Comments on: 55

By: Hegel (Simple)

Hegel (Simple) — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 10:37:27 +0000

§ 55: Seizing

When I hold a thing in my hand, my possession is clearest. I myself am there. Everyone sees that I have it.

But this form is very limited. It holds only as long as I hold on. It reaches only as far as my hand. And some things you cannot grasp at all.

The hand can do more:

The hand is a splendid tool. No animal has anything like it. What it grasps can itself become a tool. With rope, weapon or machine, my power reaches much further.

What belongs together with my possession?

Often it seems natural to claim more. The shore next to my own land. The stones under my field. The land a river washes up on my bank. The driftwood that lands on my shore. The calf my cow gives birth to is a special case. It grows out of my property itself.

Such connections are external. No concept decides them. You have to weigh reasons: What is closely connected, what only loosely? The understanding and the laws of a country decide this.

Summary: Seizing is the clearest way of taking possession, but the narrowest. Tools and connections widen it. The laws settle how far.

By: Eduard Gans (Additions)

Eduard Gans (Additions) — Wed, 29 May 1833 13:11:58 +0000

Taking possession is of an entirely particularized kind: I take possession of no more than what I touch with my body, but the second point is at once that external things have a greater extension than I can grasp. In that I thereby possess something, another thing is also connected with it. I exercise the taking of possession through the hand, but the range of this can be extended. The hand is this great organ which no animal has, and what I grasp with it can itself become a means by which I reach further. When I possess something, the understanding at once proceeds to the view that not merely what is immediately possessed, but what is connected with it, is mine. Here positive law must make its determinations, for nothing further can be derived from the concept.

By: Hegel (Notes)

Hegel (Notes) — Mon, 25 Nov 1822 08:06:32 +0000

External taking possession is imperfect, incomplete in general. – Man takes possession, has property – as a thinking man. – What he, as thinking, wills, is the whole, the universal – not merely for now – as here in this place (my hand -) just as I hold a staff in my hand only at one point. What I possess as a universal thing, I can possess only through universal will – I am subjectively determined as universal will – transition into contract –
Every individual thing is at once something reaching further – an external connection – or an organic one – Foetura – fruit – the young of animals.
Furthermore I have the thing in possession – with the whole range of the conditions of its use – servitus luminum – a field in the midst of others – must have a way – an external connection in which alone it is usable, for use is the main thing – see below – the proper consequence of the necessity of use.