The Philosophy of Fine Art. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
significance of what is simply an arbitrary, if systematic, arrangement of bodies according to natural laws.
203. Ein besonderes Moment. See note [191] on p. 152. I think what Hegel means here is that every body as a vehicle of light reflects the mode in which the identity of the notion as system in the different parts asserts itself.
204. In other words what should be phasal elements (Momente) of a whole integrated within that unity remain independent units. They are not Momente in the full sense.
205. Als bloss real unterschiedener. The meaning is that the distinction is only in the totality, not as in the former case in a body which though part of a system, could be viewed as an independent body like the sun.
206. Gewöhnliches Bewustseyn, i.e., the ordinary view of understanding (Verstand) and sense-perception.
207. Blosser Zusammenhang. Fortuitous is rather too strong. He means a bond of union cemented by one principle without which either side fails to possess its specific character, e.g., the human body apart from the human soul its animate individuality, ceases to be human.
208. Als Begriff seyende Begriff. The reference I take to be to the logical or dialectical movement of the Idea.
209. Viele tausend empfindende, or centres of feeling.
210. Die realen Unterschiede, i. e., the distinctions of the body viewed as part of the physical process of Nature.
211. Zu ihrer subjektiven Einheit, that is to say, their unity with the notion of Life as objectively realized in Nature, subjective only in the sense that it is ideal, not apprehended by sense-perception as such.
212. Nähere. I think Hegel uses nähe in the idiomatic sense in which he uses it in the phrase (p. 150) when he speaks of Nature as das nächst Daseyn der Idee, i.e., most elementary, more near to it when the notion first presses out of abstraction into totality.
213. Lötze apparently disputes this distinction, but it appears to me very clear.
214. Seyn. The logical terms are here employed in their technical Hegelian sense. Seyn is "being" as part of a process, it is rather a tendency to become than a particular or determinate being (daseyn.)
215. Das Negiren, the negation of them as entirely independent structures.
216. Des Idealisirens, e.g., the principle of ideality which is in one aspect of it negation.
217. Affirmatives Fürsichseyn, e.g., the explicit ideal totality of Life apart from the process.
218. Bilderin.
219. Das Innere, otherwise called subjective (see note above) and meaning what is not externally visible as materia, though it may be visible indirectly as explained further on.
220. The rather difficult German here is: Da nun aber in der Objektivität der Begriff als Begriff die sich auf sich beziehende in ihrer Realität für sich seyende Subjektivität ist. The comma after Begriff is clearly a misprint.
221. The words here are das subjektive Fürsichseyn, i.e., the self-conclusion of an explicit whole in virtue of a principle of ideal unity (i.e., life) asserted, throughout.
222. Ein Beharrendes,> one that persists in an inert form.
223. Hegel uses the word scheinen both for the ideal manifestation of the Idea in the object and the appearance of material reality reduced by it to mere "show" (herabgesetzt zum scheinen), i.e., deprived of its independent reality. This introduces a slight confusion I have endeavoured to avoid by using different terms.
224. Unseres Verstandes. We supply the notion of intelligent purpose.
225. That is, the assumed subordination of all organs to one definite end.
226. Sichbewegens. The emphasis is of course on the self. But even then the statement is rather an excess. For it seems difficult to attribute all the beauty visible in the spontaneous movements of so many living creatures, notably that of birds, to their purely formal character. At least there is something given by such motion analogous to the impression we receive from music and the dance; they are gesetzmässig in short.
227. Zufällig—capricious as opposed to a uniform principle. There is, however, one apparent bond of external similarity, between the majority of such members, namely, their covering of skin; this not merely relates the cheek to the neck, for example, but to some extent destroys the distinction.
228. Physical parts, that is to say.
229. That is to say, it is based on a purely limited experience which does not necessarily concern the true nature of the objects perceived.
230. Stangen. The word may express the branches on which the flowers are carried or the stamens they carry at their apex.
231. Geistreich, "intelligent," i.e., an ingenious way of regarding such facts.
232. Dies wunderbare Wort.
233. The use of the word Sinn to which Hegel here alludes is not quite identical with our word Sense. In the English use of the term there is more stress on the materia presented to sense-perception and perhaps less reference to intellect when the word is employed in such an expression as "That man has sense." However,