[p. 221]
|221| nature and depends on the external. Finitude consists, in general, in this, that something has a limit, i.e. that here its non-being is posited, or that it ceases here, that it thus relates itself to something else. Infinite reflection, however, consists in this, that I no longer relate myself to something else but to myself, or am an object to myself. This pure relation to myself is the I, the root of the infinite being itself. It is the complete abstraction from everything that is finite. The I as such has no content given by nature or immediate, but has only itself as content. This pure form is at the same time its own content. Every content given by nature is 1. something limited: but the I is unlimited; 2. the content of nature is immediate: but the pure I has no immediate content, because it only is by means of abstraction from everything else.
§ 13
At first the I is the purely indeterminate. But through its reflection it can pass from indeterminacy to determinacy, e.g. to seeing, hearing, and so on. In this determinacy it has become unequal to itself, but it has at the same time remained in its indeterminacy, i.e. in that it gives itself over to it, it can return again into itself. To this belongs also resolving, for reflection precedes it and consists in this, that I have several determinacies before me, in an indeterminate multitude, which yet must be at least these two, namely some determination of something or also not this. The resolution sublates the reflection, the going over and across from one to another, fixes one determinacy and makes it its own. The fundamental condition of resolving, of the possibility of resolving oneself or of reflecting before acting, is the absolute indeterminacy of the I.
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