The truth of 'is' then turns out 'become': nothing _is_: all things are coming to be and passing out of being. This illustrates the meaning of the word 'truth' in Hegel. It is partly synonymous with 'concrete,' partly with the 'notion.' With concrete: because to get at the truth, we must take into account a new element, kept out of sight in the mere affirmation of being. With notion: because if we wish to comprehend being, we must grasp it as 'becoming.' For truth lies in transcending the first or merely given. We have to go forward, and to go backward, as it were: forward from being, backward to being: we look before and after. The attempt to isolate the mere point of being is impossible in thought: it would only lead to the 'representation' of being,--i. e. the notion of being would be arrested in its development, and identified probably with a sensible thing, i. e. with _something_, and some concrete thing said to be. If being, however, is truly apprehended as a passage from the unknown to the known, or as emergence from bare vacuity, then it implies a definiteness, which we missed before. Somewhat has become: or the indeterminate being has been invested with definiteness and distinct character. Mere being (mere _Is)_ is nothing: to be something is must be not something else. The second step in the process to self-realisation therefore is reached: Being has become Somewhat; which is more, because it professes less. The fluid unity or movement from 'is' to 'is not,' and _vice versa_, has crystallised: and 'There is' is the still imperfectly unified result precipitated. By this term we imply the _finitude_ of being,--imply that a portion has been cut off from the vague, and contrasted with something else. In the ordinary application of the word, Being is especially employed to denote this stage of definite being[8]. Thus we speak of bringing something into being: by which we mean, not mere being, but a definite being, or, in short, reality. Reality is determinateness, as opposite to mere vagueness. To be real, it is necessary to be somewhat,--to limit and define. Whatever is anything or is real, is _eo facto_ finite. Even an infinite therefore to be real must submit to self-limitation. This is the necessity of finitude: in order to be anything more and higher, there must come, first of all, a determinate being and reality. But reality, as we have seen, implies negation: it implies limiting, distinction, and dependence. Everything finite, every 'somewhat,' has somewhat else to counteract, narrow, and thwart it. To be somewhat _(esse aliquid)_ is an object of ambition, as Juvenal implies: but it is only an unsatisfactory goal after all. For somewhat always implies something else, by which it is limited: whereas mere being, just because it is nothing, is free from the check of an other.