1.  In previous modes of certainty, consciousness confronts the truth as something other than itself.  ²The concept of this true object, however, vanishes in the experience of it.  How the object was immediately in itself – sense certainty's given being; perception's concrete thing; understanding's force – turned out, in fact, to be exactly how it is not in truth.  We learned that this in itself is just a matter of modes showing us only how the object exists for another.  The concept of this in itself disappeared when confronted with the actual object, the first immediate image of it collapsed in the experience, and certainty got lost in the truth.  ³Still, after all this something has emerged that eluded us in previous scenarios.  A certainty commensurate with its truth!  For now certainty is its own object and consciousness is its own truth.  ⁴Otherness is still part of the picture.  Consciousness still differentiates, but now only something that for it is simultaneously not distinguished at all.  ⁵Let's call the motion of knowledge concept and knowledge as unity at rest or I, ego object, then we can see clearly that, not only for us, but for knowledge itself object corresponds to concept [Introduction §12.5]. 

– ⁶We recall, the alternative is to dub what the object is in itself concept, then object is what it is as object [Gegenstand], i.e. for another [Introduction §12.6].  Again we see that being in itself and being for another are the same, since here the in itself is consciousness, which itself is that for which the other (the in itself) exists.  Moreover, the object's in itself and its being for another are the same for it, i.e. for consciousness.  Ego, I, is both content of the relationship and the process of relating.  Ego is itself in confrontation with another while simultaneously reaching beyond that other.  In fact, that other is just itself. 

2.  With self-consciousness we come home to the indigenous realm of truth.  ²We now have to look at how the pattern of self-consciousness first emerges.  ³When we consider this new pattern of knowledge, knowledge of itself, in relation to what we had previously, knowledge of another, then clearly the latter has disappeared.  What's more interesting is that its moments have survived and the loss amounts to no more than that each of them is now available in itself.  ⁴Opinion's being, perception's singularity and the universality opposed to it, as well as understanding's empty interiority are no longer essences.  Now they are moments of self-consciousness, i.e. abstractions or differences, which for consciousness are simultaneously nothing of the kind, no differences at all, purely vanishing essences.  ⁵Thus it appears that only the main moment, simple autonomous persistence for consciousness, has gotten lost.  ⁶But, in fact, self-consciousness is the reflection from out of the sensuous and perceptible world's being; it is essentially the return from out of otherness.  ⁷Self-consciousness is motion.  However, when [as for Fichte] self-consciousness differentiates itself from itself as only itself, then the otherness in the difference for it is immediately overcome, cancelled.  Here difference is not and then self-consciousness is just the motionless tautology of I am I.  To this ego, I, the difference does not also have the form of being, so this is not really self-consciousness at all.  ⁸First: otherness is present as being, a differentiated moment for this ego.  Second: for it also is the unity of itself with this difference, as a further differentiated moment.  ⁹That first moment establishes self-consciousness as consciousness, which comes with the full expanse of the sensuous world, if only bound to the second moment, the unity of self-consciousness with itself.  The sensuous world is then for self-consciousness a kind of persistence that is only appearance, difference that has no being in itself.  ¹⁰This opposition between its appearance and its truth has only the truth of the unity of self-consciousness with itself for its essence.  This unity must become essential to self-consciousness, which is thus a general desire.  ¹¹Self-consciousness now, consciousness has a double object.  One is immediate, that object of sense certainty and perception, which, however, is marked with the character of the negative for consciousness.  The second is itself, which is the true essence and at first only present in opposition to the first.  ¹²In all this, self-consciousness shows itself to be the motion in which this opposition is overcome and it finds identity with itself. 

3.  The object, the negative for self-consciousness, too has for us or in itself returned into itself just as consciousness has.  ²Through this reflection into itself the object has become life.  ³What self-consciousness distinguishes from itself as given being possesses in that sense not only the modes of sense certainty and perception; it is also being reflected into itself, i.e. the object of immediate desire is a living being.  ⁴For the in itself that was the universal result of the understanding's relationship to the interiority of things is the drawing of distinctions where none are possible or the unity of what has been so differentiated [III. Force and Understanding §§29-34].  ⁵As we saw, however, the unity here is also its own repulsion from itself [III. Force etc. §33.1] and this concept splits into the opposition of self-consciousness and life; the former is unity for which the infinite unity of the differences is given, while the latter is merely this unity such that it is not simultaneously for itself.  ⁶Thus, as independent as consciousness is, its object is in itself just as independent.  ⁷The self-consciousness that is simply for itself, immediately characterizing its object as the negative, i.e. self-consciousness that is initially desire, will for that reason eventually come to experience rather the independence of the object.

4.  Emerging from the concept, from the general result, the definition we take into this sphere is sufficient to characterize life without developing its nature any further.  Its cycle is composed of the following moments.  ²The essence is the infinity that is the overcoming of all distinctions, pure axial motion itself at rest as absolutely restless infinity.  It is independence, autonomy itself in which the differences of motion are resolved.  It is the simple essence of time to which this equality with itself gives the voluminous shape of space.  ³Still, in this simple, universal medium, the differences are no less differences, for this universal flux only has its negative nature by virtue of being the process of overcoming the differences, but it can't overcome the differences if they don't have their own persistence.  ⁴Now, precisely this flux, self-identical autonomy, is itself that persistence or the substance of those differences, in which they are thus differentiated members, parts each with being for itself, existing in its own right.  ⁵Being here no longer means the abstraction of being and neither does their pure essence have the abstraction of universality to it; now their being is the simple fluid substance of pure motion as such within itself.  ⁶The difference of these members with respect to each other, however, lies in nothing other than that definition in their characterization as moments of infinity, of pure motion itself.

5.  The autonomous members are for themselves.  More, this being for itself is quite as immediately their reflection into unity as that unity is a splitting into their independent structures.  ²The unity is split because it is absolutely negative or infinite unity and because it is also persistence; only in this unity does difference possess independence.  ³This structural independence appears well-defined, something for another, because the structure is split; the split can only be overcome by another.  ⁴But in fact, the process of overcoming lies just as much in the structure itself, for the flux is the substance of the independent structures.  This substance is infinite, which is what makes the structure its own splitting within its own persistence, i.e.  the process of overcoming its own being for itself.

6.  If we distinguish the moments involved here more closely, then we can see that for the first moment we have the persistence of the independent structures, i.e.  the suppression of what the process of drawing distinctions is in itself, which, in fact, is precisely not to be in itself, to have no persistence.  ²The second moment, however, is the subjugation of that persistence under the infinity of difference.  ³The first moment contains the persisting structure.  As being for itself, infinite substance in its definition, it emerges opposed to universal substance, disowns all flux and continuity with it and asserts itself as not dissolved in this universal, insisting on its own self-preservation by separating from that universal, its inorganic nature, and by devouring it.  ⁴Life in the universal flux medium was a peaceful articulation of structures, but now it becomes their motion, i.e.  life as process.  ⁵The simple universal flux is the in itself and the structures' difference is the other.  ⁶But this difference turns the flux itself into that other.  Since the flux is now given for the difference, which, being in and for itself, is the infinite motion of devouring that peaceful medium, the difference is life as vital, living being. 

– ⁷Then again this instance of inversion is just inversion in itself.  It is the essence that is consumed.  The individuality sustaining itself at the cost of the universal, giving itself the feeling of unity with itself, overcomes in this way that opposition to the other which made it for itself.  Now, that self-endowed unity with itself is precisely the flux of differences or general dissolution.  ⁸Conversely, the process of overcoming individual persistence is simultaneously generation of the same.  ⁹Universal life, the essence of individual structure, being for itself is here inherently simple, integral substance.  So by asserting the other within it, life overcomes this, its simplicity, its essence; i.e.  it splits that integrity and this splitting of the undifferentiated flux is precisely the assertion of individuality.  ¹⁰The simple substance of life is thus at once the splitting of itself into structures and the dissolution of these as persistent differences.  Resolution of splitting is just as much a process of splitting in the sense of the subdivision into component members.  ¹¹Now the patterns peacefully articulated in the universal medium of independence on the one hand and the process of life on the other, the two sides of the entire motion, fall together.  The latter, life as process, is equally articulation, structuring, and overcoming of structure; while the former, articulation, is just as much an overcoming as it is subdivision into members.  ¹²The fluid element is just the abstraction of essence, only actual as pattern, structure; subdividing into members is a further splitting of what is already articulated or its dissolution.  ¹³This complete circulation system constitutes life.  Immediate continuity and solidity of essence was our initial formulation for life, but now it's much more than that.  It is not only a persistent structure together with a discrete moment given for itself.  Neither is it just a simple combination of these moments or a pure process embracing all of them.  Life is rather all of these in a self-developing whole maintaining its integrity and sustaining itself in the motion of development and dissolution of that development.

7.  We started from the first immediate unity and advanced through the moments of articulation and process to the unity of these two.  Now, while this returns us to the first simple substance, as reflected unity it is quite different from the first one.  ²While that was formulated as an immediate unity or as being, this second one is a universal unity containing all those moments overcome within it.  ³It is the simple genus which does not exist as this simplicity itself in the motion of life; rather, in this achieved result, life refers to something other than it, namely to the consciousness for which life is this unity, genus.

8.  Self-consciousness is this other life for which the genus exists, indeed self-consciousness is genus for itself.  Self-consciousness sees itself initially only as this simple essence and has itself as pure ego, I, for its object.  We shall now consider how self-consciousness' experience shapes up.  To anticipate slightly, it turns out that this abstract object enriches itself as self-consciousness unfolds into the same development we have seen above in the case of life.

9.  The simple ego, I, is now this genus or the simple universal, for which the differences are none, only by virtue of being the negative essence of the structured independent moments.  As such, self-consciousness is only certain of itself through the overcoming of this other confronting it as independent life.  In this scenario self-consciousness is desire.  ²Certain of the nullity of the other [I. Sense Certainty §20.7], self-consciousness for itself affirms that nullity as the independent object's truth, destroys it and thereby secures its own self-certainty as the true certainty emerging to self-consciousness in an objective manner.

10.  How gratifying!  And it is precisely this gratification that gives self-consciousness the experience of its object's independence.  ²Desire and the certainty of itself achieved in its gratification are conditioned by the object, for that self-certainty is only achieved by overcoming this other, the object.  No other, no overcoming!  ³Self-consciousness is thus incapable of overcoming the object through its negative relation [i.e. the object's 'character of the negative' §2.11 and §3.7 above].  The negative relation is rather what makes self-consciousness generate the object again, desire too.  ⁴The essence of desire is indeed something other than self-consciousness; this truth emerges to self-consciousness through this experience.  ⁵It is, however, no less absolute for itself, and that only through overcoming the object.  More, this has to become its satisfaction, for it is the truth.  ⁶Given the object's independence, self-consciousness can only achieve satisfaction if the object executes the negation within itself.  Moreover, it must execute this negation of itself within itself because it is implicitly the negative and has to be for the other just what it is.  ⁷Being negation in itself and within that simultaneously independent, the object is consciousness.  ⁸Negation in the life that is the object of desire lies either in another, namely in the desire, or it is in life as definition against another indifferent structure, i.e. its own inorganic universal nature.  ⁹This universal independent nature, however, in which negation is absolute, is genus as such, genus as self-consciousness.  ¹⁰Self-consciousness only achieves satisfaction in another self-consciousness.

11.  These three moments at last complete the concept of self-consciousness: a) pure, undifferentiated ego, I, is its first immediate object.  ²b) This immediacy is then itself absolute mediation.  It is just the overcoming of the independent object.  It is desire.  ³Satisfaction of desire is the reflection of self-consciousness into itself; it is the certainty that has become the truth.  ⁴c) In fact, desire's truth is a double reflection, the doubling of self-consciousness.  ⁵We now have an object for consciousness which asserts its own otherness in itself, i.e. asserts the difference as null and void, and has its independence in this assertion.  ⁶The differentiated, merely living structure certainly overcomes its own independence too in the process of life, but once its difference emerges here it ceases to be what it is.  The object of self-consciousness, in contrast, is no less independent in this negativity of itself and that's what makes it eminently for itself genus, universal flux in the peculiarity of its process of individuation.  It is vital, living self-consciousness.

12.  Now we have a self-consciousness for a self-consciousness.  ²This at last is where it gets real.  Only here does self-consciousness possess its own unity within its own otherness.  Ego, I, the object of self-consciousness' concept, is in fact not object at all.  Only the object of desire is independent, for it is the universal ineradicable substance, fluid self-identical essence.  ³A self-consciousness is the object and that makes it just as much ego as object. 

– ⁴The concept of spirit/mind is now present for us.  ⁵What remains for consciousness is just the experience of what spirit/mind is, this absolute substance that is the unity of the opposing sides, the distinct self-consciousnesses being for themselves, within the complete freedom and independence of their antithesis: I that is we and we that is I.  ⁶Consciousness arrives at its turning point in self-consciousness as the concept of spirit/mind where, from out of both the colourful impressions of the sensuous here and now and the empty night of the extrasensory beyond, it steps into the spiritual/mental daylight of the present.