Ajijietidia; to the Memoir on Hegel's Criticism of Newton s Principia. 



Hegel. Encydopmdia (2nd Ed. 1827) Part xi., p. 250. 



C Absolute Mechanics. 



§ 269. 



Gravitation is the true and determinate conception of material Corporeity, which (Conception) 

 is realized to the Idea (zur Idee). General Corporeity is separable essentially into particular 

 Bodies, and connects itself with the Element of Individuality or subjectivity, as apparent (phe- 

 nomenal) presence in the Motion, which by this means is immediately a system of several Bodies. 



Universal gravitation must, as to itself, be recognised as a profound thought, although it was 

 principally as apprehended in the sphere of Reflexion that it eminently attracted notice and con- 

 fidence on account of the quantitative determinations therewith connected, and was supposed to 

 find its confirmation in E.Tperiments (Erfahrung) pursued from the Solar System down to the phe- 

 nomena of Capillary Tubes. — But Gravitation contradicts immediately the Law of Inertia, for in 



virtue of it (Gravitation) matter tends out of itself to the other (matter) In the Conception of 



Weight, there are, as has been shewn, involved the two elements — Self-existence, and Continuity, 

 which takes away self-existence. These elements of the Conception, however, experience a fate, 

 as particular forces, corresponding to Attractive and Repulsive Force, and are thereby apprehended 

 in nearer determination, as Centripetal and Centrifugal Force, which (Forces) like weight, act 

 upon Bodies, independent of each other, and are supposed to come in contact accidentally in a 

 third thing. Body. By this means, what there is of profound in the thought of universal weight 

 is again reduced to nothing ; and Conception and Reason cannot make their way into the doctrine 

 of absolute motion, so long as the so highly-prized discoveries of Forces are dominant there. In 

 the conclusion which contains the Idea of Weight, namely, [contains this Idea] as the Con- 

 ception which, in the case of motion, enters into external Reality through the particularity of the 

 Bodies, and at the same time into this [Reality] and into their Ideality and self-regarding Re- 

 flexion, (Reflexion-in-sich), the rational identity and inseparability of the elements is involved, 

 which at other times are represented as independent. Motion itself, as such, has only its meaning 

 and existence in a system of several bodies, and those, such as stand in relation to each other 

 according to different determinations. 



§ 270. 

 As to what concerns bodies in which the conception of gravity (weight) is realized free by itself, 

 we say that they have for the determinations of their different nature the elements (momente) of 

 their conception. One [conception of this kind] is the universal center of the abstract reference 

 [of a body] to itself. Opposite to this [conception] stands the immediate, extrinsic, centreless 

 Individuality, appearing as Corporeity similarly independent. Those [Bodies] however which are 

 particular, which stand in the determination of extrinsic, and at the same time of intrinsic relation, 

 are centers for themselves, and [also] have a reference to the first as to their essential unity. 



The Planetary Bodies, as the immediately concrete, are in their existence the most complete. 

 Men are accustomed to take the Sun as the most excellent, inasmuch as the understanding 

 prefers the abstract to the concrete, and in like manner the Fixed stars are esteemed higher 

 than the Bodies of the Solar System. Centreless Corporeity, as belonging to externality, 

 naturally separates itself into the opposition of the lunar and the cometary Body. The laws 

 of absolutely free motion, as is well known, were discovered by Kepler ; — a discovery of 



