It is a subjective impotence of reason that allows these determinacies to remain so dispersed, and is unable to bring them back to their unity through the dialectical force opposed to that abstract universality, that is to say, through the determinacies' own nature which is their concept To be sure, the understanding does give them through the form of abstract universality a rigidity of being, so to speak, which they do not otherwise possess in the qualitative sphere and in the sphere of reflection; but by thus simplifying them, the understanding at the same time quickens them with spirit, and it so sharpens them that only at that point, only there, do they also obtain the capacity to dissolve themselves and to pass over into their opposite.