Continental Monthly The , page 169 by Various Authors
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ing in the Universe.
But practically and ordinarily, these strictly analytical views of the question of existence are abandoned. Reality, compounded, as we have seen that it is when viewed in this way, of a Positive and a Negative Factor, is assumed as itself a Simple Element and set over against the grand residuum of Negation in the Universe of Being. This is what Kant, less analytical than Hegel, has done, when, in distributing the Categories of Thought, he has contrasted REALITY with NEGATION.
This is, as if, in respect to the External Material World, we were to divide Matter--the Planets, for example, first assigning to them the portions of Space which they bodily and respectively fill as if it were a part of themselves--from the remaining ocean or grand residuum of Space which surrounds them and in which they float. This residuum of Space would then be spoken of as Space, and the Planetary Bodies, along with and including the spaces which they fill, would be spoken of as Matter. This is a kind of division, less analytical, but more convenient, obvious, and practical, than the other which would attempt to separate the whole of Space from the Matter within Space. It is in this more practical manner that we ordinarily think of the division of the Heavens into the Domains of Matter and Space.
Between Reality, then, including a subordinate portion of Space--the content and volume of the Planet--and the grand ocean of Space, outlying and surrounding the Planet, there is Limitation, the outline of the Planet, the Limit or dividing surface between the space within it and the space without.
It is this Congeries of the Aspects of Being which Kant denominates QUALITY, as a name of a Group of the Categories of the Understanding; and which he divides into
1. REALITY. 2. NEGATION. 3. LIMITATION.
He then treats REALITY as synonymous with the Affirmative (Positive), and NEGATIO