e. is an _Ego_. I. 1. Dependent being, implying its complement upon which it depends, cannot be explained through itself, but through that upon which it depends. 2. This being upon which it depends cannot be also a dependent being, for the dependent being has no support of its own to lend to another; all that it has is borrowed. “A chain of dependent beings collapses into one dependent being. Dependence is not converted into independence by mere multiplication.” 3. The dependent, therefore, depends upon the independent, and has its explanation in it. Since all being is of one kind or the other, it follows that all being is independent, or a complemental element of it. Reciprocal dependence makes an independent including whole, which is the _negative unity_. _Definition._—One of the most important implements of the thinker is the comprehension of “negative unity.” It is a unity resulting from the reciprocal cancelling of elements; e. g. _Salt_ is the negative unity of _acid_ and _alkali_. It is called _negative_ because it negates the independence of the elements within it. In the negative unity _Air_, the elements oxygen and nitrogen have their independence negated. II. 1. The independent being cannot exist without determinations. Without these, it could not distinguish itself or be distinguished from nought. 2. Nor can the independent being be determined (i. e. limited or modified in any way) from without, or through another. For all that is determined through another is a dependent somewhat. 3. Hence the independent being can be only a self-determined. If self-determined, it can exist through itself. _Note._ Spinoza does not arrive at the third position, but, after considering the second, arrives at the first one, and concludes, since determination through another makes a somewhat _finite_, that the independent being must be _undetermined_. He does not happen to discover that there is another kind of determination, to-wit, self-determination, which can consist with independence. The method that he uses makes it entirely an accidental matter with him that he discovers what speculative results he does—the dialectic method would lead inevitably to self-determination, as we shall see later. It is Hegel’s _aperçu_ that we have in the third position; with Spinoza the independent being remained an undetermined _substance_, but with Hegel it became a self-determining _subject_. All that Spinoza gets out of his substance he must get in an arbitrary manner; it does not follow from its definition that it shall have modes and attributes, but the contrary. This _aperçu_—that the independent being, i. e. every really existing, separate entity, is self-determined—is the central point of speculative philosophy. What self-determination involves, we shall see next. III.