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brought together through relative centrality with dependent corporeality.

As is well-known, the laws of absolutely free motion were discovered by Kepler, a discovery of

immortal fame. Kepler proved them, too, in the sense that he found the general expression for the

empirical data (cf § 145). Since then it has become a commonplace that Newton first found the

proofs of these laws. Not often has fame been more unjustly transferred from the first discoverer

to another. Here I only want to point out what has basically already been admitted by

mathematicians, namely: (1) that the Newtonian formulas can be derived from Keplerian laws; (2)

that the Newtonian proof of the proposition that a body governed by the law of gravitation moves

in an ellipse around the central body proceeds in general in a conic section, whereas the main point

that was to be proven consists precisely in this, that the course of such a body is neither a circle

nor any other conic section, but solely the ellipse. The conditions which make the course of the

body into a specific conic section are referred back to an empirical condition, namely, a particular

situation of the body at a specific point in time, and to the contingent strength of an impulse which

it is supposed to have received at the beginning. (3) Newton's 'law" of the force of gravity has

likewise only been demonstrated inductively from experience.

On closer inspection it appears that what Kepler, in a simple and sublime manner, articulated in

the form of laws of celestial motion, Newton converted into the nonconceptual, reflective form of

the force of gravity. The whole manner of this "proof" presents in general a confused tissue of lines

of merely geometrical construction to which a physical meaning of independent forces is given, of

the empty concepts of the understanding of a force of acceleration, of particles of time, at whose

beginning those forces always play a renewed role, and of a force of inertia, which presumably

continues its previous effect, and so on. A rational proof of the quantitative determinations of free

motion can only rest on the determinations of the concepts of space and time, the moments whose

relation is motion.

§ 213.

(2) The absolute relation of those dependent bodies, which are merely the extreme of the being

outside of itself of gravity and therefore lack their own centrality to their relative central bodies, is

the residual element of their gravity in them, which because of physical being outside of themselves

is mere striving and, therefore, a pressure directed towards the centre lying outside of them.

§ 214.

The separation of the immediate connection in which such a body rests is a contingent condition,

which the body, if confronted with an external impediment, suspends as motion, - relatively free

motion in which the distancing from the body is not attributed as dependent, but the motion, if the

impediment is removed, is immanent to the body and a manifestation of its own gravity. This

motion transforms itself for itself into rest.

The attractive force of the sun, for example towards the planets, or of the earth towards those

independent bodies belonging to it, seems to suggest the skewed view that the force would be an

activity inhabiting the central body, and that the bodies found in its sphere would behave only

passively and externally. Thus absolute motion is also viewed, through the application of terms

from common mechanics, as the dead conflict of an independent, tangential force and of a force

deriving equally independently from the middle point, from which the body would be passively

drawn.

The Galilean law of falling, namely, that traversed spaces behave as the squares of transpired

times, shows, in contrast to the abstract, homogeneous velocity of the lifeless mechanism, where

spaces are proportional to times, the liberation of the conceptual determinations of time and space.

In these terms the former has the determination of the root as the negative moment or principle of

one, whereas the latter has the determination of the square as a being outside of itself more

specifically, without another determinacy like that of the root, a coming outside of itself. In this law

both moments still remain in the relation, because the freedom of motion in falling, which is also

conditioned, is only formal. By contrast, in absolute motion there is the relation in its totality, since

this is the realm of free measures in which each determinacy attains its totality. Because the law is

essentially relational, time and space are retained in their original difference. Dimensionless time

achieves therefore only a formal identity with itself; space, on the other hand, as positive being

outside of itself achieves the dimension of the concept. The Keplerian law is thus the relation of the

cubes of the distances to the squares of the times;-a law which is so great because it simply and

directly depicts the reason of the thing. The Newtonian formula, however, which transforms it into

a law for the force of gravity, exhibits only the perversion and inversion of reflection which has

stopped halfway.

§ 215.

(3) In the extremity of dependent bodies, general gravitation, which bodies have as matter toward

each other, is subordinated to the gravitation which they have towards their shared central bodies.

Towards each other, then, their motion is external and contingent; the cause of the motion is thrust

and pressure. In this common mechanical motion the size of the mass, which has no meaning in the

fall, and the resistance, which the size achieves through its particular constitution, are moments of

determination. But because this motion contradicts the essential relation of the dependent body,

namely, that relation to its central body, it suspends itself through itself in rest. This necessity of the

concept appears, however, in the sphere of externality, as an external impediment or friction.

The law of inertia is initially taken from the nature of the motion of dependent bodies, for which the

motion, because it involves the difference from themselves for themselves, is external. But

precisely for this reason rest is immanent to the bodies, namely, the identity with the centre lying

outside of them. Their motion converts therefore essentially into rest, but not into absolute rest,

rather into the pressure of striving towards their centre. This centre, if it is to be seen as a striving

moment, is at the least the transformation of that external movement into the striving which

constitutes the nature of the body.

The individual impediment, or the general one, the friction, is external, to be sure, but also

necessary. It is the manifestation of that transition posited by the concept of the dependent body.

And precisely this can also be found in consideration of the pendulum, the motion of which, it is

said, would continue without stopping if friction could be removed.

For itself the law of inertia expresses nothing but the fixation of the understanding on the

abstractions of rest and motion, which state that rest is only rest and motion is only motion. The

transformation of these abstractions into each other, which is the concept, is for the understanding

something external. This law of inertia, together with thrust, attraction, and other determinations

have been inadmissibly transposed from common mechanics into absolute mechanics, where

motion is rather to be found in its free concept.

§ 216.

The difference between central and dependent bodies is in the implicit being of gravity, whose

identical nature is its existence. The dependent body has the beginning of the real difference as the

being outside of itself of the gravity identical to itself; the dependent body has only a negative

centre and therefore can only move around the centre simply as mass. The determinacy of its

motion is not in and for itself but refers back to a factor which is the mass of the other, so that their

sizes can be exchanged, and the motion remains the same.

§ 217.

This externality of determinate being constitutes the special determinacy of matter. But in this it

does not remain limited by a quantitative difference, rather the difference is essentially a qualitative

one, so that the determinacy of matter constitutes its being.

The empty abstraction of formless matter contains a merely quantitative difference and views its

further determinacy as a form inessential to it. Even the forces of attraction and repulsion are

supposed to influence it externally. Since it is the concept positing itself outside of itself it is so

identical to the specific form that the form constitutes its special nature.

B.

Elementary Physics

§ 218.

Gravity, as the essence of matter existing in itself only inner identity, transforms, since its concept is

the essential externality, into the manifestation of the essence. As such it is the totality of the

determinations of reflection, but these as thrown apart from each other, so that each appears as

particular, qualified matter which, not yet determined as individuality, is a formless element.

The determination of an element is the being for itself of matter as it finds its point of unity in the

concept, though this does not yet have to do with the determination of a physical element, which is

still real matter, a totality of its qualities existing in itself.

(a) Elementary Particles

§ 219.

(1) Matter in its first elementary state is pure identity, not inwardly, but as existing, that is, the

relation to itself determined as independent in contrast to the other determinations of totality. This

existing self of matter is light.

§ 220.

As the abstract self of matter, light is absolutely lightweight, and as matter, infinite, but as material

ideality it is inseparable and simple being outside of itself.

In the Oriental intuition of the substantial unity of the spiritual and the natural, the pure selfhood of

consciousness, thought identical with itself as the abstraction of the true and the good is one with

light. When the conception which has been called realistic denies that ideality is present in nature, it

need only be referred to light, to that pure manifestation which is nothing but manifestation.

Heavy matter is divisible into masses, since it is concrete identity and quantity; but in the highly

abstract ideality of light there is no such distinction; a limitation of light in its infinite expansion does

not suspend its absolute connection. The conception of discrete, simple, rays of light, and of

particles and bundles of them which are supposed to constitute light in its limited expansion,

belongs among the rest of the conceptual barbarism which has, particularly since Newton, become

dominant in physics. The indivisibility of light in its infinite expansion, a reality outside of itself that

remains self-identical, can least of all be treated as incomprehensible by the understanding, for its

own principle is rather this abstract identity.

Astronomers have come to speak of celestial phenomena which are perceived by us five hundred

years and more after their actual occurrence. In this one can see, on the one hand, empirical

manifestations of the propagation of light, carried over from a sphere where they obtain into

another where they have no meaning, but on the other hand a past which has become present in

ideal fashion as in memory.

There is also the conception of light which suggests that from each point of a visible surface beams

are emitted in every direction, so that from each point a material hemisphere of infinite dimensions

is formed, and that all of these infinitely many hemispheres interpenetrate each other. If this were

so a dense, confused mass should form between the eye and the object, and the still-unexplained

visibility would rather, on the basis of this explanation, give way to invisibility. The whole

conception reduces to an absurdity, somewhat like the conception of a concrete body which is

presumed to consist of many substances, with each existing in the pores of the other, in which,

conversely, the others exist and circulate. Through this comprehensive penetration the assumption

of the discrete materiality of the supposedly real substances is destroyed, and an entirely ideal

relationship is established.

The self-like nature of light, insofar as it vitalises natural things, individualises them, and strengthens

and holds together their unfolding, first becomes manifest in the individualisation of matter, for the

initially abstract identity is only as return and suspension of particularity the negative unity of

individuality.

§ 221.

Light behaves as a general identity, initially in this determination of diversity, or the determination

by the understanding of the moment of totality, then to concrete matter as an external and other

entity, as to darkening. This contact and external darkening of the one by the other is colour.

According to the familiar Newtonian theory, white, or colourless light consists of five or seven

colours; - the theory itself can not say exactly how many. One can not express oneself strongly

enough about the barbarism, in the first place, of the conception that with light, too, the worst form

of reflection, the compound, was seized upon, so that brightness here could consist of seven

darknesses, or water could consist of seven forms of earth. Further, the ineptitude, tastelessness,

even dishonesty of Newton's observations and experimentations must be addressed, as well as the

equally bad tendency to draw inferences, conclusions, and proofs from impure empirical data.

Moreover, the blindness of the admiration given to Newton's work for nearly one and a half

centuries must be noted, the narrowmindedness of those admirers who defend his conceptions,

and, in particular, the thoughtlessness with which a number of the immediate conclusions of that

theory (for example, the impossibility of an achromatic telescope) were dropped, although the