The process of measure, instead of being only the wrong infinite of an endless progression, in the shape of an ever-recurrent recoil from quality to quantity, and from quantity to quality, is also the true infinity of coincidence with self in another. In measure, quality and quantity originally confront each other, like some and other. But quality is implicitly quantity, and conversely quantity is implicitly quality. In the process of measure, therefore, these two pass into each other: each of them becomes what it already was implicitly: and thus we get Being thrown into abeyance and absorbed, with its several characteristics negatived. Such Being is Essence. Measure is implicitly Essence; and its process consists in realising what it is implicitly.--The ordinary consciousness conceives things as being, and studies them in quality, quantity, and measure. These immediate characteristics however soon show themselves to be not fixed but transient; and Essence is the result of their dialectic. In the sphere of Essence one category does not pass into another, but refers to another merely. In Being, the form of reference is purely due to our reflection on what takes place: but it is the special and proper characteristic of Essence. In the sphere of Being, when somewhat becomes another, the somewhat has vanished. Not so in Essence: here there is no real other, but only diversity, reference of the one to _its_ other. The transition of Essence is therefore at the same time no transition: for in the passage of different into different, the different does not vanish: the different terms remain in their relation. When we speak of Being and Nought, Being is independent, so is Nought. The case is otherwise with the Positive and the Negative. No doubt these possess the characteristic of Being and Nought. But the positive by itself has no sense; it is wholly in reference to the negative. And it is the same with the negative. In the sphere of Being the reference of one term to another is only implicit; in Essence on the contrary it is explicit And this in general is the distinction between the forms of Being and Essence: in Being everything is immediate, in Essence everything is relative. CHAPTER VIII. SECOND SUB-DIVISION OF LOGIC. THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE.