Podstrony
|
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
distinction (cf § 56) is empty and in itself nothing. Here the intensive determination of size, however, has this
advantage: that it points to the category of measure and indicates initially a being in itself which as a
conceptual determination is an immanent determinacy of form, and only existent as quantum. But to
distinguish between extensive or intensive quantum differences, - and dynamic physics goes no further than
this-does not express any reality.
§ 237.
Density is at first only a simple determinacy. The simple determinacy is, however, essentially a determination
of form as a unity split apart from itself. Thus it constitutes the principle of brittleness, the shaping relation of
II. Inorganic Physics 17
The Philosophy of Nature
its consistently maintained points.
The previously mentioned particles, molecules of matter, are an external determination of reflection. The real
significance of the determination of the unit is that it is the immanent form of shaping.
§ 238.
The brittle is the subjective entity existing for itself but it must deploy the difference of the concept. The
point becomes the line and posits itself as an opposed extreme to the line; the two are held by their middle
term and point of indifference in their antithesis. This syllogism constitutes the principle of shaping in its
developed determinacy, and is, in this abstract rigour, magnetism.
Magnetism is one of the determinations which inevitably became prominent when thought began to recognise
itself in determinate nature and grasped the idea of a philosophy of nature. For the magnet exhibits in a
simple, naive way the nature of the concept. The poles are not particular things; they do not possess sensory,
mechanical reality, but rather an ideal reality; the point of indifference, in which they have their substance, is
the unity in which they exist only as determinations of the concept, and the polarity is an opposition of only
such moments. The phenomena revealed by magnetism as merely particular are merely and repeatedly the
same determinations, and not diverse features which could add data to a description. That the individual
magnetic needle points to the north, and thus to the south as well, is a manifestation of general terrestrial
magnetism: in two such empirical magnets the poles named similarly repel each other, whereas the poles
named differently attract. And precisely this is magnetism, namely, that the same or indifferent will split apart
and oppose each other in the extreme, and the dissimilar or different will posit its indifference. The
differently named poles have even been called friendly, and the similarly named poles have been called
hostile.
The statement, however, that all bodies are magnetic has an unfortunate double meaning. The correct
meaning is that all real, and not merely brittle, figures contain this concept; but the incorrect meaning is that
all bodies also have this principle implicitly in its rigorous abstraction, as magnetism. It would be an
unphilosophical thought to want to show that a form of the concept is at hand in nature, and that it exists
universally in its determinacy as an abstraction. For nature is rather the idea in the element of being apart
from itself so that, like the understanding, it retains the moments of the concept as dispersed and depicts them
so in reality, but in the higher organic things the differentiated forms of the concept are unified as the highest
concretion.
§ 239.
At the opposite end from magnetism, which as linear spatiality and the ideal contrast of extremes is the
abstract concept of the shape, stands its abstract totality the sphere, the shape of the real absence of shape, of
fluid indeterminacy, and of the indifferent elasticity of the parts.
§ 240.
Between the two actually shapeless extremes contained within magnetism as the abstract concept of the
figure there appears, as an immanent form of juxtaposition distinct from that determined by gravity, a kind of
magnetism transformed into total corporeality, cohesion.
§ 241.
The common understanding of cohesion merely refers to the individual moment of quantitative strength of
the connection between the parts of a body. Concrete cohesion is the immanent form and determinacy of this
II. Inorganic Physics 18
The Philosophy of Nature
connection, and comprehends both external crystallisations and the fragmentary shapes or central shapes,
crystallisation which displays itself inwardly in transparent movement.
§ 242.
Through external crystallisation the individual body is sealed off as an individual against others, and capable
of a mechanical process with them. As an inwardly formed entity the body specifies this process in terms of
its behaviour as a merely general mass. In terms of its elasticity, hardness, softness, viscosity, and abilities to
extend or to burst, the body retains its individual determinacy in resistance to external force.
§ 243.
As density, however, is at first only simple determinacy by virtue of the relation of volume to mass, cohesion
is this simplicity as the selfhood of individuality. The self-preservation of the body during the vibration from
a mechanical force is, therefore, also an emergence of its individual, pure ideality, its characteristic motion in
itself through its whole cohesion. It is the specific determination of its ideal externality in itself through its
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkskarol.keep.pl
|
