Hitherto we have considered the particular objects of the real as positive in their self-exclusive particularity. This independence, however, is negated in the living object, and the ideal unity asserted within the bodily organism is alone found to assert over itself the full force of positive determination. Such a positive ideality in the principle of negation it asserts is the soul. On the appearance of the soul in the body we have at once such an affirmative presence as the one indicated. The soul not merely asserts itself as a power against the subdivision of the bodily members, it is their plastic creator[218], which preserves as inward and ideal that which is externally minted in the shape of physical members. And consequently it is this very positive and ideal inward[219] which appears in the outer structure; in other words, the external, so far as it is a mere external, is a mere abstraction, a mere aspect that is untrue for the whole. In organic life the external we are confronted with is an externality through which the inward is made visible. The outward, that is to say, declares itself in its potential nature as that inward, which is its notion. Further to this notion appertains the reality in which it as notion is made visible. Inasmuch, however, as in the objective world the notion, strictly as such, is the principle of subjective life and self-determined life becoming _explicit_ in its own objective reality[220], life exists only as a _living thing_, an individual subject. It is only with life thus concentrated to a point that we find this negating _centrum_ of unity. And it is negative in this sense that the ideal explicitly self-unified totality[221] can only now stand forth in its reality by virtue of this principle of ideality being asserted through the differentiation of its positive presence, together with which the ideal unity of such totality is at the same time incorporated. It is of the greatest importance to make clear this aspect of the principle of subjectivity. It is only as the single living thing thus unified by such a principle that life is actually present. If we inquire further in what manner the Idea is manifested within the actual life of such living individuals our survey will be as follows: _first_, this principle of Life will be realized as the totality of an organism possessing bodily shape; _secondly_, this physical shape is not presented as a rigid product[222], but as a continous process of ideal generation, in which a living soul asserts itself. _Thirdly_, the changes and determinations through which this totality passes are not imposed externally to it, but are changes of form which are evolved from its inherent nature, imposed on itself and for itself, in a process wherein it stands self-determined as the subjective unity no less than the ultimate end of its being.