System of Ethical Life

[p. 299]

|299| and, as a singularity, disavows it and abstracts from it; not insofar as singularity truly annihilates its form, for therein it posits it as truly ideal, and itself as one with it; but rather when it cannot annihilate it, cannot unite itself with it, but is in difference with it. – The negative thus consists in the non-recognising of property, in its sublation; but property is here itself posited as not necessary, not related to the use and enjoyment of the subject; matter, insofar as it is posited as a universal, is thereby itself posited as a negative; the relation of the subject to it is itself determined as a merely possible one. Negation can therefore concern merely this form, or not matter itself, but matter as universal; a surplus is sublated, which already for itself has no relation to need, which has the determination of stepping out of the relation of possession. Whether this sublation, the negation, accords with the determination or not must emerge from the following potency.

b. The subsumption of intuition under the concept

A relation of the subject to its surplus labour is posited, which, ideal in this relation to the subject, has no real relation to enjoyment; but at the same time this relation has come forth as a universal, or as a pure abstraction, or infinite: possession in right as property. By its nature, however, that which is possessed has only a real relation to the subject: to annihilation; and the formerly ideal relation of possession to the subject is now to become real. The infinite, as the positive of this potency in general, is the fixed, and is to remain, namely right; likewise the ideal relation of possession; and yet possession is to be realised. The whole potency in general is that of difference; this present dimension is likewise difference; thus difference of difference; previously the resting, here the moved; [in] the concept lies the difference, the relation of a subject to something determined as merely possible.

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