My dear reader! We assume, then, that this teacher has appeared, that he is dead and buried, and that an interval of time has elapsed between Chapters IV and V. Also in a comedy there may be an interval of several years between two acts. To suggest this passage of time, the orchestra sometimes plays a symphony or something similar in order to shorten the time by filling it up. In a similar manner, I, too, have thought to fill the intervening time by pondering the question set forth. How long the intervening period should be is up to you, but if it pleases you, then for the sake of earnestness and jest we shall assume that precisely eighteen hundred and forty-three years have passed. You see, then, that for the sake of the illusion I ought to take plenty of time, for eighteen hundred and forty-three years is an uncommon allowance of time, which will quickly place me in a predicament opposite to that in which our philosophers find themselves, [IV 236] whom time usually permits nothing more than to give a hint, a predicament opposite to that in which the historians find themselves, whom time, not the subject matter, leaves in the lurch. Therefore, if you find me rather prolix, repeating the same thing “about the same thing,”3 you must, please note, consider that it is for the sake of the illusion, and then you presumably will forgive me my prolixity and account for it in a far different and more satisfying way than to presume that I let myself think that this matter definitely required consideration, yours as well, inasmuch as I suspected 4you of not fully understanding yourself in this regard, although I by no means doubt that you have fully understood and accepted the most recent philosophy, which, like the most recent period, seems to suffer from a strange inattention, confusing the performance with the caption, for who was ever so marvelous or so marvelously great as are the most recent philosophy and the most recent period—in captions.5
7How is that changed which comes into existence [blive til], or what is the change (ϰίνησις)8 of coming into existence [Tilblivelse]? All other change (ἀλλοίωσις) presupposes the existence of that in which change is taking place, even though the change is that of ceasing to be in existence [at være til]. Not so with coming into existence, for if that which comes into existence does not in itself remain unchanged in the change of coming into existence, then the coming into existence is not this coming into existence but another, and the question leads to a μετάβασις εἰς ἀλλὸ γένος [transition from one genus to another],9 in that the questioner in the given case either sees a different change along with the change of coming into existence, which confuses the question for him, or he errs with regard to that which comes into existence and thus is in no position to ask. If, in coming into existence, a plan is intrinsically changed, then it is not this plan that comes into existence; but if it comes [IV 237] into existence unchanged, what, then, is the change of coming into existence? This change, then, is not in essence [Væsen] but in being [Væren]10 and is from not existing to existing. But this non-being that is abandoned by that which comes into existence must also exist, for otherwise “that which comes into existence would not remain unchanged in the coming into existence”11 unless it had not been at all, whereby once again and for another reason the change of coming into existence would be absolutely different from any other change, because it would be no change at all, for every change has always presupposed a something. But such a being that nevertheless is a non-being is possibility, and a being that is being is indeed actual being or actuality, and the change of coming into existence is the transition from possibility to actuality.
Can the necessary come into existence? Coming into existence is a change, but since the necessary is always related to itself and is related to itself in the same way, it cannot be changed at all. All coming into existence is a suffering [Liden], and the necessary cannot suffer, cannot suffer the suffering of actuality—namely, that the possible (not merely the possible that is excluded but even the possibility that is accepted) turns out to be nothing the moment it becomes actual, for possibility is annihilated by actuality. Precisely by coming into existence, everything that comes into existence demonstrates that it is not necessary, for the only thing that cannot come into existence is the necessary, because the necessary is.
Is not necessity, then, a unity of possibility and actuality?12 —What would this mean? Possibility and actuality are not different in essence but in being. How could there be formed from this heterogeneity a unity that would be necessity, which is not a qualification of being but of essence, since the essence of the necessary is to be. In such a case, possibility and actuality, in becoming necessity, would become an absolutely different essence, which is no change, and, in becoming necessity or the necessary, would become the one and only thing that precludes coming into existence, which is just as [IV 238] impossible as it is self-contradictory. (The Aristotelian proposition: “It is possible [to be],” “It is possible not [to be],” “It is not possible [to be].”13 —The doctrine of true and false propositions [Epicurus]14 confuses the issue here, since it reflects on essence, not on being, with the result that nothing is achieved along that path with regard to defining the future.)
Necessity stands all by itself. Nothing whatever comes into existence by way of necessity, no more than necessity comes into existence or anything in coming into existence becomes the necessary. Nothing whatever exists [er til] because it is necessary, but the necessary exists because it is necessary or because the necessary is. The actual is no more necessary than the possible, for the necessary is absolutely different from both. (Aristotle’s theory of two kinds of the possible in relation to the necessary. His mistake is to begin with the thesis that everything necessary is possible.15 To avoid contradictory—indeed, self-contradictory—statements about the necessary, he makes shift by formulating two kinds of the possible instead of discovering that his first thesis is incorrect, since the possible cannot be predicated of the necessary.)
The change of coming into existence is actuality;16 the transition takes place in freedom. No coming into existence is necessary—not before it came into existence, for then it [IV 239] cannot come into existence, and not after it has come into existence, for then it has not come into existence.
All coming into existence occurs in freedom, not by way of necessity. Nothing coming into existence comes into existence by way of a ground,17 but everything by way of a cause. Every cause ends in a freely acting cause. The intervening causes are misleading in that the coming into existence appears to be necessary; the truth about them is that they, as having themselves come into existence, definitively point back to a freely acting cause. As soon as coming into existence is definitively reflected upon, even an inference from natural law is not evidence of the necessity of any coming into existence. So also with manifestations of freedom, as soon as one refuses to be deceived by its manifestations but reflects on its coming into existence.
Everything that has come into existence is eo ipso historical, for even if no further historical predicate can be applied to it, the crucial predicate of the historical can still be predicated—namely, that it has come into existence. Something whose coming into existence is a simultaneous coming into existence (Nebeneinander [side-by-side],18 space) has no other history than this, but nature, even when perceived in this manner (en masse), apart from what a more ingenious view calls the history of nature in a special sense,19 does have a history.
But the historical is the past (for the present on the border with the future has not as yet become historical); how, then, can nature, although immediately present, be said to be historical—unless one is thinking of that more ingenious view? The difficulty arises because nature is too abstract to be dialectical, in the stricter sense of the word, with respect to time. Nature’s imperfection is that it does not have a history in another sense, and its perfection is that it nevertheless has an intimation of it (namely, that it has come into existence, which is the past; that it exists, which is the present). It is, however, the perfection of the eternal to have no history, and of all that is, only the eternal has absolutely no history.
[IV 240] Yet coming into existence can contain within itself a redoubling [Fordobling],20 that is, a possibility of a coming into existence within its own coming into existence.21 Here, in the stricter sense, is the historical, which is dialectical with respect to time. The coming into existence that here is shared with the coming into existence of nature is a possibility, a possibility that for nature is its whole actuality. But this distinctively historical coming into existence is nevertheless within a coming into existence—this must be grasped securely at all times. The more special historical coming into existence comes into existence by way of a relatively freely acting cause, which in turn definitively points to an absolutely freely acting cause.
What has happened has happened and cannot be undone; thus it cannot be changed (Chrysippus the Stoic—Diodorus the Megarian).22 Is this unchangeableness the unchangeableness of necessity? The unchangeableness of the past has been brought about by a change, by the change of coming into existence, but an unchangeableness such as that does not exclude all change, since it has not excluded this one, for all change (dialectical with respect to time) is excluded only by its being excluded at every moment. The past can be regarded as necessary only if one forgets that it has come into existence, but is that kind of forgetfulness also supposed to be necessary?
What has happened has happened the way it happened; thus it is unchangeable. But is this unchangeableness the unchangeableness of necessity? The unchangeableness of the past is that its actual “thus and so” cannot become different, but from this does it follow that its possible “how” could not [IV 241] have been different? But the unchangeableness of the necessary—that it is constantly related to itself and is related to itself in the same way and excludes all change—is not satisfied with the unchangeableness of the past, which, as shown above, is not only dialectical with regard to an earlier change, from which it results, but must be dialectical even with regard to a higher change that nullifies it. (For example, the change of repentance, which wants to nullify an actuality.)
The future has not occurred as yet, but it is not, because of that, less necessary than the past, inasmuch as the past did not become necessary by having occurred, but, on the contrary, by having occurred, it demonstrated that it was not necessary. If the past had become necessary, the opposite conclusion could not be drawn with respect to the future, but on the contrary it would follow that the future would also be necessary. If necessity could supervene at one single point, then we could no longer speak of the past and the future. To want to predict the future (prophesy) and to want to understand the necessity of the past are altogether identical, and only the prevailing fashion makes the one seem more plausible than the other to a particular generation. The past has indeed come into existence; coming into existence is the change, in freedom, of becoming actuality. If the past had become necessary, then it would not belong to freedom any more—that is, belong to that in which it came into existence. 23Freedom would then be in dire straits, something to laugh about and to weep over, since it would bear responsibility for what did not belong to it, would bring forth what necessity would devour, and freedom itself would be an illusion and coming into existence no less an illusion; freedom would become witchcraft and coming into existence a false alarm.*24
Nature as spatial determination exists only immediately. Something that is dialectical with respect to time has an intrinsic duplexity [Dobbelthed], so that after having been present it can endure as a past. The distinctively historical is perpetually the past (it is gone; whether it was years or days ago makes no difference), and as something bygone it has actuality, for it is certain and trustworthy that it occurred. But that it occurred is, in turn, precisely its uncertainty, which will perpetually prevent the apprehension from taking the [IV 243] past as if it had been that way from eternity. Only in this contradiction between certainty and uncertainty, the discrimen [distinctive mark] of something that has come into existence and thus also of the past, is the past understood. Understood in any other way, the apprehension has misunderstood itself (that it is apprehension) and its object (that “something of that kind” could become an object of apprehension). Any apprehension of the past that thinks to understand it thoroughly by constructing30 it has only thoroughly misunderstood it. (At first glance a manifestation theory31 instead of a construction theory is deceptively attractive, but in the very next moment there are once again the secondary construction and the necessary manifestation.) The past is not necessary, inasmuch as it came into existence; it did not become necessary by coming into existence (a contradiction), and it becomes even less necessary through any apprehension of it. (Distance in time prompts a mental illusion just as distance in space prompts a sensory illusion.30a The contemporary does not see the necessity of that which comes into existence, but when centuries lie between the coming into existence and the viewer—then he sees the necessity, just as the person who at a distance sees something square as round.) If the past were to become necessary through the apprehension, then the past would gain what the apprehension lost, since it would apprehend something else, which is a poor apprehension. If what is apprehended is changed in the apprehension, then the apprehension is changed into a misunderstanding. Knowledge of the present does not confer necessity upon it; foreknowledge of the future does not confer necessity upon it (Boethius);32 knowledge of the past does not confer necessity upon it—for all apprehension, like all knowing, has nothing from which to give.
One who apprehends the past, a historico-philosophus, is therefore a prophet in reverse (Daub).33 That he is a prophet simply indicates that the basis of the certainty of the past is the uncertainty regarding it in the same sense as there is uncertainty regarding the future, the possibility (Leibniz—possible worlds),34 out of which it could not possibly come forth [IV 244] with necessity, nam necessarium se ipso prius sit, necesse est [for it is necessary that necessity precede itself]. The historian once again stands beside the past, stirred by the passion that is the passionate sense for coming into existence, that is, wonder [Beundring].35 If the philosopher wonders over nothing whatsoever (and how, except by a new kind of contradiction, could it occur to anyone to wonder over a necessary construction), then he eo ipso has nothing to do with the historical, for wherever coming into existence is involved (which is indeed involved in the past), there the uncertainty (which is the uncertainty of coming into existence) of the most certain coming into existence can express itself only in this passion worthy of and necessary to the philosopher (Plato—Aristotle). Even if what has come into existence is most certain, even if wonder wants to give its stamp of approval in advance by declaring that if this had not occurred it would have to be fabricated (Baader36), even then the passion of wonder is self-contradictory if it fools itself and falsely ascribes necessity to what has come into existence.37—The very word “method,”38 as well as the concept, adequately indicates that the progress implied here is teleological, but in any progress of this sort there is in each moment a pause (here wonder stands in pausa and waits for the coming into existence), which is the pause of coming into existence and the pause of possibility precisely because the τέλος [end, goal] is outside.39 If only one way is possible, then the τέλος is not outside but in the progress itself—indeed, behind it, just as in the progress of immanence.40
So much for the apprehension of the past. It is presumed, however, that there is knowledge of the past—how is this knowledge acquired? Because the historical intrinsically has the illusiveness [Svigagtighed] of coming into existence, it cannot be sensed directly and immediately. The immediate impression of a natural phenomenon or of an event is not the impression of the historical, for the coming into existence cannot be sensed immediately—but only the presence. But the presence of the historical has the coming into existence within itself—otherwise it is not the presence of the historical.
Immediate sensation and immediate cognition cannot deceive.41 This alone indicates that the historical cannot become the object of sense perception or of immediate cognition, because the historical has in itself that very illusiveness that [IV 245] is the illusiveness of coming into existence. In relation to the immediate, coming into existence is an illusiveness whereby that which is most firm is made dubious. For example, when the perceiver sees a star, the star becomes dubious for him the moment he seeks to become aware that it has come into existence. It is just as if reflection removed the star from his senses. It is clear, then, that the organ for the historical must be formed in likeness to this, must have within itself the corresponding something by which in its certitude it continually annuls the incertitude that corresponds to the uncertainty of coming into existence—a double uncertainty: the nothingness of non-being and the annihilated possibility, which is also the annihilation of every other possibility. This is precisely the nature of belief [Tro],42 for continually present as the nullified in the certitude of belief is the incertitude that in every way corresponds to the uncertainty of coming into existence. Thus, belief believes what it does not see;43 it does not believe that the star exists, for that it sees, but it believes that the star has come into existence. The same is true of an event. The occurrence can be known immediately but not that it has occurred, not even that it is in the process of occurring, even though it is taking place, as they say, right in front of one’s nose. The illusiveness of the occurrence is that it has occurred, and therein lies the transition from nothing, from non-being, and from the multiple possible “how.” Immediate sense perception and cognition do not have any intimation of the unsureness with which belief approaches its object, but neither do they have the certitude that extricates itself from the incertitude.
Immediate sensation and cognition cannot deceive. It is important to understand this in order to understand doubt and in order through it to assign belief its place. However strange it may seem, this thought underlies Greek skepticism.44 Yet it is not so difficult to understand this or to understand how this casts light on belief, provided one is not utterly confused by the Hegelian doubt about everything,45 against which there is really no need to preach, for what the Hegelians say about it is of such a nature that it seems rather to favor a modest doubt as to whether there really is anything to their having doubted something. Greek skepticism was a withdrawing skepticism (ἐποχή [suspension of judgment]);46 they doubted not by virtue of knowledge but by [IV 246] virtue of will (deny assent—μετριοπαθει̃ν [moderate feeling]).47 This implies that doubt can be terminated only in freedom, by an act of will, something every Greek skeptic would understand, inasmuch as he understood himself, but he would not terminate his skepticism precisely because he willed to doubt. We must leave that up to him, but we must not lay at his door the stupid opinion that one doubts by way of necessity, as well as the even more stupid opinion that, if that were the case, doubt could be terminated. The Greek skeptic did not deny the correctnness of sensation and of immediate cognition, but, said he, error has an utterly different basis—it comes from the conclusion I draw.48 If I can only avoid drawing conclusions, I shall never be deceived. If, for example, sensation shows me in the distance a round object that close at hand is seen to be square or shows me a stick that looks broken in the water although it is straight when taken out, sensation has not deceived me, but I am deceived only when I conclude something about that stick and that object.49 This is why the skeptic keeps himself continually in suspenso, and this state was what he willed. As for calling Greek skepticism φιλοσοφία ξητητιϰή ἀποϱηθιϰή, σκεϰπτιϰή [philosophy zetetic, aporetic, skeptic],50 these predicates do not express what is distinctive in Greek skepticism, which unfailingly used cognition only to preserve the cast of mind, which was the main consideration, and therefore it would not even declare its negative cognitive results θετιϰω̃ς [positively]51 lest it be trapped in having drawn a conclusion. The cast of mind was to them the primary issue. (τέλος δὲ oΐ σϰεπτιϰοί φασι τὴν ἐποχήν, ᾖ σϰια̃ς τϱόπον ἐπαϰολουθεῑ ἡ ἀτα ϱαξία [The skeptics say that the end in view is a mind suspended, which brings with it a tranquillity like its shadow]. Diogenes Laertius, IX, para. 107.)*52
In contrast, it is now readily apparent that belief is not a [IV 247] knowledge but an act of freedom, an expression of will. It believes the coming into existence and has annulled in itself the incertitude that corresponds to the nothingness of that which is not. It believes the “thus and so” of that which has come into existence and has annulled in itself the possible “how” of that which has come into existence, and without denying the possibility of another “thus and so,” the “thus and so” of that which has come into existence is nevertheless most certain for belief.
Insofar as that which by belief becomes the historical, and as the historical becomes the object of belief (the one corresponds to the other), does exist immediately and is apprehended immediately, it does not deceive. The contemporary does, then, use his eyes etc., but he must pay attention to the conclusion. He cannot know immediately and directly that it has come into existence, but neither can he know with necessity that it has come into existence, for the first mark of coming into existence is specifically a break in continuity. 55At the moment belief believes that it has come into existence, that it has occurred, it makes dubious what has occurred and what has come into existence in the coming into existence and its “thus and so” in the possible how of coming into existence. The conclusion of belief is no conclusion [Slutning] but a resolution [Beslutning],56 and thus doubt is excluded. It might seem to be an inference from effect to cause when belief concludes: this exists, ergo it came into existence. But this is not entirely true, and even if it were, one must remember that the cognitive inference is from cause to effect or rather from ground to consequent (Jacobi57). This is not entirely true, because I cannot immediately sense or [IV 248] know that what I immediately sense or know is an effect, for immediately it simply is. That it is an effect is something I believe, because in order to predicate that it is an effect, I must already have made it dubious in the uncertainty of coming into existence. But if belief decides on this, then the doubt is terminated; in that very moment the balance and neutrality of doubt are terminated—not by knowledge but by will. Thus, while making an approach, belief is the most disputable (for doubt’s uncertainty, strong and invincible in making duplicitous—dis-putare [double-reckon]—has run aground in it) and is the least disputable by virtue of its new quality. Belief is the opposite of doubt. Belief and doubt are not two kinds of knowledge that can be defined in continuity with each other, for neither of them is a cognitive act, and they are opposite passions. Belief is a sense for coming into existence, and doubt is a protest against any conclusion that wants to go beyond immediate sensation and immediate knowledge. The doubter, for example, does not deny his own existence, but he draws no conclusions, for he does not want to be deceived. 58Insofar as he uses dialectics in continually making the opposite equally probable, he does not erect his skepticism on dialectical arguments, which are nothing more than outer fortifications, human accommodations; therefore he has no results, not even negative ones (for this would mean the acknowledgment of knowledge), but by the power of the will he decides to restrain himself and hold himself back (φιλοσοφία έφεϰτιϰή [ephectic philosophy])59 from any conclusion.
Instead of having the immediacy of sensation and cognition (which, however, cannot apprehend the historical), the person who is not contemporary with the historical has the report of contemporaries, to which he relates in the same manner as the contemporaries to the immediacy. Even if what is said in the report has also undergone change, he cannot treat it in such a way that he does not personally assent to it and render it historical unless he transforms it into the unhistorical for himself. The immediacy of the report, that is, that the report is there, is the immediate present, but the historical character of the present is that it has come into existence, and the historical character of the past is that it was a present by having come into existence. As soon as someone who comes later believes the past (not the truth of it, for that is a matter of cognition, which involves essence and not being, but believes that it was something present by [IV 249] having come into existence), then the uncertainty of coming into existence is there,60 and this uncertainty of coming into existence (the nothingness of that which is not—the possible “how” of the actual thus and so) must be the same for him as for the contemporary; his mind must be in suspenso just as the contemporary’s. Then he no longer faces immediacy, or any necessity of coming into existence, but only the “thus and so” of coming into existence. The one who comes later does indeed believe by virtue of the contemporary’s declaration, but only in the same sense as the contemporary believes by virtue of immediate sensation and cognition, but the contemporary cannot believe by virtue of that, and thus the one who comes later cannot believe by virtue of the report.
Thus at no moment does the past become necessary, no more than it was necessary when it came into existence or appeared necessary to the contemporary who believed it—that is, believed that it had come into existence. Belief and coming into existence correspond to each other and involve the annulled qualifications of being, the past and the future, and the present only insofar as it is regarded under the annulled qualification of being as that which has come into existence. Necessity, however, pertains to essence and in such a way that the qualification of essence specifically excludes coming into existence. The possibility from which emerged the possible that became the actual always accompanies that which came into existence and remains with the past, even though centuries lie between. As soon as one who comes later repeats that it has come into existence (which he does by believing it), he repeats its possibility, regardless of whether there may or may not be more specific conceptions of this possibility.
What has been said here applies to the directly historical, whose contradiction is only that it has come into existence, [IV 250] whose contradiction* is only that of coming into existence, for here again one must not be deluded into thinking that it would be easier to understand that something has come into existence after it has come into existence than before it has come into existence. Anyone who thinks this still does not understand that it has come into existence; he has only the sensation and the cognitive immediacy of the present, which do not contain the coming into existence.
We shall now return to our poem and to our assumption that the god has been. With respect to the directly historical, it holds true that it cannot become historical for immediate sensation or cognition, no more for the contemporary than for someone coming later. But that historical fact (the content of our poem) has a unique quality in that it is not a direct historical fact but a fact based upon a self-contradiction (which adequately shows that there is no distinction between an immediate contemporary and someone who comes later, because, face to face with a self-contradiction and the risk entailed in assenting to it, immediate contemporaneity is no advantage at all). Yet it is a historical fact, and only for faith. Here faith is first taken in its direct and ordinary meaning [belief] as the relationship to the historical; but secondly, faith must be taken in the wholly eminent sense,62 such that this word can appear but once, that is, many times but in only one relationship. One does not have faith that the god exists [er til], eternally understood, even though one assumes that the god exists. That is improper use of language. Socrates did not have faith that the god existed.63 What he knew about the god he attained by recollection, and for him the existence of the god was by no means something historical. Whether his knowledge of the god was quite imperfect compared with the knowledge of one who, as assumed, received the condition from the god himself does not concern us here, because faith pertains not to essence but to being, and the assumption [IV 251] that the god exists defines him eternally, not historically. The historical is that the god has come into existence (for the contemporary), that he has been one present by having come into existence (for one coming later). But precisely here is the contradiction. In the immediate sense, no one can become contemporary with this historical fact (see above), but because it involves coming into existence, it is the object of faith. It is not a question here of the truth of it but of assenting to the god’s having come into existence, whereby the god’s eternal essence is inflected into the dialectical qualifications of coming into existence.
So, then, that historical fact remains. It has no immediate contemporary, because it is historical to the first power (faith in the ordinary sense [belief]); it has no immediate contemporary to the second power, since it is based on a contradiction (faith in the eminent sense). But for those who are very different with respect to time, this latter equality absorbs the differences among those who are temporally different in the first sense. Every time the believer makes this fact the object of faith, makes it historical for himself, he repeats the dialectical qualifications of coming into existence. No matter how many millennia have passed by, no matter how many consequences that fact elicited in its train, it does not therefore become more necessary (and, viewed definitively, the consequences themselves are only relatively necessary, inasmuch as they rest in that freely acting cause), to say nothing of the most inverted notion of all, that it should become necessary because of the consequences, since consequences as a rule have their basis in something else and do not give the basis for that. No matter how many preparations for that fact, no matter how many hints and symptoms of its coming a contemporary or a predecessor saw, that fact was not necessary when it came into existence—that is, that fact is no more necessary as future than it is necessary as past.
* The prophesying generation disdains the past, refuses to hear the testimony of written records; the generation busy with understanding the necessity of the past does not want to be asked about the future. The conduct in both cases is utterly consistent, for in its opposite each one would find occasion to perceive how foolish its own conduct is. The absolute method, Hegel’s invention,25 is already a difficult issue in logic—indeed, a brilliant tautology that has been at the service of scientific superstition with many [IV 242] signs and wonderful deeds. In the historical sciences it is a fixed idea,26 and because the method promptly begins to become concrete there—since, after all, history is the concretion of the Idea27—Hegel certainly has had occasion to display a rare scholarship, a rare ability to shape the material, in which through him there is turmoil enough. But it has also prompted the learner’s mind to become distracted, with the result that he—perhaps precisely because of his respectfulness and his admiration for China and Persia, the thinkers of the Middle Ages, the philosophers of Greece, the four world-historical monarchies (a discovery that, just as it did not escape Gert Westphaler,28 has also agitated the glib tongues of many later Hegelian Gert Westphalers)—forgot to examine whether there has now appeared at the conclusion, at the end of that enchanted journey, that which was constantly promised at the beginning, that which was, after all, the primary issue, that which all the world’s glory could not replace, the only thing that could make up for the misplaced tension in which we were kept—the correctness of the method. Why become concrete at once, why begin at once to construct imaginatively [experimentere]29 in concreto, or could not this question be answered in the dispassionate brevity of abstraction, which has no means of distraction or enchantment? What does it mean that the idea becomes concrete, what is coming into existence, how is one related to that which has come into existence, etc. ? Likewise, in the logic there could already have been clarification of what transition means before starting to write three volumes that demonstrated the transition in the categorical determinants, astounded superstition, and made dubious the position of the person who would gladly owe much to that superior mind and give thanks for all it owes him but on that account still cannot forget what Hegel himself must have regarded as the primary issue.
53 * Both Plato and Aristotle54 emphasize that immediate sensation and cognition cannot deceive. Later, Descartes says, just as the Greek skeptics did, that error comes from the will, which is in too great a hurry to draw conclusions. This casts light on belief also. When belief resolves to believe, it runs the risk that it was an error, but nevertheless it wills to believe. One never believes in any other way; if one wants to avoid risk, then one wants to know with certainty that one can swim before going into the water.
* Here the word “contradiction” must not be taken in the volatilized sense into which Hegel has misled himself and others and miscast contradiction itself—namely, that it has the power to produce something.61 As long as nothing has come into existence, contradiction is merely the impelling urge to wonder, its nisus [impulse], not the nisus of coming into existence; when something has come into existence, contradiction is once again present as the nisus of wonder in the passion that reproduces the coming into existence.