organize completely. In that the relation is simply rendered indifferent in figure, it does not cease to have the nature of a relation; it remains a relation of the organic to the inorganic nature. But, as shown above, the relation, as a side of infinity, is itself doubled: the one time insofar as unity, or the ideal, is the first and ruling [moment], the other time insofar as the many, or the real, is the first and ruling [moment]. According to that [former] side it is properly in figure, and in indifference; and the eternal unrest of the concept, or of infinity, lies partly in the organization’s consuming itself, surrendering the appearance of life – the purely quantitative – so that, as its own seed-grain, it may eternally raise itself up out of its own ashes to new youth; and partly in eternally annihilating its difference outward, nourishing itself from the inorganic and producing it, calling forth out of indifference a difference, or a relation to an inorganic nature, and again sublating this same [relation], consuming it just as it consumes itself; we shall presently see what this inorganic nature of the ethical is. But secondly, in this side of the relation, or of infinity, the subsistence of the annihilated is likewise posited, for precisely because the absolute concept is the opposite of itself, with its pure unity and negativity the being of difference is also posited; that is, the annihilating posits something which it annihilates, namely the real; and thus there would be an actuality and difference unconquerable for ethical life: the individuality which, through the seat that infinity has here taken up in the full force of its opposition, and stands in opposition not merely according to possibility but actu, according to actuality, would be unable to purify itself of the difference and take itself up into absolute indifference. That both of these – the sublatedness of the opposition and the subsistence of the same – should be not merely ideal but also real, is in general the positing of a separation and a setting-apart, such that the reality in which ethical life is objective is divided into a part which is absolutely taken up into indifference, and one in which the real as such subsists, and is thus only relatively identical, bearing within it merely the reflection of absolute ethical life. There is hereby posited a relation of absolute ethical life – which wholly inheres in individuals and is their essence – to relative ethical life, which is likewise real in individuals. The ethical organization can preserve itself purely in reality in no other way than by the general diffusion of the negative within it being checked and placed on one side. How, now, indifference appears in the subsisting real, and is formal ethical life, has been shown above. The concept of this sphere is the real practical, considered subjectively as feeling, or physical need and enjoyment, objectively as labor and possession; and this practical [element], as it can occur according to its concept, taken up into indifference

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