II. PERCEPTION: OR THE THING AND DECEPTION
111. Immediate certainty does not take over the truth, for its truth is the universal, whereas certainty wants to apprehend the This. Perception, on the other hand, takes what is present to it as a universal. Just as universality is its principle in general, the immediately self-differentiating moments within perception are universal: 'I' is a universal and the object is a universal. That principle has arisen for us, and therefore the way we take in perception is no longer something that just happens to us like sense-certainty; on the contrary, it is logically necessitated. With the emergence of the principle, the two moments which in their appearing merely occur, also come into being: one being the movement of pointing-out or the act of perceiving, the other being the same movement as a simple event or the object perceived. In essence the object is the same as the movement: the movement is the unfolding and differentiation of the two moments, and the object is the apprehended togetherness of the moments. For us, or in itself, the universal as principle is the essence of perception, and, in contrast to this abstraction, both the moments distinguished—that which perceives and that which is perceived—are the unessential. But, in fact, because both are themselves the universal or the essence, both are essential. Yet since they are related to each other as opposites, only one can be the essential moment in the relation, and the distinction of essential and unessential moment must be shared between them. One of them, the object, defined as the simple [entity], is the essence regardless of whether it is perceived or not; but the act of perceiving, as a movement, is the unessential moment, the unstable factor which can as well be as not be.
112. This object must now be defined more precisely, and the definition must be developed briefly from the result that has been reached; the more detailed development does not belong here. Since the principle of the object, the universal, is in its simplicity a mediated universal, the object must express this its nature in its own self. This it does by showing itself to be the thing with many properties. The wealth of sense-knowledge belongs to perception, not to immediate certainty, for which it was only the source of instances; for only perception contains negation, that is, difference or manifoldness, within its own essence.
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113. The This is, therefore, established as not This, or as something superseded; and hence not as Nothing, but as a determinate Nothing, the Nothing of a content, viz. of the This. Consequently, the sense-element is still present, but not in the way it was supposed to be in [the position of] immediate certainty: not as the singular item that is 'meant', but as a universal, or as that which will be defined as a property. Supersession exhibits its true twofold meaning which we have seen in the negative: it is at once a negating and a preserving. Our Nothing, as the Nothing of the This, preserves its immediacy and is itself sensuous, but it is a universal immediacy. Being, however, is a universal in virtue of its having mediation or the negative within it; when it expresses this in its immediacy it is a differentiated, determinate property. As a result many such properties are established simultaneously, one being the negative of another. Since they are expressed in the simplicity of the universal, these determinacies—which are properties strictly speaking only through the addition of a further determination—are related [only] to themselves; they are indifferent to one another, each is on its own and free from the others. But the simple, self-identical universality is itself in turn distinct and free from these determinate properties it has. It is pure relating of self to self, or the medium in which all these determinacies are, and in which as a simple unity they therefore interpenetrate, but without coming into contact with one another; for it is precisely through participating in this universality that they exist indifferently on their own account.
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This abstract universal medium, which can be called simply 'thinghood' or 'pure essence', is nothing else than what Here and Now have proved themselves to be, viz. a simple togetherness of a plurality; but the many are, in their determinateness, simple universals themselves. This salt is a simple Here, and at the same time manifold; it is white and also tart, also cubical in shape, of a specific gravity, etc. All these many properties are in a single simple 'Here', in which, therefore, they interpenetrate; none has a different Here from the others, but each is everywhere, in the same Here in which the others are. And, at the same time, without being separated by different Heres, they do not affect each other in this interpenetration. The whiteness does not affect the cubical shape, and neither affects
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the tart taste, etc.; on the contrary, since each is itself a simple relating of self to self it leaves the others alone, and is connected with them only by the indifferent Also. This Also is thus the pure universal itself, or the medium, the 'thinghood', which holds them together in this way.
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114. In the relationship which has thus emerged it is only the character of positive universality that is at first observed and developed; but a further side presents itself, which must also be taken into consideration. To wit, if the many determinate properties were strictly indifferent to one another, if they were simply and solely self-related, they would not be determinate; for they are only determinate in so far as they differentiate themselves from one another, and relate themselves to others as to their opposites. Yet; as thus opposed to one another they cannot be together in the simple unity of their medium, which is just as essential to them as negation; the differentiation of the properties, in so far as it is not an indifferent differentiation but is exclusive, each property negating the others, thus falls outside of this simple medium; and the medium, therefore, is not merely an Also, an indifferent unity, but a One as well, a unity which excludes an other. The One is the moment of negation; it is itself quite simply a relation of self to self and it excludes an other; and it is that by which 'thinghood' is determined as a Thing. Negation is inherent in a property as a determinateness which is immediately one with the immediacy of being, an immediacy which, through this unity with negation, is universality. As a One, however, the determinateness is set free from this unity with its opposite, and exists in and for itself.
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115. In these moments, taken together, the Thing as the truth of perception is completed, so far as it is necessary to develop it here. It is (a) an indifferent, passive universality, the Also of the many properties or rather 'matters'; (b) negation, equally simply; or the One, which excludes opposite properties; and (c) the many properties themselves, the relation of the first two moments, or negation as it relates to the indifferent element, and therein expands into a host of differences; the point of singular individuality in the medium of subsistence radiating forth into plurality. In so far as these differences belong to the indifferent medium they are themselves universal, they are related only to themselves and do not affect one another. But
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in so far as they belong to the negative unity they are at the same time exclusive [of other properties]; but they necessarily have this relationship of opposition to properties remote from their Also. The sensuous universality, or the immediate unity of being and the negative, is thus a property only when the One and the pure universality are developed from it and differentiated from each other, and when the sensuous universality unites them; it is this relation of the universality to the pure essential moments which at last completes the Thing.
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116. This, then, is how the Thing of perception is constituted; and consciousness is determined as percipient in so far as this Thing is its object. It has only to take it, to confine itself to a pure apprehension of it, and what is thus yielded is the True. If consciousness itself did anything in taking what is given, it would by such adding or subtraction alter the truth. Since the object is the True and universal, the self-identical, while consciousness is alterable and unessential, it can happen that consciousness apprehends the object incorrectly and deceives itself. The percipient is aware of the possibility of deception; for in the universality which is the principle, otherness itself is immediately present for him, though present as what is null and superseded. His criterion of truth is therefore self-identity, and his behaviour consists in apprehending the object as self-identical. Since at the same time diversity is explicitly there for him, it is a connection of the diverse moments of his apprehension to one another; but if a dissimilarity makes itself felt in the course of this comparison, then this is not an untruth of the object—for this is the self-identical—but an untruth in perceiving it.
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117. Let us see now what consciousness experiences in its actual perceiving. For us, this experience is already contained in the development of the object, and of the attitude of consciousness towards it given just now. It is only a matter of developing the contradictions that are present therein. The object which I apprehend presents itself purely as a One; but I also perceive in it a property which is universal, and which thereby transcends the singularity [of the object]. The first being of the objective essence as a One was therefore not its true being. But since the object is what is true, the untruth falls in me; my apprehension was not correct. On account of the universality of the
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property, I must rather take the objective essence to be on the whole a community. I now further perceive the property to be determinate, opposed to another and excluding it. Thus I did not in fact apprehend the objective essence correctly when I defined it as a community with others, or as a continuity; on account of the determinateness of the property, I must break up the continuity and posit the objective essence as a One that excludes.
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In the broken up One I find many such properties which do not affect one another but are mutually indifferent. Therefore, I did not perceive the object correctly when I apprehended it as exclusive; on the contrary, just as previously it was only continuity in general, so now it is a universal common medium in which many properties are present as sensuous universalities, each existing on its own account and, as determinate, excluding the others. But this being so, what I perceive as the simple and the True is also not a universal medium, but the single property by itself which, however, as such, is neither a property nor a determinate being; for now it is neither in a One nor connected with others. Only when it belongs to a One is it a property, and only in relation to others is it determinate. As this pure relating of itself to itself, it remains merely sensuous being in general, since it no longer possesses the character of negativity; and the consciousness which takes its object to be a sensuous being is only 'my' meaning [ein Meinen], i.e. it has ceased altogether to perceive and has withdrawn into itself. But sensuous being and my meaning themselves pass over into perception: I am thrown back to the beginning and drawn once again into the same cycle which supersedes itself in each moment and as a whole.
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118. Consciousness, therefore, necessarily runs through this cycle again, but this time not in the same way as it did the first time. For it has experienced in perception that the outcome and the truth of perception is its dissolution, or is reflection out of the True and into itself. Thus it becomes quite definite for consciousness how its perceiving is essentially constituted, viz. that it is not a simple pure apprehension, but in its apprehension is at the same time reflected out of the True and into itself. This return of consciousness into itself which is directly mingled with the pure apprehension [of the object]—for this return into itself
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has shown itself to be essential to perception—alters the truth. Consciousness at once recognizes this aspect as its own and takes responsibility for it; by doing so it will obtain the true object in its purity. This being so, we have now in the case of perception the same as happened in the case of sense-certainty, the aspect of consciousness being driven back into itself; but not, in the first instance, in the sense in which this happened in sense-certainty, i.e. not as if the truth of perception fell in consciousness. On the contrary, consciousness recognizes that it is the untruth occurring in perception that falls within it. But by this very recognition it is able at once to supersede this untruth; it distinguishes its apprehension of the truth from the untruth of its perception, corrects this untruth, and since it undertakes to make this correction itself, the truth, qua truth of perception, falls of course within consciousness. The behaviour of consciousness which we have now to consider is thus so constituted that consciousness no longer merely perceives, but is also conscious of its reflection into itself, and separates this from simple apprehension proper.
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119. At first, then, I become aware of the Thing as a One, and have to hold fast to it in this its true character; if, in the course of perceiving it, something turns up which contradicts it, this is to be recognized as a reflection of mine. Now, there also occur in the perception various properties which seem to be properties of the Thing; but the Thing is a One, and we are conscious that this diversity by which it would cease to be a One falls in us. So in point of fact, the Thing is white only to our eyes, also tart to our tongue, also cubical to our touch, and so on. We get the entire diversity of these aspects, not from the Thing, but from ourselves; and they fall asunder in this way for us, because the eye is quite distinct from the tongue, and so on. We are thus the universal medium in which such moments are kept apart and exist each on its own. Through the fact, then, that we regard the characteristic of being a universal medium as our reflection, we preserve the self-identity and truth of the Thing, its being a One.