[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

not simply a matter of perceiving, and will not allow, e.g. the perception that this penknife lies beside this
snuff-box to pass for an "observation". What is perceived should, at least, have the significance of a
universal, and not of a sensuous particular "this".
The universal, here regarded, is, only in the first instance, what remains identical with itself; its movement is
merely the uniform recurrence of the same operation. The consciousness, which thus far finds in the object
merely universality or the abstract "mine", must take upon itself the movement peculiar to the object; and,
since it is not yet at the stage of understanding that object, it must, at least, be the recollection of it, a
recollection which expresses in a universal way what, in actual fact, is merely present in a particular form.
This superficial way of educing from particularity, and the equally superficial form of universality into which
the sense element is merely taken up, without the sense element having in itself become a universal--this
description of things is not as yet a process effected in the object itself. The process really takes place solely
in the function of describing. The object as it is described has consequently lost interest, when one object is
being described another must be taken in hand and ever sought, so as not to put a stop to the process of
description. If it is no longer easy to find new and whole things, then there is nothing for it but to turn back
a(1). OBSERVATION OF NATURE 86
 THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND
upon those already found, in order to divide them still further, break them up into component parts and look
out for any new aspects of thinghood that still remain in them. There can never be an end to the material at
the disposal of this restlessly active instinct. To find a new genus of distinctive significance, or even to
discover a new planet, which although an individual entity yet possesses the nature of a universal, can only
fall to the lot of those who are lucky enough. But the boundary line of what, like elephant, oak, gold, is
markedly distinctive, the line of demarcation of what is genus and species passes through many stages into
the endless particularization of the chaos of plants and animals, kinds of rocks, or of metals, forms of earth,
etc., etc., that only force and craft can bring to light. In this realm where universality means
indeterminateness, where particularity now approximates to singleness, and again at this point and that even
descends to it entirely, there is offered an inexhaustible supply of material for observation and description to
deal with. Here, where a boundless field is opened up, at the boundary line of the universal it can have found
not an immeasurable wealth, but instead, merely the limitations of nature and of its own operation. It can no
longer know whether what seems to have being per se is not a chance accident. What bears the impress of a
confused or immature feeble structure, barely evolving from the stage of elementary indeterminateness,
cannot claim even to be described.
While this seeking and describing seem to be concerned merely with things, we see that in point of fact it
does not continue in the form of sense-perception. Rather, what enables things to be known is more im-
portant for description than the range of sense properties still left over, qualities which, of course, the thing
itself cannot do without, but which consciousness dispenses with. Through this distinction into what is
essential and what is unessential, the notion rises out of the dispersion of sensibility, and knowledge thereby
makes it clear that it has to do at least quite as essentially with its own self as with things. This twofold
essentiality produces a certain hesitation as to whether what is essential and necessary for knowledge is also
so in the case of the things. On the one hand, the qualifying "marks" have merely to serve the purpose of
knowledge in distinguishing things inter se; on the other hand, however, it is not the unessential quality of
things that has to be known, but that feature in virtue of which they themselves break away from the general
continuity of being as a whole, separate themselves from others and stand by themselves. The distinguishing
"marks" must not only have an essential relation to knowledge but also be the essential characteristics of the
things, and the system of marks devised must conform to the system of nature itself, and merely express this
system. This follows necessarily from the very principle and meaning of reason; and the instinct of
reason--for it operates in this process of observation merely as an instinct--has also in its systems attained
this unity, a unity where its objects are so constituted that they carry their own essential reality with them,
involve an existence on their own account, and are not simply an incident of a given particular time, or a
particular place. The distinguishing marks of animals, for example, are taken from their claws and teeth; for,
in point of fact, not only does knowledge distinguish thus one animal from another, but each animal itself
separates itself off thereby; it preserves itself independently by means of these weapons, and keeps itself
detached from the universal nature. A plant, on the other hand, never gets the length of existing for itself; it
touches merely the boundary line of individuality. This line is where plants show the semblance of
diremption and separation by the possession of different sex-characters; this furnishes, therefore, the
principle for distinguishing plants inter se. What, however, stands on a still lower level cannot of itself any
longer distinguish itself from another; it gets lost when the contrast comes into play. Quiescent being and
being in a relation come into conflict with one another; a "thing" in the latter case is something different from
a "thing" in the former state; whereas the "individuum" consists in preserving itself in relation to another.
What, however, is incapable of this and becomes in chemical fashion something other than it is empirically,
confuses knowledge and gives rise to the same doubt as to whether knowledge is to hold to the one side or the
other, since the thing has itself no self-consistency, and these two sides fall apart within it.
In those systems where the elements involve general self-sameness, this character connotes at once the
self-sameness of knowledge and of things themselves as well. But this expansion of these self-identical
characteristics, each of which describes undisturbed the entire circuit of its course and gets full scope to do as
it likes, necessarily leads as readily to its very opposite, leads to the confusion of these characteristics. For the
a(1). OBSERVATION OF NATURE 87
 THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF MIND
qualifying mark, the general characteristic is the unity of opposite factors, viz. of what is determinate, and of
what is per se universal. It must, therefore, break asunder into this opposition. If, now, on one side the
characteristic overmasters the universality in which its essence lies, on the other side, again, this universality
equally keeps that characteristic under control, forces the latter on to its boundary line, and there mingles
together its distinctions and its essential constituents. Observation which kept them apart in orderly fashion,
and thought it had hold there of something stable and fixed, finds the principles overlapping and dominating
one another, sees confusions formed and transitions made from one to another; here it finds united what it
took at first to be absolutely separated, and there separated what it considered connected. Hence, when
observation thus holds by the unbroken self-sameness of being, it has here, just in the most general
determinations given - e.g. in the case of the essential marks of an animal or a plant-to see itself tormented [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]