Chapter 38 B. Object II. Chemistry (Der Chemismus)

§200 A differentiated (or oriented) object has an inherent determination that constitutes its nature.According to this determination, it has its actual existence.But as the postulated totality of the concept, the object is the contradiction between this totality of it and the determination of its actual existence.The object thus constantly strives to sublate this contradiction and to make its specific being conform to its concept. Note: Chemicality is a category of objectivity which is not usually given special attention, and which is generally understood together with mechanicalness, and which is often brought up under the common name of mechanical relations. To oppose purposefulness.The reason for this is that mechanics and chemistry have at least one thing in common with each other, that is, they are first of all concepts that exist in themselves, whereas ends are conceived as concepts that exist for themselves.This is true, but there is also a definite difference between the mechanical and the chemical: the mechanical object is originally a relationship to itself that is independent of each other, while the chemical object appears to be completely related to other things. connect.Undoubtedly, that is, when mechanism develops itself, a relation to something else has arisen.But the connection between mechanical objects is only an external connection at first, so those mechanical objects that are connected to each other still retain the illusion of independence.In nature, for example, the different planets that form our solar system are in motion with each other, and appear to be related to each other by virtue of their motion.Movement as a unity of space and time is, however, only an entirely external and abstract relation.It therefore appears as if these planets, which are in external relation to each other, could retain their status even if they were separated from this mutual relation between them.Chemistry, on the other hand, is quite different.Chemically differentiated (distinctive) objects are evidently so only because they are differential (or dispositional).Therefore, the chemical object is the absolute power to connect each other and complete each other.

§201 The product of a chemical process is thus the neutrality underlying the two extremes of tension.The concept or concrete universality is combined with individuality (that is, the product of combination) through the difference (or tendency) and particularity of the objects, but in this process it is the combination with itself.Likewise, other inferences (or combinations) are involved in this process.Individuality as activity and concrete universality are equally mediating.Concrete universality is the essence of the two tense extremes, which attains its specific existence in the product of the combination.

§202 Chemistry as the reflective relation of objectivity presupposes not only the differentiated (or not indifferent) nature of objects, but also the immediate independence of these objects.A chemical process is a process of changing from one form to another, while these forms are still external to each other. —In the product of neutralization the determinate qualities of the two extremes which are distinct from each other are sublated.Although this product corresponds to the concept, because it is sunk in the original immediacy, no induction principle of differentiation exists in it.Therefore, this neutralizer can still be decomposed.But the principle of judgment that can disintegrate the neutral and reduce it to the tense extremes of differentiation [inclination], and that can make indifferent objects differentiate [affinity] and inducement from one another, and that No catonic decomposition process exists in the original chemical process.

Note: The chemical process is still only a limited and constrained process.Only the concept itself is the inner core of the process, but at the chemical stage the concept has not yet reached its own actual existence.In the neutralized product the chemical process has disappeared, and the inducing cause falls outside the process. §203 In the process of reducing the differentiated (inclined) to the neutral and in the differentiation of the indifferent or the neutral, each process seems to make them [differentiated, undifferentiated or neutralizing things] appear to be independent of each other and irrelevant to each other.But because of the externality (i.e., lack of internal connection) of these two processes, their finitude appears in the transition to the product, because in the process of passing into the product, their [in and for themselves] was discarded.On the other hand the process shows that the differentiated (disposed) object is untrue as a presumed prior immediacy. —By negating the externality and immediacy into which the concept as object falls, the concept is then liberated, regains its independence, transcends its externality and immediacy, and is thus posited as an end.

Note: The transition from chemicality to purposive relation is contained in the mutual sublation of the two forms of the chemical process.As a result of this, concepts that were previously only latent in mechanics and chemistry were liberated. The concept of independent existence by means of this is the end.