Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Conspectus of Hegel’s
Science of Logic —
Book I (The Doctrine of Being)


Note: Quoted text and page numbers—i.e., (67)—indicate links to passages in Hegel’s Science of Logic.


Book One:
THE DOCTRINE OF BEING


WITH WHAT SHOULD ONE BEGIN SCIENCE?

(59)[1]  ...(en passant)
“the nature of
cognition” (idem
p. 6 1)
The theme
of logic. To be
compared to
present-day
“epistemol-
ogy.”
(60) ...“There is nothing (Hegel’s italics)
in Heaven, Nature, Spirit, or anywhere
else, which does not contain immedia-
cy as well as mediacy....” 		NB

1) Heaven—Nature—Spirit. Heaven
away: materialism.
2) Everything is vermittelt = mediat-
ed, bound into One, connected by transi-
tions. Away with Heaven—law-governed
connection of the whole (process)
of the world.

(62) “Logic is pure science, that is, pure
knowledge in the WHOLE extent of
its DEVELOPMENT....”

1st line nonsense,
2nd line brilliant.

 

What should one begin with? “Pure Be-
ing” (Sein) (63)—“no assumption to be
made,” the beginning. “Not hold in itself
any content ...” “to be mediated by noth-
ing....”

(66) ...“The advance (des Erken-
nens[2]) ...” “must be determined by
the nature of the ‘subject matter and the
content itself ...’” 		NB
(68) Beginning contains both “Nichts”[3]
and “Sein,”[4] it is their unity:
... “that which is beginning, as yet
is not; it is merely advancing to-
wards Being....” (from not-Be-
ing to Being: “not-Being, which
is also Being”).

Nonsense about the absolute (68-69).
I am in general trying to read Hegel
materialistically: Hegel is materialism
which has been stood on its head (accord-
ing to Engels[5])—that is to say, I cast
aside for the most part God, the Abso-
lute, the Pure Idea, etc.

(70-71) One cannot begin philosophy with
the “Ego.” There is no “objective
movement”. (71)

 

SECTION ONE:

DETERMINATENESS (QUALITY)


(77) Pure Being—“without any further de-
termination.”
Bestimmung[6] is already Qualität.[7])
Transition
of Sein—into
Dasein[8] 		Existent (?)
Being       
       Finite
Being        		—and this
into Fürsich-
sein (Being
for Self?)
 

Sein—Nichts—Werden[9]

“Pure Being and pure Nothing are ... the
same.” (78)

(81: This seems to be a “paradox.”) Their
union is Werden.

“Movement of immediate disappearance
of the one into the other....”

Nichts is opposed to dem Et-
was.[10] But Etwas is already
a determinate Being distinguish-
ed from another Etwas, but it
is a question here of simple
Nichts. (79)

(The Eleatics and Parmenides,
especially the former, arrived
at this abstraction of Being.)
According to Heraclitus “all
things flow” (80)..., i.e., ”every-
thing is Becoming.”
Ex nihilo nihil fit?[11] Out of Nichts
comesSein (Werden)....

(81): “It would not be difficult to dem-
onstrate this unity of Being and Noth-
ing ... in every (Hegel’s italics) example,
in every fact and thought” ... “neither
in heaven nor on earth is there anything
not containing both Being and Nothing.”
Objections presume bestimmtes  Sein[12]
(I have 100 taler or not) 82 i. f.,[13]—
but that is not the question....

“A determinate or finite Being is such
as refers itself to another; it is a content
which stands in a relation of necessity with
other content or with the whole world.
In view of the mutually determinate connec-
tion of the whole, metaphysics couls make
the assertion—which is really a tantology—
that if the least grain of dust were destroyed
the whole universe must collapse.” (83)

“The neces-
sary connec-
tion of the
whole
world” ... “the
mutually
determinant
connection of
the whole”
 
(86): “What is first in science has had to
show itself first, too, historically.”
(It sounds very materialistic!) 		NB
(91): “Becoming is the subsistence of Be-
ing as much as of not-Being....”
“Transistion is the smae thing as
Becoming....” (92 i. f.)
(94)

“Paramenides, equally with Spinoza,
will not admit transition from Being,
or the absolute Substance, to the neg-
ative, finite.”

For Hegel, however, the unity or indi-
visibility (p. 9 0 this term is some-
times better than unity) of “Being” and
“Nothing” gives the transition, Werden.

The absolute and the relative, the fin-
nite and the infinite = parts, stages
of one and the same world. So etwa?[14]

(92: “We shall reserve for such Being as
is mediated the term Existence.”)
102: According to Plato in the “Parme-
nides,” the transition from Being and
the One = “äußere Reflexion.”[15]
104: It is said that darkness is the ab-
sence of light. But “as little is seen
in pure light as in pure darkness....”
107 —Reference to infinitely small mag-
nitudes, which are taken in process
of disappearing....

“There exists nothing that is not a mean
condition between Being and Nothing.”

NB
 

“Unbegreiflichkeit des Anfangs”[16]—if
Nothing and Being exclude each other, but
that is not dialectics, but Sophisterei.[17]
(108)

 

“For sophistry is an argument proceeding
from a baseless supposition which is allowed
without criticism or reflection; while we
term dialectic that higher movement of
Reason where terms appearing absolutely

Sophistry
 
and

distinct pass into one another through them-
selves, through what they are, and the as-
sumption of their separateness cancels it-
self.” (108)

 
dialectics
 

Werden. Its moments: Entstehen und Vergehen.[18] (109)

 
        Das Aufheben des Werdens[19]—das
  Dasein.

  concrete, determinate Being (?)  

 
110: aufheben = ein Ende machen
               = erhalten
(aufbewahren zugleich)[20]
112: Dasein ist bestimmtes Sein[21] (NB
114 “ein Konkretes”[22]),—Quality,
separate from Anderes,—veränder-
lich und endlich.[23] 		NB
114 “Determinateness, taken thus isolated
and by itself as existent determinate-
ness, is Quality....” “Quality, which is
to count as something separately exist-
ing, is Reality.” (115)
117 ...“Determinateness is negation....”
(Spinoza) Omnis determinatio est ne-
gatio,[24] “this statement is of im-
measureable importance....”
120 “Something is the first negation of
negation....”
( Here the exposition
is somewhat fragment-
ary and highly
obscure.)

abstrakte und
abstruse Hege-  
  lei[25] —
  Engels

125 —...Two pairs of determinations: 1)
“Something and Other”; 2)“Being-for-
Other and Being-in-Self.”
127 —Ding an sich[26]—“a very simple
abstraction.” The proposition that we
do not know what Things-in-themselves
are seems sagacious. The Thing-in-itself
is an abstraction from all determi-
nation [Sein-für-Anderes[27]]
[from all| relation to Other], i.e., a
Nothing. Consequently, the Thing-in-
itself is “nothing but an abstraction,
void of truth and content.” 		NB

This is very profound: the Thing-in-
itself and its conversion into a Thing-
for-others (cf. Engels[28]). The Thing-
in-itself is altogether an empty, lifeless
abstraction. In life, in movement, each
thing and everything is usually both
“in itself” and “for others” in relation
to an Other, being transformed from
one state to the other.

Sehr gut!! If
we ask what
Things-in-
themselves
are, so ist in
die Frage ge-
dankenloser
Weise die
Unmüglich-
keit der
Beanwort-
ung ge-
legt[29].... (127)

129 En passant: dialectical philosophy
which is unknown to “metaphysical
philosophy, which includes also the
critical philosophy.” 		Kantian-
ism =
metaphysics

Dialectics is the teaching which
shows how Opposites can be and
how they happen to be (how they be-
come) identical,—under what con-
ditions they are identical, becoming
transformed into one another,—why the
human mind should grasp these oppos-
ites not as dead, rigid, but as living, con-
ditional, mobile, becoming transformed
into one another. En lisant Hegel[30]....

134: “Limit (is) simple negation or first
negation” (das Etwas.[31] Every Some-
thing has its Limit) “while Other is
at the same time negation of negation....”
137: “Etwas mit seiner immanenten. Gren-
ze gesetzt als der Widerspruch seiner
selbst, durch den es über sich hinaus-
gewiesen und getrieben wird, ist das
Endliche.”

(“Something, taken from
the point of view of its imma-
nent Limit—from the point of
view of its self-contradiction,
a contradiction which drives it
[this Something] and leads it
beyond its limits, is the Finite.)

     When things are described as finite,—
that is to admit that their not-Being
is their nature (“not-Being constitutes their
Being”).
     “They” (things) “are, but the truth of this
being is their end.”

Shrewd and clever! Hegel analyses
concepts that usually appear to be dead
and shows that there is movement in
them. Finite? That means moving to
an end! Something?—means not that
which is Other. Being in general?—
means such indeterminateness that Be-
ing = not-Being. All-sided, univer-
sal flexibility of concepts, a flexibil-
ity reaching to the identity of oppo-
sites,—that is the essence of the matter.
This flexibility, applied subjectively =
eclecticism and sophistry. Flexibility,
applied objectively, i.e. reflecting the
all-sidedness of the material process
and its unity, is dialectics, is the correct
reflection of the eternal development
of the world.

 N B
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 thoughts on
 dialectics en
 lisant Hegel
139 —The infinite and the Finite, it is
said, are opposite to one another?
(see p. 148) (cf. p. 151).
141 —Sollen und Schranke[32]—Moments of
des Endlichen.[33]
143 —“At Ought the transgression beyond
finitude, Infinity, begins.”
143 It is said that reason has its bounds.
“When this assertion is made it is not
seen that by the very fact that some-
thing has been determined as a bound-
ary, it has already been surpassed.” 		sehr gut!
144: A stone does not think, therefore its
restrictedness (Beschränktheit) is no
bound (Schranke) for it. But the stone
also has its bounds, for instance its
oxydisability, if it “is a base capable
of being oxydised.”

  Evolution[34] of the stone  

144 -145:—Everything (human) passes be-
yond its bounds (Trieb, Schmerz[35],
etc.), but Reason, if you please, “can-
not pass beyond its bounds”!
     “It is true that not every passage
beyond the bound is a veritable eman
cipation from it!”
     A magnet, if it had consciousness,
would consider its turning to the north
as freely made (Leibnitz). - No, it
would know then all directions in space,
and it would consider the one direction
as a boundary to its freedom, a limi-
tation of it. 		The dialect-
ics of things
themselves,
148 ...“It is the nature of the finite to
pass beyond itself, to negate its nega-
tion and to become infinite....” Not
external (fremde) power (Gewalt) (149)
converts the finite into the infin-
 of Nature
itself, of the
course of
events itself
ite, but its (finite’s) nature (seine Natur).
151: “Schlechte Unendlichkeit”[36]infini-
ty qualitatively counterposed to fini-
tude, not connected with it, separated
from it, as if the finite were dies-
seits,[37] and the infinite jenseits,[38]
as if the infinite stood above the finite,
outside it ...
153:: In fact, however, sind sie[39] (the
finite and the infinite) untrennbar.[40]
They are a unity.(155)
158 -159: ...“The unity of finite and
infinite is not an external juxtaposition
of these terms, nor an improper con-
nection contrary to their determinat-
ion, and binding tbgether entities
separate and opposed and mutually
independent and hence incompatible;
on the contrary, each in itself is this
unity, and is so only in transcending
itself, neither excelling the other in
Being-in-Self and affirmative Existent
Being. It has been demonstrated above
that finitude exists only as a passing
beyond itself; it thus contains infin-
ity, which is its Other....” 		To be applied
to atoms ver-
sus electrons.
In general
the infinite-
ness of mat-
ter deep
within...

...“The infinite progression, however,
asserts more than this” (than the mere compar-
ison of the finite with the infinite): “in it is
also posited the connection (Hegel’s italics)
of terms which also are distinct....” (160)

The connec-
tion (of all
parts) of infi-
nite progress
167 “The nature of speculative thought ...
consists solely in seizing the opposed
moments in their unity.”
The question how the infinite arrives
at finite is sometimes considered as
the essence of philosophy. But this
question amounts to elucidating their
connection....
168 ...“In the other’ subjects, too, the art
of putting questions demands some
education; still more so in philosoph-
ical subjects, if a better answer is to be
received than that the question is idle.” 		Bien Dit!
[The relation to the Other has disappeared;
what has remained is the relation to
Self.]
173 -174:     Fürsichsein—Being-for-Self—in-
infinite Being, consummated qualitative
Being. [The relation to the Other has dis-
appeared; what has remained is the relat-
ion to Self.] Quality reaches its climax
(auf de Spitze) and becomes quantity.

The idealism of Kant and Fichte... (181)
“remains in the dualism” ((unclear)) “of
existent Being and Being-for-Self...,”

i.e., that there is no transition of the
Thing-in-itself (mentioned in the fol-
lowing sentence) to the appearance? of
the object to the subject?

Why Fürsichsein is Eins[41] is not clear
to me. Here Hegel is extremely obscure,
in my opinion.

The One is the old principle of the άτο-
μον[42] (and the void). The void is considered
Quell der Bewegung[43] (185) not only
in the sense that space is not filled, but
also enthüllt;[44] “this profounder thought,
that the negative in general contains the
ground of Becoming, the unrest of
self-movement.“ (186)

NB:
Selbstbeweg-
ung.[45]
183: “The ideality of Being-for-Self as
totality thus, first, passes into reality,
and into the most fixed and abstract
of all, as One.”

   Dark Waters...   

The thought of the ideal passing into
the real is profound: very important
for history. But also in the personal
life of man it is clear that this contains
much truth. Against vulgar materialism.
NB. The difference of the ideal from the
material is also not unconditional, not
überschwenglich.[46]

189 —Note: The monads of Leibnitz. The
principle of Eins[47] and its incomplete-
ness in Leibnitz.

Obviously, Hegel takes his self-de-
velopment of concepts, of categories,
in connection with the entire history
of philosophy. This gives still a new
aspect to the whole Logic.

193 ...“It is an old proposition that One
is Many, and more especially that the
Many are One...”
195 ...“The distinction of One and Many
has determined itself to be that of their
I relation to one another; this is divided
into two relations, Repulsion and At-
traction....”

In general, all this Fürsichsein[48]
was, probably, in part required by Hegel
to deduce “the transition of quality into
quantity” (199)—quality is determi-
nateness, determinateness for self, Ge-
stzte,[49] it is the One—this gives the
impression of being very far fetched and
empty.

     Note, page 203 the remark, which is not
devoid of irony, against that
     procedure of knowledge reflecting on
experience, which first perceives determ-
nations in the phenomenon, next makes
them the basis, and assumes for their
so-called explanation corresponding funda-
mental materials or forces which are sup-
posed to produce these determinations of
the phenomenon....”

 

SECTION TWO:

MAGNITUDE (QUANTITY)


Kant has four “antinomies.” In fact,
every concept, every category is similarly
antinomous. (217)

 

“The old scepticism did not shrink from
the labour of demonstrating this contra-
diction or antinomy in every concept which
it found in the sciences.”

The role of
scepticism in
the history of
philosophy
 

Analysing Kant very captiously (and
shrewdly), Hegel comes to the conclusion
that Kant simply repeats in his conclusions
what which was said in the premises, namely
he repeats that there is a category of Kon-
tinuität[50] and a category of Diskretion.[51]

 

From this it follows merely “that, takes
alone, neither determination has truth,
but only their unity. This is the true dia-
lectic consideration of them, and the true
result.” (226)

Wahrhafte
  Dialek-
     tik[52]

229: “Die Diskretion [translation? sepa-
rateness,[53] dismemberment]
like die Kontinuität [contiguity (?),
successiveness (?),[54] continuity] is
a moment of Quantity....”
232: “Quantum—which, first, means quan-
tity having any determinateness or lim-
it at all—is, in its complete determi-
nateness, Number...”
234: “Anzahl amount enumeration? and
Unit constitute the moments of Num-
ber.”
248 —On the problem of the role and sig-
nificance of number (much about Py-
thagoras, etc., etc.)

Among other things, an apt remark:

“The richer in determinateness, and hence
in relation, thoughts become, the more con-
fused, on the one hand, and the more arbit-
rary and senseless, on the other hand, be-
comes their representation in such forms
as numbers.” (248-249) ((Valuation of
thoughts: richness in determinations and

consequently in relations.))

In regard to Kant’s antinomies (world
without beginning, etc.) Hegel again dem-
onstrates des Längeren[55] that the premises
take as proved that which has to be proved.
(267-278)

Further the transition of quantity into
quality in the abstract-theoretical expo-
sition is so obscure that nothing can be
understood. Return to it!!

283: the infinite in mathematics. Hither-
to ‘the justification has consisted
only in the correctness of the results
(“welche aus sonstigen Gründen erwie-
sen ist”[56]),... and not in the clear-
ness of the subject [c.f. Engels[57]]. 		NB
285: In the infinitesimal calculus a
certain inexactitude (conscious) is ig-
nored, nevertheless the result obtained
is not approximate but absolutely exact!
285: Notwithstanding this, to demand
Rechtfertigung[58] here is “not as super-
fluous” “as to ask in the case of the nose
for a demonstration of the right to
use it.”[59]

Hegel’s answer is complicated, abst-
rus,[60] etc., etc. It is a question of
higher  mathematics; c.f. Engels
on the differential and integral calcu-
lus.[61]

Interesting is Hegel’s remark made in
passing—“transcendentally, that is really
subjective and psychological”... “tran-
scendental, that is, in the subject” (288)

Pp. 282-327 u. ff.—379
     A most detailed consideration of the
differential and integral calculus, with
quotations - Newton, Lagrange, Carnot,
Euler, Leibnitz, etc., etc.,—showing
how interesting Hegel found this “vanish-
ing” of infinitely small magnitudes,
this “intermediate between Being and
not-Being.” Without studying higher
mathematics all this is incomprehens-
ible. Characteristic is the title: Carnot:
“Réflexions sur la Métaphysique du calcul
infinitésimal”!!![62]

“The development of the concept Verhält-
nis[63] (379-394) extremely obscure. Note
only, p. 394, the remark on symbols, that
there is nothing to be said against them in
general. But “against all Symbolism” it
must be said that it sometimes is “a con-
venient means of escaping from compre-
hending, stating and justifying the concep-
tual determinations” (Begriffsbestimmun-
gen). But precisely this is the concern
of philosophy.

“The common determinations of force,

or substantiality, cause and effect, and
others, are themselves too only symbols
used to express, for example, vital and

 ?NB

spiritual relations; that is, they are untrue
determinations of those relations.” (394)

 

SECTION THREE:

MEASURE


“In Measure, to put it abstractly, Qual-
ity and Quantity are united. Being as
such is the immediate self-identity of de-
terminateness. This immediacy of determi-
nateness has transcended itself. Quantity is
Being which has returned upon itself in
such a manner that it is simple self-identity
as indifference to determinateness.” (395)
The third term is Measure.

Kant introduced the category of modal-
ity (possibility, actuality, necessity) and
remarks that in Kant:
     “This category means that it is the rela-
tion of the object to thought. In the sense
of this idealism, thought in general is
essentially external to the Thing-in-itself...,
objectivity, which is a quality of the other
categories, is lacking in the categories of
modality.” (396)

En passant: (397)

Indian philosophy, in which Brahma
passes to Siva (change = disappearance,
arising)....

The peoples deify Measure. (399)

? Measure passes into Essence (Wesen).

(Regarding the question of Measure it is
not without interest to note the remark
made in passing by Hegel that “in devel-
oped civil society aggregates of indivi-
duals belonging to different trades are in
a certain relation to one another.”) (402)

On the question of the category of Grad-
ualness (Allmähligkeit), Hegel remarks:
     “Recourse is so readily made to this cat-
egory in order to render intelligible to the
eye or to the mind the disappearance of a
Quality or of Something; for thus the illu-
sion is created that one can almost be
eye-witness of disappearance; for, Quantum
being posited as limit external and variable
by its very nature, change (as a change of
Quantum only) needs no explanation. But
in fact nothing is thereby explained; the
change is also essentially the transition
of one Quality into another, or (a more ab-
stract transition) of one existence into a
non-existence; and this contains a determi-
nation different from that of gradual, which
is only a decrease or increase and a one-
sided retention of magnitude.

“But already the ancients were aware of
the connection by which a change appearing
as merely quantitative turns into one which
is qualitative, and they illustrated the
confusions which arise from ignorance
of this connection by popular examples...”
(405-406) (“bald”—the removal of one hair
from a head; a “heap”—the removal of one
grain...) “what” (here) “is refuted is” das
einseitige Festhalten an der abstrakten
Quantumsbestimmtheit (“the one-sided
clinging to abstract quantitative deter-

 

minateness,” i.e., “without taking account
of the manifold changes and concrete quali-
ties,” etc.). ...“Therefore those changes are
no idle and pedantic joke; they are in them-
selves correct and the product of a conscious-
ness which takes an interest in the phenom-
ena which occur in thought.

NB
 

“Quantum when it is taken as indiffer-
ent limit is that side from which an Exist-
ent Being can unsuspectedly be attacked
and destroyed. It is the cunning of the
Notion to seize it from this side, where its
Quality does not appear to come into play;
and this so much so that the aggrandise-
ment of a state or of a property, and so on,
which leads in the end to disaster for the
state or the owner of the property, may
at first actually appear as their good for-
tune.” (407)

“It is a great merit to become acquainted
with the empirical numbers of nature (as
the distances of the planets from one
another), but an infinitely greater merit
to cause the empirical Quanta to disappear

and to raise them into a universal form of
quantitative determinations, so that they
become moments of a law or Measure”;
the merit of Galileo and Kepler... “They

Gesetz oder
Maß [64]

demonstrated the laws which they discov-
ered by showing that the totality of details

of perception corresponds to these laws.”
(416) But höheres Beweisen[65] of these laws
must be demanded in order that their
quantitative determinations be known from

?

Qualitäten oder bestimmten Begriffen, die
bezogen sind (wie Raum und Zeit).[66]

The development of the concept des
Maßes,[67] as a spezifische Quantität[68]
and as reales Maß[69] (including Wahl-
verwandtschaften[70]—for example,
chemical elements, musical tones), very ob-
scure.

A lengthy note on chemistry, with
a polemic against Berzelius and his
theory of electro-chemistry. (433-445)

The “nodal line of measure relations”
(Knotenline von Maßverhältnissen)—tran-
sitions of quantity into quality... Gradual-
ness and leaps.

 
NB

And again p. 448, that gradualness
explains nothing without leaps.

NB
 

In Hegel’s note as always, factual mate-
rial, examples, the concrete (hence Feuer-
bach said jestingly on one occasion that
Hegel banished nature to his notes, Feuer-
bach, Works, II, p. ?).[71]

 

Pp. 448-452, a note included in the
table of contents (not in the text!! Pedant-
ry!!): “Examples of such Nodal Lines;
in this connection, that there are no leaps

 Leaps!

in nature.”

Examples: chemistry; musical tones; wa-
ter (steam, ice)—p. 449—birth and death.

 

Abbrechen der Allmähligkeit,
p. (450)

Breaks
in
gradualness
 

“It is said that there are no leaps in nature;
and ordinary imagination, when it has to
conceive an arising or passing away, thinks
it has conceived them (as was mentioned)
when it imagines them as a gradual emer-

Leaps!

emergence or disappearance. But we saw that

the changes of Being were in general not
only a transition of one magnitude into
another, but a transition from the quali-
tative into the quantitative, and converse
ly: a process of becoming other which
breaks off graduality, and is qualitatively
other as against the preceding Existent
Being. Water on being cooled does not little
by little become hard, gradually reaching
the consistency of ice after having passed
through the consistency of paste, but is
suddenly hard; when it already has quite
attained freezing-point it may (if it stands

Leaps!

still) be wholly liquid, and a slight
shake brings it into the condition of hardness.

“The gradualness of arising is based upon
the idea that that which arises is already,
sensibly or otherwise, actually there, and
is imperceptible only on account of its
smallness; and the gradualness of vanishing
is based on the idea that not-Being or the
Other which is assuming its place equally
is there, only is not yet noticeable;—
there, not in the sense that the Other is
contained in the Other which is there in
itself, but that it is there as existence,
only unnoticeable. This altogether can-
cels arising and passing away; or the In-
itself, that inner thing in which some-
thing is before it attains its existence, is
transmuted into a smallness of external
existence, and the essential or conceptual
distinction into a difference external and
merely magnitudinal.—The procedure which
makes arising and passing away conceiv-
able from the gradualness of change is
boring in the manner peculiar to tautol-
ogy; that which arises. or passes away is
prepared beforehand, and the change is
turned into the mere changing of an exter-
nal distinction; and now it is indeed a mere
tautology. The difficulty for such Under-
standing which attempts to conceive con-
sists in the qualitative transition of Some-
thing into its Other in general and its op-
posite; Understanding, on the other hand,
fancies identity and change to be of that
indifferent and external kind which applies
to the quantitative.

“In the moral sphere, insofar as it is con-
sidered in the sphere of Being, the same
transition from quantitative to qualitative
takes place, and different qualities appear
to base themselves on differences in magni-
tude. A ‘more’ or ‘less’ suffices to trans-
gress the limit of levity, where something
quite different, namely, crime, appears;
whereby right passes over into wrong, and
virtue into vice.—Thus too do states—
other things being equal—derive a differ-
ent qualitative character from magnitu-
dinal difference....” (450-452)

Further:
    Transition of Being into Essence (Wesen),
expounded extremely obscurely.
    End of Volume I.

 

 

Notes

[1] Hegel, Werke, III, Berlin, 1833.—Ed.

[2] of knowledge—Ed.

[3] “nothing”—Ed.

[4] “being”—Ed.

[5] See F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, p. 372.)

[6] determination—Ed.

[7] quality—Ed.

[8] Existent Being—Ed.

[9] Being—Nothing—Becoming—Ed.

[10] Something—Ed.

[11] Out of nothing comes nothing?—Ed.

[12] Determinate  Being—Ed.

[13] in fine—at the end—Ed.

[14] Perhaps so?—Ed.

[15] “external reflection”—Ed.

[16] “incomprehensibility of the beginning”—Ed.

[17] sophistry—Ed.

[18] arising and passing away—Ed.

[19] The superseding of Becoming.—Ed.

[20] supersede = terminate-maintain (simultaneously to preserve)—Ed.

[21] Existent Being is Determinate Being—Ed.

[22] “concrete”—Ed.

[23] an other—variable and finite—Ed.

[24] every determination is negation—Ed.

[25] abstract and obscure Hegelianism—Ed.

[26] Thing-in-itself—Ed.

[27] being-for-other—Ed.

[28] See f. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. II, Moscow, 1958, p. 371.)

[29] the question, in thoughtlessness, is so put as to render an answer impossible—Ed.

[30] in reading Hegel—Ed.

[31] Something—Ed.

[32] Ought, or Should-be; and Bound or Boundary—Ed.

[33] the Finite—Ed.

[34] In the MS, the Russian letter “и” appears above the last letter of the word for “evolution”. In Russian, the ending “и” forms the plural of the word.—Ed.

[35] impulse, pain—Ed.

[36] “bad infinity”—Ed.

[37] on this side—Ed.

[38] on that side—Ed.

[39] they are—Ed.

[40] inseparable—Ed.

[41] One—Ed.

[42] atom (indivisible)—Ed.

[43] source of motion—Ed.

[44] contains—Ed.

[45] self-movement—Ed.

[46] inordinate—Ed.

[47] the One—Ed.

[48] Being-for-Self—Ed.

[49] the posited—Ed.

[50] continuity—Ed.

[51] discreteness—Ed.

[52] true dialectics—Ed.

[53] in the MS., the word “separateness” is crossed out.—Ed.

[54] In the MS., the words “contiguity, successiveness” are crossed out.—Ed.

[55] in detail—Ed.

[56] “demonstrated on other grounds”—Ed.

[57] See F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, Moscow, 1959 pp. 74-76, 186.

[58] justification—Ed.

[59] An allusion to the couplet “The Question of Right,” from Schiller’s satirical poem “The Philosophers,” which may be translated as follows:
     Long have I used my nose for sense of smell.
   Indeed, what right have I to this, pray tell?

[60]abstruse—Ed.

[61] See F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, Moscow, 1959 pp. 186, 189.

[62] Reflections on the Metaphysics of the Infinitesimal Calculus—Ed.

[63] relation—Ed.

[64] law or measure—Ed.

[65] higher proof—Ed.

[66] qualities or determinate concepts (like space and time) that are related—Ed.

[67] measure—Ed.

[68] specific quantity—Ed.

[69] real measure—Ed.

[70] elective affinites—Ed.

[71] The reference is to a remark made by Feuerbach in his work Vorläufige Thesen zur Reform der Philosophie (Preliminary Theses on the Reform of Philosophy), appearing in Vol. II, p. 257, of Feuerbach’s Works published in German in 1846.

 

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