In Book One of the Objective Logic, abstract being was exhibited as passing over into determinate being, but equally as withdrawing into essence. In Book Two, essence reveals itself as determining itself into ground, thereby entering into Existence and realising itself as substance, but again withdrawing into the Notion. Of the Notion, now, we have shown to begin with that it determines itself into objectivity. It is self-evident that this latter transition is identical in character with what formerly appeared in metaphysics as the inference from the notion, namely, the notion of God, to his existence, or as the so-called ontological proof of the existence of God. It is equally well known that Descartes' sublimest thought, that God is that whose notion includes within itself its being, after being degraded into the defective form of the formal syllogism, that is, into the form of the said proof, finally succumbed to the Critique of Reason and to the thought that existence cannot be extracted from the notion. Some points connected with this proof have already been elucidated. In Vol. 1, pp. 86 sqq., where being has vanished in its immediate opposite, non-being, and becoming has shown itself as the truth of both, attention was drawn to the confusion that arises when, in the case of a particular determinate being, what is fixed on is not the being of that determinate being but its determinate content; then, comparing this determinate content, for example a hundred dollars, with another determinate content, for example, with the context of my perception or the state of my finances, it is found that it makes a difference whether the former content is added to the latter or not – and it is imagined that what has been discussed is the difference between being and non-being, or even the difference between being and the Notion. Further, in the same Vol., p. 112 and Vol. II, p. 442 we elucidated a determination that occurs in the ontological proof, that of a sum-total of all realities. But the essential subject matter of that proof, the connection of the Notion and determinate being, is the concern of our consideration of the Notion just concluded, and the entire course through which the Notion determines itself into objectivity. The Notion, as absolutely self-identical negativity, is self-determining; we have remarked that the Notion, in determining itself into judgment in individuality, is already positing itself as something real, something that is; this still abstract reality completes itself in objectivity.
Now though it might seem that the transition from the Notion into objectivity is not the same thing as the transition from the Notion of God to his existence, it should be borne in mind on the one hand that the determinate content, God, makes no difference in the logical process, and the ontological proof is merely an application of this logical process to the said content. On the other hand however it is essential to bear in mind the remark made above that the subject only obtains determinateness and content in its predicate; until then, no matter what it may be for feeling, intuition and pictorial thinking, for rational cognition it is only a name; but in the predicate with its determinateness there begins, at the same time, realisation in general. The predicates, however, must be grasped as themselves still included within the Notion, hence as something subjective, which so far has not emerged into existence; to this extent we must admit on the one hand that the realisation of the Notion in the judgment is still not complete. On the other hand however the mere determination of an object by predicates, when that determination is not at the same time the realisation and objectifying of the Notion, also remains something so subjective that it is not even the genuine cognition and determination of the Notion of the object-subjective in the sense of abstract reflection and uncomprehended pictorial thinking. God, as the living God, and still more as absolute spirit, is known only in his activity; man was early instructed to recognise God in his works; only from these can proceed the determinations, which are called his properties, and in which, too, his being is contained. Thus the philosophical [begreifende] cognition of his activity, that is, of himself, grasps the Notion of God in his being and his being in his Notion. Being merely as such, or even determinate being, is such a meagre and restricted determination, that the difficulty of finding it in the Notion may well be the result of not having considered what being or determinate being itself is. Being as the wholly abstract, immediate relation to self, is nothing else than the abstract moment of the Notion, which moment is abstract universality. This universality also effects what one demands of being, namely, to be outside the Notion; for though this universality is moment of the Notion, it is equally the difference, or abstract judgment, of the Notion in which it opposes itself to itself. The Notion, even as formal, already immediately contains being in a truer and richer form, in that, as self-related negativity, it is individuality.
But of course the difficulty of finding being in the Notion as such and equally in the Notion of God, becomes insuperable when the being is supposed to be that which obtains in the context of outer experience or in the form of sensuous perception, like the hundred dollars in my finances, something to be grasped with the hand, not with the mind, something visible essentially to the outer, not to the inner eye; in other words, when that being which things possess as sensuous, temporal and perishable, is given the name of reality or truth. A philosophising that in its view of being does not rise above sense, naturally stops short at merely abstract thought, too, in its view of the Notion; such thought stands opposed to being.
The custom of regarding the Notion merely as something one-sided, such as abstract thought is, will already hinder the acceptance of what was suggested above, namely, to regard the transition from the Notion of God to his being, as an application of the logical course of objectification of the Notion presented above. Yet if it is granted, as it commonly is, that the logical element as the formal element constitutes the form for the cognition of every determinate content, then the above relation must at least be conceded, unless in this opposition between Notion and objectivity, one stops short at the untrue Notion and an equally untrue reality, as something ultimate. But in the exposition of the pure Notion, it was further made clear that this is the absolute, divine Notion itself, so that in truth the relationship of our application would not obtain, and the logical process in question would in fact be the immediate exposition of God's self-determination to being. But on this point it is to be remarked that if the Notion is to be presented as the Notion of God, it is to be apprehended as it is when taken up into the Idea. This pure Notion passes through the finite forms of the judgment and syllogism because it is not yet posited as in its own nature explicitly one with objectivity but is grasped only in process of becoming it. Similarly this objectivity, too, is not yet the divine existence, is not yet the reality that is reflected in the divine Idea. Yet objectivity is just that much richer and higher than the being or existence of the ontological proof, as the pure Notion is richer and higher than that metaphysical void of the sum total of all reality. But I reserve for another occasion the more detailed elucidation of the manifold misunderstanding that has been brought by logical formalism into the ontological, as well as the other, so-called proofs of God's existence, as also the Kantian criticism of them, and by establishing their true significance, to restore the fundamental thoughts of these proofs to their worth and dignity.
As previously remarked, we have already met with several forms of immediacy, though in different determinations. In the sphere of being immediacy is being itself and determinate being; in the sphere of essence it is existence, and then actuality and substantiality; in the sphere of the Notion, besides immediacy as abstract universality, there is now objectivity. When the exactitude of philosophical distinctions of the Notion is not involved, these expressions may be used as synonymous; but the determinations mentioned have issued from the necessity of the Notion. Being is in general the first immediacy, and determinate being is the same plus the first determinateness. Existence, along with things, is the immediacy that issues from the ground-from the self-sublating mediation of the simple reflection of essence. But actuality and substantiality is the immediacy that has issued from the sublated difference of the still unessential Existence as Appearance and its essentiality. Finally, objectivity is the immediacy to which the Notion determines itself by the sublation of its abstraction and mediation. Philosophy has the right to select from the language of common life which is made for the world of pictorial thinking, such expressions as seem to approximate to the determinations of the Notion. There cannot be any question of demonstrating for a word selected from the language of common life that in common life, too, one associates with it the same Notion for which philosophy employs it; for common life has no Notions, but only pictorial thoughts and general ideas, and to recognise the Notion in what is else a mere general idea is philosophy itself. It must suffice therefore if pictorial thinking, in the use of its expressions that are employed for philosophical determinations, has before it some vague idea of their distinctive meaning; just as it may be the case that in these expressions one recognises nuances of pictorial thought that are more closely related to the corresponding Notions. One will be less ready, perhaps, to admit that something can be without existing; but at least, one will hardly use 'being' as copula of the judgment as interchangeable with the expression 'to exist' and say, 'this article exists dear, suitable, etc.', 'gold exists, a metal or metallic', instead of 'this article is dear, suitable, etc.', 'gold is a metal or metallic'. And surely it is usual to distinguish between being and appearing, appearance and actuality, as well as to distinguish mere being from actuality, and still more all these expressions from objectivity. However, even should they be employed synonymously, philosophy will in any case be free to utilise such empty superfluity of language for its distinctions.
When treating of the apodeictic judgment — the consummation of the judgment — where the subject loses its determinateness as against the predicate, we referred to the twofold meaning of subjectivity originating therefrom, namely, the subjectivity of the Notion, and equally of the externality and contingency opposed to the Notion. A similar twofold meaning also appears for objectivity which stands opposed to the self-subsistent Notion, yet is also the being that is in-and-for-itself. In the former sense, the object stands opposed to the I = I which in subjective idealism is enunciated as the absolutely true; in that case it is the manifold world in its immediate existence with which the ego or the Notion only engages in never-ending struggle, in order, by the negation of the intrinsic nullity of this other, to give to the first certainty of self the actual truth of its equality with itself. In a less specific sense it denotes an object in general for any interest or activity of the subject.
But in the opposite sense, objectivity signifies that which is in and for itself, and free from limitation and opposition. Rational principles, perfect works of art, etc., are called objective in so far as they are free and above all contingency. Although rational, theoretical or ethical principles belong only to subjectivity, to consciousness, yet that element in the latter that is in and for itself is called objective; the cognition of truth is placed in cognising the object as object, free from anything added by subjective reflection, and right conduct in the obedience to objective laws that are not subjective in origin and admit no caprice and no treatment that might overthrow their necessity.
At the present standpoint of our exposition objectivity signifies, in the first instance, the absolute being of the Notion, that is, the Notion that has sublated the mediation posited in its self-determination and converted it into immediate relation-to-self. Consequently this immediacy is itself immediately and wholly pervaded by the Notion, just as the Notion's totality is immediately identical with its being. But since, further, the Notion has equally to restore the free being-for-self of its subjectivity, there arises a relationship between the Notion as end and objectivity. In this relationship the immediacy of the objectivity becomes the negative element over against the end, an element to be determined by the activity of the end; this immediacy thus acquires the other significance, that of being in and for itself null in so far as it stands opposed to the Notion.
First, then, objectivity is an immediacy whose moments, by virtue of the totality of all the moments, exist in a self-subsistent indifference as objects outside one another, and in their relationship possess the subjective unity of the Notion only as an inner or an outer unity. This is Mechanism.
But secondly, this unity reveals itself as the immanent law of the objects themselves, and thus their relationship becomes their peculiar specific difference founded on their law; it becomes a relation in which their determinate self-subsistence sublates itself. This is Chemism.
Thirdly, this essential unity of the objects is thereby posited as distinct from their self-subsistence; it is the subjective Notion, but posited as in and for itself related to objectivity, as end. This is Teleology.
Since the end is the Notion that is posited as in its own self relating itself to objectivity and as sublating by its own act its defect of being subjective, the purposiveness which is at first external becomes, through the realisation of the end, internal and the Idea.