On Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Nature’ : A Free Reflex of Spirit — part twenty one.
‘O Lord! In Me There Lieth Naught’
by Mary Sidney Herbert (1561–1621)
O Lord! in me there lieth naught
But to thy search revealed lies;
For when I sit,
Thou markest it,
No less Thou notest when I rise;
Yea, closest closet of my thought
Hath open windows to thine eyes.
Thou walkest with me when I walk;
When to my bed for rest I go
I find Thee there,
And everywhere;
Not youngest thought in me doth grow,
No, not one word I cast to talk,
But yet unuttered Thou dost know.
To shun thy notice, leave thine eye,
O, whither might I take my way?
To starry sphere?
Thy throne is there.
To dead men’s undelightsome stay?
There is thy walk, and there to lie
Unknown, in vain I should essay.
O sun, whom light nor flight can match,
Suppose thy lightful, flightful wings
Thou lend to me,
And I could flee
As far as thee the evening brings;
Even led to west, He would me catch,
Nor should I lurk with western things.
Do thou thy best, O secret night,
In sable veil to cover me;
The sable veil
Shall vainly fail;
With day unmasked my night shall be:
For night is day, and darkness light,
O Father of all lights, to Thee.
====
‘Enough and more than enough has now been said about painting. It may be suitable to append to these remarks something about the plastic art. It was through the service of that same earth that modelling portraits from clay was first invented by Butades, a potter of Sicyon, at Corinth. He did this owing to his daughter, who was in love with a young man; and she, when he was going abroad, drew in outline on the wall the shadow of his face thrown by a lamp. Her father pressed clay on this and made a relief, which he hardened by exposure to fire with the rest of his pottery; and it is said that this likeness was preserved in the Shrine of the Nymphs until the destruction of Corinth by Mummius (146 BC). Some authorities state that the plastic art was first invented by Rhoecus and Theodorus at Samos, long before the expulsion of the Bacchiadae from Corinth (581/0 BC), but that when Damaratus, who in Etruria became the father of Tarquinius king of the Roman people (c. 616–578 BC), was banished from the same city, he was accompanied by the modellers Eucheir, Diopus and Eugrammus, and they introduced modelling to Italy. The method of adding red earth to the material or else modelling out of red chalk, was an invention of Butades, and he first placed masks as fronts to the outer gutter-tiles on roofs; these at the first stage he called prostypa, but afterwards he likewise made ectypa. It was from these that the ornaments on the pediments of temples originated. Because of Butades modellers get their Greek name of plastae.
- Pliny, (AD 23/24 — AD 79), ‘Natural History’
_______________________________
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770–1831). ‘Philosophy of Nature’.
‘Physics’.
In mechanics matter is regarded abstractly, it has not yet become this or that individual thing, having qualities and a character of its own, hence in astronomy it is not this particular planet, the earth, which is considered, any physical body could be substituted. It is not the earth, the sun, the moon, that are dealt with, but only the abstract geometrical and mechanical relations of those bodies, and in physics the philosophy of nature rises from this abstract view to the consideration of material objects as individual entities, as possessing qualities and character, and this will gives rise to the study of the forms and species of inorganic nature.
The subject matter of physics, and remember that Hegel’s use of this term is not completely congruent with its contemporary usage, consists in the specific qualities of the various forms of matter, for instance, light, the traditional four elements (air, fire, water, earth), solid-state properties, acoustic and thermal phenomena, electricity and magnetism, as well as chemical processes, and one might suppose that the part of Hegel’s natural philosophy now under consideration is one that given the empirical research milieu of his age comprises some views that are somewhat outmoded however two particular topics in Hegel’s physics are especially worthy of attention that is to say the account of light and his treatment of the chemical process.
Light. Physics corresponds to the logical sphere of essence which in Hegel’s logic begins with the following ‘determinations of reflection’ (Reflexionsbestimmungen ): ‘identity’, ‘difference’ and ‘ground’. Accordingly, ‘matter as it is first qualified’ is characterized by its ‘ pure identity with itself’.
‘Matter in its primary qualified state is pure self-identity, unity of intro-reflection; as such it is the primary manifestation, and is itself still abstract. As existent in nature, it is independent self-relation opposed to the other determinations of totality. This existing and universal self of matter is light, which as individuality is the star, and as moment of totality, the sun’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
The self-contained totality of the solar system as a whole which maintains its own identity in nearly complete independence from external influences should be the actual essence of matter and in a preliminary and abstract sense therefore the determination of ‘pure identity’ is what constitutes the ‘existent universal self ’ — the abstract essence — of matter. As natural determinateness, this universal ‘self’ must also have a self-subsistent existence which Hegel identifies as light and this determination of light owes something to Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling’s, (1775–1854), early natural philosophy where light is opposed to gravitational force and in the particular framework of Schelling’s ‘philosophy of identity’ is grasped as the real raising of ‘absolute identity itself’. Hegel holds light as identity to be free of all difference and material singularization and contrary to the reality of heavy matter light is therefore ‘material ideality’.
‘As the abstract self of matter, light is absolute levity, and as matter, it is infinite self-externality. It is this as pure manifestation and material ideality however, in the self-externality of which it is simple and indivisible.
Correlative to light’s determination as pure identity is the demand ‘to discard all determinations relating to composition’.
It is interesting to consider light. One always tends to think that with natural objects, the individual is this present reality. Light is a contradiction of this however, since it is the expression within nature of the simplicity of thought itself and in nature it is the understanding which occurs, the forms of the understanding exist within nature and if one wants to imagine light one has to discard all determinations relating to composition and so on. Physicists who postulate particles of light are in no way superior to the person who built a windowless house and wanted to carry the light into it in sacks, a bundle of rays is nothing but a convenient expression for these rays are the whole of light which is merely limited externally and which is no more divided into bundles of rays than is the ego or pure self-consciousness. The same principle applies in discourse regarding my own time or the time of Caesar and this particular time has also been the time of all other things, without Caesar having had a ray or bundle of exclusive and inherently real time about him. The Newtonian theory according to which light diffuses itself in lines or the wave-theory according to which it diffuses itself in waves like Leonhard Euler’s, (1707–1783), ether and the vibration of sound are material representations that are quite useless in the cognition of light. The shade in light is supposed to be a series of curves passing through the motion of light which may be calculated mathematically and this abstract determination has simply been brought in here yet it is now generally assumed to be an advance upon Newton and yet this is not a physical determination and neither of these two theories suffice here for anything empirical is necessarily invalid. Corpuscles of light or ether are as non-existent as nerves composed of series of globules which set one another in motion by receiving and imparting an impulse’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
In its quality as ‘incorporeal and in fact immaterial matter’ light ‘can no more be packed into bundles than it can be separated into rays’.
‘Weighted matter is divisible into masses, since it is concrete, quantitative being-for-self; but in the quite abstract ideality of light there is no such difference; a limit to the infinite expansion of light does not destroy its absolute continuity in itself. The conception of aggregations of discrete and simple light-rays and particles, out of which a light which is limited in its diffusion is supposed to arise, belong to the barbarous categories which have continued to dominate physics, since Newton made them current. The + most limited experience will show us that it is as impossible to isolate light into rays and compress its beams into bundles, as it is to pack it into sacks. The indivisibility of light in its infinite expansion, is physical extrinsicality maintaining its self-identity; the understanding also has this abstract identity as its principle, and should therefore be the last to pass it off as being incomprehensible’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
Rays, bundles or packets, particles and even waves as well as vibrations are inadequate categories for the account of light because of their relatedness to bodies and Hegel is thus decidedly opposed to Newton’s particle theory as well as to the wave theory of light to the extent that these theories are in effect borrowed from the domain of material corporeality. Contradicting the dominant theories of his time Hegel insists upon the opposition between light and corporeal matter and thereby seizes upon something quite fundamental to physical reality albeit his appeal to Goethe’s theory of colours as a ground for criticizing Newton’s experiments and theories is however more questionable, and he goes on to treat questions of visibility as well as optical reflection and the polarization of light before turning to a closer consideration of ‘darkness’ of its ‘rigidity’ and ‘neutrality’ in the appearance of lunar and cometary bodies and then to further forms of qualified matter leading beyond the ‘abstract identity’ of light.
Hegel’s conception of light has crucial implications that point towards key insights of contemporary physics and corresponding to the determination of light as ‘incorporeal and in fact immaterial matter’ is the assertion that light must also be ‘absolute levity’ in other words to employ a more modern formulation light is something that possesses no rest mass however for the motion of light this means that light is not subject to the principle of relativity as it results from the ‘logic’ of the concept of motion and if corporeal motion is equivalent to relative motion, see Mechanics’) then non-corporeal motion must be a non-relative motion. This implication was already formulated by Hegel in 1805–6 though without explicit reference to the kinematic principle of relativity when he attributed ‘absolute velocity’ to the ‘being’ of light in the ‘Jena Systementwürfe’.
‘The a priori Notional-determination of light is now the primary consideration. In the second instance we have to discover the mode and manner in which this Notional-determination occurs in our sensuous perception. As immediate, free, and independent motion returned into itself. matter is the simple self-equality of integrality. As motion has returned into itself, the celestial sphere has perfected and concluded the independent and ideal life within it. This completed being-in-self is the precise constitution of its integrality. As existent it is in itself; that is to say that this being-in-self of the totality is itself present. It contains the moment by which it is for another; that which is for itself is the power of its centre, or its self-containedness. This simple power is itself present however, and as it is the other of this determinate being, that which is merely internal is to the same extent external. As immediate, pure totality, matter therefore enters into the opposition between that which it is in itself, and that which it is for another as determinate being; for its determinate being does not yet contain its being-in-self. Apprehended as this incessant rotation of self-relating motion, as the return to being-in-and-for-self, and as this being-in-self which is there opposed to existence, matter is light. Light is the self-contained totality of matter; as mere purity of power it is the self-conserving and intensive vitality which is the concentration of the celestial sphere. Its rotation is precisely this immediate opposition of directions constituting self-relating motion, in the flux and reflux of which all difference extinguishes itself. As existent identity it is pure line, and relates itself only to itself Light is this purely existent power, which fills space. Its being is absolute velocity, the presence of pure materiality, the being-in-self of real existence, or actuality as a transparent possibility. That which fills space has two aspects however, and if this filling subsists in being-for-self, light does not fill space, for the rigidity of that which offers resistance will then have lapsed. Light is present only in space therefore, and is certainly neither individualized nor exclusive. Space is merely abstract subsistence or implicit being, while as existent being-in-self, or determinate being which is in itself, and is consequently pure, light is the power of being external to itself possessed by universal actuality as the possibility of confluxing with everything; it is the affinity with all which yet abides in itself, and by means of which determinate being surrenders none of its independence’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
What this means in concrete terms is as follows. Since it is something that is not body light cannot be at rest and light itself can only be moving even if the reference instance for the determination of light’s motion has to be a body but this implies as well that the velocity of light must be independent of the state of motion of a given body of reference otherwise a body that furnishes the relevant reference instance could be moving in such a way that light has zero velocity relative to it which would be inconsistent with the aforementioned circumstance that light as non-corporeal can only be something moving and should the velocity of light be independent of the body of reference however then that velocity must remain the same in relation to every body.
The character of light’s velocity is therefore absolute, it is no longer relative and furthermore this means that the velocity of light must be the greatest possible velocity for if a body could have the same velocity as that of light, then light with reference to such a body would be determined precisely as something at rest. The velocity of light therefore is the physically limiting velocity that cannot be exceeded. Hegel’s position on the physical reality of light’s absolute velocity therefore holds against whatever Gerald Feinberg, (1933–1992), may have demonstrated concerning the theoretical possibility of tachyons, that is to say, imaginary masses with velocities exceeding the speed of light. Furthermore if light can only be something in motion then it must also be true that every body taken in its kinematic relation to light is determined as resting and consequently what each body is as something that is first of all for itself to the exclusion of other bodies is now also manifested in connection with the motion of light as a property that is common to all bodies. The real singularity and diversity of bodies becomes irrelevant in relation to light and light proves to be the common denominator as it were in everything diverse and it is by light that the ideal identity of bodily things becomes manifest beyond all corporeal singularity and difference. Hence according to Hegel’s characterization light qualifies as something like the ideal substrate of matter: the underlying ideal ‘ self of matter’ that provides for the ideal identity of all things corporeal.
The insights just developed from Hegel’s concepts of motion and light are in line with basic features of Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity. John N. Findlay has thus contends that there is ‘a flavour of relativity-physics in some of the things Hegel says about light’. Yet it would also be a strtch to maintain that Hegel anticipated twentieth-century relativity theory, Einstein’s great accomplishment in fact lies in his conception of a theory that provides a framework in which the relative motion of bodies and the non-relative motion of light are mathematically compatible despite their apparent incompatibility as physical contraries which, however, truly belong together. By contrast, Hegel’s considerations pertain to a more basic theoretical level. They reveal to the special theory of relativity a philosophical perspective that remains concealed within the theory itself.
The Chemical Process.
Also of fundamental interest albeit much is outdated is Hegel’s interpretation of chemical processes whereby in keeping with his conception of physics this interpretation is found in the concluding chapter of the second main part of the ;Philosophy of Nature; and it is in this chapter on the ;Chemical Process’ that the structural determination of physics by the logic of essence is perhaps most clearly evident as can be seen in the essential reciprocal relatedness of the chemical determinations in question. Acids and bases for instance are understood as opposites that are per se not neutrally related to one another but must instead react upon one another and change accordingly on account of their opposing natures and only the product of a chemical reaction (for example NaOH + HCl → NaCl + H 2 O) has a neutral character in this case, salt and water. The opposition of elements is therefore sublated and the chemical process comes to a rest. Hegel treats the nature of the chemical process in his ‘Science of Logic. It is distinctive of a chemical object that ‘the reference to other , and the mode and manner of this reference, belongs to its nature’. Thus, ‘in this there is immediately posited the striving to sublate the one-sidedness of the other and, through this reciprocal balancing and combination, to posit a reality conformable to the concept that contains both moments’
‘It begins with the presupposition that the objects in tension, as much as they are tensed against themselves, just as much are they by that very fact at first tensed against each other — a relation which is called their affinity. Each stands through its concept in contradiction to its concrete existence’s own one-sidedness and each consequently strives to sublate it, and in this there is immediately posited the striving to sublate the one-sidedness of the other and, through this reciprocal balancing and combining, to posit a reality conformable to the concept that contains both moments’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
Each chemical object has ‘within it the necessity and the drive to sublate its opposed, one-sided subsistence, and to make itself into the real whole’. It thus strives to bring out its underlying ‘universal determinateness, not only the determinateness of the one singular object, but also of the other’.
‘On closer examination, the chemical object is at first a self-subsistent totality in general, one reflected into itself and therefore distinct from its reflectedness outwards — an indifferent basis, the individual not yet determined as non-indifferent; the person, too, is in the first instance a basis of this kind, one that refers only to itself. But the immanent determinateness that constitutes the object’s non-indifference is, first, reflected into itself in such a manner that this retraction of the reference outwards is only a formal abstract universality; the outwards reference is thus a determination of the object’s immediacy and concrete existence. From this side the object does not return, within it, to individual totality: the negative unity has its two moments of opposition in two particular objects. Accordingly, a chemical object is not comprehensible from itself, and the being of one object is the being of another. — But, second, the determinateness is absolutely reflected into itself and is the concrete moment of the individual concept of the whole which is the universal essence, the real genus of the particular objects. The chemical object, which is thus the contradiction of its immediate positedness and its immanent individual concept, is a striving to sublate the immediate determinateness of its existence and to give concrete existence to the objective totality of the concept. Hence it does still remain a non-self-subsistent object, but in such a way that it is by nature in tension with this lack of self-subsistence and initiates the process as a self-determining’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
Once this is accomplished the chemical process is extinguished. It therefore ‘does not spontaneously restart itself, for it had the difference only as its presupposition — it did not itself posit it’.
‘In this product the tension of opposition, and the negative unity which is the activity of the process, are now indeed dissolved. But since this unity is essential to the concept and has also itself come into concrete existence, it is still present but has stepped outside the neutral object. The process does not spontaneously re-start itself, for it had non-indifference only as its presupposition — it did not posit it. — This self-subsistent negativity outside the object, the concrete existence of the abstract singularity whose being-for-itself has its reality in the non-indifferent object, is in itself now in tension with its abstraction, an inherently restless activity outwardly bent on consuming. It connects immediately with the object whose tranquil neutrality is the real possibility of an opposition to this neutrality; the same object is now the middle term of the prior formal neutrality, now concrete in itself and determined.’
- ‘The Science of Logic’
To this extent, then, the chemical process is ‘still finite in comparison with the organic process’.
‘The chemical process is still finite in comparison with the organic process, and for the following reasons; (a) The unity of the diremption and the diremption itself are simply inseparable within the living process, for the unity within it posits itself perpetually as object, and perpetually appropriates that which it separates from itself, while in the chemical process this infinite activity still falls apart into two sides. To the chemical process it is an external matter, and a matter of indifference, that the diremptions may be brought together again; one process ceased with this diremption, and a new process can now begin again. (b) The finitude of the chemical process also consists of each one-sided chemical process only re-establishing the totality in a formal manner, as for example in combustion, which terminates in diremption through the positing of differentiation or oxidation. In a one-sided process of this kind, neutrality also occurs however, for water is also produced. Conversely, in the process which has the neutral principle as its end product, differentiation also takes place, although only in an abstract manner through the development of gases. © Thus the shapes which enter into the process are in the first instance quiescent. The process consists of various shapes of this kind being posited in unity, or forced out of their indifferent subsistence into differentiation, without the body being able to preserve itself. The implicit unity of the differences is certainly the absolute condition of this, but as they still occur as differences, they are only united through the Notion, and their unity has not yet entered into existence. Acid and caustic potash are implicitly identical; acid is implicitly alkali, which is precisely why it thirsts for it, just as caustic potash thirsts for acid. Each has the tendency towards integration, for each is implicitly neutral, although it does not yet exist as such. Consequently, the finitude of the chemical process at this juncture consists of the Notion and existence constituting two sides which do not yet correspond to each other; in living being however, that which exists is also the identity of the differences. (d) In the chemical process, the differences certainly sublate their onesidedness; this sublation is only relative however, for it falls into another onesidedness. Metals become oxides, and a substance changes to acid; these are neutral products, which are still onesided. (e) It follows from this that the entirety of the process falls apart into different processes. The process whose product is onesided is itself incomplete, and does not constitute the total process. The process is finished when a single determinateness is posited in another; consequently, this process itself is not the true totality, but is merely one moment of the entire totality of process. Each totality is in itself the totality of the process, but this totality falls apart into different processes and products. The Idea of the chemical process in its entirety is therefore a series of sundered processes, which represent the different stages and transitional points of its course. (f) Another feature of the finitude of the chemical process, is that it is precisely to the different stages of this process that the particular shapings of the individual bodies belong; in other words, the particular corporeal individualities are determined in accordance with the particular stage of the entire process to which they belong. The superficiality of the electrical process is still very tenuously related to the individuality of the body, for the minutest determination is sufficient to make a body positively or negatively electric. This relation first becomes important in the chemical process. In the various chemical processes one has a number of sides and matters which may be distinguished. In order to grasp this complex, one has to distinguish between the active and inactive materialities of each process; these must not be placed on the same level, but must be well separated from one another. The nature of a body depends upon its position within the different processes, in which it is either generative, determinative, or product. It is certainly also capable of entering into further processes, but not as the determining factor. In the galvanic process for example, the regulus of the metal is the determining factor; it certainly also passes over into the process of fire as alkali and acid, but these do not give its place within the whole. Sulphur also has a relationship to acid, by means of which it is effective, but in its relationship to fire, it is the determining principle, and it is through this relationship that it assumes its position. In empirical chemistry however, each body is described according to its reaction to all chemical bodies, and if a new metal is discovered, the whole gamut of its reactions to other bodies is noted. If one looks through chemistry textbooks for the classifications employed there, one finds that the main distinction made is that between what are called simple bodies, and bodies which are combinations of these. In the first group one finds nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, phosphorus, sulphur, gold, silver, and the other metals lumped together. A merely cursory glance will show us that these things are quite heterogeneous however. What is more, although compounds are certainly products of the process, the so-called simple bodies are also the products of even more abstract processes. Finally, it is the dead product which emerges from this or that process, which the chemists regard as the main thing to be described. The truth is however that it is the process in its series of processes or stages which is the main thing; its course is the determining factor, and the determinatenesses of the individual bodies only find their significance in its various stages. This is however the finite formal process, in which each body, through its particularity, displays a modified course of the entire process. It is precisely the particular behaviour of the body in its specifically modified process which constitutes the subject-matter of chemistry, and it presupposes that corporeal determinatenesses are given. Here on the contrary we have to regard the process in its totality, and the way in which it divides bodies into classes, and defines them as the potentially fixed stages of its course’.
- ‘Philosophy of Nature’
Hegel holds that biological life is indeed ‘implicit within the chemical process’ and that life is itself ‘a perenniating chemical process’. Yet he also maintains that the products of the chemical process would be living only if they ‘spontaneously renewed their activity’.
‘In order to explain some chemical phenomena, chemistry has had occasion to use the determination of teleology. The phenomenon of an oxide being reduced to a lower degree of oxidation so that part of it may become more highly oxidized by combining with the effective acid, is an exampIe of this. In this realization of itself, the Notion displays the beginnings of a spontaneous self-determination, which is not therefore determined solely by the external conditions present. Addition. There is certainly an appearance of animation here, but it is lost in the product. If the products of the chemical process spontaneously renewed their activity, they would be life, and to some extent therefore, life is a perenniating chemical process. The determinateness of any species of chemical body is identical with the nature of the body’s substantiality. Here therefore, we are still in the realm of fixed species. In living being on the other hand, the determinateness of the species is not identical with the substantiality of an individual, for although the individual is finite in its determinateness, it is also and equally infinite. In the chemical process, he Notion only displays its moments interruptedly. One side of the entirety of the chemical process contains fixed determinateness having being through its lack of differentiation, the other the tendency to have being as an opposition to that within it, an opposition in which this determinateness then falls away. This quiescent being and this tendency are different from one another however, and the totality is only posited implicitly or within the Notion. The unity in which both determinations are at once present does not attain existence. As existing, this unity is the determination of life, and it is towards this that nature drives. Life is implicitly present within the chemical process, but the inner necessity there is not yet an existent unity’.
-’Philosophy of Nature’
And so Hegel already has a biochemical perspective in sight when he thinks of the organic from the standpoint of the chemical process.
For my Maid of California, ❤️, like the Maid of Corinth and her young man our being together brings us both good things, a sure sign of when two people are meant to be together.
When the fantasy we live in
Lies in pieces on the ground
And there is no false illusion
That can turn your heart around
Nothing can change the way I feel
Nothing can take your love from me
If only I didn’t worry
If only I could see
If only I could see
Chasing shadows on the wall
Chasing shadows as they dance on the floor
Chasing dreams that were forever young
Now I’m on my own
Chasing shadows on the wall
Shadows on the wall
On the sea of mediocrity
Drifting from a distant shore
No goodbyes no celebration
No-one there to close the door
Only the silence that I feel
Only the lonely road is real
If only I didn’t loose you
If only we could be
If only we could be
Chasing shadows on the wall
Chasing shadows as they dance on the floor
Chasing dreams that were forever young
Now I’m on my own
Chasing shadows on the wall
Shadows on the wall
Chasing shadows on the wall
Chasing shadows as they start to fall
Chasing dreams that were forever young
Chasing shadows on the wall
Chasing shadows on the wall
Chasing shadows as they dance on the floor
Chasing shadows on the wall
====
Coming up next:
Physics of Universal Individuality.
To be continued ….
