Comments on: 52

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:37:21 +0000

§ 52: The matter belongs to me as well

When I take possession of a thing, its matter also belongs to me. For matter does not belong to itself.

An objection:

But matter offers resistance. A stone is hard and heavy. Does it not have a right of its own? No. The resistance counts only for the senses. For the free will it is no objection.

Fichte thought that you can separate matter and form. If you make a cup out of gold, the form belongs to you. Someone else could take the gold. That is hairsplitting. If you plow a field, not only the furrow belongs to you, but the whole soil.

How complete is possession?

External possession is never quite complete. It depends on strength, cunning and skill. No one can own the air or the water as a whole. I can only take a breath or drink a mouthful. For I myself am a single individual. That is why I only ever take hold of single things.

What I possess most completely is what I wholly take into myself. A loaf of bread that I eat becomes wholly mine. My body becomes mine through practice. But what I can make mine most perfectly is my spirit.

Yet property is more than such possession. Property is complete as soon as my free will is in the thing. Against my will, the thing keeps nothing back for itself.

Summary: Along with the thing, its matter belongs to me too. External possession always stays incomplete. But property is complete through the free will.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 13:11:11 +0000

Fichte raised the question of whether, when I give matter form, it too is mine) . According to him, if I have made a cup out of gold, another person must be free to take the gold, provided that in doing so he does not thereby violate my labor. However separable this may be in representation, in fact this distinction is an empty quibble; for if I take a field into possession and plow it, then not only the furrow is my property, but also what goes beyond it, the earth that belongs to it. For I intend to take this matter, the whole, into possession: it therefore does not remain ownerless, does not remain its own. For even if the matter remains outside the form that I have given the object, the form is precisely a sign that the thing is meant to be mine; it therefore does not remain outside my will, outside what I have willed. There is therefore nothing there that could be taken into possession by another.
) Foundations of Natural Right, 1796 (§ 19 A)

By: Hegel (Notes)

Hegel (Notes) — Fri, 22 Nov 1822 08:08:32 +0000

[zu § 52] Form and matter can be separated – matter, silver – form, my labor – If the matter is already property, it remains property – Taking possession through form, another is already owner in another way.
Form in general is the manner in which it is for me – it can be so in many ways, and one way can belong to one person, another way to another.

[zu § 52 Anm.] α) Matter is nothing against the will
β) There remains, in that which I take into possession, something left over that I have not taken into possession – but not as matter – for taking possession is an external act –