geometry, abstract, but is simply — since it lies within living relationships — always confronted with whole clusters of such determinacies, is likewise driven simply to endless contradictions. This contradiction among determinacies is indeed remedied and brought to an end, in a given case of intuition, by fixing and holding fast to individual determinacies, whereby a decision can result — which is still always better than that none should result; for, since there is nothing absolute in the matter itself, it is properly the formal fact that a decision and determination is made at all which is essential, while it is something quite different that a decision be reached in this way in accordance with true, total justice and ethical life — which is impossible precisely through the fixing and absolute holding-fast to determinacies, and is possible only in their confusion, and is actual only through immediate ethical intuition, which subjugates the determinacies posited as absolute, and holds fast only to the whole. — It is, says Plato, in his simple language, concerning the two sides of the endless determining of the infinite reception of qualities into the concept, and of the contradiction of their singularity against intuition and, at the same time, among themselves — it is clear, he says, that the legislative art belongs to the kingly art; but the best thing is not that the laws should hold sway, but rather the man who is wise and kingly, because law is not capable of prescribing perfectly, with the utmost precision and full universality, what would be most excellent and most just; because the inequalities among human beings and among actions, and the never-resting character of human affairs, permit nothing self-identical to be exhibited, regarding any matter, over all its sides and for all time, in any art. Law, however, we see directing itself precisely toward one and the same thing, like a stubborn and crude person who allows nothing to happen against his ordinance, nor allows anyone to question him about it, even when something else, something better, presents itself contrary to the relation he has fixed; — it is thus impossible that what is never self-identical should be well served by what is thoroughly self-identical. — That one clings to the thought that in this sphere of human affairs there is possible an in-itself and absolute, determinate right and duty stems from the formal indifference, or the negatively absolute, which alone has room within the fixed reality of this sphere, and which indeed is in itself; but insofar as it is in itself, it is empty, or there is nothing absolute in it except precisely the pure abstraction, the wholly contentless thought of unity. It is by no means, say, a conclusion drawn from experience thus far, nor is it to be regarded as a contingent imperfection of the concrete and of the execution of an a priori true Idea; rather it is to be recognized that what is here called Idea, and a hope for a better future in this regard, is null in itself, and that a perfect legislation, just as a

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