On Hegel’s ‘Science of Logic’ : A Realm of Shadows — part thirty one.
‘This world is all a fleeting show’
by Thomas Moore (1779–1852)
This world is all a fleeting show,
For man’s illusion giv’n;
The smiles of joy, the tears of wo,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,
There’s nothing true but heav’n.
And false the light on glory’s plume,
As fading hues of ev’n;
And hope, and joy, and beauty’s bloom,
Are blossoms gathered for the tomb;
There’s nothing true but heav’n
Poor wand’rers of a stormy day,
From wave to wave were driv’n’
And fancy’s flash, and reason’s ray,
Serve but to light the troubled way;
There’s nothing calm but heaven.
===
— -
…….
Give me no light, great Heaven, but such as turns
To energy of human fellowship;
No powers beyond the growing heritage
That makes completer manhood.
…
As soon as I was alone again, I began to ask myself whether I had been sleeping. Was this a dream — this wonderfully distinct vision — minute in its distinctness down to a patch of rainbow light on the pavement, transmitted through a coloured lamp in the shape of a star — of a strange city, quite unfamiliar to my imagination? I had seen no picture of Prague: it lay in my mind as a mere name, with vaguely-remembered historical associations — ill-defined memories of imperial grandeur and religious wars.
Nothing of this sort had ever occurred in my dreaming experience before, for I had often been humiliated because my dreams were only saved from being utterly disjointed and commonplace by the frequent terrors of nightmare. But I could not believe that I had been asleep, for I remembered distinctly the gradual breaking-in of the vision upon me, like the new images in a dissolving view, or the growing distinctness of the landscape as the sun lifts up the veil of the morning mist. And while I was conscious of this incipient vision, I was also conscious that Pierre came to tell my father Mr. Filmore was waiting for him, and that my father hurried out of the room. No, it was not a dream; was it — the thought was full of tremulous exultation — was it the poet’s nature in me, hitherto only a troubled yearning sensibility, now manifesting itself suddenly as spontaneous creation? Surely it was in this way that Homer saw the plain of Troy, that Dante saw the abodes of the departed, that Milton saw the earthward flight of the Tempter. Was it that my illness had wrought some happy change in my organization — given a firmer tension to my nerves — carried off some dull obstruction? I had often read of such effects — in works of fiction at least. Nay; in genuine biographies I had read of the subtilizing or exalting influence of some diseases on the mental powers. Did not Novalis feel his inspiration intensified under the progress of consumption?
…
As I expected, when we left the Jews’ quarter the elders of our party wished to return to the hotel. But now, instead of rejoicing in this, as I had done beforehand, I felt a sudden overpowering impulse to go on at once to the bridge, and put an end to the suspense I had been wishing to protract. I declared, with unusual decision, that I would get out of the carriage and walk on alone; they might return without me. My father, thinking this merely a sample of my usual “poetic nonsense,” objected that I should only do myself harm by walking in the heat; but when I persisted, he said angrily that I might follow my own absurd devices, but that Schmidt (our courier) must go with me. I assented to this, and set off with Schmidt towards the bridge. I had no sooner passed from under the archway of the grand old gate leading an to the bridge, than a trembling seized me, and I turned cold under the midday sun; yet I went on; I was in search of something — a small detail which I remembered with special intensity as part of my vision. There it was — the patch of rainbow light on the pavement transmitted through a lamp in the shape of a star.
— George Eliot, (1819–1880), ‘The Lifted Veil’
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, (1770–1831),’The Science of Logic’.
The World of Appearance and the World-in-Itself.
The existent world tranquilly raises itself to a realm of laws.
‘The concrete existing world tranquilly raises itself to a kingdom of laws; the null content of its manifold determinate being has its subsistence in an other; its subsistence is therefore its dissolution. In this other, however, that which appears also comes to itself; thus appearance is in its changing also an enduring, and its positedness is law. Law is this simple identity of appearance with itself; it is, therefore, its substrate and not its ground, for it is not the negative unity of appearance but, as its simple identity, is its immediate unity — the abstract unity, alongside which, therefore, its other content also occurs. The content is this content; it holds together internally, or has its negative reflection inside itself. It is reflected into an other; this other is itself a concrete existence of appearance; the appearing things have their grounds and conditions in other appearing things’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
In Law, the World of Appearance has subsistence. And the Law is simply this: that Appearances must disappear; its subsistence is therefore its dissolution.When Appearance erases itself, Appearance shows what it is. When this occurs, Law is this simple identity of Appearance with itself.
But Law is substrate, not Ground. Substrate implies diversity and denial of relation, whereas Ground is inherently a relation with Grounded.
If Law is Ground, then Appearance is Grounded. Appearance would then withdraw into Ground when it disappears, and Law would enjoy a deeper meaning than mere appearance. Because Law is nothing but the activity of Appearance, there is no deeper realm of Law. Law and Appearance exist at the same level. Phenomenal things therefore have their grounds and conditions in other phenomenal things. Nevertheless, Law has a different content from that of Appearance.
Law reflects itself into Appearance, whereas Appearance reflects itself into Law. Because each self-erases, each is an existent, which has its negativity for its ground.
‘In fact, however, law is also the other of appearance as appearance, and its negative reflection as in its other. The content of appearance, which differs from the content of law, is the concrete existent which has negativity for its ground or is reflected into its non-being. But this other, which is also a concrete existent, is such an existent as likewise reflected into its non-being; it is thus the same and that which appears in it is in fact reflected not into an other but into itself; it is this very reflection of positedness into itself which is law. But as something that appears it is essentially reflected into its non-being, or its identity is itself essentially just as much its negativity and its other. The immanent reflection of appearance, law, is therefore not only the identical substrate of appearance but the latter has in law its opposite, and law is its negative unity’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
World of Appearance; World in and for self
This very act of self-sublation is what Appearance and Law share. This act was the Law of Law and Appearance. We have ordinary Law (self-sublation of Appearance) and a meta-law (which requires that Law and Appearance self-sublate). Law is the negative unity between itself and Appearance.
‘Now through this, the determination of law has been altered within the law itself. At first, law is only a diversified content and the formal reflection of positedness into itself, so that the positedness of one of its sides is the positedness of the other side. But because it is also the negative reflection into itself, its sides behave not only as different but as negatively referring to each other. — Or, if the law is considered just for itself, the sides of its content are indifferent to each other; but they are no less sublated through their identity; the positedness of the one is the positedness of the other; consequently, the subsistence of each is also the non-subsistence of itself. This positedness of the one side in the other is their negative unity, and each positedness is not only the positedness of that side but also of the other, or each side is itself this negative unity. The positive identity which they have in the law as such is at first only their inner unity which stands in need of proof and mediation, since this negative unity is not yet posited in them. But since the different sides of law are now determined as being different in their negative unity, or as being such that each contains the other within while at the same time repelling this otherness from itself, the identity of law is now also one which is posited and real’.
- The Science of Logic’
Each side is the unity of itself and the other. This positedness of one in the other is their negative unity and each is not only the positedness of itself but also of the other, or, each is itself this negative unity. This feature of containing itself, the other, and the unity of self and other, Hegel says, is at first only their inner unity which stands in need of proof and mediation? This merely implicit (or negative) feature is now made express (or posited). Law and Appearance are different, even while each is the other. In spite of their identity, each is self-subsistent against the other. The identity of law is therefore now also a posited and real identity. Posited and reality are dialectical words. Dialectical Reason therefore proposes that two worlds — Appearance and Law — are each diverse totalities unto themselves. ‘However, what he means is, not that there are two distinct worlds, but that there are two laws applying to one and the same world. The second law states that the self-same repels itself from itself and is not self-same but posits itself as self-same, whereas the first law states that the self-same remains self-same’, explains Hartnack.
About these two worlds, Hegel remarks: Existence has thus completely withdrawn into itself and has reflected itself into its absolute otherness in and for itself. That which was previously law is accordingly no longer only one side of the whole whose other side was Appearance as such, but is itself the whole.
‘Consequently, law has likewise obtained the missing moment of the negative form of its sides, the moment that previously still belonged to appearance; concrete existence has thereby returned into itself fully and has reflected itself into its absolute otherness which has determinate being in- and for-itself. That which was previously law, therefore, is no longer only one side of the whole. It is the essential totality of appearance, so that it now obtains also the moment of unessentiality that belonged to the latter — but as reflected unessentiality that has determinate being in itself, that is, as essential negativity. — As immediate content, law is determined in general, distinguished from other laws, of which there is an indeterminate multitude. But because now it explicitly is essential negativity, it no longer contains that merely indifferent, accidental content determination; its content is rather every determinateness in general, essentially connected together in a totalizing connection. Thus appearance reflected-into-itself is now a world that discloses itself above the world of appearance as one which is in and for itself’.
Because each side contains the other and is the whole unto itself, Law now also contains the moment of unessentiality which still belonged to Appearance, but as reflected implicit unessentiality. In other words, Appearance had formerly self-erased and announced itself inessential; this was the very essence of Appearance. Now Law, as a totality unto itself, is likewise inessential. But this unessentiality is its essential negativity.
‘The kingdom of laws contains only the simple, unchanging but diversified content of the concretely existing world. But because it is now the total reflection of this world, it also contains the moment of its essenceless manifoldness. This moment of alterability and alteration, reflected into itself and essential, is the absolute negativity or the form in general as such: its moments, however, have the reality of self-subsisting but reflected concrete existence in the world that has determinate being in- and for-itself, just as, conversely, this reflected self-subsistence has form in it, and its content is therefore not a mere manifold but a content holding itself together essentially. — This world which is in and for itself is also called the suprasensible world, inasmuch as the concretely existing world is characterized as sensible, that is, as one intended for intuition, which is the immediate attitude of consciousness. — The suprasensible world likewise has immediate, concrete existence, but reflected, essential concrete existence. Essence has no immediate existence yet; but it is, and in a more profound sense than being; the thing is the beginning of the reflected concrete existence; it is an immediacy which is not yet posited, not yet essential or reflected; but it is in truth not an immediate which is simply there. Things are posited only as the things of another, suprasensible, world — first as true concrete existences, and, second, as the truth in contrast to that which just is. What is recognized in them is that there is a being distinguished from immediate being, and this being is true concrete existence. On the one side, the sense-representation that ascribes concrete existence only to the immediate being of feeling and intuition is in this determination overcome; but, on the other side, also overcome is the unconscious reflection which, although it possesses the representation of things, forces, the inner, and so on, does not know that such determinations are not sensible or immediately existing beings, but reflected concrete existences’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
Hegel next refers to the phenomenal appearance of a body of law: As an immediate content, law is determinate in general, distinguished from other laws, and of these there is an indeterminate number. In other words, when immediately perceived, specific laws can be discerned. In Hartian terms, rules are ‘recognized’. But law as such stands on a different ground. The Law of such contingent laws now has within it essential negativity, and it no longer contains such a merely indifferent, contingent content determination. rather, the content of the meta-Law is all determinateness whatsoever, in an essential relation developing itself into totality. In this passage, essential relation b must be understood as self-erasure. In self-erasing, the contingent laws show themselves to be mere appearance. But Appearance which is reflected into itself is now a world, which reveals itself as a world in and for itself above the World of Appearance.
All the contingent variations of self-erasing Appearance are now the simple, changeless but varied content of the existent world. Such a world contains the moment of essenceless manifoldness. Yet the world itself is self-subsistent. The self-subsistent world, beyond the contingencies of immediate perception, is the super-sensuous world, in so far as the existent world is characterized as sensuous, namely, as determined for intuition. In the supersensuous World-in-and-for-itself Essence has as yet no determinate being but it is, and in a profounder sense than being.
Which recalls a passage from the ‘Phenomenology of Spirit:
‘Philosophy, on the other hand, has to do, not with unessential determinations, but with a determination in so far as it is essential ~ its dement and content is not the abstract or nonactual, but the actual, that which posits itself and is alive within itself — -existence within its own Notion. It is the process which begets and traverses its own moments, and this whole movement constitutes what is positive [in it] and its truth. This truth therefore includes the negative also, what would be called the false, if it could be regarded as something from which one might abstract. The evanescent itself must, on the contrary, be regarded as essential, not as something fixed, cut off from the True, and left lying who knows where outside it, anymore than the True is to be regarded as something on the other side, positive and dead. Appearance is the arising and passing away that does not itself arise and pass away, but is ‘in itself’ [i.e. subsists intrinsically], and constitutes the actuality and the movement of the life of truth. The· True is thus the Bacchanalian revel in which no member is not drunk; yet because each member collapses as soon as he drops out, the revel is just as much transparent and simple repose. Judged in the court of this movement, the single shapes of Spirit do not persist any more than determinate thoughts do, but they are as much positive and necessary moments, as they are negative and evanescent. In the whole of the movement, seen as a state of repose, what distinguishes itself therein, and gives itself particular existence, is preserved as something that recollects itself, whose existence is self-knowledge, and whose self-knowledge is just as immediately existence’.
- ‘The Phenomenology of Spirit’
The True is thus the Bacchanalian revel in which no member is not drunk yet because each member collapses as soon as he drops out, the revel is just as much transparent and simple repose. Judged in the court of this movement, the single shapes of Spirit do not persist any more than determinate thoughts do, but they are as much positive and necessary moments, as they are negative and evanescent. The point is that, as Appearance disappears, a stable world is created which does not disappear. ‘What we call substance, absolute truth, is undoubtedly translucent and simple rest as well as bacchanalian revel’, explains Hyppolite. According to Gadamer, Hegel ‘hits upon a brilliant formulation: the beyond, he says, is the appearance as appearance. That is, it is appearance which is not the appearance of something else, and which is no longer to be differentiated from something lying beyond it … On the contrary, it is nothing but appearance, and thus it is not appearance as opposed to reality, but rather appearance as the real itself.
It is appearances all the way down.
Essential relation. Hegel concludes with the concept of the Essential Relation between the two worlds. Existence, it will be recalled, started with the Thing, an immediacy that is not yet posited as essential or reflected. But the Thing was also not a simply affirmative immediate. It is only as things of another, super-sensuous world that things are posited as veritable Existences. In Things it is acknowledged that there is a being distinct from immediate being. Sensuous representation ascribes Existence only to the immediate being of feeling and intuition, but this is overcome in the deeper account of the Thing. Even sensuous representation has an unconscious sense that Things are not as they appear, but it is still not ready to acknowledge that such determinations are not sensuous or simply affirmative immediacies, but reflected Existences. The World In and For Self is a totality; nothing is outside of it. But since it is in its own self absolute negativity or form, its reflection-into-self is a negative relation to itself. The World In and For Self shows what it is by expelling what it is not. This world “contains opposition and repels itself within itself into the essential world and into the world of otherness or the World of Appearance.
‘The world which is in and for itself is the totality of concrete existence; outside it there is nothing. But, within it, it is absolute negativity or form, and therefore its immanent reflection is negative self-reference. It contains opposition, and splits internally as the world of the senses and as the world of otherness or the world of appearance. For this reason, since it is totality, it is also only one side of the totality and constitutes in this determination a self-subsistence different from the world of appearance. The world of appearance has its negative unity in the essential world to which it founders and into which it returns as to its ground. Further, the essential world is also the positing ground of the world of appearances; for, since it contains the absolute form essentially, it sublates its self-identity, makes itself into positedness and, as this posited immediacy, it is the world of appearance’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
Although a totality, the World In and For Self is also only one side of a totality. It is the self-subsistent world against the World of Appearance. This supersensuous world is the determinate ground of the World of Appearance. Two worlds coincide — the World of Appearance and the World In and For Itself. One is essential, one is inessential. But which is which? Outside forces must determine this. because this is so the ground relation has been restored.
‘Further, it is not only ground in general of the world of appearance but its determinate ground. Already as the kingdom of laws it is a manifold of content, indeed the essential content of the world of appearance, and, as ground with content, it is the determinate ground of that other world. But it is such only according to that content, for the world of appearance still had other and manifold content than the kingdom of laws, because the negative moment was still the one peculiarly its own. But because the kingdom of laws now has this moment likewise in it, it is the totality of the content of the world of appearance and the ground of all its manifoldness. But it is at the same time the negative of this manifoldness and thus a world opposed to it. — That is to say, in the identity of the two worlds, because the one world is determined according to form as the essential and the other as the same world but posited and unessential, the connection of ground has indeed been restored. But it has been restored as the ground connection of appearance, namely as the connection, not of the two sides of an identical content, nor of a mere diversified content, like law, but as total connection, or as negative identity and essential connection of the opposed sides of the content. — The kingdom of laws is not only this, that the positedness of a content is the positedness of an other, but rather that this identity, as we have seen, is essentially also negative unity, and in this negative unity each of the two sides of law is in it, therefore, its other content; consequently, the other is not an other in general, indeterminedly, but is its other, equally containing the content determination of that other; and thus the two sides are opposed. Now, because the kingdom of laws now has in it this negative moment, namely opposition, and thus, as totality, splits into a world which exists in and for itself and a world of appearance, the identity of these two is the essential connection of opposition. — The connection of ground is, as such, the opposition which, in its contradiction, has foundered to the ground; and concrete existence is the ground that has come to itself. But concrete existence becomes appearance; ground is sublated in concrete existence; it reinstates itself as the return of appearance into itself, but does so as sublated ground, that is to say, as the ground-connection of opposite determinations; the identity of such determinations, however, is essentially a becoming and a transition, no longer the connection of ground as such’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
Ground Relation (or Form), it will be recalled, had no self-subsistence bbut now we have before us the ground relation of Appearance. This is more than the relation of diversities. It is total relation — the relation of both worlds within the one world. Consequently, each of the two sides of law is, in the negative unity, in its own self its other content.” (508) The other is not an indeterminate other in general. It is its other. It too contains the content determination of the first. The two sides are opposed, yet each side contains the other. ‘To grasp this world is to invert it into a ‘Beyond’ (Jenseits); the effort to dwell in or explain the Beyond leads immediately to its inversion into this world’, explains Stanley Rosen.
Hence we have the essential relation of opposition.
‘The world that exists in and for itself is thus itself a world distinguished within itself, in the total compass of a manifold content. That is to say, it is identical with the world of appearance or the posited world and to this extent it is its ground. But its identity connection is at the same time determined as opposition, because the form of the world of appearance is reflection into its otherness and this world of appearance, therefore, in the world that exists in and for itself has truly returned into itself, in such a manner that that other world is its opposite. Their connection is, therefore, specifically this, that the world that exists in and for itself is the inversion of the world of appearance’.
- ‘The Science of Logic’
The ground relation of Appearance is the opposition which, in its contradiction, has fallen to the ground. Existence is, of course, the ground of Appearance. But in Essential Relation, Existence has united with itself. It is the ground relation of opposed determinations, each of which is at the same time sublated ground. Existence has become the Appearance of Appearance, or the Appearance that does not disappear. Recall the passage from the Phenomenology above: Appearance is the arising and passing away that does not itself arise and pass away, but is in itself and constitutes the actuality and the movement of the life of truth.
The Essential Relation between the two worlds is one of inversion and one of these worlds is Appearance and the other is transcendent but which is which? This is undetermined nonetheless Essential Relation is not to be taken as a mere opposition for the relation of the worlds is an opposition and an identity.
Essential Relation
Some notes on Appearance (die Erscheinung):
Appearance as we see is a key concept in the second major division of Hegel’s Logic, the ‘Doctrine of Essence’, we will soon be arriving at Actuality (and then from the ‘Doctrine of Essence’ on to the ‘Doctrine of the Concept’), when things will start to get less psychedelic, but just to clarify (as best as possible considering where we are now) at the beginning of the Doctrine of Essence we are invited to consider the determinate forms of Being (covered in the preceding division of the text the ‘Doctrine of Being’) as mere appearance beyond which may well exist a mysterious inner essence and the distinction here is in fact one of appearance versus reality whereby the inner essence is true reality in contrast to the deceptive and insubstantial appearances. Indeed there are certain philosophers and mystics have taken precisely this approach that is to say denying reality to the world of objects all about us and asserting instead that the real is something that completely transcends appearances as well as our language or to put it in other words they have said that the essence of things is ineffable (while talking about it).
Such an approach has to be rejected (and apart from the obvious absurdities of claiming an unknowable while knowing there is an unknowable or talking about that which cannot be talked about) for the insuperable difficulties with it namely in virtue of appearances being there, appearing to us, the only ground upon which to claim they are somehow unreal would be to demonstrate that their existence depends upon essence but to do that one would have to be able to demonstrate some positive relation between essence and appearance and yet the theory just discussed conceives appearance and essence as externally related, the appearances are a deceptive show, a knowable (or sensible) not-being contrasted to a being that is ultimately unknowable. And furthermore if essence is conceived as unknowable, if we can really say nothing about it, then it is conceived purely negatively, as not-appearance but this makes of essence an empty contentless abstraction, indeed it makes essence a non-being and therefore such endeavours at setting up a dichotomy between appearance and reality are to be rejected. Nonetheless ultimately Hegel does endorse a much more sophisticated version of the appearance-reality distinction one whereby the two are understood to be internally related. Te traditional philosophical denigration of appearance is to be abandoned for we must ask what is it that appears in appearance? And the answer is the being of a thing, what it truly is, Appearance is the showing-forth, the displaying of what something , and Appearance must be this manifestation, or what is it appearance of? And essence must manifest, or what is it? Essence without appearance is a nullity. To adapt the familiar Aristotelian example, the essence of the oak may be in the acorn, but the oak tree is its appearance: the realization of essence.
Although I am more intrigued by his discussion of the essence of cloak never mind oak (I wish I knew Greek). If you have read Aristotle, (384–322 BC), you will understand where Hegel is coming from and what he is trying to do:
‘Since at the start we distinguished the various marks by which we determine substance, and one of these was thought to be the essence, we must investigate this. And first let us make some linguistic remarks about it. The essence of each thing is what it is said to be propter se. For being you is not being musical, since you are not by your very nature musical. What, then, you are by your very nature is your essence. Nor yet is the whole of this the essence of a thing; not that which is propter se as white is to a surface, because being a surface is not identical with being white. But again the combination of both-’being a white surface’-is not the essence of surface, because ‘surface’ itself is added. The formula, therefore, in which the term itself is not present but its meaning is expressed, this is the formula of the essence of each thing. Therefore if to be a white surface is to be a smooth surface, to be white and to be smooth are one and the same. But since there are also compounds answering to the other categories (for there is a substratum for each category, e.g. for quality, quantity, time, place, and motion), we must inquire whether there is a formula of the essence of each of them, i.e. whether to these compounds also there belongs an essence, e.g. ‘white man’. Let the compound be denoted by ‘cloak’. What is the essence of cloak? But, it may be said, this also is not a propter se expression. We reply that there are just two ways in which a predicate may fail to be true of a subject propter se, and one of these results from the addition, and the other from the omission, of a determinant. One kind of predicate is not propter se because the term that is being defined is combined with another determinant, e.g. if in defining the essence of white one were to state the formula of white man; the other because in the subject another determinant is combined with that which is expressed in the formula, e.g. if ‘cloak’ meant ‘white man’, and one were to define cloak as white; white man is white indeed, but its essence is not to be white. But is being-a-cloak an essence at all? Probably not. For the essence is precisely what something is; but when an attribute is asserted of a subject other than itself, the complex is not precisely what some ‘this’ is, e.g. white man is not precisely what some ‘this’ is, since thisness belongs only to substances. Therefore there is an essence only of those things whose formula is a definition. But we have a definition not where we have a word and a formula identical in meaning (for in that case all formulae or sets of words would be definitions; for there will be some name for any set of words whatever, so that even the Iliad will be a definition), but where there is a formula of something primary; and primary things are those which do not imply the predication of one element in them of another element. Nothing, then, which is not a species of a genus will have an essence-only species will have it, for these are thought to imply not merely that the subject participates in the attribute and has it as an affection, or has it by accident; but for ever thing else as well, if it has a name, there be a formula of its meaning-viz. that this attribute belongs to this subject; or instead of a simple formula we shall be able to give a more accurate one; but there will be no definition nor essence. Or has ‘definition’, like ‘what a thing is’, several meanings? ‘What a thing is’ in one sense means substance and the ‘this’, in another one or other of the predicates, quantity, quality, and the like. For as ‘is’ belongs to all things, not however in the same sense, but to one sort of thing primarily and to others in a secondary way, so too ‘what a thing is’ belongs in the simple sense to substance, but in a limited sense to the other categories. For even of a quality we might ask what it is, so that quality also is a ‘what a thing is’,-not in the simple sense, however, but just as, in the case of that which is not, some say, emphasizing the linguistic form, that that is which is not is-not is simply, but is non-existent; so too with quality’.
- ‘Metaphysics’
Hegel’s treatment of appearance and essence can be understood as two-tiered whereby on one level we can say that the myriad appearances of each thing the many ways in which it displays itself are all manifestations of what it is, its essence, while on a deeper level we can say that the things themselves are appearances of the Absolute. The Absolute is not some mysterious beyond it is the whole of reality itself conceived as a system in which each part is organically related to every other and Hegel endeavours to demonstrate how the being of each finite thing just is its place in the whole, a part of the system of reality itself. Therefore each thing may be understood to be an appearance of the Absolute albeit this does not mean that Hegel reverts to the position that the Absolute is the truth that abides beyond mere appearance for in the absence of these finite things through which the Absolute displays itself there would be no Absolute.
‘Cimmeria’
by Robert Ervin Howard (1906–1936)
I remember
The dark woods, masking slopes of sombre hills;
The grey clouds’ leaden everlasting arch;
The dusky streams that flowed without a sound,
And the lone winds that whispered down the passes.
Vista on vista marching, hills on hills,
Slope beyond slope, each dark with sullen trees,
Our gaunt land lay. So when a man climbed up
A rugged peak and gazed, his shaded eye
Saw but the endless vista — hill on hill,
Slope beyond slope, each hooded like its brothers.
It was a gloomy land that seemed to hold
All winds and clouds and dreams that shun the sun,
With bare boughs rattling in the lonesome winds,
And the dark woodlands brooding over all,
Not even lightened by the rare dim sun
Which made squat shadows out of men; they called it
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and deep Night.
It was so long ago and far away
I have forgot the very name men called me.
The axe and flint-tipped spear are like a dream,
And hunts and wars are shadows. I recall
Only the stillness of that sombre land;
The clouds that piled forever on the hills,
The dimness of the everlasting woods.
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.
Oh, soul of mine, born out of shadowed hills,
To clouds and winds and ghosts that shun the sun,
How many deaths shall serve to break at last
This heritage which wraps me in the grey
Apparel of ghosts? I search my heart and find
Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night.
_________________________________________________
Dedicated to the One. our relation is indeed an essential relation.
I need you,
I need you more than birds need the sky.
I need you, it’s true little girl,
That you can lift the tears from my eyes.
But if you ever tell me good-bye,
I’ll break down and you’ll hear me cry.
I need you,
More than anybody else has needed anyone before.
I need you,
There’s no one else to stand in your place.
I need you, you know little girl,
That you can keep the smile on my face.
But if you ever tell me good-bye,
I’ll break down and you’ll hear me cry.
I need you,
More than anybody else has needed anyone before.
I need you,
There’s no one else to stand in your place.
I need you, you know little girl,
That you can keep the smile on my face.
But if you ever tell me good-bye,
I’ll break down and you’ll hear me cry.
I need you,
More than anybody else has needed anyone before.
More than anybody else has needed anyone before.
I need you,
I need you,
I need you.
‘I Need You’, The Kinks:
===
Coming up next:
Dissolution of Appearance
To be continued …
