1. Self-determination implies that the _constitution_ or _nature_ be self-originated. There is nothing about a self-determined that is created by anything without. 2. Thus self-determined being exists dually—it is (_a_) as _determining_ and (_b_) as _determined_. (_a_) As determining, it is the active, which contains merely the possibility of determinations; (_b_) as determined, it is the passive result—the matter upon which the subject acts. 3. But since both are the same being, each side returns into itself:—(_a_) as determining or active, it acts only upon its own determining, and (_b_) as passive or determined, it is, as result of the former, the self-same active itself. Hence its movement is a movement of self-recognition—a positing of distinction which is cancelled in the same act. (In self-recognition something is made an object, and identified with the subject in the same act.) Moreover, the determiner, on account of its pure generality, (i. e. its having no concrete determinations as yet,) can only be _ideal_—can only exist as the _Ego_ exists in thought; not as a _thing_, but as a _generic_ entity. The passive side can exist only as the self exists in consciousness—as that which is in opposition and yet in identity at the same time. No finite existence could endure this contradiction, for all such must possess a _nature_ or _constitution_ which is self-determined; if not, each finite could negate all its properties and qualities, and yet remain itself—just as the person does when he makes abstraction of all, in thinking of the _Ego_ or pure self. Thus we find again our former conclusion.—All finite or dependent things must originate in and depend upon independent or absolute being, which must be an _Ego_. The _Ego_ has the form of Infinitude (see chapter II—_the infinite is its own other_). _Resumé._ The first chapter states the premises which Kant lays down in his Transcendental Æsthetic, (Kritik der Reinen Vernunft) and draws the true logical conclusions which are positive and not negative, as he makes them. The second chapter gives the Spinozan distinction of the Infinite of the Imagination and Infinite of Reason. The third chapter gives the logical results which Kant should have drawn from his Transcendental Logic. The fourth chapter gives Spinoza’s fundamental position logically completed, and is the great fundamental position of Plato, Aristotle and Hegel, with reference to the Absolute. Footnote 2: