The Contingent, as the immediate actuality, is at the same time
the possibility of somewhat else,--no longer however that abstract
possibility which we had at first, but the possibility which _is._ And
a possibility existent is a Condition. By the Condition of a thing
we mean first, an existence, in short an immediate, and secondly
the vocation of this immediate to be suspended and subserve the
actualising of something else.--Immediate actuality is in general
as such never what it ought to be; it is a finite actuality with an
inherent flaw, and its vocation is to be consumed. But the other
aspect of actuality is its essentiality. This is primarily the inside,
which as a mere possibility is no less destined to be suspended.
Possibility thus suspended is the issuing of a new actuality, of which
the first immediate actuality was the pre-supposition. Here we see
the alternation which is involved in the notion of a Condition. The
Conditions of a thing seem at first sight to involve no bias anyway.
Really however an immediate actuality of this kind includes in it
the germ of something else altogether. At first this something else
is only a possibility: but the form of possibility is soon suspended
and translated into actuality. This new actuality thus issuing is the
very inside of the immediate actuality which it uses up. Thus there
comes into being quite an other shape of things, and yet itis not an
other: for the first actuality is only put as what it in essence was.
The conditions which are sacrificed, which fall to the ground and are
spent, only unite with themselves in the other actuality. Such in
general is the nature of the process of actuality. The actual is no
mere case of immediate Being, but, as essential Being, a suspension of
its own immediacy, and thereby mediating itself with itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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