[IV 284] ^* Exempli gratia: Wesen ist was ist gewesen; ist gewesen is a tempus præteritum of seyn, ergo, Wesen is das aufgehobene Seyn, the Seyn that has been [For example: Essence is what has been; “has been” is past tense of “to be,” ergo, essence is annulled being, being that has been].²³ This is a logical movement! If anyone would take the trouble to collect and put together all the strange pixies and goblins who like busy clerks bring about movement in Hegelian logic (such as this is in itself and as it has been improved by the [Hegelian] school), a later age would perhaps be surprised to see that what are regarded as discarded witticisms once played an important role in logic, not as incidental explanations and ingenious remarks but as masters of movement, which made Hegel’s logic something of a miracle and gave logical thought feet to move [IV 285] on, without anyone’s being able to observe them. Just as Lulu²⁴ comes running without anyone’s being able to observe the mechanism of movement, so the long mantle of admiration conceals the machinery of logical movement. To have brought movement into logic is the merit of Hegel. In comparison with this, it is hardly worth mentioning the unforgettable merit that was Hegel’s, namely, that in many ways he corrected the categorical definitions and their arrangement, a merit he disdained in order to run aimlessly.²⁵

^* The eternal expression for the logical is what the Eleatics through a misunderstanding [IV 285] transferred to existence: nothing comes into being [opkommer], everything is.

[IV 286] ^* That science, just as much as poetry and art, presupposes a mood in the creator as well as in the observer, and that an error in the modulation is just as disturbing as an error in the development of thought, have been entirely forgotten in our time, when inwardness has been completely forgotten, and also the category of appropriation, because of the joy over all the glory men thought they possessed or in their greed have given up as did the dog that [IV 287] preferred the shadow.³² Yet every error gives birth to its own enemy. Outside of itself, the error of thought has dialectics as its enemy, and outside of itself, the absence or falsification of mood has the comical as its enemy.

[IV 288] ^* If this is considered more carefully, there will be occasions enough to notice the brilliance of heading the last section of the Logic “Actuality,” inasmuch as ethics never reaches it. The actuality with which logic ends means, therefore, no more in regard to actuality than the “being” with which it begins.

^* In his work Fear and Trembling (Copenhagen: 1843), Johannes de Silentio [IV 289] makes several observations concerning this point. In this book, the author several times allows the desired ideality of esthetics to be shipwrecked on the required ideality of ethics, in order through these collisions to bring to light the religious ideality as the ideality that precisely is the ideality of actuality, and therefore just as desirable as that of esthetics and not as impossible as the ideality of ethics. This is accomplished in such a way that the religious ideality breaks forth in the dialectical leap and in the positive mood—“Behold all things have become new”³⁷ as well as in the negative mood that is the passion of the absurd to which the concept “repetition” corresponds. Either all of existence [Tilværelsen] comes to an end in the demand of ethics, or the condition is provided and the whole of life and of existence begins anew, not through an immanent continuity with the former existence, which is a contradiction, but through a transcendence. This transcendence separates repetition from the former existence [Tilværelsen] by such a chasm that one can only figuratively say that the former and the latter relate themselves to each other as the totality of living creatures in the ocean relates itself to those in the air [IV 290] and to those upon the earth. Yet, according to the opinion of some natural scientists, the former as a prototype prefigures in its imperfection all that the latter reveals. With regard to this category, one may consult Repetition by Constantin Constantius (Copenhagen: 1843). This is no doubt a witty book, as the author also intended it to be. To my knowledge, he is indeed the first to have a lively understanding of “repetition” and to have allowed the pregnancy of the concept to be seen in the explanation of the relation of the ethnical and the Christian,³⁸ by directing attention to the invisible point and to the discrimen rerum [turning point] where one science breaks against another until a new science comes to light. But what he has discovered he has concealed again by arraying the concept in the jest of an analogous conception. What has motivated him to do this is difficult to say, or more correctly, difficult to understand. He himself mentions that he writes in this manner so “that the heretics would not understand him.”³⁹ Since he wanted to occupy himself with repetition only esthetically and psychologically, everything had to be arranged humorously so as to bring about the impression that the word in one instant means everything and in the next instant the most insignificant of things, and the transition, or rather the constant falling down from the clouds, is motivated by its farcical opposite. In the meantime, he has stated the whole matter very precisely on page 34:⁴⁰ “repetition is the interest [Interesse] of metaphysics, and also the interest upon which metaphysics comes to grief; repetition is the watchword [Løsnet] in every ethical view; repetition is conditio sine qua non [the indispensable condition] for every issue of dogmatics.” The first statement has reference to the thesis that metaphysics as such is disinterested, something that Kant⁴¹ had said about esthetics. As soon as interest steps forth, metaphysics steps aside. For this reason, the word is italicized. In actuality, the whole interest of subjectivity steps forth, and now metaphysics runs aground. If repetition is not posited, ethics becomes a binding power. No doubt it is for this reason that the author states that repetition is the watchword in every ethical view. If repetition is not posited, dogmatics cannot exist at all, for repetition begins in faith, and faith is the organ for issues of dogma. In the realm of nature, repetition is present in its immovable necessity. In the realm of the spirit, the task is not to wrest a [IV 291] change from repetition or to find oneself moderately comfortable during the repetition, as if spirit stood only in an external relation to the repetition of spirit (according to which good and evil would alternate like summer and winter), but to transform repetition into something inward, into freedom’s own task, into its highest interest, so that while everything else changes, it can actually realize repetition. At this point the finite spirit despairs. This is something Constantin has suggested by stepping aside himself and by allowing repetition to break forth in the young man by virtue of the religious. For this reason Constantin mentions several times that repetition is a religious category, too transcendent for him, that it is the movement by virtue of the absurd, and on page 142⁴² it is further stated that eternity is the true repetition. All of this Professor Heiberg failed to notice. Instead, through his learning, which like his New Year’s Gift⁴³ is superbly elegant and neat, he kindly wished to help this work [Repetition] to become a tasteful and elegant triviality by pompously bringing the matter to the point where Constantin begins, or, to recall a recent work, by bringing the matter to the point where the esthete in Either/Or had brought it in “The Rotation of Crops.” If Constantin had actually felt himself flattered by enjoying the singular honor of having been brought into such undeniably select company in this manner, he must, in my opinion, since he wrote the book, have gone stark mad. But if, on the other hand, an author such as he, writing to be misunderstood, forgot himself and did not have ataraxia enough to count it to his credit that Professor Heiberg had failed to understand him, he must again be stark mad. This is something I need not fear, since the circumstance that hitherto he has made no reply to Professor Heiberg indicates sufficiently that he understands himself.

^* Schelling⁵¹ called attention to this Aristotelian term in support of his own [IV 293] distinction between negative and positive philosophy. By negative philosophy he meant “logic”; that was clear enough. On the other hand, it was less clear to me what he really meant by positive philosophy, except insofar as it became evident that it was the philosophy that he himself wished to provide. However, since I have nothing to go by except my own opinion, it is not feasible to pursue this subject further.

^** Constantin Constantius has called attention to this by pointing out that immanence runs aground upon “interest.” With this concept, actuality for the first time properly comes into view.