II. GENERAL STRUCTURE OF THE FIRST SYMBOL

1. BEING, NON-BEING, BECOMING

So, we have recorded our first statement in general. This is affirmation itself, or being. We do not yet know what this being will be like and what it will be filled with, but it is already clear to us that we cannot do without being anywhere. Now the question arises: what do we have next?

1. (a) The old philosophers often allowed the luxury of a systematic deductive exposition, beginning with the most abstract foundations of reason and ending with its concrete and empirically given formations. This luxury, unfortunately, we cannot admit now, although it would be required by the plan of our entire reasoning as a whole. We shall again prosaically proceed from ordinary sensible things, agreeing with the philistines, of course, even if conditionally, that sensible things are really the most comprehensible to us. Since every sensible thing is a symbol of the absolute self, it is evident that it somehow repeats and reproduces this self. And so in our construction of the first symbol we have some right to proceed from general observations of the most ordinary sensible things. Therefore, let's delve into this philistine prose.

b) What is there in a thing besides its being, and what is a thing as a whole?

Everyone will say that a thing not only is, exists, but that it also moves, changes, becomes, arises and is destroyed. As a result of these changes, it acquires a wide variety of qualities, which, combined into one whole, create the individuality of the thing. In addition, every thing is in a certain environment which reconstructs its whole individuality anew, and in which it manifests itself in one way or another, and the latter has, of course, in this respect certain very definite limits to its possibilities. This is what philistine and everyday thought finds in every thing that is characteristic and essential.

Strictly speaking, no philosopher has said anything more in enumerating the basic categories from which a thing is constructed. The properties of a thing indicated by everyday thought can be used sometimes more successfully, sometimes less, sometimes more harmoniously and harmoniously, sometimes less, sometimes more learned and dialectical, sometimes less. But there is no way to go beyond these simplest attitudes; and even any such exit, when it is possible, takes place only on their basis and during their lifetime. Consequently, the thing as a symbol of the absolute self cannot go beyond these limits in the main. One only needs to be able to understand why the symbol of the absolute self is spoken of here.

(c) Dialectical philosophers, in revealing the complex logical structure of things, although they were based on these simplest observations, were very often carried away by these inexpansive thickets of thought to such an extent that there could be no question of any simple propositions either for themselves or for their readers. There is no objection to the complexity and subtlety of dialectical thought; This complexity and this subtlety are really great. And here you cannot simply turn away and use the abusive expression "scholasticism". However, we have every right to demand that every complexity and subtlety should correspond dialectically to the simplest experience of life, and that, for all its complications and refinements, thought should have a direct and obvious connection with philistine and everyday observations.

2. On the basis of the above-mentioned elementary properties of any sensible thing, let us first try to introduce the philosophical categories necessary here, and then try to formulate their necessary interconnection, or dialectics.

a) A thing is, exists. This is the first thing, and we have already recorded it at the very beginning. Further, the thing, we said, moves, changes, becomes, arises, and is destroyed. A long series of similar expressions could be used here, but all of them will have a particular character (for example, a living being can be said to eat, drink, have aspirations, inclinations, feelings, become younger, grow old, etc.; a stone can be said to split, weather, coarse or polished, painted, discolored, dissolved, etc.). The question arises: Of all these most indubitable properties of every thing, which expression is the most general, the most suitable to all kinds of being and existence? Such an indicator is, undoubtedly, becoming. Change, movement, birth and dying—in short, any process that happens in one way or another to things, animate and inanimate, is nothing but a kind of becoming. Is it possible to abandon this category when describing the elementary structure of a thing? Of course not. Without becoming in one form or another, a thing is even unimaginable at all.

(b) But what is becoming in comparison with the existence we recorded at the beginning? Is not mere being enough for a thing, and what does becoming give us? That being alone is not enough is easily understood by everyone, because with one category of being a thing would not move in any respect. Everything would rest in place, and everything would be frozen, numb. This means that it is obvious that becoming gives something new. But what exactly is it?

What does it mean that a thing becomes? This means that it ceases to be one and becomes another. Thus, if becoming is understood as movement, then the thing ceases to be at point A and ends up at point B. If we are talking about a qualitative change, then becoming means that some quality of the thing has ceased to exist and another has been formed. Consequently, being, too, since it is involved in the stage of becoming, must from one become another. But what does it mean for existence to become different? After all, we do not yet have any other category than being. Being, in order to be in becoming, must become different: this means that the "other" can only be the negation of being itself and nothing else, for otherwise it would be necessary to put forward a really different, i.e., new, category, and we have nothing but being as yet. But the negation of being is non-being. This is the only category that we could still put forward, in the absence of any other. But it is quite enough. Being must pass into non-being. If we have this, then the category of becoming is provided for us.

(c) In fact, let us take the movement. Point A passed point A and came to point B. Point A passed and was replaced by point B. Point A no longer exists for point B, and point B does not yet exist for point A. In motion, therefore, every point does not exist for every other point, although at the same time it cannot not exist at all. If no point of the path traversed by a body existed at all, then it is clear that motion itself would not exist. This means that these points exist on their own. But at the same time they do not exist, they are constantly being removed, destroyed. At the very moment the dot appeared, it immediately disappeared, went into the past; and not at any other moment, but at this very moment, at this very moment. Let the body come in its motion to a point in the path that would only arise and come, but would not immediately disappear, would not go into the past. It is clear that the arrival of this point would mean a halt in the movement. Let some point of the path only go into the past, and, moreover, it does not come, does not arise. This would be absurd, since only that which has come and arisen can go into the past and disappear. Motion, then, clearly shows that generation and annihilation exist in it absolutely simultaneously and in relation to the same moment.

(d) Let us now abstract from the specific properties of motion and speak only of becoming. If there we spoke of the emergence of individual moments of motion, and of the fact that this occurrence coincides with their annihilation, we must now speak of the origin of being and the annihilation of being. Becoming, according to this, will take place as follows: 1) being arises; (2) at the very moment when it arises, it is annihilated, i.e., it passes into non-existence; 3) non-being, in this way, also arises; (4) But this otherness suffers the same fate, for at the very moment of its emergence it passes into another, i.e., it is annihilated. Becoming, therefore, is a one-sided coincidence of being and non-being: being passes into non-being, and non-being passes into being. Or, to put it bluntly, becoming is the coincidence of being and non-being.