1.  This inherently real individuality is at first once again determinate and single.  The absolute reality it knows itself to be is thus, as it becomes conscious of it, abstract universal reality without filling and content, just the empty thought of this category [V. Certainty and Truth of Reason §§5 - 8].

– ²We now have to consider how this concept of inherently real individuality defines itself in its moments and how individuality's own concept of itself emerges into consciousness.

2.  The concept of this individuality, as such for itself all reality, is initially a result.  It has not yet demonstrated its motion and reality and is still immediate, simple being in itself.  ²The negativity appearing as motion is in this simple in itself characteristic; being, the simple in itself, becomes a definite range.  ³Individuality emerges then as an original determinate nature – original nature, because it is in itself and originally determinate, because the negative is in that in itself making it a quality.  ⁴This restriction on being, however, cannot limit the action of consciousness, for consciousness here is a complete process of relating itself to itself.  The relation to another that would have been its limitation has been overcome.  ⁵The original determinateness of nature is thus only a simple principle, a transparent universal element, in which individuality remains just as free and identical to itself as it is unhindered in unfolding its differences therein, being pure reciprocal interaction with itself within its own realization.  ⁶We see this as indeterminate animal life, for example, blows its life-giving breath into the element of water, air, or earth, along with more definite principles, and immerses all its moments in these elements, while it maintains itself in its power and in its unity unconcerned about such limitations, sustaining itself as this particular organisation, organism, remaining the same animal life throughout.

3.  This determinate original nature of the consciousness remaining free and whole within it appears to be the immediate and solely genuine content of what the goal is to the individual.  It is determinate content, but only content as such to the extent that we consider the being in itself in isolation.  In truth, however, it is reality sodden with individuality.  It is actual reality the way consciousness has it within itself as something single, individual and initially established as existing but not yet doing.  ²For the action, however, on the one hand, that definition is not a limitation beyond which it wanted to go, because, when considered as given quality, it is the simple colouration of the element in which it is moving.  On the other hand, however, negativity is only definition in being.  Then again, action is itself nothing other than negativity.  Acting individuality dissolves definition into negativity as such, into the acme of all definiteness.

4.  Within action and the consciousness of action, simple original nature now enters into the difference appropriate to that consciousness.  ²It is at first object, and indeed object as it still belongs to consciousness, i.e. as purpose, and as such opposed to pre-existing reality.  ³The other moment is the motion of the goal imagined as at rest, realization as the relation of the goal to the entire formal reality, and with this the image of the transition itself, or the means.  ⁴The third moment is then the object, no longer a goal of which the active agent is immediately aware as being his own, but rather as it has moved outside him and which he must now regard as another.

– ⁵These different sides are now to be held fast according to the concept of this sphere such that the content within them remains the same and no difference enters into it.  Not the difference between individuality and being as such, nor that of the goal against individuality as original nature or against pre-existing reality, nor of the means against that pre-existing reality as absolute goal, nor of the resultant, effective reality against the goal, or original nature, or the means.

5.  At first then the original determinate nature of individuality, its immediate essence, is not active and is called particular ability, talent, character and so on.  ²This characteristic tincture of spirited mind is to be regarded as the sole content of the goal and alone the reality.  ³If one imagined consciousness as going beyond that with the wish of bringing another content into reality, that would amount to imagining it as a nothing working its way into nothingness.

– ⁴This original essence is, further, not only the content of the goal, but also in itself the actual reality that otherwise appears to be the given stuff of action, as pre-existing reality to be formed by the action.  ⁵Action is here merely the pure translation from the form of not yet demonstrated, presented being into that of presented being.  The being in itself of that reality opposed to consciousness has sunk to the level of a merely empty mask.  ⁶This consciousness, determined to act, does not let itself be driven into error by the mask of pre-existing reality.  It has to keep its head together and stay away from rambling about in empty thoughts and goals in the original content of its essence.

– ⁷This original content is indeed initially for consciousness, since consciousness has realized it.  Still, the difference between a content that is only for consciousness within itself and an actual reality, a thing existing in itself and external to consciousness, evaporates.

– ⁸It must act only to make what it is in itself come into being for it, which amounts to the same thing as saying that interactive behaviour here is just the becoming, the development and coming into being, of mindful spirit as consciousness.  ⁹It thus knows what it is in itself from its actual reality.  ¹⁰The individual cannot know what he is before he has translated himself into actual reality through action.

– ¹¹This looks like it's saying that he cannot determine the goal of his action before he has accomplished it.  Now, we know that being consciousness, the individual must have the activity in advance as completely his own, i.e. as goal before him.  ¹²The individual about to undertake action appears to find himself caught in a circle, in which each moment presupposes the other so that he can find no starting point.  He only gets to know his original essence, which must be his own goal, from the action, while in order to act he must first have the goal.  ¹³Indeed, it is precisely for this reason that he must begin immediately, under whatever circumstances, without worrying further about the beginning, the middle and the end, the final outcome, and launch into activity without further ado; for his essence and inherent nature is all that in one: beginning, middle and end.  ¹⁴As the beginning it lies within the pre-existing conditions of the activity and the interest the individual finds in something is the answer to the question as to whether and what is to be done here.  ¹⁵For what appears to be a pre-existing reality is inherently his original nature that only has the appearance, the mask of being – an appearance that lies in the concept of the act that splits itself – but as his original nature expresses itself in the interest he takes in it.

– ¹⁶The how, the means, middle, is also determined in and for itself in the same way.  ¹⁷Talent too is nothing other than the determinate original individuality considered as inner means, transition of the goal into actual reality.  ¹⁸The actual means, however, the real transition, is the unity of talent and the nature of the matter present in the interest; the former represents in the means the side of action, while the latter, that of content; both are individuality itself as the interpenetration of being and action.  ¹⁹What is pre-existing, then, are the given conditions implicitly constituting the original nature of the individual; then comes the interest which they set up precisely as his own, as goal; and finally the linkage and overcoming of this opposition in the means.  ²⁰This linkage itself still falls within consciousness and what we just considered as a whole is one side of an antithesis.  ²¹The residual appearance of antithesis is overcome by the transition itself or the means, which is the unity of outer and inner, the opposite of that definition it has as inner means.  The means thus overcomes the antithesis and establishes itself, this unity of action and being, again as outer, as the individuality that has become real itself; i.e. that is established as given being for it.  ²²The whole action does not move outside itself, neither as conditions nor as purpose, means or work, i.e. result.

6.  With that work, however, the difference of original natures seems to enter the situation.  The work is, like the original nature it expresses, something determinate; for freed from the action as existing reality, negativity is present within it as quality.  ²But consciousness defines itself against it as that which has the definiteness of negativity as such, as act, inherent to it.  Consciousness is thus the universal against that definition of the work and can now compare it with others, which makes it possible to determine distinctions between the individuals.  One individual goes further in his work either with greater energy of will or as a richer nature, i.e. as one whose original characteristics are less limited, while another turns out to be a weaker and poorer nature.

[–] ³In contrast to this inessential difference of magnitude, good and bad would express an absolute difference; but this is not what happens here.  ⁴What would be taken in either of these ways is in one and the same manner an activity, a self-presentation and self-expression of an individuality, hence wholly good, and no one could say what is bad here.  ⁵What would be called a bad work is the individual life of a determinate nature that realizes itself therein; it would only have been spoiled into a bad work by comparative thinking, but that is empty since it goes beyond the essence of the action, a self-expression of individuality, seeking and demanding all manner of things from it.

– ⁶It could only involve the difference just introduced.  But this is, as a difference of magnitude, inherently inessential.  Here it is definite because different actions or individualities would be compared with one another; but these have nothing to do with each other.  Each relates only to itself.  ⁷In fact, the original nature is the in itself.  It is a criterion that could be used for evaluating the action and, conversely, that could be laid at its foundation.  The two are equivalent.  There is nothing for individuality that is not down to it; there is no reality that is not its nature and its action, just as there is no act nor in itself of individuality that is not actually real  Only these moments are to be compared.

7.  Elevation therefore does not happen, nor complaint, nor regret.  For all those come from the thought that imagines a different content and a different in itself than the original nature of the individual and its demonstration available in actual reality.  ²What he is supposed to be is what he does and what happens to him is what he has done himself.  He can only be the consciousness of pure translation of itself out of the night of possibility into the daytime of presence, out of the abstract in itself into the semantics of actual being.  He must have the certainty that what emerges to him in the latter is nothing other than what lay sleeping in the former.  ³The consciousness of this unity is just as much a comparison, but what is compared only has the appearance of an antithesis.  For the self-consciousness of reason, that individuality is inherently actual reality, this is an appearance of form that is nothing more than a mask.  ⁴Since he knows that he can find nothing else in his reality than his unity with it, only the certainty of himself in its truth so that he only ever attains his own goal, the individual can only experience joy in himself.

8.  This is the concept the consciousness certain of itself as absolute interpenetration of individuality and being forms of itself.  Let's see whether the concept is confirmed to consciousness by experience and whether its reality agrees with that.  ²The work is the reality consciousness gives itself.  It is that in which the individual is for it, i.e. for consciousness, what it is in itself such that the consciousness for which it comes into being in the work is not particular but universal consciousness.  In the work consciousness has established itself out in the element of universality, in being's space completely free of definition features.  ³The consciousness withdrawing from its work is in fact the universal – because it becomes absolute negativity or the action in this antithesis – against its work, which is what is determinate.  Consciousness goes beyond itself then as work and is the space without definition at all, the space that finds itself not filled by its work.  ⁴If previously their unity held up, sustained itself, in the concept, that happened precisely because the work was overcome as existing work.  ⁵But it is supposed to be and we still have to check how individuality will maintain its universality in its being and will know how to satisfy itself.

– ⁶First we have to consider what has come into being as the work in its own terms.  ⁷It has received the whole nature of individuality; its being is therefore itself an act, in which all differences interpenetrate and dissolve; the result is thus thrown out into a duration in which the definite character of original nature indeed turns itself out against other determinate natures and reaches into them, just as these others do to it, getting lost as vanishing moments in this universal motion.  ⁸If, within the concept of the individuality that is in and for itself real, all moments, conditions, goal, means and the realisation are equal to each other and the original determinate nature only counts as universal element, then against this, as this element becomes objective being, its definite characteristic as such comes into the light of day in the work and acquires its truth in its dissolution.  ⁹In fact, this dissolution happens in such a way that in this definite characteristic the individual is present as this one who has become actual; individuality now is not only the content of actual reality, but also its form.  This means that actual reality as such now has its definition from being set opposed to self-consciousness.  ¹⁰From this perspective it shows itself to be merely a pre-existing alien reality that has vanished from the concept.  ¹¹The work is, i.e. it exists for other individualities and for them it is an alien reality beside which they must set up their own in order to give themselves in their action the consciousness of their unity with actual reality.  Another way of putting this is that their interest in the work determined by their original nature is something other than the characteristic interest of this work, which is thereby made into something other.  ¹²The work is thus simply transient, which is erased by the contrary action of other forces and interests, representing the reality of individuality as disappearing rather than as something accomplished.

9.  The opposition between act and being thus emerges to consciousness in its work, an opposition that in the earlier patterns of consciousness was also the beginning of action, but here is only its result [V.B.a. Pleasure and necessity §1, V.B.b. Law of the heart etc. §3, and V.B.c. Virtue etc. §3 M].  ²That also in fact lay at the foundation, since consciousness went into action as individuality real in itself; for that activity determinate original nature was presupposed as the in itself and it had pure accomplishment for the sake of accomplishment for its content [§2 above M].  ³Pure action is, however, self-identical form that here is unequal to the defining characteristic of original nature.  ⁴Here, as elsewhere, it makes no difference which of the two is called concept and which reality [Introduction §13.5 - 7; IV. Truth of Self-Certainty §1.5, 6 M].  Original nature is what is thought or the in itself against the act in which it first has its reality.  That is, the original nature is the being of individuality as such just as much as it is that of it as work, while the act is the original concept as absolute transition or as becoming.  ⁵Consciousness experiences this incongruence of concept and reality, which lies in its essence, in its work; in this it becomes to itself what it is in truth and its empty concept of itself vanishes.

10.  In this fundamental contradiction of the work, and the work is the truth of this individuality in itself real to itself, all aspects of individuality emerge as contradictory.  What happens is that the work, as the content of the whole individuality established outside in being, now sets the moments held captive together in the negative unity that was the act free.  In the element of persistence they become indifferent to each other.  ²Concept and reality thus separate into goal and original essence.  ³It is coincidental that the goal should have true essence or that the in itself would be made into the goal.  ⁴Similarly, concept and reality again depart from each other as transition into actual reality, on the one hand, and goal, on the other, or whether a means is chosen that expresses the goal is a matter of chance.  ⁵And finally these inner moments together – they may have a unity in themselves or not – as the action of the individual are coincidental in comparison to actual reality as such.  Luck decides for or against a badly determined goal and badly chosen means.

11.  Consciousness now finds in its work the opposition of willing and accomplishing, of goal and means and again of this interior together against actual reality itself.  This opposition encompasses the contingency of its action in itself.  By the same token, however, the unity and necessity of the action are also present.  The latter reaches beyond the former, so the experience of the contingency of action is itself only a chance experience.  ²The necessity of action consists in the fact that the goal as such is referred directly to actual reality and this unity is the concept of action.  Action is undertaken because the act is in and for itself the essence of reality.  ³In the work, the state of having been accomplished is accidental in contrast to willing and accomplishing, and this experience, which seems to have to count as the truth, contradicts that concept of action.  ⁴If we consider now the content of this experience in its completeness, then it is the vanishing work.  What endures is not the process of vanishing; that process is itself actual and tied to the work, disappearing itself along with the work.  The negative perishes with the positive whose negation it is.

12.  This vanishing of the vanishing lies in the concept of individuality real in itself.  Into what does the work disappear?  Or, at least, that part of the work that does disappear.  It turns out to be the same thing that gives what has been called experience its hegemony over the concept individuality has of itself.  It is objective reality.  Objective reality, however, is another moment which in this consciousness no longer has any truth for itself.  Such truth consists solely in the unity of consciousness with the act and the true work is only that unity of act and being, of willing and accomplishing.  ²To consciousness then, to the certainty lying at the foundation of its activity, the actual reality confronting it is something existing only for it.  Consciousness is now the self-consciousness that has returned back into itself for which all antithesis has vanished, so in this form of its being for itself it can no longer be contrasted with actual reality here.  Instead the antithesis and the negativity that emerge clearly in the work apply not only to the content of the work and to that of consciousness; they apply to actual reality as such and with that to the antithesis only resulting from it and present in it as well as to the disappearance of the work.  ³This is how consciousness reflects itself into itself from out of its transient work and asserts its concept and certainty to be existing and enduring against the experience of the contingency of action.  It experiences its concept indeed, but in that concept actual reality is only a moment, something for it, for consciousness, but not the in and for itself, not existing in its own right.  It experiences reality as a vanishing moment that counts for it then only as being as such, whose universality is the same as the act.  ⁴This unity is the true work, which is the matter itself that simply asserts itself and is experienced as what endures independent of what is merely the contingency of individual action, the coincidences of conditions, means and reality.

13.  The matter itself is set against these moments only to the extent that they are valid in isolation, but it is essentially interpenetration of that reality and individuality and as such the unity of the two.  It is just as much an action, pure action as such, and hence action of this individual, still belonging to him as a goal in opposition to reality.  Again, this matter itself is a transition from out of this characterization, this definition, into its opposite and finally an actual reality that is present for consciousness.  ²This matter itself thus expresses the spiritual/mental essential character in which the independent validity of all these moments is overcome, rendering them universals, so that consciousness has its certainty of itself as an objective essence, a matter.  It is the object born by self-consciousness, its own baby, that yet doesn't cease to be a free, autonomous object in its own right.

– ³The thing of sense-certainty and perception now acquires its significance for self-consciousness solely from self-consciousness itself and this is how we draw the distinction between a thing and a matter.

– ⁴Self-consciousness now passes through a movement corresponding to that of sense-certainty and perception.

14.  The matter itself is individuality and objectivity's interpenetration, which itself has become objective.  In this matter itself self-consciousness has found its true concept of itself; self-consciousness finally has an awareness of its own substance.  ²This awareness, this new consciousness, is here also something that has only just come into being and for that reason it is but an immediate consciousness of its substance.  This is the specific mode in which spiritual/mental essence is present here but has not yet blossomed into real, true substance [VI. Spirit/Mind §§1-3 M].  ³In this immediate consciousness of substance the matter itself has the form of a simple essence which, as a universal, contains all its different moments within it and connects with them all while remaining free for itself, indifferent to them as determinate moments, remaining this free, simple, abstract matter itself, and as such stands as the essence.  ⁴The different moments of the original defining characteristics, the matter of this individual, his goal, means, act and the actual reality, are all for this consciousness on the one hand individual moments it can abandon in favour of its matter itself.  On the other hand, however, they all have this matter itself for their essence as the abstract universal found in each and everyone of them and it can be attached as a predicate to each of them.  ⁵The matter itself is not yet the subject; those moments count as subject, because they all stand on the side of singularity as such, while our matter itself is initially only the simple universal [VI.C.c. Conscience etc. §10.4 M].  ⁶It is the genus present in all these moments, their species, while remaining completely free of them.

15.  That consciousness is called honourable [VI.C.c. Conscience, etc. §10.5] which has arrived at this idealism expressed by the matter itself, and which also has its truth in the matter itself as this formal universality.  Honourable consciousness is only ever concerned with the matter itself and consequently moves and acts solely in its different moments or species.  When it does not reach the matter itself in one of them or in one sense, it will always find it in one of the others and so always in fact finds the satisfaction it deserves according to its concept.  ²Honourable consciousness may proceed as it will, it can't help accomplishing the matter itself and will always reach it, for as universal genus of those moments, the matter itself is a predicate to all of them.

16.  Even if this consciousness does not bring a particular goal to reality, it has still willed it, i.e. it makes the goal as goal, the pure act that does nothing, into the matter itself.  At least for that it can comfort itself by saying that it always acts and gets something done.  ²Since the universal contains the negative, the vanishing, within it, the fact that the work destroys itself is in fact the universal's act.  It has irritated the others to do that and still finds its satisfaction in the vanishing of the reality just as, in the slap he gets, the bad boy has the enjoyment of his self, as the cause of the punishment.  ³Or perhaps no attempt is made to actually carry out the matter itself; indeed, nothing at all is done, which means consciousness didn't like doing it.  The matter itself is for consciousness here just the unity of its decision and reality, but its claim is that the reality in question would be nothing other than its liking.

– ⁴Something has finally become interesting to this consciousness without it having to do anything.  In this case, actual reality is the matter itself precisely in the interest consciousness finds therein even if it has not been produced by consciousness.  If it is some happiness that happens to consciousness in personal terms, then he clings to it as to his own act as something he has earned.  If it is some other kind of event in the world that doesn't really concern him in any way, he still makes it into his own.  Even passive interest he considers a party matter that he supports or rejects, attacks or affirms.

17.  The honour of this consciousness as well as the satisfaction it enjoys everywhere consists, as we can see clearly now, really in the fact that it does not bring its own thoughts on the matter itself together.  ²This matter itself is as much his own as no work as such, as much as the pure act or the empty purpose, or even an actual reality without action.  Consciousness makes one meaning after the other the subject of this predicate and forgets them all again, one after the other.  ³Now, in the mere condition of having wanted or even in that of not having liked, the matter itself has the meaning of the empty goal, the unity of willing and accomplishing in thought.  ⁴Consolation in the destruction of the goal, whether wished or pure action, just like the satisfaction in having given the others something to do, makes the pure act or the really bad work into essence.  For that must be called a bad work which is none at all.  ⁵Finally, this being without action becomes the matter itself when good fortune strikes and it finds reality already existing before it.

18.  The truth of this sense of honour, however, is not to be as honourable as it looks.  ²For it cannot be so thoughtless as to let these different moments come apart from each other.  No, it must have the immediate awareness of their opposition, for they relate directly to each other.  ³The pure action is essentially action of this individual and this action is just as essentially an actual reality, a matter.  ⁴Conversely, the reality is action as such essentially only as his action, while his action is only action as such as actual reality.  ⁵He appears only to be concerned with the matter itself as an abstract reality, but it is also true that he is involved with it as his action.  ⁶Again, since he is only concerned with action in general, he is not serious about that; he is only really concerned with one matter and with that as his own.  ⁷Finally, although he seems to want only his matter and his action, in fact it's really all about the matter as such, i.e. about the actual reality that remains in and for itself.

19.  The matter itself and its moments appear here as content, but they are just as necessarily forms in consciousness.  ²They only emerge as contents in order to vanish, each one giving way to another.  ³They must therefore be present in the form of being already overcome and in that form they are sides, aspects of consciousness itself.  ⁴The matter itself is present as the in itself, its reflection into itself, but the suppression of the moments by each other manifests in consciousness in such a way that each moment is not defined in itself, but only for another.  ⁵One moment is set out in the light of day by consciousness and presented for others.  In this process, consciousness is also reflected out of that back into itself, so the opposite is also present in consciousness.  Consciousness holds onto it for itself as its own.  ⁶It is not that any one moment is set out alone with just one of the others kept back inside.  Consciousness alternates them, for it has to make each one into the essential one for itself and for the others.  ⁷The whole is the automotive, self-propelling interpenetration of individuality and the universal.  The whole, however, is only present here for this consciousness as a simple essence and consequently as the abstraction of the matter itself, so its moments fall outside it separately and just fall apart.  Under these circumstances it can only be exhausted and represented as a whole by the separating alternation of presentation and reservation to itself.  ⁸In this alternation consciousness has one moment for itself and essentially in its own reflection, while it has another only external to it, for the others, a game of individualities emerges in which they find themselves as well as each other simultaneously as deceiving and deceived.

20.  One individual sets out to accomplish something.  He appears to have made the matter his business.  He acts and relates in that activity to others; he becomes something for others and to all appearances, he is really dealing with actual reality.  ²The others take the action of that individual for real interest in the matter as such, relating directly to the goal of accomplishing it.  It is irrelevant to them now whether it is accomplished by the first individual or by themselves.  ³They subsequently show that the matter has already been accomplished by them, or where that is not the case, they offer their help and really give it.  Then the first consciousness has already left the place where they claim it is.  Interests in the matter lay in the activity of that consciousness and when the others notice that this was the matter itself, they realize they have been deceived.

– ⁴In fact, their rushing in to help was really about wanting to show and see their own action, it wasn't really about the matter itself at all; i.e. they wanted to deceive the others in the same way they complain they were deceived.

– ⁵It has now emerged that it is their own activity, the play of their forces, that counts for the matter itself and this makes consciousness look as if it is pursuing its essence for itself, not for the others.  It seems only concerned about the activity as its own, not as that of the others, not to let the others have the satisfaction of their own action in their own matter.  ⁶Unfortunately, they are all in error; it has already left the place where they claimed it was.  ⁷Consciousness is not concerned about the matter as this, its very own, alone, but about it as a universal that is for all.  ⁸It involves itself in their action and work and if consciousness can no longer take it out of their hands, it still shows its interest by making judgements.  When it puts its stamp of approval on it with its praise, this is not just meant to praise the work itself, but also its own magnanimity and temperance in not spoiling the work directly or through its criticism.  ⁹When it shows an interest in the work, it enjoys itself in that; and even the work it complains about is welcome precisely for the pleasure of the complaint, its own action, which the work makes possible.  ¹⁰Those who feel deceived by this interference, or claim to feel so, in fact wanted themselves to deceive in the same way.  ¹¹They pass off their activity as something that is only for themselves, in which they are only out for themselves and their own essence.  ¹²The truth is that when they do something and thereby show themselves to the light of day, with their act they immediately contradict their claim of wanting to exclude that light of day itself, general attention and the participation of all.  Realization here is actually more of a question of publicly presenting themselves in the universal element, where it is a matter of interest to all, as indeed it should be.

21.  It's about self-deception as well as deceiving others even when it's supposed to be about the pure matter as such.  A consciousness that declares interest in a matter in fact has the experience that the others rush in, like flies on fresh milk, and want to feel that they can busy themselves with it.  And what they see in him is that he is not really concerned with the matter as an object of interest, but with it as his own.  ²In contrast, if only the action itself, the use of powers and capabilities or the expression of this individual, are supposed to be what is essential, then just as mutually, they have the experience that all move each other and believe themselves to be invited.  Instead of a pure action, the peculiar action of a single individual, this is also for others, i.e. it is a matter itself.  ³In both cases the same thing happens and only has different meaning for the other case assumed as the one that was valid.  ⁴Consciousness experiences both sides as equally essential moments and in that it finds the nature of the matter itself.  It is neither simply a matter that would be opposed to action as such, individual action, nor to the action opposed to persistence, i.e. it is not the genus free from these moments as its species.  The matter itself is an essence whose being is the action of the single individual and of all individuals; an action immediately for others, which is only a matter as the action of all and of each; essence of all essences, spiritual/mental essence, the essence that is at once spirit and mind.  ⁵Consciousness learns that none of those moments is a subject and that they all dissolve into the universal matter itself.  The moments of individuality that counted as subject, one after the other, to the thoughtlessness of this consciousness come together in simple individuality which, as this individuality is just as immediately universal.  ⁶The matter itself loses, as a consequence, the relation of the predicate, the definition feature of lifeless, abstract universality.  Now the substance thoroughly permeated by individuality, it is the subject encompassing individuality, whether itself or this individuality or all individuals.  It is also that universal which is only a kind of being as this action of all and of each.  It is an actual reality by virtue of the fact that this consciousness knows it to be its only reality and reality for all.  ⁷The pure matter itself is what we previously encountered as the category [V. Certainty and Truth of Reason §§5 - 8; §1.1 above]: I that is being or being that is I, but as a kind of thinking that is still distinguished from actual self-consciousness [compare the first definition of spirit/mind at the end of the Self-consciousness chapter, IV. Truth of Self-Certainty §12.5: I that is we and we that is I.].  Here, however, the moments of actual self-consciousness, whether we call them content, goal, action and reality or form, being for itself and being for another, are established as one with the simple category, which thus makes the category also all content.