have this in common, that what forms the presupposition, the condition, the effect, are taken as affirmative, and the connection is not conceived of as a transition, which it essentially is. What the study of the finite from a speculative point of view really yields, is not merely the thought, that if the finite exists, the Infinite exists too, not that Being is to be defined as not merely finite, but that it is further to be defined as infinite. If the finite were this affirmative, the major proposition would be the proposition—finite Being as finite is infinite, for it would be its permanent finitude which the Infinite included in itself. Those characteristics such as presupposition, condition, causality, when taken together, give a still greater stability to the affirmative show or appearance of the Being of the finite, and are for this very reason only finite, that is, untrue relations, relations of what is untrue. To get to know that this is their nature is what alone constitutes the logical interest attaching to them, though their dialectic in accordance with their special characteristics takes in each case a special form, which is, however, based on the general dialectic of the finite already referred to. The proposition which ought to constitute the major proposition of the syllogism must accordingly take the following form rather: the Being of the finite is not its own Being, but is, on the contrary, the Being of its Other, namely, the Infinite. Or to put it otherwise, Being which is characterised as finite possesses this characteristic only in the sense that it cannot exist independently in relation to the Infinite, but is, on the contrary, ideal merely, a moment of the Infinite. Consequently the minor proposition: the finite is—disappears in any affirmative sense, and if we may still say it exists, we mean that its existence is merely an appearance or phenomenal existence. It is just the fact that the finite world is merely a manifestation or appearance which constitutes the absolute power of the Infinite.
The form taken by the syllogism of the Understanding
