85.] Being itself and the special sub-categories of it which follow, as well as those of logic in general, may be looked upon as definitions of the Absolute, or metaphysical definitions of God: at least the first and third category in every triad may,--the first, where the thought-form of the triad is formulated in its simplicity, and the third, being the return from differentiation to a simple self-reference. For a metaphysical definition of God is the expression of His nature in thoughts as such: and logic embraces all thoughts so long as they continue in the thought-form. The second sub-category in each triad, where the grade of thought is in its differentiation, gives, on the other hand, a definition of the finite. The objection to the form of definition is that it implies a something in the mind's eye on which these predicates may fasten. Thus even the Absolute (though it purports to express God in the style and character of thought) in comparison with its predicate (which really and distinctly expresses in thought what the subject does not), is as yet only an inchoate pretended thought--the indeterminate subject of predicates yet to come. The thought, which is here the matter of sole importance, is contained only in the predicate: and hence the propositional form, like the said subject, viz. the Absolute, is a mere superfluity (cf. § 31, and below, on the Judgment). Each of the three spheres of the logical idea proves to be a systematic whole of thought-terms, and a phase of the Absolute. This is the case with Being, containing the three grades of quality, quantity, and measure. Quality is, in the first place, the character identical with being: so identical, that a thing ceases to be what it is, if it loses its quality. Quantity, on the contrary, is the character external to being, and does not affect the being at all. Thus _e.g._ a house remains what it is, whether it be greater or smaller; and red remains red, whether it be brighter or darker. Measure, the third grade of being, which is the unity of the first two, is a qualitative quantity. All things have their measure: _i.e._ the quantitative terms of their existence, their being so or so great, does not matter within certain limits; but when these limits are exceeded by an additional more or less, the things cease to be what they were. From measure follows the advance to the second sub-division of the idea, Essence. The three forms of being here mentioned, just because they are the first, are also the poorest, _i.e._ the most abstract. Immediate (sensible) consciousness, in so far as it simultaneously includes an intellectual element, is especially restricted to the abstract categories of quality and quantity. The sensuous consciousness is in ordinary estimation the most concrete and thus also the richest; but that is only true as regards materials, whereas, in reference to the thought it contains, it is really the poorest and most abstract. A.--QUALITY. (a) Being.