this with Cause/Effect in Cause and Effect. There, Effect turned into Cause of some new Effect. But it did not react against that cause, but posited its effect again in another substance, giving rise to the progress to the infinity of effects.
'Second, the reaction is directed at the first efficient cause. For the effect which the hitherto passive substance sublates within itself is precisely the effect of that other cause. But a cause has its substantial actuality only in its effect; inasmuch as this effect is sublated, so is also the causal substantiality of the other cause. This happens first in itself through itself, in that the cause makes itself into an effect; its negative determination disappears in this identity and the cause becomes passive; and, second, it happens through the hitherto passive, but now reacting substance, which sublates its effect. – Now in determinate causality the substance acted upon becomes a cause, for it acts against the positing of an effect in it. But it did not react against the cause of that effect but posited its effect rather in another substance, and thus there arose the progression to infinity of effects – for here the cause is only implicitly identical with itself in the effect, and hence, on the one hand, it expires into an immediate identity as it comes to rest, but, on the other hand, it revives in another substance. – In conditioned causality, on the contrary, the cause refers back to itself in the effect, for the latter is as a condition, as a presupposition, its other, and its act is therefore just as much a becoming as a positing and sublating of the other'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
In Action and Reaction (or Conditioned Causality),"the cause is self-related in the effect.
Active Substance more clearly works on its own self and is thereby just as much a becoming as a positing and sublating of the other. When Active Substance causes something, it receives its effect back into itself as reaction, thus reappears as cause. Instead of generating the infinite regress, action is bent round and becomes an action that returns into itself, an infinite reciprocal action.
'Further, causality behaves in all this as passive substance; but, as we have seen, the latter becomes causal through the effect it incurs. That first cause, the one which acts first and receives its effect back into itself as a reaction, thus comes up again as a cause, whereby the activity which in finite causality runs into the bad infinite progression is bent around and becomes an action that returns to itself, an infinite reciprocal action'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
It is unclear whether Charles Taylor sees the point that Cause acts only upon itself and is therefore also Effect - a Reciprocal Action. He thinks Hegel 'throws in interaction' in order to give the appearance that chapter 18 coheres with Kant's analogies of experience. In fact, Reciprocity is exactly the right note for Hegel to sound. Taylor also has Hegel confessing ''interaction' to be a rather inexact term' citing from the 'Encyclopaedia Logic'. But Hegel does no such thing. He simply announces that Reciprocal Action is not a satisfactory stopping place for the Logic not that Reciprocity is thrown in.
'Reciprocal action is the relationship of causality posited in its complete development, and hence it is to this relationship that reflection tends to have recourse when the consideration of things from the standpoint of causality proves to be unsatisfactory because of the infinite progression discussed above. In the case of historical studies, for instance, the question discussed first is whether the character and the customs of a people are the cause of its constitution and laws, or whether, conversely, they are the effect of the constitution. Then the discussion moves on to the interpreting of both terms, character and customs on the one hand, and constitution and laws on the other, from the standpoint of reciprocal action, so that the cause is also the effect, in the same relation in which it is cause, and the effect is at the same time the cause, in the same relation in which it is effect. Or again, the same thing happens in the study of nature, and especially in that of the living organism, where single organs and functions likewise turn out to stand to one another in the relationship of reciprocal action. Of course, reciprocal action certainly is the proximate truth of the relationship of cause and effect, and it stands on the threshold of the Concept, so to speak; but, just for this reason, we must not be satisfied to employ this relationship, when what is at issue is conceptually comprehensive cognition. If we stop at considering a given content just from the point of view of reciprocal action, we are in fact proceeding quite unconceptually; we are then dealing just with a dry fact, and the requirement of mediation, which is what is at issue when we start to use the relationship of causality, still remains unsatisfied. Looked at more closely, the use of the relationship of reciprocal action is unsatisfactory because, instead of being able to count as an equivalent of the Concept, this relationship itself still requires to be comprehended. And comprehension comes when its two sides are not left as something immediately given, but (as we have shown in the two preceding paragraphs) when they are recognised as the moments of a third, a higher [whole], which is, in fact, precisely the Concept. To consider the customs of the Spartans, for example, as the effect of their constitution, and then, conversely, to regard the constitution as the effect of their customs, may be correct so far as it goes. But this interpretation does not give us any ultimate satisfaction, because neither the constitution nor the customs of this people are in fact comprehended by this approach'.
- 'The Encyclopaedia Logic'
'Imogen', 1888, Herbert Gustave Schmalz
PISANIO:
[aside]
What shall I need to draw my sword? The paper
Hath cut her throat already. No, ’tis slander,
Whose edge is sharper than the sword, whose tongue
Outvenoms all the worms of Nile, whose breath
Rides on the posting winds and doth belie
All corners of the world. Kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons, nay, the secrets of the grave
his viperous slander enters.—What cheer, madam?
IMOGEN:
False to his bed? What is it to be false?
To lie in watch there and to think on him?
To weep ’twixt clock and clock? If sleep charge nature,
To break it with a fearful dream of him
And cry myself awake? That’s false to ’s bed, is it?
PISANIO:
Alas, good lady!
IMOGEN:
I false? Thy conscience witness! Iachimo,
Thou didst accuse him of incontinency.
Thou then looked’st like a villain. Now methinks
Thy favour’s good enough. Some jay of Italy,
Whose mother was her painting, hath betrayed him.
Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion,
And, for I am richer than to hang by th’ walls,
I must be ripped. To pieces with me! O,
Men’s vows are women’s traitors! All good seeming,
By thy revolt, O husband, shall be thought
Put on for villainy, not born where ’t grows,
But worn a bait for ladies.
PISANIO:
Good madam, hear me.
IMOGEN:
True honest men, being heard like false Aeneas,
Were in his time thought false, and Sinon’s weeping
Did scandal many a holy tear, took pity
From most true wretchedness. So thou, Posthumus,
Wilt lay the leaven on all proper men;
Goodly and gallant shall be false and perjured
From thy great fail.—Come, fellow, be thou honest;
Do thou thy master’s bidding. When thou seest him,
A little witness my obedience. Look,
I draw the sword myself.
[She draws Pisanio’s sword from its scabbard and hands it to him]
Take it, and hit
The innocent mansion of my love, my heart.
Fear not; ’tis empty of all things but grief.
Thy master is not there, who was indeed
The riches of it. Do his bidding; strike.
Thou mayst be valiant in a better cause,
But now thou seem’st a coward.
PISANIO:
[throwing down the sword]
Hence, vile instrument!
Thou shalt not damn my hand
- William Shakespeare, 'Cymbeline', Act 3, Scene 4
Reciprocity. In finite Cause and Effect, two Substances Reciprocal Action were actively related to each other, but they (Absolute Substance) were indifferent to the external attribution of Cause and Effect. The relation was merely mechanical. Mechanism consists in this externality of causality.
'In finite causality it is substances that actively relate to each other. Mechanism consists in this externality of causality, where the cause’s reflection in its effect into itself is at the same time a repelling being, or where, in the self-identity which the causal substance has in its effect, the substance is equally immediately external to itself and the effect is transposed into another substance. In reciprocity of action this mechanism is now sublated, for it contains first the disappearing of that original persistence of immediate substantiality; second, the coming to be of the cause, and hence originariness mediating itself with itself through its negation'.
Reciprocal Action (Absolute Substance)
In Reciprocity, mechanism is sublated. Reciprocity represents the vanishing of that original persistence of the immediate substantiality of a and c. It stands for originativeness and self-mediation. Reciprocal Action still distinguishes within itself two extremes, which are themselves free, and it distinguishes itself as the middle term distinct from the two sides. Michael Inwood describes the fault of Reciprocal Action in the following analogy: 'The items ... are conceived of as each having a nature which is independent of its relationship to the other. The nature of each item explains why it responds in the way that it does to the successive states of the other item. Each of two boxers, for example, makes movements - evasive, defensive, offensive and retaliatory - which are in part caused by the movements of the other. But equally each of the boxers is an entity with certain characteristics independent of his interaction with the other, characteristics which in part explain his responses to the other's movements. The course of the boxing-match is not therefore fully explained in terms of reciprocity'.
The identity of being and appearance is still a merely inner necessity.
'In the reciprocity of action, therefore, necessity and causality have disappeared; they contain both the immediate identity as combination and reference and the absolute substantiality of the differences, consequently their contingency, the original unity of substantial difference and therefore the absolute contradiction. Necessity is being, because being is; it is the unity of being with itself that has itself as ground, but, conversely, because this being has a ground, it is not being; it is simply and solely reflective shining, reference or mediation. Causality is this posited transition of original being, of cause, into reflective shine or mere positedness, and, conversely, of positedness into originariness; but the identity itself of being and reflective shine still is the inner necessity. This inwardness or this in-itself sublates the movement of causality; the result is that the substantiality of the sides that stand in relation is lost, and necessity unveils itself. Necessity does not come to be freedom by vanishing but in that its still only inner identity is manifested, and this manifestation is the identical movement immanent to the different sides, the immanent reflection of shine as shine. – Conversely, contingency thereby comes to be freedom at the same time, for the sides of necessity, which have the shape of independent, free actualities that do not reflectively shine into each other, are now posited as an identity, so that now these totalities of immanent reflection, in their differences, also shine as identical, in other words, they are also posited as only one and the same reflection'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
This inner necessity must be made express. The Understanding takes Reciprocity to denote passivity and aggressivity externally conjoined as the In-itself of Substance. This conjunction of the two Substances is merely the passivity of Substance showing through. Already passivity has proved to be the result of Substance's own activity. Passivity is the negation of Cause by Cause itself, which converts itself into passive Effect. Dialectical Reason therefore points out that the extremes are active, not passive. It is no longer substrates but substances that stand in relation to each other. Hegel calls this the being-for-self of Substance.
'Substance is the absolute, the actual in-and-for-itself: in itself, because it is the simple identity of possibility and actuality; absolute, because it is the essence containing all actuality and possibility within itself; for itself, because it is this identity as absolute power or absolutely self-referring negativity. – '
- 'The Science of Logic'
The active movement in Being-for-Self of Substance sublates the still remaining presupposed immediacy of the extremes. Active Substance is now Cause; it acts, that is, it now posits, whereas previously it only presupposed.
'The other moment is the being-for-itself or the power positing itself as self-referring negativity and thereby again sublating what it presupposes. – The active substance is cause; it acts; this means that it is now a positing, just as before it was a presupposing, that (a) power is also given the reflective shine of power, positedness also the reflective shine of positedness. What in the presupposition was the originary becomes in causality, by virtue of the reference to an other, what it is in itself. The cause brings about an effect. But it does so in another substance and it is now power with reference to an other; it thus appears as cause but is cause only by virtue of this appearing. – (b)2 The effect enters the passive substance and by virtue of it the latter now also appears as positedness, but is passive substance only in this positedness'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
Hegel's substance is 'not a Substance which is independently of what it does', explains Emil L. Fackenheim.
In-Itself of Substance
But, precisely because the extremes move, they are still conditioned by the passivity of being acted upon. Since this passivity is Cause's own being, Cause itself is passive. Cause acts upon itself and is therefore both conditioned and conditioning. In acting on itself, active Cause aggressively asserts, I am not passive. It therefore negates itself as passive and simultaneously converts itself into passive Effect. Cause has an Effect but also is the Effect. When this is realized, Causality has returned to its absolute Notion and has attained to the Notion itself. The Notion (der Begriff) - often translated as Concept as it is in the translation I am consulting but I am using Notion for the sake of the song below - is in the business of acting on itself and causing the manifestation of its own inner self.
'Causality has thereby returned to its absolute concept and has at the same time attained the concept itself. At first, it is real necessity, absolute self-identity in which the difference between it and the determinations referring to each other within it are substances, free actualities, over against one another. Necessity is in this way inner identity; causality is the manifestation of it in which its reflective shine of substantial otherness has been sublated, and necessity is elevated to freedom. – In the reciprocity of action, originative causality displays itself as arising from its negation, from passivity, and as passing away into it, as a becoming, but in such a way that this becoming is at the same time equally only shining; the transition into otherness is reflection-into-itself; negation, which is the ground of the cause, is its positive rejoining with itself'.
- The Science of Logic'
In its act of self-causation, where Cause produces Effect and Effect produces Cause, necessity is raised to freedom. This freedom has arisen from its self-negation - the negation of passivity. So freedom is properly active and positive, but it arises from the self-destruction of negative freedom, which can be identified with passivity - a passivity that is productive and originative of the active, free subject. When passivity passes away, true freedom comes into being. Becoming other is now revealed to be an illusion: the transition into an other is a reflection into itself; the negation, which is the ground of cause, is its positive union with itself.
In Notion, "necessity and causality have vanished.
'In the reciprocity of action, therefore, necessity and causality have disappeared; they contain both the immediate identity as combination and reference and the absolute substantiality of the differences, consequently their contingency, the original unity of substantial difference and therefore the absolute contradiction. Necessity is being, because being is; it is the unity of being with itself that has itself as ground, but, conversely, because this being has a ground, it is not being; it is simply and solely reflective shining, reference or mediation. Causality is this posited transition of original being, of cause, into reflective shine or mere positedness, and, conversely, of positedness into originariness; but the identity itself of being and reflective shine still is the inner necessity. This inwardness or this in-itself sublates the movement of causality; the result is that the substantiality of the sides that stand in relation is lost, and necessity unveils itself. Necessity does not come to be freedom by vanishing but in that its still only inner identity is manifested, and this manifestation is the identical movement immanent to the different sides, the immanent reflection of shine as shine. – Conversely, contingency thereby comes to be freedom at the same time, for the sides of necessity, which have the shape of independent, free actualities that do not reflectively shine into each other, are now posited as an identity, so that now these totalities of immanent reflection, in their differences, also shine as identical, in other words, they are also posited as only one and the same reflection'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
These contained both immediate identity and absolute substantiality of the sides. Now the substantiality of the sides is lost. The Notion "is the unity of the two substances standing in that relation; but in this unity they are now free, for they no longer possess their identity as something blind, that is to say, as something merely inner. The extremes unified in the Notion are now moments of reflection, whereby each is no less immediately united with its other or its positedness and each contains its positedness within itself, and consequently in its other is posited as simply and solely identical with itself.
'– The unity of substance is its relation of necessity. But this unity is thus only inner necessity. By positing itself through the moment of absolute negativity, it becomes manifested or posited identity, and also, therefore, the freedom which is the identity of the concept. This concept, the totality resulting from the relation of reciprocity, is the unity of the two substances that stand in that relation, but in such a way now that the two belong to freedom: they no longer possess their identity blindly, that is to say, internally; on the contrary, the substances now explicitly have the determination that they are essentially reflective shine or moments of reflection, and for that reason that each has immediately rejoined its other or its positedness, that each contains this positedness in itself and in its other, therefore, is posited simply and solely as identical with itself'.
- 'The Science of Logic'
Being-For-Self of Substance
'Statue of Portia', 1918, Martha Cook Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
PORTIA:
The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
...
Though justice be thy plea, consider this:
That in the course of justice none of us
Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea,
Which, if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.
- William Shakespeare, 'The Merchant of Venice', Act 4, Scene 1
To e continued ...