That which is immediately different from the free spirit is, for it and in itself, the external as such – a thing, something unfree, impersonal, and without rights.

Thing, like the objective, has opposite meanings: on the one hand, when one says, that is the point – it is the thing, not the person, that matters – the meaning is that of the substantial; on the other hand, as against the person (that is, not the particular subject), the thing is the opposite of the substantial, that which, by its very determination, is merely external. – What is external for the free spirit – which must indeed be distinguished from mere consciousness – is so in and for itself; this is why the conceptual determination of nature is precisely to be externality within itself.