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    IN CORSO DI PUBBLICAZIONE SU HEGEL-S T UDIE N 44 (MARZ O 2010)

    CINZIA FERRINI

    FROM GEOLOGICAL TO ANIMAL NATUREIN HEGELS IDEA OF LIFE *

    ABSTRACT: Die Abhandlung besteht aus einer theoretischen undhistorischen Untersuchung der philosophischen Erkenntnis derorganischen Natur bei H. Ausgehend von einem systematischenStandpunkt ( 1) wird zunchst das Problem behandelt, was H. unterder logischen Form des Lebens versteht. Befragt wird diesyllogistische Form des Lebensbegriffs als dynamisches Verhltnisvon Einzelnem und Allgemeinem hinsichtlich natrlicherIndividualitt. Im Anschlu wird gezeigt, wie die allgemeine Formmechanischer, physikalischer und organischer Krper progressiv insteigendem Mae Selbstbestimmung (der Subjektivitt als eines

    Punkts der Einheit ihrer materiellen Teile) und in abnehmendemGrade Zuflligkeit (Trennung und Isolierung von Teilen) prsentiert.Das Augenmerk wird insbesondere auf die Dialektik chemischerProzesse gelegt ( 1.4) und auf die Frage nach dem bergang zumLeben. Von einem historischen Standpunkt aus ( 2) wird diekonstitutive Rolle von H.s Bestimmung der inneren Zweckmigkeitfr die Lebewesen im Lichte von Aristoteles, Kant und Cuviererrtert sowie die Entwicklung von H.s Idee als Leben vor demHintergrund ausgewhlter wissenschaftlicher Literatur, die in H.sPrivatbibliothek vorhanden war. Gezeigt werden soll, wie H. an derwissenschaftlichen Diskussion seiner Zeit beteiligt war undinwieweit er sie beeinflute. Verf.in behauptet, da H. weder die

    Auffassung spterer Lebensphilosophie, organisches Lebenentstehe aus im wesentlichen lebloser Materie durch einepltzliche Produktivkraft der Generation (Lebenskraft), noch diehylozistische Auffassung teilt, in den Teilen des Lebendigen seiberall die Zeitlichkeit der Natur verwirklicht.

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    My aim in this essay is to lead the reader through the complexity ofHegels philosophical understanding of organic nature byhighlighting its distinctive theoretical features and by examiningthese historically, both against the background of the approaches,achievements and trends of the empirical sciences of his time and inlight of their scholarly reception.1 First, I focuss on Hegelsdefinition of the universal form of life, pointing to what theconnection is, in his philosophy of nature, between the structure ofconceptual and living processes in the path to the individualizationof matter. Second, since Hegel calls animal life the truth oforganics,2I shall try to explain how in the philosophy of nature theIdea of life comes to differentiate itself into certain essentialcharacteristics of immediate, finite and individual animals, passingthrough the stages of geological nature and vegetable organisms.

    1 The concept of life in Hegels system of nature

    1.1. Conceptual and living processes

    In his 1821/22 Berlin Lectures on the Philosophy of Nature Hegel

    explains that the ideal (logical) structure of life is that of theorganic, syllogistic movement of division, determination andreintegration into unity of universality and individuality (Hegel2002, 168). As Annette Sell puts it, at the conclusion of her entry onlife (Leben) in the Hegel-Lexikon, life is the movement

    *Research on this paper was made possible by an Alexander von Humboldt grant in May2008 at the University of Jena (thanks are due to Klaus Vieweg for hosting me), and by a leaveof absence from the University of Trieste in 2008/09. All translations, both from primary andsecondary sources, are my own, with the exception of Aristotle, De part. anim.and Cuvier 1997. 1.11.3 of the present paper expand, integrate and articulate 1.1 and 1.2 of my contributionon the transition to Organics in Hegels Philosophy of Nature forthcoming in TheBlackwellCompanion to Hegel(ed. by S. Houlgate and M. Baur); the present 2 extends and develops theanalysis began there. I wish to thank Stephen Houlgate and Kenneth Westphal for their stylistic

    suggestions.1 In this paper I will refer to a range of scientific literature, most of it present in Hegels

    private library (see: Neuser 1987, 48095): indeed, among others, Hegel owned works byAckerman, Autenrieth, Bichat, Blainville, Buquoy, Cuvier, Damerow, Ideler, Meyer, Pohl,Robinet, Schelver, Schultz, Spix, Trommsdorff, Werner, Winterl.

    2See: TWA 9, 344Z: 374; 349Z: 429. On the animal organism as the truth of organicnature because it fulfills all the logical determinations of the idea of life, see: Bach 2004,181; cf.also Ilting 1987, 34951 and Bach 2006a, 442.

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    characterised by division and reintegration into unity, whichexpresses the moving relationship of individual and universal [dasbewegte Verhltnis von Einzelnem und Allgemeinen] (Sell 2006,305). This syllogistic reintegration into unity is distinctive of bothconceptual and living processes, for it is nothing but the very formof conceiving or the very type of pure conceptual thinking(Burbidge 22008, 5051).

    In his 1823/24 BerlinLectures on the Philosophy of NatureHegelstates that the concept is the master that keeps singularitiestogether (Hegel 2000, 90), since even if the qualitative individualnatural existences have the basic form (Grundform) of mutualindependence, extrinsicality and indifference, their mutualexternality is only a semblance (Schein).This is why Hegel contendsthat the syllogistic linkage is in general a universal [i.e. conceptual]form of all things [eine allgemeine Form allerDinge] (TWA 8, 24 2Z: 84).3 The idea of the inner, essential, unity of universalityand activity that on Hegels views constitutes the true life ofempirical natural bodies as well as their different parts orapparatuses, therefore, is only of spiritual and conceptual nature,resting on human consciousness and for our thought (Ferrini 2002,72 and 2009, 106), whereas immediate nature as such does not bring

    the necessity of its rational connection (the nous) to consciousness(TWA 8, 24 1Z: 82). In the speculative consideration of nature,Hegels task is then to bring to consciousness, that is, to recognise,the pure and abstract determinations of thought, which were hisobject in the Logic, in the conformations of mind-independentnatural beings (TWA8, 24 2Z: 84).

    In his 1821/22 BerlinLectures on the Philosophy of Nature Hegelmakes also explicit that life is to be individuality as the process of

    3For instance, chemistry is understood as the last extreme of the syllogism of shape (Gestalt)which has as its first term only the abstract activity of magnetism (the mere concept of thetotality of form: the moment of universality), then the middle term of electricity (the moment of

    particularity), split into the two moments of the particularization of the Gestaltwithin itself(positive electricity), and of the opposition to its other (negative electricity), and finally theconcrete reality (the singularity) of the self-realizing dynamic of the chemical process (TWA 9, 326Z: 288). Given the externality of nature in respect to the logic and within itself, note that theconformity of chemistry to the thought-movement of the concept in turn requires (TWA 9, 328Z: 2958) that we have a squared middle term, or a tetrad in the whole, because of theparticularization of the first abstract extreme within itself (inner side) and against another(external side).

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    leading the members back to identity (Hegel 2002, 168).4Throughthis syllogistic process of reintegration, the individual livingorganism acquires and preserves the form of a self.For instance, thesun or center of the animal organism is the concept as livinguniversality (lebendige Allgemeinheit),which passes syllogisticallythrough its three determinations of shape as self-relation (Gestalt):assimilation as opposition and relation to otherness, and finallygenus as self-relation within the other (TWA9, 352: 435). Finally,in the opening paragraph of Organic Physics Hegel introduces lifeby referring to the self-related negative unity that naturalindividuality has become. This is to say that life is the circularinfinite process of determining itself to particularity or finitude(Besonderheit oder Endlichkeit) and equally negating this andreturning into itself, so that at the end of the process it re-establishesitself to begin anew (TWA 9, 337: 337). Within this frame, andfrom the standpoint of Hegels general dynamic conception of theuniversal forms of all natural things, Mechanics, Physics andOrganics show increasing degrees of self-determination(subjectivity) and decreasing degrees of contingency (separation,isolation).

    1.2. Mechanics: the solar system

    Consider first the case of Mechanics, a sphere that opens with thesimplest starting point possible: the mere self-externality(Auersichsein) of space, which represents the abstract universaldeterminateness of nature. Space, however, is only where the self-external being differentiates itself through the generation of point,line, surface; that is, through the negation of its immediate, abstractlack of difference: a movement that contradicts its uninterruptedcontinuity. The negativity of the self-differentiation of space thatgives rise to its dimensions is only formal or logical, however,

    because point, line and surface are just moments, devoid of anyindependent subsistence. By contrast, it is through the thorough self-

    4Compare Hegels definition of the organic in 1805/06: the organic is the self, the force(Krafft),the unity of its own self and its negative. Only as this unity has it force (Krafft)uponthat one, and the connection (Beziehung) makes actual what is in itself (an sich) (GW 8,109.2124).

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    negation of externality, the inwardness of time, that the negative,the principle of self-differentiation, in nature receives its due. Thenow is a real punctual, universal, dividing one, which joins the pastto the future. The three temporal dimensions are thereforeindependent existences, that is, the singular being shows withinitself, in its own inwardness, the universality as its negativity.Mechanics therefore is not to be seen as a fixed, static realm ofmutually indifferent externality; with time, we have the becomingof externality: by entering the dimension of the self-negation andself-contradiction of indifferent externality we enter the dimensionof the process of real things. This initial point is crucial tounderstand the stages of the progressive transition from mechanismto life in Hegels philosophy of nature. As Kisner has also recentlypointed out at a logical level, the specificity of life is not thought byadding some sort of vital principle to mechanical determinacy, forit is already implied in it, though cannot be accounted for in purelymechanistic term:

    We have only to think the determinacies implicit within theconcept of mechanism itself, which means undertaking the laborof thought in rendering explicit every implication contained in thestanding contradiction that indifferent externality is. Then andonly then do we realize that life is rigorously irreducible tomechanism, not because life is something else other thanmechanism and is set in contrast with the latter, but because ofwhat the category of mechanism itself turns out to be []. Inliving process, mechanistic determinacy in turn becomes reducedto the status of an underdetermination operative as a necessaryaspect of life but no longer as a guiding level of determinacy.(Kisner 200809, 2425)

    Hegel discusses three kinds of mechanical movement: 1. purelymechanical motion (uniform motion that results from external thrustand is expressed by the simple relation of space to time: s/t), 2.

    relatively free and conditioned motion (where motion changes, i.e.accelerates uniformly, due to gravity: s=at2), and 3. absolutely free,concrete, total motion (s3=at2). These three stages of Mechanicsshow how a relatively homogeneous matter passes from passivity toactivity, from being set in motion by external thrust to having the

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    principle of motion within itself.5 This sphere ends with the solarsystem, as a system of self-moving matter, where matter is free meaning that it appropriates determinations as its own. As in the1801Dissertation on the orbits of the planets, Hegel states that forus the solar system is the primary knowable system of realrationality (reale Vernnftigkeit) within the heavens (TWA 9, 268Z: 80). A syllogistic treatment of the solar system as themanifestation of a thorough-going unity, however, may only occurwith the overcoming of external relations and the transition to theindividuality (quality) of matter in Physics, that is, only whenmatter is no longer conceived of as essentially composite, consistingof discrete parts which all tend towards a centre but as inwardly self-determining,and the sun is no longer regarded just as a body whichon account of the predominance of its [] mass is the approximateembodiment of the systems centre of gravity (Falkenburg 1993,539), but according to its radiating nature of a star, which consists ofluminous matter.

    1.3. Physics: light and chemistry

    Physics deals with real matter, that is, in Hegels terms, withmatter that has a certain innerformand comes to manifest that form.This inner form endows bodies with an individuality (and distinctivequality or specificity) that bodies lack in so far as they areunderstood as purely mechanical bodies (or mere quantities ofmatter). At the outset of Physics, therefore, matter already hasindividuality (Individualitt), in so far as it is determined andformed within itself (an ihr) and has essentially the immanentform of being-for-self (TWA 9, 272: 109). Physics begins withwhat Hegel calls matter in its first qualified state: that is, light as

    5As early as 1801 Hegel understood gravity as constituting matter according to the principle

    of identity that posits difference within itself (Hegel 1801, 23.1314), and criticizes theaconceptuality of a kind of mechanics that understands its object as an inert matter alwaysmoved by an external impulse, that is, by a force impressed from without which is alien to matteritself (Hegel 1801, 22.2623.3). He seems to refer to Kants metaphysical foundation of the lawof inertia in the section Mechanics of his Anfangsgrnde (Prop. 3, Proof and Remark). Kantoffered a proof that the change of matter must always have an external cause because all matteras such is lifeless and has no internal principle of activity (which can belong only to life andthought); see: Kant,AAIV, 54345.

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    matters general and abstract appearance to and for others (not foritself: TWA9, 275, 275Z: 109, 113).6Yet Hegel claims that lightis implicitly self-determining, thus announcing a dimensioncharacteristic of the concept of life.7In the Philosophy of Natureof1805/06 (GW 8, 108.58) we find a clear assessment of how andwhy with the physical dimension of light we reach the universalform of life: the key notion is the thorough co-penetration of all

    parts by a unity of presence and actuality. In the case of light,however, this unity is still that of space, externality and generality(Falkenburg 1993, 539).

    In the sphere of its qualitative particularization (Besonderung),hetereogeneity and finitude, matter develops as its self-formdetermines it to an increasing degree and comes to be moreexplicitly the point of unity of all the material components of a body.The highest point achieved in this process is the fully individualmatter (V 16, 139.67), that is, the individual material totality of thesingle, independent body. This is why in Physics Hegel offers areappraisal of the solar system, which in Mechanics is treatedaccording to its free movement and material self-determination butnot yet as manifestation of the unity of substance. Indeed, sincelight is identified with luminous matter, it is embodied in the sun

    (Falkenburg 1993, 539); therefore, only at the level of Physics havewe the mutual mediation of our staras the moment of universality,comets and the moon (which represent the moment of particularity),and the singularity of the planets (the moment of the reflection initself, the unity of universality and particularity: (TWA 9, 279Z:

    6Cf.also V15, 107.2229 and pp. 2323; Hegel 2000, 136 and TWA 9, 275Z: 112 ff.7See: TWA1, 38283 for the spiritual and religious (Joh.12,36) significance of the identity

    of light and life. In theLogicthe colorless light, together with the pure self-identity of the Ego, isa determinateexample of pure indifferent (abstract) sameness in spatial extension, that is, of purequantity (TWA5, 214). It is worthy of note that, speaking of the division of the original forces ofthe soul from abstract self-consciousness, the physician, anthropologist and psychiatrist Ideler,who in his work explicitely acknowledges his debt only to Kant, though departing from him,claims that the form of light is the simplest representation of the purest spiritual activity

    (Intelligenz, Erkennen)by which the subject, the Ego, can grasp its being object to itself, for it isunable to decompose this sameness into parts as with any other concept (Ideler 1827, 23). Withinthis context, Ideler makes clear that in no way is light a form of intuition of the external sense;rather he regards it as the purest and immediate expression of spirit [] the free self-representing spiritual force, which as formative capacity takes up the alien material and shapes itaccording to its highest laws, as it were, just as electricity, through its irradiation, orders indeterminate figures the dust on a resin disk (ibid.,p. 24, footnote). Hegel owned Idelers book:see: Neuser 1987, entry 104, 487.

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    12930). Accordingly, as Hegel notes in 1819/20, in the sphere ofMechanics the organism does not allow itself to occurr(geschehen) (V 16, 139.18).8 Indeed, the structuralform of theorganism already begins to appear in the ideal point of unity thatgoverns the movement of free independent material parts in the solarsystem: the sun in relation to the orbiting planets which carry theprinciple of motion in themselves. Yet by being confined togoverning only the motion of parts (the planets) that remain externalto their center (the sun), the solar system is merely the firstorganism, that is, only the organism of mechanism (TWA 9, 337Z: 339).9 The wholly universal, the cosmic life in which allliving nature participates, appears only when light is the completemaster of gravity (TWA9, 337Z: 339), that is, with the unionof themechanical connections of the heavenly bodies with their physicalrelation (TWA9, 279Z: 130).

    Interestingly enough, in the Addition to 353, Hegel defines theidealistic task of knowing the Idea in the entirety of nature asrealism, drawing a parallel between the syllogism of the solarsystem and the moments of the animals conformation: sensibility,irritability and reproduction (TWA 9, 438): the impotence(Ohnmacht)or the essential externality of immediate nature would

    mean the feebleness of concept in nature (TWA 9, 250, 3436),which in animal (and human) organisms will show itself as theexternal contingency that hits the formation of the individuals (themonstrosities), representing the side of the instability danger,insecurity, illness of their lives.

    Note that as early as 1801, Hegel holds that only the rationallyspeculative approach of philosophy is able to grasp and cognize

    8Note that in theAbhandlungen zur Erluterung des Idealismus der Wissenschaftslehre(SSW1, 388; see: Beiser 2002, 484) as well as in the System des transzendentalen Idealismus(Schelling 1992, 1245, see: Freiberger 1997,1478), following his reading of Platos Timaeus,Schelling draws no distinction between living and non-living organization in nature. In thewhole of organic nature intelligence must intuit itself as active, therefore every stage of nature

    must possess life, to which Schelling ascribed the wider sense of having an inner principle ofmotion within itself. A detailed account of the relation between individuality and quality inSchellings and Hegels approaches to Physics and chemistry is in Moiso 1986.

    9According to Filion (2007, 31718), this feature reveals the radicality of an ontologicalreversal in the face of the modern mechanization of nature. For, if in its historical developmentscience has acknowledged the real presence of mathematics in acoustics and kinematics, Hegelgoes further in recognizing the syllogistic moment of the concept within each regressive(involutif)degree of nature.

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    matters immanent form of being-for-self, and properly todistinguish Mechanics from Physics, which otherwise would bedistinguished only by the nominal distinction between Mechanicsand dynamics (Hegel 1801, 23.710). It seems that Hegels approachis not only directed against the insufficiency of Kants dynamics,already highlighted by Schelling in 1798/99 (Beiser 2002, 53132)but also aimed at rendering meaningless and merely abstract, withno real reference, Schellings use of the universal model of polarityfor his attempt to lead the phenomenon of universal gravity back to

    physicalcauses starting with his 1798 Weltseele(SSW1, 557).10Ina Remark to the Encyclopaedia Hegel writes against the formaltreatment and the abuse of the category of polarity, according towhich:

    allbodies also bring from within to appearance this principle as itexists in its rigid abstraction, i.e. as magnetism. It would be anunphilosophical thought to try to show that a conceptual form isso present in nature that it should universally exist in thedeterminateness when it is as an abstraction. (TWA 9, 312: 203,my italics)

    Pohl shared this view with Hegel, claiming in his 1821 essay

    Versuche und Bemerkungen ber den Zusammenhang desMagnetismus mit der Electricitt und dem Chemismus thatspeculation was too weak to provide any true grasp of an enigmaticfactuality (rtselhafte Facticitt)such as polarity, when its tool wasthe formal intellect-representation (Verstandes-Vorstellung), able tograsp only in terms of absolutely mutually external moments anopposition that in concreto is conjoined and only relativelyseparated.11 In the Preface to the 2nd edition of the Science of

    10 In the 1799 Einleitung zu dem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie Schellingvindicated in terms of polarity the necessity for dynamical Physics to account for qualitativedifferences, not just differences of density (Renault 2002, 7072). In the Preface to the second(1832) edition of Book I of the Science of Logic,Hegel praises the advance of culture that has

    gradually brought into use higher relationships of thought in the natural sciences such as thecategory of polarity instead of the lower category of force, though he criticizes theindiscriminate ( tort et travers)use of the former in connection with allphenomena (TWA 5,21).

    11Original text quoted in Engelhardt 1976, 122. Indeed, the two main features which Hegelappreciates in Pohls researches were the keen awareness of the living activity of nature and thecapacity to grasp the general progression of the galvanic and chemical process as a totality ofnatural activity (see: Petry 1986, 28). For a thorough comparison of the 1817, 27 and 30

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    that it is precisely the material finitude of the particularized body,what its natural being is, that fails to endure in the chemicalprocess, and argued that in this respect the transition to OrganicPhysics should not be understood as caused merely by ourreflective assessment of chemical phenomena that considers them asa totality.15 What has been shown through the dialectic of thechemical reality is that the thought of the object as what isindependent from the subject and stands over against the concept,proves with no residue to have been a semblance (Schein), for theindependent material subsistence of the properties of chemicalphenomena turns out to be in itself null, that is, not illusory butcompletely limited, finite and transitory, even as regards what isallegedly their most profound sensible characteristic (TWA 9, 336Z: 33435; 336Z: 336). The demise (Untergang) of thechemical bodys particular material configurations whichnevertheless exhibits the nature of the chemical substance itselfshows, at the same time and through the whole set of processes, thepersistence of the ideal side of that specific finitude: what is stable inthe individuality of chemicals is nothing but the point of unity oftheir properties. The conceptual point at issue for Hegel is that forthought the acquired material properties cease to define the

    substance of the chemical, which comes to be conceived as pointof unity, and its properties as momentarily appearances, reintegratedinto the essential unity of a persistent co-ordination of the parts (thebond or connection: Beziehung).On my view, this third feature ofchemical matter logically points forward to life, in which this pointof unity is an explicit and manifest feature of the purposiveunfolding process of a natural object itself as a self-maintainingindividuality, which is nothing but the real life of corporealindividuality.16 In immediate nature, life is what Hegel calls the

    magnetism and electricity and as the moment of totality, thus rejecting any natural transitionamong the stages of the section Physics. Engelhardt has pointed out how Pohl (who taughtmathematics and physics) shared with Hegel this general interpretation of magnetism, electricity

    and chemism as different forms of divided and conjoined activities (Engelhardt 1976,12223).15See: Burbidge 1996, 186; Houlgate 22005, 164; Burbidge 2007, 115. According to Filion2007, 313, the defect of the inorganic nature consists in the impossibility of assembling andcoordinating the chemical process into one unity.

    16 See: Kisner 200809, 26: Purposive activity is then seen as being one and the same thingas the self-negating mechanico-chemical process itself: in purposive activity the self-negatingcharacter of mechanism becomes explicit as such, and so such activity consists in letting the self-negating mechanico-chemical process show itself to be that, viz. a self-negating process whose

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    soul [Seele] of the individuality (TWA 9, 336: 336) or spiritualbond as an immediate, undivided, unitary existence, that is, a kindof objectivity in which the internal necessity of the form ispurposively self-determining. Life is therefore causa sui (V 17,169.56), Spinozas adequate concept, that which reproduces itselforiginating from itself.17What has been achieved is not merely theabstract idea of life to which scientific thought can rise through itstools, observation and description of phenomena and conditions (F.Cuvier 1829, 79), since it is theIdea itselfthat has come to life.

    2 The Idea of life in its natural, scientific and philosophical context

    2.1. Life external to itself

    2.1.1. The Earth as the crystal of life

    At the beginning, life is the organism as the totality of themechanical and physical nature that exists as lifeless (TWA 9, 337: 337). In the opening paragraph of the section on OrganicPhysics, Hegel writes that as the mere immediateIdea, life is thus

    external to itself; it is not life, but only the corpse of the livingprocess (ibid.).18In the Addition to 337 he explains this sentencewith an even more cryptic statement:

    Since life, as Idea, is its own movement, through which at first itmakes itself subject, it makes itself into its other, into its ownobverse [Gegenwurf]; it gives itself the form of being an object

    truth is life, thereby establishing a semblance of its independence and then canceling thatsemblance. With the full identity of purposive activity and the self-negating mechanico-chemicalprocess in the living organism, we get a full identity of form and content.

    17See: Cuvier 1800, 7: La vie ne nat que de la vie.18 In his 1812 Preliminary Discourse, Cuvier offers a survey of the geological theories that

    went far beyond ordinary physics and chemistry, as the one expounded by E. Patrin in his 180204 New Dictionary of Natural History (Cuvier 1997, editorial note 44, 201), which drew fromKeplers ideas: they assign vital faculties to the globe itself [] each of its parts is alive; thereis not the most elementary molecule that does not have an instinct, a will, and that does notattract or repel according to sympathies. Each kind of mineral can convert immense formationsinto its own nature, just as we convert our food into flesh and blood (Cuvier 1997, 201). Hegeloffers a conceptual proof of the falsity of this sort of approach.

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    in order to return and to have returned to itself. (TWA 9, 337Z:340)

    This sentence is meant to justify the prima facie surprising19move of considering geological nature, as the external system ofthe Earth (TWA 9, 339: 343), in the first part of Organics. Notethat in the Jena period (1805/06) Hegel had already included thephysics of the earth into the Organics, speaking of the terrestrialbody as a mineralogical organism (GW 8, 299).20 In theEncyclopaediaHegel regards the Earth only as the shape (Gestalt)

    of the whole organic system of individual terrestrial bodies (TWA 9, 338: 342). Indeed, when he calls it the system of life, he warnsthe reader that is so as a crystal which is like a skeleton (TWA 9, 337: 340). What is the significance of the Earth as the crystal oflife (TWA 9, 341: 360)? Perhaps Hegels analogy between theEarth and a skeleton makes some biological sense since the skeletonstructurally supports the organs and functions of an animal, butreaders should wonder why Hegel compares the Earth to a crystalof life. Is this merely a fanciful similie or does Hegel have a pointhere?

    19

    The expression is from Marmasse 2008, 292: he notes that Hegel states the caractreorganique du gologique since 1803/04 (note 51, 453). Fritscher 2006, 199 remarks that from anhistorical point of view, Hegel is one of the few philosophers to assign a distinct, proper place tothe metereological process and geological nature of the Earth in a system of philosophy ofnature.

    20See on the point Rhling 1998 who also reconstructs the debate in Jena between J. G. Lenz(curator of the ducal Naturalienkabinett),an enthusiastic supporter of Werners GeognosieandOryktognosie, and A. G. Batsch, director of the Naturforschende Gesellschaft. Renault 2002(note 129, 137) recalls Rosenkranzs 1868 criticism, according to which geology should havebeen the final moment of Physics, and underscores that by this move Hegel makes it possibleto account for the irriducible finitude of Physics (ibid., 137). On Hegels 1805/06 analogiesbetween Earth and organic body see: Bttner 2002, 8586, for a parallel reading of Hegelsdifferent accounts of geology from 1803/04 to the time of Spixs and Martius journey to Brasilin 181720 (recalled in TWA 9, 303Z: 186, 340Z: 358 and 3462Z: 403) see: Bttner 2002,9092. As far as I know, scholarship has provided no reason for the change of terminology otherthan to suggest Hegels shifting away from Schellings jargon (Rhling 1998, 36465). In From

    the physical world to the habitat: biocentrism in Hegels interrelation of animal subjectivity withits environment, a paper delivered at the Jenaer Tagung (4./5. December 2009) HegelsNaturphilosophie, I argue for an environmental reason at the basis of Hegels shift togeological nature in determining the first part of Organic Physics. See how the use of theterm geology conveys the addition of the geographical and physical distribution of organicbeings (fossils) in the strata of the globe to pure mineralogical considerations in Cuvier &Brongniart 1808, 422 (the essay was expanded in the form of a book in 1811 and reviewed in oneof Hegels favourite journals: The Edinburgh Review,November 1812, vol. XX, n. XL, 36986).

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    Note first that in Hegels Philosophy of Nature there is acontinuity between inorganic crystalline formations and livingbodies, based on the equal presence, in both cases, of mattersselfhood. Crystals do not exhibit a way of growing whichdistinguishes them qualitatively from the growth processes oforganic beings (TWA 9, 339Z: 349), because bothof them have astheir internalpoint of unity the whole shape, the totality of the figure(Gestalt):

    The crystal has an outer as much as an inner conformation, as

    two wholes of form. This double geometry [] is as it were[gleichsam] concept and reality, soul and body. The growth[Wachstum] of crystals occurs according to layers but thecleavage [Bruch] compenetrates all the layers. (TWA 9, 315:219)

    Nevertheless, Hegel also compares the manner in which crystals andplants grow, which he distinguishes according to the generaldifference between outer and inner: the crystalline formation oflayers grows as an addition from without, while a plant appears togrow starting on its own from within (Levere 1986, 10910).21Notethat by introducing within crystals a distinction between external

    addition of layers and organizing inner activity of the cleavage,Hegels approach marks a distinctive position regarding the debateabout Bonnets version of preformism (in contrast to epigenesis).22Kant had already paved the way, drawing analogies betweeninorganic crystalline formations as intrinsically systematic(chemical) products from a fluid state of matter, and livingorganisms as natural products to be judged teleologically as ends inthemselves (Ferrini 2004, 28499; Fritscher 2009, 25455). Bycontrast, following the results of von Hallers studies on chickeneggs according to which the embryo is found already in the eggand the ovary contains all that is essential to the fetus (Haller 1758,

    21Hegel quotes from Schultz 1823 in TWA 9, 343Z: 373. Hegel owned a series works bySchultz published during 182231 (Neuser 1987, entries 20409, 49394).

    22 See Petrys notes to 12.33 and 23.8 in Hegel 1970b III, 21516 and 22932. See alsoFritscher 2009, 2459 for the modern state of art of mineralogy and crystallography at Kantstime (Wallerius, Cronstedt, Zedlers, Gehler). In particular, Fritscher recalls the so-called Gesetzder Winkelkonstanz,according to which the geometrical distinctive figures of the crystals do not(externally) depend upon the number and magnitude of the single surfaces but upon the angleswhich together form (internally) these surfaces (247).

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    186) Bonnet had defined organization as the distinctive feature ofpreformed organisms (Swammerdam, von Haller), the parts ofwhich had merely to enlarge by developing from seeds, byintussusception, i.e. accretion; by contrast, the material parts of acrystal were seen to arrange and unite themselves only according tothe laws of motion and contact, that is, by juxtaposition (Bonnet1762, 17577; Duchesneau 2006).23

    As Kant with his chemical-dynamical explanation of the processof crystallization, Hegel rejects relegating crystal forms to the lowerlevel of the mechanical laws of motion and contact. As remarkedabove, Hegel recognises in light the form of life, because of theactual, thorough co-penetration of all parts of a transparent body.Already in the 1805/6 philosophy of nature Hegel had referred tocrystals as the result of the movement, from universality tosingularity, of the physical body which is totally light-penetrated inits parts. In the EncyclopaediaHegel states:

    the inner determination of form is no longer pure determinationof cohesion, rather all parts belong to this form. Matter iscrystallized through and through (TWA 9, 315Z: 219; italicsadded).

    Therefore, when we consider that Organic Physics opens with theEarth as crystal, or as the dead product of its relation and positionwithin the solar system(TWA 9, 339 and Z: 34244; 341: 360),that is, within the wholly cosmic life in which all living natureparticipates (TWA 9, 279Z: 130), we understand that the inorganicplanet Earth is to be conceived as the opposite of living existence,but equally that, as an habitable world, it is as such within and undera higher unity, posited by the judgment (in German: Urteil,composed by ur, original, and Teil, part) of life itself, from thestandpoint of its own internal purposiveness, as its presupposition(Voraus-Setzung) within the original division (Ur-Teil) of the

    23 Interestingly enough, Robinet, in the name of the law of uniformity between inorganicand organic nature, had spoken in 1761 of a suc,a solution of minerals and salts in ground wateras the universal fluid that caused transportation, deposit, alluvional beds, evaporation etc.(Robinet 1761, Ch. XIV: 28690), as well as of the generation of stones from stones and frommetals to metals (in this regard in perfect analogy with plant and animal reproduction) in termsof development of intussusception, thus claiming the existence of the germes fossiles (Robinet1761, Ch. XIV: 29091). Hegel owned Robinets work (Neuser 1987, entry 183, 492).

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    moments of its own process.24 Just as, in the Logic, chemism issubordinated to teleology (cf. Kisner 200809, 21), so geology issubordinated to vegetable and animal life, which in turn dependupon geology as their precondition (cf.Levere 1986, 108).

    The internal necessity of this move thus could not emerge inPhysics, for it rests on the fact that the logicalcharacter of the Ideaas such is that of aprocess and that this processual character of theIdea comes into actual existence only with organic life.

    As the universality that is singularity (Einzelheit:TWA 8, 215:372), the concept progresses in the third part of the Logic thedoctrine of the concept from its first one-sided subjectivity(judgment and syllogism), via its counterposed one-sided objectivity(mechanism, chemism, teleology), to its concrete reality andintensive totality as Idea (of life, of cognition and finally as theabsolute idea). In 215 of the Encyclopedia Logicit is clearly statedthat the Idea is essentiallyprocess.25The process-character of theIdea results from the dialectical movement in which the conceptdetermines itself both to objectivity and to the antithesis, and thentakes back the totality of the particularizations and returns into itselfnegatively as real subjectivity ( 213, 215). Indeed, Hegel warnsthe reader not to take the systematic division of his philosophical

    science to constitute a temporalsequence (TWA 8, 18: 64), i.e. as ifthe second part of the Encyclopaedia were simply juxtaposed tothe first. Rather, the Idea as nature is posited together conceptuallywith its opposite, the Idea as finite spirit, and expounded as thefirst, lower part of the twofold realsection that in its entirety is theoutcome of the first, merely ideal (closed within thought) section ofthe science of the Idea in and for itself. This is the case because:

    the Idea proves itself to be as thought simply identical with itselfand this proves to be the activity of positing itself over againstitself to be for-itself [the Idea in its being-other, Nature] andin this other to be only at home with itself [as philosophy of

    spirit]. (TWA 8, 18: 63)24See: Bttner 2002,7576 and 8285.25See also V10, 209.7480, where Hegel clarifies that at the beginning the Idea (essentially

    process, absolute negativity, dialectical) is the universal, the immediate, and thus nature (and in adeterminate way is life), though this immediacy is the Urteil (that is, both judgment and inneroriginal self-division) of the Idea: it is the Idea in its own externality, with life as the highestdegree of this being-out-of-itself.

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    As Idea in the immediacy of being, life is essentially purposiveself-mediating, self-grounding activity as subject and process thatestablishes its own presupposition in order to be what it is. This kindof reference can help us to explain the change of terminology fromthe mineralogical organism of the Jena period to the geologicalnature of the later philosophy of nature. In the 1804-05 Logic,living organisms were conceived within the frame of themetaphysics of objectivity and in terms of a movement fromabsolute cognition to self-cognition; consistently, in the 1805/06philosophy of nature, plastic organic nature immediately generatesorganic mineral formations in the element of being as deadforms,in contrast to the representational form of consciousness, whichmediates between concept and thing (GW 8, 119.58). In theEncyclopaedia, the first immediate determination of Life is thedetermination of its own relative and specific otherness: othernessceases to have the significance of an alien conditioning externality,for externality is brought about as the means through which lifedetermines and sustains itself: it falls under the power of life as theinorganic, geologicalnaturethat is necessary to its process.

    2.1.2. The lifeless shape of geologyOne may well ask at this point: what empirical research does Hegelwant to ground here by regarding it as conforming to this atemporalconceptual necessity? In the Additions to 339 and 340 Hegelpraises Werners scheme of precipitation, that is, his physical andchemical theory of the deposition of strata, according to which theorigin and sequence of such strata are determined by the law of theinternal differentiation of the essential determinations of rocks(Levere 1986,104); and he dismisses as external any manner ofexplanation in geology that aims at determining only the temporalsuccession of the order of stratification (with the granitic primitive

    rocks as the deepest strata, and the fletz-formations having beendeposited at a later, more recent time). The order of stratification iscertainly capable of a purely temporal, mechanical explanation,starting as it does with the conception of a series of parts existingoutside of and independent of one another. If this were the wholetruth of the matter, however, the external system of the earth in the

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    first part of Organics would not be a terrestrial organism, but amere aggregate of parts with no teleology at work.26 On Hegelsview, this approach fails to recognise that the deep meaning andrationality of the sequence (its Sinn und Geist) is Werners internalorganic, conceptual bond or necessary relation between theseinorganic formations (TWA 9, 339Z: 348). This internal connectionmust depend upon the characteristic (Beschaffenheit),the essentialqualitative content of these formations themselves, which governstheir occurrence in time, which as mere chronological (historical)sequence of production would be of no philosophical significanceand interest (Kolb 2008, 101). Hegels judgment is thus in accordwith Cuviers assessment in his 1812 Preliminary Discourse(Cuvier1997, 204):

    The purely mineral part of the great problem of the theory of theearth has been studied with admirable care by de Saussure, andsince brought to striking development by Mr. Werner [] [who]has fixed the law of succession of the formations: hedemonstrated their respective ages andfollowed each through allits metamorphoses. (my italics)27

    Kolb remarks that Hegel did not favour the view (e.g. Huttons

    uniformitarianism at his time), that the present set of rock types andstrata is only a stage in a continuing process and that present formshave no permanence and no special finality, because for Hegel whatis important is the existing repertory of types and forms (Kolb 2008,10103). We may note, however, that the old Aristotelian view wasnot in revival for regressive and reactionary reasons, for Hegel wasfocussing on a skeleton of basic types at least as much as Cuvier[see below: 2.3.1]. Against this background it is worth noting thata recent inquiry into the handbooks on natural science in use at theUniversity of Jena has drawn attention to the influence of WernersGeognosie on the novelty introduced by the revival of the ancientnotion of historia naturae by F. S. Voigts Grundzgen einer

    Naturgeschichte(1817).28By linking his work to Werners idea of

    26See: Mrigonde 2007, 210.27The editors note warns the reader that the word metamorphoses here is employed in the

    sense of the modern term metamorphism.28On Voigts contribution to zoology, under the influence of Blumenbach and Cuvier and in

    contrast to Oken, see: Robin 2006, who cites the following sentence from Voigts 1816 Von dem

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    internal purposiveness, which orders from within the outer parts of aterrestrial organism, Voigts aim was to continue the story of the

    formation of the inorganic into the organic. In Thomas Bachsreconstruction, by raising the question of the Geogenie, i.e. thedevelopmentof the earth before the creation of vegetable and animalnature, Voigt put forward a combination of animal, systematic andhistorical treatment of geology that marked a new trend in Jena, sothat from 1829/30 J. C. Zenker lectured regularly on GeneralNatural History, with special regard to Zoology and Geology (Bach2008, 20611).

    One should also consider the following passages by J. Hutton,Werners main rival, from his 1795 Theory of the Earth. In contrastto Werner, Hutton applies the idea of external teleology to conceivethe terrestrial system as a whole a living world, animated by fire asan agent in mineral operations that constitutes a machine, adaptedto a certain end (life) by the perfect wisdom of an intelligent design:

    The laws of electricity and magnetism have been well examinedby philosophers; but the purposes of those powers in theoeconomy of the globe have not been discovered. (Hutton 1795 I,11; my italics)

    A rock or stone is not a subject that, of itself, may interest aphilosopher to study []. It is not, therefore, simply by seeingthe concretion of mineral bodies that a philosopher is to begratified in his intellectual pursuit, but by the contemplation ofthat system in which the necessary resolution of this earth, whileat present it serves the purpose of vegetation, or the fertility ofour soil, is the very means employed in furnishing the materialsof future land. (Hutton 1795 I, 27677)

    Notable here is the conception of the earth as a habitable world(Hutton 1795 I, 4) and an organized body (ibid.,16), governed by apurposiveness that for Hutton lies outside the earth in the perfect

    wisdom of the intelligent designer, and which in Hegels systembecomes internalized and is to be conceived as grounded in (or

    Werth der Naturgeschichte:To draw knowledge from nature there is a threefold route. Eitherone regards the matter, or the form, or the spirit (Geist)and the life in nature [Robin 2006, 181misquotes Seiftinstead of Geist.I thank Thomas Bach for checking the correct version in theoriginal text].

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    posited by) the conceptual moments of organic life as it is presentin nature. Moreover, Hutton aims at elevating fires operations fromthe rank of an accident of nature to that of an essential agency,part of that design by which the earth, which is necessarily wastedin the operations of the world, is to be repaired (Hutton 1795 I,279). Though Hegel never mentions Hutton, he draws on him(Levere 1986, 107) when he recognizes as essential, but bythemselves one-sided and formal, both the principles of Huttonsvulcanism, later called plutonism, and Werners rival theory ofneptunism (based on the agent water),29 by saying that in thecrystal of earth fire is as effective [wirksam] as water: in volcanoes,springs and in the meterological process in general (TWA 9, 339Z:344; see: Kolb 2008, 100).

    From the standpoint of life, within the terrestrial organism, fireand water are elements of differentiation which then becomeintegrated into the process whereby life confronts itself as self-determining and subjective, having within its own self a stabilisedformation. Apparently, Hegels account did not remain withoutechoes in the scientific world of his time. In 1827, Karl WilhelmIdeler sketches the general concept of nature to introduce thephysiological part of anthropology by making historical reference to

    the recent development of the natural sciences and treatingmechanics, dynamics and chemistry as three sides of the process oflife: all three should be (sollen sein)only different expositions ofone fundamental being (eines Grundwesens) (Ideler 1827, 172).Against this background, Ideler claims that one can regard the bodyof the Earth as a terrestrial organism (tellurischer Organismus)only in so far as it is considered in its totality, together with theatmosphere, and because its changes are subjected to a universalrule which alone makes possible the existence of plants andanimals (Ideler 1827, 18283).

    Placing the dead surface of the terrestrial organism30under theself-differentiating movement whereby life grounds itself, Hegel

    29 See Petrys note at p.17,21 in Hegel 1970b III, 21819 and Fritscher 2002 on Hegelsscientific background against the developments of geology and mineralogy in the period 17701830. On Werners Geognosiesee: Faivre 1977 and Fritscher 2002, 6368; on the Werner-Huttoncontroversy see: Morello 1979, 169176. Hegel owned Werners 1791 Neue Theorie von derEntstehung der Gnge mit Anwendung auf den Bergbau(Neuser 1987, entry 227, 495).

    30In TWA 9, 341, p. 360 Hegel speaks of der totliegende Organismus der Erde.

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    may hold the view that though the strata are deposited by nature asparts that follow one another in time and in so doing are indifferentto one another, geology is nevertheless not confined to a thoughtlessenumeration that simply elevates any minor difference to the rank ofa new species of rock. In an addition in Michelets edition of the1830 Encyclopaedia, we read a reference to J. L. HeimsGeologische Beschreibungto supportthe claim that the rational partof geology, the part that is of philosophical interest, highlights thelogicalnecessity that nature displays in the transition of the variousstratifications into one another.31Michelet drew this reference fromthe 1805/6 Philosophy of Nature,32though in the Berlin Philosophyof Nature of 1819/20 Hegel, in line with the change of terminologyrecalled above, stresses how geology must avoid thinking just interms of chemical (that is, external) conditions in the case of hotsprings and volcanoes, for they are phenomena of terrestrialgalvanism: the mountainous strata are different but they are notdead,rather they are members [Glieder] of a galvanic chain (V16,144.20208, my italics). We can make sense of this cursory andrather cryptic remark, which has escaped the attention of theinterpreters. Only very recently has Kolb restated the issue of howphysical processes relate to conceptual necessities in Hegels

    philosophy of nature by raising two questions, one about howtypological necessity arises through contingent processes, and theother about what external determination produces the detailedspecification of natural things (also for living beings). Kolb points toprocesses that have no mechanical intermediaries, for they presentinstead the direct action of the earth as a whole (such as, forinstance, the origin of springs, the origin of veins of metallic ores,the spontaneous generation of lower life forms etc.: Kolb 2008, 10708). Against this interpretive background, it is worth recalling thatgalvanism is the science of the peculiar action of differentconductors of electricity upon each other, originally stemming fromthe phenomenon, observed by Galvani in 1789, of the contraction of

    31 Heim, who at the outset aims to consider the entire bed (Lager) of the ThuringianMountains as a proper totality (ein eignes Ganzes) (Heim 1803, Sect. III, 1: 6), writes: ingeneral an entire proper manner of transition and change of formgoverns [herrscht]the entiremountain chain namely a universal tendency to a dense granular shape [dichtkrnigteGestalt](Heim 1803, Sect. III, 10: 120).

    32See: TWA 9, 340, p. 354. See Petrys note to 27,33 in Hegel 1970b III, 23536. The endof the Addition 340 (see: TWA9, 35960) presents the same text of GW 8, 11819.

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    muscles and nerves of an animal which, upon application of metals,are stimulated by electricity.33 At the turn of the XIX century,however, the galvanic influence was no longer considered asexisting only in living animal organs. Referring to the researches ofFabroni, Dr. Ash and Creve, in 1801 Humphrey Davy accounted forinorganic galvanism as follows:

    But the discovery of the peculiar action of metals in contact witheach other upon water, demonstrated the production of it inarrangements composed wholly of dead matter, and laid the

    foundation for a new class of investigations, which haveintimately connected the galvanic phenomena with knownphysical effect. (Davy 1839, 189; italics added)34

    Davy also describes the discovery of the accumulation of thegalvanic influence, the general connection between the excitementof galvanic electricity and chemical changes, and the discovery ofthe chemical agencies of galvanism. This led to the galvanicarrangements of perfect and less perfect conductors of electricity, sothat they could be in contact with each other, forming circles (Davy1839, 19091), or rings of a chain. Some years later, in his DerProcess der galvanischen Kette, Pohl summarizes his researches of

    many years (xi) as the individuation of the proper soul of theactivity of nature in polarity, with which matters causally operate asmembers of the closed chain (als Glieder der geschlossenen Kette),as in the case of combustion and in the process of crystal formations(Pohl 1826: xiii, 399 and 42026). The chain represented nothingbut the unity that is able to bring together diverse phenomena byshowing their essentiality and necessity(Pohl 1826, 30910).

    2.2. Life internal to itself: Subjectivity

    2.2.1. The way to subjectivity: the individuality of vegetable life

    33 The discovery was first published in Aloysii Galvani, De Viribus Electricitatis in MotuMusculari Commentarius.Bononiae, 1791.

    34 Davys historical sketch of galvanism was first published in the Journals of the RoyalInstitution, vol. i., 1802.

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    As remarked earlier, the specific characteristics and properties of aliving being are not simply acquired in and through the entire cycleof chemical relations to something other. In organic nature, anindividual is determined as this particular in relation to a center,which has the form of the self, of the subject (TWA 9, 337: 337). Inthe Philosophy of Nature of 1825/26 this feature is highlightedbecause it marks the difference between physical and organicindividualization (V 17, 169.1114). What is organic is no longer apure Individuum,composed by the differentiated parts in which theform exhibits itself, and which can fall apart indifferently. Thefinitude of the chemical process means that, in concreto, the relationamong the bodys sensible properties is unstable: its configuration(Gestalt)has no realunity because of the variation of the reactions itundergoes, due to the change of the reagent, so that even itsallegedly most profound and stable determinations fail to bepreserved and the true individuality of the body does not existin anyone of its states.35By contrast, the posited negativity of the self-developed form makes the organism a subject, since the materialparts (Teile) exist only as members (Glieder) whose ownindependence has been negated. The chemical bond, instead, is amerepossibilityof different affinities and different products, for the

    chemical reaction between substances is nothing but the action ofmoments that in themselves remain different and separated (Hegel1959, 350; see: Burbidge 2007,115).36

    This is exactly the criterion Hegel uses to place vegetable natureat the simpler, infantile weak stage (TWA 9, 343Z: 372) of theinternal differentiation of natural life, still close to the products ofthe chemical process and to a geometrical and mechanicalarrangement of forms (TWA 9, 345: 380).37The organic being of

    35Cf.Davy 1840, 6970: it is a general character of chemical combination, that it changesthe sensible qualities of bodies [] Bodies possessed of little taste or smell often gain thesequalities in a high degree by combinations []. The forms of bodies, or their densities, likewiseusually alter; solids become fluids, and solids and fluid gases, and gases are often converted into

    fluids or solids.36 According to Marmasse 2008, 29091, on Hegels view the return into itself thatdistinguishes the autonomy of the organism in respect to the chemical product and its innerfinality is to be conceived on the basis of the sole resources of nature. The self-mediation isperfectly authorized by the principles of the systematic progression of nature and does notrequire a spiritual activity.

    37 For a thorough and specific account of the difference between plants and animal, withspecial regard to the diverse role played of sexual reproduction, against the background of,

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    plants, though the first subject that is for itself, does not achieve truesubjectivity, as animal life does.38In 34349 Hegel makes clearthat the unifying point of selfhood remains external to plants: theplant depends wholly on light, air, and water outside it and so is notyet truly self-relating. Consequently, plants lack inwardness and donot have feeling and sentience; they cannot master the externality ofspace with autonomous motion; in sum, plants individuality showsa residual indifferentiation (Illetterati 1995a, 38793), which isreflected into the nature of their alleged sexual difference, thenotorious criterion of Linns classification. In the EncyclopediaHegel refuses to assign a proper sexual difference to plants, butgrants only an analogical animal sexuality to them, for it does notco-penetrate the entire corporeal disposition of the individuals.39Hegel shared this view with Schelver, the director of the Jenabotanical garden.40In short: plants allow some of their parts(wood,branches, leaves) to die or fall apart in indifference, showing no fullunity of Gestalt and individuality. The second of the threesyllogisms of the vegetable organism is a process which exhibitsdeficiency of subjectivity as incapacity for the plant to makeinorganic nature its own:

    The living [plant] has not its other within itself [an ihm selbst],but as an independent other; it is not itself its own inorganicnature, but nature is found as an object, which the livingencounters with the semblance [Schein] of contingency. This is

    among others, Buffon, Girtanner, Schelver on the side of natural science, and Kant and Schellingon the philosophical side, see: Bach 2004.

    38On the lack of subjectivity in the process of plants configuration and on the differencebetween vegetable and animal assimilation, see: Frigo 2002, 10912.

    39Retracing the same orientation in an 1801 text (Hegels first Jenaer Systementwurf), twoyears before Schelvers arrival in Jena, Bach underscores that there is no reason to speak of anyimmediate dependence of Hegels position on Schelvers theories and sees the origin of theformer in an independent philosophical appraisal of Linn (Bach 2006b, 7576). Illetterati1995a, note 166, 393 remarks the accord with Aristotles view on the sexuality of the plants in

    De gen.an.I, 731a 1 and 731a 2529.40In the early years of the XIX century, Schelver had addressed an early criticism to Linnsclavis systematis sexualis, but did not publish it until 1812, on Goethes advice (Bach 2004: 187).Both Schelver and Hegel, however, may have drawn from a common earlier source: W. Smelliesaccount of the sexuality of plants (translated into German by E. A. W. Zimmermann in 1791),which reports the experimentally controlled objections of Dr. Hope of the botanical garden ofEdinburgh to Linns criterion of classification (Ferrini 2009, note 35, 120). Hegel owned manyworks by Schelver published during 18031823 (Neuser 1987, entries 18997, 49293).

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    the specified process in the face of an external nature (TWA9, 346Z: 395).

    In the organic realm, however, we conceive the body as no longerdetermining itself essentially in relation to another, as in thechemical process, but on its own. Hence, empirical evidenceconfirms what the concept determines to be the case: that the plant isunable to maintain itself as an infinite being-for-self.41By contrast,in a true, fully developed organism, the parts exist essentially asmembers [Glieder], and subjectivity exists as the one that co-

    penetrates the whole [die durchdringendeeine des Ganzen]. (TWA9, 349: 429). The plant, therefore, is an organism that falls short ofbeing the true organism, instantiated by animal life.

    2.3. Lifes unity of inwardness and outwardness

    2.3.1. Function and Organ in Animal Life

    Since the 1807 Phenomenology, Hegel was publicly always veryappreciative of scientific investigations into the substantial form ofthe animal Typus42(GW 9, 140.3236; Ferrini 2009, 9798). In the

    Philosophy of Natureof the 1830 Encyclopaediahe remarks:After five, ten, or twenty years, one says, the organism has nomore of itself within it, all the material components (alles

    Materielle) are consumed, only the substantial form persists.(TWA 9, 356Z: 461, my italics)

    41Buquoy 1822, 36: 123 stresses that the vegetative sphere does not reach the purpose ofactivity. By contrast, the vital activity of the living beings urges to dominate (strebt [] zubeherrschen,beherrschenis emphasized in the original text) chaos and lack of form according toits own formative impulse. Hegel owned a series of works by Buquoy published during 181725(Neuser 1987, entries 3841, 48283), among which Buquoy 1817 and 1822.

    42 Goethe advances his notion of Typus based on comparative anatomy in the 1795 ErsterEntwurf einer allgemeinen Einleitung in die vergleichende Anatomie, ausgehend von derOsteologie, where he takes partial distance from Kant, polemizing against final causes in thelight of Spinoza (Giacomoni 1998, 20010). See: Moiso 1998b, 31725 on his discovery of osintermaxillarebased on the principle of the continuity and metamorphosis of the living formsone into the other. Moiso underscores the accord between Goethes principle of useful harmonyamong functionally interrelated organs and Cuviers principle of the correlations of organicforms (32122).

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    In 1812/13 Hegel develops the idea of the substantial form ofliving organisms by making explicit that reason provides [macht]abasis for the fundamental determination [Grundbestimmung] of theanimal (V 15, ad 49: 143.3132b). There he refers to thedefinition that proceeds from the animals properties to its essentialdistinguishing marks and then to the whole of the universal type,which structures from within allits individual parts, allits bones andmembers according to its genus.43

    In the part of the 1830 Philosophy of Nature on zoology, Hegelrepeatedly and extensively refers to Cuviers laws of the correlationof organs with the environmental conditions of existence ( 365Z, 368, 368Z), quoting entire passages from his Recherches sur leossements fossiles de quadrupdes in the Addition to 368(TWA 9,50506). Indeed, in 1812, Cuvier had published his famousDiscours prliminaire to the Recherches, where he claims thatnaturalists could attain the same success as the astronomers whounveiled the mechanism of the world:

    But after Anaxagoras came the Copernicuses and the Keplers,who cleared the way for Newton; so why should not naturalhistory also have its Newton one day? (Cuvier 1997, 185)

    In 1812 Cuvier proposes the principle of the correlation of forms inorganized beings as the undivided unity of parts and functions.According to this principle, a part cannot change without amodification of the whole, in which the unity of the parts constitutestheir aim: that is, the purpose of a specific organ is to carry out acertain function within the organism as a whole. This is a principle:

    by means of which each kind of being could be recognized, at apinch, from any fragment of any of its parts. Every organizedbody forms a whole, a unique and closed system, in which all theparts correspond mutually, and contribute to the same definitiveaction by a reciprocal reaction. None of its parts can change

    without the others changing too; and consequently each of them,taken separately, indicates and gives all the others. (Cuvier 1997,217)

    43 Gattung: see: V 15, 28182 (editorial note to 143.1722); cf. Breidbach 2004, 21214,21920.

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    In introducing the method of comparative anatomy, Cuvier seems tosuggest that he regards it as a response to Kants claim in 75 of the1790 Critique of Judgmentthat for us, organism has a meaning ofits own that is wholly irreducible to that of mechanism, thusrejecting as absurd the possibility that some day another Newtonmight arise who would explain organic life through natural lawsunordered by any intention (AA V, 75: 400, my italics).44Famously, in 1755 Kant had regarded just as highly problematicthe full explanation of a simple organism by conceiving its parts aseffects of (blind) mechanical causes, projecting it into anindeterminate future (AA I, 230.1420). After 1763, Kant feltincreasingly uneasy about the basic inadequacy of mechanical causalexplanations of the generation and the inner structure of plants,animals and also crystals (AA II, 114.56; Ferrini 2000). Theabsurdity Kant notes in 1790 marks a radicalization of his pre-critical view, also due to his reappraisal there of Blumenbachsformative power (Bildungstrieb).45Kant argues that we must judgesomething to be an organized product of nature only when:everything [within it] is end and reciprocally means as well.Nothing in it is gratuitous, purposeless or to be ascribed to a blindmechanism of nature (AAV, 66: 376). Kant admits that parts of

    an animal body could be understood according to purely mechanicallaws, yet the causewhich provides the appropriate matter, modifies,forms and deposits it in the proper place, must always be judgedteleologically (AA V, 66: 377). In an organized and self-organizing being, which is also able to repair itself when disordered,the connection of efficient causes could at the same time be judgedas an effect through final causes, as being in itself a natural end. Thisis because the organism has a self-reproducing, formative power(sich fortpflanzende, bildende Kraft)and so, unlike a machine, does

    44 For an extensive study of Kants critical interpretation of Blumenbachs notion and the

    influence it had, in turn, on Blumenbach himself, cf.Fabbri Bertoletti1990, 1047.45 Look has pointed out how Kant rejects important features of the formative drive(Bildungstrieb), such as its vitalistic aspect of being a form of energy that acts as an efficientcause of reproduction, its being constitutive of matter, its not being anything like a Kantiansupersensible ground for both mechanical and teleological modes of explanation. Lookconcludes that Yet from Kants perspective, Blumenbach could not be the Newton for a baldeof grass for there still can be no such a figure (Look 2006, 37172; see also: Chiereghin1990, 20405).

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    not just have a motive force within itself (AA V, 65: 374).46Moreover, especially in the First Introduction to the Critique of the

    Judgment, Kant holds that, despite the ground of natures innerpurposivess is beyond the sphere of the insights into nature that arepossible for us (AAXX, 218), nature proceedsfreely in atechnicalmanner in case of external shape or inner structure that are sosystematically constituted that their possibility mustbe grounded inan idea of them in our judgment. Against this background,Chiereghin sees Kants absolute rejection (de jure)of the possibilityof a Newton of the Organics as depending upon the impossibility ofcomprehending how any organism can be produced by mechanical(blind) natural laws, unordered by any intention (Chiereghin 1990,20405).47

    Cuviers ideas are similar to, but also significantly different fromKants position. In his Lectures on comparative anatomy firstdelivered at the end of 1795, Cuvier openly quotes Kant, endorsinghis view that the ratio essendi of any single part of a living bodyrests on the whole, since each part has in itself the generalmovement; i.e., each part intrinsically participates in the commonmovement produced by its union with the other parts and whichconstitutes the essence of life (Cuvier 1800, 56). However,

    Cuvier cautiously does not ground his principle metaphysically onKants supersensible idea of the action of a formative natural poweror procreative capacity.48He claims only to be able to provide an

    46 The English translators of the third Critique render Kants adjective fortpflanzend withpropagating(Kant 2000, 246). This rendering may sound misleading against the background ofthe scientific use of the term at Hegels time. Note that e.g. Schultz translated propagatio siveevolutioby Vermehrung,while Fortpflanzungrendered generatio(Schultz 1828, 3.3).

    47Chiereghin also points out the aporetic implications of the Kantian paradigmatic notion oftechne in the First Introduction to the Critique of Judgment: its failure to account for theformative power, its reconstruction, from the outside, of the connection among analyticallyisolated elements of the organism so that the activity governing the organic process falls againunder the heading of external purposiveness (cf. Chiereghin 1990, 13638, 14245, 15253,20107; 22526).

    48A classification of the three mineral, plant and animal kingdoms based on the criterion ofthe Fortpflanzungsvermgen (reproductiveness) is to be found in Willdenow 1792, 3: 2:minerals have no reproductive parts (Willdenow calls Zeugungstheile what 36 year later werecalled Generationsorgane: Schultz 1828, 2: 2), they can generate only mixtures and not theirown kind; vegetables are endowed with a great lot of them, but they lose these parts beforedeath; by contrast, animals keep their Zeugungstheile until they die. Michelets edition of the1830 Encyclopaediareports extensive quotations from the 6thedition (1821) of Willdenow 1792in the Additions to 344348; see: Petry 1986, p. 20.

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    empirical exposition and not a rational [raisonn] system (Cuvier1800, 9). In the first published volume of his Lectures (1800),Cuvier acknowledges that the tissues and the mixture [mlange]oftheir elements were in a way the result of the action of vitalforces, but that there was no way to shed light on these forces apartfrom examining the composition of the bodies. More importantly,Cuvier made it clear that on his view those forces could have theirsource and foundation only in the tissues and the mixture of theirmechanical and chemical elements (Cuvier 1800, 7). Cuvierindividuates the general characteristics of organized bodies in theirorigin by generation, growing by nutrition, and death(Cuvier 1800,10) and then specifies what constitutes in particular the animalversus the vegetable economy of life: voluntary motion andsentience, digestion, respiration through gills or lungs, notthroughout the entire bodys surface (Cuvier 1800, 1117). These areparticular functions that are exerted by specific organs, which in turnmodify the performance of the general functions common to all theorganized bodies. Indeed, his model was a three-order functionallyintegrated animal machine (Cuvier 1800, 1819): the first order isconstituted by the set of the animal functions ruled by sentience andmotion; the second order by living functions (digestion, absorption,

    circulation, breathing, transpiration, excretion) which constitute aninternal principle of maintenance and reparation and whichdistinguish the animal machine from an artificial one; the third is theorder of generation.49

    Hence, Cuvier seemed to undertake his own Copernicanrevolution against the Kantian reflective judgment, by turning vitalforces which Kant understood as the rational ground of thephenomena of life into vital forces which are empirically groundedin organic phenomena themselves.50 Note, however, that in 1784Kant had made reference to Keplers unexpected success in bringing

    49Cuvier makes these claims in the First article (General sketch of the functions exerted by

    the animal bodies) of the First Lecture (Preliminary considerations on animal economy), ofVolume I of hisLeons danatomie(Paris, 18001805).

    50 In the 1807 Phenomenology,Hegel carries out the transition from Perception to Forceand Understanding when consciousness moves to an unconditioned, supersensible, self-identicaluniversality as the inner, productive ground of the manifold properties of the object. That is,consciousness moves to force as form that is purposive activity,which makes itself into whatthe thing is in itself, developing its parts and properties, bringing the inner nature of perceivedthings to actuality (on the implicit anti-Kantianism of this move see: Ferrini 2005, 34045).

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    phenomena under determinate laws as well as to Newtonsexplanation of those laws by a natural universal cause, against thebackground of his quest for reconstructing the history of the humangenus as a whole by recognising (at least) a natural purpose in theapparent irregular and incoherent phenomena of human actions,given the unaccessibility to knowledge of their rational ground (thenoumenal freedom of the human will). Kants first thesis in the Idee

    zu einer allgemeinen Geschichtewas the (biological) principle of thenecessary (destined) full development in time of all the originaldispositions (Naturanlagen) of the corporeal organisation of acreature to fulfill its own ends, so that a useless organ is acontradiction to the teleological doctrine of nature (AAVIII 1718).Likewise, Cuvier confines himself to phenomenological laws (see:Cuvier 1997, editors note 15, 185), claiming that he who possessesrationally the laws of organic economy would be able to reconstructthe whole animal. Cuvier seems to regard himself as the Laplace ofnatural history, for he understands this reconstruction in terms ofequations: the form of the tooth entails the form of the condyle;the forms of the shoulder blade and the claws, just like the equationof a curve, entail all their properties (Cuvier 1997, 219).51 Thisfeature was highlighted by Spix who emphasized the analogy

    between the internal necessity of the architectonic plan of naturethat Cuvier exhibited by drawing from a single bone the entirearticulation of a body, and the necessity in the mathematicalprocedures of drawing unknown quantities from the known (Spix1811, 34: 13233).52

    51The text continues: Just as taking each property separately as the basis for a particularequation, one would find both the ordinary equation and all the other properties of any kind, solikewise the claw, the shoulder blade, the condyle, the femur, and all the other bones takenseparately, determine [donnent] the teeth, and each other reciprocally. In his 1792/93 DerVersuch als Vermittler von Obiect und SubiectGoethe had taken the mathematical method of thealgebraic formulas laDAlembert as the method which could follow the continuity of nature,avoiding the extremes of the arbitrary unity and the analytical fragmentation, see: Moiso 1998b,

    298311.52Spix also sets the limits of the new anatomy: it takes into account only the most visibleorgans (this criticism will be also levelled at Cuvier by Blainville 1847 III, 398) and does notthink of the properties of the soul (Seeleneigenschaften) of the animals (in the same vein asLinn), that is of the integration of the functions by the nervous system which coordinates theactive relations of the animal body to externality. Hence, one should progress towards a newconception of zoology, constituted by physiology and psychology (Spix 1811, 36: 149); see:Poggi 2000, 46871. Hegel owned Spix 1811 (Neuser 1987, entry 218, 494).

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    presupposition of the temporal existence of something like a living-in-general that then divides itself into plants, animal and humanraces; he criticizes this view in terms of a representation of theempty force of imagination (TWA 9, 349).57

    In the logic of life in 165 of the 1817 Encyclopaedia Hegelrecasts Kants view in an Aristotelian, speculative frame, pointing(in a manner characteristic of post-Kantian thought) to theconstitutive, not merely subjectively reflective, dimension of thetransience, negativity or ideality of the parts as moments of theprocess of life.58

    In the 1830 Remark to 360 Hegel reaffirms his appreciation ofKants revival of the Aristotelian idea of the inner purposiveness ofthe living being, though he still hints at the insufficiency of itsmerely heuristic status in the Critique of Judgment,59and developsa line of argument that strongly suggests a point of contact betweenthis Kantian reappraisal and Cuviers work. In another RemarkHegel mentions the judicious, sensible way in which the Frenchschool considers nature, and in particular he highlights the way thatschool restores Aristotles fundamental classification of animals onthe basis of the essential characteristic of the absence or presence ofthe backbone.60 Hegel then turns to Cuvier and praises his

    57Rhlig 1998, 360 remarks that Hegel distances himself from metaphysical philosophy ofnature which holds that all matter is alive in the vein of Jacobis pronouncement Everything innature lives. Nothing is completely dead. In the Jena period Hegel had already supported theview that the concept [] is not the discourse on a general life of nature in the sense that [dass]nature is living everywhere; rather it speaks of the essence of life. Nature is to be grasped[begreiffen]and explained in the moments of its actuality or totality, and these moments have tobe shown (GW 8, 119.1013). In my forthcoming paper in S. Houlgate & M. Baur, TheBlackwell Companion to Hegel,I have argued that the transition from inorganic to organic naturehinges on conceptual inner necessity, not directly on what nature does, and that Hegel holdsneither the vitalistic view that life emerges from an essentially lifeless matter by means of thesudden appearance of a natural productive power of generation (Lebenskraft),nor the hylozoicview that in temporal existence nature is everywhere really alive.

    58 Bach 2004, 180 draws attention to the comparison between 165168 of the 1817Encyclopaediaand 6466 of Kants third Critiquefrom the standpoint of the genus process,analysing Kants example of the tree.

    59 As Zammito puts it, Kant remained adamant that the ultimate origin of organizationrequired a metaphysical,not a physical account (Zammito 2006, 349; cf. AAVIII, 179). On howHegel develops against this critical background his own concept of life as speculative ontologysee: Stanguennec, 1990. In the Science of Logic Hegel counterbalances the insufficiency ofKants appraisal with the position he gives to teleology: a connecting middle (being ascribed toa judgment) between the universal of reason and the singular of sensible intuition (TWA 6, 443).

    60 This approach is not original to Hegel. In 1811 Johannes Spix had already spoken ofanimals with or without vertebrae (Wirbel)as the first major change introduced by the French

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    understanding of the essentialuniversal nature of the entire animalas a connection that determines the construction of all the parts(aller Teile):

    the singular structure of theHabitus,which has been regarded asthe connection determining the construction of all the parts, hasbeen made the chief point; so that Cuvier, the great founder ofcomparative anatomy, could be proud that from a single bone hecould know [erkennen] the essential nature of the entireanimal.61 [] it is precisely by means of this that it [ the

    universal type [allgemeine Typus]of the animal ] has been liftedout of particularity [Besonderheit],and raised into its universality[Allgemenheit]. (TWA 9, 368: 501)

    In 1807Hegel had written that when the object to be observed is anorganic unity, reason has before itself in its object the connection orbond (Beziehung) between inward essentiality (universality) andexternality (singularity). To express such a connection would requirelaws which distinguish between inner ground and outwardmanifestation, but at the same time immediately possess theprocessual character of the concept (its syllogistic dynamic orrestlessness) and for that reason state the relation between the

    internal and external sides to be necessary (GW 9, 156.2832).Interpreters have charged Hegel with denying the existence of anylaw in organics (Borzeskowski 2006, 199) or even denying theirvery possibility (Wahsner 2006, 225), but it seems to me that wehave sufficient evidence to conclude that Hegel views Cuviers lawof the correlation of forms in organized beings as the modern

    Scharfsinn (Hegels sinnige Naturbetrachtung: TWA 9, 368: 500) into the Linneanclassification of animals based on the old criterion of the absence or presence of blood, andremarked that: Aristotle had already made this distinction, just before accounting for CuviersElements of Natural HistoryandLetures of Comparative Anatomy(Spix 1811, 35: 136).

    61Interestingly enough, Blainville (1847 III, 398) criticizes the reliability of Cuviers proud

    claim, remarking that the principle was true for the general form of the animal, and also fordeducing the form of muscles from the shape and proportion of the skeleton (since in this casetwo organs were produced together to perform the same function), but in the case of the teeth ofa cat, it would have been impossible to deduce the skeleton of the animal. In a Kantianteleological vein, reporting this criticism, Paul Janet notes that even if it were correct: anharmonic bond (une liaison harmonique), though reduced to the most general condition oforganization, would be infinitely higher (infiniment au-dessus)than the forces of a purely blindnature (Janet 1876, 615).

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    empirical theory that conforms both to Aristotles speculativeprinciple62and to the syllogistic linkage of the concept.

    Hegel believes that the Aristotelian concept of internalpurposiveness expresses the infinity of the true philosophical ideaof life.63 Referring to Aristotle, Hegel notes that this idea is lostwhen the organic is understood simply through mechanical orchemical relations, or fully explained on the ground of generalexternal relationships (V 8, 76.14146). In an Addition to 363Hegel mentions a series of attempts to explain organic functionsmechanically: the process of assimilation, the circulation of blood,the action of nerves (as strings or globules, either quivering orexerting pressure), digestion (through impact and pumping), andchemically: the analysis of the brain and digestion (as neutralizationof acid and alkali). Hegel does not deny that mechanics andchemistry play a role, he denies that the very nature of the organicprocess under consideration is either mechanical or chemical,emphasizing that the animal is the absolute one-with-itself ofvitality, not a composite [Zusammengesetztes] (TWA 9, 479).64In

    62See Cuviers Espces de quadrupdes(1801): number, direction and shape of the bonescomposing each part of the body determine the movements that that part can make, and

    consequently the functions it can fulfill []. For example, when the teeth of an animal are suchas they must be, for the animal to feed the flesh, we can be sure without further examination thatthe whole system of its digestive organs is adapted for this kind of food []. In effect, theserelations are the necessaryconditions of existence of the animal, and it is evident that if thingswere not so this animal could not subsist (Cuvier 1997, 50; my italics). Compare with Aristotle,De part. anim.I (A).1.642a 513: There is, however, a third mode of Necessity: it is seen in thethings that pass through a process of formation; as when we say that nourishment is necessary,we mean necessary in neither of the former two modes [absolute necessity, which regards onlyprimary elements, heavenly bodies and material or mechanistic necessity C. F.], but we meanthat without nourishment no animal can be. This is, practically, conditional necessity. Take anillustration: A hatchet, in order to split wood, must, of necessity, be hard; if so, then it must, ofnecessity, be made of bronze or of iron. Now the body, like the hatchet, is an instrument; as wellthe whole body as each of its parts has a purpose, for the sake of which it is; the body musttherefore, of necessity, be such and such, and made of such and such materials, if that purpose isto be realized (Peck tr., 7677).

    63 See: V 8, 76, 5354: this that we call end (Zweck), telos, is the energeia, efficacy

    (Wirksamkeit), Aristotles entelechia. Cf.Phys.II 8; see: Ilting 1987, 35456. For an account ofHegels appropriation of Aristotles notion of constitutive inner finality (Selbstzweck)as the trueconcept of life and his divergence from Kants regulative assessment of it, see: Frigo 2004.

    64See a later criticism of the exclusive use of mechanical causality in physiology to accountfor a flow of saliva that follows an electrical stimulus applied to the tongue: the categoryemployed is adequate


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