contingent. The distinctions drawn are accordingly merely imaginary.
Since it is not our intention to examine further the nature of these thoughts, and since we wish in the meantime to leave the antithesis of necessity and contingency out of account, we shall confine ourselves to what is suggested by the idea we have given of them, namely, that neither of the determinations is sufficient to express necessity, but that for this both are required—independence, so that the necessary may not be mediated by an Other; and also the mediation of this independence in connection with the Other. They thus contradict each other, but since they both belong to the one necessity they must not contradict each other in the unity in which they are joined together in it. Our view of the matter renders it necessary that the thoughts which are united in this necessity should be brought into connection in our minds. In this unity the mediation with an Other will thus itself partake of independence, and this, as a reference to self, will have the mediation with an Other within itself. In this determination, however, both can be united only in such a way that the mediation with an Other is at the same time a mediation with self, that is, their union must imply that the mediation with an Other abolishes itself, and becomes a mediation with self. Thus the unity with self is not a unity which is abstract identity, such as we saw in the form of the isolation in which the thing is related only to itself, and in which its contingency lies. The one-sidedness, on account of which alone it is in contradiction with the equally one-sided mediation by an Other, is done away with, and these untruths have thus disappeared. The unity thus characterised is the true unity, and when truly known is the speculative or philosophical unity. Necessity as thus defined, since it unites in itself these opposite characteristics, is seen to be something more than a simple idea or a simple determinateness; and further, the dis-
