The Philosophy of Fine Art. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

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СКАЧАТЬ differentiated therefore itself against such a particularity as real, independent and objective existence. In the solar system the sun exists over against all particularity related to that system, as such a unity of the system.

Such a material existence of the ideal unity of the notion is still very defective; for whereas on the one hand we have this unity posited in its reality only as the relation or material connection between the severally independent bodies, on the other we have it posited as a body which belongs to that system, whose unity, in opposition to its real differences, it essentially represents. The sun, in short, which we take to be202 the soul of the system, has itself an independent entity apart from the members which form the explicit content of this soul. It is itself only one particular mode or phase of the notion, that, namely, of unity in its difference from the actual separation of the several parts, a unity which remains outside itself, and is consequently abstract. For however much the sun by virtue of its physical quality is plainly a principle of unity, the illuminating body as such, this is after all merely an abstract identity. For light is simple, undifferentiated appearance and nothing more. We find therefore in the solar system the unity of the notion indeed objective, and the totality of its differences explicitly realized, each body making visible one particular phase203 of the notion; but here, too, it lies absorbed in its objective reality, and it fails to assert itself in such material as is truly inherent and explicit ideality. The form of its existence which here prevails remains the independent segregation of its particular phasal units204.

      It is, however, essential to the true existence of the notion, that the differences of the objectively real, the reality, that is to say, of the separate independent parts and the equally independent unity that is therein objectively realized, should as such be together brought back into unity. Only thus such a totality of innate differences can make wholly explicit either the notion as the realized differentiation of its characteristics, or at the same time release each particular that belongs to it from the element of isolated independence which it cancels by enabling the ideality, in which these differences recover their subjective unity, to assert itself fully as the universal principle of their animated being. In that case they become no longer parts hanging loosely to one another by a bond that still leaves their particularity unaffected, but genuine members of one body. They no longer possess an existence in their isolated singularity, but retain such truly in the ideal unity which binds them together. Only in such an organic articulation the ideal unity of the notion is present to the parts thus integrated. It is at once their support and immanent soul; here for the first time the notion is not overwhelmed in objective reality, but passes over into actual existence as the inward identity and universality, which it essentially is.

(c) But this third mode of Nature's manifestation is a determinate existence of the Idea, and the Idea as thus manifested in Nature is Life. Dead or inorganic nature is not adequate to express the Idea; only the organic life of Nature unfolds its reality. For in life we shall find, first, that the objective reality of the notion as differentiated is presented as such reality; secondly, however, that the negation of such differences is entirely one of distinction in that reality205, the ideal subjectivity of the notion overcoming to itself this very reality; thirdly, the unifying principle of animation is now the positive appearance of the notion in the form of its bodily substance, that is to say, the form of infinity, which is sufficiently powerful to assert itself thus formally in its content.

(α) If we ask ordinary consciousness206 for a definition of Life, we have two determinations presented, either the imaginative conception of it as bodily life, or as soul-life. In the same view we distinguish these two determinations with qualities peculiarly belonging to each. This contrast we set up between soul and body is also of great importance in the more philosophical consideration of our subject. And it is no less part of our inquiry to investigate it. At the same time we would point out that the philosophical interest concentrates itself quite as much on the unity which exists between soul and body, a part of this inquiry which a really adequate survey of the subject has at all times found beset with the greatest difficulties. It is, however, precisely in virtue of this unity that Life is the first genuine appearance of the Idea in Nature. We must consequently apprehend the identity of soul and body as no fortuitous connection207, but a union of profounder significance. In other words, we must recognize the body and its members as the objective existence of the notion itself in systematic articulation, which in the members of the living organism, secures an objective existence for its determinate features, analogously no doubt, if on a higher plane, to the facts presented by the solar system. Within this real existence the notion asserts itself in like manner as the ideal unity of all these determinate parts. This ideal unity is the soul. The soul is the substantive unity and interfused universality which is no less a simple relation of self-determining than it is ideal Being-for-itself or self-coherent totality. This is the higher view of the union between soul and body. To put it in other words both are not merely distinct aspects set side by side; they are one and the same totality of identical determinants. Just as the Idea generally can only be grasped in its explicit reality as the notion evolving itself as such208, in which conception the differentiation and unity of both sides, that is both the notion and its objective reality, are inseparably present, in the same way Life must be conceived as the unity of both soul and body.

And further, the subjective no less than substantive unity of soul within the body is presented us and exemplified in Feeling. The feeling of a living organism is, that is to say, not merely an independent product of a particular member, but it is also this ideal and simple unity of the entire organism. It is carried through every member of the body is felt throughout in more than a hundred places at once; and indeed, to put it shortly, rather than saying there are many thousand sensitive points209 in a single organism we should more justly say there is but one, namely, the subject of consciousness. And inasmuch as the animating principle of organic Nature includes in itself this distinction between the real existence of the organic members, and the abstract or simple self-coherence within such parts, which we call the growing soul, mediating between them both by virtue of its inherent unity, such a principle of Life stands on a higher plane than that of inorganic Nature. Only with Life is the Idea existent, and only thus is the Idea truth. No doubt even in the organic world this truth can be extinguished. We find the body unable to perfect its essential ideality and animating energy. Such is the case in disease. Here we find the notion deprived of its controlling sovereignty, and other powers are potent with it. Such a life is, however, defective and crippled: it merely continues, because the inadequacy of reality to the notion has not reached the point of absolute contradiction; it is still only relatively valid. Once assume that all harmony between the two sides is broken, that all genuine articulation of the members of the body and their true identity has dropped away, and life is dissolved in death. The several members are now mere appendages to each other, with no principle of Life to hold them in unsevered unity.

(β) We must add that when we stated the soul is the totality of the notion regarded as the subjective and ideal unity, the body on the other hand, as distinguished by its members, is the same totality but rather in its material aspect as the juxtaposition and sensuous accretion of all the several parts, affirming at the same time that both soul and body are posited as one in the living organism, there is no doubt something contradictory in the statement. For the ideal unity, so far from being this material juxtaposition of parts, in which each particularity possesses its independent consistency and exclusive character, is rather in direct antithesis to such external reality. That what is diametrically opposed should nevertheless be identical is obviously a contradiction in terms. The man, however, who declares the non-existence of anything from the fact that СКАЧАТЬ