The development from End to Idea ensues by three stages, first,
Subjective End; second, End in process of accomplishment; and third,
End accomplished. First of all we have the Subjective End; and that,
as the notion in independent being, is itself the totality of the
elementary functions of the notion. The first of these functions
is that of self-identical universality, as it were the neutral
first water, in which everything is involved, but nothing as yet
discriminated. The second of these elements is the particularising
of this universal, by which it acquires a specific content. As this
specific content again is realised by the agency of the universal, the
latter returns by its means back to itself, and coalesces with itself.
Hence too when we set some end before us, we say that we 'conclude' to
do something: a phrase which implies that we were, so to speak, open
and accessible to this or that determination. Similarly we also at a
further step speak of a man 'resolving' to do something, meaning that
the agent steps forward out of his self-regarding inwardness and enters
into dealings with the environing objectivity. This supplies the step
from the merely Subjective End to the purposive action which tends
outwards.
207.] (1) The first syllogism of the final cause represents the
Subjective End. The universal notion is brought to unite with
individuality by means of particularity, so that the individual
as self-determination acts as judge. That is to say, it not only
particularises or makes into a determinate content the still
indeterminate universal, but also explicitly puts an antithesis of
subjectivity and objectivity, and at the same time is in its own self
a return to itself; for it stamps the subjectivity of the notion,
pre-supposed as against objectivity, with the mark of defect, in
comparison with the complete and rounded totality, and thereby at the
same time turns outwards.
208.] (2) This action which is directed outwards is the individuality,
which in the Subjective End is identical with the particularity
under which, along with the content, is also comprised the external
objectivity. It throws itself in the first place immediately upon the
object, which it appropriates to itself as a Means. The notion is this
immediate power; for the notion is the self-identical negativity, in
which the being of the object is characterised as wholly and merely
ideal.--The whole Means then is this inward power of the notion, in the
shape of an agency, with which the object as Means is 'immediately'
united and in obedience to which it stands.
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