C. THE MEASURELESS

§ 779

The exclusive measure, even in its realised being-for-self, remains burdened with the moment of quantitative determinate being and is therefore open to movement up and down a scale of fluctuating ratios. Something, or a quality, based on such a ratio is impelled beyond itself into the measureless and is destroyed by the mere alteration of its magnitude. Magnitude is that side of determinate being through which it can be caught up in a seemingly harmless entanglement which can destroy it.

§ 780

The abstract measureless is the quantum as such which lacks an inner significance and is only an indifferent determinateness which does not alter the measure. Measure in the nodal line of measures is at the same time posited as specifying and the abstract measureless raises itself into a qualitative determinateness; the new measure relation into which the original one passes is, with respect to this, measureless, but in its own self it is equally a quality on its own account. Thus there is posited the alternation of specific existences with one another and of these equally with relations remaining merely quantitative — and so on ad infinitum. What therefore is present in this transition is both the negation of the specific relations and the negation of the quantitative progress itself — the infinite which is for itself. The qualitative infinite, as simply a determinate being, was the eruption of the infinite in the finite as an immediate transition and vanishing of the latter in its beyond. The quantitative infinite on the other hand is, simply by virtue of its determinateness, the continuity of the quantum, a continuity of it into its beyond. The qualitative finite becomes the infinite; the quantitative finite is in its own self its beyond and points beyond itself. But this infinity of the specification of measure posits both the qualitative and the quantitative as sublating themselves in each other, and hence posits their first, immediate unity, which is measure as such, as returned into itself and therefore as itself posited. The transition of the qualitative, of one specific existence, into another, is such that all that occurs is an alteration of the specific magnitude of a ratio. Hence the alteration of the qualitative itself into the qualitative is posited as an external and indifferent change, as a coming together with itself; moreover, the quantitative, in being converted into the qualitative, into that which is determined in and for itself, sublates itself. This unity which thus continues itself into itself in its alternating measures is the truly persisting, self-subsistent material substance or thing.

§ 781

What therefore is present here is [a] one and the same thing which is posited as the perennial substrate of its differentiations. This severance of being from its determinateness begins already in quantum as such; under the category of magnitude, a thing is indifferent to its affirmative determinateness. In measure, the thing itself is already in itself the unity of its qualitative and quantitative moments, the two moments which constitute the element of difference within the general sphere of being and of which one is the beyond of the other; in this way the perennial substrate has directly in its own self the determination of affirmative infinity. [b] This self-sameness of the substrate is posited in the fact that the qualitative self-subsistent measures into which the specifying unity is dispersed consist only of quantitative differences, so that the substrate continues itself into this differentiation of itself; [c] in the infinite progress of the nodal series there is posited the continuation of the qualitative moment into the quantitative progress as into an indifferent alteration, but equally too, there is posited the negation of the qualitative moment contained therein and hence of the merely quantitative externality too. The quantitative reference beyond itself to an other which is itself quantitative perishes in the emergence of a measure relation, of a quality; and the qualitative transition is sublated in the very fact that the new quality is itself only a quantitative relation. This transition of the qualitative and the quantitative into each other proceeds on the basis of their unity, and the meaning of this process is only to show or to posit the determinate being of such a substrate underlying the process, a substrate which is their unity.

§ 782

In the series of self-subsistent measure relations the one-sided members of the series are immediately qualitative somethings (specific gravities or chemical substances, bases, alkalis, or acids for example), and then their neutralisations (by which must also be understood here the compounds of substances of different specific gravity) are self-subsistent and even exclusive measure relations, self-determined and mutually indifferent totalities of determinate being. Now such relations are determined only as nodal points of one and the same substrate. Consequently, the measures and the self-subsistent things posited with them are reduced to states. The alteration is only change of a state, and the subject of the transition is posited as remaining the same in the process.

§ 783

Surveying the progressive determinations which measure has passed through we can summarise them as follows. Measure is, in the first instance, only the immediate unity of quality and quantity as an ordinary quantum which is, however, specific. As thus a specific quantity which is related not to another but to itself, it is essentially a ratio. It therefore also contains its moments as sublated and undivided within itself; as is always the case in a Notion, the difference in the ratio is present in such a manner that each of its moments is itself a unity of quality and quantity. The difference therefore is real and yields a number of measure relations which, as formal totalities in themselves, are selfsubsistent. The two series formed by the sides of these ratios are the same constant arrangement for each individual member which, as belonging to one side, enters into relationship with all the members of the opposite series.

§ 784

This unity as a mere arrangement is still quite external, and although it shows itself to be an immanent specifying unity of a self-subsistent measure distinguished from its specifications, it is not yet the free Notion which alone gives its differences an immanent determination: it is as yet only a substrate, a material, and for its differentiation into totalities, i.e., into differences embodying the nature of the unchanged substrate, it is dependent solely on the external, quantitative determination which shows itself at the same time as a difference of quality. In this unity of the substrate with itself the measure determination is sublated and its quality is an external state determined by the quantum. This process is equally the progressive determination of measure in its realisation and also the reduction of measure to the status of a moment.