Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 2 (of 3) — Georg Hegel — John Shaqi
Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Volume 2 (of 3)
Georg Hegel · en
soul says that the Now has two instants, the one prior and the other
posterior, then we say that this is time. What is determined through
the Now, we call time, and this is the fundamental principle. But when
we are sensible of the Now as one, and not as a prior and posterior in
motion, nor as the identity of an earlier or later, then there does
not appear to us to have been any time, because neither was there
any motion.” Tedium is thus ever the same. “Time is hence the number
of motion, according to priority and posteriority; it is not motion
itself, unless so far as motion has number. We judge of the more or
less through number, but of a greater or less motion by time. But we
call number that which can be numbered, as well as that with which
we number; but time is not the number with which we number, but that
which is numbered, and, like motion, always is changing. The Now is,
which is the unity of number, and it measures time. The whole of time
is the same, for the Now which was is the same” (universality as the
Now destroyed) “but in Being it is another. Time thus is through the
Now both continuous (συνεχής) and discrete (διῇρηται). It thereby
resembles the point, for that also is the continuity of the line and
its division, its principle and limit; but the Now is not an enduring
point. As continuity of time the Now connects the past and the future,
but it likewise divides time in capacity,” the Now is only divisibility
and the moments only ideal. “And in as far as it is such, it is always
another; but, in as far as it unites, it is ever one and the same.
Similarly, in as far as we divide the line, other and yet other points
always arise for thought; but in as far as it is one, there is only
one point. Thus the Now is both the division of time in capacity, and
the limit and union of both” _i.e._ of the prior and posterior. The
universally dividing point is only one as actual; but this actual is
not permanently one, but ever and again another, so that individuality
has universality, as its negativity, within it. “But division and
union are the same, and similarly related; however their Notion (τὸ
εἶναι)[95] is different.” In one and the same respect the absolute
opposite of what was posited is immediately set forth as existent; in
space, on the other hand, the moments are not set forth as existent,
but in it first appears this being and its motion and contradiction.
Thus the identity of the understanding is not a principle with
Aristotle, for identity and non-identity to him are one and the same.
Because the Now is only now, past and future are different from it,
but they are likewise necessarily connected in the Now, which is not
without before and after; thus they are in one, and the Now, as their
limit, is both their union and their division.