Reflection

⁸³³ Illusory existence is the same thing as reflection. But it is immediate reflection.

Reflection is the illusory existence that has withdrawn into itself and so is estranged from its time.

⁸³⁴ Essence is reflection.

It is the movement of becoming and transition that remains internal to it, in which the differentiated moment is determined simply as that which in itself is only negative, as illusory existence.

At the base of becoming in the sphere of existence, there lies the idenity of existence, and this is relation to other.

The movement of reflection, on the other hand, is the other as the negation in itself, which has a being only as self-related negation.

Or, since the self-relation is precisely this negating of negation, the negation as negation is present in such wise that it has its being in its negatedness, as illusory being. Here, therefore, the other is not being with a negation, or limit, but negation with the negation.

But the first, over against this other, the immediate or being, is only this very equality of the negation with itself, the negated negation, absolute negativity. This equality with itself, or immediacy, is consequently not a first from which the beginning was made and which passed over into its negation; nor is it an affirmatively present substrate that moves through reflection; on the contrary, immediacy is only this movement itself.

⁸³⁵ Consequently, becoming is essence, its reflective movement, is the movement of nothing to nothing, and so back to itself.

The transition, or Becoming, sublates itself in its transition: that Other which arises in the course of this transition is not the Not-being of a Being, but the nothingness of a Nothing, and this, to be the negation of a nothing, constitutes Being — Being only is as the movement of Nothing to Nothing, and as such it is Essence.

Essence does not have this movement within it but is this movement, as a being that is itself absolutely illusory, pure negativity, which has nothing without it that could negate it, but negates only its own negativity, which is only in this negation, which latter is only in this negating.® ©

⁸³⁶ This pure absolute reflection that is the movement from nothing to nothing determines itself further.

It is first, positing reflection.

Secondly, it forms the starting point of the presupposed immediate and is thus external reflection.

But thirdly, it sublates this presupposition; and since reflection in sublating the presupposition at the same time presupposes it, it is determining reflection.

(a) Positing Reflection

⁸³⁷ Illusory being is nothingness or the essenceless; but this nothingness or the essenceless does not have its being in an other in which its illusory being is reflected: on the contrary, its being is its own equality with itself.

This interchange of the negative with itself has determined itself as the absolute reflection of essence.

⁸³⁸ This self-related negativity of essence is therefore the negating of its own self.

Hence it is just as much sublated negativity as it is negativity; or it is itself both the negative, and simple equality with itself or immediacy. It consists, therefore, in being itself and not itself and that, too, in a single unity.

⁸³⁹ In the first place, reflection is the movement of nothing to nothing and is the negation that coincides with itself.

This coincidence with itself is, in general, simple equality-with-self, immediacy. But this coincidence is not a transition of the negation into equality-with-self as into its otherness: on the contrary, reflection is transition as sublating of the transition; for reflection is immediate coincidence of the negative with itself.

This coincidence is thus first, equality-with-self or immediacy; but secondly, this immediacy is the equality of the negative with itself, hence self-negating equality, the immediacy that is in itself the negative, the negative of itself, that consists in being that which it is not.

⁸⁴⁰ The self-relation of the negative is, therefore, its return into itself; it is immediacy as the sublating of the negative; but immediacy simply and solely as this relation or as return from a negative, and hence a self-sublating immediacy.

This is posited being or positedness, immediacy purely and simply as determinateness or as self-reflecting.

This immediacy which is only as return of the negative into itself, is that immediacy which constitutes the determinateness of illusory being and which previously seemed to be the starting point of the reflective moment. But this immediacy, instead of being able to form the starting point is, on the contrary, immediacy only as the return or as reflection itself. Reflection therefore is the movement that starts or returns only in so far as the negative has already returned into itself.

⁸⁴¹ It is a positing in so far as it is immediacy as a returning movement; for there is no other on hand, either an other from which or into which immediacy returns; it is, therefore, only as a returning movement, or as the negative of itself.

Furthermore, this immediacy is the sublated negation and the sublated return-into-self. Reflection, as sublating the negative, is a sublating of its other, of immediacy. Since, therefore, it is immediacy as a returning movement, as a coincidence of the negative with itself, it is equally a negative of the negative as negative.

Thus it is a presupposing.

Or immediacy, as a returning movement, is only the negative of itself, only this, to be not immediacy; but reflection is the sublating of the negative of itself, it is a coincidence with itself; it therefore sublates its positing, and since in its positing it sublates its positing, it is a presupposing.

Reflection, in its presupposing, determines the return-into-self as the negative of itself, as that, the sublating of which is essence.

The presupposing is the manner in which it relates itself to itself, but to itself as the negative of itself; only thus is it the self-relating negativity that remains internal to itself. Immediacy presents itself simply and solely as a return and is that negative which is the illusory being of the beginning, the illusory being which is negated by the return. Accordingly, the return of essence is its self-repulsion.

In other words, reflection-into-self is essentially the presupposing of that from which it is the return.

⁸⁴² It is only when essence has sublated its equality-with-self that it is equality-with-self.

It presupposes itself and the sublating of this presupposition is essence itself; conversely, this sublating of its presupposition is the presupposition itself.

Reflection therefore finds before it an immediate which it transcends and from which it is the return. But this return is only the presupposing of what reflection finds before it.

What is thus found only comes to be through being left behind; its immediacy is sublated immediacy.

Conversely, the sublated immediacy is the return-into-self, the coming-to-itself of essence, simple, self-equal being. Hence this coming-to-itself is the sublating of itself and is the self-repelling, presupposing reflection, and its self-repelling is the coming-to-itself of reflection.

⁸⁴³ It follows, therefore, from the foregoing considerations that the reflective movement is to be taken as an absolute recoil upon itself.

For the presupposition of the return-into-self-that from which essence comes, and is only as this return-is only in the return itself.

The transcending of the immediate from which reflection starts is rather the outcome of this transcending; and the transcending of the immediate is the arrival at it.

The movement, as an advance, immediately turns round upon itself and only so is self-movement — a movement which comes from itself in so far as positing reflection is presupposing, but, as presupposing reflection, is simply positing reflection.

⁸⁴⁴ Thus reflection is itself and its non-being, and is only itself, in that it is the negative of itself, for only thus is the sublating of the negative at the same time a coincidence with itself.

⁸⁴⁵ The immediacy that reflection, as a process of sublating, presupposes for itself is purely and simply a positedness, an immediacy that is in itself sublated, that is not distinct from the return-into-self and is itself only this movement of return.

But at the same time it is determined as negative, as immediately opposed to something, therefore to an other. Thus reflection is determinate; and since, in accordance with this determinateness, it has a presupposition and starts from the immediate as its other, it is external reflection.

(b) External Reflection

⁸⁴⁶ Reflection, as absolute reflection, is essence that reflects its illusory being within itself and presupposes for itself only an illusory being, only positedness; as presupposing reflection, it is immediately only positing reflection. But external or real reflection presupposes itself as sublated, as the negative of itself In this determination it is doubled: it is what is presupposed, or reflection-into-self, which is the immediate; and also it is reflection that is negatively self-related; it is related to itself as to its non-being.

⁸⁴⁷ External reflection therefore presupposes a being, first, not in the sense that its immediacy is only positedness or a moment, but, on the contrary, that this immediacy is self-relation and the determinateness is only a moment.

Its relationship to its presupposition is such that the latter is the negative of reflection, but so that this negative as negative is sublated. Reflection in its positing, immediately sublates its positing and thus has an immediate presupposition.

It therefore finds this before it as something from which it starts, and from which it is first the return-into-self, the negating of this its negative. But the fact that what is thus presupposed is a negative or is posited does not concern it; this determinateness belongs only to the positing reflection, but in the presupposing the positedness is present only as sublated.

The determinations posited by the external reflection in the immediate are to that extent external to the latter. This external reflection in the sphere of being was the infinite; the finite ranked as the first, as the real; as the foundation, the abiding foundation, it forms the starting point and the infinite is the reflection-into-self over against it.

⁸⁴⁸ This external reflection is the syllogism in which are the two extremes, the immediate and reflection-into-self; the middle term of the syllogism is the connection of the two, the determinate immediate, so that one part of the middle term, immediacy, belongs only to one of the extremes, the other, determinateness or negation, belongs only to the other extreme.

⁸⁴⁹ But a closer consideration of the action of external reflection shows it to be secondly, a positing of the immediate, which consequently becomes the negative or the determinate; but external reflection is immediately also the sublating of this its positing; for it presupposes the immediate; in negating, it is the negating of this its negating.

But in doing so it is immediately equally a positing, a sublating of the immediate negatively related to it, and this immediate from which it seemed to start as from something alien, is only in this its beginning. In this way, the immediate is not only in itself — that means, for us, or in external reflection — identical with reflection, but this identicalness is posited. For the immediate is determined by reflection as its negative or its other, but it is reflection itself that negates this determining. Hence the externality of reflection over against the immediate is sublated; its positing in which it negates itself, is the union of itself with its negative, with the immediate, and this union is the immediacy of essence itself. The fact is, therefore, that external reflection is not external, but is no less the immanent reflection of immediacy itself; in other words, the outcome of positing reflection is essence in and for itself. Reflection is thus determining reflection.