Ex Libris I C. K. OGDEN
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THE LOGIC OF HEGEL
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TRANSLATED FROM THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES
WITH
PKOLEGOMENA
WILLIAM WALLACE, M.A.
FELLOW AND TUTOR OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD
[All rights reserved]
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PREFACE.
THE ' Logic of Hegel ' is a name which may be given to two separate books. One of these is the ' Science of Logic ' (Wissenschaffc der Logik), first published in three volumes (1812-1816), while its author was schoolmaster at Nuremberg. A second edition was on its way, when Hegel was suddenly cut off, after revising the first volume only. In the ' Secret of Hegel,' the earlier part of this Logic has been trans- lated by Dr. Hutchison Stirling, with whose name German philosophy is chiefly associated in this country.
The other Logic, of which the present work is a translation, forms the First Part in the ' Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences.' The first edition of the Encyclopaedia appeared at Heidelberg in 1817; the second in 1827 ; and the third in 1830. It is well to bear in mind that these dates take us back forty or fifty years, to a time when modern science and Inductive* Logic had yet to win their laurels, and when the world was in many ways different from what it is now. The earliest edition of the Encyclopaedia contained the pith of the system. The subsequent
vi PREFACE.
editions brought some new materials, mainly intended to smooth over and explain the transitions between the various sections, and to answer the objections of critics. The work contained a synopsis of philosophy in the form of paragraphs, and was to be supplemented by the viva voce remarks of the lecturer.
The present volume is translated from the edition of 1843, forming the Sixth Volume in Hegel's Collected Works. It consists of two nearly equal portions. One half, here printed in more open type, contains Hegel's Encyclopaedia, with all the author's own additions. The first paragraph under each number marks the earliest and simplest statement of the first edition. The other half, here printed in closer type, is made up of the notes taken in lecture by the editor (Henning) and by Professors Hotho and Michelet. These notes for the most part connect the several sections, rather than explain their statements. Their genuineness is vouched for by their being almost verbally the same with other parts of Hegel's own writings.
The difference between the two Logics lies mainly in the greater minuteness and detail of the larger work, and in the headings and arrangements of the chapters. Several mathematical questions are dis- cussed in the first volume of the larger Logic at a disproportionate length : and in the second volume of the same book the chapter headed • Phenomenon ' (Erscheinung) is differently divided from the method adopted in the Encyclopaedia, and begins with 'Ex- istence.' These arrangements are followed in the
PREFACE, vii
modified versions of the Hegelian Logic which have been made by Erdmann, K. Fischer, and Rosenkranz.
The ' Science of Logic ' is undoubtedly the more comprehensive and valuable work. Its length, how- ever, makes the study of it a formidable undertaking. Hegel, be it added, does not always render his theory more obvious to apprehension by expanding it into its details. To many eyes the depth only grows deeper, and the subtlety more subtle, by this expansion.
The translation has tried to keep as closely as pos- sible to the meaning, without always adhering very rigorously to the words of the original. It is, however, much more literal in the later and systematic part, than in the earlier chapters.
The Prolegomena which precede the translation have not been given in the hope or with the intention of expounding the Hegelian system. They merely seek to remove certain obstacles, and to render Hegel less tantalizingly hard to those who approach him for the first time. How far they will accomplish this, remains
to be seen.
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OXFORD, September, 1873.
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CONTENTS.
PROLEGOMENA.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
WHY HEGEL is HARD TO UNDERSTAND . ... xiii
CHAPTEE II. ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY AND HEGEL xx
CHAPTER III. HEGEL AND THEOLOGY xxiv
CHAPTER IV.
IDEALISM AND REALISM . < xxviii
CHAPTER V. THE SCIENCES AND PHILOSOPHY xxxiv
CHAPTER VI. THE GENESIS OF HEGELIANISM xliv
CHAPTER VII. KANT AND HIS PKOBLEM 1
CHAPTER VIII. TRANSITION FROM KANT TO HEGEL Iviii
CHAPTER IX.
GENERAL LAW OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY Ixiv
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER X.
ABSTBACT AND CONCBETE : AND THE OBDINABT LOGIC
CHAPTER XI. FROM SENSE TO THOUGHT
CHAPTER XII.
FlGURATE OB PfiESENTATIVE THOUGHT
CHAPTER XIII.
REASON AND THE DIALECTIC OP UNDERSTANDING .
CHAPTER XIV. THOUGHT PURE AND ENTIRE
CHAPTER XV.
ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE : OB THE CATEGORIES
CHAPTER XVI. THE THREE PABTS OF LOGIC
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SEARCH FOB A FIRST PRINCIPLE
CHAPTER XVIII. THE LOGIC OF BEING . . . . .
CHAPTER XIX.
ILLUSTRATION FROM GREEK PHILOSOPHY .
CHAPTER XX.
THE LOGIC OF ESSENCE : OB RELATIVITY . »
CHAPTER XXI.
THE LOGIC OF THE NOTION: OB DEVELOPMENT
PAGE
Ixxiii
Ixxx
Ixxxvii
cxliv
cl
clx
CHAPTER XXII. A BRIEF SUMMARY OF RESULTS clxxi
CHAPTER XXIII.
VOCABULARY . clxxv
CONTENTS. xi
THE LOGIC OF HEGEL.
CHAPTER I.
PAOB
INTRODUCTION . 1
CHAPTER II.
PRELIMINARY NOTION. 25
CHAPTER III.
FIRST ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD . . 50
CHAPTER IV.
SECOND ATTITUDE OP THOUGHT TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD . . 64
1. THE EMPIRICAL SCHOOL 64
2. THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY 69
(a) Criticism of the Theoretical Faculty 73
(6) Criticism of the Practical Reason 93
(c) Criticism of the Reflective Power of Judgment ... 95
CHAPTER V.
THIRD ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. IMME- DIATE OR INTUITIVE KNOWLEDGE 103
CHAPTER VI.
THE PROXIMATE NOTION OF LOGIC WITH ITS SUB-DIVISIONS . . . 122
CHAPTER VII.
FIRST SUB-DIVISION OP LOGIC. THE DOCTRINE OF BEING . . . 133
A. — QUALITY.
(a) Being 135
(6) Being Determinate ......... 144
(c) Being-for-self 153
B. — QUANTITY.
(a) Mere Quantity 159
(6) Quantum (How Much) . . . . ' . . . .163
(c) Degree 165
C MEASUBE . 172
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
PACE
SECOND SUB-DIVISION OF LOGIC. THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE . . .178 A. — ESSENCE AS GROUND OF EXISTENCE.
(a) The primary Characteristics or Categories of Reflection.
(a) Identity 183
(0). Difference 185
(7) The Ground 193
(6) Existence 198
(c) The Thing 200
B. — APPEARANCE 205
(a) The World of Appearance or Phenomenal World . . . 208
(b) Content and Form 208
(c) Ratio (Relation) 211
C. — ACTUALITY 221
(a) Relation of Substantiality 235
(6) Relation of Causality 237
(c) Reciprocity or Action and Eeaction 241
CHAPTER IX.
THIRD SUB-DIVISION OF LOGIC. THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION . .247
A. — THE SUBJECTIVE NOTION.
(a) The Notion as Notion 251
(6) The Judgment 256
(c) The Syllogism 270
B.— THE OBJECT 288
(a) Mechanism 290
(6) Chemism 294
(c) Teleology 296
C.— THE IDEA . 304
(a) Life 310
(6) Cognition in General 313
(c) The Absolute Idea 323
INDEX 329
PROLEGOMENA.
CHAPTER I.
WHY HEGEL IS HARD TO UNDERSTAND.
' THE condemnation/ says Hegel, ' which a great man lays upon the world, is to force it to explain him V The greatness of Hegel, if it be measured by this standard, must be something far above common. Interpreters of his system have contra- dicted each other, almost as variously as the several com- mentators on the Bible. He is claimed as their head by widely different schools of thought, all of which appeal to him as the original source of their line of argument. The Right wing, and the Left, as well as the Centre, profess to be the genuine descendants of the prophet, and to inherit the mantle of his inspiration. If we believe one side, Hegel is only to be rightly appreciated when we divest his teaching of every shred of religion and orthodoxy which it retains. If we believe another class of expositors, he was the champion of Christianity.
These contradictory views may be safely left to abolish each other. But diversity of opinion on such topics is neither unnatural, nor unusual. The meaning and the bearings of a great event, or a great character, or a great work of reasoned thought, will be estimated and explained in different ways, according to the effect they produce on different minds, and different levels of life and society. Those effects, perhaps, will
1 Hegel's Leben (Roserikranz), p. 555.
xiv PROLEGOMENA. [i.
not present themselves in their true character, until long after the original excitement has passed away. To some minds, the chief value of the Hegelian system will lie in its vindication of the truths of natural and revealed religion, and in the agreement of the elaborate reasonings of the philosopher with the simple aspirations of mankind towards higher things. To others that system will have most interest as a philosophical history of thought, — an exposition of that organic development of reason, which underlies and constitutes all the varied and complex movement of the world. To a third class, again, it may seem at best an instrument or method of investigation, stating the true law by which knowledge proceeds in its endeavour to comprehend and assimilate existing nature.
While these various meanings may be given to the Hegelian scheme of thought, the majority of the world either pronounce Hegel to be altogether unintelligible, or banish him to the limbo of a priori thinkers, — that bourne from which no philoso- pher returns. To argue with those who start from the latter conviction would be an ungrateful, and probably a superfluous task. Wisdom is justified, we may be sure, of all her children. But it may be possible to admit the existence of difficulties, and agree to some extent with those who complain that Hegel is impenetrable and hard as adamant. There can be no doubt of the forbidding aspect of the most prominent features in his system. He is hard in himself, and his readers find him hard. His style is not of the best, and to foreign eyes seems unequal. At times he is eloquent, stirring, and striking : again his turns are harsh, and his clauses tiresome to disentangle : and we are always coming upon that childlikeness of literary manner, which English taste fancies it can detect in some of the greatest works of German genius. There are faults in Hegel, which obscure his meaning : but more obstacles are due to the nature of the work, and the pre-occupations of our minds. There is something in him which fascinates the thinker, and which inspires a sympathetic student with the vigour and the hopefulness of the spring-time.
i.J THINKING IN VACUO. xv
Perhaps the main hindrance in the way of a clear vision is the contrast which Hegelian philosophy offers to our ordinary habits of mind. Generally speaking, we rest contented if we can get tolerably near our object, and form a general picture of it to set before our selves. It might almost be said that we have never thought of such a thing as being in earnest either with our words or with our thoughts. We get into a way of speaking with an uncertain latitude of meaning, and leave a good deal to the fellow-feeling of our hearers, who are expected to mend what is defective in our utterances. For most of us the place of exact thought is supplied by metaphors and pictures, by mental images, and figures generalised from the senses. And thus it happens, that when we come upon a single precise and definite statement, neither exceeding nor falling short in its meaning, we are thrown out of our reckon- ing. Our fancy and memory have nothing left for them to do : and, as fancy and memory make up the greater part in what we loosely call thought, our powers of thought seem to be brought to a standstill. Those who crave for fluent reading, or prefer easy writing, something within the pale of our usual mental lines, are more likely to find what they seek in the ten partially correct and approximate ways commonly used to give expression to a truth, than in the one simple and accurate statement of the thought. We prefer a familiar name, and an accustomed image, on which our faculties may work. But in the atmosphere of Hegelian thought, we feel very much as if we had been lifted into a vacuum, where we cannot breathe, and which is a fit habitation for unrecognisable ghosts only.
To read" Hegel reminds us of the process we have to go through in trying to answer a riddle. The terms of the pro- blem to be solved are all given to us : the features of the object are, it may be, fully described : and yet somehow we cannot at once tell what it is all about, or add up the sum of which we have the several items. We are waiting to learn the subject of the proposition, of which all these statements
xvi PROLEGOMENA. [i.
may be regarded as the predicates. Something, we feel, has undoubtedly been said : but we are at a loss to see what it has been said about. Our mind wanders round from one familiar object to another, and tries them in succession to see whether any one satisfies the several points in the state- ment and includes them all. We grope here and there for something we are acquainted with, in which the bits of the description may cohere, and get a unity which they cannot give themselves. When once we have hit upon the right object, our troubles are at an end : and the empty medium is now peopled with a creature of our imagination. We have reached a fixed point in the range of our conceptions, around which the given features may cluster.
All this trouble caused by the Hegelian theory of what philosophy involves — viz. a construction of its subject-matter, is saved by a device well-known to the several branches of Science. It is the way with them to assume that the student has a rough general image of the objects which they examine ; and under the guidance, or with the help of this generalised image, they go on to explain and describe its outlines more completely. They start with an approximate conception, such as anybody may be supposed to have ; and this they seek to render more definite. The geologist, for example, could scarcely teach geology, unless he could pre-suppose or produce some acquaintance on the part of his pupils with what Hume would have called an ' impression ' or an ' idea ' of the rocks and for- mations of which he has to treat. The geometer gives a short, and, as it were, popular explanation of the sense in which angles, circles, triangles, &c. are to be understood : and then by the aid of these provisional definitions we 'come to a more scientific notion of the same terms. The third book of Euclid, for example, brings before us a clearer notion of what a circle is, than the nominal explanation in the list of definitions. By means of these temporary aids, or, as we may call them, leading-strings for the intellect, the progress of the ordinary scientific student is made tolerably easy. But in philosophy,
i.] WHAT'S IN A NAME? xvii
as it is found in Hegel, there is quite another way of working. ^_*/ _./ The helps in question are absent : and until it be seen that ' /
they are not even needed, the Hegelian theory will remain »
a sealed mystery. For that which the first glance seemed to / show as an enigma, is only the plain and unambiguous state- ment of thought. Instead of casting around for images and accustomed names, we have only to accept the several terms and articles in the development of thought as they present themselves. These terms merely require to be apprehended. They stand in no need of illustration, or of light from our experience.
Ordinary knowledge consists in referring a new object to a class of objects, that is to say, to a generalised image with which we are already acquainted. It is not so much cognition as re-cognition. " ' What is the truth ? ' " asked Lady Chettam of Mrs. Cadwallader in Middlemarch. " ' The truth ? he is as bad as the wrong physic — nasty to take, and sure to disagree.' ' There could not be anything worse than that/ said Lady Chettam, with so vivid a conception of the physic that she seemed to have learned something exact about Mr. Casaubon's disadvantages." Once we have referred the new individual to a familiar category, or a convenient metaphor, once we have given it a name, and introduced it into the society of our mental drawing-room, we are satisfied. We have put a fresh object in its appropriate drawer in the cabinet of our ideas : and hence, with the pride of a collector, we can calmly call it our own. But such acquaintance, proceeding from a mingling of memory and naming, is not the same thing as knowledge in the strict sense of the term1. 'What is he? Do you know him ? """ These are our questions : and we are satisfied when we learn his name and his calling. We may never have pene- trated into the inner nature of those objects, with whose tout ensemble, or rough outlines, we are so much at home, that we fancy ourselves thoroughly cognizant of them. Classifications
1 ' Das Bekannte uberhaupt ist darum, weil es bekannt 1st, nicht erkannt.' Phenomenologie des Geistes, p. 24.
b
xviii PROLEGOMENA. [i.
are only the first steps in science : and we do not understand a thought because we can view it under the guise of some of its illustrations.
In the case of the English reader of Hegel some peculiar hindrances spring from the foreign language. In strong con- trast to most of the well-known German philosophers, he may be said to write in the popular and national dialect of his country. Of course there are tones and shades of meaning given to his words by the general context of his system. But upon the whole he did what he promised to Voss. In a letter addressed to that poet from Jena in 1805, he says of his projects : ' Luther has made the Bible, and you have made Homer speak German. No greater gift than this can be given to a nation. So long as a nation does not know a noble work in its own language, it is still barbarian, and does not regard the work as its own. Forget these two examples, and I may describe my own intention as an attempt to teach philosophy to speak in German V
Hegel is unquestionably par excellence the philosopher of Ger- many,— German through and through. For philosophy, though the common birthright of full-grown reason in all ages and countries, must like other universal and cosmopolitan in- terests, such as the State, the Arts, or the Church, submit to the limits and peculiarities imposed upon it by the na- tural divisions of race and language. The subtler nuances, as well as the coarser differences of national speech, make themselves vividly felt in the systems of philosophy, and defy translation. If Greek philosophy cannot, no more can German philosophy be turned into a body of English thought by a stroke of the translator's pen. There is a dif- ference in this matter between the sciences, and philosophy. The several sciences have a de-nationalised and humanitarian character, like the trades and industries of various nations: they are pretty much the same in one country and another. But in the political body, in the works of high art, and in 1 Vermischte Schriften, vol. II. p. 474.
i.] THE RIGHTS OF COMMON SPEECH. xix
the systems of philosophy, the whole of the character and temperament of the several peoples finds its expression, and stands distinctly marked, in a shape of its own. If the form of German polity be not transferable to this side of the Channel, no more will German philosophy. Direct utilisation for English purposes is out of the question : the circumstances are too different. But the study of the great works of foreign thought is not on that account useless, any more than the study of the great works of foreign statesmanship.
Hegel did good service, at least, by freeing philosophy from that aspect of an imported luxury, which it usually had, — as // » i /£ if it were an exotic plant removed from the bright air of » '
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have still,' he says, 'to break down the partition between the f language of philosophy, and that of ordinary consciousness : we have to overcome the reluctance against thinking what we are familiar with1.' Philosophy must be brought face to face with ordinary life, so as to draw its strength from the actual and living present, and not from the memories or traditions of the past. It has to become the organised and completed thinking of what is contained blindly and vaguely in the various levels of popular intelligence, as these are more or less educated and ordered. Perhaps however the attempt to philosophise in native German gives rise to a purism of language which is quite impossible in English, with its double sym- pathies. Even Hegel seems to find the resources of German occasionally fail him, and has to employ the corresponding words of native and classical origin with considerable difference of meaning. Sometimes, too, he shows a tendency to etymologise on very narrow grounds, and to do something very like playing on words. But it was a great thing to banish a pompous and aristocratic dialect from philosophy, and to lead it back to those words and forms of speech, which are in at least a silent harmony with the national feeling.
1 Hegel's Leben (Rosenkrauz), p. 552. b 2
xx PROLEGOMENA. [n.
CHAPTEK II.
ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY AND HEGEL.
AT the present day in England, philosophy is either ignored altogether, or brought down to the level of a special branch of science, if it be not rather made a receptacle for the principles common to all the sciences. The favourite term for those researches, which are directed towards the objects once con- sidered proper to philosophy, is now Mental and Moral Science. The old name is in certain circles restricted to denote the vague and irregular speculations of those thinkers, who either lived before the rise of exact science, or who acted in defiance °f ^8 precepts and its example. One large and influential class of English thinkers inclines to sweep philosophy altogether , away, as equivalent to metaphysics and obsolete forms of error ; and upon the empty site thus obtained they are constructing a body of psychological facts, or they are trying to arrange and codify those general remarks upon the general procedure of the sciences, which are known under the name of Inductive Logic. A smaller, but not less vigorous, class of philosophers . , . , look upon their business as an extension and rounding off of science, as the complete unification of knowledge. The first is the school best known by the names of Mr. J. S. Mill and Mr. Bain : the second is the doctrine of Mr. Herbert Spencer.
If we look to history, it is at once clear that philosophy has had much to do with science. In their earlier stages the two tendencies of thought were scarcely distinguishable. The philosophers of Ionia and Magna Graecia were also the scien- tific teachers of their time. Their fragmentary remains remind us at times of the modern theories of geology and biology, — at other times of the teachings of idealism. The same thing is comparatively true of the earlier philosophers of Modern Europe. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in spite
ii.] THE EMANCIPATION OF PHILOSOPHY. xxi
of Bacon and Newton, endeavoured to study the laws of mental movement by a method, which was a strange mixture of empiricism and metaphysics. They attempted to apply the general laws of thought to the examination of the special phenomena of the mind. In the works of these thinkers, as of the pre-Socratics, one element may be styled philosophical, v/" and another element may be styled scientific, — if we use both words vaguely. But with Socrates in the ancient, and with Kant in the modern epoch of philosophy, the boundary between the two regions was definitively drawn. The distinction was in the first place achieved by turning the back upon science and popular conceptions. Socrates withdrew thought from disquisitions concerning the nature of all things, and fixed it upon man, and the state of man. Kant left the broad fields , of actually-attained knowledge, and inquired into the central principle on which the acquisitions of science were founded.
The change thus begun was not unlike that which Copernicus effected in the theory of Astronomy. Human thought, either in the actualised form of the State, or in the abstract shape of the Reason, — that thought, which is a man's true world, — was made the pivot around which the system of the sciences might turn. In the contest, which according to Reid prevails between Common Sense and Philosophy, the presumptions of the former have been distinctly reversed, and Kant, like Socrates, has shown that it is not the single body of doctrine, but the humanity, the moral law, the thought, which under- lies these doctrines, which gives the real resting-point and true centre of movement. But this negative attitude of philosophy to the sciences is only the beginning, needed to secure a stand- ing-ground. In the ancient world Aristotle, and in the modern Hegel, exhibit the movement outwards to reconquer the uni- verse, proceeding from that principle which Socrates and Kant had emphasised in its simpler and less developed aspect.
Mr. Mill, in the closing chapter of his Logic, has briefly \f, sketched the ideal of a science to which he gives the name of ^eleology, corresponding in the ethical and practical sphere
xxii PROLEGOMENA. [n.
to a PhilosopJiia Prima, or Metaphysics, in the theoretical. This ideal and ultimate court of appeal is to be valid in Morality, and also in Prudence, Policy, and Taste. But the conception, although a desirable one, falls short of the work which Hegel assigns to philosophy. What he intended to accomplish with detail and regular evolution was not a system / /of principles in these departments of action only, but ji_theory o_f_the thought which also manifests itself in Art, Science, and Religion, in all the consciousness of ordinary life, and in the movement of the world. Philosophy ranges over the whole field of actuality, or existing fact. Abstract principles are all very well in their way : but they are not philosophy. If the world in its historical and its present life developes into endless detail in regular lines, philosophy must equally develope the narrowness of its first principles into the plenitude of a System, — into what Hegel calls the Idea. His point of view may be gathered from the following remarks in a review of Hamann, an erratic friend and contemporary of Kant's. ' Ha- mann would not put himself to the trouble, which in a higher sense God undertook. The ancient philosophers have described God under the image of a round ball. But if that be His nature, God has unfolded it ; and in the actual world He has v opened the closed shell of truth into a system of Nature, into a State-system, a system of Law and Morality, into the system of the world's history. The shut fist has become an open hand, the fingers of which reach out to lay hold of man's mind, and draw it to Himself. Nor is the human mind a mere abstruse intellect, blindly moving within its own secret recesses. It is no mere feeling and groping about in a vacuum, but an intelligent system of rational organisation. Of that system Thought is the summit in point of form : and Thought may l)e described as the capability of surveying on its surface expanse of Deity unfolded, or rather as the capability, by means of thinking over it, of entering into it, and then when the entrance has been secured, of thinking over God's expansion of Himself. To take this trouble is the express duty and end
II.]
PHILOSOPHY NOT REFORM.
XXlll
of ends set before the thinking mind, ever since God laid aside His rolled-up form, and revealed Himself1.'
Enthusiastic admirers have often spoken, as if the salvation of the time could only come from the Hegelian philosophy. 'Grasp the secret of Hegel,' they say, 'and you. will, find a cure for the delusions of your own mind, and the secret which isTto set right the wrongs of the world/ These high claims to utility were never made by Hegel himself. According to him, philosophy can produce nothing new. Practical states- men, and theoretical reformers, may do their best to correct the inequalities of the world. But the very terms in which Bacon scornfully depreciated one great result of philosophy are to be accepted in their literal truth. Like a virgin consecrated to God, she bears no fruit 2. She represents the spirit of the world, resting, as it were, when one step in the progress has been accomplished, and surveying the advance which has been made. Nor _has__p]ailpsophy the vocation to edify men, and so to take the place of religion on the higher levels of intellect. It does not profess to bring into being that which ought to be, but is not as yet. It sets up no ideals, which must wait for some future day in order to be realised. The subject-matter of philosophy is that which is always realising and always realised, — the world in its wholeness as it is and has been. It seeks to put before us, and embody in permanent outlines, the universal law of the mind's movement, and not the local, tem- porary, and individual acts of human will.
Those who ask philosophy to construe, or to deduce a priori a single blade of grass, or a single act of a man, must not be grieved if their request sounds absurd and meets with no answer. The sphere of philosophy is the Universal. We may say, if we like, that it is retrospective. To comprehend the universe of thought in all its formations and all its features, to reduce the solid structures, which mind has created, to fluidity and transparency in the pure medium of thought, to set free the fossilised intelligence which the great magician
1 Vermischte Schriften, vol. II. p. 87. 2 De Augm. Scient. III. 5.
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who wields the destinies of the world has hidden under the mask of Nature, of the mind of man, of the works of Art, of the institutions of the State and the orders of Society, and of religious forms and Creeds : — such is the complicated problem of philosophy. It has to comprehend the world, not try to make it better. If it were the purpose of philosophy to reform and improve the existing- state of things, it comes a little too late for such a task. ' As the thought of the world,' says Hegel, 'it makes its first appearance at a time, when the actual fact has consummated i£s process of formation, and is now fully matured. This is the doctrine set forth by the notion of philosophy ; but it is also the teaching of history. It is only when the actual world has reached its full fruition that the ideal rises to confront the reality, and builds up, in the shape of an intellectual realm, that same world grasped in its sub- stantial being. When philosophy paints its grey in grey, some one shape of life has meanwhile grown old : and grey in grey, though it brings it into knowledge, cannot make it _~ young again. The owl of Minerva does not start upon its / J flight, until the evening twilight has begun to fall V
CHAPTEE III.
HEGEL AND THEOLOGY.
EVEN an incidental reader of Hegel cannot fail to be struck with the frequent recurreilte of the name of God, and with the many allusions to matters not generally touched upon, unless in works bearing upon religion. There were two ques- tions which seem to have had a certain fascination for Hegel. One of them, a rather unpromising problem, referred to the
1 Philosophic des Rechts, p. 20.
in.]
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION.
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*
distances between the several planets in the solar system, and the law regulating these intervals1. The other and more in- timate problem turned upon the value of the proofs usually offered in support of the being of God. This question treated of the matter in these proofs, as distinguished from the imperfect manner in which the arguers presented it. Again and again in his Logic, as well as in other discussions more especially devoted to it, he examines this problem. His persistence in this direction might earn for him that title of^Knight of the HolyGhost,' by which Heine, in one of the delightful poems of his ' Reisebilder,' describes himself to the little maiden of the Harz mountains. The poet of Love and of Freedom had . undoubted rights to rank among the sacred band : but so '**-^ also had the philosopher. Like the Socrates whom Plato describes to us, he seems to feel that he has been commissioned * to reveal the truth of God, and quicken men by an insight &TI . ,, into the right wisdom. Nowhere in the modern period of phi- /tt*t"1 \ losophy has the same highr spirit breathed in the utterances , of a thinker. The same theme is claimed as the common heritage of philosophy and religion. In a letter to Duboc 2, the father of a modern German novelist, Hegel lets us see how important this aspect of his system was to himself. He had been asked to give a succinct explanation of his standing- ground : and his answer begins by pointing out that philosophy seeks to apprehend by means of thought the same truth which the religious mind has by faith. "<
O^ T/ —
Words like these may at first sight suggest the bold soaring of ancient speculation in the times of Plato and Aristotle, or even the theories of the medieval Schoolmen. They sound as if he proposed to do for the modern world, and in the full light of modern knowledge, what the Schoolmen tried to accom- plish within the somewhat narrow conceptions of medieval Christianity and Greek logic. Still there is a difference between the two cases. While the Doctors of the Church derived the form of exposition, and the matter of their systems, from 1 Hegel's Leben, p. 155. 2 Vermischte Schriften, vol. II. p. 520.
xxvi PROLEGOMENA. [in.
two incompatible sources, the modern Scholastic of Hegel claims to be a harmonious unity, body finding- soul, and soul giving itself body. And while the Hegelian system has the all- embracing and encyclopaedic character by which Scholastic thought threw its arms around heaven and earth, it has also the untrammelled liberty of the Greek thinkers. Hegel, in short, is a synthesis of these two modes of speculation : free as Q ,j I the ancient, and comprehensive as the modern. His theory is ^f /? -, the explication of God ; but of God in the actuality and pleni-
/ii/
Jjij(j
tude of the world, and not as a transcendent Being in the solitude of a world beyond.
The greatness of a philosophy is its power of comprehending facts. The most characteristic fact of modern times is Chris- tianity. The general thought and action of the civilised world has been alternately fascinated and repelled, but always in- fluenced, and to a high degree permeated, by the Christian theory of life. That fact is the key to the secret of the world, — even if we add, as some will prefer, of the world as it is and has been. And therefore the Hegelian system, if it is to be vr fa- ^ a philosophy at all, must be in this sense Christian. But it is neither a critic, nor an apologist of Christianity. The voice of philosophy is as that of the Jewish doctor of the Law : ' If this council or this work be of men, it will come to nought : but if it be of God ye cannot overthrow it.' Philosophy examines what is, and not what, according to some opinions, ought to be. Such a point of view requires no discussion of the ' How ' or the ' Why ' of Christianity. It involves no inquiry into historical documents, nor into the belief in miracles.
Again, it may be asked in what sense philosophy has to deal with God and with Truth. These two terms are used as synonyms in Hegel. All the objects of science, all the terms of thought, all the forms of life, lead out of themselves, and seek for a centre and resting-point. They are severally inadequate and partial, and they crave adequacy and com- pleteness. They tend to organise themselves, and so to constitute
in.] THE SCIENCE OF THINGS DIVINE. xxvii
a system or universe; and in this tendency to unity consists .their truth. Their untruth lies in isolation and pretended independence. This completed unity in which all things receive their entireiiess, and become adequate, is their Truth : and that Truth, as known in religious language, .is God. Rightly or wrongly, God is thus interpreted in the Logic of Hegel.
Such a position must seem very strange to one who is familiar only with the sober studies of English philosophy. In whatever else the leaders of the several schools in this country disagree, they are all, or nearly all, at one in banishing God and religion to a world beyond the present sublunary sphere, to an inscrutable region beyond the scope of scientific inquiry, where statements may be made at will, but where we have no power of verifying any statement whatever. This is the common doctrine of Spencer and Mansel, of Hamilton and Mill. Even those English thinkers, who show some anxiety to support what is at present called Theism, generally rest content with vindicating for the mind the vague perception of a Being beyond us, and differing from us incommensurably. He is the Unknown Power, felt by what some of these writers call intuition, and others call experience. They do not however allow to knowledge any capacity of apprehending in detail the truths which belong to the kingdom of God. The whole teaching of Hegel is the overthrow of the limits thus set to religious thought. To him all thought, and all actuality, when it is grasped by knowledge, is from man's side, an exaltation of the mind towards God? while, when regarded from the Divine standing-point, it is the manifestation of His own nature in its infinite variety. i <•_ £o£r£
It is only when we fix our eyes clearly on these general features in his speculation, that we can understand why he places the maturity of ancient philosophy in the time of Plotinus and Proclus. For the same reason he gives so much attention to the religious or semi-religious theories of Jacob Bonnie and of Jacobi, though these men were in many ways so unlike himself.
xxviii PROLEGOMENA. [iv.
CHAPTEK IV.
IDEALISM AND REALISM.
IT is hazardous to try to sum up the Hegelian philosophy in a few paragraphs. Since Aristotle separated philosophy from the productive arts, it need scarcely be repeated that the result
of a philosophical system is nothing palpable or tangible,
nothing on which you can put your finger, and say definitely : Here it is. The point of the philosopher's remarks lies in their application. The statement of the principle or tendency of a philosophical system tells not what that system is, but what it is not. It marks off the position from contiguous points of view; and on that account never gets beyond the border- land, which separates that system from something else. The method and process of reasoning is as essential in knowledge, as the result to which it leads: and the method in this case is thoroughly bound up with the subject-matter. A mere ana- lysis of the method, therefore, or a mere record of the purpose and outcome of the system, would be, the one as well as the other, a fruitless labour, and come to nothing but words. Thus any attempt to convey a glimpse of the truth in a few sentences and in large outlines seems foreclosed. The theory of Hegel has an abhorrence of mere generalities, of abstractions, without life in them, or growth out of them. His principle has to prove and verify itself to be true and adequate: and that verification fills up the whole circle of circles, of which philosophy is said to consist.
It seems as if there were in Hegel two distinct habits of mind which the world rarely sees except in separation. On one hand there is a sympathy with mystical and intuitional / minds, with the upholders of immediate knowledge and innate ideas,— those who would fain lay their grasp upon the whole before they have gone through the drudgery of details. On the other hand, there is a strongly rational and non-visionary //.
iv.] CONTRASTS IN HEGEL. xxix
intellect, with a practical and realistic bent, and the full scientific spirit. Looked at from some points of view, Hegel has been accused of dreaminess, pietism, and mystical theology. His merging of the ordinary contrasts of thought in a completer truth, his mixing up of religious with logical questions, and the general unfathomableness of his doctrine, all seem to sup- port such a charge. Yet all this is not inconsistent with a rough and incisive vigour of understanding, a plainness of reason, and a certain hardness of temperament. This philo- sopher is in many ways not distinguishable from the ordinary citizen. He is contemptuous towards all weakly sentimentalism, and almost brutal in his emphasis on what actually is, as distinct from what might have been ; and keeps his household accounts as carefully as the average head of a family. This convergence of two tendencies of thought may be noticed in the gradual maturing of his ideas. In the period of his ' Lehrjahre,' or apprenticeship, from 1790 to 1800, we can see the study of theology in the earlier part of that time at Berne succeeded by the study of politics and philosophy at Frankfort-on-the-Main.
His purpose on the whole may be termed an attempt to combine breadth with depth, the intensity of the^joysfcic, who craves for union with Truth, with the extended range and explicitness of the seekers after knowledge. 'The depth of the mind is only so deep as its courage to expand and lose itself in its explication1.' It must prove its profundity by the ordered fulness of the knowledge which it has realised. The position and the work of Hegel will not be intelligible unless we keep in view both of these antagonistic points.
On the one hand stands the tendency to apply those methods, which have been already applied with brilliant success in the various branches of science, to the criticism of objects which do not in the first instance come within the scope of these sciences. It is the employment of hard and fast lines of dis- tinction, and of dogmatic methods, the application of conditions to the unconditioned; and its final outcome is a sweeping 1 Phenomenologie des Geistes, p. 9.
xxx PROLEGOMENA. [iv.
criticism under which the ordinary ideas of morality and religion are found to fail. Under this head comes the ordinary metaphysical doctrine, which tries to bind the Absolute in words ; the empiricism, which either abolishes the super-sensible altogether, or aims at making it conform to the canons of science : and the Kantian system, which shows the insufficiency of both these methods, but has nothing better of its own to offer 1.
On the other side stands the claim or the assurance springing from an immediate and native union with eternal Truth. The ' Faith ' of Jacobi and the ' Intellectual Intuition ' of Schelling, the gift of genius which sees the truth at one glance, and sees it whole, — the prophetic utterance and the enthusiastic vision of the Infinite — were to some extent a needful reaction against the dominancy of the abstracting intellect, revelling in distinctions, conditions, and categories. The beginning of the nineteenth century in Germany, as well as in England, was a period of effervescence : — there was a good deal of fire, but perhaps there was still more of smoke. Genius was exultant in its aspirations after Freedom, Truth, and Wisdom. The Romantic School, under the philosophical patronage of Schel- ling, counted amongst its literary chiefs the names of the Schlegels, of Tieck, Novalis, and perhaps Bichter. The world, as that generation dreamed, was to be made young again, — not by drinking, where Wordsworth led, from the fresh springs of nature, — but by an elixir distilled from the withered flowers of medieval Catholicism and chivalry, and even from the old roots of primeval wisdom. The good old times of faith and harmonious beauty were to be brought back again by the joint labours of ideas and poetry. To that period of incipient and darkling energy Hegel stands in very much the same position as Luther did to the pre-Reformation mystics, to Meister Eckhart, and the unknown author of the ' German Theology/ It was from this side, from the school of Genius and Romance in philosophy, that Hegel was proximately driven, not into sheer re-action, but into system, development, and science.
1 Compare pages 50-102 of the Logic.
iv.] THE AGE OF GENIUS. xxxi
To elevate philosophy from a love of wisdom into the pos- session of real wisdom, into a system and a science, is the aim which he distinctly set before himself from the beginning1. In almost every work, and every course of lectures, whatever be their subject, he cannot let slip the chance of an attack upon the mode of philosophising, which substituted the strength of belief or conviction, for the intervention of reasoning and argument. There may have been a strong sympathy in him with the end which these German Coleridges, if we may so call them, had in view. No one who reads his criticism of Kant can miss perceiving his bent towards the Infinite. But he utterly rejects intuition, or the direct vision of truth, as a means to this end. Whereas these advocates of Faith either disparage science as a limitation to the spirit, in the calm trust of their life in God, or yearn throughout life for a peace which they never quite reach, Hegel is bent upon showing men that the Infinite is not unknowable, as Kant would have it, and yet that man does not, as Jacobi would have it, naturally and without an effort know the things of God 1. He will prove that the way of Truth is open, and prove it by describing in detail every step of the road. Philosophy for him must be reasoned truth. She does not visit favoured ones in visions of the night, but comes to all who win her by patient study.
' For those,' he says, ' who ask for a royal road to the science, no more convenient directions can be given than to trust to their own sound common sense, and, if they wish to keep up with the age and with philosophy, to read the reviews criticising philo- sophical works, and perhaps even the prefaces and the first paragraphs in these works themselves. The introductory re- marks state the general and fundamental principles ; and the reviews, besides their historical information, contain a critical estimate, which, from the very fact that it is such, is beyond and above what it criticises. This is the road of ordinary men : and it may be traversed in a dressing-gown. The other way is the way of intuition. It requires you to don the vestments of the } Compare pages 103-121 of the Logic.
XXX11
PROLEGOMENA. [iv.
high-priest. Along that road strides the ennobling sentiment of the Eternal, the True, the Infinite. But it is wrong to call this a road. These grand sentiments find themselves, naturally and without taking a single step, centred in the very sanctuary of truth. So mighty is genius with its deep original ideas, and its high flashes of thought. But a depth like this is not enough to lay bare the sources of true being, and these rockets are not the empyrean. True thoughts and scientific insight are only to be gained by the labour which comprehends and grasps its object. And that thorough grasp alone can produce the universality of science. Contrasted with the vulgar vagueness and scantiness of common sense, that universality is a fully-formed and rounded intellect; and, contrasted with an aristocratical universality in which the natural gift of reason has been spoilt by the laziness and self-conceit of genius, it is truth put in possession of its native form, and thus rendered the possible property of every self-conscious reason l '.
TThis hard saying, which as it were rung the knell to the friendship of Hegel with his great contemporary Schelling, is also the keynote to the subsequent work of the philosopher. In Hegel we need expect no brilliant aperqus of genius, no intel- lectual leger-de-main, but only the patient unravelling of the clue of thought through all knots and intricacies : a deliberate tracing and working-out of the contradictions and mysteries in thought, until the contradiction and the mystery disappear. Perseverance is the secret of Hegel.
This characteristic of patient work is seen, for example, in the incessant prosecution of hints and glimpses, until they grew into systematic and rounded outline. Instead of vague anticipations and guesses at truth, fragments of insight, his years of philo- sophic study are occupied with writing and re- writing in the endeavour to clear up and arrange the masses of his ideas. Essay after essay, and sketch after sketch of a system, succeed each other amongst his papers. His first great work was published in his 37th year, after six years spent in university
1 Phenomenologie des Geistes, p. 54.
iv.] FRAGMENTS OF HEGELIAN METHOD. xxxiii
work at Jena. The notes which he used to dictate to the boys in the Gymnasium at Nuremberg some years afterwards bear evidence of constant remodelling-.
Such insistance in tracing every suggestion of truth to its place in the universe of thought is the peculiar character and difficulty of Hegelian argument. Other observers have now and again noticed, accentuated, and, it may be, popu- larised some one point or some one law in the evolution of reason. Here and there, as we reflect, we are all forced to recognise what Hegel termed the dialectical nature in thought, — the tendency, by which an idea, when it is carried to extremes, recoils and swings round to the opposite pole. We cannot, for example, study the history of ancient thought without noting this pheno- menon. Thus, the persistence with which Plato and Aristotle taught and enforced the doctrine that the community was the autocratic master of the several citizens, very soon issued in the schools of Zeno and Epicurus, teaching the rights of self-seeking and isolation, or the equally pernicious selfishness of socialism. But the glimpse of an indwelling discord in the terms, by which we argue, is soon forgotten, and is classed under the head of accidents, instead of being referred to a general law. Most of us take only a single step in the process, and when we have overcome the seeming absoluteness of one idea, we are content and even eager to throw ourselves under the yoke of another, not less one-sided than its predecessor. Sometimes one feels tempted to say that the course of human thought as a whole, as well as that branch of it termed science, exhibits for the main part a succession of illusions, which enclose us in the belief that some idea is all-embracing as the universe,-1— illusions, from which the mind is time after time liberated, only in a little while to sink under the sway of some partial correction, as if it and it only were the complete truth.
Or, again, the Positive Philosophy exhibits as one of its features an emphatic and popular statement of a fallacy much discussed in Hegel. One of the best deeds of that school has been to protest against a delusive belief in certain words and
xxxiv PROLEGOMENA. [v.
notions ; particularly by pointing out the insufficiency of what it calls metaphysical terms, i. e. those abstract entities formed by reflective thought, which are little else than a double of the phenomenon they are intended to explain. To account for the existence of insanity by an assumed basis for it in the ' insane neurosis/ or to attribute the sleep which follows a dose of opium to the soporific virtues of the drug, are somewhat exaggerated examples of the metaphysical intellect. Positivism in its logical aspects has at least instilled general distrust of abstract talk about essences, and laws, and forces, and causes, whenever they claim an inherent and independent value, or profess to be more than a reflex of sensation. But all this is only a desultory per- ception, the reflection of an intelligent observer. When we come to Hegel, the Comtian perception of the danger lying in the terms of metaphysics is replaced by the Second Part of Logic, the Theory of Essential Being, of substances, causes, forces, essences, matters, in their essential relativity.
CHAPTER V.
THE SCIENCES AND PHILOSOPHY.
BY asserting the rights of philosophy against the dogmatism of Intuitional theories, and by maintaining that we must not feel the truth, with our eyes as it were closed, but must open them full upon it, Hegel does not reduce philosophy to the level of one of the finite sciences. The name ' finite,' like the name ' empirical,' is not a title of which the sciences have any cause to be ashamed. They are called empirical, because it is their glory and their strength to found upon experience. They are called finite, because they have a fixed object, which they must expect and cannot alter ; because they have an end and a beginning, —
v.] TEE RISE OF THE SCIENCES.
pre-supposing something where they begin, and leaving some- thing for the sciences which come after. Botany rests upon the researches of chemistry: and astronomy hands over the record of cosmical movements to geology. Science is inter- linked with science ; and each of them is a fragment. Nor can these fragments ever, in the strict sense of the word, make up a whole or total. They have broken off, sometimes by accident, and sometimes for convenience, from one another. The sciences have budded forth here and there upon the tree of popular knowledge and ordinary consciousness, as interest drew attention closer to various points and objects in the world surrounding us.
Prosecute the popular knowledge about any point far enough, substituting completeness and accuracy for vagueness, and especially giving numerical definiteness in weight, size, and measure, until the little drop of fact has grown into an ocean, and the mere germ has expanded into a structure with complex inter-connexion, — and you will have a science. By its point of origin this luminous body of facts is united to the great circle of human knowledge and ignorance : but the part very soon assumes an independence of its own, and adopts a hostile or negative attitude towards the general level of unscientific opinion. This process of what we may, from the vulgar point of view, call abnormal development, is repeated irregularly at various points along the surface of ordinary consciousness. At one time it is the celestial movements calling for the science of astronomy : at another the divisions of the soil calling for the geometrician. Each of these outgrowths naturally re-acts and modifies the whole range of human knowledge, or what we may call popular science ; and thus, while keeping up its own life, it quickens the parent stock with an infusion of new vigour, and raises the general intelligence to a higher level and into a higher element.
The order of the outcome of the sciences in time, therefore, and their connexions with one another, cannot be explained or understood, if we look only to the sciences themselves. We must first of all descend into the depths of natural thought, and trace
c 2
xxxvi PROLEGOMENA. [v.
the lines which unite science with science in that general medium. The systematic inter-dependence of the sciences must be chiefly sought for in the workings of thought as a whole in its popular phases, and in the action and reaction of that general human thought with the sciences, — those masses of extended knowledge which form round the nuclei here and there presented in the somewhat attenuated medium of popular knowledge. Thus, by means of the sciences in their aggregate action, the material of common consciousness is extended and developed, at least in certain parts, though the extension may be neither consistent nor systematic. But so long as this work is incomplete, so long, that is to say, as every point in the line of popular knowledge has not received its due elaboration and equal study, the sciences are finite : they merely succeed each other in a certain imperfect sequence, or exist in juxtaposition : but they do not form a total. The whole of scientific knowledge will only be formed, when science shall be as completely rounded and unified, as in its lower sPnere an(l more inadequate element the ordinary consciousness of the world is now, — when the isolations of the sciences shall ^ave cease<^> an<^ ^ey kave re-created in all its details the theory of the world.
The chief point about the method of science, is that it carries out thoroughly and with settled consciousness the same methods as ordinary or unscientific knowledge (to use one of those oxymorons which the genius of English allows). The method of the science is but the method of ordinary consciousness pursued knowingly, steadily, and in what, with future explanations, we may call an exaggerated style. The great principle of that method, by which its results are gained, is analysis and ab- straction, comparison and distinction. Divide et impera is its motto. To isolate a phenomenon from its context, — to penetrate beneath the apparent complexity, which time and custom have taught ordinary eyes to see in the world, to the underlying simplicity of elements, — to leave everything extraneous out of sight, — to abolish the teleology which imposes an alien bond upon Nature, — and to take, as it were, one thing at a time :
v.] THE SWAY OF ANALYSIS. xxxvii
that is the problem of the sciences. And to accomplish that
end they do not hesitate to break the charmed link which
in common vision holds the world together, — the spiritual bar- J
mony which the sense of beauty finds in the scene, — the chain of f '
cause and effect, means and end, which reflection has thrown from
thing to thing ; and finally to sever the connexion by which —
' the whole round world is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.'
Knowledge is power ; and power in its own highest form is seen in the separations made by the abstracting intellect. To divide part from part, and then to give the severed member a being of its own, is the tendency of scientific thought. The sword of the analyst smites asunder the cords which support the solid fabric of our ordinary world : it destroys life, and yet the body of death is with strange power retained, as if it were alive. Beauty, and unity, and connexion fall before analysis : teleology is driven out by mechanics, dualism by monism ; and those cobwebs which the hoary superstitions of thought have spun over the face of nature are snapt asunder or swept away.
In those days when ancient, or for that matter, modern philosophy, was yet in unsuspecting alliance with science, while thought, as the phrase is, was still trammelled by metaphysics, man was the centre and keystone of the Universe. Man was the measure of all things :
' Man, once descried, imprints for ever His presence on all lifeless things : the winds Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout, A querulous mutter, or a quick gay laugh : Never a senseless gust, now man is born.'
To the extent of his abilities and his culture, man has in all ages had to read himself into the phenomena external to him. Such readings into nature were, in their low degree, fetichism and anthropomorphism. But in later times, when the sciences had emancipated themselves from the yoke of philosophy, they refused to borrow any such help in reading the riddle of the universe, and resolved to begin ab ovo, from the atom or cell, and then leave
xxxviii PROLEGOMENA. [v.
the elements to work out their own devices. Modern science in
Kso doing practises the lessons learned from Spinoza and Hume. in A_, The former teaches that all conception of order in nature, and indeed all the methods by which nature is popularly explained, are only modes of our imagination, due to the weakness of human intellect1. The latter points out that all connexions between things are solely the work of time and custom, ac- credited only by experience2. There must be no pre-suppositions allowed in the studies of science, no help derived prematurely from the later terms in the process. Let man, it is said, be explained by those laws, and by the action of those primary elements which build up every other part of nature : let molecules by mechanical union construct man, body and soul, and then construct society. The elements which we find by analysis must be all that is required to make the synthesis. Thus in modern times science carries out, fully and with the details of actual knowledge in several branches, the principles of the atom and the void, which Democritus suggested, but could not verify by real investigations.
The scientific spirit, however, the spirit of analysis and ab- straction (or of ' Mediation ' and ' Reflection '), is not confined in its operations to the physical world. The criticism of ordinary beliefs and conventions has been applied — and applied at an earlier period — to what has been called the Spiritual world, to Art, Religion, Morality, and the several forms of human Society. Under these names the agency of ages, by their individual minds, has created organic systems, unities which claim to be permanent, inviolable, and divine. Such unities or organic structures are the Family, the State, the works of Art, the forms,
1 Spinoza, Ethica, i. 36. App. 'Quoniam ea nolis prae ceteris grata sunt quae facile imaginari possumus, ideo homines ordinem confusioni praeferunt : quasi ordo aliquid in natura praeter respectum ad nostram imaginationem esset.
' I idemus itaque omnes rationes quibus vulgus sold naturam explicare modes esse tantummodo imaginandi.'
2 ' This transition of thought from the Cause to the Effect proceeds not from Reason. It derives its origin altogether from Custom and Experience.' Hume, Essay V. (Enquiry concerning Human Understanding.) 'All inferences from Experience therefore are effects of Custom.' (Ibid.)
v.] THE AGE OF CRITICISM. xxxix
doctrines, and systems of Religion, existing- and recognised in ordinary consciousness. But in these cases, as in Nature, the reflective principle may come forward and ask what right these unities have to exist. This is the question which the c Ency- clopedic,' the ' Aufklarung,' the Socialist and ' Freethinking ' theories, raise ancl"~have raised in the last century and the present. What is the Family, it is said, but a fiction or con- vention, which is used to give a decent, but somewhat trans- parent covering to a certain animal appetite, and its probable consequences? What is the State, and what is Society, but a fiction or compact, by which the weak try to make themselves seem strong, and the unjust seek to shelter themselves from the consequences of their own injustice ? What is Religion, it is said, but a delusion springing from the fears and weakness of the crowd, and the cunning of the few, which men have fostered until it has wrapped humanity in its snaky coils ? And Poetry, we are assured, like its sister Arts, will perish and its illusions fade away, when Science, now in the cradle, has become the full-grown Hercules. As for Morality and Law, and the like, the same condemnation has been prepared from of old. All of them, it is said, are but the inventions of power and craft, or the phantoms of human imagination, which the strength of positive science and bare facts is destined in no long time to dispel. n,
When they insisted upon a severance of the elements in the / Aj>~/t«^t- vulgarly-accepted unities of the world, Science and Freethink- ing, like Epicurus in an older day, have believed that they were liberating the world from its various superstitions, from the bonds which instinct and custom had fastened upon things, com- bining them into systems more or less arbitrary. They both deny the supremacy and reality of those ideas which bind into one what have separate existences of their own, and term these ideas comprehensively mysticism and metaphysics. They dis- abuse us of spirits, and vital forces, and divine right of govern- ments, and final causes, et hoc genus omne. In this way they practically assert the independence of man, and his right to demand satisfaction for the questioning, ground-seeking faculty
xl PROLEGOMENA. [v.
of his nature. But while they do so, they abolish unity out of the world. ' Phenomenalism/ as this mode of looking at things has" been called, completely puts an end to anything like phi- losophy l.
~/ To some extent philosophy returns to the position of the ^-^ » wider consciousness, to the general belief in harmony and sym-
~ ^ I I metry. It reverts to the unity or connexion, which the natural presumptions of mankind find in the picture of the world. The intuitional creed, in reaction from the supposed excesses of the sciences, simply reverted to the bare re-state- ment of the popular creed. If science e.g. had shown that the perception of an external world was an inference resulting through a series of intermediate steps, Reid simply denied the intermediation by appealing to Common Sense, and Jacobi by invoking Faith. Conviction and natural instinct were declared to counterbalance the abstractions of science. But philosophy which grasps and comprehends existence cannot take the same ground as the intuitional school, or neglect the testimony of science. If the spiritual unity of the world has been destroyed, mere assertion that we feel and believe that it still subsists will not do much good. It is necessary to reconcile the contrast be- tween the wholeness of the natural vision, and the fragmentary, but in its fragments elaborated, result of science.
The sciences dissipate fixed ideas, and in so far help on the progress of humanity, by removing one apparent barrier after another. They show the negative aspect of those unities which the mind necessarily imposes. But it is reserved for philosophy to give these results their proper place, and appreciate the whole value of the links of thought, negative as well as positive. And thus philosophy gathers up the fruit of scientific research into the total development of humanity : and uses the very work of science to fill up the lacunae, the gaps, which popular conscious- ness bounds over unthinkingly and with a light heart. Phi- losophy comes to sum up and estimate what science has accom- plished : and therein is as it were the spirit of the world taking "l J. Grote: Exploratio Philosophies.
v.] THE UNITIES OF PHILOSOPHY. xli
into his own hand the acquisitions won by the more audacious and self-willed of his sons, and investing them in the common store. They are set aside and preserved there, at first in an abstract and technical form, but destined soon to pass into the possession of all, and form that mass of belief and instinctive or implanted knowledge whence a new generation will draw its mental supplies. Each great philosophical system, is in its turn set aside. It leaves the professorial chair, and spreads into the common life of men, becoming embodied in their daily beliefs, — a dead-looking seed of thought, from which, by the combined agency of intelligent experience and speculation, a new phi- losophy will one day spring.
Philosophy is the synthesis of science, but in a new sphere,. a higher medium not recognised by the sciences themselves. The reconciliation which the philosopher believes himself to accom- plish between ordinary consciousness and science is identified by either side with a phase of its antagonist error. Science will term philosophy a modified form of the old religious super- stition. The popular consciousness of truth, and especially religion, will see in philosophy only a repetition or an aggra- vation of the evils of science. The attempt at unity will not approve itself to either, until they enter upon the ground which philosophy occupies, and move in that element. And that elevation into the philosophic ether calls for a tension of thought which is the sternest labour imposed upon man : so ifL^l ll-n-/l> that the continuous action of philosophising has been often styled superhuman. It renders proof impossible unless for those who are willing to think for themselves. Every step is an effort, and the result, apart from the process which pro- duced it, vanishes like the palace in the fairy tale. It is com- paratively easy to abstract, to leave one thing after another out of sight, to isolate an element, to move from stationary point to point, instead of making one pass into another, and yet not lose itself in that absorption. It is comparatively easy to retire upon self, to reject all the separations and gulfs which science lays bare, and to cling blindly to the fact of
xlii PROLEGOMENA. [v.
unity which the natural consciousness feels and vouches for. The former is the general attitude of science : the latter is the general attitude of much popular consciousness, much popular religion, and much so-called philosophy. But the difficult task which philosophy imposes is to unite the two lines of action, and to unite them, not like two things of which each must have its turn, but indissolubly in one activity. >
' The whole of philosophy is nothing but the study of the specific forms or types of unity1.' There are many species and grades of this synthetic unity. They are not merely to be asserted in a vague way, as they here and there force them- selves upon the notice of the popular mind. Philosophy sees in that unity neither an ultimate and unanalysable fact/ nor a deception, but a growth, a revealing or unfolding, which issues in an organism or system, constructing itself more and more completely by a force of its own. This system formed by these types of the fundamental unity is called the ' Idea,' of which the highest law is development. Philosophy essays to do for this connective and unifying nature, i. e. for thought, jtyfu) something like what the sciences have done or would like to do f°r tne facts °f sense and matter, — to do for the spiritual binding-element in its integrity, what is being done for the several facts which are combined. It retraces the universe of thought from its germinal form, where it seems, as it were, an indecomposable point, to the fully matured system or organism, and shows not merely that one phase of pure thought passes into another, but how it does so, and yet is not lost, but subsists suspended and deprived of its narrowness in the maturer phase.
But it goes further than thus to develope into a science and kingdom of Truth the natural and unreasoned faith in unity Lw-c*^,* * and order. The fixed points, the substantial realities of the physical and the spiritual world, the works of Nature and of Mind, between which the connective lines seem to stretch, are deprived of their fixity and stability. The so-called ' reality '
1 Philosophic der Religion, I. p. 97. 'Die ganze Philosophic ist nichts Anderes als das Studium der Bestiramungen der Einheit.'
/ .
U^^i^r-L
J
v.] THE PHILOSOPHICAL TRIAD. xliii
of these objects is seen to be due to an indolence of thought, which has become habitual, so that we lose sight of the process which gave them being. Their reality is, in short, an ab- straction : when we look to the whole, to the process of thought in large, we see that it would be only just to speak of their ideality, that is to say, their inherence in a system or total theory, on which they depend. Thus, then, the so-called things of Nature and Mind are to be set forth as further stages in the evolution of the Idea, differing in degree rather than in kind. Nature and Art, Law and Morality, only repeat the same organic process : except that as each advance is made, a new element or level of thought is produced, a higher multiple, in which the movement of reason takes place with larger issues and more complex terms. In this way the kingdoms of the natural and mental world, with all their provinces, lose their inflexible dis- tinctions, and become pregnant with a principle of life. J, I ,
Thus there are two kingdoms open to science and philosophy : the kingdom of external Nature, and the kingdom of Mind. In both of these there is a certain arrangement and system. To unravel that order and show the successive steps by which the system is constituted is the problem of Applied Philosophy. It is the scope of the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Mind. But the earlier and vital problem (and that which is the especial work of Hegel) is to determine this order in it- self in its native medium of thought, where only it is perfectly clear, transparent, and fluid : the system of the increasing com- plexity of thought, as a world of abstract or pure spirits, where matter and form, as commonly understood, coincide. It seeks to record the ranks of spiritual hierarchy in which the pure types of thought are ranged : the super-sensible world in which each point is potentially the whole, and the whole is nothing unless it grasp its every member : a circle of circles, of which each is a total, if we could only rest there, and were not incessantly driven onwards into a wider range of thought. In this organism of thought, as scientifically displayed, there is no need to speak of the question of time. This organism, if we may apply the
xliv PROLEGOMENA. [vi.
imperfect term to describe the Idea, is the sphere of Logic : which, in the words of Hegel, treats of the pure Idea, of the Idea in the abstract medium of thought.
CHAPTER VI.
THE GENESIS OF HEGELTANISM.
WE have seen man make the world bend to his wants and turn it into his property, by stamping his mark upon it. On the world — and to that extent it is his world — he has imposed the laws of his own thoughts and desires, so humanizing it. But if this moulding it into a purpose, and so unifying it, be the result of his practical operations upon nature, it is no less the instinctive basis of his theoretical attitude towards it. The innate tendency of the human mind is to connect and set in relation, — to connect, it may be erroneously, or without proper scrutiny, or under the influence of passions or prejudices, — but at any rate to connect. For, as Mr. Herbert Spencer and many 4' others are never weary of telling us: 'We think in relations.
n^td- This is truly the form of all thought : and if there are any other forms they must be derived from this1.' Man used to be de- fined as a thinking or rational animal : which means that man is a connecting and relation-giving animal ; and from this Aristotle's definition, making him out to be a ' political ' animal, is only a corollary, most applicable in the region of Ethics. Here is the ultimate point, from which the natural conscious-
1 First Principles, p. 162. It may be as well to remark that Relation is scarcely an adequate description of the nature of thought as a whole. We shall see when we come to speak of the theory of logic, that the term is applicable — and then somewhat imperfectly — only to the second phase of thought, the categories of reflection, which are the favourite categories of science and popular metaphysics.
vi.] DOUBTS RAISED AGAINST REASON. xlv
ness, and the energies of science, art, and religion equally start upon their special missions.
The more we become acquainted with things, so long at least as we keep our view from being absorbed in one point, the more connexion we see. But two things may happen. Either we incline to let the fact of synthesis drop out of sight, as if it re- quired no further study or notice, and we regard the things con- nected as exclusively worth attending to. We use general and half-explained terms, such as development, evolution, continuity, as bridges from one thing to another, without giving any regard to the means of locomotion on their own account. Some one thing is the product of something else : we let the term ' pro- duct ' slip out of the proposition as unimportant : and then read the statement so as to explain the one thing by turning it into the other. Things, according to this opinion, are all-important : the rest is mere words. These relations between things are not open to further investigation or definition : they are each sui generis, or peculiar : and we must be content, if we can classify them in some approximate way, as a basis for our subdivision of propositions. This is certainly one way of getting rid of Meta- physics— for the time. The other way is as follows. At certain points when we stop to reflect upon the partial scene, and close our eyes to the totality, doubts begin to arise, whether our procedure is justified, when- we unify and combine the isolated phenomena. Have we any right to throw our own subjectivity, the laws of our imagination and thought, into the natural world? Would it not be more proper to refrain altogether from the use of such conceptions?
This question was proposed by Hume in reference to some special forms of relation or unification, particularly that of causality. Kant endeavoured to return a comprehensive answer. His answer had a general kinship with the sceptical solution which Hume had offered of his own doubts : but in its special nature it was considerably different. Kant agreed with Hume in maintaining that the forms of thought could lead to no knowledge in regard to the nature of things, unless they were
xlvi PROLEGOMENA. [vi.
justified and supported by experience. The knowledge, of which the human mind is susceptible, is, he says, indeed objective, because it is valid for all intelligence : but it is in the last resort still subjective, because it is baffled by the inaccessible Thing-in-itself. But the Kantian solution differed from that of Hume, when it went on to analyse the fact of these relations between ideas, and to draw out the genealogical table of those forms of conception which form our native intel- lectual power. Knowledge, according to Kant's view of its nature, is the meeting of two elements, one of which comes from our sensation, and the other from our understanding. The matter of sensation conforms to certain conditions, which are known in the most general terms as time and space. The contribution of our understanding is more strictly formal, giving synthesis and arrangement to the matter of sensation. It is with this second constituent that we are here concerned. Hume had said that our attempts at a synthesis of phenomena were mere habits, accruing by experience. Kant agreed, and only held that our actual knowledge necessarily pre-supposed these forms of synthesis, and was consequently only true for us, but not for the things. But apart from that result, his claim to remembrance will rest upon his exposition of the mind as the form of forms, the region of intellectual forms. He prepared the way for the progress of philosophy by first opening up the field of logic as a science of the pure intellect : of intellect on its own account, and not a mere observer of other things. His work was what we may call the first psychology of pure thought.
But the system as presented by Kant had more than one defect. In the first place, the table of the categories was in- complete. It had been borrowed, as Kant himself tells us, from the old logical subdivision of judgments, derived more or less directly from Aristotle and the Schoolmen. But many of the relations occurring in ordinary thought could not be reduced to any of the twelve forms, without doing violence to them. In the second place, the classification exhibited no principle or reason, and gave ground for no development.
vi.] SHORTCOMINGS OF KANT'S CRITICISM. xlvii
That there should be four fundamental categories, each with three divisions, making twelve in all, is as inexplicable as that the four Athenian tribes of early times should form twelve Phratriai. The twelve patriarchs of thought stand in equal authority, with little or no bearing upon one another. We have here, in the phrase of the sciences, an artificial, and not a natural classification of the types of thought. In the third place, the question was taken up as merely psychological, or subjective, concerning the constitution of the human mind in its integrity and purity. And thus the Kantian statement breaks itself, as we should now say, unnecessarily, on the Thing-in-itself, — the mysterious world in its unimpaired and unmodified being, which, though an unknown factor, yet enters into knowledge.
This subjectivity, artificiality, and imperfection of the list, are faults which need not excite much wonder. For in the year 1781 we are in the days when the ' Rights of Man,' the claims of the individual and subjective reason, were proclaimed with more emphasis than in most periods of history. The ' Confessions ' of Rousseau were only one illustrious specimen out of hundreds of autobiographies, which detailed the private and personal aspects of individual life : and the religious world was at the same time filled with records of pious experiences and with the minute details of conversions. It was a time utterly wanting in a true sense of what was meant by nature and by history. It had not that historical sense, which frees a man from the limitations of his own particular nature, and his age : and thus makes it at least possible for him to reach what is universal and true. Instead of historical criticism, the method of what is sometimes named ' Advanced Theology,' was in this period properly known as Rationalism1. To rationalise meant to apply the canons of our limited enlighten- ment to the unlimited ranges of actuality. In these circum-
1 Thus in a modernisation of the New Testament, concocted by Bahrdt, a person of some notoriety in those days, Matth. v. 4 (' Blessed are they that mourn : for they shall be comforted ') was paraphrased thus : ' Happy those, who prefer the sweet melancholy of virtue to the pleasant joys of sin.'
xlviii PROLEGOMENA. [vi.
stances the limitations of Kant's ' Criticism of the Pure Reason ' are explicable enough.
In Hegel the question assumes a wider scope, and receives a more thorough -go ing answer. In the first place the question about the Categories is transferred from what we have called the psychological, to what Hegel terms the logical, sphere. It is transferred, to quote the language of the ancients already referred to, from the Reason in man subjectively considered to the Reasonable or Intellectual World ', which our Reason, as it were, touches, and so becomes possessed of knowledge. In the second place, the Categories become a vast multitude. The intellectual telescope discovers new stars behind the con- stellations visible to the naked eye, and resolves the nebulae of thought into worlds of self-centred intelligence. There is no longer any mystic virtue supposed to inhere in the number twelve. The modern chemist of thought vastly amplifies the number of its elementary types and factors, and proves that many of the old Categories are neither simple nor indecompos- able. Thirdly, there is a systematic development or process which links the Categories together, and from the most simple, abstract, and inadequate, brings forth the most complex and adequate. Each term or member in the organism of thought has its place conditioned by all the others : each of them contains the germ, or the ripe fruit of another.
In this logical view of the Categories, the extension of their limits, and the drawing closer together of their connexions, we may see in a very general way the advance which Hegel makes upon Kant. To explain how he came to make that step would be a very valuable matter for history and biography : but it would involve an extensive knowledge of the scientific life in the end of the last century and the beginning of the present. One or two points may be stated. The work of G. R. Treviranus on c Biology, or the Philosophy of Animated Nature/ of which the first three volumes appeared between the years 1802 and 1805, and the 'Philosophic Zoologique ' of Jean Lamarck,
1 From the vovs as the TQITOS iStwv or tidos dSSiv, to the «oo>ios vorjrds.
vi.] FIRST GLIMPSES OF DEVELOPMENT. xlix
published in 1809, were almost contemporaneous with the first great work of Hegel's, the ' Phenomenology,' which appeared in 1807. In these two works, but especially in that of Lamarck, the theory of the descent of species from one typical kind by adaptation and inheritance was stated in a comparatively definite and systematic form. Besides these, the 'Metamorphoses of Plants ' had shown that Goethe, as early as 1790, was engaged with speculations, which in more modern times have become almost solely associated with the name of Darwin. All of these, and especially the essay of the great poet, were closely studied by Hegel : as can be shown by the detailed analysis of Goethe's work, given in the ' Philosophy of Nature Y and by the frequent references to the two physiologists in the appendices to the later sections of that work. The theory of development was, to use a common phrase, in the air : it in- spired both poetry and scientific speculation : and in a subtle and philosophic form it was applied on a magnificent scale by Hegel. It gives the theory of thought as a process — a develop- ment which knows nothing of distinctions between past and future, because it implies an eternal present, and goes on sub specie aeterni.
It is also to be remembered that between Kant and Hegel there falls the rapid and vigorous action of Fichte and of Schelling's earlier period. Fichte had applied the doctrine of Kant in the regions of morality and religion : Schelling to nature and history. In this way they had translated the theory of Pure Reason from the somewhat narrowing limits of the human mind into the province of actuality and concrete facts. They had thus practically and by implication overcome the subjectivity, the element of weakness which clung to the Categories of Kant. But while they led thought forward into a more extended and complex field, and paved the way for a re-statement of the problem on a universal ground, they did not add much to the foundation, or remedy its inadequacy. Fichte, by showing that intelligence is an act rather than
1 Natur-Philosophie, p. 483. (Encycl. § 345.) d
1 PROLEGOMENA. [vii.
a fact, — that the beginning of philosophy was the postulate 'Think!' — that the thought must limit itself and institute distinctions, and that the Categories issue from this act of self-determination, gave some more unity and principle to the Categories than Kant had done. But it was reserved for Hegel to set the problem in a fuller light. And he was enabled to do so, by that exhaustive study of history and all the works of the human mind, by that unwearied endeavour to construe his thoughts and to see the meaning of history, which marks the third decennium of his life. These researches made him capable of substituting for the vague 'Absolute,' which is the catch-word of the philosophy of the period, the completely-detailed structure of the Idea, the Intelligible World with all its specific types and the process on which they depend : even as Kant had translated the vague and abstract term ' Understanding ' into the articulated scheme of his twelve Categories.
CHAPTER VII.
KANT AND HIS PROBLEM.
THE ' Criticism of the Pure Reason ' is a generalisation of the problem discussed by Hume. The question, as it is enter- tained by Kant, is conceived in the wider form : < Is a science of Metaphysics possible ? ' or, in his own technical language, « Are synthetic judgments a priori possible ?' Hume had treated his question on the ' relations of ideas ' in their bearing upon ' matters of fact,' mainly with reference to the isolated case of cause and effect: but Kant extended the inquiry so as to comprise all those connective and unifying ideas, of which Metaphysics is full, and which it employs in the belief that
vii.] KANT AND VOLTAIRE. li
they can by themselves give rise to real knowledge apart from experience. On that employment Kant pronounces judg- ment in the following terms. So far as our several experiences go, the faculties of intellect, i.e. the Categories of the Under- standing, find their proper scope; and knowledge results from the united action of the senses and the intellect. But each single experience, and the collected aggregate of these ex- periences, is felt to fall short of a complete total : and yet this complete total, the ultimate unity, is itself not an experience at all. But, if it be no object of experience, it is still an idea on which reason is inevitably driven : and the attempt to apprehend it, in the absence of experience, gives rise to the problem of Metaphysics. Everything, however, which can be in the strict sense of the word known, must be perceived in space and time, or, in other words, must lie open to experience. Where experience ends, human reason meets a barrier which checks any efficient progress, but not a limit which it feels impossible to pass. The idea of completeness, of a rounded system, or unconditioned unity, is still left, after the categories of the understanding have done their best : and is not destroyed although its realisation or explication is declared to be im- possible.
There is thus left unexplained a totality which encom- passes all the single members of experience — a unity of which the several categories are only an imperfect collection of fragments — an infinite which commands and regulates the finite concepts of the experiential intellect. But in the region of rational thought there is no objective and independent standard by which we can verify the conclusions of Reason. There are no definite objects, lying beyond the borders of ex- perience, towards which it might unerringly turn ; and its sole authentic use, accordingly, is to see that the understanding is thorough and exact, when it deals in the co-ordination of experiences. In this want of definite objects, Reason, whenever it acts for itself, can only fall into perpetual contradictions and sophistries. Pure Reason, therefore, the faculty of ideas,
d 2
lii PROLEGOMENA. [vir.
the organon of Metaphysics, does not of itself ' constitute ' knowledge, but merely 'regulates' the action of the under- standing.
By this rigour of demonstration Kant dealt a deadly blow, as it seemed, to the dogmatic Metaphysics, and the Deism of his time. Hume had shaken the certainty of Metaphysics and thrown doubt upon Theology : but Kant apparently made an end of Metaphysics, and annihilated Deistic theology. The German philosopher did thoroughly and with systematic demon- stration what Voltaire did with literary graces and not without the witticisms with which the French executioner gives the coup de grace. When a great idea had been degraded into a vulgar doctrine and travestied in common reality, the Frenchman met its inadequacies with graceful satire, and showed that these half-truths were not eternal verities. The German made a theory and a system of what was only a sally of criticism ; and rendered the criticism wrong, by making it too consistent and too logical1. Kant argued that all a priori exercise of reason, apart from the co-operation of the senses and experience, is impossible or resultless. Without experience reason only deceives itself. Such is the outcome of the Kantian criticism, and upon it, as if it were a rock, rests the greater part of the advanced opinion of the present time. In this, as in many other points, the" philosopher of Konigsberg has anticipated the movement of modern thought 2.
These results might have been expected to issue from a doctrine of the mental constitution, which in its English, French, and German teachers had always considered man and his mind in the abstract, at one point in their range of development, apart from their surroundings and their antece- dents,— in short, at the eighteenth-century point of enlighten- ment. Kant, from one point of view, may be said to have
1 Hegel's Werke, vol. i. p. 140.
2 And for this reason physicists and critics are recurring to Kant, as a safe- guard against the conclusions of later German philosophy. Kant, in fact, is in a fair way to become the philosopher of this age.
vii.] KANT AND LOCKE. liii
done systematically and consistently what the English school of Locke had done partially, i.e. he carried out an individualist psych ology, the science of the individual mind, to its con- sequences1. In his own words, he seeks to find out what knowledge, if any, can be had, ' independently of experience and all impressions of the senses.' The mind, or faculty of thought, is to be analysed in dbstracto, as it were in a vacuum, with all its actual knowledge extracted, and only the possibility of knowledge left.
Aristotle, who saw into the nature of abstract entities, remarked that the mind was nothing before it exercised itself2. The mind, and the same is the case with everything in the spiritual sphere, is not a fixed thing, a sort of ex- ceedingly refined substance, which we can lay hold of without further trouble. It is what it has become, or what it makes itself to be. This point, that 'To be' = 'To have become,' is an axiom never to be lost sight of in dealing with the mind, where everything must be thought as a process. It is easy to talk of and to analyse conscience and freewill, as if these were existing things in a sort of mental space, as hard to miss or mistake as a stone and an orange. One asks if the will is free or not, as glibly as one might ask whether an orange is sweet; and the answer can be given with equal ease, affirmatively or negatively, in both cases. Everything in these cases depends on whether the will has made itself free or not, whether indeed we are speaking of the will at all. To ask the question in an abstract way, taking no account of circum- stances, is one of those temptations which lead the intellect astray, and produces only confusion and wordy war — as the greater part of metaphysics has done. The mind and its phenomena, as they are called, cannot be dissected with the same calmness of analysis as other substances which adapt themselves to the scalpel.
1 Hegel's Werke, vol. i. p. 31 : 'Kant's idealistische Seite, welche dem Subjecte gewisse Verhaltnisse, die Kategorien heissen, vindicirt, ist nichts als die Erweiter. ung des Lockeanismus.' 2 De Anima, III. 4.
liv PROLEGOMENA. [vn.
In a certain cookery-Look, it is said, the recipe for making hare-soup begins thus : ' First, catch your hare.' That necessary precaution is often omitted by the philosopher. Bad metaphysics proceeds as if the hare had certainly been caught, and for that reasop the result of all its manipulations is a rather watery decoction. True philosophy must show that it has got hold of what it means to discuss : it has to construct its subject-matter : and it constructs it by tracing every step and movement in its construction shown in actual history. The mind is what it has been made; and to see what it is we must consider it not as an Alpha and Omega of research, as popular conception and language tend to represent it, but in the elements constituting its process, in the fluidity of its development. We must penetrate the apparent fixity of a concept or term, and see through it into the process which bears it into being. For, otherwise the object of our investigation is taken, as if it were the most unmistakeable thing of sense and fancy, — as if every- body were agreed that this and no other were the point in question.
But in this matter of stability and the reverse, there is a broad distinction between the natural and the spiritual world. In nature every step in the organisation, by which the Cosmos is developed, has an independent existence of its own : and the lowest formation confronts the highest, each standing by itself beside the other. Matter and motion, for example, are not merely found as subordinate elements entering into the making of a plant or an animal. They have a free existence of their own : and the free existence of matter in motion is seen in the shape of the solar system. The several informations of the senses, again, — our sensations, — are thrown backwards and out- wards, and exist as properties of bodies, or even as elements of which bodies are said to be composed. But the specific types of several stages of integration in the process of mind, have no independent existence of their own, and are not other- wise apparent than as states or factors entering into, and merged in, the higher grades of development. This causes a
vii.] THE OBJECT OF SCIENCE IS A PROCESS. Iv
peculiar difficulty in the study of mind. We cannot seize a formation in an independent shape of its own : we must trace it in the growth of the whole. And hence when we accept the name, such as mind, conscience, will, &c., "as if it expressed something specially existent in a free shape of its own, we make an assumption which it is impossible to justify. We are reckoning with paper-money which belongs to no recognised currency, and may be stamped as the dealer wills. The conse- quence is that the thing with which we begin our examination is an opaque point, — a mere terminus a quo, from which we start on our journey of explication, leaving the terminus itself behind us unexplained.
The mind is not a ' substance,' but a ' subject.' In this rather tersely-put formula Hegel emphasises his opposition to the or- dinary metaphysics. The constituents of mind do not lie side by side tranquilly co-existent, like the sheep beside the herbage on which it browses. Their existence is maintained in an inward movement, by which, while they differentiate themselves, they still keep up an identity. In our investigations we cannot begin with what is to be defined. The botanist, if he is to give us a science of the plant, must begin with something whose in- dwelling aim it is to be itself and to realise its own possibility. He must begin with what is not the plant, and end with what is ; begin, let us say, with the germ which has the tendency to pass into the plant. The speculative science of biology begins with a cell, and builds these cells up into the tissues and struc- tures out of which vegetables and animals are constituted. The object of the science appears as the result of the scientific process : or, a science is the ideal construction of its object. As in these cases, so in the case of thought. We must see it grow up from its simplest element, from the bare point of being, which is nothing actually, but all things potentially ; and see it appear as a result due to the ingrowing and outgrowing union of many elements, none of which satisfies by itself, but leads onward from abstractions to the meeting of abstractions in the concrete. The mind, understanding, and reason of man is not
Ivi PROLEGOMENA. [vn.
a matter-of-fact unity to be picked up and examined. You must, first of all, make sure that you have a mind : and to be sure of that is to see that the mind is the necessary outcome of a course of development. The mind is not an immediate datum, with nothing1 behind it, coming upon the field of mental vision with a divinely-bestowed array of faculties ; but a mediated unity, i. e. a unity which has grown up through a complex interchange of forces, and which lives in differences.
If the mind be not thus exhibited in its process, we may mean what we like with each mental object that comes under our observation : but with as much right another observer may mean something else. Unless we show how this special form of mind is constituted, we are dealing with abstractions, with names which we may analyse, but which remain as they were when our analysis is over, and which seem like unsubstantial ghosts defying our coarse engines of dissection. They are not destroyed : like immaterial and aery beings they elude the sword which smites them, and part but to re-unite. The name, and the conception bodied forth in it, is indeed stag- nant, and will to all appearance become the ready prey of analysis : but there is something behind this materialised and solidified conception which mere analysis cannot even reach. And that underlying nature is a process or movement, a meet- ing of elements, which it is the business of philosophy to unfold. The analyst in this case has dealt with thought as if it were a finer sort of material product, a fixed and assailable point : and this is perhaps the character of the generalised images, or material thoughts of ordinary consciousness. But thoughts in their native medium are not solid, but, as it were, fluid and transparent, and can easily escape the divisions and lines which the analytical intellect would impose. Perhaps some may think that it is unwise to fight with ghosts like these, and that the best plan would be to disregard them altogether. But, on the other hand, it may be urged that such unsubstan- tial forms have a decided reality in life : that men will talk of them and conjure by their means, with or without intel-
vii .] T WO FA CTORS IN THE SCIENTIFIC PROCESS. Ivii
ligence ; and that the best course is to understand them. It will then be seen that it is our proper work as philosophers to watch the process, by which the spiritual unity divides and yet retains its divided members in unity.
Every individual object is seen to be the meeting of two currents, the coincidence of two movements. It concentrates into an undecompounded unit, — at least such it appears to imaginative or material thought, — two elements, each of which it is in turn identifiable with. The one of these elements has been called the self-same (or identity), the universal, the genus, the whole : while the second is called the difference, the par- ticular, the part. What has thus been stated in the technical language of Logic is often repeated in the scientific parlance of the day, but with more materialised conceptions and in more concrete cases. The dynamic theory of matter represents it as a unity of attraction and repulsion. A distinguished Dar- winian remarks that ' all the various forms of organisms are the necessary products of the unconscious action and reaction between the two properties of adaptability and heredity, re- ducible as these are to the functions of nutrition and repro- duction V The terms ' action and reaction ' are hardly sufficient, it may be, to express the sort of unity which is called for : but the statement at least shows the reduction of an actual fact to the interaction of two forces, the meeting of two cur- rents. The one of these is the power of the kind, or universal, which tends to keep things always the same : the other the power of localised circumstances and particular conditions, which tends to render things more and more diversified. The one may be called a centripetal, the other a centrifugal force. If the one side be synthetic, the other is analytic.
1 Hackel, Natiirliche Schopfungs-Geschichte, p. 157.
Iviii PROLEGOMENA . [vui.
CHAPTER VIII.
TRANSITION FROM KANT TO HEGEL.
As in the Dialectic of Pure Reason Kant only gave logical consistency to the sarcasms of Voltaire, so in the Analytic of the Understanding he trod more systematically in the steps of Locke. Locke had represented the mind as a tabula rasa before experience, a sheet of clean paper ready to receive pen and ink ; Kant sup- posed the sheet to be already prepared, like a photographic slide, with certain faculties of reception and combination, called out into actual existence when the sun of experience arose. But in both the mind had the tablet-like character. They both began with an assumption based upon abstraction : and this assumption led to a fatal flaw in their conclusions. The one as well as the other seems to have taken the understanding or reason to be some sort of thing or entity, however much they differed as to the peculiar nature of its constitution, or the amount of its original contents. In the one case as well as the other, accordingly, they were compelled to confront the mind with an external world, an object of knowledge existing apart by itself, and coming in certain ways and under certain forms into connexion with the subject-mind, likewise existing apart by itself. In this state of absolute disruption, with two independent centres in subject and object, how was it possible to get from one to the other ?
This was the common puzzle of all philosophers from Descartes to Schelling, Locke and Kant alike included. For its solution all sorts of incredible devices have been suggested, such as pre- established harmony, divine interposition, and impressions with ideas. It has given rise to the two opposite views, sometimes known as Idealism versus Realism, sometimes as Spiritualism versus Materialism. Such separations, it is said, do not concern the sciences. Neither, let it be added, have they meaning when employed to describe the character of a philosophy. They are
VIIL] THE ORIGINAL SIN OF THOUGHT. lix
distinctions familiar to popular thought, which is at home in such abstractions : and both science and philosophy have found it difficult to overcome them. But every true philosophy must be both idealist and realist : for Idealism is the grasp of the whole and the universal, Realism the fulness of the details and the parts. Without Realism a philosophy would be void of sub- stance and matter : without Idealism, it would be void of form and truth. Realism asserts the rights of the several and par- ticular existences to their own : Idealism asserts the thorough dependence and inter-dependence of all that exists.
It never seems to have occurred to these thinkers that the whole difficulty and disruption sprang from a misinterpretation, or from an inability to grasp a thought whole. And yet in this lies the secret of the solution. Neither the mind nor the so- called external world are either of them self-subsistent existences, issuing at once and ready-made out of nothing. The mind does not come forth, either equipped or un-equipped, to conquer the world : the world is not a prey prepared for the spoiler, wait- ing for the mind to comprehend and appropriate it. The mind and the world, the so-called ' subject ' and so-called ' object,' are equally the results of a process : and it is only when we isolate the terminal aspects of that process of differentiation, and lose sight of their origin, that we have two worlds facing each other. As the one side or aspect of the process gathers feature and form, so does the other. As the depth and in- tensity of the intellect increases, the limits of the external world extend also. The mind of the savage is exactly mea- sured by the world he has around him. The dull, almost animal, sensation and feeling, which is what we may call his mental action, is just the obverse of the narrow circum- ference of his external world. The beauty and interest of the grander phenomena of terrestrial nature, and of the celestial movements, have no influence on a being, whose whole soul is swallowed up in the craving for food and the lower enjoyments of sense. In the course of history we can see the intellect growing deeper and broader, and the limits of the world
Ix PROLEGOMENA. [vin.
recede simultaneously with the advance of the mind. This process or movement of culture takes place in the sequence of generations. But science takes no interest in the medium of time, and merely uses it as a stepping-stone to the rational sequence of ideas >.
The objective world of knowledge is really at one with the subjective world : they spring from a common source, what Kant called the ' original synthetic unity of apperception.' The dis- tinction between them flows from abstraction. The subjective world — the mind of man — is really constituted by the same force as the objective world of nature : the latter has been translated from its externality of parts in time and space, into an inner world where unity, the fusion or coalescence of all types and forms, is a leading feature. The difficulty of passing from the world of being to the world of thoughts, from notion to thing, from subject to object, from Ego to Non-ego, is a difficulty which men have made for themselves in their theories. They reasoned on the ground that the individual mind was a fixed and ab- solute centre, from which the universe had to be evaluated. In Hegel's words, they made man and not God the object of their philosophy 2. So that Kant really showed the outcome of a system which acted on the hypothesis that man in his individual capacity was all in all. Hegel, on his own showing, came to prove that the real scope of philosophy was God, — that is, the ' original synthetic unity ' from which the external world and the Ego have issued by differentiation, and in which they return to unity.
If this be so, then there is behind the external world and behind the mind an organism of pure types or forms of thought, which presents itself, complete but in fragments, to the senses
1 Natur-Philosophie, p. 32. Hegel undoubtedly held that 'metamorphosis,' as the word then was, only applied to the living individual, and not to the succession of species. ' Auf das lebendige Individuum allein ist die existirende Metamor- phose beschrankt.' (Encycl. § 249.) It is an absurd idea, he says, which, in order to make the development clearer, has thrown it back into the darkness of the past (um sie deutlicher zu machen, in das Dunkel der Vergangenheit zuriickgelegt hat). a Hegel's Werke, vol. i. p. 15.
viii.] THE ORIGINAL SYNTHETIC UNITY, Ixi
in the world of nature, where all things lie outside of one another, and which then is, as it were, reflected back into itself so as to constitute the mind, or spiritual world, where all parts tend to coalesce in unity. The deepest craving of thought, and the fundamental problem of philosophy, will accordingly be to discover the nature and law of that totality or prime- val unity, — the totality, which we see appearing in the double aspect of nature and mind, and which we first become ac- quainted with as it is manifested in this state of disunion. To satisfy this want is what the Logic of Hegel seeks. It lays bare the kingdom of those potent shades, which embodies itself more concretely in the external world of body, and the inward world of mind. The psychological or individualist conditions, which even in the Kantian criticism set up mind as an entity parallel to the objects of nature, and antithetic to nature as a whole, have fallen away. Reason has to be taken in the whole of its actualisation as a world of reason, not in its bare possibility, not in the narrow ground of an individual's level of develop- ment, but in the realised formations of reasonable knowledge and action, as shown in Art, Life, Science, and Religion. In this way we come to a reason which might be in us or in the world, but which, being to a certain extent different from either, was the focus of two orders of manifestations.
To ascertain that ultimate basis of the world and mind was the first thing philosophy had to see to. But in order to do this, it was necessary to consider the self-conscious mind, or total and absolute individual, in its course of formation. In other words, it was requisite to discern the real value of history, taking that name in its largest sense as the general record of development, of differentiation and integration in the career of man and nature. The method of history and development, if systematically carried out and freed from times, places, and accidents, is the method of philosophy. The first adequate re- cognition of the method of philosophy as the real method of history is to be found in Hegel. It is true that the poet and theologian Herder had already caught a glimpse of the value
Ixii PROLEGOMENA. [vni.
and meaning- of history. In his 'Ideen zur Philosophic der Geschichte der Menschheit ' (1784 — 1791)) which appeared almost at the same time with the great works of Kant, the purpose he set forth was to comprehend man, the microcosm, by first studying the universe as a whole. And however much the general vice of the age of Rousseau betrayed itself in the pre-possession shown for the natural and ruder phases of human life, the leading principle of Herder, — that history and nature are subject to the same laws, — was true and fruitful. This historical sense and perception of the universal bearings of life was foreign to Kant. The terms in which he mentions the Categories of Aristotle, are only one evidence amongst many which show an insensibility to the meaning of history. He speaks with not unjustifiable contempt of scholars to whom philosophy meant its history : and his own acquaintance with the writings of ancient thinkers seems to have been slight1. In these points he is the very opposite of Hegel.
Hegel's philosophy is undoubtedly the outcome of a vast amount of historical experience, particularly in the ancient world, and implies a somewhat exhaustive study of the products of art, science, politics, and religion. By experience he was led to his philosophy, not by what is called a priori reasoning. It is curious to observe the prevalent delusion that German philosophy is the { high a priori road/ — to hear its profundity admired, but its audacity and neglect of obvious facts deplored. The fact is that without experience neither Hegel nor any- body else will come to anything. But, on the other hand, experience is only a form which in one man's case means a certain power of vision, and in another a different degree. One man sees the idea as actuality : to the other man it is only a subjective notion. And even when it is seen, there are dif- ferences in the subsequent development. One man sees it, asserts it on all hands, and then closes. Another sees it, and asks if this is all, or if it is only part of a system. An appeal to ' my experience ' is very much like an appeal to ' my senti-
1 Hegel's Werke, vol. i. p. 38.
viii.] HISTORY WITHOUT NAMES OR DATES. Ixiii
merits ' or ' my fec4ings : ' it may prove as much or as little as can be imagined : in other words, it can prove nothing. And if an appeal to other people's experience is meant, that is only an argument from authority. What other people experience, is their business, not mine. Experience means a great deal for which it is not the right name: and to give an explanation of what it is, and what it does, would render a great service to English methodologists.
There are, however, two modes in which these studies to discover the truth may appear. In the one case they are reproduced in all their fragmentary and patch-work character. They are supposed to possess a value of their own, and are enunciated with all the detail of historic incident. The common- place books of a man are, as it were, published to instruct the world, and give some hint of the extent of his reading. But in the other case the scaffolding of incident and externality may be removed. The single facts, which gave the persuasion of the idea, are dismissed, as interesting only for the individual student on his way to truth : or, if the historical vehicle of truth be retained at all, it is translated into another and in- tellectual medium. Such a history, the quintessence of exten- sive and deep research, is presented in the Phenomenology. The names of persons and places have faded from the record, as if they had been written in evanescent inks, — dates are wanting, — individualities and their biographies yield up their place to universal and timeless principles. Such typical forms are the concentrated essence of endless histories. They remind one of the descriptions which Plato in his Republic gives of the several forms of temporal government. Or, to take a modern instance, the Hegelian panorama of thought which presents only the universal evolution of thought, — that evolution in which the whole mind of the world takes the place of all his children, whether they belong to the common level, or stand amongst representative heroes, — may be paralleled to English readers by Browning's poem of Sordello. There can be no question that such a method is exposed to criticism, and likely to excite mis-
Ixiv PROLEGOMENA . [ix.
conception. If it tend to give artistic completeness to the work, it also tantalises the outsider who has a desire to reach the unfamiliar standing-ground. He wishes a background of time and space, where the forms of the abstract ideas may be embodied to his mind's eye. In most ages, and with good ground, the world has been sceptical, when it perceived no reference to authorities, no foot-notes, no details of experiments made : nor is it better disposed to accept provisorily, and see, as the process goes on, that it verifies itself to intelligence.
CHAPTER IX.
GENERAL LAW OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTOEY.
THE present medium of general intelligence and theory in which we live embraces the results of all that has preceded it, of all the steps of culture through which the world has risen. But in this body of intellect with which our single soul is clad, — in the general range of thought, — the several contributions of the past have been half obliterated, and are only the shadows of their old selves. What in a former day was a question of all-engrossing interest has left but a trace : the complete and detailed formations of ancient thought have lost their distinct- ness of outline, and have shrunk into mere shadings in the grouping of the intellectual world. Questions, from which the ancient philosophers could never shake themselves loose, are now only a barely perceptible nuance in the complex questions of the present day. Discussions about the bearings of the < one ' and the 'many,' puzzles like those of Zeno, and the casuistry of statesmanship such as is found in the Politics of Aristotle, have for the most part little else than an antiquarian interest. We scarcely detect the faint traces they have left in the ' burn- ing questions' of our own age. We are too ready to forget
ix.] PAST AND PRESENT. Ixv
that the past is never annihilated, and that every step, however slight it may seem, which has once been taken in the movement of intellect, must be traversed in order to understand the con- stitution of our present intellectual world. To all appearance the life and work of past generations have so completely lost their organic nature, with its unified and vital variety, that in their present phase they have turned into an inorganic mass of thought. The living forces of growth, as geologists tell us, in the vegetables of one period are suspended and put in abeyance : and these vegetables pass into what we call the inorganic and inanimate strata of the earth. Similarly, when all vitality has been quenched or rendered torpid in the struc- tures of thought, they sink into the substance from which individuals draw their means of support. This inorganic en- velope of thought stands to the mind, almost in the same way as the earth and its products stand to the body of a man. If the one is our material, the other is our spiritual substance. In the one our mind, as in the other our body, lives, moves, and has its being.
But in each case besides the practical need, which consumes the substance as dead matter, and applies it to use, there is the theoretical bent which seeks to revive and restore the past as a living and fully developed organism. ' This past,' says Hegel, 'is traversed by the individual, in the same way as one who begins to study a more advanced science repeats the preliminary lessons with which he had long been acquainted, in order to bring their information once more before his mind. He recalls them : but his interest and study are devoted to other things. In the same way the individual must go through all that is contained in the several stages in the growth of the universal mind : but all the while he feels that they are forms of which the mind has divested itself, — that they are steps on a road which has been long ago completed and levelled. Thus, points of learning, which in former times tasked the mature intellects of men, are now reduced to the level of exercises, lessons, and even games of boyhood : and in the
e
Ixvi PROLEGOMENA. [ix.
progress of the schoolroom we may recognise the course of the education of the world, drawn, as it were, in shadowy outline1.'
The scope of historical investigation therefore is this. It has to show how every shading in the present world of thought, which makes our spiritual environment, has been once living and actual with an independent being of its own : that in these formations, which are produced in each period of the structural development of reason, the universe of thought, or the Idea, is always whole and complete, but characterised in some special mode which for that period seems absolute and final. Each form or ' dimension ' of thought, in which the totality is grasped and unified, is therefore not so simple or elementary as it may seem to casual observers regarding only the simplicity of lan- guage : it is a total, embracing more or less of simpler elements, each of which is an inferior total, though in this larger sphere they are reduced to unity. Thus each term or period in the process is really an individualised whole, with a complex inter- connexion and contrast included in it : it is concrete. But when that period is passing away, the form of its idea is separated, and retained, apart from the elements which con- stituted it a real totality; and then the mere shading or shell of thought is left abstract. When that time has come, a special form, a whole act, in the drama of humanity has been trans- formed into an empty husk, and is only a name.
The sensuous reality of life, as it is limited in space and time, the world as it is here and now, is however the earliest cradle of humanity. The environment of sense is prior in the order of time to the environment of thought. "Who, it may be asked, first wrought their way out of that atmosphere of sense into an ether of pure thought ? Who laid the first foundations of that world of reason in which the civilised nations of the modern period live and move ? The answer is, the Greek philosophers : and in the first place the philosophers of Elea. For Hegel the history of thought begins with Greece. All that preceded
1 Phenomenologie des Geistes, p. 22.
ix.] THE BEGINNINGS OF THOUGHT. Ixvii
the beginnings of Greek speculation has only a secondary in- terest for the culture of the West.
But 'many heroes lived before the days of Agamemnon.' The records of culture no longer begin with Greece. Since the time of Hegel, the study of primitive life, and of the rise of primitive ideas in morals and religion, has enabled us to some extent to trace the early gropings of barbarian fancy and reason. The comparative study of languages has, on the other hand, partly revealed the contrivances by which human reason has risen from one grade of consciousness to another. The sciences of language and of primitive culture have revealed new depths in the development of thought, where thought is still enveloped in nature and sense and symbols, — depths which were scarcely dreamed of in the earlier part of the present century. Here and there, investigators have even supposed that they had found the cradle of some elements in art, religion, and society, or, it may be, of humanity itself.
These researches have accomplished much, and they promise to accomplish more. But for the present, and with certain ex- planations to be given later, it may still be said that the birthday of our modern world is the moment when the Greek sages began to construe the facts of the universe. Before their time the world lay, as it were, in a dream-life. Unconsciously in the womb of time the spirit of the world was growing, — its faculties forming in secresy and silence, — until the day of birth when the preparations were completed, and the young spirit drew its first breath in the air of thought. The history of thought begins with the Greeks : and the utterances of Parmenides mark the first hard, and somewhat material, outlines of the spiritual world. Other nations of an older day had gathered the materials : in their languages, customs, religions, &c., there was an unconscious deposit of reason. It was reserved for the Greeks to recognise that reason : and thus in them reason became conscious.
It was the Greek philosophers who distinctly drew the dis- tinction between sense and thought, and who first translated the actual forms of our natural life into their abbreviated
e 2
Ixviii PROLEGOMENA. [ix.
equivalents in terms of logic. The struggle to carry through this transition, this elevation into pure thought, is what gives the dramatic interest to the Dialogues of Plato and keeps the sympathy of his readers always fresh. The endeavour to create an ideal world, which, at the very moment when it is created, is transformed into a refined and attenuated copy of the sense- world, meets us in almost every page of these Dialogues. In Aristotle this effect is so far over and past ; and some sort of intellectual world, perhaps narrow and inadequate, is reached, — the only world which the brilliant, but restricted life of Greece allowed. What these thinkers began, succeeding ages have inherited and promoted.
In the environment of reason, therefore, which encompasses the consciousness of our age, are contained under a generalised form and with elimination of all the particular circumstances, the results won in the development of the world. These results now constitute the familiar joints and supports in the frame- work of ordinary thought : around them cluster our imaginations. During each epoch of history, the consciousness of the world, at first by the mouth of its great men, its illustrious statesmen, artists, and philosophers, has explicitly recognised and trans- lated into terms of thought, — into logical language, — that syn- thesis of the world which the period had practically secured by the action of its children. That activity went on, as is the way of natural activities, unconsciously, by an immanent adaptation of means to ends, not in conscious straining after a result. For the conscious effort of large bodies of men is often in the direction contrary to the Spirit of the Time. This Spirit of the Time, the absolute mind, which is neither religious nor irreligious, but infinite and absolute in its season, is the real motive principle of the world. Thus Hegel is the foe of hero-worship. Great men are great: but the Spirit of the Time is greater : their greatness lies in understanding it and bringing it to consciousness. The man, who would act independently of his time and in utter separation from it, is likely to be either a madman or a fool. Nor need the synthesis
ix.] PHILOSOPHY AND THE AGE.
be always formulated by a philosopher in order to leaven the minds of the next generation. The whole system of thought, — the theory of the time, — its world, in short, influences minds, although it is not explicitly stated : it becomes the nursery of future thought and speculation. Philosophy in its articulate utterances only gives expression to the silent and half-conscious grasp of reason over its objects. But when the adaptation is not merely reached but seen and felt, when the synthesis or world of that time is made an object of self-consciousness, the exposition has made an advance upon the period which preceded. For that period started in its growth from the last exposition, the preceding system of philosophy, after it had become the common property of the age, and taken its place as their mental equipment.
Each exposition or perception of the synthesis by the philo- sopher restores or re-affirms the unity which in the divided energies of the period, in its progressive, reforming, and re- actionary aspects, in its differentiating time, had to a great extent been ignored. By the reforming, progressive, and scien- tific movement of which each period is full, the unity or totality with which it began is shown to be defective. The value of the initial formula is impaired, and kept in abeyance : and the differences which that unity involved, or which were implicitly in it, are now explicitly affirmed. But the bent towards con- centration is a natural law making itself felt even in the period of differentiation. The integrating principle is present and active, though it is not acknowledged. By means of the philo- sophical grasp, or act of self-consciousness, that unity which is apt to be lost sight of in the divergent, progressive, and scientific period is enunciated and set forth1 : and the existing contrasts and differences which the re-forming agency has called into vigorous life are lifted from their isolation and kept, as it were, suspended in the unity2. The differences are not lost or annihilated : but they come back to a centre, they find them- selves, as it were, at home : they lose their unfair prominence 1 Gesetzt. a Aufgehoben.
Ixx PROLEGOMENA. [ix.
and self-assertion, and sink into their places as constituents in the embracing organism1. The unity which comes is not how- ever the same as the unity which disappeared, however much it may seem so. To the careless glance over the pages of Hegel's Logic it often seems as if the old story were repeated again and again, till it ends in tedium or giddiness. In sooth, it is tedious, unless one sounds it to the depths. For Logic hastens in the course of a few paragraphs, over that which was actually accomplished in the tardy lapse of centuries. The Spirit of the World is liberal of time. With the Lord, a thousand years are as one day. The impatience of man leans forward for reconciliations, which can only come in their own good time.
The mind of the world moves, as it were, in cycles, but with each new cycle a difference supervenes, a new tone is perceptible. History does and does not repeat itself. The distinctions and the unity are neither of them the same after each union as they were before it : they have both suffered a change : it is a new scene that comes above the horizon, however like the last it may seem to the casual observer. Thus when the process of differentiation is repeated anew, it is repeated in higher terms, multiplied, and with a wider range of meaning2. Each uni- fication however is a perfect world, a complete whole : it is the same sum of being ; but in each successive level of advance it receives a fuller expression, and a more complexly-grouped type of features3. Such is the rhythmic movement, — the ebb and flow of the world, always recurring with the same burden but with richer variety of tones, and fuller sense of itself. The sum of existence, the Absolute, is neither increased nor dimin- ished. The world was as much a rounded total to the Hebrew Patriarchs as it is to us : without advancing, it has been, we may say, deepened, developed, and organised. In one part of
1 Idee : ideeller Weise.
2 Potenz.
3 ' Nicht nur die Einsicht in die Abhangigkeit des Eiuzelnen vom Ganzen ist allein das Wesentliche ; ebenso dass jedes Moment selbst unabhangig vom Ganzen das Ganze ist, und dies ist das Vertiefen in die Sache.' (Hegel's Leben, p. 548.)
ix.] THE RHYTHM OF THE WORLD. bad
the sway of thought, however, there is a fuller recognition of the differences, gaps, and contradictions, involved in the last synthesis, — which recognition it is the tendency of scientific inquiry, of reforming efforts, of innovation, to produce : and in the other half of the sway, there is a stronger and more ex- tended grasp taken by the unity pervading these differences, — which is the work appointed to philosophy gathering up the results of science and practical amendments.
To this rhythmical movement Hegel has appropriated the name of Dialectic. The name probably came from Plato, where it denotes the process which brings the ' many ' under the ' one,' and divides the ' one ' into the ' many.' But how, it may be asked, does difference spring up, if we begin with unity, and how do the differences return into the unity ? In other words, given a universal, how are we ever to get at particulars, and how will these particulars ever give rise to a real individual ? Such is the problem, in the technical language of the Logic of the ' Notion.' But the unity, which in its actual shape is formulated by philo- sophers, is not mere monotony without differences. Because it is a living thing, it contains a complex inter-action of principles : it is not a single line of action, but the organic confluence of several. No one single principle by itself is enough to state a life, a character, or a period. Now as the unity comes before the eye of the single thinker, it 'is seldom or never grasped with all its fulness of life and difference. The whole synthesis, although it is implicitly present, is not consciously apprehended, but for the most part taken on one side only, one emphatic aspect into which it has concentrated itself. And even if the master could grasp the whole, could see the unity of the age in all its differences, his followers and the popular mind would not imitate him. While his grasp of comprehension may pos- sibly have been thorough, though he may have seen life whole through all its differences, inequalities, and schisms, and with all these into the unity beyond, the crowd who follow him are soon reduced to lay exclusive stress on some one side of his theory. Some of them see the totality from one aspect, some from
kxii PROLEGOMENA. [ix.
another. It is indeed the whole which in a certain sense they gee : but it is the whole narrowed down to a point. While his theory was a comprehensive (and concrete) grasp, including- and harmonising- many things which seem otherwise wide apart, theirs is (abstract and) inadequate: it fixes on a single point, which is thus withdrawn from its living and meaning-giving context, and left as an empty name. Now it is the very nature of popular reasoning to tend to abstractions, in this sense of the word. Popular thought wants the perseverance necessary to retain a whole truth, and so is contented with a partial image. It seeks for definiteness and precision : it likes to have some- thing distinctly before it, visible to the eye of imagination, and capable of being stated in a clear and unambiguous formula for the intellect.
Thus it comes about that the concrete or adequate synthesis which should have appeared in the self-conscious thought of the period, when it reflected upon what it was, has been replaced by a narrow and one-sided formula, a universal which does not in- clude all the particulars. One predominant side of the synthesis steals the place of the total : what should have been universal has lowered itself and shrunk into a particular. Not indeed the same particular as existed before the union : because it has been influenced by the synthesis, so as to issue with a new colouring, as if it had been steeped in a fresh liquid. But still it is a particular : and as such, a new particular is evoked in antagonism to it, exhibiting a new element latent in the synthesis. If the first side of the antithesis which claims to be the total, or universal, be called Conservative ; the second must be called Reforming or Progressive. If the first step is Dog- matic, the second is Sceptical. If the one side assumes to be the whole, the other practically refutes the assumption. If the one agency clings blindly to the unity, as when good men rally round the central idea of religion, the other as tenaciously and narrowly holds to the difference, as when science displays the struggle for existence among the myriads of cells and organisms. They are two warring abstractions, each in a different direction.
x.j LAW OF THE THREE STAGES. Ixxiii
But as they are the offspring of one parent, — as they have each in their own way narrowed the whole clown to a point, it cannot but be that when they evolve or develope all that is in them, they will ultimately coincide, and complete each other. The contra- diction will not disappear until it has been persistently worked out, — when each opposing- member which was potentially a total has become what it was by its own nature destined to be. And this disappearance of the antithesis is the reappearance of the unity in all its strength, reinforced with all the wealth of new distinctions.
Thus on a large scale we have seen the pulse of the universal movement of thought. The same law is repeated in the lesser cycles that run in each great period. It is the same law again which reappears in every one of these categories, to which the actualised thought of an age has been reduced. In every term of thought there are the three stages or elements : the original narrow definiteness, claiming to be self-sufficient, — the antagon- ism and criticism to which this gives rise, — and the union which results when the two supplement and modify each other. In every notion there is a definite kernel, with rigid outlines as if it were immovable : there is a revulsion against such ex- clusiveness, a questioning and critical attitude : and there is the complete notion, where the two first stages interpenetrate.
CHAPTER X.
ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE : AND THE ORDINARY LOGIC.
THE ordinary logic-books have made us all familiar with the popular distinction between Abstract and Concrete. By a con- crete term they mean the name of an existence or reality which is obvious to the senses, and is found in time and place ; — or they mean the name of an attribute when we expressly or tacitly
Ixxiv PROLEGOMENA. [x.
recognise its dependence upon such a thing of the senses. When, on the contrary, the attribute is forcibly withdrawn from its con- text and made an independent entity in the mind, the term ex- pressing it becomes in the usual phraseology abstract. In this acceptation all the terms of mind, of science, and of the intel- ligible world, are in popular language called abstract. And there can be little doubt that the popular use of these terms, or the popular apprehension of what constitutes reality, — for that is what it comes to, — is sufficiently represented by the ordinary logic-books. So that if the whole business of the logician lies in formulating the distinctions prevalent in popular thought, the ordinary logic is correct.
Now the popular logic of the day, — the logic which is taught in our schools and universities — has three sources. — In the first place, but in a slight degree, it trenches upon the province of psychology, and gives some account of the operation by which concepts are supposed to be formed, and of the errors or fallacies which naturally creep into the process of reasoning. This is the more strictly modern, the descriptive part of our logic-books. — But, secondly/ the logic of our youth rests in a much higher degree upon the venerable authority of Aristotle. That logic in its own compass was a masterpiece of analysis, and for many centuries maintained an ascendancy over thought, which was often faulty, only because it was not thorough enough. But it was an analysis of the beginnings of reason only, not of its matured and expanded forms. The Logic of Aristotle gave a systematic account of the procedure of the ordinary thought, which could be observed in popular discussions and practical oratory. As Lord Bacon remarked, it did little else than state, and, it may be, exaggerate the rationale of popular thought. A high level of popular thought it unquestionably was, which Aristotle had to investigate, — a level which many generations of less favoured races were unable to reach. But there were defects in this Logic which fatally marred the prospects of its general usefulness. It was not a logic of scientific thought : that is, its object was not truth or knowledge in the first place, and con-
x.] ARISTOTLE AND BACON. Ixxv
viction only in the second. The thoughts of Greece were greatest and most active in the line of popular action for the city and the public interests, in the discussions, the quibbles, the fallacies, and rhetorical arts of the barber's shop and the ' agora.' The aim of such exercises was to convince, to demonstrate, to persuade, to overcome ; — it might be for good and truth, but also it might not. And accordingly the Logic of Aristotle has for its end and canon the power to convince and to give demonstrative certainty. This is in the main its characteristic. And it is this analysis of popular thought, following the popular distinctions and values of things, which the second, deductive, and fundamental portion of the received logic-books in modern times presents.
But when the Sciences began to fill up the lacunae in popular thought, or at least pointed them out : when the increase of knowledge showed how fragmentary and crudely-constructed the edifice of popular thought was, the Logic of Aristotle was felt to fall short. A new logic was needed, which would do for thought, enlai'ged and deepened by science, what Aristotle had done for the unenlarged popular thought. This want Lord Bacon tried to satisfy. And he pointed out, vaguely, but zealously and in a noble spirit, the end which that new logic had to accomplish. Lord Bacon, however, could not do more than state these bold suggestions : he had not the power to execute them. He imagined that he could display a method, by which science would make incredible advances, and the kingdom of truth in a few years come into the world. But this is a sort of thing which no man can do. Plato had tried to do it for the social life of Athens. What Plato could not do for the political world of Greece, Bacon could not do for the intellectual world in his time : for as the Athenian worked under the shadow of his own state, over-mastered even without his knowledge by the ordinances of Athens, so the Englishman was evidently enthralled by the authority of that very Aristotelian logic which he condemned. What Aristotle had for ages been supposed to do, no philosopher could do for the new spirit of inquiry which had risen in and before the days of Bacon. That spirit, as exhibited in his great
Ixxvi PROLEGOMENA. [x.
contemporaries, Bacon could not rightly understand or appre- ciate. The spirit of free science, of critical investigation, of inductive inquiry, must and did constitute its forms, legislation, and methods for itself. For no philosopher can lay down laws or methods beforehand which the sciences must follow. The logician only comes after, and, appreciating and discovering the not always conspicuous methods of knowledge, endeavours to gather them up and give them their proper place in the grand total of human thought, correcting its inadequacies by their aid, and completing their divisions by its larger unities. Or rather this is a picture of what English logic might have done. But it does not do so in the ordinary and valuable text-books on the subject. What it does do, is rather as follows. To the second and fundamental part which it subjects to a few unimportant alterations, — i.e. to the doctrine of terms, propositions, and reasonings, — it subjoins an enumeration of the methods used in the sciences.
To the rude minds of the Teutonic peoples the logical system of Aristotle had seemed almost a divine revelation. From the brilliant intellect of Greece a hand was stretched to help them in the arrangement of their religious beliefs. The Church accepted the aid of logic, foreign though logic was to its natural bent, as eagerly as the political world tried for a while to draw support from the effete forms of the Roman Empire. So the advancing Sciences of modern times looked upon the Inductive Logic of Mill in the light of a new revelation. The vigorous action of the sciences hailed a systematic account of its methods almost as eagerly as the strong, but untaught intellect of the barbarian world welcomed the remains of ancient philosophy. For the first time the sciences, which had been working blindly or instinc- tively, but with excellent success, found their procedure stated clearly and definitely, yet without any attempt to reduce their varied life to the Procrustean bed of mathematics, which had once been held to possess a monopoly of methods. The enormous influence of the physical sciences saw itself reflected in a distinct logical outline : and the new logic became the dominant philo-
x.] THE INDUCTIVE LOGIC. Ixxvii
sophy. Such is the proud position of the Inductive Logic. Enthusiastic students of science in all countries, who were not inaccessible to wider culture, used quotations from Mill to adorn and authorise their works. A period of speculation in the scientific world succeeded the period of experiment, in which facts had been collected and registered. A chapter on Method be- came a necessary introduction to all higher scientific treatises. In our universities methodology was prodigally applied to the study of ancient philosophy. And so long as the scientific epoch lasts in its one-sided prominence, so long the theory of inductive and experimental methods may dominate the intellectual world.
It is the business of the Inductive Logic to do for the special sphere of the special sciences, what the Aristotelian logic did for the general sphere of common consciousness. Retaining the latter with certain modifications, although it has now lost its meaning in the changed outlines of the intellectual world, In- ductive Logic adds a methodology of the sciences, without how- ever founding this methodology upon a comprehensive analysis of thought as a whole, when enlarged and enlightened by the work of the sciences. Hence the two portions, — the old logic, muti- lated and severed from the Greek world it grew out of, and the new Inductive or specially-scientific logic, not going beyond a mere classification of methods, — can never combine, any more than oil and water. And the little psychology, which is some- times added, does not contribute much to the harmony.
In these circumstances the ordinary logic, in its fundamental terms, is more on the level of popular thought, than in a strictly scientific region, and does not, unless we are to except the work of Mr. Herbert Spencer, attempt to unite the two regions, and examine the fundamental basis of thought on which scientific methods rest. The case of Concrete and Abstract will illustrate what has been said. To popular thought the sense-world is con- crete : the intellectual world abstract. And so it is in the ordinary logic. Now the difference between the two uses of the term is not a mere arbitrary change of names. When we strip the sense-world of its concreteness, and say that it is better
Ixxviii PROLEGOMENA. [x.
described, in the first instance, as a chaotic mass of excluding1 elements, a ' manifold,' and in the second instance as a series of abstractions, drawn out of this congeries by the intellect, the change of language marks the total change of position between the philosophic and the popular consciousness. Reality and con- creteness as estimated by the one line of thought are the very reverse of those of the other. A mere sense-world to the philosopher is what an irreducible nebula is to the speculative astronomer. Out of that nebula the theorist expects that a solar system, a concrete unity, will one day spring. Even so from mere sense the concrete notion of reason will be evolved. But in the form of sense the matter of sense is not concrete, a unity of opposites : but a chaos. And, in addition, even when the chaos begins to be reduced to order, the primary result, and that which popular languages express and retain, is an abstraction, the one-sided exposition and fixing of a single feature in a thing. Every name in language is abstract, compared with the amount of our knowledge about it.
The apprehension of a thing from one side or aspect, — the apprehension of one thing apart from its connexions, — the retention of a term or formula apart from its context, — is what Hegel terms ' abstract.' Ordinary terms are essentially abstract. They spring from something which would in strictness be described not as concrete, but as chaos : — as the indefinite, or ' manifold ' of sensation. The primary object of sight or sense, the scene or inter-action of several objects (if we may thus ana- lyse it by an act of subsequent reflection), is so characterized. But the first conceptions, which spring from this group when it is analysed, are abstract: they are each severed from the continuity of their existence. In the same sense we call Political Economy an abstract science, because it looks upon man as a money-making1 and money-distributing creature, and keeps out of sight his other qualities. Our notions in this way are more abstract or more concrete, according as our grasp of thought extends to less or more of the elements which are necessarily pre-supposed by them. On the other hand, when
x.] ABSTRACT THOUGHT. Ixxix
a terra of thought owns and emphasises its solidarity with others, when it is not circumscribed to a single relation, but becomes a focus in which a variety of relations converge, when it is placed in its right post in the organism of thought, its limits and qualifications as it were recognised, and its degree ascertained, — then that term of thought is ' concrete.' A con- crete notion is a notion in its totality, looking before and after, connected indissolubly with others : a unity of elements, a meeting-point of opposites. An abstract notion is one with- drawn from everything that naturally goes along with it, and enters into its constitution.
In a short essay, with much grim humour and quaint illustra- tions, Hegel tried to show what was meant by the name ' abstract/ which in his use of it denotes the cardinal vice of analytical thought. From this essay, entitled e Who is the Abstract Thinker l ? ' it may be interesting to quote a few lines. ' A murderer is, we may suppose, led to the scaffold. In the eyes of the multitude he is a murderer and nothing more. The ladies perhaps may make the remark that he is a strong, handsome, and interesting man. At such a remark the populace is horrified. " What ! a murderer handsome ? Can anybody's mind be so low as to call a murderer hand- some? You must be little better yourselves." And per- haps a priest who sees into the heart, and knows the reasons of things, will point to this remark, as evidence of the cor- ruption of morals prevailing among the upper classes. A student of character, again, inquires into the antecedents of the criminal's education : he finds a wrong set of relations between father and mother; or he finds out that this man has suffered severely for some trifling offence, and that under the bitter feelings thus produced he has spurned the orders of society, and cannot support himself otherwise than by crime. No doubt there will be people who when they hear this ex- planation will say " Does this person then mean to excuse the murderer ? " In my youth I remember hearing a city
1 ' Wer denkt abstrakt?' (Vermischte Schriften, vol. II. p. 402.)
Ixxx PROLEGOMENA. [xi.
magistrate complain that book-writers were going too far, and trying to root out Christianity and good morals altogether. Some one, it appeared, had written a defence of suicide. It was horrible ! too horrible ! On further inquiry it turned out that the book in question was the " Sorrows of Werther."
'By abstract thinking, then, is meant that in the murderer we see nothing but the simple fact that he is a murderer, and by this siugle quality annihilate all the human nature which is in him. The polished and sentimental world of Leipsic thought otherwise. They threw their bouquets, and twined their flowers round the wheel and the criminal who was fastened to it. — But this also is the opposite pole of abstraction. — It was in a different strain that I once heard a poor old woman, an inmate of the poor's-house, rise above the abstraction of the murderer. The sun shone, as the severed head was laid upon the scaffold. " How finely," said the woman, " does God's gracious sun lighten up Binder's head ! " We often say of a poor creature who excites our anger that he is not worth the sun shining on him. That woman saw that the murderer's head was in the sunlight, and that it had not become quite worthless. She raised him from the punishment of the scaffold into the sunlit grace of God. It was not by her violets and her sentimental conceit that she brought about the reconciliation : she saw him in the sun above received into grace.'
CHAPTER XI.
FUOM SENSE TO THOUGHT.
EVERY period as we have seen translates the sensuous fact of its life into a formula of thought, and fixes it in definite characters. The various parts of existence, and existence as a whole, are stripped of their sensible or factual nature, in
XL] THE RISE OF NUMBER. Ixxxi
which we originally feel and come into contact with them, and are reduced to their simple equivalents in terms of thought. From sense and immediate feeling there is, in the first place, generated a materialised conception ; and from that, in the second place, comes a thought or notion proper, which however is pri- marily abstract. The phenomenon may, perhaps, be illustrated by the case of numbers. To us numbers are most unquestionably realities, however abstract we find them: and most people would be surprised to hear that numbers qua numbers had at one time no existence in thought. And yet this is a fact well known to the philologist. In Greek, for example, we meet the distinction between numbers in the abstract, pure numbers (such as four and six), and bodily or physical numbers (such as four men, six trees). Aristotle even speaks of ' fiery ' and ' earthen ' numbers 7 . The geometrical aspect under which numbers were regarded by the Greeks bears in the same direction. But another phenomenon in language tells the tale more dis- tinctly2. Abundantly in Sanscrit and Greek, more rarely in Zend and Teutonic, and here and there in the Semitic languages, we meet with what is known as the dual number, a special gram- matical form intended to express a pair of objects. The witty remark of Du Ponceau3 concerning- the Greek dual, that it had apparently been invented only for lovers and married people, may illustrate its uses, but hardly suffices to explain its existence in language. But a comparison of barbarian dialects serves to show that the dual is, as it were, a prelude to the plural, — a first attempt to grasp the notion of plurality in a definite way, which served its turn in primitive society, but after- wards disappeared, when the ..plural had been developed, and the numerals had attained a form of their own. If this be so,
1 Pure number is dpi6/jibs fiovaSmus : applied number is dpi0fj.o$ <f>vfft/(6s or aca^a- TIKOS. Aristotle, Metaph. N. 5, speaks of dpiOpus irvptvos fj yr)lvos.
2 See L. Geiger : Ursprung und Entwickelung der menschlichen Sprache und Vernunft. (Vol. I. p. 380.) And Gabelenz (die melanesischen Sprachen) in the Abhandlungen der Sachsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften (VIII), 1861. pp. 89-91.
3 Mcraoire sur le systerae grammatical, &c. p. 155.
f
Ixxxii PROLEGOMENA. [xi.
the dual is what physiologists call a rudimentary organ, and tells the same story as these organs do of the processes of nature.
The language of the Melanesian island of Annatom, one of the New Hebrides, may be taken as an instance of a state of speech in which the dual is natural. That language possesses a fourfold distinction of number in its personal pronouns, a different form to mark the singular, dual, trial, and plural : and the pronoun of the first person plural distinguishes in addition whether the person addressed is or is not included in the 'we-two,' 'we-three,' or <we-many' of the speaker. The same language however possesses only the first three numerals, and in the translation of the Bible into this dialect it was necessary to introduce the English words, four, five, &c. The two facts must be taken together : the luxuriance of the personal pronouns and the scanty development of numerals in such languages are two phenomena of the same law. The numeral ' four ' to these tribes bears the meaning of ' many ' or ' several.' Another fact points in the same direction. In many languages, such as those of Further India and Mexico, it is customary in numbering to use what W. von Humboldt has called class- words. Thus in Malay, instead of ' five boys ' the phrase used is ' boy five-man : ' in other words, the numerals are sup- posed to inhere as yet in objects of a special kind or common occurrence1. And among the South Sea Islanders the con- sciousness of number is decidedly personal : that is to say, the distinction between one and two is first conceived as a dis- tinction between ' I ' and ' we two.' Even this amount of simplification surpasses what is found amongst some Australian tribes. There we find four duals : one for brothers and sisters : one for parents and children : one for husbands and wives : and one between brothers-in-law 2. Each pair has a different form. We thus see to what early language is applied : not to
1 W. von Humboldt : Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues, p. 423 (ed. 1841).
* Capt. Grey : Vocabulary of the dialects of S. W. Australia, pp. xxi. and 104. (1840).
XL] THE NUMERALS. Ixxxiii
designate the objects of nature, but the members of the primitive family. The consciousness of numbers was first awakened by the need of distinguishing and combining men and women in the narrow circle of barbarian life.
Numbers were at first immersed in the persons, and then, as things came to be considered also, in the things numbered. The mind seems to have proceeded slowly from the vague one to definite numbers. And the first decided step was taken towards an apprehension of numbers when two was distinguished from one, and the distinction was made part of the personal terminations. The plural was a further step in the same direction : the real value of which, however, did not become apparent until the numerals had been separately established in forms of their own. When that was accomplished, the special form of the dual became useless : it had outlived its purpose, and henceforth it ceased to have any but that poetical beauty which often adorns the once natural, but now obsolete creations of the past. When the numerals were thus emancipated from their material and sensuous environment, quantity was trans- lated from outward being in its embodiments into a form of thought. At first, indeed, it was placed in an ethereal or imaginative space, the counterpart as it were of the sensuous space in which it had been previously immersed. It became a denizen of the mental region, as it had been before a habitant of the sense- wo rid.
The mind was informed with quantity in the shape of number : but it does not follow from this, that the new product was comprehended, or the process of its production kept in view. Like all new inventions (and numeration may fairly be classed under that head), it was laid hold of, and all its consequences, results, and uses estimated and realised by the practical and defining intellect. In one direction, it became, like many new inventions in the early days of society, a magic charm, and was invested with mystery, sacredness, and mar- vellous powers. But the intelligent mind, — the understanding, — resolved to make better use of the new instrument: and
fa
Irxxiv PROLEGOMENA. [xr.
that in two ways, in practical work and in theory. On the one hand it was applied practically in the dealings of life, — in commerce, contracts, legislation, and religion. On the other hand, the new conception of number, which common sense and the instinctive action of men had evolved, was carried out in all its theory : it was analysed in all directions, and its elements combined in all possible ways. The result was the science of arithmetic, and mathematics in general. Such consequences did the analytic understanding derive from the analysis of its datum, — the fact of quantity freed from its sensuous envelope.
The general action of understanding, or practical thought, is of this kind. It accepts the data of conception, the results of rational development from sensation, as they occur : and tries to appreciate them, to give them precision, to carry them into details, and to analyse them until their utmost limits of meaning are explored. Where they have come from, and where they lead to, — the process out of which they spring, and which fixes the extent of their validity, — are questions of no interest to the understanding. It takes its objects, as given in popular con- ception, as fixed and ultimate entities to be expounded in detail.
We have taken number as one example of the transference of a sensible or sense-immersed fact into a form of thought : but a form which is still placed in a superior or mental space. One advantage of taking number as illustration, is that num- bered things are distinguished from numbers in an emphatic and recognised way. Nobody will dispute that the abstraction, as it is called, has an existence of its own, and can be made a legitimate object of independent investigation. But if the process be more obvious in the case of the numerals, there must have been a similar course of development leading to the pronouns, the prepositions, and the auxiliary verbs. In these instances we can more or less trace the process by which there grew up in language an independent world of thought : we can see the natural existence passing out of the range of the senses into spiritual relations. Before our eyes a world of reason is slowly constituting itself in the history of culture: and we,
XL] FIGURATE CONCEPTIONS. Ixxxv
who live now, enter upon the inheritance which past ages have laid up for us. There is, however, a fundamental difference between the way in which these results look to us now, and the way in which they originally organised ' themselves. The child who begins to learn a language finds the members of it all, as it were, upon one level : adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and verbs confront him with the same authority and rank. This appearance is deceptive : it may easily suggest that the words are not members in an organism, in and out of which they have developed. They are not therefore so self-supporting as they seem. We can go back to a point where there was little or no distinction between elements : when the language was narrower in its range, and not as now developed into an endless host of points. The same illusion has to be overcome in the case of thought. We are introduced to the outcome of rational development in the shape of hard, fixed, and materialised thoughts : and one stands beside another, as if they were all equally good, equally primary, equally independent. They may be compared to seeds which the practical man uses by eating them, while the theorist puts them into the crucible to see what chemical results are obtainable therefrom. Both of these operators, theoretical and practical, in whatever they differ, agree in accepting the seed as an ultimate fact to be commented upon, or employed, or analysed. In so acting the reason is analytic, and termed Understanding. Science, in the higher sense, embraces the element of speculation proper to philosophy, asks where the seed came from and where it is going to : — two questions, which tend to coincide in the answer.
In this product of intellectual movement above the limits of sensation we have the ' presentation,' ' as Hegel calls it, on which the Understanding turns its forces. We have one product of the organic whole of thought taken by itself as if it were independent, set forth as a settled nucleus for further acquaintance : and this one point discussed fully and with 1 ' Vorstellung,' as distinguished from ' Begriff.'
Ixxxvi PROLEGOMENA. [xi.
precision, elaborated in all detail and consequence, to the neglect of its context, and the necessary limitations involved in the notion. The process of name-giving may illustrate this tendency in human thought to touch its objects only in one point. The names given to objects do not embrace the whole nature of these objects, but give expression only to one striking feature in them. Thus the name of the horse points it out as ' the strong ' or ' the swift : ' the moon is ' the measurer ' or 'the shining one ;' and so in all cases. The object as expressed in these names is, as we should say, viewed from one aspect, or in one point : and the name, which originally at least corresponds to the conception, meets it, properly speaking, on that side only, or in that relation. One can at least guess why it should be so : why a name should, in logical language, express an ' accidens ' and not the ' essentia ' of the object. For the investigation of primitive language seems to show that words, as we know them in separate existence, are a secondary forma- tion : and that the first significant speech was an utterance intended to describe a scene, an action, a phenomenon, or moment of being. In point of time, the primary fact of language is an agglomeration or aggregate, — we may call it either word or clause — which describes in one breath a highly individualised action or phenomenon. The spirit or unifying principle in this group might be the accent. Such a word-group denotes a highly specialised form of being : and if we call it a word, we may say that the earliest words, and the words of barbarous tribes, are ingeniously special. But it would be more correct to say, that in such a group the elements of the scene enter only from a single aspect or in a single relation. Accordingly when disintegration begins, the result is as follows. The elements of the group, having now become independent words held together by the syntax of the sentence, are adopted to denote the several objects which entered into the total phenomenon. But these words, or fragments of the word-group, denote the objects in question from a certain point of view, and not in their integrity. The
XIL] PRIMITIVE LANGUAGE. Ixxxvii
names of things therefore touch them only in one point, and express only one aspect. And thus, although different names will arise for the same thing, as it enters into different groups, in each case the name will connote only a general attribute and not the nature of the thing. These names are in the Hegelian sense of the term ' abstract.'
CHAPTER XIL
FIGURATE OR PRESENTATIVE THOUGHT.
THE compensating dialectic of reason, overthrowing the narrowness of popular estimates, makes itself observed even in the popular use of the terms abstract and concrete. Terms like state, mind, wealth, may from one point of view be called abstract, from another concrete. At a certain pitch these abstractions cease to be abstract, and become even to popular sense very concrete realities. In the tendency to personification in language we see the same change from abstract to concrete : as when Virtue is called a goddess, or Fashion surnamed the despot of womankind. In mythology we can see the same process by which, as it is phrased, an abstract term becomes concrete : by which, as we more correctly say, a thought is transformed into a representative picture. The many gods of polytheism are the fixed and solidified shapes in which the several degrees of religious growth have taken ' a local habita- tion and a name :' or they bear witness to the failure of the greater part of the world to grasp the idea of Deity apart from certain local and temporary conditions. So, too, terms like force, law, matter, — the abstractions of the popular mind — are by certain periods reduced to the level of sensuous things, and spoken of as real entities, somewhere and some- how existent, apart from the thinking medium to which they
Ixxxviii PROLEGOMENA. [xn.
belong. Such terms, again, as property, wealth, truth, are popularly identified with the objects in which they are mani- fested or embodied.
In these ways the abstract in the ordinary meaning becomes in the ordinary meaning concrete. The distinction between abstract and concrete is turned into a distinction between understanding and sense, instead of, as Hegel makes it, a distinction in the nature of thought itself. An attempt is at first made in two degrees to represent the thought in terms of the senses. When the impossibility of that attempt is seen, common sense ends by denying the super-sensible altogether. These three plans may be called respectively the mythological, the metaphysical, and the positive or popular fallacies of thought. In the mythological, or strictly anthropomorphic fallacy, thought is conceived under the bodily shape and the physical qualities of humanity : that is to say, it is identified with a subject of like passions with ourselves, a repetition of the particular human personality, with its narrowness and weakness. The action of the Idea is here replaced by the agency of supposed living beings, invested with superhuman powers. In the metaphysical fallacy the cause of the changes that go on in nature is attributed to indwelling sympathies and animosities, to the abhorrence of a vacuum, to attraction, affinity, and the like : to mystic essences and laws conceived of as somehow existent in space and time. In the positive and popular fallacy, the failure of these two theories begins to be felt : and the mind, hopeless of reaching thought, and impatient for the senses, eagerly asserts that the thought is a dream and a delusion, and that the reality of the senses is what the idea truly is. This last view is the utterance of the popular matter-of-fact reason, when in weariness and tedium it turns from the attempt to grasp thought pure and simple, and instead of passing on through the metaphysical entities to the fluid and transparent ether of the Idea, relapses into the ignoble rest of thoughtlessness.
In some of these cases the full step into pure thought is
xii.] THE THREE FALLACIES OF THOUGHT. Ixxxix
never made. The creations of mythology, for example, display an unfinished and baffled attempt to rise from the senses to the generalisations of thought. The gods of heathenism are only generalised individuals : syntheses of phenomena under the form of the man with flesh and blood : and such were the gods of Greece. In other cases there is a relapse : when the higher stage of thought has been attained, it is instan- taneously lost. Terms which are really thoughts are reduced to the level of the things of sense, individualised in some object, which, though it is only a representative symbol, is allowed to usurp the place of the thought which it embodies. The intuition of the senses at every step throws its spells on the products of thought, and turns them into a representative picture, which popularly and naturally takes the place of the notion. Instead of being retained in their native timelessness, the terms of the Idea are brought under the laws of sensuous intuition, under the conditions of space and time.
The term ' presentation,' which Hegel employs to name these ' picture-thoughts ' or { figurate conceptions,' corresponds to the facts of their nature. A e presentation ' is one of two things : either a particular thing taken under general aspects, or a universal narrowed down into a particular thing. Thus, as it has been seen, a general name expresses a universal relation or attribute, but confines it to a particular object or class. ' Swift/ for example, was an epithet tied down to express the horse. In the first instance we may suppose the name to be a sort of metaphor : that is, we conceive the object as an embodiment or representation of the quality, — as an eagle is the emblem of strength, — but in this case we dis- tinguish between the object and its metaphorical signification. In the second place, however, the two points of view coincide, and we can no longer in ordinary thought separate the imaging object from the general relation which it images forth. This is the level of thought to which Hegel appropriates the term ' presentation.' It includes under it the three fallacies of thought already noted : — and saves the trouble of comprehending
xc PROLEGOMENA. [xn.
the notion. In the Hegelian sense, a presentation is abstract : because it solidifies, hardens, and isolates the term of thought, makes it a particular, and never rises above the single case to the general notion embodied in it.
The world of presentative thought is a world of independent points in juxtaposition, which we arrange as seems best to us. When our mind moves amongst these picture-thoughts, we can only institute external relations between the terms. A judgment, in that case, is interpreted to mean the conjunction of subject with predicate by means of the copula. A sentence is an arrangement of words ab extra in conformity with the rules of grammar. The world of thought, or the Idea, as a whole is turned into a plane surface with its typical forms, — the members of the organism of reason, — like dots put in co- ordination and juxtaposition, not spontaneously affected towards each other. Even if they are not embodied and reduced to a sensuous level of existence, they are held to be originally separate and unconnected. How they all came into being, and whether they do not all by gradations and differentiation proceed from one root, are questions neither asked nor answered. To inquire into the evolution of thought is even more un- dreamt-of than to ask for the evolution of the living world from a primordial cell. But as language is never studied rightly, unless we remember that language at each period is an organic body : that each part of it is determined by the meaning of all the other parts co-existing with it : and that, as the language advances, there is an almost imperceptible but still real change in the position and compass of every word; — so it is with thought. Every term, short of the whole system of thought, is mutually conditioned and con- ditioning. But all these reciprocating conditions are in the totality, and not out of it. In each it is the whole, but the whole at a different level of development.
The level of ' presentation,' therefore, is in its several aspects the level on which stands in its picture-thinkirig the general mass of mankind. Such thinking is approximate and inexact :
xii.] PICTURE-THINKING. xci
and has hold of its objects in one point only: it does not grasp these objects, but sets them before it. (a) It is still trammelled by the senses. Thought and sensation strive for the mastery in it. Thought is bound fast to an illustration : and of this illustration it cannot as presentative thought divest itself: — 'the eternally living idea is chained to the transient and perishable form of sense. It is metaphorical and material thinking-, which is helpless without the metaphor and the matter. (6} Pre- sentative thought envisages what is timeless and infinite under the conditions of time and space. It loses sight of the moral and spirit of historical development under the semblance of the names, incidents, and forms in which it is displayed. The historical and philosophical sense is lost under the antiquarian. Presentative thought keeps the shell, and throws away the kernel, (c) The terms by which such a materialised thought describes its objects are not internally connected : each is in- dependent of the other; and we only bring- them together for the nonce by an act of subjective arrangement1.
The thing — the so-called subject of the properties, of which it is really no more than the substratum — affords no sufficient ground for the unity of the properties attached to it. The substratum or subject of the proposition is given, arid we then look around to see what other properties accompany the primary characteristic for which the name was applied. But the term of popular language is not a real unity capable of supporting- differences ; it is only one aspect of a thing-, a single point fixed and isolated in the process of language by the action of natural selection. And so, to ask how the properties are re- lated to the thing, is to ask how one aspect, taken out of its setting, is related to another isolated aspect : which is evidently an unanswerable question. Science is right in rejecting- the ' thing- ' of popular conception. If a is a, and nothing more, as the law of Identity informs us, then it is for ever impossible to get on to b, c, d, and the rest. The union between the thing divided or denned, and its divided or defining members, is what
1 Philosophic der Religion, I. p. 137 seqq.
xcii PROLEGOMENA. [xii.
is termed extra-logical; in other words, it is not evident from what is given or stated in the popular conception. That union must be sought elsewhere, and deeper.
And when we step in to overcome the repugnance which the point of conception, or what is supposed the subject, shows against admitting a diversity of predicates, — when we force it into union with these properties : or when we try to remove the separation which leaves the cause and effect as two independent things to fall apart ; our action, by which we effect a synthesis of differences, may, from another and a universal point of view, be said to be the notion, or grasp of thought, coming to the consciousness of itself. Thought, as it were, recognises itself and its image in those objects of presentative conception, which seem to be given and imposed upon the intellect. The two worlds, which the understanding accepts as each solid and in- dependent,— the world of external objects or conceptions, and the world of self, — meet and coincide in the free agency of thought, developing itself under a double aspect. It is the ' original synthetical unity of apperception ' (to quote Kant's words), from which the Ego or thinking subject, and the ' manifold,' or body and world, are subsequently differentiated. Thus, on the one hand, we ourselves no longer remain a rigid unity, existing in antithesis to the objects of presentative thought : and on the other hand the so-called thing loses its hardness and fragmentary independence, as distinguished from our apprehension of it. Our action, as we incline to call it, which mends the inadequacies of terms, is from a philosophic point of view, the notion itself coming to the front and claiming recognition. The process of thought is then seen to be a totality, of which our faculties, on the one hand, and the existing thing, on the other, are isolated abstractions, supposed habitually to exist on their own account. To view either of these systems, the mental, on the one hand, and the objective world, on the other, as self-subsistent, has been the error in much of our metaphysics, and in the popular conceptions of what constitutes reality. The idealism of metaphysicians has been equally
xii.] CONCEPTIONS AND NOTIONS, xciii
narrow and insufficient with the realism of common sense. An adequate philosophy, on the contrary, recognises the presence of both elements, in a subordinate and formative position. Pre- sentations may be compared to the little pools left here and there by the sea amongst the rocks and sand : the notion, or grasp of thought, is the tidal wave, which left them there to stagnate, but comes back again to restore their continuity with the great sea. In our thinking we are only the ministers and interpreters of the Idea, — of the organic and self-developing system of thought.
The difference between a presentative conception and a thought proper may be illustrated by the case of the term ' Money.' Money may be either a materialised thought, i. e. a Presentative Conception, or a Notion Proper. In the former case, money is identified with a piece of money. It is pro- bably, in the first instance, embodied in coins of gold, silver, and bronze. In the second place, a wide gulf is placed between it and the other articles for which it is given in exchange. If other things are regarded as money, they are generally treated on the assumption that they can in case of need be reduced to coinage. The discussion of money in works of Political Economy considers it separately from other com- modities : and the laws which forbade its exportation gave a vigorous expression to the belief that it was something sui generis, and subject to conditions of its own. The scientific notion of money abolishes this belief in the peculiarity and fixity of money. Science does so historically, when it can point to a time and a race where money in our sense of the word does not exist, and where barter takes the place of buying and selling. Science does so philosophically, when it expounds what has been called the process of money, — the inter-action or meeting of elements to which the existence of money is due. The notion of money, as given in the Ethics of Aristotle, says that it is the common measure of utility or demand. When we leave out of sight the specific quality of an object, and consider only its capacity of satisfying human wants, we have
xciv PROLEGOMENA. [xm.
what is called its worth or value. This value of the thing, — the quantitative fact which is left, when all the qualities dis- tinguishing the thing are reduced to their bare equivalent — is the notion, of which the currency is the representation, reducing thought to the level of the senses, and embodying the ' ideality ' of value in a tangible and visible object. So long as this ' idea ' of value is kept in view, the currency is a Representation : but when the perception of the notion disappears, money is left a mere Presentation, the general notion being narrowed down to the coinage. Thus the notion of money, like other notions in their ideal truth, is not in us, nor in the things merely : it is what from a minor point of view, when we and the things are re- garded under the head of want or need, may be called the truth of both, the unity of the two sides. Thus considered, money falls into its proper place in the order of things.
CHAPTER XIII.
REASON AND THE DIALECTIC OY UNDERSTANDING.
THESE presentative conceptions, besides being the burden of our ordinary materialising consciousness, are also the data of science, accepted and developed in their consequences. Because they are so accepted, as given into our hand, scientific reasoning can only institute relations between them. Its business as thus conceived is progressive unification, comparing objects with one another, demonstrating the similarities which exist between them, recognising them, and combining them with each other. The exercise of thought which deals with such objects is limited by their existence : it is only formal. It is finite thought, because it is only subjective : each of the objects on which it
XIIL] UNDERSTANDING. xcv
is turned seems to be outside of it, and independent of it. Each point of fact, again, when it is carried out to its utmost, meets with other thoughts which limit it, and claim to be equally self-centred. Such knowledge creeps on from point to point. To this thinking, which is always confronted by a something which continues even when thinking ceases, German philosophy applies a name, which since the days of Coleridge has been translated by ' Understanding1.' This degree or mode of thought — not a faculty of thought — is the systematised and thorough exercise of what in England is called ' Common Sense/ In the first place, it is synonymous with practical intelligence. It takes what it calls facts, or things, as given, and aims only at arranging, combining, and classifying them. Seeing things as a superficies, as it were, so many unconnected points, here itself and there the various things of the world, it tries to bring them into connexion. It accepts existing dis- tinctions, and seeks to render them more precise by pointing out and sifting the elements of sameness. Its greatest merit is an abhorrence of vagueness, inconsistency, and superfluous mysticism : it wishes to be clear, distinct, and practical. In its proper sphere, i. e. in every exercise of thought short of phi- losophy— wherever, in short, thought in us must submit and conform itself to the objective existence of thought as embodied in the natural and spiritual world, — the understanding has an independent value of its own2. Nor is this true merely of practical life, where a man must accommodate himself to facts : it is equally applicable in the higher theoretic life, — in art, religion, and philosophy. If intelligent definiteness does not make itself apparent in these, there is something wrong about them.
It is only when this exercise of thought is regarded as the ne plus ultra of mind, that understanding deserves the reproach- ful language which is lavished upon it by some German meta-
1 Verstand.
2 ' Die Vernunft ohne Verstand ist Nichts ; der Verstand doch Etwas ohne Vernunft.' Hegel's Leben, p. 546.
xcvi PROLEGOMENA. [xm.
physicians. The understanding is abstract : this sums up its offences in one word. Both in its contracted forms, such as faith and common sense, and in its systematic form, the logical or narrowly-consistent intellect, it is partial and liable to be tenacious of half-truths. Only that whereas in feeling- and common sense there is often a great deal which they cannot express, — whereas the heart is often more liberal than its inter- preting mind will allow — the reverse is true of the logically- consistent intellect. The narrowness of the latter is, in its own opinion, exactly equal to the truth of things : and whatever it expresses is asserted without qualification to be the absolute fact. Its business is, given the initial point (which is assumed to be certain and perspicuous), to see all which that point will necessarily involve or lead to. For example, Order may be supposed to be the chief end of the State. Let us consider, says the intelligent arguer, to what consequences and insti- tutions this conception will lead us. Or, again, the chief end of the State is assumed to be Liberty. To what special forms of organisation will this hypothesis lead? Or we may go a step further. It is evident, some will say, that in a State there must be a certain admixture of Order and Liberty. How are we to proceed — what laws and ordinances will be necessary, to secure the proper equilibrium of these two principles ? The two must be blended, and each have its legitimate influence.
These are examples of the operation of Understanding. It can never reach a real synthesis, because it believes in the omnipotence of the abstractions with which it began : but must either carry out one partial principle to its consequences, or allow an alternate and combined force to two opposite principles. Its canon is identity : given something, let us see what follows when we keep the same point always in view, and compare other points with the one which we are supposed to know. Its method is analytic : given a conception in which popular thought supposes itself at home, and let us see all the elements of truth which can be deduced from it. Its statements are abstract and narrow : or, in the words of Anaxagoras, one thing is cut off
xin.] DOGMATISM. xcvii
from another with a hatchet1. In its excess it degenerates into dogmatism, whether that dogmatism be religious or scientific.
The fact is that the Understanding, as this analytic, abstract, and finite action of mind is called, — the thought which holds objective ideas distinct from one another, and from the sub- jective faculties of thought as a whole, — that this Understanding is not sufficiently thorough-going. It begins at a point which is not so isolated as it seems, but is a member of a body of thought : nor is it aware that the whole of this body of thought is in organic union. It errs in taking too much for granted : and in not seeing how this given point is the result of a process, — that in it, in any thought or idea, several tendencies or elements converge and are held in union, but with the possibility of working their way into a new independence. In other words, the Understanding requires to be supplemented by the Reason 2, — by infinite thought, concrete, at once analytic and synthetic. How then, it may be asked, can we make the passage from the inadequate to the adequate? To that question the answer may be given that it is our act which halts at the inadequate : that in complete Reason the Under- standing is only a grade which points beyond itself, and therefore pre-supposes the adequate thought. In other words, it is Reason which creates or lays down the aims, conditions, and fixed entities, — the objects, by which it is bound and limited in its analytic exercise as understanding. Reason, therefore, corrects its own inadequacy : and we have only to watch how the process is accomplished.
The movement is not at one step : it has a middle term or mean which often seems as if it were a step backward. Pro- gress in knowledge is usually described as produced by the mode of demonstration or the mode of experience. Formal Logic prefers the first mode of describing it: Applied Logic prefers the second. Either mode may serve, if we properly comprehend what demonstration and experience mean. And
1 OTI ov KfxupiffTai dAAjjAcuc T& iv T$ tvi Koff/uv ovSJ airoxtKonrat Simplic. Phys. fol. 38 a. z Vernunft.
S
xcviii PROLEGOMENA. [xra.
that will not be done unless we keep equally before us the affirmative and the negative element in the process. The law of rational progress in knowledge, of the dialectical movement of consciousness, or in one word of experience, is not simple movement in a straight line, but movement by negation and absorption of the premisses. The conclusion or the new object of knowledge is a product into which the preceding object is reduced or absorbed. Thus the movement from faith to know- ledge must pass through doubt. The premisses from which we start, or the original object with which we begin, are not left in statu quo: they are destroyed in their own shape, and become only materials constituting a new object and a con- clusion. It is on the stepping-stones of our dead selves that we rise to higher things : and it is on the abrogation of the old objects of knowledge that the new objects are founded. Not merely does a new object come in to supplement the old, and correct its inadequacies by the new presence : not merely do we add new ranges to our powers of vision, retaining the old faculties and subjoining others. The whole world — alike inward and outward, — the consciousness and its object — are subjected to a thorough renovation : every feature is modified, and the system re-created. The old perishes : but in perishing contributes to constitute the new. Thus the new is at once the affirmation and negation of the old. And such is the invariable nature of intelligent progress, of which the old logicians failed to render a right account, because they missed the negative element, and did not see that the immediate premisses must be abolished in order to secure a conclusion, — even as the grapes must be crushed before the wine can be obtained.
This is the real meaning of Experience, when it is called the teacher of humanity: and it was for this reason that Bacon described it as ' far the best demonstration1 ! ' Experience is that absolute process, embracing both us and things, which displays the nullity of what is immediately given, or baldly
1 Novum Organum, Book I. 70.
xiii.] DEMONSTRATION AND EXPERIENCE. xcix
and nakedly accepted, and completes it by the rough remedy of contradiction. The change comes over both us and the things: neither the one side nor the other is left as it was before. And it is here that the advantage of Experience over demonstration consists. Demonstration tends to be looked upon as subjective only : whereas Experience is also objective. But Experience is more than merely objective : it is the absolute process of thought pure and entire ; and as such it is described by Hegel as Dialectic, or Dialectical movement. This Dialectic covers the ground of demonstration, — a fragment of it especially described and emphasised in the Formal Logic, — and of Ex- perience,— under which name it is better known in actual life, and in the philosophy of the sciences l.
Dialectic is the negative or destructive aspect of reason, as preparatory to its affirmative or constructive aspect. It is the spirit of difference and criticism : the outgoing as opposed to the indwelling : the restless as distinguished from the quiet : the reproductive as opposed to the nutritive instinct : the centrifugal as opposed to the centripetal force : the radical and progressive tendency as opposed to the conservative. But no one of these examples sufficiently or accurately describes it. For it is the utterance of an implicit contradiction, — the recognition of an existing, but hitherto unrecognised want. Dialectic does not supervene from without upon the fixed ideas of understanding : but is the evidence of the higher nature which lies behind them, of the unity which understanding implicitly or explicitly denies. That higher nature, the notion or grasp of reasonable thought, comes forward, and has at first, in opposition to the one-sided products of understanding, the look of a destructive agent. If we regard the under- standing and its object, as ultimate and final, — and they are so regarded in the ordinary estimation of the world, — then this negative action of reason seems utterly pernicious, and tends to end in the subversion of all fixity whatever, of every- thing definite. In this light Dialectic is what is commonly
1 Phenomenologie des Geistes, p. 67. g 2
c PROLEGOMENA. [xm.
known as Scepticism : just as the understanding in its excess is known as Dogmatism. But in the total grasp of the ra- tional or speculative notion, Dialectic ceases to be Scepticism, and Understanding ceases to be Dogmatism.
Still there can be no doubt that the Dialectic of reason is dangerous, if taken abstractly and as if it were a whole truth. For the thoughts of ordinary men tend to be more abstract than their materials warrant. Men seek to formulate their feelings, faith, and conduct : but the rationale of their inmost belief, — their creed, — is generally narrower than it might be. Out of the undecomposed and inorganic mass, on which their life and conduct is founded, they extract one or two ingredients : they emphasise with undue stress one or two features in their world, and attach to these partial formulae a value which would be deserved only if they really represented the whole facts. Hence when the narrow outlines of their creed are submitted to dialectic, — when the inlying contradictions are exposed, men feel that the system of the world has sunk beneath them. But it is not the massive structure of their world, the organic unity in which they live, that is struck by dialectic : it is only those luminous points, the representative terms of material thought, which float before their consciousness, and which have been formulated in hard and fast outlines by the under- standing. These points, as so defined and exaggerated, are what dialectic shakes. Not an alien force, but the inherent power of thought, destroys the temporary constructions of the understanding. The infinite comes to show the inadequacy of the finite which it has made.
In philosophy this second stage is as essential as the first. The one-sidedness of the first abstraction is corrected by the one-sidedness of the other. In the Philosophy of Plato the dialectical energy of thought is sometimes spoken of in a metaphorical way as Love. But Love, as the speaker explains, is a child of Wealth and Want : he is never poor, and never rich : he is in a mean between ignorance and knowledge :. Thus
1 Plato: Symposion, 203.
XIIL] DIALECTIC. ci
is described the active unrest of growth, the' inquietude poussante] as Leibnitz called it, — the quickening- force of the negative and of contradiction. It is the principle of ' Compensation/ or of ' Righteousness/ which an American essayist \ and the Hebrew writers, have represented as the law of the world.
But if we merely look at the differentiation or negation involved in the action of reason, we miss the half of its meaning : and the new statement is as one-sided as the old. We have not grasped the full meaning until we see that what affirmed a finite, as understanding, denies, as dialectic, the absoluteness or adequacy of that finite. Both the partial views have a right to exist, because each gives its contribution to the science of truth. If we penetrate behind the surface, — if we do not look at the two steps in the process abstractly and in separation, — it will be seen that these two elements coincide and unite. But we must be careful here. This co- incidence or identification of opposites has not annihilated their opposition or difference. That difference subsists, but in abeyance, reduced to an element or ' moment ' in the unity. Each of the two elements has been modified by the union : and thus when each issues from the unity it has a fuller significance than it had before. This unity, in which difference is lost and found, is the rational notion, — the speculative grasp of thought2. It is the product of experience, — the ampler affirmative which is founded upon an inclusion of negatives.
We began with the bare unit, or simple and unanalysed point, which satisfied popular language and popular imagination as its nucleus: — the presentation which had caught and half- idealised a point, moment, or aspect in the range of feeling' and sensation. In this stage the notion or thought proper is yet latent. In the first place, the nucleus of imagination was analysed, defined, and fixed in the Intellect. And this grade of thought is known as the Understanding. In the second place, the definite and precise term, as understanding supposes it, was subjected to criticism: its contradictions dis-
1 Emerson. 3 Begriff.
cii PROLEGOMENA. [xin.
played ; and the very opposite of the first definition established in its place. This is the action of Dialectic. In the third place, by means of this second stage, the real nature or truth was seen to lie in a union where the opposites interpenetrate and mould each other. Thus we have as a conscious unity , — conscious because it embraces a difference — what we started with as an unconscious unity, the truth of feeling-, faith, and intuition. The first was an immediate unity : — that is to say, we were in the midst of the unity, sunk in it, and making a part of it : the second is a mediated unity, which has been reached by a process, or by differentiation, and which as a conscious unity involves that process.
Reason, however, is infinite, as opposed to understanding, which is finite thinking. The limits of reason, as they are found by the analytic intellect, are limits which reason has imposed, and which it can take away : the limits are in it, and not over it. Reason has been silently laying down those limits, which the understanding finds given, and supposes absolute. Let us put the same law in a more concrete case. It is reason, — the Idea, — or, to give it an inadequate and abstract name, Natural Selection — which has created the several forms of the animal and vegetable world : it is reason, again, which in the struggle for existence contradicts the very inade- quacies which it has brought into being : and it is reason, finally, which affirms both these actions, — the hereditary descent, and the adaptation — in the provisionally permanent and ade- quate forms which result from the struggle.
The three stages thus enumerated are not merely stages in our human reason as subjective. They state the law of rational progress or development in pure thought, in Nature, and in the world of Mind, — the world of Art, Morals, and Science. They represent the law of thought or reason in its most general or abstract terms. They state, mainly in reference to the method or form of thought, that Triplicity, which will be seen in the real formations, the terms in which thought moulds itself, the typical species of reason. They reappear hundreds of times,
xiii.] REASON IN SEVERAL FORMS. ciii
in different multiples, in the system of philosophy. The ab- stract point of the Notion which parts asunder in the Judg- ment, and returns to a unity including- difference in the Syl- logism : — the mere generality of the Universal; which, by a dis- ruption into Particulars and detail, gives rise to the real and actual Individual : — the latent nature, given and tranquil, which asserts and appropriates itself to the exclusion of others, only to assume wholeness and integrity when it realises its abstract and initial being : — the Identity which has to be combined with Difference in order to furnish a possible Ground for Existence : — the baldness and nakedness of an Immediate belief, which comes to the full and direct certainty of itself, to true immediacy, only by feeling the full sense of the antithesis which can separate conviction from truth, or of the Mediation connecting them : — all these are illustrations of the same law really applied which has been formally stated as the necessity for a defining, a dia- lectical, and a speculative element in thought. The three parts of Logic are an instance of the same thing : and when the Idea, or organism of thought, appears developed in the series of Natural forms, it is only to prepare the kingdom of reason, actualised in the world of Mind. The Understanding, on the field of the world, corresponds, says Hegel, to the conception of Divine Goodness. The life of nature goes on in self-satis- fied ease, while men take things for granted, and make the best of natural circumstances as if the earth might last for ever. The finite being then has his season of self-satisfied ease : while the gods live in quiet, away from the sight of man's doings. The dialectical stage, again, corresponds to the conception of God as an omnipotent Lord : when the power of the universe waxes terrific, destroying the complacency of the creatures and making them feel their insufficiency, — when the once beneficent appears jealous and cruel, and the joyous equanimity of human life is oppressed by the sad supremacy of the prophet and the priest. The easy-minded Greek lived for the most part in the former world : the uneasy Hebrew to a great extent in the latter. But the truth lay neither in the
CIV
PROLEGOMENA.
[xiv.
placid wisdom of Zeus, leaving- the world to its own devices, nor in the jealous Jehovah of Mount Sinai : the true specu- lative union is found in the mystical unity of Godhead with the human nature. In this comprehensive spirit did Hegel treat Logic.
This Triplicity runs through Hegel's works. If you open one, the main divisions are marked with the capitals A, B, C. One of these, it may be, is broken up into chapters headed by the Roman numerals I, II, III. Under one or more of these probably come severally the Arabic numerals, I, 2, 3. Any one of these again may be subdivided, and gives rise to sections, headed by the small letters, a, b, e. And, lastly, any one of these may be treated to a distribution under the three titles, a, /3, y. Of course the division is not in each case car- ried equally far : nor does the subject always permit it : nor is Hegel's knowledge alike vigorous, or his interest in all directions the same.
X
CHAPTEE XIV.
THOUGHT PURE AND ENTIRE.
THERE are two degrees in the hindrance against mastering Hegelianism. The first difficulty is to reach the point of view from which the system starts. It is, says Hegel himself, like learning to walk upon our heads. The ' rock of offence ' which blocks the way into philosophy is the sustained opposi- tion between our thought and things. Up to a certain degree, and in certain conditions, the antithesis thus expressed is a just and proper distinction. The first conscious exercise of reason makes us aware of a world, which is independent of our feelings and acts, and continues to exist whether we
xiv.] EGO AND N ON- EGO. cv
observe it or not. Consciousness informs us of ourselves, and of something which is not ourselves : — of an Ego and a Non- ego. As we go further in the analysis of our position we draw a sharp line of demarcation between our thoughts and the being of things : we look upon them as two formed and settled orders of fact : and if our thought deals with things, we find it proper that thought should conform. Sometimes, as in mere observation, our thought seems to get the worst of it, and to be obliged simply to follow and record the movements of things : sometimes, as in experiment and action, the things have in a slight degree to suit themselves to the requirements of our thought. We draw a clear distinction between certainty and truth. The former is a state of our minds, a subjective conviction : the latter depends upon the conformity of our thoughts with the things outside us.
This opposition between the subject and the object runs through the whole range of consciousness, and influences every movement of thought. The bearing of the one side upon the other, — of the understanding upon the fthing-in- itself,' forms the theme of the Criticism of Pure Reason. Ac- cordingly Kant in that book hardly ever comes to examine the thoughts in their own nature, but deals with them mainly as they bear upon (not the thing-in-itself, but) the phenomenon, or thing of the senses. But because the contrast is a con- trast within consciousness, the philosophy of consciousness must overcome it, and show that reason has created this divi- sion or contrast under which it acts. Kant, after showing that the forms of thought did not belong to the things, had, except that he catalogued them with more than usual pre- cision, left them in the subjective mind as they were before. Hegel had to treat the forms of thought, neither as subjective nor as objective, but in and for themselves.
But the second demand, — to move in this ether of absolute thought, — is even harder than the first. Like Plato, we may occasionally feel that we have caught a glimpse of the super- sensible world unveiled ; but it disappears as the senses regain
cvi PROLEGOMENA. [xiv.
their hold. We can probably fix a firm eye on one term of reason, and criticise its value : but it is less easy to survey the Bacchic dance from term to term l, and allow them to criticise themselves. The distracting- influence of our conscious- ness or of things is always leading- us astray. Either we in- cline to treat thoug-hts as psychological products or species, the outcome of our mental activity, which are (a] given to us from the beginning, and so a priori or innate, or which (V) spring up in the course of experience by mutual friction between our mind, and the outside world, and so are a posteriori or derivative. Or disregarding thoughts, we act as if they were more correctly called things : we speak of relations between phe- nomena : we suppose things, and causes, and quantities to form part of the so-called external universe, which science explores. The one estimate of thought, like the other, keeps in view, though at some distance, and so as not to interfere with their practical discussions, the separate and equal existence of thoughts and things. The psychologists of logic scrutinise the world within us first of all, and purpose to accomplish what can be done for the mind as possessing a faculty of thought, before they turn to the world of things. The realists of logic think it better for practical work to allow thought only the formal or outside labour of surveying and analysing the laws of phenomena out of the phenomena which contain them. Neither of them examines thought in its own integrity as a movement in its own self, a sort of organic growth, of which subject and object, the mind and the things called external, are the vehicles, or, in logical language, the accidents.
If it is possible to treat the history of the English Constitu- tion as an object of inquiry in itself and for its own sake, without reference to the individuals who in course of time marred and mended it, or to the setting of events in which its advance is exhibited, why not treat the thought, which is the universal
1 ' Das Wahre ist der bacchantische Taumel, an dem kein Glied nieht trunken ist ; und weil jerles, indem es sich absondert, ebenso unmittelbar sich auflost, — ist 68 ebenso die durchsichtige und einfache Ruhe.' Phenom. des Geistes, p. 35.
xiv.] THE SYSTEM OF THOUGHT. cvii
element of all things, of English Constitution, and Italian Art, /•' and Greek Philosophy, in the same way, — absolutely, i. e. in itself and for its own sake ? When that is done, distinctions rigidly sustained between a priori and a posteriori become meaningless. There is at best only a modified justification for such mottoes and cries, as ' Art for Art's sake/ or f Science must be left free and unchecked,' or ' The rights of the re- ligious conscience ought always to be respected : ' but there can be no demur or limitation to the cry that Thought must be studied in Thought by Thought and for the sake of Thought. For Art, and Science, and Religion are specialised modes in which the totality or truth of things presents itself to mankind, and none of them can claim an unconditioned sway : their claims clash, and each must be satisfied with its part of human life. Thought on the other hand is unlimited : for it exists not merely in its own special modes, but interpenetrates and rules all the other forms, manifesting itself in Art and Religion, not less than in Science. And thus when we study Thought, we study that which is in itself and for itself, — we study Abso- lute Being. On the other side it must be noted that it is Absolute Being, when it is thought, which we study. The two sides, Being and Thought, must come equally forward : and come in synthesis, with the antagonism between the two overcome.
This is the characteristic of Logic, as distinct from the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Mind. The posi- tion of absolute equilibrium between Thought and Being, — if we may thus inaccurately describe the unity where they are in abeyance, — gives place in the province of Nature to the do- minance of the element of Being. The Logical world, the pure Thought-world which is in and for itself, passes over into Being, multiplying itself, as it were, by one of its own elements. And then the whole Logical world, which had lost itself in Being, and become foreign to itself in Nature, re-asserts itself, conquers the element into which it had fallen, incorporates it with its own self, and thence issues the Mind, as the victory
cviii PROLEGOMENA. [xiv.
over Nature, and the absorption of Nature. The spectral world of Logic — the Idea in its own compass, comes first : and when its compass is full it rises into a new sphere or medium. The Idea is, and enters into Being, — as it appears to vision in the series of the natural world. But this one-sided development of the Thought, which is in and for itself, into Being, calls for a higher re-affirmation of the original unity of the two sides. Thus, that Idea, which in Nature is, as it were, outside of itself, and which in its own self is but a possibility of Being and Thought, has attained its full actuality, — and then in Mind or Spirit comes to possess its own self, to be entirely its own. Logic is the abstract universality of Thought or the Idea : Nature as philosophised presents the Idea in its particularity, its fragments and details : the Philosophy of Mind brings the concrete Individuality of Thought in actual forms, not in shadowy outlines, nor in broken pieces.
Thus Logic deals with the world of Thought which is in and for itself. That world of Thought is briefly named the Idea. In Logic the Idea is considered as in itself on the stand-point given by the synthesis or coincidence of Thought with Being. In the Philosophy of Nature the Idea is considered in Being, — going out into independent forms of life and existence, and pre- senting itself to the senses in a whole array of structures. In the Philosophy of Mind the Idea has mastered its independent forms evident to the senses, and brought them back to the unity and centrality of its own type. Thus then the Idea in itself — the Absolute where Being and Thought are in implicit equilibrium — is the first problem of Science. But this Absolute Science is at once subject and object : Thought meets Thought : and the creative force of Thought must be exactly equal to the force of Knowledge. Thought as the Idea lays itself down and at the same time cognises itself. The discursive Thought of the re- flective thinker retraces the creative original Thought which has given rise to the organism of Reason. What as the object of the Science would be called Being, would in the subject be called Thought. The process of Logic consists in the
xiv.] THE METHOD OF EVOLUTION. cix
equalisation of these two elements. But if Thought lays itself down, it is the Absolute Consciousness which is conscious of itself: and so while it is conscious of itself it differentiates itself as creative from itself as created. Thus it works its way from point to point : while at the same time, as it knows itself in this distinction from itself, it must re-affirm itself in the dif- ference and with the difference included in it. And so from a simple point or nucleus it proceeds onward, and yet never leaves the ground which it has once gained : for the ground moves also. The germ of thought has spread into an organic system : but still retains its identity.
This conception of Logic as the self-developing system of Thought pure and entire, is the distinctive achievement of Hegel. ' I cannot imagine,' he says, ( that the method which I have followed in this system of Logic, or rather the method which this system follows in its own self, is otherwise than susceptible of much improvement, and many completions of detail : but I know at the same time that it is the only genuine method. This is evident from the circumstance that it is nothing distinct from its object and subject-matter : for it is the subject-matter within itself, or its inherent dialectic, which moves it along V
But how is this universe of thought to be discovered, and its law of movement to be described? From times beyond the reach of history, from nations and tribes of which we know only by tradition and vague conjectures, in all levels of social life and action, the formation of thought, its evolution in the field of time, has been going on. For thousands of years the intellectual world has been rearing its walls : and much of the process of its formation lies beyond the scope of observation. But fortunately there is a help at hand, which will enable us to discover at least the main outlines in the system of thought.
The key to the solution was found in the same way as led to
the Darwinian theory concerning the Origin of Species. When
the question touching the causes of variation and persistence in
the natural kinds of plants and animals seemed so complex as to
1 Wissenschaft der Logik, I. p. 39.
ex PROLEGOMENA. [xiv.
baffle all attempts at an answer, Darwin found what seemed a clue likely to lead to a theory of descent. The methods adopted in order to keep up, or to vary, a species under domestication were open to anybody's inspection : and those principles, which were consciously pursued in artificial selection by the breeder, suggested a theory of similar selection in free nature. In study- ing the phenomena of thought, of which the species or types were no less numerous and interesting than those in organic nature, it was perhaps impossible to survey the whole history of humanity. But it was comparatively easy to observe the process of thought in those cases where development had gone on consciously and distinctly. The history of philosophy is \ the conscious evolution of what for the far greater part is
\ transacted in the silent workshops of nature. OPhilosophy^ in /•*"• x^\ short, is to the general growth of intelligence what artificial v breeding is to the variation of species under natural conditions. In the successive systems of philosophy, the several stages in the process of reason were reduced to their bare equivalents in terms of thought, and thus preserved. Half of his task was already performed for the logician, and there remained the work, certainly no slight one — of showing the unity and organic development which marked the conscious reasoning, and of connecting it with the general movement of human thought. The logician had to break down the rigid lines which separated one system of philosophy from another, — to see what was really involved in the contradiction of one system by its successor, — and to show that the negation thus given to an antecedent principle was a definite negation, ending not in mere zero or vacuity, but in a distinct result, and making an advance upon the previous point of view.
At first this process was seen in the medium of time. But the conditions of time are of practical and particular interest only. The day when the first leaves appear, and the season when the fruit ripens on a tree, are questions of importance to practical arboriculture. But botany deals only with the general theory of the plant's development, in which such considerations
xiv.] LOGIC AND THE SCIENCES. cxi
exercise no weight. So logic leaves out of account those points of time and chance which the interests of individuals and nations find all-important. And when this element of time has been removed; there is left a system of the types of thought pure and entire, — embalming the life of generations in mere words. The same self-identical thought is set forth from its initial narrow- ness and poverty on to its final amplitude and wealth of differences. At each stage it is the Absolute : outside of it there is nothing. It is the whole, pure and entire : always the whole. But in its first totality it is a void : in its last a fully-formed and articulated world, — because it holds all that it ever threw out of itself resumed into its grasp.
In these circumstances nothing can sound higher and nobler than the Theory of Logic. It presents the Truth unveiled in its proper form and absolute nature. If the philosopher may call this absolute totality of thought ever staying the same in its eternal developments, — this adequacy of thought to its own requirements — by the name of God, then we may say with Hegel that Logic exhibits God as He is in His eternal Being before the creation of Nature and a finite Mind. But the logical Idea is only a phantom Deity — the bare possibility of a God in all the development of its implicit details.
The first acquaintance with the Theory of Logic is likely to dash cold water on the enthusiasm thus awakened, and may sober our views of the magic efficacy of Logic. ' The student on his first approach to the Science,' says Hegel, ' sees in Logic at first only one system of abstractions apart and limited to itself, not extend- ing so as to include other facts and sciences. On the contrary, when it is contrasted with the variety abounding in our general- ised picture of the world, and with the tangible realities embraced in the other sciences, — when it is compared with the promise of the Absolute Science to lay bare the essence of that variety, the inner nature of the mind and the world, or, in one word, the Truth, — this science of Logic in its abstract outline, in the colourless cold simplicity of its mere terms of thought, seems as if it would perform anything sooner than this promise, and in
cxii PROLEGOMENA. [xiv.
the face of that variety seems very empty indeed. A first introduction to the study of Logic leads us to suppose that its significance is restricted to itself. Its doctrines are not believed to be more than one separate branch of study engaged with the terms or dimensions of thought, besides which the other scientific occupations have a proper material and body of their own. Upon these occupations, it is assumed, Logic may exert a formal influence, but it is an influence which is mostly spontaneous, and for which the scientific form and its study may be in case of need dispensed with. The other sciences have upon the whole rejected the regulation-method, which made them a series of definitions, axioms, and theorems, with the demonstration of these theorems. What is called Natural Logic rules in the sciences with full sway, and gets along without any special investigation in the direction of thought itself. The entire materials and facts of these sciences have detached themselves completely from Logic. Besides they are more attractive for sense, feeling, or imagination, and for practical interests of every description.
' And so it comes about that Logic has to be learned at first, as something which is perhaps understood and seen into, but of which the compass, the depth, and further import are in the earliest stages unperceived. It is only after a deeper study of the other sciences that logical theory rises before the mind of the student into a universal, which is not merely abstract, but embraces within it the variety of particulars. — The same moral truth on the lips of a youth, who understands it quite correctly, does not possess the significance or the burden of meaning which it has in the mind of the veteran, in wThom the experience of a life- time has made it express the whole force of its import. In the same way, Logic is not appreciated at its right value until it has grown to be the result of scientific experience. It is then seen to be the universal truth, — not a special study beside other matters and other realities, but the essence of all these other facts together1.'
1 Wisaenschaft der Logik, I. p. 43.
xv.] THE UNCONDITIONED. cxiii
CHAPTER XV.
ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE : OR THE CATEGORIES.
ACCORDING to the strict reasoning's of Kant in his Criticism of Pure Reason, and the somewhat looser discussions of Mr. Spencer in his ' First Principles,' a system of Metaphysics or Theory of the super-sensible is impossible. As a result of the criticism by Kant, Jacobi claimed the Absolute for Faith : and Spencer banishes the Absolute to the sphere of Religion to be worshipped or ignored, but in either case blindly. Hegel, on the contrary, purposes to show that this unfathomable Absolute is very near us, and at our very door : in our hands, as it were, and especially present in our e very-day language. If we are ever to gain the Absolute, we must be careful not to lose one jot or tittle of the Relative. The Absolute — this term, which is to some so offensive and to others so precious — always presents itself to us as a Relative : and when we have persistently traced the Proteus through all its manifestations, — when we have, so to speak, seen the Absolute Relativity of Relation, there is very little more needed in order to apprehend the Absolute pure and entire;^ One may say of the Absolute what Goethe1 says of Natur* : ' She lives entirely in her children : and the mother, where is she ? '
It is a great step, when we have detected the Relativity of what had hitherto seemed Absolute, — when a new aspect of the infinite fulness of the spiritual world, the truth of God, dawns upon us. But it is even a greater step when we see that the Relativity which we have thus discovered is itself Relative. And this is precisely the advantage of studying the question on Logical ground. On the solid ground of Nature and Mind, the several grades of the process of thought have a portentous firm-
1 Die Natur (1780). 'Sie lebt in lauter Kindern: und die Mutter, wo ist sie? .... Sie ist ganz und doch immer unvollendet. . . . Sie verbirgt sich in tausend Namen und Termen, und ist immer dieselbe.'
h
cxiv PROLEGOMENA. [xv.
ness and grandeur about them, and the intrinsic dialectic seems scarcely adequate to shaking the foundations of their stability. They seem permanently and finally distinct : as if the last word on the question had long ago been uttered. They stand as independent entities, separate from each other, and localised in their several formations. But in the ether of thought, in the fluid and transparent form of mere thoughts, the several stages in the development of the Absolute clearly betray their Rela- tivity, and by the negation of this Eelativity lead on to a higher Absolute. The logical chemist reduces the solid formations of Mind and Nature into their primary elements : he catches the ultimate seed of thought and watches it unfolding and metamor- phosing itself into a totality of many elements.
Instead, therefore, of leaving a broad abyss between the Absolute on one side, and the Relative on another, we must ask whether, taking Thought pure and entire, there is not room for plenty of Relativity within the limits of its Absoluteness. One difficulty is made by the gap between ourselves and objectivity. That antithesis may for each man, in his personal life, possess interest of an engrossing nature : just as in more material spheres the interests of daily life may lead us to look out for the means of sustenance. Such questions must be solved by every one : and in both cases the less talking there is about the con- ditions of the problem, there will be more fruitful action. But to the philosopher such questions and such antitheses have no meaning, as they are put. The antithesis between subjective and objective serves its purposes in many grades of conscious- ness, and prepares the way for the philosophic point of view, where the antithesis enters into the Idea and no longer stays outside as a fixed opposition. In the Idea, Thought and Thing, or the Notion and Being, are at one in their difference : the Thing has become a Thought, and the Thought is adequate to the Thing. That adequacy in its several Relative stages, falling into three main groups, gives the several degrees of what Hegel terms Truth.
Accordingly, Metaphysics and Logic tend to coincide. The
xv.] LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS. cxv
Absolute, which is the object of Metaphysics, is made the problem of Logic. And in this change of front lies the secret of success. Former Metaphysics had dashed itself in vain against a world of true Being, which all the efforts of subjective thought could never conquer : and the struggle at last grew so disastrous that Kant gave the signal for retreat, and left the world of true Being, the impregnable Thing-in-itself, to its repose. His advice to metaphysicians was to concentrate the attack of Understand- ing upon single experiences conforming to certain conditions, and to investigate these conditions of possible experience. In other words, he turned observation to what he called Transcen- dental Logic. It was by means of this suggestion, understood in the widest sense, and with various assistance, that Hegel was led to his discovery. He had to show how these conditions in themselves when carried out in full gave the Unconditioned. He attacked the Absolute, if we may say so, in detail. The Ab- solute, as the totality, universe or System of Relativity, lays itself open to observation by deposing itself to a Relative. It possesses the differentiating power of separating itself as an object in passivity, from itself as a subject in action, — that power which in lower grades of thought lay outside of consciousness. And thus Thought is the active universal, — which actualises itself more and more out of abstraction into concreteness.
Hegel, then, solved the problem of Metaphysics by turning it into Logic. The same principle, Thought, appeared in both : in the former as a purely passive result, showing no traces of action in it, — in the latter as an activity, with a mere power of passing from object to object, discovering and establishing connexions and relations. The two sciences were fragments, unintelligible and untenable, when taken in abstract isolation. This is the justification, if justification be required, for Hegel's identification of Logic and Metaphysics. The Hegelian Logic falls into three parts : the theory of Transitory Being : the theory of Relative Being : and the theory of the Notion. The first of these in his Science of Logic is called Objective Logic, and along with the second part might be described as Metaphysics. The third part
cxvi PROLEGOMENA. [xv.
is more strictly on Logical ground. But perhaps it is best to describe the whole as the Metaphysics of Logic.
The Logic of Hegel is the Science of Thought as a natural system of its characteristic forms, which in their entirety constitute the Idea. These forms or types of thought, the moulds in which the Idea confines itself in its evolution, are not unlike what have been otherwise called the Categories. (Of course the foreign word ' Categories ' does not commend itself to Hegel). They are the modifications or definite forms, the articulated and distinct shapes, in which the process of Thought ever and anon culminates in the course of its move- ment. The Infinite and Absolute at these points conditions itself, and as so conditioned or differentiated is apprehended and stamped with a name. They specify the unspecified, and give utterance to the ineffable. They are the names by which reason grasps the totality of thing.-;, — the names by which the truth (or God) reveals itself, however inadequately. From one point of view they constitute a series, each evolved from the other, a more completely detailed term or utterance of thought resulting by innate contradiction from a less detailed. From another point of view the Total remains perpetually the same ; and the change seems only on the surface. The one aspect of the movement conceals the Absolute : the other puts the Relative into the background.
What then are the Categories? We may answer: They are the ways in which expression is given to the unifying influence of thought : and we have to consider them as points or stations in the progress of this unification, and in the light of this influence. These Categories are the typical structures marking the definite grades in the growth of thought, — the moulds or forms which thought assumes and places itself in, — those instants when the process of thought takes a determinate form, and admits of being grasped. They are the world of Platonic forms, if we consider his ' form of Good ' as correspond- ing to the ' Idea ' of Hegel. For if we look carefully into this mystic word ' Good ' which plays so brilliant a part in
xv.] THE CATEGORIES. cxvii
ancient philosophy, we shall see that it only expresses in a cruder and less analytic form, as ancient thought often does, the same thing as so many moderns love to speak of as Relativity, and which is also implied in Aristotle's conception of an End. And the ' form of Good ' is only a brief and undeveloped vision of an Absolute, which is the ' form of Relativity,' — Relativity elevated into an Absolute. The process of Thought is for the major part impalpable, and then a condensation, as it were, takes place, and a precipitate is formed. A definite term of thought or a grasp of thought issues from the solution of elements : and a name is created for what was before nameless.
A Category is often spoken of as if it were the highest extreme of generalisation, the most abstract and most widely applicable term possible. If we climb sufficiently far and high up the Porphyry's tree of thought, we may expect, thought the old logicians, to reach the ' summa genera ' or highest species of human thought. But these quantitative distinctions of greater and less, in which the Formal Logic revels, are not very suitable to any of the terms or processes of thought, and they certainly give an imperfect description of the Cate- gories. The essential function which the Categories perform in the fabric of thought and language is, in the first place, to combine, affirm, demonstrate, relate, and unify, — and not to generalise. Their action may be better compared to that fulfilled by those symbols in an algebraical expression, which like plus and minus denote an operation to be performed in the way of combining or relating, than to the office of the symbols which in these expressions denote the magnitudes themselves.
To the student of language the Categories are known as pronominal, or formal roots, — those roots which, as it is said, do not denote things, but relations between things. He meets them in the inflections of nouns and verbs ; in the signs of number, gender, case, and person : but, as thus presented, their influence is sub-ordinate to the things of which they are, as it were, the accidents. He meets them in a more independent
PROLEGOMENA. [xv.
and tangible shape in the articles, pronouns, prepositions, con- junctions, and numerals, and in what are called the auxiliary verbs. In these apparently trifling, and in some languages almost non-existent words or parts of words, we have the sym- bols of relations, — the means of connexion between single words, — the cement which binds significant speech together. There are languages, such as Chinese, where these categorising terms ai'e, as it were, in the air : where they are only felt in accent and position, and have no separate existence of their own. But in the languages of the Indo-European family they gradually appear, at first in combination, perhaps, with the more material roots, and only in the course of time asserting an independent form. Originally they denote the relations of space and time, — the generalised or typical forms of sensation : but from these they are afterwards, and in a little while, transferred into the service of intellect. These little words are the very life-blood of a language, — its spirit and force. Complete mastery in the usage of them is what makes an idiomatic knowledge of a language, as distinct from a mere remembrance of the vocabulary. And philosophy is the re- cognition of their import and significance. Thus in Greek philosophy the central questions turn upon such words as Being and not-Being : Becoming : that out of which : that for the sake of which : the what-was-being : the what-is : the other : the one : the great and small : that which is upon the whole : what is according to each : this somewhat : &C.1 And again in Modern Philosophy, how often has the battle raged about the meaning of such words as I : will : may : can : must : because : same and different : self ; &c. ?
1 ov and IJH) ov : TO •yj-yyo/tcroj' : TO l£ ov : TO ov 'iv(Ka : TO TI TJV tlvai : TO TI lore : OaTtpov : (v : TO H^ya. «o2 TO /juKpov : TO naff o\ov : TO naff tKaarov : ToSf rl.
xvi.] BEING OR IMMEDIACY. cxix
CHAPTEK XVI.
THE THREE PARTS OF LOGIC.
THE first part of Logic, the theory of Being, may be called the theory of unsupported and freely-floating Being. We do not mean something which is, but the mere 'is,' the bare fact of Being, without any substratum. The degree of condensation or development, where substantive and attribute co-exist, has not yet come. The terms or forms of Being float as it were freely in the air, and we go from one to another, or — to put it more cor- rectly— one passes into another. The terms in question are Is and Not : Because : There is : Some and Other : Each : One : Many : and so on through the terms of number to degree and numerical specifically. This Being is immediate : i.e. it con- tains no reference binding it with anything beyond itself, but stands forward baldly and nakedly, as if alone ; and, if hard pressed, it turns over into something else. It includes the three stages of Quality, Quantity, and Measure. The ether of ' Is ' presumes no substratum, or further connexion with anything : and we only meet a series of points as we travel along the surface of thought. To name, to number, to measure, are the three grades of our ordinary and natural thought : so simple, that one is scarcely disposed to look upon them as grades of thought at all. And yet if thought is self-specification, what more obvious forms of specifying it are there than to name (so pointing it out, or qualifying it), to number (so quantifying it, or stating its dimensions), and to measure it ? These are the three primary specificates by which we think, — the three primary dimensions of thought. Thought, in so determining, plays upon the surface, and has no sense of the interdependence of its terms. And if we could imagine a natural state of consciousness in which sensations had not yet hardened into permanent things, and into connexions between things, we should have something like the range of Immediate Being. Colours and sounds, a series of
cxx PROLEGOMENA. [xvi.
floating1 qualities, pass before the eye and the ear : these colours and sounds are in course of time counted : and then, by apply- ing the numbers to these qualities, we get the proportions or limits ascertained. When this process in. actual life, — the advance from the vague feelings which tell us of sweet, cold, &c., by means of a definite enumeration of their phenomena, to the rules guiding their operation, — is reduced to its most abstract terms, we have the process of Being. It is the period in language, when a distinction between things and their actions or properties has not arisen. The demonstrative pronouns and the | numerals are the linguistic expression of Being in its several stages.
The first sphere was that of Being directly confronting us, and using the demonstrative pronouns first of all. The second is Relative Being : and in this we have to deal with the relative pronouns. The surface of Being is now seen to exhibit a secondary formation, to involve a sort of permanent standard in itself, and to be essentially relative. The mere quality, when reduced to number, is seen to be subjected to a certain measure, rule, sort, or standard : and this reflex of itself always haunts it, modifying and determining it. Thus instead of qualities, we begin to speak of the properties of a thing : we have, as it were, two levels of Being, in intimate and necessary connexion, where there was only one before. In this sphere of Relativity the terms expressive of things come in pairs : such as Same and Different, Like and Unlike : True Being and Show or Sham : Cause and Effect : Substance and Accident : Matter and Form : and the like. If we compare mere Being to the cell in its simple state, we may say that in the second sphere of Logic a nucleus has been formed, — that a distinction has sprung up between two elements, which are still in closest inter-connexion. We have penetrated behind the seeming simplicity of the surface : and in fact discovered it to be mere seeming in the light of the sub- stratum, cause, or essence, upon which it is now reflected. In immediate Being one category, or specificate, or dimension of thought passes over into another, and then disappears : but in
xvi.] ESSENCE OR RELATIVE BEING. cxxi
mediated Being1 one category has a meaning- only by its relation to another, — only by its reflection on another, — only by the light which another casts upon it. Thus a cause has no meaning except in connexion with its effect : a force implies or postulates an exertion of that force : an essence is constituted by the existence which issues from it. Instead of ' is,' therefore, which denotes resting-upon-self, or connexion-with-self, the verb of the second sphere is 'has,' denoting reference, or connexion-with- something-else : e.g. the cause has an effect : the thing has properties. Instead of numerals, come the prepositions and pro- nouns of relation, such as which, same, like, as, by, because. The only conjunction in the first stage or Being was ' And,' — mere juxtaposition ; and even that conjunction was perhaps premature, and due to reflective thought going beyond what was immediately before it, and tracing out connexions with other things. The first stage, as we have seen, treated of the terms of natural thought present in the action of the senses : the second stage — that of Essential Being — deals with scientific, reflective, or mediate thought. What, why, are the questions : comparison and connexion the methods : the establishment of relations of similarity, causation, and co-existence, the purpose in this range of logical inquiry. It is the peculiar home of what are known as Metaphysical subtleties. The natural but delusive tendency of reasoning is to throw the emphasis on one side of the relation, and to regard the other as necessary and secondary. Contrasts between essentia and existentia : substantia and modi : cause and effect : real and apparent, constantly occur.
If the first branch of Logic was the sphere of simple Being in a point or series of points, the second is that of difference and discordant Being, broken up in itself. The progress in this second sphere, — of Essentia or Relative Being — consists in gradually overcoming the antithesis and discrepancy between the two sides in it, — the Permanent and the Phenomenal. At first the stress rests upon the Permanent and true Being which lies behind the seeming, — upon the essence or substratum in the background, on which the show of immediate Being has been
cxxii PROLEGOMENA. [xvi.
proved by the process in the first sphere really to rest. Then, secondly, Existence comes to the front, and Appearances or Phenomena are regarded as the only realities with which science can deal. And yet even in this case we cannot but distinguish between matter and form, between the phenomena and their laws, between force and its exercises : and thus repeat the re- lativity, though both terms in it are now transferred into the range of the Phenomenal world. The third range of Essential Being is known as Actuality, where the two elements in relation rise to the level of independent existences, essences in pheno- menal guise, — bound together, and deriving their very character- istics from that close union. Relativity is now clearly apparent in actual form, and comprises the three heads of Substantial Relation, Causal Relation, and Reciprocal Relation. In this case while the two members of the relation are now indis- solubly linked together, they are no more siibmitted to each other than they are independent. According to Reciprocity everything actual is at once cause and effect : it is the meet- ing-point of relations : a whole with independent elements in mutual inter-connexion. Such a total is the Notion.
This brings us to the third branch of Logic, — the theory of the Notion, or Grasp of Thought. The theory of Causality, with which the second branch closed, continued to let the thought fall asunder into two unequal halves, — always in relation or con- nexion with each other. But in the present theory we are dealing with Development. By development is meant self- specification, or self-actualisation : the thing is what it becomes, or while it changes it remains identical with itself. The Category of Development is the category or method of philosophic or speculative science : just as Being corresponded to natural thought, and Relativity or Reflection to Metaphysical and im- perfect science. According to the law of Development diversity and unity both receive their due. Mere unity or Being re- appears now as Universality or Generality. Mere diversity, or the relativity of essence, re-appears as Particularity, or the speciality of details. And the union of the two is seen in the
xvi.] NOTION AND IDEA. cxxiii
Individualised notion or actual thing-. In other words, the true thought which really grasps its object, which is a real whole, is a Triplicity : it is first seen all as the ground or self-same, the possibility, — secondly, all as the existence in details, and difference, the actuality or contingency, — and thirdly, all as the self-same in difference, and the possible in actuality. It contains an innate movement, and to grasp it wholly we must apprehend it as such a gradual unity of elements, in each of which however it is whole and entire. Thus the Notion embraces the three elements or grades of universal, particular and individual. These three elements first rise to independence and their full significance- in the syllogism, with its three terms and judgments, exhibiting the various ways in which any two of these elements in thought are brought into unity by means of the third. This adequate form is a system or synthesis which contains in itself the means to its realisation, — which is a process within itself, and when complete and actual perforce gives itself reality.
Thus the Notion or Subject — the Causa Sui — when it is fully realised in the plentitude of its elements or differences, — when each element has scope of its own, is the Object — the actual and individualised world of thought, or syllogism in reality. This objective world or Object appears in three forms. An Object is either a mechanical, a chemical, or a teleological object. The terms mechanical and chemical are not to be understood in the narrow sense of a machine or chemical compound. They are to be taken in a logical sense, just as Mr. J. S. Mill speaks of a chemical or geometrical method of treating social problems. The object or realised notion is mechanical, when the unification of the members in the totality comes from without, so that the synthetic whole or universal is external to the particulars, and only arranges them. An object is chemical, when the connexion or genesis of the compound from its factors is not evident : when the elements are as it were lost, and only give rise to a fresh par- ticular. An object is teleological, when the universal is not distinctly conceived as realised, but as tending to be realised by the particulars. Modern science is a vehement opponent of
cxxiv PROLEGOMENA. [xvn.
teleology : and with justice, so far as in teleology means and end fall apart. But it is mistaken in supposing itself to return to the mechanical point of view. On the contrary its success is most generally secured by rising to the point of view given by the Idea of Life, and by looking upon the objective world as an Organism, that is, as the notion in objectivity, soul indissolubly united with body. But even the Idea of Life, in which we enter the third stage of the notion, is defective as a represen- tation of the truth of Objectivity : for body and soul must part. The conception of an Organism or living being is too crude : and gives place to the Idea as Absolute, — the developed unity of the Notion with Objectivity. This unity thus presented is what lies before our vision in Nature : and thus the Idea, as developed in Logic, forms the prologue to the Philosophy of Nature.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SEARCH FOR A FIRST PRINCIPLE.
IF there be one thing which, more than another, distinguishes Modern Philosophers from the Ancient Philosophy of Athens, it is the desire to discover a First Principle, or Formula, from which all things can be deduced and explained. Emulating the boast of Archimedes, they would be glad to find a TTOV or<2, a standing- ground from which they could move the world. In order to secure such a vantage-ground they find it necessary to produce a vacuum, — to make a clean sweep of all existence so that nothing may interfere with the swing of their principle. A state of utter doubt, dispossessing all past prejudices and idola, — a tabula rasa, — a mind in its blankness before all possible experience, is the site on which modern philosophers have elected
xvii.] ABSTRACT PRINCIPLES. cxxv
to plant their systems. But from a condition of mere vacuity and emptiness, nothing- can spring-. E nihilo nihil fit. At this turn of the philosophic way, it seems as if every prospect of ad- vance was cut off, — as if philosophy had inveigled us out of our comfortable home of actuality only to land us in a quag-mire, — ' a Sloug-h of Despond.' Nor is such a termination, awkward as it appears, without veritable examples.
For the most part, however, philosophers manage to continue their way undiscourag-ed. Their statements are not, as it appears, to be taken quite literally or seriously : and even in the deepest deep, when the spirit faces the knowledge that it knows nothing, there is a means of rescue at hand. If the doubt has been radical enough, we are assured, there is a ground for certainty in that very doubt. In the heart of Cartesian Scep- ticism, the ' Coffito, ergo sum' (I must be, because I think), comes to bring relief. And from that stable centre of certainty, the world soon resumes all its old serenity and solidity. The principle in fact serves to re-instate a great deal that was apparently lost, and continues to occupy a magisterial authority throughout the whole evolution of the system. Like a dens ex machina, or a trick of the trade, it is applied to unloose every knot, and to clear any difficulties that arise. But a principle of this stamp possesses no intimate connexion or organic solidarity with the theory which it helps to prop. It is always at hand as a ready-made schema or heading, and can be attached to the most incongruous orders of fact. Thus in many parts of the works of Aristotle, the principle of ' End ' or ' Activity ' is applied to whatever subject comes forward, and like a hereditary official vestment it suits all its wearers equally well or equally ill. What is true ' on the whole ' is not always true ' of each : ' the KaOohov never quite equals the KO.O' knaa-rov.
The modern principle of Utility is equally flexible in its application to the problems of moral and social life. It costs no trouble to pronounce the magic word, and even ' such as are of weaker capacity ' may make something out of such a formula. But an abstract formula, which is equally applicable to every-
cxxvi PROLEGOMENA. [xvu.
thing-, is not particularly applicable to anything-. While it seems to save trouble, and is so plain as to be almost tauto- logical (as when the worth of a thing- or act is explained to mean its utility), it really suggests fresh questions in every case, and multiplies the difficulty. Having an outward adaptability to every kind of fact, the principle has no true sympathy with any : it becomes a mere form, which we use as we do a measuring- rod, moving it along from one thing to another. We are always reverting to first principles as our last principles also. Even Aristotle, when he remarked that an object had to be criticised from its own principles and not from general formulae, saw through the fallacy of this style of argument.
This is like asking for bread and getting a stone. The philosopher, who ought to take us through the shut chambers of the world, merely hands us a key at the gate, telling us that it will unlock every door, and then the insides will speak for themselves. But we would have our philosopher do a little more than this. Not being ourselves omniscient, we should be glad of a guide-book at the least, and perhaps even of the services of an interpreter to explain some peculiarities, some startling phenomena, and sights even more unpleasant than those which appalled the spouse of the notorious Bluebeard. Or, dropping metaphor, we wish the formula to be applied systematically and thoroughly. When that is done the formula loses its abstractness ; it gains those necessary amplifications and qualifications, as we call them, without which no theory explains much or gives much information. And thus, instead of fancying that our initial formula contains the truth in a nutshell, we shall find that it is only one step to be taken on the way to truth, and that its narrow statement sinks more and more into insignificance, as its amplified theory gains in significance.
But an adequate principle most have other qualities. What has been said up to this point, only amounts to a condition, that our principle must cease to be abstract and formal, and must become concrete and real. What \\c want is a Be-
xvii.] WHAT A BEGINNING IMPLIES. cxxvii
ginning1, — a principle which shall be a real beginning-, leading out of itself into a system of developed doctrine. But where are we to find a Beginning ? A mere certainty will not satisfy : the certainty must be primary, and, as it were, a point not analysable into simpler constituents, but issuing into fuller truths : nothing actually, but all things potentially. And therefore such a beginning as ' Cogito, ergo sum,' must be dismissed, — not because, according to Gassendi, ' Ambulo, ergo sum ' (I exist, because I am walking), would be as valid an inference, but because the certainty does not lie at the very root of all things. To begin with the ' I ' would only place us at a point where the severance between thought and being was already a fait accompli, to be accepted, however profusely we may analyse the separate factors and co-ordinate them by our arrangements.
The beginning of philosophy or logic must go far deeper than this original division. It must penetrate to a stage where thought and being are at one, — to the absolute unity of both which precedes their disruption into the several worlds of Nature and Mind. It must show us the very beginning of thought, before it has yet come to the full consciousness of itself, — when the truth of what it is still lurks in the back- ground and has to be developed. We must see thought in its first and fundamental calling. As the biologist, when he describes the structure of a plant, begins on the assumption of a previous development of parts, with an existing plant, which has resulted in a seed, — but begins with the seed from which the plant is derived : so the logician must begin with a point which in a way pre-supposes the system to which it leads. But in its beginning this pre-supposition is not apparent: and in fact, the pre-supposition will only appear when the development of the system is complete. The first step in a process, just because it is a step, may be said to pre- suppose the completed process. Thus the beginning of Logic presumes the existence of Absolute Mind, as the beginning of botany presumes the existence of the plant. It is from
cxxviii PROLEGOMENA. [xvn.
this circumstance that Hegel describes philosophy as a circle rounded in itself, where the end meets with the beginning-, or says that philosophy has to comprehend its original grasp or concept. In other words, it is not till we reach the con- clusion that we see, in the light thus shed upon the beginning, what that beginning really was. From the general analogy of the sciences we should not expect that the beginning of thought would be full-grown thought, or indeed seem to the undiscerning eye to be thought at all. The beginning is not usiially identifiable with the final issue, except by some effort to trace the process of connexion. The object of science only appears in its truth when the science has done its work.
The beginning of philosophy must hold a germ of develop- ment, however dead and motionless it may seem. But it must also to some extent be a result, — the result of the development or concentration of consciousness ; — of the other forms of which it is the hypothetical foundation. The variety of imaginative conception, and the chaos of sense, must vanish in a point, by an act of abstraction, which leaves out all the variety and the chaos, — or rather by an act of distillation, which draws out of them their real essence and concentrated virtue. This variety, when thoroughly examined and tested, shrivels up into a point: — it only is. Everything definite as we call it, the endless repetitions of existence, have disappeared, and have left only the energy of concentration, the unitary point of Being.
We may describe the process in two ways. We may say that we have left out of sight all existing differences, — that we have stripped off every vestige of empirical conceptions, and left a residue of pure thought. The thought is pure, perhaps, but it is not entire. In this way of describing it, pure thought is the most abstract thought, — the last outcome of those operations which have divested our conceptions of everything real and con- crete about them. But thus to speak of the process as Abstraction would be to express half of the truth only : and would really leave us a mere zero, or gulf of vacuity. In the beginning there would then be nothing — the mere annihilation of all
xvn.] THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. cxxix
possible and actual existence. And it is certainly true that in the beginning- there can be nothing1. — On the other hand, and secondly, there is affirmation as well as negation involved in the ultimate action by which sense and imagination pass into thought. They are not left behind, and the emptiness only retained : they are carried into their primary consequence, or into their proximate truth. They are reduced to their simplest equivalent or their lowest term in the vocabulary of thought : which is Being. The process which creates the initial point of pure thought is at once an abstraction from everything, and a concentration upon itself in a point : — which point, accordingly, is a unity or inter-penetration of positive and negative. This absolute self-concentration into a point is the primary step by which Mind or Thought comes to know itself, — the first step in the Absolute's process of self- cognition — that process which it is the purpose of Logic to trace.
The bare point of Being and nothing more is the beginning in the process of the Absolute's self-cognition : it is, in other words, our first apprehension of the process of thought, — the narrow edge by which we come in contact with the universe of Reason. For these are two aspects of the same. The process of the self-cognition or manifestation of the Absolute Idea is the very process by which philosophers have built up the edifice of thought. What the one statement views from the universal side or the totality, the other views in connexion with the several achievements of individual thinkers. Of course the evolution of the system of thought, as it is brought about by individuals, leaves plenty of room for the play of what is known as Chance. The Natural History of Thought or the History of Philosophers has to regard the action of national character upon individual minds, and the reciprocal action of these minds upon one another. The History of Organic Nature similarly presents the- dependence of the species upon their surroundings, and of one species upon another in the medium of its conditions. Gradually Physical Science reduces these
cxxx PROLEGOMENA. [xvin.
conditions to their universal forms, and may try to exhibit the evolution of the animal through its species in all grades of development. So in the Science of Thought the accidents, as we may call them, disappear : and the temporary and local questions, which once engrossed the deepest attention, fade away into generalised forms of universal application. Philo- sophy, as it historically presents itself in the world, is not an accidental production, or dependent on the arbitrary choice of men. The accident, if such there be, is that these particular men should have been the philosophers, and not that such should have been their philosophy. They were, according to their several capacity for utterance, only the mouth-pieces of the Spirit of the Times, — of the absolute mind under the phenomenal limitations of their period. They saw the Idea of their world more clearly and distinctly than other men: and therein lies their title to fame : but really their words were only a reflex, — an almost involuntary and necessary move- ment, due to the mind in its gradual unveilment. The great philosophers are the victims of Thought, — the scapegoat which goes forth bearing the sins of the people. Necessity is laid upon them to consecrate themselves to the service of the Idea, and to devote their lives to solitary work in the vast loneliness of the Absolute.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE LOGIC OP BEING.
THE antitheses between thought and being, between the idea and actuality, between the notion and the object, are contrasts produced by separating one member in the process of thought from its context. If we take a fully developed
xvm.] THOUGHT AND BEING. cxxxi
organic body, such as that of a horse, and compare it with the small animalcules that inhabit the bottom of the ocean, we shall probably draw an absolute distinction between them. The former we term organised, the latter seem inorganic. But a study of the intervening steps, of the inter-mediation between the two ends of the series, generally serves to dissipate the belief in an unbounded opposition. We recognise that organic and inorganic are two terms of approximate thought, abstractly stating a difference, which does not thus abstractly exist in nature. In the same way it is the province of Logical Science to show that the incommensurability between thought and being, or between the idea and actuality, disappears on closer examination. When we trace the development of thought sufficiently far, we see that Being is an imperfect or inadequate thought,— certainly not adequate to the Idea, but not for that reason generically differing from it. The abso- luteness of Being as an antithesis to Thought is a fiction of the understanding, maintained by an effort of abstraction, which becomes natural to us by habit. The thought which is found in the term Being passes onwards, instead of stopping there. It has not deposited all its burden, or uttered all its meaning in Being. Being is the veriest abstraction, — the very rudiment of thought — meagre as meagre can be. It is on one side the bare position or affirmation of thought : on the other hand it is the very negation of thought, — if thought be only possible under difference. But a mere ' Is ' is a mere point without difference. There is no such thing as mere Being: or mere Being is mere nothing : mere Being is not.
The first category of Ontology is that of Being. It is the merest simplicity and meagreness, with nothing definite in it at all : and for that very reason constantly liable to be confused with categories of more concrete burden. It does not however mean something which has being; it does not mean definite being: still less does it mean a being (what Hegel calls an Essence). Ordinary language certainly uses being in all these senses. But if we are to be logical, we must not mix
i 2
cxxxii PROLEGOMENA. [xvur.
up categories with one another: we must take terms at their precise value. Mere Being- then is the mere ' Is,' which can give no explanation or analysis of itself: which is indescribable in itself: which is an 'Is' and nothing more. The simplest answer to those, who invest the ' Is ' with so much signification, is to ask them to consider the logical copula. Every one knows that the ' Is ' of the copula disappears in several languages : that it is far from indispensable in Latin : that in Greek e. g. the demonstrative article serves the same purpose. In Hebrew too the pronouns officiate for the so-called substantive verb : and the same verb probably does not exist in the Polynesian family of languages, where its place is supplied by what we call the demonstrative pronoun1. In the copula, which according to M. Laromiguiere, as quoted by Mr. Mill, expresses only ' un rapport special entre le sujet et Vattribut,' we encounter the mere undeveloped and unexplained unifying of thought, the very abstraction of relativity2.
In the beginning, then, there is nothing and yet that nothing is. Such is the fundamental antithesis of thought : or the discrepancy which makes itself felt between each several term of thought and the whole Idea of which they are the expression. Being is the term emphasised as absolute by understanding: then the dialectical power, or the consciousness of the whole, steps in to counteract the one-sided element. In other words, thought, the total thought, asks what is Being, mere and simple ; and answers mere nothing. The one aspect of the
1 The word ' no ' with its root ' na ' is said to be only the pronoun expressing remoteness as distinct from ' ta.' A vague demonstrativenes is here the common element. Again, oui (yes) is hoc-4llud : and rien (nothing) is Latin rent.
2 When it is said that : ' It is strange that so profound a thinker as Hegel should not have seen that the conception of definite objects, such as a dog and cat, is prior no less in nature than in knowledge to the conception of abstract relations, such as is and is not,' it is difficult to say what the writer meant. Had he ever heard of geometry ? It seems an attempt to allow a certain authority, now to common sense, now to philosophy, as if there was a good deal to be said on both sides, or it resembles a person trying to reconcile the ordinary language about sunrise and sunset, with the astronomical doctrine, by telling us that the ordinary conception of the sun's movements was ' prior no less in nature than in knowledge ' to the theory of the earth's rotation. See Hansel's Letters, Lectures, &c., p. 209,
xviii.] IS AND IS NOT. cxxxiii
point is as justifiable as the other. In other words the two aspects are indissoluble : they are in one. The term ' Unity,' applied to the relation of Being and Not, may perhaps mislead : and it is therefore better to say that the two points of view are inseparable. In the point, to which the universe of thought has concentrated itself, the opposites have drawn together, indissoluble to expression, however much they may tend to be different, — because the difference cannot explain itself. A mere Not, with no substratum which it negatives, is mere Being: and a mere Being, which has no substratum, is a mere Not. The movement upward and the movement downward are here illustrated : and it is evident that they are the same movement. Each — Being and Not — as it seeks to differentiate itself, to make itself clear, passes into the other. In fact, the very vocation, calling, or notion of Being and Nothing, is not Being and Nothing, but the tendency of each to pass into the other. Their truth, in short, is not in themselves, but in their process, — and that process by which the one passes into the other is ' To become.' Of mere Being we can only predicate Nought : of mere Nought we can only predicate Being. The two abstractions have no truth except in the passage into one another : and this passage or transition is ' To become.' The first concrete or real thought, — the unity of opposites — is not a unity in rest, but a process, a movement. In other words, 'To become' does not='to be '-[-'not to be:' the truth or notion of each lies not in the addition of one element to another, but in the movement of each to the other, — the double movement of coming into being and passing out of being.
This unity or inseparability of opposite elements in a truth or real notion is the stumbling-block to the incipient Hegelian. The respectable citizens of Germany were amazed, says Heine, at the shamelessness of J. G. Fichte, when he proclaimed that the Ego produced the world, as if that had cast doubts upon their being: and the ladies were curious to know whether Madame Fichte was included in the general denial of substantial
cxxxiv PROLEGOMENA. [xvni.
existence1. If easy-going critics treated Fichte in this way, they had even better source for amusement in Hegel. That Being is Nothing was a perpetual fund for jokes, too tempting to be missed. Now, in the baldness, and occasionally paradoxical style of Hegel's statements, there is some excuse for such exaggerations. Being and Nothing are not merely the same : they are also different: they at least tend to pass into each other. In the technical language of logicians, the question is not what being denotes, but what it connotes. The word ' is ' had, it may be, originally a ' demonstrative ' meaning, a ' pro- nominal' force, which in course of time passed from a local or sensuous meaning to express a thought. No doubt ' is ' and ' is not' are wide enough apart in our application of them as copula of a proposition : but if we subtract the two terms and leave only the copula standing, the difference of the two becomes inexpressible and unanalysable. In both there is the same state- ment of immediacy or face-to-faceness : that two things are brought to confront each other, — united, as it were, without producing any real or specific sort of union. If Thought be unifying, Being is the minimum of unification : if Thought be relating, Being is the most abstract of relations. No doubt, between the two terms Being and not-Being a difference is meant, when they are employed, — a difference is thrown into them ; and then they are not the same : but if we keep out of sight what is meant, and stick to the ultimate point which is said, we shall find that mere being and mere nothing are alike impenetrable by themselves, and that to institute a difference we must go out of and beyond them. Perhaps some approach to the right point of comprehension may be made, if we note that when two people quarrel and can give no reason or further development to their opposite assertions, the one person's 'is ' is exactly equal (apart from subsequent explanations) to the other's ' is not.' The mere ' Is ' and ' Is not ' have precisely the same amount of content : a mere affirmation or assertion, which is mere nothing.
1 Heine, Ueber Deutschland, (Werke, v. 2 1 3.)
xviii.] IS AND THERE IS.
cxxxv
The truth of ' is ' then turns out ' become : ' nothing- is : all things are coming to be and passing out of being. This illus- trates the meaning of the word ' truth ' in Hegel. It is partly synonymous with 'concrete,' partly with the ' notion.' With concrete : because to get at the truth, we must take into account a new element, kept out of sight in the mere affirmation of being. With notion : because if we wish to comprehend being, we must grasp it as 'becoming.' Secondly, truth lies in a movement or process : not in isolation and rest. We go forward, and we go backward, as it were : forward from being, backward to being: we look before and after. The attempt to isolate the mere point of being is impossible in thought : it would only lead to the ' presentation ' of being, — i. e. the notion of being would be arrested in its development, and identified probably with a sensible thing.
If being, however, is truly apprehended as a process, as a becoming, then this tendential nature, or function, or vocation implies a result, a certain definiteness, which we missed before. Somewhat has become : or the indeterminate being has been invested with definiteness and distinct character. The second term in the process of thought therefore is reached : Being has become Somewhat ; and is real, because it implies negation. The fluid unity or movement from ' is ' to ' is not,' and vice versa, has crystallised : and ' There is ' is the result precipitated. By this term we imply the finitude of being, — imply that a portion has been cut off from its context, and contrasted with some- thing else. In the ordinary application of the word, Being is especially employed to denote this stage of definite and limited being : — what we emphatically call reality. Thus we speak of bringing something into being : by which we mean, not mere being, but a definite being, or, in short, reality. Reality is determinateness, as opposite to mere vagueness. To be real, it is necessary to be somewhat, — to limit and define. This is the necessity of finitude : in order to be anything more and higher, there must come, first of all, a determinate being and reality. But reality, as we have seen, implies negation : it implies
cxxxvi PROLEGOMENA. [xviu.
limiting, distinction, and opposition. Everything finite, every ' somewhat/ has somewhat else to counteract, narrow, and thwart it. To be somewhat is an object of ambition, as Juvenal implies : but it is only an unsatisfactory goal after all. For somewhat always implies something else, to which it is in bondage. The two limit each other : or the one is the limit of the other.
This, then, is the price to be paid for rising into reality, and coming to be somewhat : there is always somewhat else to be minded. The very point which makes a ' somewhat,' as above a mere ' nothing,' is its determinateness : and determinateness is at least negation and limit. Now the limit of a thing is that point where it begins to be somewhat else : where it passes out of itself and yields to another. Accordingly as limited, as determined, somewhat must pass over into another: it must be altered, and become somewhat else. Thus a ' something ' implies for its being the being of somewhat else : its being is as it were adjectival, — it is dependent, finite, and alterable. Such is the character of determinate being. It leads to an endless series from some to other, and so on ad infinitum : every- thing as a somewhat, as a determinate being, or as in reality, is for something else, and that again for some third thing, and so the chain is extended. Somewhat-ness is always being for somewhat else : and for that very reason, ceasing to be the primary object, it becomes somewhat else itself; and the other term becomes the somewhat. And so the same story is re- peated in endless progression, till one gets wearied with the repetition of finitude, which is held out as infinite.
Thus in determinate being as in mere being we see the apparent point issuing in a double movement — the alteration from some-being to somewhat else, and vice versa. But a move- ment like this implies after all that there is a something which alters: which is alterable, but which alters into somewhat. This somewhat which alters into somewhat, and thus retains itself, is a being which has risen above alteration, which is independent of it : which is, for itself, and not for somewhat else.
xviii.] SOME AND EACH. cxxxvii
Thus in order to advance a step further from determinate and alterable being-, we have only to keep a firm grasp on both sides of the process, and not suffer the one to slip away from the other. Something1 becomes something else : in short, the one side passes in the other side of the antithesis, and the limitation is absorbed. The new result is something in something else : the limit is taken up within : and this being which results is its own limit. It is Being-for-self : — the third step in the process of thought under the general category of Being. The range of Being which began in a vague nebula, and passed into a series of points, is now reduced to a single point, self-com- plete and whole.
This Being-for-self is a true infinite, which results by ab- sorption of the finite. The false infinite, which has already come before us, is the endless range of finitude, passing from one finite to another, from somewhat to somewhat else, until satiety sets in with weariness. The true infinite is satisfaction, — the inclusion of the other being into self, so that it is no longer a limit, but a part in the being. Such inclusion is termed ' ideality.' The antithesis is reduced to become an organic and dependent part. It is, but no longer outside and independent. Thus in determinate being the determinateness is found in somewhat else : in being-for-self the determinateness is the very being. Being-for-self may be shortly expressed by ' each : ' as determinate being by f some : ' and Being simple by ' a ' or ' an.' As ' some ' is always partial, ' each ' is always whole. ' A ' or ' an ' is too vague to be either.
But 'each for self' expresses the sentiment of universal war, — the bellum omnium contra omnes. Each is self-centred, independent, resting upon self, and not minding anything else, — which is now thrown out as indifferent into the background. Each is centripetal ; anything else is for it a matter of no moment. If determinate being was adjectival, this is sub- stantival, and rests upon itself. It seems purely affirmative, and promises to give a definite unity. But we cannot free thought from negation in this sphere, any more than in the earlier.
cxxxviii PROLEGOMENA. [xvin.
We may, if we like, assert the absolute self-sufficingness, pri- mariness, and unalterability of each ; but a very little reflection shows the opposite to be true. The very notion of each is exclusiveness towards the rest : a negative and, as it were, polemical attitude towards others is the very basis of Being- for-self. One after one, they each rise to confront each, each excluding each, until their self-importance is reduced to be a mere point in a series of points, one amongst many. When that is clearly seen, their qualitative character has disappeared : and there is left only their quantity1. The negative attitude of each to each forms a sort of bond connecting them. If we call the reference which connects, by the name of attraction, then we may say that the repulsion of each against each is exactly equal to their mutual attraction. And thus, in the language of Hobbes, the universal quarrel is only the other side of the general union in the great Leviathan : repulsion, in the shape of mutual fear, is the principle of attraction. Thus each for self is repeated endlessly : instead of the atom or unit we have a multitude, utterly indifferent to what each is for itself. The mere fact that it is, entitles it to count, and so constitute quantity.
Here we may shortly recapitulate the categories of Quality or Being Proper. It forms three steps or grades : those of indeterminate being : determinate being : self-determined being : or if we speak of them as processes, we have becoming : altera- tion : attraction and repulsion. From the extreme of ab- straction and concentration thought, under the form of Being, passes on to greater determinateness and development. The vagueness of mere Being gives place to a distinction of elements, and a dependence of one upon the other : where the ' is ' and ' is not' part from each other sufficiently to let us distinguish them. This is the stage of finitude : when we say that there is some- what, but there are others, and imply that it has an end, a limit, a negation in its nature. These words describe the finite scene, — a fragmentary being which makes an advance
1 Heuce the disparaging sense in which the term ' individual ' may be used.
XVIIL] THE ELEMENTARY NOTION. cxxxix
upon indeterminateness, but loses its wholeness and is always and necessarily leading on to something- else. It is the re- vulsion from the vague and yet unspecified universal to definite and limited particulars. In the third stage the limit is uplifted and included in the particular, which now contains its negation in itself, — is independent, is its own ground, and may be called an individual or one ; and thus we come to an aggregate of ones, or a multitude. This being-for-self is an individual or atom : it is the basis of that higher development, which is known as subjectivity and personality. These are, as it were, higher multiples of it.
This first sphere of thought, apparently so abstruse and unreal in its abstractions, had to be thus narrowly discussed because it presents all the difficulties and peculiarities of Hegel in their most elementary form. These same distinctions recur in higher multiples. They are clearly the fundamental types of ancient Greek philosophy. The merit of the Hegelian method is to begin at the beginning, and to examine thoroughly those primary abstract notions on which the whole structure of thought rests, and which philosophers in general have accepted in a haphazard way, or rejected as unworthy of their con- sideration. It is on the comprehension of these lowest .terms or simplest vocations of thought, Being and not-Being, that the profoundest problems of Metaphysics ultimately turn.
Thus, in the first place, the process of Being, as seen in the light of the whole system of Logic, shows that it has to be comprehended as a triple unity. This is the ' Notion ' or ' Grasp ' of Being. First, as an unspecialised, vague, and by itself empty, being, — which by itself is mere nothing : a mere universal. Second, as a specialised, divided, and differentiated being of some and other : a mere particular, limited by other particulars, and so finite. Third, as a combination of the two earlier stages : as wholeness with determinateness, as unity ; and so an individual. In the question of Being these three elements follow, as one passes over into another : but in the notion they inter- penetrate, and each of them is the others and
cxl PROLEGOMENA. [xvm.
the total. The truth or the notion of being takes it in Being- for-self as a universalised particular by means of an individual. — In the second place: the sphere of mere Being is that of mere identity : that of determinate being is the sphere of difference : that of self-determined being is the sphere of the ground of existence. — Thirdly : the first sphere may be illus- trated by the freedom of indeterminateness, expressed by the word ' may : ' the second by necessity or determinateness, ex- pressed by the word ' must : ' and the third, by the freedom which is self-determining, expressed by the word ' will.'— Fourthly : these steps illustrate the meaning of the terms setzen : aufheben : an sick : fiir sick : Idealitcit : Eealitcit. Thus Determinate Being or somewhat is an sick somewhat else : and the process of determinate being is to lay it down or express it as such. When this explicitly-stated ' other ' or limit is included in the Being, and reduced into a unity with somewhat in each (Being-for-self) , it is said to be * aufgehoben? As being which limits and is limited, determinate being is Realitdt: as being which is absorbed and denuded of its independent being, it is Idealitcit in Being-for-self. Each has the others in it as elements (Momenta] ; they are there ideally (ideeller Weise], as it were organically : that is, they are denied the privilege, which their total has, of being-for-themselves. They do not enjoy the benefit of their own being, though its presence is felt. — Fifthly : Being-for-self is absolute negativity ; i. e. the negation of negation. Determinate being was a nega- tion of Being mere and simple : Being-for-self is the negation of this, and so a return to true affirmation, as including the element of negation.
The vague surface of Being has been reduced by the process of its nature into a series of units, where each being is con- tracted to a point, a unit with its unity set aside, and where it matters not whether it be somewhat or other. This vocation of Being, in which all qualitative attributes are lost and sunk, is Quantity : the characteristic of which is to be a matter of no importance to Being, as it originally presents itself.
xvm.] QUANTITY. cxli
In other words, whilst Quality is identical with Being, — while Being means qualitativeness, and the Being of a thing means its quality, or constitution; Quantity is external to Being, and a thing is, while its quantity undergoes all sorts of variation. At least this is true within certain limits : for quantity is not an ultimate category any more than quality. But for the present the truth of quality is quantity. First come qualities, such as sweet, green, and the like : these seem to be truth and reality to the senses and the natural mind : and in their universality are represented by the abstract terms of qualitative being. But one part of the progress of knowledge consists in the reduction of quality to quantity. Number, in short, is the proximate truth of the senses. Sounds are reduced to relations or ratios of number : and so are the other data of sensation. We see this truth recognised in the Atomic School, which represents the summing-up of that period of thought which begins with the ' Being ' of Parmenides, and the ' Be- coming' or Process of Heraclitus. When Democritus says that, although bitter and sweet are conventional distinctions, yet in reality there is only atoms and void1, he is stating that the mere vague being must be truly apprehended as an endless multitude of beings, each complete in itself, were it not for that necessity which forces them by negation, i.e. by the void (as he figuratively represents the repulsion of the atoms) to meet each other and form apparent unities. Before . a step could be made to higher problems, it was necessary to see that the proximate truth of the qualitative world, — or world of sense proper (i8uz afo-0/jtns), is in its simplest terms a ' one ' and ' many/ the quantitative world, or world of common sensibles (K.OIVO. aladrjTa), universalised sensibles, number and quantity.
The sphere of quantity need only be briefly sketched. It has its three heads : (1) quantity in general, — the universal and vague notion of quantity, the mere fact of it : (2) quantum,
f\vKv Kal v6fica irtKpov trefj 8e aro/M KOI Ktvuv. Democritus ap. Sext. Empir. adv. Math. vii. 135.
cxlii PROLEGOMENA. [xvm.
or definite quantity, expressed in the shape of number, which is the particularisation of quantity (the universal) into its details : and (3) the quantitative relation or degree, which is the individualisation of numbers, or their application to one another, — which gives the real meaning and value of numbers. The fundamental antithesis, which we found /as is ' and 'is not' in quality, comes before us here more definitely as the 'one' and the 'many.' In every quantity there are the two elements : the 'one,' unity or solidarity, which renders a total or a whole possible, and the 'many' or multiplicity, which constitutes each a distinct and definite number. Quantity in other words is Continuous and Discrete. Thus when I regard a line as consisting of an infinite number of points I treat it as a discrete quantity : as many in one. When, on the other hand, I regard the line as the unity of these points, it becomes a continuous quantity. These distinctions are not so trivial as they may appear : they lie at the bases of paradoxes like those by which Zeno disproved motion, and when a M. P. informs the House of Commons that it is impossible to divide 73^. i*. 6d. by il. 2S. 6d., he is, like Zeno, and perhaps more unconsciously, forgetting that these quantities are not merely continuous but discrete.
These two elements in quantity, and number generally, were known to the Pythagoreans under the name of the Monad, and the indefinite Duad : or of the limiting and the unlimited. There is in every number what we may call a numerator and, a denominator, a multiplier and a multiplicand : and in the quantitative relation or ratio we have the explicit statement of this double element, along with the product to which it gives rise. It is in virtue of the ' one ' in number that it is comparable : in virtue of the ' many ' that it is a separate and distinct number. The exponent of the ratio is the definite statement of these two elements in their connexion, and thus gives the final actualising of number. When we thus depose numbers to such a position, that a change in the numbers is indifferent, so long as the exponent of their ratio continues
xvin.] MEASURE AND PROPORTION. cxliii
the same, — when their whole value lies in their relation, we are coming1 to what Hegel calls ' Measure/ — in the first place, a quantity on which a quality depends. Measure is quantity applied to determine quality. This meeting of quantity with quality is seen in what in mathematics is called an ' equation,' such as of a circle or a parabola. The quantitative relation is, properly speaking, not a quantity, but a relation between quantities, and thus a Measure.
Measure is the third grade of being. To measure is to apply a quantitative standard to objects qualitatively considered. It pre-supposes therefore both quantity and quality. To measure the temperature of the air means to apply some recognised standard, a quantity, to a qualitatively defined body. Thus we measure the moisture in the air by an inch standard applied to a column of mercury. Such a measure is only a standard, or a rule : it is, in other words, a mere quantity applied to determine quality. But standards are relative : they must be given. One nation has a sterling pound for its standard of value : another a franc. It therefore pre-supposes a measure- ment to fix it. Again, a rule is only the majority of cases, and necessarily admits of exceptions. Whereas a law gives the reason, and is universally valid. In these cases, the standard and the rule are not absolutely at one with what is measured. The quantitative determinant remains outside of, and somewhat foreign to, the qualitative character with which it is connected. Quantity in such a case has the upper hand in the measure. But when the quantity exceeds a certain limit, it does pro- duce a change in the quality. The increase of the proletariat e.g. may go on within certain limits without producing any effect ; but at a certain point a crisis supervenes, and a catastrophe shows the effect of the gradual advance. In these circumstances it might seem as if measure had been abolished : and as if the world had become measureless. So at least in the case of revolutions cry the classes which no longer retain the standard and measure in their own hands. But the new state of things has a measure and an order of its own. In other words, we
cxliv PROLEGOMENA. [xix.
are forced beyond an external measure, which is a mere quantity, and which disappears, dragging quality with it : we have to look for a measure which shall be immanent in the being : and that is proportion, or symmetry : — the measure of parts by parts and by the whole. Proportion is the highest form of measure.
But in this way we see the rule or standard separating itself from the varying cases which it measures : and the measure tends to become a permanent something by itself, of which the cases are manifestations. It gives itself a being of its own : it is what they were, — their being is at once sus- pended and retained in it : and it thus becomes that of which Being immediate is only a phase. Such a measure or perma- nent being, which is the basis of the transitions in being, is what is known as the Essence of a thing, — the substratum which is or has being.
CHAPTER XIX.
ILLUSTRATION FROM GREEK PHILOSOPHY.
PERHAPS the main temptation in the study of ancient philo- sophy springs from the fluency with which modern conceptions insinuate themselves under the cover of ancient words. Every- day phrases of our own time, such as individual and universal, idea and reality, subjective and objective, essence and pheno- menon, law and causation, recur to our memory at every turn as we read Plato and Aristotle. And yet their associations are most misleading. The Greek world was to the Greek his im- mediate being : it was in harmony and in direct contact with himself. He lived and had his being in the world of the senses, — the scenes of the streets, the theatre, the place of public
xix.] GREEK LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY. cxlv
meeting-, and the banqueting-room, — the world, in which his action, political and economical, lay. -There may have been sharp divisions for the Greek, as for us, between the special interests of each, and the common interests of all. There was evil and imperfection for him, as for us. But there was little consciousness of these divisions, and never, but on rare occasions, an overwhelming consciousness of them. And hence the pro- blem of Greek philosophy was to ascertain the truth of what the senses revealed, — the reality in what was directly present to them. What ultimately, and in its truth, is the sense-world ? was the question. Now the sense- world in its abstract terms is what we name, number, and measure : it is quality, quantity, and measure or proportion. This answer is given in the three periods of Greek philosophy. Quality, — or Being in its several characteristics — is the problem discussed by Parmenides, Hera- clitus, and Democritus, and not unknown to Plato : discussed, it is almost needless to say, with much admixture of the terms proper to the senses. The discussion of Quantity, again, en- gaged the energies of a numerous class of speculators and geometricians, beginning with the half-mythical name of Pytha- goras, and continuing through a long series of names, till it lost itself in mysticism during the early centuries of Christianity. The names of Theodoras of Gyrene, and of Euclid, adorn that department of Greek inquiry, which as the necessary pre- liminary to his own investigations led Plato to place, as legends tell, over the door of his school, the inscription : ' Let no man ignorant of geometry enter here1.' Thirdly, there came the school of Athenian speculation, introduced by the famous doc- trine of Protagoras that ' man was the measure of all things,' and by the no less famous theory of Anaxagoras, that there is Reason and Arrangement in all things, understood by Plato to mean appropriateness or due proportion. The notion of
1 This prohibitory notice has been long ago removed from the portals of philosophy : and speculation is generally begun without any knowledge of mathe- matics or of the special sciences. Philosophy has been often studied of late as a branch of belles-lettres, subsidiary to polite learning.
k
cxlvi PROLEGOMENA. [xix.
measure or order was the principle of Pythagoreanism, the syn- thesis of limit and unlimited : it was also the ruling- principle of Greek life. Greek poets and sages alike recommend the mean, and the avoidance of excess : alike recognise the Nemesis of divine symmetry ; and condemn the overweening spirit which tramples on equality and equal laws. The measure dominates the con- ception of Plato's ideal state, and Aristotle's ethical principle : and may, upon the whole, stand for the expression of Greek life, in its most characteristic period — the period of early Athe- nian culture. Such proportion, as concretely exemplified in the beautiful and in art, is the highest form and the truth of im- mediate being.
And even the deeper thoughts which rise to the surface in Greek philosophy are expressed in terms of immediate being. Thus Aristotle knows the Individual as ' this somewhat,' and the Universal as the ' such as this.' The term, which we trans- late Cause, does indeed occur both in Plato and Aristotle ; but when we find it used by the former convertibly with Being or the Best, and when the other explains it as the Mean, it is clear that we are far away from the knotty problems of cause and effect, which perplex modern logics. The problems of causation, of essence and phenomena, of universal and individual, and still more those of freedom and necessity, of causality versus teleology, were, if not altogether, at least in the main, foreign to the Greek mind. The term Aoyos properly means proportion or ratio : and is connected with the term for arithmetic or ' computation.' The term etSos or i'5ea, ' kind ' or ' form/ expresses the per- manent rule or standard which regulates the things of sense. So when Aristotle speaks of the sort or kind (yeVos), when he contrasts what is said ' upon the whole ' (TO nadoXov) with what is applicable ' in each case ' («a0' emorou), we can see, if we are careful and fair, that he is not speaking of concepts or universals in the modern sense, but of a standard, paradigm, or rule, which, according to Plato, must be supposed separate from the single cases, while, according to Aristotle, it is the truth in them, although so far independent of the variable elements.
XTX.] PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. cxlvii
These remarks need not be pressed so far, as to deny that in ancient philosophy there are heights and depths not acknow- ledged in immediate being-. But it is certainly worth remem- bering that Greek thinkers had a range of their own, and a language, as characteristic and peculiar as that of Ancient Politics. If, as modern historians tell us, the names of national heroes must be written in the very letters in which their people spelled those names, so must ancient philosophy be freed from the forms which it has acquired in the course of transmission. Up to the time of Aristotle, Greek philosophy seeks to render the senses into thought, or to grasp the three essential features of immediate being. Till his time the struggle was to get clear of the senses ; and ancient philosophers up to the days of Plato inclusive are full of lamentations over the ignis fatmis of sensation. These plaints are born of the impatience of reason, not yet quite sure of itself, nor quite disentangled from the meshes of the senses. But once (as is generally the case in Aristotle) the thought has gained confidence in its own strength, and seen that the things of reason are not in an impossible ' beyond,' but in the world of sense, — that the sense- wo rid is the world of thought; then the language of complaint dies away. This confidence, if on the one hand it makes Aristotle easier reading than Plato, because there is no distracting other world always turning up to vex the ideas, has a compensating difficulty. We always feel a sort of sympathy with the endeavours of Plato. But Aristotle, although we read him for a while, as if he too moved in the sense-world like ourselves, and took things at the estimate affixed by the senses, every now and then startles us with an utterance, which shows that we have been mis- reading him, and that the apparent realism of sense which we believed him to maintain was in truth the thorough idealism of reason.
Thus in Aristotle the problem of Immediate Being, so far as the development of the time allowed, was solved. So far as that period allowed, — for of course the later stages throw a new light upon the earlier stages and elicit relations that were latent.
k 2
cxlviii PROLEGOMENA. [xix.
But at any rate it was solved. Nature and the State, — the immediate aspect, or vague generalities, under which the king- doms of Nature and Mind were presented to the Greek, were reduced to their equivalents in plain thought. And by ' vague generalities ' or undetermined universals, is meant that neither the one nor the other of these unities was differentiated or particularised, — developed into ordered details : that neither in the one nor the other had the analytic, divisive, distinguishing principle been recognised. Man lived in direct union with both as unbroken totalities. The several sciences had not subdivided nature into its various elements, grades, systems, and forces : nor had political and social development gone so far as to in- troduce the systems and organisations, by which the individual is brought into indirect and mediated connexion with the central authority of government. These two totalities had by the time of Aristotle been expressed in terms of thought. And now the antithesis, which had heretofore been a running contest between the senses and the understanding, where one half of the antithesis lay outside philosophy, passes into thought : and we have the period of antithetical or relative thought appearing for the first time in Aristotle. The terms of his philosophy fall into pairs : a duplicity, which often annoys and cheats the readers, as one term slips without warning into another. In- stead of ' sensibles ' as distinct from the eternal ' forms,' we now have opposing and correlative abstractions. ' Matter ' means nothing except when referred to ' form.' ' Faculty ' or ' possi- bility ' is an abstraction, except when referred to ' actuality ' or ' activity.' ' Being ' itself fluctuates between two antithetical meanings : and body, instead of being, as in Plato, turned out of philosophy as unworthy of soul, is placed in the same anti- thetical connexion with the latter. In all this we see imme- diate being passing out of itself and becoming reflected being : being i. e. which is always in relation to, and a phase of, some- thing else. The categories of reflective thought are mutually complementary.
Here, however, there occurred a misconception fraught with
xix.] FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN. cxlix
fatal consequences. The speculative theory of Aristotle fell into the hands of barbarians : and the advance, which he had made, only served to supply a phraseology for the antithesis which he had overcome. The one side of the antithesis was identified with the sensible ; the other with the supersensible. And even when this was not the case, the philosophy of Aristotle, with its pairs of relatives and opposites, its perpetual antitheses, has remained dominant even in those minds which nominally tried to reject it.
The general character of the thought of the ancient world was the rendering of the presentations of sense. The Ptolemaic astronomy was merely an attempt to construe the celestial phenomena, to envisage the order and measure of the celestial movements : and its general principle was what may be called an aesthetical rule, or a canon of excellence and adaptation. To go beyond the observed facts of sense, and to endeavour to determine their cause and law, was a species of inquiry reserved for modern times, and not particularly attractive to Greek thought. The type of ancient science is geometry. And the objects of geometry — lines and figures — are the idealisation of the sense-world > in its permanent outlines. To represent the aspects of nature as a systematic whole governed by a rule of symmetry was what the ancients sought. Modern science is aetiological.
The Middle Ages, on the contrary, are a great scene of con- trasts between the being which endures, and the phases of it which pass away. The oppositions between Nature and Grace, between Realist and Nominalist, between the world beyond and this sublunary scene, between freedom and necessity, or good and evil, — are samples of the prevalent tone of medieval thought. If Greek life had been mainly characterised by the absence of any medium separating the single man from the universal to which he belonged, — by a sense of oneness with his sur- roundings, and with the general body of citizenship, the me- dieval world was marked by an equally strong sense of the separation of this world from the next, of the Church from the
cl PROLEGOMENA. [xx.
State, and of the absolute inter-connexion of the one with the other. Sometimes, as in the beliefs of the cloister and the church, the essence behind the show is unduly magnified : at other times the phenomenal world, with its chivalrous and erotic display, puts that dim background out of sight, and seems to swallow up in itself all that is essential : and sometimes actuality, with its contrasts of substance and accident, and its hard necessity, seems to include both essence and phenomenon. Science in its more popular forms, and so far as it is fully conscious of its methods, adopts the same categories : it takes up the motto of reflection, and seeks for the identity and the difference latent in the ground of what exists, for the laws of phenomena, for the forces and matters which underlie actions and forms, for the causes of given effects, and the true being of what is apparent. It holds by the categories of thing and properties, of whole and parts, of force and its exercise, &c. Intellectual acumen, or the ingenuity of reflection betakes itself to the same contrasts and forms of words. It distinguishes between the possible and the actual, — between the outward appearance and the inward truth, — between the motive or ground of an action and its consequences, — between the form and the matter.
CHAPTER XX.
THE LOGIC OF ESSENCE : OR EELATIVITY.
IN the second stage of Logic, the Theory of Essence, we are engaged with what is otherwise termed Relativity or Reflective categories. They are called ' Reflective ' because the one, as it were, shows in the light which is cast upon it by the other. They do not fully manifest themselves. Each term owes its
xx.] CORRELATIVE TERMS. cli
distinct existence to its correlative : each gives the law to the other, and invests it with meaning- and authority. Accordingly when the ordinary mind, which takes these categories as they are given, is asked what each means, it can only reply by referring to the other. A cause is that which has an effect. The contrast in the nature of thought, — its distinguishing or conscious nature — which was concealed in the First Part of Logic, where one term, when carried to its extreme, passed over into another, is made obvious in the Second Part, where each term postulates its correlative, and, however it may be contra- distinguished, cannot be thought without it. Thus the force is a meaningless abstraction without the correlative expression of force : and matter means nothing except in its distinction from form. These, it may be said, are simple and tautological statements. They are principles, however, which every day sees disregarded. Have they ever, for example, occurred to the speculators, who tell us that everything is ultimately reducible to matter, or who propose to improve upon that theory by explaining that matter is after all only another name for force ? Are they aware that they are dealing with abstractions or mental figments, and losing their way in a baseless maze of metaphysics? Do those who speak so confidently of laws of nature as something very definite and intelligible ever reflect that the two terms are more or less relative, and that there is some latent metaphor in the phrase ? Or if they prefer to speak of laws of phenomena, on which word is the accent to be laid ? It is but a poor method of explanation to base it upon one of two terms, which is constituted by the relation into which it has entered. Those who thus speak of matter and force, really speak of a matter which is capable of determining its own form, and of a force which can rule its own exertions : and for such conceptions the words in question are scarcely ade- quate representatives. They use the language of the Second, to express notions which properly belong to the Third branch of Logic.
The whole range of Essence or Relativity exhibits a sort of
clii PROLEGOMENA. [xx.
see-saw : while one term goes up in importance, the other term goes down. Those logicians who speak of the phenomena of nature shrug their shoulders at the very mention of essences : and the practical man, whose field is actuality, acquires a very pronounced contempt for both abstractions. One class of investigators glory in the perpetual discovery of differences, and stigmatise the seekers after identity and similarity as dreamers : while the latter retort, and name the specialisers empiricists. The mannish intellect considers an action almost solely by its grounds or motives: the womanish almost solely by its consequences. Some console themselves for their degradation by piquing themselves on what they might have been : others despise these ' would-be ' minds for what they practically are. What a wealth there lies in each of us, which our nearest friends know nothing of, and which has never been made outward ! But in this mode of thought, it is the persistent delusion, misleading science no less than metaphysics and the reflective thinking of ordinary life, to suppose that either of two relative terms has an adequate exist- ence and value of its own. In some parts of Germany paper- money is known as ' Schein ' or ' Show.' That term marks its relativity to the currency of the realm : and it would be as absurd to pay with Austrian paper-money in Persia, as to take one term of Essence apart from its correlative. All the dis- putes about essences, about matters and forces, about substance, about freedom and necessity, or cause and effect, are due to a forced abstraction of one term from another, when the two terms only exist in their relation to each other.
The essence may be roughly defined as that measure or standard which varies with the immediate being, and yet remains identical in all variation. Or, if we like, we may say that this immediate being, which, as derivative, may now be called existence, has its ground in the essence. The essence is the ground of existence : and essence which exists is a ' thing.' Such an existing essence or thing subsists in its properties ; and these properties are only found in the thing. Thus the essence, when it comes into existence as a thing, turns out to be a mere
xx.] IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE. clii
phenomenon or appearance. — Such briefly stated is the develop- ment of essence proper into appearance.
The essence, or real being, as distinct from its unessential phase or show, has a double function : it unites in it a principle of identity and a principle of difference. If we deal with essences, we tend primarily to look at them as mere sameness and mere difference. But abstract sameness, or sameness which does not pre-suppose a tinge of difference, is a fiction of weak thought, which wishes to simplify the subtlety of nature. Identity is a relative term, and for that very reason pre- supposes difference : and for the same reason difference pre- supposes identity and is meaningless without it. The whole dispute about ' Personal Identity,' as it descends from one English psychologist to another, is enveloped in the obscurity which springs from failure to grasp the very term on which the question turns. When I feel that my friend whom I have not met for years is still the same, should I take the trouble to express myself in this manner, unless with reference to the difference betwixt Then and Now ? If I remark that two men are different, would -the remark be worth making or hearing unless there was some identity which made that difference all the more striking ? The essence is, in short, the unity of sameness and difference : and when so apprehended, it is the ground by which we explain existence. The essence, ground, or possibility, is at once itself and not itself : it is self-identical, and at the same time it tends out of itself towards existence, towards difference, and contingent fact. The essence of an event, for example, is the ground of its existence : the necessary unity in which all the variety and distinctness of its existent facts find their explanation, and, as it were, only the other side of that existence, where its diversities are gathered into unity.
The preponderance of the tendency to identify, or of the ten- dency to distinguish, marks the two opposite tendencies of scien- tific thought or of general culture. The transference of names and attributes in the history of language from one signification to
cliv PROLEGOMENA. [xx.
another nearly allied exemplifies the tendency to overlook slight differences. The same tendency is apparent in those theorists who explain everything as a function of matter or force, and in those who regard everything as a manifestation of will or reason. But it is only when the two tendencies meet and inter- penetrate that science accomplishes its end, and discovers the ground of existence. In the first instance the world presents to science the aspect of mere identity and of mere difference. Likeness is confounded with sameness, and unlikeness with diversity. The popular and the infant minds do not draw fine distinctions. Things to them are either the same or different, purely and simply, i. e. abstractly. But the process of com- parison, setting things beside each other, teaches us to refine a little, and speak of things as Like or Unlike. One thing is like another when the element of identity preponderates : it is unlike, when the difference is uppermost. Thus while we dis- tinguish things from one another, we connect them. From mere variety, and mere sameness, we have risen, secondly, to dis- tinctions of like and unlike. But, thirdly, this distinction of same and different is in the thing itself. -Everything includes an antithesis or contradiction in it : it is at once positive and negative. While it retains itself, it must lose itself. Its posi- tivity is only secured by its negation of others. Its identity is based upon its distinction. Every proposition which conveys real knowledge is a statement, that self-sameness is combined with difference. Every such proposition is synthetical : it unites or identifies what is supposed to be implicitly different. Here we have that coincident oppositorum, which is the truth of essence. Thus the essence of the Ego is the contradiction between a self-centred point, and an expansion into the universe. Essence, as so comprehended, as the unity of identity and difference, as that which is and is not the same, is the ground, and from which an Existence is the Consequent. Or, otherwise expressed, the ground is the source of the differences, — the point where they converge into unity, and whence they diverge into existence. Everything in existence has such a ground : or, as
xx.] THINGS AND PHENOMENA. civ
it is somewhat tautologically stated in the common formula, a sufficient ground. On that account, it is no great matter to give reasons or grounds for a thing, and no amount of them can render a thing either right or wrong, unless in reference to some given and supposedly fixed point. For the ground is simply the convergence of a thing upon itself, and only states the same thing over again in a mediate or reflected form. Any one can give a reason for anything : but the reason is not always right. The Thing itself is the ground of its properties : i. e. each thing is looked upon as a point or unity in which different relations converge. This is the side emphasised in ordinary life when a thing is regarded as the permanent and enduring subject, which has certain properties. But a little science or a little reflection soon turns the tables upon the thing, and shows that the properties are independent matters, which, temporarily it may be, converge or combine into a factitious unity which we term a thing. But these very mat- ters cannot be independent or whole, just because they inter- penetrate each other in the thing. Thus while the thing shows itself to be only a form under which the properties, of which the thing subsists, are subsumed as its matter ; the matter itself is constituted by its relation to the form, and is a mere ab- straction without it. The thing, which from one point of view seemed permanent, and the properties, which from an- other point seemed self-subsistent matters, are neither of them more than appearance. The matter is really only constituted by the form, and the form has no meaning but by the matter.
The world of things or essences has passed into a world of Phenomena or appearances. Each thing, as it turns out, subsists in what has no subsistence of its own, and that again subsists by its non-subsistence. We are thus in presence of a form which is content, and a content which is form : the Law is only the simple statement of the phenomenon. The Law is the form of the phenomenon, but it is also its content. In this way the Relativity of the second sphere — the sphere of ap- pearance— becomes even more apparent than in the first, —
clvi PROLEGOMENA. [xx.
the sphere of essence proper. The truth of calling a thing a phenomenon is to express the essential relativity of its nature. This essential relativity in the phenomenon has a threefold aspect : the relation of whole and parts ; of force and the exer- tion of force ; of inward and outward. The relation of whole and parts tends to explain by statical composition : the relation of force and its exertion, by dynamical construction. Accord- ing to the former the parts are constituted by their depend- ence upon and in the whole : and the whole is composed by the addition of the several parts together. The contents and the form are in the relation of whole and parts identified and yet quasi-independent. A better exhibition of the inner unity and the difference between form and contents is seen in the relation of a force to its exertion. Here the content appears under a double form : first, under the form of mere identity, as force, — secondly, under the form of mere distinction, as the manifestation of that force. This separation of content and form, or of content as developed in two forms, appears still more clearly in the third relation : that of outward and in- ward. This is a popular distinction of very wide application in reference to phenomena. But neither outside nor inside is any- thing apart from its correlative. The truth of phenomena requires the coincidence of the outward with the inward, — of the existence or phenomenon with its essence. Such a union is Actuality.
Actuality is the third division of the Theory of Relativity. An actuality is a phenomenon where inward and outward meet : where the essence appears in existence. In the total of actu- ality the merely inward takes the name of possibility, and the merely outward takes the name of contingency or chance. The essence taken simply is the element of possibility, — the fact of existence taken simply is the element of chance. By possibility is meant the sum of conditions which must be pre-supposed, before anything can actually exist. When all these conditions pre-supposed in the actuality of a thing are present, the thing is said to be really possible. But, secondly, there is the fact of ex- istence, the isolated fact apart from its conditions : and this factual
xx.] ACTUAL AND POSSIBLE. civil
existence or reality forms the complement to possibility, needed to make a thing- actual. If this fact of existence be considered as wholly isolated from its conditions or antecedents, if it be treated abstractly as a mere fact or existence, it is a chance or contin- gency, which, in the abstract, might as well not be as be. It has no reason of its own, why it should be in one way more than another : it is purely determined by something quite foreign to it, and may be in this respect looked upon as neces- sitated ab extra. This is the incomprehensible necessity, or the stern and implacable logic of facts. Thirdly, there is the spark which fires the train : the link which unites the conditions and the fact, which quickens them, and makes them one totality. This is the activity or energy, by which the conditions cease to be a mere possibility, and the fact to be a mere contingency. When the hour has come (i. e. when the conditions are ripe), and the man (i. e. when the activity is found), then the event is necessary, and actuality must ensue. But, on the other hand, when the hour has struck, the man is always found. In other words, the three elements constituting actuality are abstractions, which are only found in concrete actuality.
Thus necessity results when the mere possibility is at the same time carried out into existence ; or the necessary is that cujus essentia invoVbit existentiam. Of course if all the condi- tions are present, the event must happen : for the fact itself is one of the conditions. Possibility in this real sense, as distinguished from formal possibility or the mere absence of contradiction, has a bent towards realisation, because it is the presence of the determinate conditions necessary to the event. One only of these conditions, the factual existence, or realisation, is not yet explicitly given, and until that is given, the thing is not actual. On the other hand, the bare fact of existence is not sufficient to constitute full actuality : that fact must first be placed in its right position with reference to the con- ditions by the activity, and, instead of being isolated, form part of a connected chain. The Actual is necessary, when it unites these two contradictory elements. A thing is said to
clviii PROLEGOMENA. [xx.
be necessary, when it is because it is, — when the factual exist- ence is seen to depend upon itself, i. e. upon the sum and efficiency of its own conditions and nothing else. In necessity one actuality is bound up with another in such a way that, though they are distinguished, still the one, as it were, lives transfigured in the other.
This absolute and necessary relativity of the actual world may be looked at under three aspects : the relation of Substance and Accidents, the relation of Cause and Effect, and the re- lation of Action and Reaction. These exhibit the several ways in which the possibility and the fact, the potential and the actual, are bound into one. In the case of substance, the absolute, all-embracing, non-determined, and essential possibility dominates over the mere determinate and isolated contingencies of existence. The substance, as an absolute possibility which is necessary, reduces existence to mere ' accidents,' — passing waves on its own great ocean. The mere facts count for nothing : the substance is the perpetual resumption of them into itself, as every actual fact turns out a mere modification of possi- bility. But such a view does not explain how these ' modes ' or ' accidents ' spring from substance, although it shows us substance reducing them to nought. It only swallows up re- lativity. For further explanation we require the relation of Causality. In this relation the substance, although it still lays itself down as the fundamental fact, at the same time clearly turns that fact into a mere possibility or condition, from which there follows an effect, — an actual fact, which by this process of derivation is rendered necessary. But as this relation is primarily looked at, the cause seems a mere exist- ence or matter of fact, from which necessity is produced only in the effect, or second member of the relation. It would thus seem as if the cause were left to its own devices and to contingency. But a little consideration will show that the cause is as absolutely relative to the effect, as the effect is to the cause. The cause, if it is to be a true cause, must be dependent on the effect. The whole of the activity does not
xx.] NECESSITY AND FREEDOM. clix
fall upon the one side of the relation, any more than the whole of the passivity upon the other. The effect reacts upon the cause : and thus the proximate truth of Causality, which is the one-sided action of a supposed primary substance upon another, is found in reciprocity, where the one side of the relation is as much primary and active or passive as the other. Everything- in the actual world is a necessary relation of reciprocity, of action and reaction.
To comprehend the actual world, — i.e. to think it, we must see it as a whole, including- and overlapping- all minor differ- ences and relations, — not in actualities which repel and yet attract each other, and assume a fictitious independence. In the necessary relation of cause and effect, one actuality was so, because it had been made so. That necessity, however, lay in the other factor and not in itself: the necessitated seemed to accept its fate from without, and to have no points of kindred or affinity with it in its own nature. Such a necessity is blind. But when we learn that these two substances apparently inde- pendent, and at the same time externally connected in rig-id inter-dependence, are really parts of a totality, — independent aspects of one whole, — when we see that each when connected with the other is connected with its complementary self, — its alter ego, then the necessity is unveiled, and when the partition is broken down, is identified with Freedom. With this result closes the part played by Relativity. In its matured form, as necessity, it has locked the two members of the relation so closely together, that their independence is an imperium in imperio ; they form one total, dividing- itself off from itself, and yet retaining the divided members in vital unity. Here there are parts, but each part is a miniature of the whole : the substance is freely developed into its attributes : the cause remains active in its effect. This is the sphere of Development. In the first sphere — that of Transition — one term of being passed over and disappeared in the following- term. In the second sphere — that of Relativity — term was always in relation to term, one always dependent upon an-
clx PROLEGOMENA. [xxi.
other. In the sphere of Development, the relativity is reduced to unity. Every division or relation of terms is now supple- mented by their union, from which the differentiation is seen to be the act of one total, thus denning itself against itself.
CHAPTEE XXL
THE LOGIC OF THE NOTION: OR DEVELOPMENT.
THE sphere of the notion, or the grasp (conceptus) of thought, is the Third Part of Logic. From the substance, which is at the best the cause, we have reached the subject, which is the author, i. e. the comprehensive totality which renders itself visible in each of its members, but is not exhausted by any of them. The author of a work e. g. is seen in that work, it may be, but he is none the less visible in others. He is not limited by his modes of being, but limits himself in them : he puts his whole mind into them : and yet has more to spare. On the other hand, he is only complete in all his works and not in distinction from them. The term subject, therefore, explained in this sense, must be distinguished from substance, in which all variety is denied and lost, and understood to mean that which makes changes issue from itself, and takes up at once a positive and negative attitude to them. As the initial point, self-centred, it is negative towards change, which seems a movement out of itself: as a terminal product, it comprehends change and movement affirmatively in itself. This process — for it is the very nature of this grasp or notion to be in actu — may be called self-realisation (or develop- ment), self-determination (or freedom), and self-specification (or individuality).
xxi.] XOTIOS, OBJECT, IDEA. chd
There are three headings coming- under the general category of Notion. First of all, there is the Notion Proper : meaning thereby the elementary principles in the development of pure thought, which has now come to itself, instead of, as hereto- fore, passing into, or throwing light upon something else. This wrhole of thought specifies itself by passing from its point-like beginning through a process of differentiation back into itself. This specification has a double form: firstly, in each notion, as a process of the three factors called Universal, Particular, and Individual : and, secondly, when that internal difference is explicitly formulated in the evolution of the judg- ment and the syllogism from the notion. In this first part we are presented with the constituent elements of pure and entire thought in its abstract form, as a process or development in itself. This may be regarded as the possibility of pure thought, as distinguished from its actual manifestation. But, as we have seen, the possibility, when it is completed in all its details, must be realised : and so the full possibility of pure thought in the syllogism is translated, when that fulness is at- tained, into immediate being. True thought specified and complete, is the very self of Objectivity. Thus in the second part of this sphere, the objective thought comes before us in being, as a total embracing within it many terms and their relations, presentable as a syllogism. An object is, in short, a realised notion, when the notion is complete and not a mere fictitious fragment. But, thirdly, the object tends to obscure the equilibrium and pellucid interaction of the factors of thought, and calls for a new synthesis of subjectivity and objectivity in the objective thought or Idea.
We must examine these stages with somewhat more detail. The notion is the expression of the true nature in the first instance of thought, and in the second place of objectivity. By a notion (and therefore in a further sense by objectivity) is meant the individualising of a universal through a parti- cular. These three elements and their power of self-identifi- cation make up a notion.
1
clxii PROLEGOMENA. [xxi.
Take an object (or individualised and specified notion) : such as a State. Consider what it is as a notion, i. e. in thought. We may regard it as a formal unity really composed of indi- viduals,— or as a substance to which the members of it are as insignificant as passing modifications on its surface, — or as a form imposed upon national life, external and accidental to it. Historical inquiry however informs us that in a remote period and in remote tribes, — in the primitive or patriarchal family — the functions of government, of domestic management, and of individual existence were not distinguished or parted amongst different hands. In this stage of development the notion of State was implicitly present : all its further differentia- tion had its ground in that unity, but in an abstract form, unspecialised, and as a Universal simply (or at least presenting only one aspect of the whole grasp of thought by itself). And by this universal form we mean not what is left of the State when by an effort of abstraction we strip it of all its special characteristics : — the general conception minus the special attributes. We mean the undeveloped and undiffer- entiated whole, which conceals all germs of difference in its point of unity. This is the immediate or natural state. We have called it universal, but we might as well style it merely individual (because self-centred and negative towards its neigh- bours), or merely particular (because it is not a really self-sup- porting total) : so long as we remember that each of these elements in abstraction is the same as another, and that the true notion lies in their union. The second stage in political growth is the recognition of the right of the several members to independent existence, — the rise of a self-seeking spirit as antagonistic to the commonwealth, and the severance of the interests of citizens from the state and from each other. This exhibits the state when its aspect of particularism or differentia- tion has attained a preponderating influence. It is the element of difference, — of uttering, of other-being, of accident, of show, — coming forward in an isolated self-sufficiency, hostile to the universal, and destructive of the unity of the state.
xxi.] THE NOTION OF THE STATE. clxiii
So far as this goes, i. e. taking the stages of universal and particular in themselves, or as distinct and separate steps, we have only repeated the antitheses of relativity between identity and difference, substance and accidents, essence and appearance, whole and parts, which have been examined in the Second Part of Logic. The partial truth thus conveyed is that the particular interests may claim satisfaction as well as the universal : that both are legitimate principles, because in a modified way they express the whole, in the one case immature but unified, in the other case fragmentary, and in collision with itself, but developed. The higher law of the notion requires this antithesis to be abolished, by showing the unity of the two elements which the understanding separates. Universalise the particular, or particularise the universal (thus roughly to express it), and the realised or developed universal is found in the individual, — not the individual supposed to be given in sensation, but the individual as a real universal.
In this case the business of the Political Philosopher is not to trace the limits between state interference and the liberty of particular citizens, nor to play the one off against the other so as to determine their several spheres, — but to see how these two fragmentary aspects unite. The State in the phrase ' state interference ' is generally used to mean the abstract universal of the state, not looked at as a germ of development outwards, but as a mere form of authority or government, — a shell left behind by the spirit when it takes another shape. The so-called notion of the state has been arrested in its development, at the point of abstract universality : and the mere formula of rule or government has been taken up by the presentative intellect, and turned into a picture with generalised outlines. The particular is then conceived in similar isolation ; and a great fuss is made about the rights of trade, of society, of classes, in opposition to the rule of the state. But the state is not identical with the government, any more than the mind is identical with any one of its several faculties. To try to fix the limits between the rights of the state, and the interests
1 2
clxiv PROLEGOMENA. [xxi.
of men in their special societies, is an inquiry of the same kind as those which examine the bearings and boundaries of the reason and the imagination, as if these were two self-subsistent and co-ordinate faculties of mind. The only difference between the two cases is that the distinction in the latter case is on the ever-changing ground of the subjective mind, while in the former the several organs of the state have created objective 'hypostases' for themselves. Antitheses between social and political exemplify the same weakness, which is unable to grasp the various elements of the state in one, and lets them assume the shape of classes in juxtaposition or of independent forces, which, however, are supposed to come in conflict with one another. Those who speak of the rights of the individual, as if this were another abstract totality, commit the same mistake : the individual of their phrases is only a fragment, and the rights of which they speak require to be supplemented by duties.
But the truth, or the Notion of the State, — the state as the objective world of freedom realised (in the same way as the Notion itself is the abstract possibility of freedom) abolishes these constraints of one side by another, by making the one side subsist in pellucid unity with the others. The state, being a concrete but implicit universal, descends into all the variety of particular life and interest : and the individual may, by means of his particular functions and occupations, rise from the implicit universal, which he is, to actuality in the state. The individual so explained is the fulfilment or implementation of the particular and universal, in which they descend to ' momenta : ' though they are also the whole, the second having the details latent, the first sinking the unity and falling into a series of exclusives.
This same unity, transparent even in its distinctions, of the three elements may be thus illustrated. A man in his special department and sphere of action may very likely lose the sense of his wholeness, and his integrity : — perhaps in more senses than one ! He may reduce himself to the limits of his profession.
xxi.] INDIVIDUAL, PARTICULAR, UNIVERSAL. clxv
But in so doing- he becomes untrue, or, in Hegelian parlance, abstract : he fails to recognise the universality of his position. All work, however petty, which is done in the right spirit, is holy.
'One place performs, like any other place, The proper service every place on earth Was framed to furnish man with : serves alike To give him note, that through the place he sees A place is signified he never saw.'
It is a false patriotism, for example, which is inconsistent with the spirit of universal brotherhood : and there is something radically wrong with the religion, on the other hand, which cannot be carried into act amid the pettiness of ordinary practical interests. The universal, again, is not a world beyond this world of sense and individuals : if it were so, it would itself be a mere particular. It is rather the world of sense unified, organised, and, if we may say so, spiritualised. And an individual which is merely and simply individual is an utter abstraction, which is quite meaningless, and in the real world impossible. Or if we prefer to express the same thing in connexion with the mind, sensation apart from thought is an inconceivable abstraction. Sensation is always alloyed with thought, and we can at the most only suppose pure sensation to exist amongst the brutes. The mere individual opens out and expands : and in that expansion we see the universal : (sensation is thought in embryo). But, on the other hand, the developed universal concentrates itself into a point : (thought returns into the centre of feeling.)
The same process of particular, individual and universal, which thus goes on under the apparent point of the notion, is more distinctly and explicitly seen, with due emphasis on the several members, in the evolution of the notion into the Judgment and the Syllogism. The judgment is the statement of what each individual notion implicitly is, viz. a universal or inward nature in itself, or that it is a universal which individualises itself. The judgment may, therefore, in its simplest terms be
clxvi PROLEGOMENA. [XXT.
formulated as : The Individual is the Universal. The connective link, — the copula c is,' expresses however at first no more than a mere point-like contact of the two terms, not their complete identity. By a graduated series of judgments this identity between the two terms is drawn closer, until in the three terms and propositions of a syllogism the unity of the three factors of the notion finds its most adequate expression in (subjective) thought.
It may be a question how far syllogisms as they are or- dinarily found are calculated to impress this synthesis of the three elements upon the observer. The three elements there tend to bid each other good-bye, and are only kept together by the awkward means of the middle term, and the conjunction ' there- fore.' In these circumstances it becomes easy to show, that the major premiss is a superfluity, not adding anything to the cogency of the argument. But under the prominence of this criticism of form, we are apt to let slip the real question touching the nature of the Syllogism. And that nature is to give their due place to the three elements in the notion : which in the syllogism have each a quasi-independence and difference as separate terms, while they are also reduced to unity. The syllogism, expresses in definite outlines that every- thing which we think, — or the thought which comprehends, — or the comprehension which constitutes an object, is a particular which is individualised by means of its universal nature. Thus the realised notion, — thought specified from its universality by means of particular differences — is the Object. The mere pos- sibility of pure thought, when carried out into its entirety, when specialised, has immediate being, and becomes the Ob- jective world. When the thought by itself is fully adequate, and has completed the cycle of its inner movement, it is thrown into Objectivity. So long as it is still imperfect and immature the notion is dependent upon the process of thought for its completion : but when completed and regarded as a realised unity of its elements, it is on its own account, — it has being and objectivity. To the development of the elements there is
XXL] MECHANISM. clxvii
added, as it were: ' Here it is.' The notion is in being, and called the object.
Objectivity, or the thought which is a world, may be taken in three aspects : Mechanical, Chemical, and Teleological. That is to say, the method of investigating an object, or the way of grasping the objective world, is threefold. The contradiction which lies in the way of comprehending objectivity lies in the fact that it contains subjectivity absorbed in it. In other words, the object is at once active and passive ; as thought and subjectivity it has force of its own, as objectivity it is in complete dependence. Consequently, either the two attributes co-exist, or they cancel each other, or they are in mutual connexion.
(1) In the first case the objects are independent, and yet are connected with one another. Such connexion is an external one, due to force, impulse, and outward authority. The principle of union is without : and the objects are mutually determined from without. The more, for example, an object acts upon the imagination, the more vehement is the reaction of the mind towards it. — (2) But if the object is independent, as has been allowed, then the determination from without must really come from within. Thus desire is a turning or bent towards the object which draws it. The desiring soul leans out of itself. It gravitates towards a centre : and it is its own nature to be thus centralised. The lesser objects of themselves draw closer around the more prominent object. — (3) But if this gravitation were absolute, the objects would lose their inde- pendence altogether, and sink into their centre. Accordingly if the independence of these objects is to remain, there must be, as it were, a double centre, the relative centre of each object, and the absolute centre of the system to which it belongs. In each of these three forms of mechanical combination, the objects continue external and independent. A mechanical theory of the state regards classes as independent, seeks to produce a balance between them, separates individuals and associations from the state, and, in short, conceives the state as one large centralising force with a number of minor spheres depending
clxviii PROLEGOMENA . [xxi.
upon it, but with a greater or less amount of self-centred action in each of them.
The fact is that an object cannot really be thought as thus independently constituted. Its real nature is rather affinity : a tendency to combine with another : it requires to receive its complement. Every object is naturally in a state of unstable equilibrium, with a tendency to quit its isolation and form a union. This theory, which is called the Chemical theory of an object, regards it as the reverse of indiiferent : as in a perma- ment state of susceptibility. When objects thus open and eager for foreign influences combine, there results a new product, in which both the constituents are lost, so far as their qualities go. The qualities of the constituents are neutralised. A man's mind, for example, prepared by certain culture, meets a new stimulus in some strange doctrine, and the result is a new form of intellectual life. But at this point the process, which such a form of objectivity represents, is closed : all that remains is for the product to break up one day into its constituent factors. There is no provision made for carrying it on further. Hence if we are to have a system of objectivity, we must rise above the Chemical theory of objects. And to do that, the only course is to look at the objective world as regulated by the Notion.
The Notion as regulative of objectivity, — as independent and self-subsistent, but as in necessary connexion with Objectivity, — is the End, Aim, or Final Cause. According to this, the Teleological theory of the Universe of objects, the object is considered as bound to reproduce and carry out the notion, and the notion is looked upon as bound to execute itself in reality. The two sides, subjective and objective, are, in other words, in necessary connexion with each other, but not identical. This is the contrast of the End and the Means. By the ' Means ' is meant an object which is determined by an End, and which operates upon other objects. — (1) The End is originally sub- jective: an instinct or desire after something, — a feeling of want and the wish to remedy it. It is confronted by an
XXL] TELEOLOGY. clxix
objective mass, which is indifferent to these wishes: and is never more than a Tendency outwards, — an appetite towards action. It seizes and uses up the objective world.— (2) But the End in the second place reduces this indifferent mass to be an instrument or Means : makes it the middle term between itself and the object. — (3) But the means is only valuable as a preparation to the End regarded as Realised. The end realised is higher than the means. These are the three terms of the Syllogism of Teleology : the Subjective End, the Means, and the End Realised. It is the process of adaptation by which each thing is conceived as the means to some end, and which actively transforms the thing into something by which that end is realised. In the last resort it presents us with an objective world in which utility or design is the principle of systematisation : and in which therefore there is an endless series of ends which become means to other and higher ends. After all is done, the object remains foreign to the notion, and is only subsumed under it, and adapted to it. We want a notion which shall be identifiable with objectivity— which shall per- meate it through and through, as soul does body. Such a unity of Subjective and Objective — the Notion in (and not merely in relation to) Objectivity— is what Hegel terms the Idea.
The first form of the Idea is Life, taking that as a logical category, or as equivalent to organisation. The living, as organisms, are contrasted with mere mechanisms. The essential progress of modern science lies in its emphasis on this aspect of the Idea : which includes all that the teleological period taught about adaptation, and only sets aside the externality of means to ends there found. The savant of the last century and the beginning of the present dealt with the object of his inquiries as a mechan- ical, chemical, or teleological object. The modern theorist seeks to carry out the Idea of Life. According to the naturalist of last century, kinds of animals and plants were viewed as convenient arrangements, or -as in a relation of means to ends ; according to the moderns, these kinds represent the grades or steps in the life of the natural world.
clxx PROLEGOMENA. [xxi.
What, then, is the nature of the process which we call Life ? What are the three terms in the syllogism of the vital process ? There is, in the first place, the term, which is also a process, of self-production. The living1 must articulate itself, create for itself limbs and members, and keep up a perpetual circulation and process of mutual assimilation in them. Secondly, there is the assimilation of what is external to the living individual. If there is to be life, spiritual or bodily, there must be assimilation or appropriation of foreign elements. Without this the first term, or process, is impossible. Thirdly, there must be a term or process of Reproduction. By means of the two first processes the living must be reproduced. All life, mental or bodily, involves Reproduction. — These are the three terms of the process of vitality.
What then is left ? Not the individual : but the genus. — The universal has become the medium in which the Idea exists : it exists no longer in immediacy. The mere natural life gives place to the life of the Spirit. The life of the Spirit has the double form of Cognition and Will : — the theoretical and the practical action of the Idea : or Truth and Goodness. In short, the Idea divides into two halves, which yet remain the same at bottom : Reason and the World : but yet there is reason in the World. The action of the Idea, or its process at this stage, is to bring these two terms into connexion, and show their ideal unity. Beginning with Reason, it goes on to discover reason in the World. Truth consists in the adequacy of object to notion. Such adequacy is the idea: and an object which thus corresponds with its notion is an ideal object. The ideal man is the True Man. Truth is the revelation of rationality from the objective world : and Cognition is the name for that process. On the other hand, Goodness is the realisation of rationality in the objective world : and the Will is the name for that process. Truth proceeds from the Objectivity : Goodness from the Sub- jectivity. But truth can only proceed (analytically) from the objective world, in so far as it is produced (synthetically) by the subjectivity. And, on the other hand, when the good is realised in objectivity, it is submitted to the process of Cognition.
xxn.] GENERAL RESULTS. clxxi
In other words, the Idea does not find itself given merely, nor has it merely to create itself. Rationality or the Idea lives and has objective Being : it realises itself, as the absolute reason which is in the world — which is that world in its absolute signification. Such an Idea is the Idea Absolute. The Absolute Idea is the process which produces itself: and to trace that process is the problem of Logic. Reason with all its abstractions and efforts to rise above them, has now become a world in being : an objective world which is reason. That objective world of rational being is presented to perception in Nature, and there, as well as in Mind, the categories of Logic find their concreter application.
CHAPTEE XXII.
A BRIEF SUMMARY OF RESULTS.
IT now remains to attempt briefly to put together the main points of general interest with regard to the Hegelian system of Philosophy. Even those who do not accept the whole theory, and those who, not unnaturally, cannot grasp its point of view in detail, may nevertheless find something worth thinking over in certain fragmentary glimpses.
His system is encyclopaedic, and sets before itself the com- prehension of the world, as it is in its primary and its ultimate meaning and being. But to comprehend means to think in its totality, — not to explain. The philosophic science can only unveil what is, in all its transitions, relations, and development : it has no vocation to say why it is, or how it can be so.
Philosophy tries to solve the problem of what the world is, by looking at the process, of which its present form is the outcome.
clxxii PROLEGOMENA. [xxn.
What is, has become. The movement or process, of which history is the record, must be studied in order to comprehend the result. The steps or grades of the process of development must be traced singly and in succession.
The movement which takes place in history as in a succession of time is the outward aspect of the real development which is rationally presented in the system of philosophy. Outwardly there are chances, and limitations, — for the individual action in the actual world is never quite adequate to the ideal requirements of reason. But, with this qualification, the process of actual history and the process in thought coincide.
The nature of historical progress consists in what we may call combined affirmation and negation. The past is absorbed, but not lost. Each epoch has its own result taken and affirmed in the subsequent range of development as a partial truth, or constituent element, — but negatived, so far as it claims to be a totality. In this way nothing wholly disappears : but at the same time everything is entirely modified by the new medium into which it enters.
The process of history (and of thought) is therefore from Abstract to Concrete. Each new grasp of the total truth, or each new aspect of the world's life, includes in it whatever articles of knowledge had been previously achieved. This process may be called Analytical, if we look only to the fact that new elements or aspects are continually rising from out the old, which was a totality in itself, and is now evolving ampler and fuller forms. It may, however, be also styled Synthetic, if we only note that elements and aspects are added on to, or multi- plied into, those which come before, until a large total is formed. Properly speaking, however, the process includes both these elements of method, and is described as Dialectical.
The movement or development of the world, when seen whole, and comprehended in its absolute totality, is the manifestation of the Divine Nature in actuality. God reveals His absolute nature in the several relatives of the process : He is cognisable in those points where that process comes to self-perception or
xxii.] GENERAL RESULTS. clxxiii
self-apprehension. They are the several forms under which the Absolute is cognisable to men. In logical language, these forms of the Absolute are the categories of thought.
A Philosophy is the expression in distinct thoughts of the period of the world's history to which it belongs, stripping the actual facts (not of their concreteness, but) of whatever is accidental, tem- porary, and local in them. It reduces the wide range and the endless repetitions of the phenomena of the actual world to their simplest equivalents. The medium into which it translates objectivity is the Universal. A system of philosophy may be called the utterance of the self-consciousness of its generation in abbreviated and extremely generalised formulae.
If the world of immediate being can only be comprehended as a process of development, the thoughts, to which in its several periods it has been reduced, and which are the ultimate residuum when the chemistry of time has dissipated unessential circum- stances, must be similarly treated as a process. They cannot be abruptly or completely severed from each other, as if independent. Each of them has become what it is, and is destined soon to pass away into something else.
These thoughts are the expression of the same Universal, Totality, or Absolute, but with a very different amount of par- ticular details ; so that each has an individual aspect of its own. Because they are different, each is so far finite. Beginning with the point of a cone, the sweep of thought grows wider and wider as we proceed towards its base.
The terms of thought follow one another in a regular order, and have a value in virtue of that order. Standing, as it were, on different levels, they may be classed as lower and higher, according as their burden of meaning is less or greater. Hence they are not all equally applicable at all stages of knowledge. One term is truer than another, i.e. more congruous with objectivity. Much mistake arises from the misapplication of certain terms or categories to denote or explain relations, to which they are by no means adequate.
Each later term in the process of thought, being more con-
clxxiv PROLEGOMENA. [xxn.
crete, is the truth of the earlier : i.e. it gets rid, at least for a time, of the difficulties and defects, (the contradiction,) of that earlier term. Thus each term points out, and, while pointing- out, corrects the inadequacies of its predecessor. Consequently our criticism is rendered superfluous. As in history the Spirit of Time betrays the weakness of the past, and passes those judgments which the historian has only to record as they are given, so in the logical history of thought. The terms or categories of thought criticise themselves by unveiling a con- tradiction which leads on to something ampler and better. Mere causality lays bare its deficiency by forcing us to regard things as reciprocally cause and effect.
The logical terms are fixed in value by the rank which they occupy in the system. They cannot be used as vehicles of truth, apart from the limitations imposed by that process. If they are so used, their application becomes merely formal, and will not promote or contain real knowledge.
The Hegelian System was the firat attempt to display the organisation of thought pure and entire, — as a whole and in all its details. This organism of thought, as the living reality or gist of the external world and the world within us, is termed the Idea. The Idea is the ' reality ' and the ' ideality ' of the world or totality, considered as a process beyond time. The reality : because every element is expressly included. The ideality : because whatever is has been denuded of its immediacy, crushed in the winepress, and only the spirit remains.
In the study of Mind and its works, such as the State, Art, and Religion, as well as in the study of Nature, the several phenomena can only be successfully apprehended when they are known to evince the same real development as in the abstract medium of thought. Classes of living brings, and faculties of mind, instead of being treated in co-ordination on one level, are looked at as successive points emphasised and defined in the course of development.
The whole of Philosophic Science is divided into three heads : Logic, the Philosophy of Nature, and the Philosophy of Mind.
XXIIL] GENERAL RESULTS. clxxv
The first branch might also be termed Metaphysics. The second is a systematic arrangement of the several Physical Sciences and their results. The third includes anthropology and psychology : as well as the theory of Ethics and Jurisprudence, the Philosophy of Art, of History, and of Religion.
The essential character of thought is to be a Notion (or grasp). Hence everything which is, as thought, must be a Notion. By this is meant a triplicity in process, of three elements, particular, universal, and individual.
In the earlier stages of thought this notional or comprehensive character is not explicitly or actually present. It is only in the light of the later and completer thought that Being is seen to possess this same character : and in the Essence the presence of a triple element is found only as the necessity, which constrains us to combine two terms in mutual relation. In other words the Notion, in the stage of Being, is latent, and only to be discovered by our reflection : in the stage of Essence, it is postulated and its realisation is emphatically called for : in the third stage it is actually present.
Thought, which is the object of the Hegelian Logic, is not merely our thought. It is the Universe or Totality, of which we and the so-called things are merely fragments held apart by abstraction. These fragments philosophy can only recognise as members or aspects of the totality.
CHAPTER XXIIL
VOCABULARY.
PARTLY in order to afford materials of comparison to those who know German, and partly to bring together some points noticed in these introductory outlines, there are here subjoined
clxxvi PROLEGOMENA. [xxm.
short explications of the principal terms which Hegel uses in peculiar, and what the grammarians call pregnant senses.
Abstrakt and Concret. — By abstrakt (abstract) is meant that a term, thought, or object is withdrawn from its context, and regarded apart from the elements which enter into its composition, or from, the relations which connect it with other things. Words and notions, when severed from their solidarity with things and facts, are abstract. The fewer attributes, or relations to other things, are distinctly grasped by our notions, the more abstract they are. To be abstract is to be one-sided, to emphasise half-truths, to stick to partial views, and to lay undue stress upon names. %"t.t . ^
An object or thought is concret (concrete) when it is seen and known to be the confluence of several elements, — to be a process or becoming in its own nature, and not a mere stationary point of being. A concrete notion keeps in view the various inter-connexion and inter-dependence of things : and states that each object, in its truth and totality, must be regarded as equal to itself in the abstract, multiplied into all other things.
An sich : fiir sich : an und fiir sich. — That is an, sick (implicit : natural : in, at, or by self) which is given in germ, but undeveloped : which is for others to see, feel, and recognise. It is what is native and spontaneous as opposed to what is imported : latent as opposed to what is developed and realised : potential as opposed to what is actual : natural as opposed to artificial : abstract as opposed to concrete.
That is fiir sich (explicit : actual : for self) which is actual, whether it be native or not : — the result of an sich when developed, looked at apart from the process : — what has been acquired and made our own, as opposed to what is merely given. A human being has a capacity for reason: he is an sich rational : but it is incumbent upon him to realise that ration- ality, and become rational fiir sich. What is an sich is taken pure and in the abstract : what is fur sich is taken entire and in its actuality.
xxiii.] VOCABULARY. clxxvii
Hence an uncl fur sick (in and for self: absolute: pure and entire) is applied to denote what is spontaneous and inde- pendent : when a thing is taken in the entirety of its develop- ment, and that development is due to the evolution of its own native forces. The thing is in the fruition of its nature : it has become everything which it was destined to be. We may compare an sick to the mere generality or possibility of a thing (such is the well-known Ding~an-sick) : fur sick to the particularising, determining, differentiating, or realising of that possibility: and an und fur sick to completed individuality. When the knowledge of a thing presents it as it is an uncl fur sick, it presents it as a process or development in itself by itself for its own 'sake : and in such wise it is Absolute.
Anschauung (perception or intuition) is the direct contem- plation of an object or quality in externality under the con- ditions of space and time. The object is individualised in an image of sensuous kind. The works of art are such indi- vidualised forms; in which, for example, the object of religious worship is presented to the bodily eye. In Vorstellung (see that word) the background is an idealised time and space, and the eye to which the object is presented is the mental eye. They both have an external object: but the externality of Vorstellung is in the mind, that of Anschauung is in the matter of sense. Hence in Vorstellung the object is to a certain extent generalised:
Aufheben and Setzen. To explain setzen (posit, statute, lay down, set forth explicitly, state) we must recur to an sick. When the presence of an element in a thing is recognised as necessary, when its existence is postulated in order to complete a notion, it is said to be gesetzt. In these circumstances it is imposed from without, but yet the external imposition pre- supposes an internal response and willingness. Thus in the second sphere of logic we can see that a grasp (or notion) is required to bind the two elements of relativity in one : but as merely required and postulated the notion appears as necessity, and is not yet freely active fur sick. Thus the an sick, which
m
clxxviii PROLEGOMENA. [xxin.
exists in germ undiscerned, is realised as existing: and when thus seen to be self-existing is fur sick. Setzen, then, is the process of raising an sick to fur sick.
Aufheben (suspend, set aside, absorb, put in abeyance, abrogate) has a double meaning. It denotes (i) that some- thing, having been deprived of its independent existence, is for practical purposes lost and gone. But (2) what has thus dis- appeared is retained as an element or factor in the result to which it has led. Thus the seed is aiifgehoben in the plant which grows from it : it has perished and disappeared as a seed: but it is transfigured and retained in the existence of the plant. Thus setzen expounds the differences which lie involved in an abstraction or germ of truth, and leads them out into reality : while aufheben concentrates these differences into unity and ideality. (See Idealitdt and Realitdt.')
Begriff and Vorstellung. Begriff (notion, comprehension : literally, grasp or grip) is the name of that thought which grasps its object, — which, while it allows all freedom to the several members, at the same time unifies them. The object, or anything, when regarded as a Begriff, is taken in the entirety of its nature, as what has come into being, — as the result of a process, and not intelligible otherwise than in that process. Thus the notion has three functions : or the same thing presents itself under three aspects : — universal, particular, and individual. There is the beginning, or mere fact of being, the germ, or thing in itself, the undeveloped universal. There is the movement of advance, the division into parts, the process from essence to appearance, the particularising. And there is the end, or grasp of this particularity and difference in the unity of its innate germ : the individual or actual object into which the vague universal has been developed and specified. Thus to get the Begriff e. g. of a plant, we must comprehend it as a process with these three terms : (a) the seed, — the mere possibility, germ, or universal of the plant : (6) the division into roots, stem, branches, leaves, fruit, &c., where we have the particulars of the fact, its differences : (c) the union of these
xxiii.] VOCABULARY. clxxix
in the plant, — the individual totality by its living- movements reducing these parts to their functional and organic position in the whole. Thus to understand one part rightly we must understand the whole : and vice versa.
Vorstellung (conception, figurate conception : material or picture thought : literally, presentation, from vorstellen, to present or introduce a person) instead of dissolving an object into its process, as the Begriff does, takes it as stationary, and reduces it to a point at rest. It is the generalised picture of an object, without the definite outlines of Anschauung. The Ansckauung of a triangle e. g. is some definite triangle before our eyes at this moment : the Vorstellung is a ( general idea ' which dare not take the definite shape of one triangle, and is really unrealisable as such. It must pass either into An- scJiauung, or into thought. The dispute about ' general ideas ' among nominalists, conceptualists, and realists, was partly due to a confusion of Vorstellung with Begriff. Compare the distinc- tion in Spinoza between imaginatio and intellectus. A Vorstellung is a contrivance for sparing thought by means of a word, with which we have otherwise become familiar. Nominal definitions are of this class : they satisfy the desire to have something before us upon which we may fix our mind's eye.
Bestimmung and Bestimmtheit. A Bestimmung (category : characteristic or term of thought : vocation : typical form : feature : article : specification : determination, — from bestimmen, to define, literally to be-speak) is a statement or article formu- lating a thing. It gives the dimensions of an object. It is a determination (of thought) into a specific or typical form. The DenJcbestimmungen are the several articles or formulae which describe the nature and action of thought. They are the moulds into which thought has shaped itself, and by which we take the dimensions of the world.
A Bestimmtheit (deter minateness or character) is that which renders a thing cognisable, — its quality or character in virtue of which it can be described. The terms of this description are Bestimmungen. Bestimmtheit is definiteness : Bestimmung is
m 3
clxxx PROLEGOMENA. [xxin.
definition. The Bestimmtkeit is the specific character, the con- tents or subject-matter which forms the basis of a descrip- tion.
Daseyn and Existenz. Daseyn (Being-there-and-then ; de- terminate being) is real and definite as opposed to mere or abstract being. To bring a thing into Daseyn is to give it definite being; whereas Seyn is only a tendency to become, the bare possibility of being. By calling it there-and-then no reference is meant to time and place ; only to the limitations of reality. Existenz (existence) implies a source of being, a ground or essence, from which the determinate and apparent being has sprung. Existence is always the consequence of some ground. A thing existirt when it proceeds from its essential being into actuality : it has Daseyn (is there and then) when it is in definite being.
Dialektik and Spekulation. Dialektik (dialectic) is the prin- c*ple °f compensation, which shows the other side or negative of things, and thus relieves us from the one-sided view of the world, given by understanding. It is a negative and destructive action, a swing round in the reverse direction, which betrays the inadequacy of any given definite form. The primary aspect of each form of things presents it as an affirmative reality : the second inspection shows that there is contradiction in what we saw, and that it is neither complete nor absolute. The revelation of this undiscerned feature leads to a synthesis, which is an act of Spekulation (speculation), by which negative and positive are assimilated into each other. Thus, while the usual aspect of species shows us the several bonae species (or genuine kinds) distinct from each other and from varieties, the dialectic of nature presents these species as in a greater or less process of transition from one to another. This dialectic is the natural selection, caused by the struggle for existence. The speculative biologist applies this law to discover the order and connexion of the several kinds. Hence speculation means grasping truth in its wholeness, and not merely one element discoverable by analysis. It is the comprehension of rational truth, holding
xxiii.] VOCABULARY. clxxxi
together those points which we are naturally inclined to let fall asunder into the isolation of their details.
Formell (formal) means that regard is had merely to the form or to external considerations, and not to the real nature or essence of the object in question. "What is formell stands in no vital inter-connexion with the thing to which it is applied. Thus formal mechanism (p. 290) means that the mechanical relation is at this stage in a wholly outside connexion with its objects. A party-cry which covers a variety of sentiments in its different criers, and a phrase which suits any content equally well, is formally applied. So we speak of the formalism of grounds and reasons ; and mean that they can be employed to explain or excuse anything, one as well as another.
Idee (idea) is the thorough adequacy of thought to itself, the solution of the contradictions which attach to thought, and hence, in the last resort, the coincidence or equilibrium of subjective notion and objectivity, which are the ultimate ex- pression of that fundamental antithesis in thought. Such a coincidence is only attained by a process or development, — a triplicity, in which each step advances upon the preceding, by mastering, i. e. comprehending its limitations. When thought is fully equal to itself and true to its own laws, it is neither objective merely nor subjective merely. Hence the Idee repre- sents thought in its totality as an organisation or system or universe of reason, — a process of development or self- construc- tion. The several grades of that self-construction are the cate- gories or terms treated of in Logic.
Idealitat : Realitat : Moment. By Realitat (reality) is meant the self-subsistence and independence of an object: by Idealitat (ideality) is meant the deprivation of this definite being, and its reduction into an element or factor, depending upon other parts and upon the 'whole for its subsistence. Thus a piece of coal is a reality when it is looked upon as one sort of thing distinguished from others, and existing with this quality or character. But when it is put into the fire, and burned, it is seen to make one element in the process : it
clxxxii PROLEGOMENA. [xxin.
loses its self-subsistence, and is as coal dissipated and lost. But it is ideally present so long as its efficiency is felt. Similarly in the case of living- beings the albumen, &c. of which they consist are present ideally as constituent elements which can be discovered by analysis: i. e. by reducing the ideett force of life to abeyance. So, again, in the perfect (ideal) state the several imperfect realities of monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy are present in an ideal way; they no longer subsist in their unimpaired reality, but in their truth as con- stituent and subordinate elements of the political constitution. Reell is to Ideell as differentiation is to integration. When the existent and external world enters the mind it is deprived of its reality : but in its effect upon the mind and character it continues to be ideally present. Such a constituent element, or factor, which has lost all reality of its own except in combination (i. e. in ideality), is a Moment. The reality of a body is its separate qualitativeness as an isolated object ; its ideality begins when its reality is abolished (aufgehoberi) and it has become a Moment or ^namicelement in a larger unity.
Reflexion (reflection.) Whenever, instead of burying our contemplation exclusively in the object which is directly before us, and studying the object in its own self, we proceed to trace its bearings upon other things and the consequences which follow from it in the light of our other knowledge, — when we view one thing in the light which it casts upon another, or which another thing casts upon it, we use Reflexion. We connect two things which, as it appears, exist independently by them- selves, and we institute a relation between them. Thus by means of our own action we imitate or reproduce that connexion of distinct or different things, which the logical idea accom- plishes inherently by the force of its own dialectic. Thus a Reflexions-PMlosojphie is one which tries to bring together and unify the two fundamental opposites, — thought and objectivity, — which are assumed to be primarily distinct. Thus it is by an act of Reflexion (really flowing from the Begriff] that
xxm.] VOCABULARY. clxxxiii
we connect and systematise the several stages in the transitions of being (Seyn), We ask (reflectively), what follows from this? How does this comport itself with other known facts? What would this lead to in such a case?
Baisonnement (ratiocination, inference) is partly connected with reflection, and, as opposed to dialectic, is the name given to such argument as believes its starting-point to be fixed and stable, and is unaware that all process in thought is not a mere stepping from one point forward to the next, but the abrogation or absorption of an inferior term in a higher or more comprehensive. It forgets the negation implied in every process of thought, by which the immediate datum is annihilated to produce something better ; by which truth is only attained by means of untruth, and error is a component ideally entering into the production of true knowledge. Dialectical proof shows its conclusion as the truth of its premisses, i. e. the necessary result in which their full significance first becomes apparent : the premisses are aufgeholen in the conclusion. Raisonnement, on the contrary, leaves its premisses behind as they were at first, and when it has piled on argument to argument and term to term, it gets to its conclusion. The French word suggests that it is the vice of French doctrinaires.
Vernunft and Verstand. Vernunft (reason) is the concrete or speculative exercise of thought, which gives due expression to the process-nature in things, as a unity of differences and contrasts. Hence it discovers the limitations or qualifications in each term of thought short of the whole, and prevents us from resting in inadequate descriptions and half truths.
Verstand (understanding) is the abstract exercise of thought which distinguishes and defines, instead of comprehending and grasping, its object. Such distinguishing and fixing of dif- ferences is a necessary preliminary to comprehension. Verstand analyses and states the several elements in an object; it accepts each object as an ultimate datum, however much it may be connected with other objects, or resolved into its elements. Vernunft, on the other hand, keeps the understanding from
clxxxiv PROLEGOMENA.
sticking to these isolated elements as the whole truth, and holds them suspended (idealised) in the unity of the notion.
Umnittelbar and Vermittelt. Unmittelbar (immediate ; with- out intermediation or derivation) is applied to denote what comes before us nakedly and baldly, as a mere fact, unaccounted for, and face to face. That is unmittelbar which comes obviously and solely on its own evidence. The immediate state is the state of nature, — that which is given as a birthright from which we have to rise to the state of culture, or intermediated state. That is vermittelt (mediated ; derivative ; with intermediation) which comes as the result of a process (or of an argument); which is not founded upon its own evidence, but is got indirectly and by means, — not at a mere momentary act, but by labour and instrumentality. If the beginning as given be taken apart, it is immediate ; if the conclusion be taken by itself, it is mediate : but the total object, which is a process or movement in itself, is both immediate and mediated ; i. e. it is the process of inter-mediation by itself, or the process of self-realisation (which is the Idea). Immediate knowledge is that which comes without the intervention of means ; which is direct, and needs no confirmation by reasoning.
CHAPTEE I.
INTRODUCTION.
1.] IN one important point philosophy has to contend with a difficulty unknown to the other sciences. The objects with which it has to deal are not, like the objects of these sciences, familiar to the imagination, or recognised in ordinary thought. The method of its investigation also, both for the commencement and the subsequent course of discussion, is not like the method of the sciences, a universally acknowledged one. The objects of philosophy, it is true, are upon the whole the same as those of religion. In both the object is Truth, in that supreme sense in which God and God only is the Truth. In like manner both religion and philosophy treat of the finite worlds of Nature and the human Mind, with their relation to each other and to their truth in God. Some acquaintance or outside familiarity with its objects, therefore, and a certain interest in them, philo- sophy may and must presume, even if it were for no other reason than this : that in point of time our consciousness forms con- ceptions or generalised images of objects, long before it forms notions of them. We have mental pictures of objects before we think them : and it is only through these mental pictures, and by having constant recourse to them, that the thinking mind goes on to know and comprehend in the strict meaning of thought.
But, in the case of the thinking, as distinguished from the earlier and semi-pictorial, view of things, it soon becomes evident that thought will be satisfied with nothing short of a proof that its contents or facts must be so, and cannot be otherwise. In other
B
2 INTRODUCTION. [2.
words, we have to demonstrate the existence of its objects, as well as exhibit their nature and qualities. Our original ac- quaintance with them, through the medium of semi-pictorial generalisations, is soon discovered to be inadequate. We can assume nothing, and assert nothing dogmatically ; nor can we accept the assertions and assumptions of others. And yet we must make a beginning : and a beginning, as primary and un- derived, makes an assumption, or rather is an assumption. It seems as if it were impossible to make a beginning at all.
2.] This thinking view of things may serve, in a general way, as a description of philosophy. But the description is too wide. If it be correct to say, that thought makes the distinc- tion between man and the lower animals, then everything human is human, precisely because it is a product of thought. Philosophy, on the other hand, is a special or peculiar mode of thought — a mode in which thinking becomes knowledge, rational and comprehensive knowledge. However great therefore may be the identity and essential unity of the two modes of thought, the philosophic mode comes to be distinguished from the more general thought which acts in all that is human, in all that gives humanity its distinctive character. It must be remem- bered, besides, that the thought which underlies and characterises all the phenomena of human consciousness does not originally appear in its own proper form of thought, but under the aspect of feeling, perception, or imagination — all of which aspects must be distinguished from the form of thought proper.
There is an old doctrine, which has passed into a trivial proposition, that it is thought which marks the man off from the animals. Yet trivial as these old beliefs may seem, they must, strangely enough, be recalled to mind in presence of certain current doctrines of the present day. These doctrines would put feeling and thought so far apart as to make them opposites, and would represent them as so antagonistic, that feeling, particularly religious feeling, is supposed to be con- taminated, perverted, and even annihilated by thought. They also emphatically hold that religion and piety must grow out
2.] INTRODUCTION. 3
of, and rest upon something very different from thought. But those who make this separation forget meanwhile that only man has the capacity for religion, and that animals no more have religion than they have law and morality.
The believers in this separation between religion and thinking usually have in their minds the sort of thought that may be styled after-thought. They mean reflective thinking, which has to deal with thoughts as thoughts, and brings them forward into consciousness. It is because people omit to perceive and keep in view the distinction which philosophy thus definitely draws between itself and the general tenor of thought, that some of the crudest fancies and objections to philosophy have arisen. Man, no doubt, just because it is his nature to think, is the only being that possesses law, religion, and morality. In these spheres of human agency, therefore, thinking, in the shape of feeling, faith, or materialised conception, has not been inactive : for its action and its productions are extant in them, and can be found on examination. But it is one thing to have such feelings and generalised images that have been moulded and permeated by thought, and another thing to have thoughts about them. The thoughts, to which after-thought upon those modes of consciousness gives rise, comprise every thing included under reflection, ratiocination, and the like, as well as under philosophy itself.
The neglect of this distinction between thought in general and the reflective thought of philosophy has led to a still more prevalent misunderstanding. Reflection of this kind has been often maintained to be the condition, or even the only way, of attaining the ordinary conception and the certainty of true and everlasting Being. The now somewhat obsolete meta- physical proofs of God's existence, for example, have been treated, as if a knowledge of them and a conviction of their truth were the only means of producing a belief and conviction of the being1 of God. Such a doctrine would find its parallel,
o
if we said that eating wag impossible before we had acquired a knowledge of the chemical, botanical, and zoological qualities
B 2
4 INTRODUCTION. [3.
of our food ; and that we must delay digestion till we had finished the study of anatomy and physiology. Were it so, these sciences in their field, like philosophy in its, would gain greatly in point of utility ; in fact, their utility would rise to the height of absolute and universal necessity. Or rather, instead of being indispensable, they would not exist at all.
3.] It is the facts or the contents in our consciousness, of whatever kind they are, that give the character or determinate- ness to our feelings, perceptions, fancies, and figurate conceptions ; to our aims and duties ; and to our thoughts and notions. From this point of view, feeling, perception, &c. are the forms assumed by these contents. The contents remain one and the same, whether they are felt, seen, imagined, or willed, and whether they are merely felt, or felt with an admixture of thoughts, or merely and simply thought. In any one of these forms, or in the ad- mixture of several, the contents are said to confront consciousness, or to be its object. But when they are thus made an object of consciousness, the special characters of these forms attach themselves to the contents; and each form of them appears in consequence to give rise to a special object. Thus what is virtually the same at bottom, may look like a different sum of facts.
The specific phenomena of feeling, perception, desire, and will, so far as they are known, may be in general described under the name of Conception, as picture -thinking or materialised thought : and it may be roughly said, that philosophy puts thoughts, categories, or, in more precise language, adequate notions, in the place of semi-pictorial and material conceptions. Conceptions such as these may be regarded as the metaphors of thoughts and notions. But to have these figurate conceptions does not imply that we know their significance for thinking, or the thoughts and rational notions to which they correspond. Conversely, it is one thing to have thoughts and general ideas, and another to know what conceptions, perceptions, and feelings correspond to them.
This difference will to some extent explain why people find
4-] INTRODUCTION. 5
philosophy unintelligible. Their difficulty lies partly in an incapacity — which in itself is nothing but want of habit — for abstract thinking ; i. e. in an inability to grasp immaterial thoughts, and to feel at home in them. In our ordinary state of mind, thoughts are over-grown and combined with the sensuous or mental material of the moment; and in reflection and ratiocination we blend our feelings, intuitions, and con- ceptions with thoughts. Thus, even in those propositions where the subject-matter is due to the senses — such as ' This leaf is green' — we have such categories introduced, as being and indi- viduality. But it is a very different thing to make thoughts pure and simple our object.
But the complaint that philosophy is unintelligible is as much due to another reason ; and that is an impatient wish to have in imaginative conception as a picture that which is in the mind as a thought or notion. When people are asked to apprehend some notion, they often complain that they do not know what they are to think. The answer to that complaint is this. In a notion there is nothing further to be thought than the notion itself. What the phrase reveals, is a hankering after an image with which we are already familiar. Our mind, when it is denied the use of its generalised images, feels the ground where it once stood firm taken away from beneath it, and when transported into the region of abstract thought, cannot tell where in the world it is.
One consequence of this weakness is that authors, preachers, and orators are found most intelligible, when they speak of things which their readers or hearers already know by rote ; — things which are current among them, and require no expla- nation.
4.] The philosopher is confronted by the existence of popular modes of thought, and by the fact of religion. In dealing with the ordinary habit of mind, he will first of all, as we saw, have to prove and almost to awaken the need for his peculiar method of knowledge. In dealing with the objects of religion, and with truth as a whole, he will have to show that philosophy is
6 INTRODUCTION. [5.
capable of apprehending them from its own resources; and where a divergence from religious conceptions appears, he will have to justify the points in which it diverges.
5.] To let the reader have a better understanding of the distinction thus made between thoughts and generalised images or figurate conceptions, and to let him see at the same moment that the real contents of our consciousness are preserved, and even for the first time put in their proper light, when they are translated into the form of thought and the notion of reason, it will be well to recall another of these old unreasoned beliefs. We always feel that, in order to get at what is true in any object or event, as well as in feelings, perceptions, opinions, and imaginations, we must reflect and meditate. Now in every case the work of reflection means at least the translation of feelings and semi-pictorial generalisations into thoughts.
Nature has given eveiy one a faculty of thought. But thought is all that philosophy claims as the form proper to her processes : and thus the inadequate view which omits the distinction between thought in general and scientific reflection, given in Sect. 3, leads to a new delusion, the reverse of the complaint previously mentioned about the unintelligibility of philosophy. In other words, this science is often insulted by people who have never studied a word of it, talking as if they were thoroughly acquainted with its every detail. With the ordinary amount of education, especially when influenced by religious feelings, they do not hesitate to philosophise and to criticise philosophy. Everybody allows that to know any other science you must have first studied it, and that you can only claim to express your judgment upon its doctrines in virtue of such knowledge. Everybody allows that to make a shoe you must have learned and practised the craft of the shoemaker, though every man has a model in his own foot, and possesses in his hands the natural endowments for the operations required. For philosophy alone, it seems to be imagined, such study, care, and application need not be in the least requisite.
This comfortable view of what constitutes a philosopher has
6.] INTRODUCTION. 7
recently received a fresh corroboration from the theory of imme- diate or intuitive knowledge.
o
6.] So much for the form of philosophical knowledge. It is no less desirable, on the other hand, that philosophy should understand that its contents extend over the whole of actuality or the sum of existing- facts. These contents which were originally produced, or which produced themselves within the limits of the mental life, at length become a world, the inward and outward world of consciousness. At first we apprehend these contents by what we call Experience. But as we survey the wide range of inward and outward existence, an intelligent eye will soon distinguish the mere appearance, which is transient and meaningless, from what in itself really deserves the name of actuality. As it is only in form that philosophy is distin- guished from other means of attaining an acquaintance with this same sum of being, it must necessarily be in harmony with actuality and experience. In fact, this harmony may be viewed as at least an extrinsic means of testing the truth of a philosophy. Similarly it may be held the highest aim of philosophic science to bring about, through the recognition of this harmony, a reconciliation of the self-conscious reason with the reason which is in the world ; in other words, with actuality.
In the preface to my Philosophy of Natural Law, p. xix, I have stated the following propositions :
What is rational is actual ; and, What is actual is rational.
These plain truths have given rise to expressions of surprise and hostility, even in quarters where it would be reckoned an insult to presume ignorance of philosophy, and still more of religion. Religion at least need not be brought into the discussion ; its doctrines of the divine government of the world declare these propositions with sufficient clearness. For their philosophic sense, we must pre-suppose intelligence enough to know, not only that God is actual, most actual, and indeed the only actuality; but also, in connexion with the logical bearings of the question, that existence is .in part mere appear-
8 INTRODUCTION. [6.
ance, and only in part reality. In common life, any freak or error, evil and everything of the nature of evil, as well as every miserable and transient existence whatever, gets in a careless way, and as if it were by accident, the name of reality. But even our ordinary feelings are enough to forbid an accidental existence getting the emphatic name of a reality ; for by accidental we mean an existence which has no greater value than that of something possible, which may as well not be as be. As for the term Actuality, these critics would have done well to consider the sense in which I had employed it. In a detailed Logic I had treated amongst other things of actuality, and accurately distinguished it not only from what is contin- gent, which, after all, has existence, but even from the cognate categories of existence and the other modifications of being.
The actuality of the world of reason stands opposed by the popular fancy that ideas and ideals are nothing but chimeras, and philosophy a mere system of such phantasms. It is also opposed by the very different fancy that ideas and ideals are something far too excellent to possess reality, or something far too feeble to procure it for themselves. This divorce between idea and reality is a favourite device of the analytic under- standing in particular. Yet strangely in contrast with this separatist tendency, its own dreams, half-truths though they are, appear to the understanding something true and real; it prides itself on the imperative ' ought,' which it takes especial pleasure in prescribing on the field of politics. As if the world had waited on it to learn how it ought to be, and was not ! For, if it were as it ought to be, what would come of the mystic wisdom of that 'ought'? When understanding uses this 'ought' against trivial and transient objects, institutions or conditions, of no intrinsic value, although even they may very likely possess a great relative importance for a certain time and special circles, it may often be right. In such a case the intelligent observer may meet much that fails to satisfy the precepts of universal rectitude; for who is not acute enough to see a great deal in his own surroundings which is really far
7-] INTRODUCTION. 9
from being what it ought to be? But such acuteness is mistaken in the conceit that, when it examines these objects and pronounces what they ought to be, it is dealing with questions of philosophic science. The object of philosophy is the Idea : and the Idea is not so feeble as merely to have a right or an obligation to exist without actually existing. The object of philosophy is an actuality of which those objects, institutions, and conditions represent only the outward and superficial side.
7.] Thus reflection may be said in a general way to involve the principle (which also means the beginning) of philosophy. But when the reflective spirit sprang up free and independent in modern times, after the epoch of the Lutheran Reformation, it did not, as in the beginnings of Greek philosophy, stand aloof, in a world of its own, but at once turned its energies upon the apparently illimitable material of the phenomenal world. In this way the name philosophy came to be applied to all those branches of knowledge, which are engaged in investiga- ting the definite numerical relations, and the Universal element in the host of individuals presented by experience, as well as in investigating the Necessary element, or Laws, to be found in the apparent disorder of the endless crowd of facts. It thus appears that modern philosophy, in this sense of the word, derives its materials from our own observations and perceptions of the external and internal world, from nature as well as from the mind and heart of man, when both stand in direct and immediate contact with the observer.
This is the principle of Experience. In it lies the unspeak- ably important truth that, in order to accept and believe any fact, we must be in contact with it; or, in more exact terms, that we must find the fact united and combined with the certainty of our own selves. We must be in contact with our subject-matter, whether it be by means of our external senses, or, what is better, by our profounder mind and our innermost self-consciousness. To a certain extent this principle is the same as that which has lately been termed faith, immediate
10 INTRODUCTION. [7.
knowledge, the revelation in the outward world, and, above all, in our own heart.
Those sciences, which frequently go under the name of philosophy, we call empirical sciences, for the reason that they take their departure from experience. Still the essential results which they aim at, are laws, general propositions, a theory — the thoughts of what is found existing. On this ground the Newtonian physics were termed Natural Philosophy. Hugo Grotius again, by putting together and comparing the be- haviour of states towards each other as recorded in history, and with what help the ordinary methods of inference could give, discovered certain general principles and established a theory which may be termed the Philosophy of International Law. In England this is still the usual signification of the term philosophy. Newton continues to be celebrated as the greatest of philosophers : and the name goes down as far as the price-lists of instrument-makers. All instruments, such as the thermometer and barometer, which do not come under the special head of magnetic or electric apparatus, are styled phi- losophical instruments 1. Surely thought, and not a mere com- bination of wood, iron, &c. ought to be called the instrument of philosophy ! The recent science of Political Economy in particular, which in Germany is known as Rational Economy of the State, or intelligent national economy, has in England especially appropriated the name of philosophy 2.
1 Even the journal edited by Thomson is called ' Annals of Philosophy ; or, Magazine of Chemistry, Mineralogy, Mechanics, Natural History, Agricul- ture, and Arts.' We can easily guess from the title what sort of subjects are here to be understood under the term ' philosophy.' Among the advertisements of books just published, I lately found the following notice in an English news- paper : ' The Art of Preserving the Hair, on Philosophical Principles, neatly printed in post 8vo, price seven shillings.' By philosophical principles for the pre- servation of the hair are probably meant chemical or physiological principles.
3 In connexion with the general principles of Political Economy, the term 'philosophical' is frequently heard from the lips of English statesmen, even in their public speeches. In the House of Commons, on the 2nd Feb. 1825, Brougham, speaking on the address in reply to the speech from the throne, talked of 'the statesman-like and philosophical principles of Free-trade, — for philosophical they undoubtedly are — upon the acceptance of which his majesty this day congratulated the House.' Nor is this language confined to members
8, 9-] INTRODUCTION. \\
8.] In its own field this empirical knowledge may at first give satisfaction; but in two ways it is seen to come short. In the first place there is another circle of objects which it does not embrace. These are Freedom, Mind, and God. They belong to a different sphere, not because it can be said that they have nothing to do with experience ; for though they are certainly not perceived by the senses, it is quite an identical proposition to say that whatever is in consciousness is ex- perienced. The real ground for assigning them to another field of cognition is that their scope and contents evidently show these objects to be infinite.
There is an old phrase often wrongly attributed to Aristotle, and supposed to express the general tenor of his philosophy. ' Nihilest in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensuS there is nothing in thought which has not been in sense and experience. If speculative philosophy has rejected this doctrine, it can only have done so from a misunderstanding. It will, however, on the converse side no less assert : ' Nihil est in sensn quod non fuerit in intellect^,? And this may be taken in two senses. In the general sense it means that vovs or spirit (the more profound idea of vovs in modern thought) is the _cause of the world. In itss^eda]_jmeaning' _.(see Sect. 3) it .asserts that Ilie feeling of right, morals, and religion is a feeling (and in that way an experience) of such scope and such character that it can spring from and rest upon thought alone.
9.] The first distinction therefore between philosophy and the sciences of experience depends upon the infinity and the finitude of their respective contents. But in the second place the sub-
of the Opposition. At the shipowners' yearly dinner in the same month, under the chairmanship of the Premier Lord Liverpool, supported by Canning the Secretary of State, and Sir C. Long the Paymaster-General of the Army, Can- ning in reply to the toast which had been proposed said: 'A period has just begun, in which ministers have it in their power to apply to the administration of this country the sound maxims of a profound philosophy.' Whatever dif- ferences there may be between English and German philosophy, and though on other occasions the name of philosophy is used only as a nickname and insult, or as something odious, it is matter of rejoicing to see it still honoured in the mouth of the English Government.
12 INTRODUCTION. [9.
jective reason, or reason within us, desires a further satisfaction in point of form; and this form, in one word, is necessity. (Sect, i.) The method of empirical science exhibits two de- fects. The first is that the Universal or general principle contained in it, the genus, or kind, &c., is of its own nature indeterminate and vague, and therefore not explicitly and of itself in connexion with the Particular or the details. Both are external and accidental to each other, and it is the same with the particular facts which are brought into union : each is external and accidental to the others. The second defect is that the beginnings are in every case data and postulates, neither accounted for nor deduced. In both these points the form of necessity fails to get its due. Hence reflection, whenever it sets itself to remedy these defects, becomes speculative thinking, the genuine organon of philosophy. As a species of reflection, therefore, which, though it has a certain community of nature with the reflection already mentioned, is nevertheless different from it, philosophic thought thus possesses, in addition to the common forms, some forms of its own, of which the rational Notion may be taken as the type.
The relation of speculative science to the other sciences may be stated in the following terms. It does not in the least neglect the empirical facts contained in the several sciences, but recognises and adopts them : it appreciates and applies towards its own structure the universal element in these sciences, their laws and classifications : but besides all this, it introduces new categories and gives them an authoritative place in the sciences. The difference, looked at in this way, is only a change of categories. Speculative Logic contains all previous Logic and Metaphysics : it preserves the same forms of thought, the same laws and objects, — while at the same time trans- forming and expanding them by the means of wider categories.
From notion in the speculative sense we should distinguish what is ordinarily called a notion. The phrase, that no notion can ever comprehend the Infinite, a phrase which has been repeated over and over again till it has grown into a current belief, is
io.] INTRODUCTION. 13
based upon the narrow and vulgar estimate of what is meant by notions.
10.] This thought, which is proposed as the instrument of philo- sophic knowledge, itself calls for further explanation. We must understand in what way it possesses necessity or cogency : and when it claims to be equal to the task of apprehending the absolute objects (God, Mind, Freedom), that claim must be substantiated. Such an explanation, however, is itself a lesson in philosophy, and properly falls within the scope of the science itself. A preliminary attempt to make matters plain would only be un- philosophical, and consist of a tissue of hypotheses, assertions, and inferences, i.e. of dogmatism without cogency, as against which there would be an equal right of counter-dogmatism.
One of the main doctrines of the Critical Philosophy bids us pause before proceeding to inquire into God or into the true being of things, and tells us first of all to examine the faculty of cognition and see whether it is equal to such an effort. We ought, says Kant, to become acquainted with the instrument, before we undertake the work for which it is to be employed ; for if the instrument be insufficient, all our trouble will be spent in vain. The plausibility of this suggestion has won for it general assent and admiration; the result of which has been to withdraw cognition from an interest in its objects and absorption in the study of them, and to direct it back upon itself; and so turn it to a question of form. Unless we wish to be deceived by words, it is easy to see what this amounts to. In the case of other instruments, we can try and criticise them in other ways than by setting about the special work for which they are destined. But the examination of knowledge can only be carried out by an act of knowledge. To examine this so-called instrument is the same thing as to know it. But to seek to know before we know is as absurd as the wise resolution of Scholasticus, not to venture into the water until he had learned to swim.
Reinhold saw the confusion with which this style of com- mencement is chargeable, and tried to get out of the difficulty
14 INTRODUCTION. [n.
by starting with a hypothetical and problematical stage of philosophising. In this way he supposed that it would be possible, nobody can tell how, to go on, until it happened at last that the primary truth of truths was reached. His method, when closely looked into, will be seen to be identical with a very common practice. It starts from a substratum of experiential fact, or from a provisional assumption which has been brought into a definition ; and then proceeds to analyse this starting-point. We can detect in Reinhold's argument a perception of the truth, that the usual course which proceeds by assumptions and anticipations is no better than a hypothetical and problematical mode of procedure. But his perceiving this makes no change in his style of proceeding, and only states the imperfections of the method.
11.] The special conditions which call for the existence of philosophy may be thus described. The mind or spirit, when it feels or perceives, finds its object in a sensuous image ; when it imagines, in a picture or scene of fancy; when it wills, in an aim or end. But in contrast to, or it may be only in distinction from, these forms of its existence and of its objects, the mind has also to gratify the cravings of its highest and most inward life. That innermost self is thought. Thus the mind renders thought its object. In the best meaning of the phrase, it comes to itself; for thought is its principle, and in thought it finds its truest self. But while thus occupied, thought is confronted on every side with contradictions, puzzled by thoughts which refuse to be identified with it, and, instead of finding itself, is forced to sink under the sway of its own ideas. This result, to which honest but narrow thinking leads the mere understanding, is met by the loftier craving of which we have spoken. That craving expresses the perseverance of thought, which has resolved to continue true to itself, even in this conscious loss of its native rest and independence, till it overcome and work out in thought the solution of its own contradictions.
That dialectic is the very nature of thought, and that, as
1 2 . J IN TROD UCTION. 1 5
understanding-, thought must inevitably fall into contradiction and the negation of itself, forms one of the main lessons of logic. When thought grows hopeless of ever achieving, by its own means, the solution of the contradiction which it has by its own action brought upon itself, it turns back to those solutions of the question with which the mind had learned to pacify itself in some of its other modes and forms. Unfortunately, however, the retreat of thought has led it, as Plato noticed even in his time, to a very uncalled-for hatred of reason (misology) • and it then displays a hostile front against its own endeavours. An example of this dislike to thought may be found in the doctrine, that immediate know- ledge, as it is called, is the exclusive form in which we become cognisant of truth.
12.] The first beginnings of philosophy date from these cravings of thought. It takes its departure from Experience; including under that name our immediate consciousness and the processes of inference from it. Awakened, as it were, by this stimulus, thought is vitally characterised by raising itself above the natural state of mind, above the senses and inferences from the senses. At first it assumes a repellent and negative attitude towards the point from which it draws its origin. Through this state of antagonism to the pheno- mena of sense its first satisfaction is found in itself, and it seizes on the idea of the universal essence of these phenomena. This idea (the Absolute, or God) may be more or less abstract. Meanwhile, on the other hand, the sciences, based on experience, act upon the mind as a sort of stimulus to overcome the form in which their varied contents are pre- sented, and to elevate these contents to the rank of necessary truth. For the facts of science have the aspect of a vast conglomerate, one thing coming side by side with another, as if they were merely given, and not deduced or derived, — as if indeed they were utterly a matter of chance. In consequence of this stimulus thought is dragged out of its unrealised universality and its fancied, or merely possible
1 6 INTROD UCTION. [12.
satisfaction, and impelled onwards to a development from itself. On one hand this development only means that thought accepts the contents of science, and the truths which are propounded in regard to them. On the other it makes these contents imitate the action of the original creative thought, and present the aspect of a free evolution determined by the laws of the fact alone.
On the relation between immediacy and mediation in consciousness we shall speak later, expressly and with more detail. Here it may be sufficient to premise that, though the two elements or factors present themselves as distinct, still neither of them can be absent, or exist apart from the other. Thus the knowledge of God, as of every supersensible reality, is in its true character an exaltation above the feelings or perceptions of the senses : it consequently involves a negative attitude to the initial acts of sense, and to that extent implies mediation. For to mediate is to take something as a be- ginning and to go onward to a second thing; so that the existence of this second thing depends on our having reached it from something else contradistinguished from it. In spite of this, the knowledge of God is independent, and not a mere consequence of the empirical phase of consciousness : in fact, its independence is essentially secured through this negation and exaltation. No doubt, if we attach an unfair prominence to the fact of mediation, and represent it as implying a state of dependence, it may be said — not that the remark would mean much — that philosophy is the child of experience, and owes its existence to an a posteriori element. (As a matter of fact, thinking is always the negation of what we have immediately before us.) With as much truth we may be said to owe eating to the means of nourishment, so long as we can have no eating without them. If we take this view, eating is certainly represented as ungrateful: it devours that to which it owes itself. Thinking, upon this view of its action, is equally ungrateful.
But the a priori aspect or immediacy of thought, where
12] IN TROD UCTION. \ 7
there is a mediation, not made by anything external but by a reflection into self, is another name for universality, the complacency or contentment of thought which is so much at ease with itself, that it feels an innate aversion to descend to particulars, and in that way to the development of its own nature. It is as in the case of religion, which, whether it be rude or elaborate, whether it be invested with scientific precision of detail or confined to the simple faith of the heart, possesses, throughout, the same intensive nature of contentment and felicity. But if thought never gets further than universality in its ideas, as was perforce the case in the first philosophies (when the Eleatics never got beyond Being, or Heraclitus beyond Becoming), it is open to the charge of formalism. Even in a more advanced period of philosophy, we may often find it taking account only of abstract generalities or definitions, such as, 'In the absolute all is one,' ' Subject and object are identical,' — and only repeating the same thing when it comes to particulars. When we look at this first period of thought, the period of mere generality, we may safely say that experience is the real author of growth and advance in philosophy. For, firstly, the empirical sciences do not stop short at the perception of the individual features of a phenomenon. They employ thought, and come forward to meet philosophy with materials for it, in the shape of general characteristics or laws, and classifications of the phenomena. When this is done, the particular facts which they contain are ready to be received into philosophy. This, secondly, implies a certain compulsion on thought itself to proceed to these concrete specific truths. The reception into philosophy of this scientific material, now that thought has removed its immediacy, and made it cease to be any longer a mere datum, forms at the same time a development of thought out of itself. Philosophy, then, owes its development to the empirical sciences. In return it gives their contents what is so vital to them, the freedom of thought, or, what is called an a priori character. These
c
18 INTRODUCTION. [13,
contents are now demonstrated to be necessary, and no longer depend on the evidence of facts merely, that they were so found and so experienced. The fact of experience thus becomes an illustration and image of the original and completely self- supporting activity of thought.
13.] Stated in exact terms, such is the origin and develop- ment of philosophy. But the History of Philosophy gives us the same process from an historical and external point of view. The stages in the evolution of the idea there seem to follow each other by accident, and to present merely a number of different and unconnected principles, which the several systems of philosophy carry out in their own way. But it is not so. For these thousands of years the same Architect has directed the work : and that Architect is the one living Mind of which the nature is thought and self-consciousness. Becoming con- scious of what it is in one period, it employs this knowledge as the basis of a new period, and an advance in its course of progress. The differences of system which the history of philosophy presents are therefore not irreconcilable with unity. We may either say, that it is one philosophy at different degrees of completion : or that the particular principle, which is the groundwork of each system, is but a branch of one and the same universe of thought. In philosophy the latest birth of time is the result of all the systems that have preceded it, and must include their principles ; and so, if, on other grounds, it deserve the title of philosophy, will be the fullest, most comprehensive, and most adequate system of all.
The spectacle of so many and so different systems of philosophy suggests the necessity of defining more exactly the distinction between Universal and Particular. When the universal is made a mere form and co-ordinated with the particular, as if it were on the same level, it sinks into a particular itself. Even common sense in every-day matters is above the absurdity of taking a universal apart from the particulars. Would any one, who wished for fruit, reject cherries, pears, and grapes, on the ground that they were cherries, pears, or grapes, and not
J4-] INTRODUCTION. 19
fruit ? But when philosophy is in question, the excuse of many is that philosophies are so different, and none of them is the philosophy, — that each is only a philosophy. Such a plea is assumed to justify any amount of contempt for philosophy. And yet cherries too are fruit. Often, too, a system, of which the principle is universal, is enumerated on a level with another of which the principle is particular and limited, and with theories which deny the existence of philosophy altogether. Such systems are said to be only different views of philosophy. With equal justice, light and darkness may be styled different kinds of light.
14.] The same evolution of thought which is recorded in the history of philosophy is presented in the System of Philo- sophy itself. Here, instead of surveying the process, as we do in history, from the outside, we see the movement of thought clearly denned in its native medium. If thought is free and actual, it must involve the union of several elements, must be concrete ; it must be an idea ; and when it is viewed in the whole of its universality, it is the Idea, or the Absolute. The science of this Idea must form a system. For the truth is concrete ; that is, whilst it gives a bond and principle of unity, it also possesses an internal variety of development. Truth, then, is only possible as a universe or totality of thought; and the freedom of the whole, as well as the necessity of the several divisions, is only possible when we distinguish the several elements, and give a precise expression to these differences.
Unless it is a system, a philosophy is not a scientific produc- tion. Philosophising of this sort can only be expected to give expression to personal peculiarities of mind, and has no principle for the regulation of its contents. The truths of philosophy are valueless, apart from their interdependence and organic union, and must then be treated as baseless hypotheses, or personal convictions. Yet many philosophical treatises confine themselves to such an exposition of the opinions and sentiments of the author.
The term system is often misunderstood. It does not denote
C 2
20 INTRODUCTION. [15, 1 6.
a philosophy, the principle of which is narrow and to be dis- tinguished from others. On the contrary, all real philosophy makes it a principle to include every particular principle.
15.] Each of the parts of philosophy is a philosophical whole, a circle rounded and complete in itself. In each of these parts, however, the philosophical idea is found in a particular speciality or medium. The single circle, because it is a real totality, bursts through the limits imposed by its special medium, and gives rise to a wider circle. The whole of philosophy in this way resembles a circle of circles. The idea is exhibited in each individual circle, but, at the same time, the whole Idea is constituted by the system of the elements special to each, and each is a necessary member of the organisation.
16.] In the form of an Encyclopaedia, our science does not leave room for a detailed exposition of its particular truths, and must be limited to the commencement of the special sciences, and to the notions of cardinal importance in them.
How much of the particular parts is requisite to constitute a particular branch of knowledge is so far indeterminate, that the part, if it is to be true, must be not an isolated member merely, but an organic whole. The entire field of philosophy really forms a single science ; but it may also be viewed as a sum-total, composed of several particular sciences.
The encyclopedia of philosophy must not be confounded with ordinary encyclopaedias. An ordinary encyclopaedia does not pretend to be more than an aggregation of sciences, regulated by no principle, except as experience offers them. Sometimes it even includes what merely bears the name of science, while it is nothing more than a collection of ascertained facts. In an aggregate like this, the several branches of knowledge owe their place in the encyclopaedia to extrinsic reasons, and their unity is therefore artificial : they are arranged, but we cannot say they form a system. For the same reason, especially as the materials to be combined depend upon no fixed rule or principle, the arrangement is at best an experiment, and will always exhibit inequalities.
1 6.] INTRODUCTION. 21
An encyclopaedia of philosophy excludes three kinds of partial science. I. It excludes mere aggregates of ascertained facts. Philology in its primd facie aspect belongs to this class. II. It rejects the quasi-sciences, which are founded on an act of arbitrary will alone, such as Heraldry. Sciences of this class are positive from beginning to end. III. In another class of sciences, also styled positive, but which have a rational basis and a rational beginning, it accepts the constituent which naturally belongs to it. The posftive features are only in- teresting to the sciences themselves.
The positive element in the last class of sciences is of different sorts. (I.) Their commencement may possess germs of ration- ality, but they cease to exhibit any principle of reason, when they have to bring their universal truth into contact with actual facts and the single phenomena of experience. In this region of chance and change, the adequate notion of science must yield its place to reasons or grounds of explanation. Thus, in the science of jurisprudence, and in the system of direct and indirect taxation, it is often necessary to have certain points precisely and definitively settled : and such settlement is not within the competence of the absolute and certain fixity of the pure notion. A certain amount of liberty in these points accordingly is left : and each question may be answered in one way on one principle, in another way on another, and admits of no definitive settlement. Similarly the idea of Nature, when it is individualised, loses itself in a maze of chance. Natural history, geography, and medicine have to deal with points of existence, with kinds and with distinctions, which are not de- termined by reason, but by sport and adventitious incidents Even history comes under the same category. The idea is its essence and inner nature ; but its phenomena are regulated by no law, and depend upon arbitrary influences. (II.) These sciences are positive also in failing to recognise the finite nature of what they predicate, and to point out how these predicates and their whole sphere pass into a higher. They assume their statements of truth to be absolutely valid. Here
2 2 IN TROD UCTION. [17.
the fault lies in the finitude of the form, as in the previous instance it lay in the matter. (III.) As a consequence of this, sciences are positive in consequence of the inadequate and limited ground on which their statements rest. Their state- ments are based upon formal inference, or upon feeling1, faith, and authority, and, generally speaking, upon the deliverances of inward and outward perception. Under this head we must also class the philosophy which proposes to build upon anthro- pology, facts of consciousness, inward sense, or outward ex- perience. It may happen, however, that empirical is an epithet, only applicable to the form of scientific exposition ; whilst a sagacious intuition has arranged what are mere phenomena, according to the essential sequence of the notion. The oppo- sitions between the varied and numerous phenomena, which are grouped together, serve to eliminate the external and acci- dental circumstances of their conditions, and the universal thus comes clearly into view. In this way a judicious experimental physics will present the rational science of Nature ; and a judicious history will present the science of human affairs and actions in an external picture, which is a reflection of the real notion.
17.] It may seem as if philosophy, in order to start on its course, had, like the rest of the sciences, to begin with a subjective presupposition. The sciences postulate their respec- tive objects, such as space, number, or whatever it be; and it might be supposed that philosophy had also to postulate the existence of thought. But the two cases are not exactly parallel. It is by the free act of thought that it occupies a point of view, in which it is all its own, and gives itself an object of its own production. Nor is this all. The very point of view, which originally is taken on its own evidence only, must in the course of the science be converted to a result, the ultimate result in which philosophy returns into itself, and achieves the point with which it began. In this manner philosophy exhibits the appearance of a circle which closes with itself, and has no beginning, in the same way as the
1 8.] INTRODUCTION. 23
other sciences have. To speak of a beginning of philosophy only means that we consider it in relation to a person who proposes to commence the study, and not in relation to the science as science. The same thing- may be thus expressed. The initial notion in which philosophy grasps its object, for the very reason that it is initial implies a separation between the thought which is our object, and the subject philosophising, which is, as it were, external to the former. This separation must be overcome, and the science itself must grasp its first notion and make it its own. In short, the one aim, end, and action of philosophy is to arrive at the notion of its notion, and thus secure its return and its satisfaction.
18.] As the whole science, and only the whole, can exhibit what the Idea or system of reason is, it is impossible to give in a preliminary way a general conception of a philosophy. Nor can a division of philosophy into its parts be intelligible, except in connexion with the system. A preliminary division, like the limited conception from which it comes, is a pure anticipation. Here however it is premised, that the Idea turns out to be the thought which is completely identical with itself, and not identical simply in the abstract, but also in its action of setting itself to confront itself, and so gain a real being of its own, and yet of being in full possession of itself while it is in this confronting being. Thus philosophy is subdivided into three parts :
I. Logic, the science of the absolute Idea.
II. The Philosophy of Nature : the science of the Idea in the counterfeit or reflection of itself.
III. The Philosophy of Mind : the science of the Idea when it comes back to itself out of that confronting other form.
As observed in Sect. 15, the differences between the several philosophical sciences are only aspects or expressions of the one Idea or system of reason, which is alike exhibited in these different elements. In Nature nothing else is to be discerned, except the Idea : but the Idea has here divested itself of its proper
24 INTRODUCTION.
being. In Mind, again, the Idea has asserted a being of its own, and is on the way to become absolute. Every such form in which the Idea is expressed, is at the same time a passing or fleeting stage : and hence each of these subdivisions has not only to know its contents as an object which has being for the time, but also in the same act to expound how these contents pass into their higher circle. To represent the relation between them as a division leads to misconception; for it co-ordinates the several parts or sciences one beside another, as if they had no innate movement, but were, like natural kinds, really and permanently distinct.
CHAPTER II.
PRELIMINARY NOTION.
19.] LOGIC is THE SCIENCE OF THE PURE IDEA ; pure, that is, because the Idea is in the abstract medium of Thought*
This definition, and the others which occur in these intro- ductory outlines, are derived from a survey of the whole system, to which accordingly they are subsequent. The same remark applies to the prefatory notions in general explanation of philosophy.
Logic might have been defined as the science of thought, and of its laws and characteristic forms. But thought, as thought, constitutes only the general medium, or qualifying circum- stance, which renders the Idea distinctively logical. If we identify the Idea with thought, thought must not be taken in the sense of a method or form, but in the sense of the self-developing system of its laws and constituent elements. These laws are the work of thought itself, and not a fact which it finds and must submit to.
From different points of view, Logic is either the hardest or the easiest of the sciences. Logic is hard, because it has to deal not with perceptions, nor, like geometry, with abstract representations of the senses, but with pure abstractions ; and because it requires a habit and faculty of abstraction, a firm apprehension of thought per se, and a facility of movement among these intangible realities. Logic is easy, because its facts are nothing but our own thought and its familiar terms : and these are the acme of simplicity, the a b c of everything
26 PRELIMINARY NOTION. [19.
else. They are also what we are best acquainted with : such as, ' Is ' and ' Is not ' : quality and magnitude : being potential and being actual : one, many, and so on. But such an ac- quaintance only adds to the difficulties of the study ; for while, on the one hand, we naturally think it is not worth our trouble to occupy ourselves any longer with things so well known, on the other hand, the purpose is to become acquainted with them in a new way, quite opposite to that in which we know them already.
The utility of Logic is a matter wThich concerns its bearings upon the student, and the training it may give for other purposes. This logical training consists of the exercise in thinking which the student has to undergo (this science is the thinking of thinking) : and in the fact that he stores his head with thoughts, in their native unalloyed character. It is true that Logic, being the absolute form of truth, and another name for abstract truth itself, is something more than merely useful. Yet if what is noblest, most liberal and most independent is also most useful, Logic has some claim to the latter character. Its value must then be estimated by some other standard than exercise in thought for the sake of the exercise.
(1) The first question is: What is the object of our science? The simplest and most intelligible answer to this question is that Truth is the object of Logic. Truth is a great word, and the thing is greater still. So long as man is sound at heart and in spirit, the search for truth must awake all the enthusiasm of his nature. But immediately there steps in the objection — Are we able to know truth ? There seems to be an incommensurability between finite beings like ourselves and the truth which is absolute: and doubts suggest themselves whether there is any bridge between the finite and the infinite. God is truth : how shall we know Him ? Such a claim appears to stand in contra- diction with the graces of lowliness and humility. Others who ask whether we can know the truth have a different purpose. They want to justify themselves in living on contented with their petty, finite aims. And humility of this stamp does not count for much.
The time is past, when people asked : How shall I, a poor worm of the dust, be able to know the truth? And we have now to contend with the vanity and arrogance of those, who
1 9.] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 27
claim, without any trouble on their part, to breathe the very atmosphere of truth. The young have been nattered into the belief, that they possess a natural birthright of moral and religious truth. And in the same strain, our riper years are declared to be sunk, petrified, ossified in falsehood. Youth, say these teachers, sees the bright light of dawn : but the older generation lies in the slough and mire of the common day. They admit that the special sciences are something that certainly ought to be cultivated, but merely as the means to satisfy the needs of outer life. In all this there is none of the humility which shrinks in awe from the knowledge and study of the truth, but a conviction that we are already in full possession of the truth. It is an unquestionable fact that the young carry with them the hopes of their elder compeers ; on them rests the advance of the world and' science. But these hopes are set upon the young, only on the condition, that instead of remaining as they are, they under- take the hard work of thought.
This modesty in truth -seeking has still another phase : and that is the genteel indifference to truth, as we see it in Pilate's conversation with Christ. Pilate asked ' What is truth ? ' with the air of a man who had settled accounts with everything long ago, and concluded that nothing particularly matters : — he meant much the same as Solomon when he says : ' All is vanity.' When it comes to this, nothing is left but self-conceit.
The knowledge of the truth meets an additional obstacle in timidity. A slothful mind finds it easy to say : ' Don't let it be supposed that we mean to be in earnest with our philosophy. We shall be glad inter alia to study Logic : but Logic must be sure to leave us as we were before.' People have a feeling that, if thinking exceeds the ordinary limits in which our material' conceptions are confined, it cannot but be on the evil road. They seem to be trusting themselves to a sea, on which they will be tossed to and fro by the waves of thought, till they again reach the sand-bank of this temporal scene, as empty as they left it. What comes of such a view, we see in the world. It is possible within these limits to gain varied information and many accomplishments, to become a master of official routine, and to be trained for special purposes. But, it is quite another thing to educate the spirit for the higher life and to devote our energies to its service. In our own day it may be hoped a longing for something better has sprung up among the young, so that they will not be contented with the empty straw of outer knowledge.
(2) It is universally agreed that thought is the object of Logic. Our opinion of thought may be very mean, or it may be ^ very high. On one hand, people say: 'It is only a thought.' In their view thought is subjective, arbitrary and accidental — dis-
28 PRELIMINARY NOTION. [19.
tinguished from the thing itself, and neither true nor real. On the other hand, a very high estimate may be taken of thought ; when thought alone is held adequate to attain the highest of all things, the nature of God, of which the senses can tell us nothing. God is a spirit, it is said, and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. But the objects of sense and feeling are different from the object of spirit — of which the innermost nature is thought : and only spirit can know spirit. reeling is undoubt- edly a mode of spiritual life (of which we have an instance in religion) : but mere feeling, as a mode of consciousness, is one thing, and its contents another. Feeling, as feeling, is the general form of the sensuous nature, which we have in common with the brutes. This form, viz. feeling, may possibly adopt and appropriate all the elements of religious truth : but the form has no real congruity with its contents. The form of feeling is the lowest in which spiritual truth can be expressed. The central idea of spiritual consciousness, that is, God himself, exists in his proper truth, only in thought and as thought. If this be so, therefore, thought, far from being a mere thought, is the ' highest, and in strict accuracy, the sole mode of apprehending the eternal and absolute being.
As of thought, so also of the science of thought, a very high or a very low opinion may be formed. Any man, it is supposed, can think without Logic, as he can digest without studying physiology. If he have studied Logic, he thinks after- wards as he did before, perhaps more methodically, but with little difference. If this were all, and if Logic had no more to do than make men acquainted with the action of thought as the faculty of comparison and classification, nothing would ensue which had not been done quite as well before. The position of previous Logic was substantially the same as this. Yet the knowledge of thought, even as a mere activity of the subject- mind, is honourable and interesting for man. It is in knowing what he is and what he does, that man is distinguished from the brutes. But we may take the higher estimate of thought. In that case, Logic as the science of thought occupies a high ground. Thought alone is capable of learning to know the highest of all things — Truth. If the science of Logic then considers thought in its activity and with reference to its productions (and thought being no resultless energy produces thoughts and the particular thought required), its facts may be generally said to constitute the supersensible world, and to deal with these facts is to dwell for a while in that world. Mathematics is concerned with the abstractions of time and space. But these are the object of sense, although the sensible is abstract and idealized. Thought bids adieu even to this last abstraction from the senses : and
20.] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 29
asserts its own native independence, while it renounces the field of the external and internal sense, and turns its back upon the interests and inclinations of the individual. When Logic takes this ground, it is a higher science than we are in the habit of supposing1.
(3) The necessity of understanding Logic in a wider sense than as the science of the form of thought is enforced by the interests of religion and politics, of law and morality. At first men had no suspicions of thought ; and they thought away freely and fearlessly. They thought about God, about Nature, and the State ; and they felt sure that a knowledge of the truth was obtainable by thought only, and not by the senses or any occasional conception and opinion. But while they so thought, the principal ordinances of life began to be seriously affected by their conclusions. Thought deprived existing in- stitutions of their force. Constitutions fell a victim to thought : religion was assailed by thought : firm religious beliefs which had been always looked upon in the light of revelations were undermined, and in many minds the old faith was overthrown. The Greek philosophers, for example, became the antagonists of the old religion, and annihilated the forms of popular belief. Philosophers were accordingly banished or put to death, as revolutionists who had subverted religion and the state, two things which were inseparable. Thought, in short, made itself a power in the real world, and exercised enormous influence. The matter ended by drawing attention to the influence of thought and by a more rigorous scrutiny of its claims, in which the world would have been glad to find that thought arrogated too much to itself and was unable to perform what it had undertaken. It had not learned what was the essence of God, of Nature and Mind. It had not learned what the truth was. What it had done, was to overthrow religion and the state. It became im- perative therefore to justify thought, with reference to the results it had produced : and it is this examination into the nature of thought and this justification which in modern times has consti- tuted one of the main problems of philosophy.
20.] When we examine the simplest popular conception of what is meant by Thought, we find several points worthy of remark. First (a) in its common subjective acceptation, thought is one out of many activities or faculties of the mind, co-ordinate with such others as sensation, perception, imagination, desire, volition, and the like. The product of this activity, the form or character peculiar to thought, is a UNIVERSAL, of which the
30 PRELIMINARY NOTION. [20-
nature is to be abstract. Thought, regarded as an activity of the mind, may be accordingly described as the active universal ; and since the result produced by it is a repetition of the universal, thought may be called a self-actualising universal. Thought conceived as a subject is a thinker, and the subject existing as a thinker is simply denoted by the term ' I.'
The propositions giving an account of thought in this and the following sections are not offered as assertions or opinions of mine on the matter. But in these preliminary chapters any deduction or proof would be impossible, and the statements may be taken for facts. In other words, every man, when he thinks and considers his thoughts, will discover by the expe- rience of his consciousness that they involve the character of universality as well as the other forms or characters of thought to be afterwards enumerated. We assume that his powers of attention and abstraction have undergone a previous training, enabling him to observe correctly the facts of his consciousness and his conceptions.
This introductory exposition has already alluded to the distinc- tion between Sense, Conception, and Thought. As the distinc- tion is of capital importance for understanding the nature and the different kinds of knowledge, it will help to explain matters if we here call attention to it. For the explanation of Sense, the easiest method certainly is, to refer to its external source — the organs of sense. But to give the name of the organ, does not help much to explain what is apprehended by it. The real distinction between sense and thought may be formulated as follows. The former is individual, and as the individual (which, reduced to its simplest terms, is the atom) is also a member of a series, sensible existence presents a number of mutually exclusive units, — a state of things which conforms to the more special abstract conditions of co-existence and succession. Con- ception or picture-thinking works with materials from the same sensuous source. But these materials when conceived are expressly characterised as in me and therefore mine : and secondly, as universal, or simple, because only referred to self.
20.] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 31
Nor is sense the only source of materialised conception. There are conceptions based upon materials emanating from self-con- scious thought, such as those of right, morality, religion, and even of thought itself, and one does not immediately observe where the difference exists between such conceptions, and thoughts having the same scope. For it is a thought of which such conception is the vehicle, and there is no want of the form of universality, without which no content could be in me, or be a conception at all. Yet here also the peculiarity of con- ception is the individualism or isolation of its contents. True it is that morality and moral ideas do not exist in the sensible world of space, mutually excluding one another. Nor as re- gards time, though they appear to some extent in succession, are their contents themselves conceived as affected by time, or as transient and changeable in it. The fault in concep- tion lies deeper. These ideas, though they are properly due to the mind, stand isolated here and there on the broad field of the faculty of conception, which gives them only an inward and imperfect generality. Being thus reduced to separate entities, they are what we call simple : Justice, Duty, God. Conception in these circumstances either rests satisfied with declaring that Justice is justice, God is God : or in a higher grade of culture, it proceeds to enunciate the attributes ; as, for instance, God is the Creator of the world, omniscient, almighty, &c. In this way several isolated, simple predicates are strung together: but in spite of the link supplied by their subject, the predicates never get beyond mere contiguity. In this point Conception coincides with Understanding : the only dis- tinction being that the latter introduces relations of universal and particular, of cause and effect, &c., and in this way gives a necessary connexion to the isolated ideas of pictorial con- ception; which last has left them side by side in the vague background of imagination, connected only by a bare 'and.' The difference between conception and thought is of special importance: because philosophy may be said to do nothing but transform conceptions into thoughts,— though it works the
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further transformation of mere thought into the comprehensive notion.
Sensible existence has been characterised by the attributes of individuality, and a mutual exclusion of the members. It is well to remember that these very attributes are thoughts and general terms. It will be shown in the Logic that thought (and the universal) is not a mere opposite of sense: it com- prehends its opposite, and, overlapping even that, lets nothing escape it. Now language is the work of thought : and hence all that is expressed in language must be universal. What I only mean or suppose is mine : it belongs to me as a particular individual. But language expresses nothing but universality; and so I cannot say what I merely mean or feel. And what cannot be uttered, feeling or sensation, far from being the highest truth, is the most unimportant and untrue. If I say 'The Unit,' "This Unit,' 'here,' 'now,' all these are universal terms. Everything and anything is an individual, a ' this/ or if it be sensible, is here and now. Similarly when I say, ' I,' I mean my single self to the exclusion of all others : but what I say, viz. 'I/ is just every 'I,' which in like manner excludes all others from itself. In an awkward expression which Kant used, he said that the I is associated with our sensations, desires, and actions, as well as our conceptions. ' I ' is the absolute universal : and community or association is one of the forms, though an external form of universality. All other men have it in common with me to be ' I :' just as it is common to all my sensations and conceptions to be mine. But 'I,' in the abstract, as such, is the mere act of concentration or reference to self, in which we make abstraction from all conception, and feeling, from every state of mind and every peculiarity of nature, talent, and experience. To this extent, ' I3 means the existence of a wholly abstract universality, a principle of abstract freedom. Thought, viewed as a subject, is expressed by the word ' I :' and since I am at the same time in all my sensations, concep- tions, and states of consciousness, thought is everywhere present, and is a category that runs through all these modifications.
20.] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 33
Our first conception when we use the term thought is of a subjective activity — one amongst many similar faculties, such as memory, imagination and will. Were thought merely an activity of the subject-mind and treated under that aspect by logic, logic would resemble the other sciences in possessing a well-marked object. The only wonder in that case would be, that any one should have imagined it necessary to devote a special science to thought, whilst will, imagination and the rest were denied the same privilege. The selection of one faculty however might even in this view be very well grounded on a certain authority ac- knowledged to belong to thought, and on its claim to be regarded as the true nature of man, in which consists his distinction from the brutes. Nor is it unimportant to study thought even as a subjective energy. A detailed analysis of its nature would exhibit rules and laws, a knowledge of which is derived from experience. A treatment of the laws of thought, from this point of view, used once to form the body of logical science. Of that science Aristotle was the founder. He succeeded in assigning to thought what properly belongs to it. Our thought is extremely concrete : but in its composite contents we must distinguish the part that belongs to thought, or the abstract mode of its action. A subtle spiritual bond, consisting in the agency of thought, knits all these contents into one, and it was this bond, the form as form, that Aristotle noted and described. Up to the present day, the logic of Aristotle continues to be the received system. It has indeed been spun out to greater length, especially by the labours of the medieval Schoolmen, who, without extending the material, merely worked it out in more detail. The moderns also have left their mark upon this logic, partly by omitting many points of logical doctrine due to Aristotle and the School- men, and partly by foisting in a quantity of psychological matter. The purport of the science is to become acquainted with the pro- cedure of finite thought (or of thought dealing with existing objects) : and, if it is adapted to its pre-supposed object, the science is entitled to be styled correct. The study of this formal logic undoubtedly has its uses. It clears the head, as the phrase goes, and teaches us to collect our thoughts, and to abstract — whereas in common consciousness we have to deal with sensuous conceptions which cross and perplex one another. Abstraction moreover implies the concentration of the mind on a single point, and thus induces the habit of attending to our inward selves. An acquaintance with the forms of finite thought may be made a sort of introduction to the prosecution of the empirical sciences, since their method is regulated by these forms : and in this sense logic has been designated Instrumental. It is true, we may be still more liberal, and say : Logic is to be studied not for its
34 PRELIMINARY NOTION. [21.
utility, but for its own sake : the highest good is not to be sought for the sake of mere utility. In one sense this is quite correct: but it may be replied that the highest good is also the most useful : because it is the all-encompassing fact, which, having a subsistence of its own, may therefore serve as the vehicle of all the special ends which it furthers and secures. And thus, special ends, though they have no right to be set first, are still fostered by the presence of the highest good. B/eligion, for instance, has an absolute value of its own ; yet at the same time other ends flourish and succeed in its train. As Christ says : ' Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you.' Particular ends can be attained only in the attainment of what absolutely is and exists in its own right.
21.] (#) Thought has been shown to be active. We now, in the second place, consider this action in its bearings upon objects, or as Reflection upon something. In this case the universal or product of its operation is rated as equivalent to the fact, the essence, the intrinsic value, the truth.
In Sect. 5 the old belief was quoted that the reality in object, circumstance, or event, the intrinsic worth or essence, is the fact on which stress is to be laid — that this fact is not a self-evident datum of consciousness, or coincident with the first appearance and impression ; that, on the contrary, Reflection is required in order to discover the real con- stitution of the object — and that by such Reflection it will be ascertained.
To reflect is a lesson which even the child has to learn. One of his first lessons is to join adjectives with substantives. This obliges him to attend and distinguish : he has to remember a rule and apply it to the particular case. This rule is nothing but a universal: and the child must see that the particular adapts itself to this universal. In life, again, we have ends to attain. And with regard to these we ponder which is the best way to secure them. The end here represents the universal or governing principle : and we have means and instruments whose action we regulate in conformity to the end. In the same way reflection is active in questions of conduct. To reflect here means to remember the law of righteousness, and duty, — the universal which serves as a fixed rule to guide our behaviour in
2i.] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 35
the given ease. Our particular act must imply and recognise the universal law. We find the same thing exhibited in our study of natural phenomena. For instance, we observe thunder and lightning. The phenomenon is a familiar one, and we often perceive it. But man is not content with a bare acquaintance, or with the fact as it appears to the senses ; he would like to get behind the surface, to know what it is, and to comprehend it. This leads him to reflect : he seeks to find out the cause as something distinct from the mere phenomenon : he tries to know the inside in its distinction from the outside. Hence the phenomenon becomes double, it splits into inside and outside, into force and its manifestation, into cause and effect. Once more we find the inside or the force identified with the universal and permanent : not this or that flash of lightning, this or that plant — but that which continues the same in them all. The sensible appearance is individual and evanescent : the permanent fact contained in it is discovered by a process of reflection. Nature shows us a countless number of individual forms and phenomena. Into this variety we feel ourselves forced to intro- duce unity : we compare, consequently, and try to find the universal of each single case. Individuals are born and perish : the species abides and recurs in them all : and its existence is only visible to reflection. Under the same head fall such laws as those regulating the motion of the heavenly bodies. To-day we see the stars here, and to-morrow there : and our mind finds something incongruous in this chaos — something in which it can put no faith, because it believes in order, and in a simple, constant, and universal law. Inspired by this belief, our mind has directed its reflection towards the phenomena, and learnt their laws. In other words, it has established the movement of the heavenly bodies to be in accordance with a universal law, from which every change of position may be known and predicted. The case is the same with the influences which make themselves felt in the infinite complexity of human conduct. There, too, man has the belief in the sway of a general principle. From all these examples it may be gathered how reflection is always seeking for something fixed and permanent, which has a certainty of its own, and governs the particulars. This universal principle cannot be apprehended by the senses; yet it alone can be esteemed true and essential. Thus, duties and rights are all- important in the matter of conduct : and an action is true when it conforms to those universal formulae.
In thus characterising the universal, we become aware of its antithesis to something else. This something else is the merely immediate, outward and individual, as opposed to the mediate, inward and universal. The universal does not exist externally
36 PRELIMINARY NOTION. [22.
to the outward eye as a universal. The kind as kind cannot be perceived : the laws of the celestial motions are not written on the sky. The universal is neither seen nor heard, its existence is the secret known only to the mind. Religion leads us to a universal, which embraces all else within itself, to an Absolute by which all else is brought into being- : and this Absolute is an object not of the senses but of the mind and of thought.
22.] (c) By the act of reflection and meditation, a change comes over the import of our sensation, perception and material conceptions. The object of consciousness undergoes a trans- formation. Thus, as it appears, an alteration of the object must be interposed before its true nature can be discovered.
What reflection elicits, is a product of our thought. Solon, for instance, drew from his own judgment, the laws he gave to the Athenians. This is half of the truth : but we must not on that account forget that the universal (in Solon's case the laws) is the very reverse of merely subjective, or fail to note that it is the essential, true, and objective being of things. To discover the truth in things, mere attention is not enough ; we must call in the action of our own faculties to transform what is immediately before us. Now, at first sight, this seems an inversion of the natural order, calculated to thwart the very purpose on which knowledge is bent. But the method is not so irrational as it seems. Every period of history has felt, that the only way of reaching the permanent substratum, was to transmute the given phenomenon by means of reflection. In modern times a doubt has for the first time been raised on this point in connexion with the difference alleged to exist between the results of our thought and the things in their own nature. This real nature of things, it is said, is very different from what we make out of them. The divorce between thought and thing is mainly the work of the Critical Philosophy and runs counter to the conviction of all previous ages, that their agreement was a matter of course. The antithesis between them is the hinge on which modern philosophy turns. Meanwhile the natural belief of men gives the lie to it. In common life we reflect, without particularly noting that this is the process of arriving at the truth, and we think without hesitation, and in the firm belief that thought coincides with thing. And this belief is of the greatest import- ance. It marks the diseased state of the age when we see it adopt the despairing creed that our knowledge is only subjective, and that this subjective result is final. Whereas, rightly under- stood, truth is objective, and ought so to regulate the conviction
23.] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 37
.
of every one, that the conviction of the individual is stamped as wrong1, when it does not agree with this rule. Modern views indeed put great value on the mere fact of conviction; and hold that to be convinced is good for its own sake, whatever it may be applied to, there being no standard by which we can measure its truth.
We said above that, according to the old belief, it was the characteristic function of the mind to know the truth. We may go a step further and say, that everything we know both of outward and inward nature, in one word, the objective world, is in its own self the same as it is in thought, and that thought consequently expresses the truth of the objects of perception. The whole problem of philosophy is to bring into explicit consciousness what the world in all ages has believed about thought. Philosophy therefore advances nothing new ; and our present discussion has led us to a conclusion which agrees with the natural belief of mankind.
23.] (cl) The real nature of the object is brought to light in reflection ; but it is no less true that this exertion of thought is my act. If this be so, the real nature is a production of my mind, in its character of thinking subject. The Ego in its non-composite universality, self-collected and removed from extraneous influences, — in one word, our Freedom, is thus the source of this real nature.
Think for yourself, is a common remark, which people utter, as if it expressed something of importance. The fact is, no man can think for another, any more than he can eat or drink for him: and the expression savours of pleonasm. Freedom is obviously and intimately associated with thought, which as the action of the universal, puts us in relation only with a second self, since subject and object of thought are alike uni- versal. Here we are at home with ourselves; yet there is no prominence allowed to any special aspect of the subject-mind, and the contents of our consciousness are entirely based upon the fact and the deliverances of the fact. If this be admitted, and if we apply the term humility to an attitude where no particular act or influence is ascribed to our own mental selves, it is easy to appreciate the question touching the humility or pride of philosophy. For in point of contents, thought is only
38 PRELIMINARY NOTION. [24.
true in proportion as it is absorbed in the facts ; and in point of form it is no special or peculiar state or act of the mind. What thought implies is simply this : the mind as an Ego, in a mere point of its being, as it were, shakes itself free of all the special limitations to which its ordinary states or qualities are liable, and restricts itself to that universal action, in which it is identical with all individuals. In these circumstances philosophy may be acquitted of the charge of pride. And when Aristotle summons the mind to rise to the dignity of that action, the dignity he seeks is won by letting slip all our individual opinions and prejudices, and submitting to the sway of the fact.
24.] With these explanations and qualifications, thoughts may be termed Objective Thoughts, among which we shall include the forms ordinarily discussed in the common logic, where they are believed to be forms of conscious thought only. Logic in our sense coincides with Metaphysics, the science of things in a setting of thoughts ; which thoughts, it is allowed, express the essence of things.
An exposition of the relation, in which such forms as notion, judgment, and syllogism stand to others, such as causality, is a matter for the science itself. But this much is evident beforehand. If thought has to make a notion of things, this notion, as well as its proximate phases, the judgment and syllogism, cannot be composed of articles and relations which are alien and irrelevant to the things. Reflection, as was said above, conducts to the universal of things : which universal is itself one of the elementary factors of a notion. To say that Reason or Understanding is in the world, is equivalent in its import to the phrase ' Objective Thought.' The latter phrase however is awkward and ambiguous. Thought is generally con- fined to express what belongs to the mind or consciousness only, while objective is a term applied, at least primarily, to the opposite of mind.
(1) To speak of thought or objective thought as the inwardness, or, as it were, the kernel of the world, may seem to be ascribing
24.] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 39
consciousness to the things of nature. One cannot but feel a certain repugnance against making thought the inward function of things, so long as we believe it to mark the divergence of man from nature. It will therefore be better, if we use the term, thought at all, to speak of nature as the system of unconscious I thought, or, to use Schelling's expression, a fossilized intelligence. I And in order to prevent all misconception, the term ' type' or 'category' of thought should be substituted for the ambiguous term thought.
From what has been said we have seen that logic is the search for a system of the types or fundamental ideas of thought, in which the opposition between subjective and objective, in its usual sense, vanishes. The signification attached by these remarks to thought and its characteristic forms may be illustrated by the ancient saying that ' uovs governs the world,' or by our own phrase that 'Reason is in the world': which means that Reason is the soul of the world it inhabits, its immanent principle, its most proper and inward nature, its universal. Another instance is offered by the circumstance, that we speak of some definite animal as an animal. Now, the animal, qua animal, cannot be shown ; nothing can be pointed out excepting some special animal. An animal, qua animal, does not exist : it is merely the universal nature of the individuals, whilst each existing animal is a more concretely defined and particularized thing. But to be an animal, — the law of Kind which is the universal in this case, — is the property of the particular animal, and constitutes its definite essence. Take away from the dog its animality, and it becomes impossible to say what it is. All things have a permanent inward nature, as well as an outward existence. They live and die, come into being and pass out of being ; but their essential and universal part is the Kind ; and this is not fully described when it is explained to mean what they have jointly or in common.
Thought forms the indwelling nature or substance of external i things : it is also the universal substance of what is spiritual. ] In all human perception thought is present ; so too thought is the universal in all the acts of conception and recollection ; in short, in every mental activity, in willing, wishing and the like. All these faculties are only additional specifications of thought. When it is presented in this light, thought has a different part to play from what it had when we spoke of a faculty of thought, one among a crowd of other faculties, such as perception, con- ception and will, with which it stood on the same level. When it is seen to be the true universal of all that nature and mind contain, it extends so as to embrace all these faculties, and becomes the basis of everything. This view of thought in its
40 PRELIMINARY NOTION. [24.
objective meaning as vovs gives us for the present a point of contact from which we can pass to consider the subjective sense of the term. We say first, Man is a being that thinks ; but we say at the same time, Man is a being that perceives and wills. Man is a thinker, and is universal : but he is a thinker only because he feels his own universality. The animal too is by implication universal, but the universal is not consciously felt by it to be universal : it feels only the individual. The animal sees a singular object, for instance, its food, or a man. For the animal all this never goes beyond an individual thing. Similarly, sensation has to do with nothing but singulars, such as this pain or this pleasure. Nature does not bring its vovs to self- consciousness : it is man who first makes himself double so as to be a universal for a universal. This first happens when man knows that he is ' I.' By the term ' I' I mean myself, a single and altogether determinate person. And yet I really utter nothing peculiar to myself, for every one else is an ' I ' or ' Ego,' and when I call myself ' I,' though I indubitably mean the single person myself, I express a thorough universal. 'I,' therefore, is mere being-for-self, in which everything peculiar or marked is renounced and buried out of sight ; it is as it were the ultimate and unanalyzable point of consciousness. We may say 'I' and thought are the same, or, more definitely, 'I' is thought as a thinker. What I have in my consciousness, is for me. 'I' is the vacuum or receptacle for anything and every- thing : for which everything is and which stores up everything in itself. Every man is a whole world of conceptions, that lie buried in the night of the 'Ego.' It follows that the 'Ego' is the universal in which we leave aside all that is particular, and in which at the same time all the particulars have a latent existence. I In other words, it is not a mere universality and nothing more, Ibut the universality which includes and comprehends everything. We use the word 'I' without commonly attaching much im- portance to it, nor is it an object of study except to philosophical reflection. In the 'Ego,' the fact of thought is clearly and 'directly presented. While the brute cannot say ' I,' man can, because he thinks. Now in the 'Ego' there are a variety of contents, derived both from within and from without, and according to the nature of these contents our state may be described as perception, or conception, or reminiscence. But in all of them the ' I ' is found : or in them all thought is present. Man, therefore, is always thinking, even in his perceptions : if he observes anything, he always observes it as a universal, fixes on a single point which he places in relief, thus withdrawing his attention from other points, and takes it as abstract and universal, even if the universality be only in form.
24.] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 41
In the case of our representative conceptions, two things may happen. Either the contents are thought, but not the form ; or, the form belongs to thought and not the contents. In such terms, for instance, as anger, rose, hope, I am speaking of things which I have learnt in the way of sense and feeling, but I express these contents in a universal mode, that is, in the form of thought. I have left out much that is particular and given the contents in their generality : but still the contents remain sense-derived. On the other hand, when I represent God, the content is undeniably a product of thought, but the form still retains the sensuous limitations, which it has, when I find it immediately or intuitively present in myself. In these gene- ralized images the content is not merely and simply sensible, as it is in perception; but either the content is sensuous and the form appertains to thought or vice versa. In the first case the material is given to us, and our thought supplies the form : in the second case the content originates in thought, but the form transmutes this content into a datum entering the spirit from without.
(2) Log-ic is the study of thought pure and simple, or of the \ immaterial types of thought. In the ordinary sense of the term, we generally represent to ourselves something more than a simple and unmixed thought; we conceive ourselves as thinking some- thing, which something is a gift from experience. Whereas, in logic a thought is understood to include nothing else but what depends on thinking and what thinking has brought into exist- ence. It is in these circumstances that thoughts are pure (unmixed) thoughts. The mind in these circumstances is in its own home element and therefore free : for freedom means that the other thing with which you deal is a second self — (an alter ego) — so that you never leave your own ground but give the law to yourself. In the case of instincts or appetites the impulse proceeds from something else, from something which we feel to be external. For freedom it is necessary that we should feel no presence of something else which is not ourselves. The_._ natural man, whose motions follow the rule only of his ap- petites, is not his own master. Be he as self-willed as he may, tlie actual constituents of his will and opinion are not his own and his freedom is a mere form. But when we think, we renounce our selfish and particular being, sink ourselves in the thing, allow thought to follow its own course, and if we add anything of our own, we think ill.
If in pursuance of the foregoing remarks we consider Logic to be the system of the pure types of thought, we find that the other philosophical sciences, the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Mind, take the place, as it were, of an
42 PRELIMINARY NOTION. [24.
Applied Logic, and that Logic is the soul which animates them both. Their problem in that case is only to recognise the logical forms under the shapes they assume in Nature and Mind, — shapes which are only a particular mode of expression for the forms of pure thought. If for instance we take the syllogism (not as it was understood in the old formal logic, but at its real value), we shall find it gives expression to the law that every particular thing is a middle term which fuses together the extremes of the universal and the singular. The syllogistic form is a universal form of all things. Everything that exists is a particular, a close unification of the universal and the singular. But Nature is weak and fails to exhibit the logical forms in their purity. Such a feeble exemplification of the syllogism may be seen in the magnet. In the middle, or point of indifference of a magnet, its two poles, however they may be distinguished, are brought into one. Physics also contains an exposition of the universal or essence in Nature: and the only difference between it and the Philosophy of Nature is that the latter makes us apprehend the real forms of the notion in the physical world.
It will now be understood that Logic is the all-animating spirit of all _ the. sciences, and that its categories or types of thought constitute the spiritual hierarchy. They are the heart and centre of things : and yet at the same time they are always in our mouths, and apparently, at least, most familiar objects. But familiarity of this style usually goes with the least amount of knowledge. Being, for example, is a category of pure thought : but to make ' Is ' an object of investigation would be the last thing likely to occur to us. Common fancy puts the Absolute far away in a world beyond. The Absolute is rather the ever-present, that present which, so long as we can think, we must, though without express consciousness of it, always carry with us and always use. Language is the main depository of these types of thought ; and one use of the grammatical instruction which children receive, is unconsciously to turn their attention to distinctions of thought.
Logic has been often said to be concerned writh forms only and to derive the subject-matter for them from elsewhere. But this mode of speaking, wThich assumes that the logical thoughts are nothing in comparison with the rest of the contents, is very much the reverse of the truth. 'Only' is not the word to use about forms, which make the absolute and self-existent ground of the universe. We should rather use the word 'only' about everything else compared with these thoughts. To make such abstract forms a problem to be investigated demands by im- plication a higher level of culture than ordinary ; and to study
24-] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 43
them in themselves and for their own sake signifies in addition that these characteristic types must be deduced out of the re- sources of thought itself, and their truth or reality examined by the light of their own laws. We do not assume them as data from without, and then define them or demonstrate their value and adequacy by comparing them with the shape they take in our own minds. If we thus acted, our method would be based upon observation and experience, and we should, for instance, say we habitually employ the term 'force' in such a case, and such a meaning. A definition like that would be called sound or correct, if it agreed with the conception of its object present in our ordinary state of mind. The defect of this empirical method is that a notion is not defined as it is in and for itself: but in terms of something assumed, which is then used as a criterion and standard of correctness. No such test must be applied : we have merely to let the categories justify themselves in their own independent life. To ask when a category is true or not, must sound strange to the ordinary mind : for an idea or category apparently becomes true only when it is referred to a given object, and apart from this reference it would seem meaningless to inquire into its truth. But this is the very question on which everything turns. We must however in the first place understand clearly what we mean by Truth. In common life we call truth the agreement between an object and our conception of the object. We thus pre-suppose an object to which our conception must conform. In the philo- sophical sense of the word, on the other hand, truth may be described, in a general and one-sided way, as the agreemen,t_fif,, the subject-matter- X)f,,tliQUgJjt^with_ itself.-. TETs meaning is quite' different from the one given above. At the same time the deeper and philosophical meaning of truth can be partially traced even in the expressions of ordinary language. Thus we speak of a true friend ; by which we mean a friend whose manner of conduct accords with the notion of friendship. In the same way we speak of a true work of Art. Untrue in this sense means much the same as bad, or self-discordant. In this sense a bad state is an untrue state ; and evil and untruth may be said to consist in the contradiction subsisting between the category or notion and the existence of the object. Of such a bad object we may form a correct image or conception in our own minds', but the fact which this image presents is in- herently false. Specimens of this kind of correctness, which are at the same time untruths, are very common in men's heads. God alone exhibits a real agreement of the notion and the reality. AUJinite 'Jhings ._inyqlve_aja jyikjlth, Jhey_ jiave a notion and an existence, but their existence does not meet
44 PRELIMINARY NOTION. [24.
the requirements of the notion. For this reason they must perish and then the incompatibility of their notion and their existence becomes manifest. It is in the Kind, that the in- dividual animal has its notion : and the Kind escapes from this individual existence by death.
The study of truth, or, as it is here explained to mean, consistency, constitutes the proper problem of logic. In our every- day mind we are never troubled with questions about the truth of the forms of thought. We may express the problem of logic by saying that it examines the forms of thought touching their capability to comprehend truth. And the question comes to this : What are the forms of the in- finite, and what are the forms of the finite? Usually no sus- picion attaches to the finite forms of thought; they are allowed to pass unquestioned. But it is from conforming to finite cate- gories in our thoughts and actions that all deception originates.
(3) Truth may be apprehended by several methods, each of which however is no more than a form. Experience is the first of these methods. But the method is only a form.: .it has no_intrinsic_ value _of_its J).W_D. For in experience everything depencfs upon the mind we bring to bear upon the reality. A great mind is great in its experience; and in the motley play of phenomena at once perceives the point of real significance. The idea is present, in actual shape, not something in a world beyond our vision and far away. The great mind of a Goethe, for example, looking into nature or history, has great experi- ences, and gives expression to the rational law, laid open to his glance. A second method of apprehending the truth is Reflection, which defines it by terms or relations of thought. But in these two modes the absolute truth has not yet found its appropriate form. The most perfect method of knowledge proceeds in_Jbhe pure Jgrff^lbJTtbnugTi^ - *"id here, the attitude of "man is one of entire freedom.
That the form of thought is the perfect form, and that it presents the truth in its absolute and unconditioned being, is the general dogma of all philosophy, Now a proof of the dogma sufficient for the moment will be given if we can show that these other forms of knowledge are finite forms. The thorough-going Scepticism of antiquity accomplished this task when it exhibited the contradictions of which these forms are full. Scepticism indeed went further : but when it ven- tured to assail the forms of reason, it began by insinuating tinder them something finite upon which it might fasten. All the forms of finite thought will make their appearance in the course of the logic as it unfolds itself, the order in which they present themselves being determined by necessary laws. Here
24.] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 45
in the introduction they could only he unscientifically assumed without proof. In the theory of logic itself these forms will be exhibited, not only on their negative, but also on their positive side.
When we compare the different forms of knowledge with one / another, the first of them, immediate or intuitive knowledge, may perhaps seem the finest, noblest and most appropriate. It comprehends everything which the moralists term innocence /Y as well as religious feeling, simple trust, love, fidelity, and .. natural faith. The two other forms, first that of reflective '" knowledge, and secondly philosophical knowledge, must leave that unsought natural harmony behind them. Anql so far- as they have this in~~ common^ the methods which claim to ap- prehend the truth by thought, may naturally be regarded as part and parcel of the pride which leads man to trust to his own powers for a knowledge of the truth. Such a position involves a thorough-going disruption, and, viewed in that light, might be regarded as the source of all evil and misery — the original transgression. Apparently therefore the only way of being reconciled and restored to peace is to surrender all claims to think or know. This abandonment of natural unity has not escaped notice, and nations from the earliest times have asked the meaning of the wonderful division of the spirit against itself. No such inward disunion is found in nature: natural. things do no evil.
The Mosaic legend of the Fall of Man has preserved an ancient picture representing the origin and consequences of this disunion. The facts of the legend form the basis of an essential article of the creed, the doctrine of original sin in man, and his consequent need of succour. It may be well at the commencement of logic to examine the story which treats of the origin and the bearings of the very knowledge which logic has to discuss. For, though philosophy must not sL allow herself to be overawed by religion, or accept the degraded ' position of existence on sufferance, she cannot afford to neglect these popular conceptions. The tales and allegories of religion have enjoyed for thousands of years the reverence of nations, and are not without a certain value even now.
Upon a closer inspection of the story of the Fall we find, as was already said, that it exemplifies the universal bearings of knowledge upon the spiritual life. In its instinctive and natural | form, spiritual life wears the garb of innocence and confiding ; simplicity : but the very essence of spirit implies the absorption of this immediate condition in something higher. The spiritual is distinguished from the natural, and more especially from the animal life in the circumstance that it does not continue a blind
46 PRELIMINARY NOTION. [24.
fact, but rises to the consciousness of itself, and a being- of its own. This division must in its turn vanish and be absorbed, and then the spirit can win its way to peace again. The con- cord then is spiritual; that is, the principle of restoration is found in thought, and thought only. The hand that inflicts the wound is also the hand which heals it. "
We are told in our story that Adam and Eve, the first human beings, the types of humanity, were placed in a garden, where grew a tree of life and a tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God, it is said, had forbidden them to eat of the fruit of this latter tree : of the tree of life for the present nothing further is said. These words evidently declare thatjman is not intended to seek knowledge, and ought to remain in the state of innocence. Other thoughtful races, it may be remarked, have held the same belief, that the primitive state of mankind was one of innocence and harmony. Now all this is to a certain extent correct. The disunion that appears throughout humanity is not a condition to rest in. But it is a mistake to .regard the natural and immediate harmony as the right state. The mind is not mere instinct : on the contrary, it essentially involves the tendency to reasoning and meditation. Childlike innocence no doubt has in it much that is sweet and attractive: but only because it remind s~ us "of what the spirit must win for itself. The harmo- nious existence of childhood is a gift from the hand of nature: the second harmony must spring from the labour and culture of the spirit. And so the words of Christ, ' Except ye become as little children,' &c., are very far from telling us that we must always remain children.
Again, we find in the narrative of Moses that the occasion which led man to leave his natural unity is attributed to solici- tation from without. The serpent was the tempter. But the truth is, that the act of differentiation, Jtheawakeningof Con- sciousness, follows from the very nature of man : and the same history repeats itself in every son of Adam. Thelerpent repre- sents tikehess to God as consisting in the knowledge of good and evil : and it is this knowledge and no other in which man participates when he breaks with the unity of his instinctive being, and eats of the forbidden fruit. The first reflection of awakened consciousness in men told them that they were naked. This is a nai've and profound trait. For the sense of shame bears evidence to the separation of man from his natural and sensuous life. The beasts never get so far as this separation, and they feel no shame. And it is in the human feeling of shame that we are to seek the spiritual and moral origin of dress, compared with which, the merely physical need is a secondary matter.
24.] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 47
Next comes the Curse, as it is called, which God pronounced upon man. The prominent point in that curse is the contrast between man and nature. Man must work in the sweat of his brow : and woman bring- forth in sorrow. Touching- work, we remark that while it is the result of the disunion, it is also the victory over it. The beasts have nothing- more to do but to pick up the materials required to satisfy their wants : man on the contrary can only satisfy his wants by transforming-, and as it were originating- the necessary means. Thus even in these outside things man is dealing with himself.
The story does not close with the expulsion from Paradise. We are further told, God said, ' Behold Adam is become as one of us, to know g-ood and evil.' Knowledge is now called divine, and not, as before, something wrong- and unnatural:* Perhaps these words may confute those babblers who banish philosophy to the fmitude of the spirit. Philosophy is knowled^e^aiid_ it is through knowledge that man first realises his original vocation, to be the image of God. When the record adds that God drove men out of the Garden of Eden to prevent their eating of the tree of life, it only means that on his natural side man is finite and mortal, but in knowledge infinite.
We all know the theological dogma that man's nature is evil, tainted with what is called Original Sin. Now while we accept the dogma, we must give up the setting of incident, which re- presents original sin as consequent upon an | accidental Jact of the first man. For the very notion of spirit is enough to show , . that man is evil by nature, and that it is an error to imagine ^r- ^7,^^ that he could ever Ije otherwise. To such extent as man is and acts like a creature of nature, to that extent his whole position and behaviour is wrong. For the spirit it is a duty to be free, and to win the being which is its due. Nature is for man only the starting-point which he must transform to something better. The theological doctrine of original sin is a profound truth; but modern enlightenment prefers to believe that man is naturally good, and that he acts right so long as he continues true to nature.
The hour when man leaves the path of mere natural being marks the difference between him, a self-conscious agent, and the natural world. But a life of inward division, though it forms a necessary part of the very notion of spirit, is not the final goal of man. The position of a divided self is taken up by the whole finite action of thought and will. In that finite sphere man pursues ends of his own making, and draws from himself only the material of his conduct. While he pursues these aims to the uttermost, while his knowledge and his will seek himself, his own narrow self apart from the universal, he is evil ; and his
PRELIMINARY NOTION. [25.
evil is_that_he. i^gjibjgctive. We seem at first sight to have a double evil here : but both are really the same. Man in so far as he is spirit is not the creature of nature : and when he makes himself so, and follows the cravings of his appetites, it is because he wills to be so. The natural wickedness of man is therefore unlike the natural life of animals. A mere natural life may be more exactly defined by saying that the natural man as such is an individual : for nature in every part is under the bond of individualism. Thus 'when man wills to be a creature of nature, he wills in the same degree to be an individual simply. To counteract such action from motives of passion and appetite when a man conforms to the selfish isolation of nature, there steps in the law, or universal command. This law may either be an external force, or have the form of divine authority. So long as he continues in his natural state, man is in bondage to the law. It is true that among the instincts and feelings of man, there are social or benevolent inclinations, love, sympathy, and others, reaching beyond his selfish isolation. But to what- ever extent these tendencies are instinctive, their content, though virtually universal, retains a personal or subjective character, and gives opportunity for selfishness and caprice.
25.] The term ' Objective Thoughts' indicates the truth which must be the absolute and completed object of philosophy, and not merely the aim of a science unrealised. But the very expression cannot fail to suggest an opposition, to characterise and appreciate which is the main motive of the philosophical attitude of the pre- sent time, and which forms the real problem of the question about truth and our means of knowing it. If the forms of thought always meet and always will meet a something which is not themselves, i.e. if they are only of a finite character, they are no match for the self-centred universe of truth, and truth must be sought for in some other region than thought. Some thought can only produce these limited and partial categories and proceed by their means. This is what in the stricter sense of the word is termed Under- standing. The finite nature of certain modes which thought adopts is seen in two points. Firstly, they are only subjective, and the antithesis of an objective world permanently clings to them. Secondly, they do not include the whole truth, and so they are always mutually opposed, and still more opposed to the Absolute. In order more fully to explain the position and import
25.] PRELIMINARY NOTION. 49
**
here attributed to logic, the attitudes in which thought is sup- posed to stand to the objective world will next be examined in the way of further introduction.
In my Phenomenology of the Spirit, which on that account was at its publication described as the first part of the System of Philosophy, the method adopted was to begin with the first and simplest phenomenon of mind, immediate consciousness, and to show how that stage gradually of necessity worked onward to the view taken by philosophy, the necessity of that view being proved by the process. But in these circumstances it was impossible to restrict the quest to the mere form or manner of consciousness. For the stage of philosophical knowledge is at once the most adequate and concrete, and therefore, as it came before us in the shape of a result, it pre-supposed the concrete formations of consciousness, such as social and individual morality, art and religion. In the development of consciousness, which at first sight appears limited to the point of manner, there is thus at the same time included the development of the matter, which is discussed in the special branches of philosophy. But the latter process must, so to speak, go on behind consciousness, since those facts have a being of their own, which consciousness as it were retraces. The exposition accordingly is rendered more intricate, because so much that properly belongs to the concrete branches is prematurely dragged into the introduction. The survey which follows in the present work has even more the inconvenience of being only historical and inferential in its method. But it will help to show how the questions men have proposed on the nature of Knowledge, Faith and the like,— questions, which they imagine to have no connexion with abstract thoughts, — are naturally reducible to the simple terms or categories, which first find their true solution and settlement in Logic.
CHAPTEK III.
PIEST ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD.
26.] THE first of these attitudes of thought is seen in the method which has no doubts and no sense of the contradiction in thought, or of the hostility of thought against itself. It entertains an unquestioning belief that reflection is the means of ascertaining the truth, and of bringing the objects before the mind as they really are. And in this belief it advances straight upon its objects, takes the materials furnished by sense and perception, and reproduces them from itself as facts of thought ; and then, believing this result to be the truth, the method is content. Philosophy in its first stages, all the sciences, and even the daily action and movement of conscious- ness, live in this faith.
27.] This method of thought has never become aware of the antithesis of subjective and objective : and to that extent there is nothing to prevent its statements from possessing a genuinely philosophical and speculative character, though it is just as possible that they may never get beyond finite categories, or the stage when the antithesis is still unsolved. In the present introduction the main question for us is to observe this attitude of thought in its extreme form ; and we shall accordingly first of all examine the second and inferior aspect of the method. One of the clearest instances of it, and one peculiarly interesting to us, may be found in the Metaphysic of the Past as it subsisted among us previous to the philosophy of Kant. It is however only in reference to the history of
FIRST ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT, ETC. 51
philosophy that this Metaphysic can be said to belong to the past : the thing is always and at all places to be found, as the view which the abstract understanding takes of the objects of reason. And it is in this point that the real and immediate good lies of a closer examination of its main facts as well as its way of working.
28.] The metaphysical systems took the laws and forms of thought to be the fundamental laws and forms of things. They assumed that to think a thing was the means of finding its very self and nature : and to that extent they occupied a higher ground than the Critical Philosophy of later times. But in the first instance (1) these terms of thought were cut off from their connexion, their solidarity ; each was believed valid by itself and capable of serving as a predicate of the truth. It was an axiom in these systems of metaphysic that a knowledge of the Absolute was gained by merely ascribing predicates to it. They neither inquired what the terms of the understanding specially meant or what they were worth, nor did they critically test the method which characterises the Absolute by the ascrip- tion of predicates.
As an example of such predicates may be taken, first, Exist- ence, as in the proposition, ' God has existence : ' secondly, Finitude or Infinity, as in the question, ' Whether is the world finite or infinite ? ' : thirdly, Simple and Complex, as in the proposition, ' The soul is simple : ' and, again such expressions, as, ' The thing is a unity, a whole,' &c. Nobody as yet dreamed of asking whether such predicates had any absolute truth of their own, or whether the prepositional form could be a form of truth at all.
The Metaphysic of the past adopted the same axiom as in- genuous faith everywhere adopts, that thought apprehends the very self of things, and that things, to become what they truly are, require to be thought. For Nature and the heart of man are constantly exhibiting a series of Proteus-like transformations, never the same ; and a moment's reflection shows us that things, when they are immediately set before us, are not their very selves. And on this reflection the old systems of metaphysic
E 2
52 FIRST ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [28.
acted. Their point of view was the very reverse of the result arrived at by the Critical Philosophy ; a result, of which it may be said, that it bade man go and feed on mere husks and chaff.
We must look a little more closely into the ways of that old metaphysic. In the first place it never went beyond the province of the analytic understanding. Without preliminary inquiry it adopted the abstract characteristics or terms of thought and gave them rank as predicates of truth. But in using the term thought we must not forget the difference between finite or dis- cursive thinking and the thinking which is infinite and rational. The categories, as they meet us primd facie and in isolation, are finite forms. But truth is always infinite, and cannot be expressed or presented to consciousness in finite terms. The phrase infinite thought may perhaps excite surprise, if we adhere to the modern conception that thought is always limited. But it is, speaking rightly, the very essence of thought to be infinite. The nominal explanation of calling a thing finite is that it has an end, that it exists up to a certain point only, where it comes into contact with, and is limited by, its antithesis. The finite therefore consists in being attached to its antithesis, which is its negation and presents itself as its limit. Now thought is always in its own sphere ; its relations are with itself, and it is its own object. In having a thought for object, I am at home with myself. The thinking power, the ' I,' is therefore infinite, because, when it thinks, it is in relation to an object which is no other than itself. In other cases an object means a something else, a negative con- fronting me. But in the case where thought thinks itself, it has an object which is at the same time no object, in other words, when it is fully thought the object is, as it were, absorbed and held in abeyance. Thought, as thought, therefore in its unmixed nature involves no limits ; it is finite only when it keeps to limited categories, which it believes to be ultimate. Infinite or speculative thought, on the contrary, while it no less defines, does in the very act of limiting and defining make that defect sink and vanish. And so infinity is not, as most frequently hap- pens, to be conceived, as an abstract away and away for ever and ever, but in the simple manner previously indicated.
The thinking of the old metaphysical system was finite. Its whole mode of action was regulated by categories, the limits of which it believed to be permanently fixed and not subject to any further negation. Thus, one of its questions was : Has God existence ? The question supposes that existence is an altogether positive term, a sort of ne plus ultra of high value. We shall see however in course of time that existence is by no means a merely positive term, but one which is too low for the Absolute Idea, and
28.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 53
unworthy of God. A second question in these metaphysical systems was : Is the world linite or infinite ? The very terms of the question assume that the finite is a permanent contradictory to the infinite : and one can easily see that, when they are so opposed, the infinite, which of course ought to be the whole, only appears as a single side of it and suffers restriction from the finite. But a limited infinity is itself only a finite. In the same way it was asked, whether the soul was simple or complex. Simple- ness was in other words taken to be an ultimate characteristic, giving expression to a whole truth. Far from being so, simple- ness is the expression of a half-truth, as one-sided and abstract as existence : — a term of thought, which, as we shall hereafter see, is itself untrue and hence unable to lay hold of truth. If the soul be viewed as merely and abstractly simple, it is characterised in an inadequate and finite way.
It was therefore the main question of the pre-Kantian meta- physic to discover whether predicates of the kind mentioned were to be ascribed to its objects. Now these predicates are after all only limited formulae of the understanding, which instead of expressing the truth, merely impose a limit. More than this, it should be noted that the chief feature of the method lay in what was called attributing predicates to the object that was to be cognised, for example, to God. But attribution is no more than an external reflection about the object : the predicates by which the object is to be determined are supplied from the resources of picture- thought, and are applied in a mechanical way. Whereas, if we are to have genuine cognition, the object must characterise its own self, and ought not to derive its predicates from foreign sources. Even supposing we follow the method of predicating, the mind cannot help feeling that predicates of this sort fail to exhaust the object. From the same point of view the Orientals are quite correct in calling God the many-named, or the myriad-named One. One after another of these finite categories leaves the heart unsatisfied, and the Oriental sage is compelled unceasingly to seek for more and more of such predicates. In finite things it is no doubt the case that they have to be characterised through finite predicates : and with these things the understanding finds proper scope for its special action. Itself finite, it knows only the nature of the finite. Thus, when I call some action a theft, I have characterised the action in its essential facts : and such a knowledge is sufficient for the judge. Similarly, finite things stand to each other as cause and effect, force and exercise, and when they are apprehended in these categories, they are known on their finite side. But the objects of reason cannot be defined by these finite predicates : and to try to do so was the fault of the old metaphysic.
54 FIRST ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [29-31-
29.] Predicates of this kind when tried on their own merits suffer from the limitation of their scope, and no one can fail to perceive how inadequate they are, and how far they fall below the fulness of detail which our imaginative thought gives, in the case, for example, of God, Mind, or Nature. Besides, though the fact of their being all predicates of one subject supplies them with a certain connexion, their several meanings keep them apart : and consequently each, so far as the others are concerned, is assumed from without.
The first of these defects the Orientals sought to remedy, when, for example, they defined God by attributing to Him many names; but still they felt that the number of names would have had to be infinite.
30.] (2) In the second place, the metaphysical systems adopted a, wrong criterion. Their objects were no doubt totalities, which in their own proper selves belong to reason; that is, to the organised and systematically-developed universe of thought. But these totalities — God, the Soul, the "World, — were given to the metaphysician as subjects, made and ready, to form the basis for an application of the categories of the understanding. They were derived or assumed from popular conception. Ac- cordingly popular conception was the only canon for settling whether or not the predicates were suitable and sufficient.
31.] The common conceptions of God, the Soul, the World, may be supposed to give a firm foundation to thought. They do not really do so. Besides having a particular and subjective character clinging to them, and thus leaving room for great variety of meaning, they themselves much require to be thoroughly and satisfactorily fixed by thought. This may be seen in any proposition. We need the predicate, or in philosophy the determination of thought, to indicate what the subject, or the conception we start with, is.
In such a sentence, as God is eternal, we begin with the conception of God, not knowing as yet what he is : to tell us that, is the business of the predicate. In the theory of logic, accordingly, where the terms formulating the subject-matter
32.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 55
are those of thought only, it is not merely superfluous to make these semi-sensuous categories predicates to propositions, in which God, or the still vaguer Absolute, is the subject; but it is even wrong, because it suggests another canon than the nature of thought. Besides, the prepositional form (and for proposition, it would be more correct to substitute judgment) is not suited to express the concrete — and the true is always concrete — or the speculative. Every judgment is by its form one-sided, and, to that extent, false.
This metaphysic was not free or objective thinking. Instead of letting the object freely and spontaneously expound its own characteristics, metaphysic took it up as a settled matter. If any one wishes to know what free thought means, he must go to Greek philosophy : for Scholasticism, like these metaphysical systems, accepted its facts, and accepted them as a dogma from the authority of the Church. Under the influence of modern culture we have been initiated into conceptions, of which it is very hard to divest ourselves, on account of the depth of their contents. But the ancient philosophers were in a different position. They were men, who lived wholly in the perceptions of the senses, and who, after their rejection of mythology and its fancies, pre-supposed nothing more than the heaven above and the earth around. And thus, though environed by actual facts, thought is free and enjoys its own privacy : cleared of everything material, and thoroughly at home. This feeling that we are all our own is characteristic of free thought — of that voyage into the open sea, where nothing is below us or above us, and we stand in solitude with ourselves alone.
32.] (3) In the third place, this system of metaphysic turned into Dogmatism. When our thought never ranges beyond narrow and rigid terms, we are forced to assume that of two contrary assertions, such as were the above propositions, the one must be true and the other false.
Dogmatism may be most simply described as the contrary of Scepticism. The ancient Sceptics, at least, gave the name of Dogmatism to every philosophy holding a system of definite doctrine. In this large sense Scepticism may apply the name even to philosophy which is properly Speculative. But in the narrower sense, Dogmatism consists in the tenacity which draws a hard and fast line between certain terms supposed to be
56 FIRST ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [33.
absolute and others contrary to them. We may see this clearly in the strict ' Either — or' : for instance, the world is either finite or infinite ; but one of these two it must be. The contrary of this rigidity is the characteristic of all Speculative truth. There no such inadequate formulae are allowed, nor can they possibly exhaust it. These formula? Speculative truth holds in union as a totality, whereas Dogmatism invests them in their isolation with a title to truth and fixity.
It often happens in philosophy that the half-truth holds its ground beside the whole truth and assumes on its own account the position of something permanent. But the fact is that the half-truth instead of being a fixed or self-subsistent principle, is a mere element vanishing in a more adequate thought. The metaphysic of understanding is dogmatic, because it maintains half-truths in their isolation : whereas the idealism of speculative philosophy carries out the law or principle of totality and shows that it can transcend the inadequacy of the formularies of ab- stract thought. Thus idealism would say : — The soul is neither finite only, nor infinite only; it is really the one just as much as the other, and in that way neither the one nor the other. In other words, such formularies in their isolation are inapplicable, and only come into account as formative elements in a larger notion. Such idealism we see even in the ordinary phases of the mind. Thus we say of sensible things, that they are changeable : that is, they are, but it is equally true that they are not. We show more obstinacy in dealing with the categories of the understanding. These are terms which we believe to be somewhat more fixed — or even absolutely rigid. We look upon them as separated from each other by an infinite chasm, so that opposite categories can never get at each other. The battle of reason is the struggle to break up the rigidity to which the understanding has reduced everything.
33.] The first part of this metaphysic in its systematic form is Ontology, or the doctrine of the abstract characteristics of Being. The multitude of these characteristics, and the limits set to their applicability, are not founded upon any principle. They have in consequence to be enumerated as experience and circumstances direct, and the import ascribed to them is founded only upon common sensualized conceptions, upon assertions that particular words are used in a particular sense, and even perhaps upon etymology. If experience pro- nounces the import ascribed to them to be complete, and if
34-] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WOULD. 57
the usage of language, by its agreement, shows the analysis to be correct, the metaphysician is satisfied ; and the truth and necessity of such characteristics, simply on their own account, is never made a matter of investigation at all.
To ask if being, existence, finitude, simplicity, complexity, &c. are notions true to their own highest laws, must surprise those who believe that a question about truth can only concern propositions (as to whether a notion is, or is not with truth to be attributed, as the phrase is, to a subject), and that falsehood lies in the contradiction existing between the subject of our conceptual vision, and the notion to be predicated of it. Now as the notion is concrete, it and every character of it in general is essentially a self-contained unity of distinct characteristics. If truth then were nothing more than the absence of contradiction, it would be first of all necessary in the case of every notion to examine whether it did not actually contain this sort of intrinsic contradiction.
34.] The second branch of the metaphysical system was Rational Psychology or Pneumatology. It dealt with the metaphysical nature of the Soul, that is, of the Mind regarded as a thing. It expected to find immortality in a sphere, dominated by the laws of composition, time, qualitative change, and quantitative increase or decrease.
The name ' rational,' given to this species of psychology, serves to contrast it with empirical modes of observing the phenomena of the soul. Rational psychology viewed the soul in its metaphysical nature, and through the categories supplied by abstract thought. The rationalists endeavoured to ascertain the inner nature of the soul as it is in itself and as it is for thought. In philosophy at present we hear little of the soul : the favourite term now is mind or spirit. The two are distinct, soul being as it were the middle term between body and spirit, or the bond between the two. The mind, as soul, is immersed in corporeity, and the soul is the animating principle of the body.
The pre-Kantian metaphysic we say, viewed the soul as a thing. ' Thing' is a very ambiguous word. By a thing, we mean, firstly, an immediate existence, such as is evident to the senses : and in this meaning the term has been applied to the soul. Hence
58 FIRST ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [35.
the question regarding the seat of the soul. Of course, if the soul have a seat, it is in space and evident to the sense. So, too, if the soul be viewed as a thing, we can ask whether the soul is simple or composite. The question is important as bearing on the immortality of the soul, which is supposed to depend on the absence of composition. But the fact is, that in abstract simplicity we have a category, which as little corresponds to the nature of the soul, as that of complexity.
One word on the relation of rational to empirical psychology. The former, because it volunteers to apply thought to cognise mind and even to demonstrate these products of thought, is the higher ; whereas empirical psychology starts from perception, and only recounts and describes what perception supplies. But if we propose to think the mind, we must not be quite so shy of its special phenomena. Mind is essentially active in the same sense as the Schoolmen said that God is ' absolute actuosity.' But if the mind is active it must as it were utter itself. It is wrong therefore to take the mind for a processless ens, as did the old metaphysics which divided the processless inward life of the mind from its outward life. No good will be done unless the mind be viewed in its concrete reality in its action ; and in such a way that its manifestations are seen to be determined by its inward force.
35.] The third branch of metaphysics was Cosmology. The topics it embraced were the world, its contingency, necessity, eternity, limitation in time and space : the laws (only formal) of its changes : the freedom of man and the origin of evil.
To these topics it applied what were believed to be thorough- going contrasts : such as contingency and necessity ; external and internal necessity ; efficient and final cause, or causality in general and design ; essence or substance and phenomenon ; form and matter ; freedom and necessity ; happiness and pain ; good and evil.
The object of Cosmology comprised Nature, as well as the complicated phenomena which Mind throws out from itself; in fact, existence in general, or the sum of all finite things. This object however is viewed not as a concrete whole, but point by point in abstract formulas. The questions Cosmology attempted to solve were such as these : Is accident or necessity dominant in the world ? Is the world eternal or created ? The main problem of this cosmological teaching consequently was to establish what were termed universal laws of Cosmology : for instance, that
35-] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 59
Nature does not act by fits and starts. And by fits and starts (sallus) they meant a qualitative difference or a qualitative alteration, showing itself without any antecedent and deter- mining- mean : whereas, on the contrary, a gradual change (of quantity) is obviously not without intermediation.
In regard to Mind, as it makes itself felt in the world, the questions which Cosmology chiefly discussed turned upon the freedom of man and the origin of evil. Nobody can deny that these are questions of the highest importance. But to give them a satisfactory answer, it is above all things necessary not to assert an absolute significance for the abstract formula of understanding, or to suppose that each of the two terms in an antithesis has an independent meaning and truth. This however is the general position taken by the metaphysicians before Kant, and appears in their cosmological discussions, which for that reason were incapable of compassing their purpose, and of under- standing the phenomena of the world. Observe how they proceed with the distinction between freedom and necessity, in their application of these categories to Nature and Mind. Nature they regard as subject in its workings to necessity ; Mind, they hold to be free. No doubt there is a real foundation for this dis- tinction in the very core of the Mind itself: but freedom and necessity, when opposed in the abstract, are terms applicable only in the finite world to which, as such, they belong. A freedom involving no necessity, and mere necessity, without freedom, are abstract and in this way untrue formulae of thought. Freedom essentially implies a meeting of elements, now and always constituted by its own laws, and so far necessary. Necessity, again, in the ordinary acceptation of the term in popular philosophy, means determination from without only ; as in finite mechanics, a body moves only when it is struck by another body, and moves in the direction communicated to it by the impact. This however is a merely external necessity, not the real inward necessity which is identical with freedom.
The case is similar with the contrast of Good and Evil, — the favourite contrast of the introspective modern world. If we regard Evil as possessing a fixity of its own, apart and distinct from Good, we are to a certain extent right : there is an opposi- tion between them : nor do those who maintain -the apparent and relative character of the opposition mean that Evil and Good in the Absolute are one, or, in accordance with the modern phrase, that a thing first becomes evil from our way of looking at it. The error arises when we take Evil as a permanent positive, instead of what it really is, a negative, which though it would fain assert itself, has no real persistence, and is, in fact, only the absolute sham- existence of negativity in itself.
60 FIRST ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [36.
36.] Thefottrl/t branch of metaphysics is Natural or Rational Theology. The notion of God, or God as a possible being, the proofs of his existence, and his properties, formed the study of this branch.
(a) When understanding thus discusses the Deity, its main purpose is to find what predicates correspond or not to the fact we have in our imagination as God. And in so doing it assumes the contrast between positive and negative to be absolute and inflexible; and hence in the long run, nothing is left for the notion, as understanding takes it, but the empty abstraction of indeterminate Being, of mere reality or positivity, the lifeless product of modern enlightenment.
(#) The method of demonstration employed in finite know- ledge must always lead to a wrong position. For it requires the statement of some objective ground for God's being, which thus acquires the appearance of being derived from something else. This mode of proof, guided as it is by the canon of mere analytical identity, is embarrassed by the difficulty of passing from the finite to the infinite. Either the finitude of the actual world, which is left as much a fact as it was before, clings to the notion of Deity, and God has to be defined as the immediate substance of that world, — which is Pantheism : or He remains an object distinct from the subject, and in this way, finite, — which is Dualism.
(c) The attributes of God which ought to be various and precise, were, properly speaking, lost in haze, in the abstract notion of pure reality, of indeterminate Being. Still in our material thought, the finite world continues, meanwhile, to have a real being, with God as a sort of antithesis : and thus arises the further picture of different relations of God to the world. These, formulated as properties, must, on the one hand, being relations to finite states, themselves possess a finite character (giving us such properties as just, gracious, mighty, wise, &c.) ; on the other hand they must be infinite. Now on this level of thought the only means, and a hazy one, of reconciling these opposing requirements was quantitative exaltation of the
36.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 61
properties, forcing them into the unconditioned sphere, or the sensus eminentior. But it was an expedient which really de- stroyed the property and left a mere name.
The object of the old metaphysical theology was to see how far unassisted reason could go in the knowledge of God. Certainly a reason-derived knowledge of God is the highest problem of philosophy. The earliest teachings of religion are figurate conceptions of God. These conceptions, as the Creed arranges them, are imparted to us in youth. They are the doctrines of our religion, and in so far as the individual rests his faith on these doctrines and feels them to be the truth, he has all he needs as a Christian. Such is faith : and the science of this faith is Theology. But until Theology is something more than a bare enumeration and compilation of these doctrines ab extra, it has no right to the title of science. Even the method so much in vogue at present — the purely historical mode of treatment— which for example reports what has been said by this or the other Father of the Church — does not invest theology with a genuinely scientific character. That result is not reached until at length thought gets a full grasp of the matter, and that is the proper business of philosophy. Genuine theology is thus at the same time a real philosophy of religion, as it was,, we may add, in the Middle Ages.
And now let us examine this rational theology more narrowly. It was a science which approached God not by reason but by understanding, and, in its mode of thought, employed the terms without any sense of their mutual limitations and connexions. The notion of God formed the subject of discussion ; and yet the criterion of our knowledge was derived from such an extraneous source as the materialised conception of God. Now thought must be unimpeded in its action. It is no doubt to be remem- bered, that the result of independent thought harmonises with the import of the Christian religion : — for the Christian religion is a revelation of reason. But such a harmony surpassed the efforts of rational theology. It proposed to express the figurate conception of God in terms of thought ; but it resulted in a notion of God which was what we may call the abstraction of positivity or reality, to the exclusion of all negation. God was accordingly defined to be the most real of all beings. Any one can see however that this most real of beings, in which negation forms no part, is the very opposite of what it ought to be and of what understanding supposes it to be. Instead of being ample and profound above all measure, it is so narrowly conceived, that it is, on the contrary, extremely poor and altogether empty. It is with reason that the heart
62 FIRST ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [36.
craves a varied and unified content ; but without definite feature, that is, without negation, contained in the notion, there can only be an abstraction. When the notion of God is apprehended only as that of abstract or most positive being1, God is, as it were, relegated to another world beyond : and to speak of a knowledge of him would be meaningless. Where there is no distinction of elements, knowledge is impossible. Mere light is mere darkness.
The second problem of rational theology was to prove the exist- ence of God. Now, in this matter, the main point to be noted is that demonstration, as the understanding employs it, means the dependence of one truth on another. The method has a fixed point, a hypothesis, from which something else follows ; and it exhibits the dependence of some truth from an assumed starting- point. Hence, if this mode of demonstration is applied to the existence of God, it can only mean that the being of God is to depend on other terms of thought, which will then constitute the ground of his being. It is at once evident that this will lead to some mistake : for God must be simply and solely the ground of everything, and in so far not dependent upon anything. And a perception of this danger has in modem times led some to say that God's existence is not capable of proof, but must be im- mediately or intuitively apprehended. Reason, however, and even sound common sense, give demonstration a meaning quite different from that of the understanding. The demonstration of reason no doubt starts from something which is not God. But, as it advances, it does not leave the starting-point a mere unex- plained fact, which is what it was. On the contrary it exhibits that point as derivative and called into being, and then God is seen to be primary, truly immediate and self-subsisting, with the means of derivation wrapt up and absorbed in himself. Those who say : ' Consider Nature, and Nature will lead you to God ; you will find an absolute final cause :' do not mean that God is something derivative : they mean that it is we who proceed to God himself from his c other/ and in this way God, though the consequence, is also the absolute ground of the initial step. The relation of the two things is reversed, and what came as a consequence, being shown to be an antecedent, the original antecedent is reduced to a consequence. The same thing recurs whenever reason demonstrates.
If in the light of the present discussion we cast one glance more on the metaphysical method as a whole, we find its main characteristic was to make abstract identity its principle and to try to apprehend the objects of reason by the abstract and finite categories of the understanding. But this infinite of the under- standing, this pure essence, is still finite : it has excluded all the
36.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 63
variety of particular things, which thus limit and deny it. Instead of winning a concrete, this metaphysic kept steadily to an abstract, identity. Its good point was the perception that thought constitutes the essence of all that is. It derived its materials from earlier philosophers, particularly the Schoolmen. In speculative philosophy the understanding undoubtedly forms one factor, but a factor which ought not to close the door against further investigation. Plato is no metaphysician of this im- perfect type, still less Aristotle, although the contrary is generally believed.
CHAPTER IV.
SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT TOWAEDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD.
I. The Empirical School.
37.] UNDER these circumstances a double want began to be felt. Partly it was the need of a subject-matter in which variety was unified, as a counterpoise to the abstract theories of the under- standing, which is unable to advance unaided from generalities to specialisation and determination. Partly, too, it was the demand for something fixed and secure, so as to exclude the possibility of proving anything and everything in the sphere, and according to the method, of the finite formula? of thought. Such was the genesis of Empirical philosophy, which abandons the search for truth in thought itself, and goes to fetch it from Experience, the outward and the inward present.
The rise of Empiricism is due to the need thus stated of con- crete contents, and a firm footing — needs which the abstract metaphysic of the understanding failed to satisfy. Now by concreteness of contents it is meant that we must see that the objects of consciousness have an innate character of their own and are the unity of distinct characteristics. But, as we have already seen, this is by no means the case with the metaphysic of understanding, if it conform to its principle. With the mere understanding, thinking is limited to the form of an abstract universal, and can never advance to the particular phases of this universal. Thus we find the metaphysicians engaged in an attempt to elicit by the instrumentality of thought, what was the essence or fundamental attribute of the Soul. The Soul, they said, is simple. The ascription of this attribute to the Soul points to simplicity pure and simple, from which difference is
SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT. 65
excluded : difference, or composition, being made the funda- mental attribute of body, or of matter in general. Clearly, in simplicity of this narrow type we have a very shallow category, quite incapable of comprehending the wealth of the Soul or of the mind. When it thus appeared that abstract metaphysical think- ing was inadequate, it was felt that we must have recourse to empirical psychology. The same happened in the case of Ra- tional Physics. The current phrases there were, for instance, that space is infinite, that Nature makes no bound, &c. Evidently this phraseology was wholly unsatisfactory in presence of the luxuriant life of nature.
38.] To some extent the source of Empiricism is common to it with the above metaphysic. It is in our materialized conceptions, i.e. in the facts which emanate, in the first instance, from, experience, that metaphysic also finds the guarantee for the correctness of its definitions (including both its assumptions and its more detailed statements). But, on the other hand, it must be noted that the single sensation is not the same thing as experience, and that the advocates of experience elevate the facts included under sensation, feeling, and perception into the form of generalized conceptions, propositions or laws. This, however, must only be taken to mean that these general forms of relation, such as force, are to have no further import or validity of their own beyond what is derived from sensation, and that no connexion shall be deemed properly qualified ex- cept what can be shown to exist in the phenomenal world. And on the side of the knowing subject, in the fact that in sensation consciousness is directly present and certain of itself, we see where empirical cognition can plant a firm foot.
In Empiricism lies the great principle that whatever is true must be in the actual world and present to sensation. This principle contradicts that everlasting 'ought to be' which puffs up reflection to treat the actual present with scorn, and to point to a scene beyond — a scene that has no existence or locality except in the understanding of those who talk of it. No less than Empiricism (§ 7) philosophy recognises only what is ; having nothing to do with what merely ought to be and what
66 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [38
is thus confessed not to exist. On the subjective side, too, it is right to notice the valuable principle of freedom involved in Empiricism. For the main lesson of Empiricism is that man must see for himself and feel that he is present in those facts of knowledge which he has to accept.
When it is carried out to its legitimate consequences, Em- piricism— being in its facts limited to the finite sphere — denies the super-sensible in general, or at least any knowledge of it which would mark its character, and leaves thought no powers except abstraction, and formal universality and identity. And here we find the delusion that lies at the bottom of scientific empiricism. It employs the metaphysical categories of matter, force, those of one, many, generality, infinity, &c. ; following the clue given by these categories it proceeds to draw con- clusions, and in so doing pre-supposes and applies the syllogistic form. And all the while it is unaware that it contains meta- physics— in wielding which, it makes use of those categories and their combinations in a style utterly uncritical and un- conscious.
From Empiricism came the cry: 'No more aimless wandering in empty abstractions, but look at your hands, take hold of man and nature as they are here before you, and enjoy the present moment.' Nobody can deny that there is a good deal of truth in these words. The every-day world, what is here and now, was a good exchange for the vain world beyond — for the mirages and the phantasms of the abstract understanding. And thus a fully, self-sufficing phase of truth was gained, — that firm and fast support so much missed in the old metaphysic. Finite principles are the most that the understanding can pick out — and these eventually turning out untenable and fluctuating, the structure they supported must collapse with a crash. Always the instinct of reason is to find an infinite self- satisfy ing principle. As yet, the time had not come for finding it in thought. Hence this instinct seized upon the present moment, what is here : the individual object (this) : where doubtless one can discover the infinite form, but not in the genuine existence of that form. The external world is the truth, if it could but know it : for the truth is actual and must exist. The infinite principle, the self-centred truth, therefore, is in the world for reason to discover : though it exists in an individual and sensible shape,
38.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD, 67
and not in its truth. Besides, this school makes sensation the form in which we are to get our notions : and in this consists the failure of Empiricism. Sensation as such is always individual, always transient : nor indeed is sensation the terminus of the course of knowledge — which, on the contrary, proceeds to find out the universal and permanent element in the individuals we perceive. This is the process leading- from simple sensation to experience.
In order to form experiences, Empiricism makes especial use of the form of Analysis. In sensation we have a group made up of many elements or attributes which we are expected to peel off one by one, like the coats of an onion. Now, what is the mean- ing of this process ? We disintegrate and take to pieces these attributes which have coalesced, and we add nothing but our own act of disintegration. Yet analysis is the process from the immediacy of sensation to thought : those attributes, which the object analysed contains in perfect union, receive the form of universality by being separated. Empiricism labours under a delusion, if it supposes that, while analysing the objects, it leaves them as they were : it really transforms the concrete into an abstract. And as a consequence of this change the living thing must die : life can exist only in the concrete unit. Not that we can do without this division, if it be our intention to comprehend. Mind itself is an inherent division. The error lies in forgetting that this is only one-half of the process, and that the main point is the re-union of what has been divided. And it is where analysis never gets beyond the stage of division that the words of the poet are true :
" Encheiresin Naturae nennt'g bie (Sljemie, <2tyottet u)rer fd&ft, unb ix>ei£i nicfyt, rote : «§at bte X^eile in ttjrer «§anb,
letber nur bag getfttge SBanb,"
Analysis starts from the concrete ; and the possession of this material gives it a considerable advantage over the abstract thinking of the old metaphysics. It gives fixity to the differences in things ; and this is very important : but these very differences are nothing after all but abstract attributes, i. e. thoughts. These thoughts, it is supposed, contain the real essence of the objects ; and thus once more we see the axiom of bygone metaphysics reappear, that the truth of things lies in thought.
Let us compare the empirical theory with that of the meta- physicians in the matter of their respective contents. We find the latter, as already stated, taking for its facts the universal objects of the reason, viz. God, the Soul, and the World — and
F 2
68 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [39.
these facts, derived from popular conception, it was the problem of philosophy to reduce into the form of thoughts. Another specimen of the same method is the Scholastic philosophy. Its facts were accepted without criticism from the dogmas of the Christian Church: and it aimed at fixing their character and giving them a systematic arrangement through thought. The facts on which Empiricism is based are of an entirely different kind. They are the sensible facts of nature and the facts of the finite mind. In other words, Empiricism deals with a finite material — and the old metaphysicians had an infinite, — though, let us add, they made this infinite content finite by the finite form of the understanding. The same fmitude of form reappears in Empiricism — but here the sum of finite facts is finite also. To this extent, then, both modes of philosophising have the same method ; both proceed from data or assumptions, which they accept as ultimate fact. Generally speaking, Empiricism finds the truth in the outward world; and even if it allow a super- sensible world, it holds knowledge of that world to be impossible, and would restrict us to the province of sensation. This doctrine when systematically carried out produces what has been latterly termed Materialism. Materialism of this stamp looks upon matter, qua matter, as the genuine objective world. But with matter we are at once introduced to a new abstraction, which as such cannot be perceived : and it may be maintained that there is no matter, because as it exists, it is always something definite and concrete. Yet the abstraction we term matter is supposed to lie at the bottom of the whole world of sense, and expresses the sense-world in its simplest terms as out-and-out individualisation, and hence a congeries of points in mutual exclusion. So long then as this sensible sphere is and continues to be for Empiricism a mere datum, we have a doctrine of bondage : for we become free, when we are confronted by no absolutely alien world, but by a fact which is our second self. Consistently with this point of view, besides, reason and unreason can only be subjective : in other words, we must take what is given just as it is, and we have no right to ask whether and to what extent it is rational in its own nature.
39.] Touching this principle it has been justly observed that, in what we call Experience, as distinct from the individual sensation of individual facts, there are two elements. First, there is the infinitely complex matter, which so far as itself is concerned is individualised : secondly, there is the form, as seen in the characteristics of universality and necessity. Empiricism
4o.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 69
no doubt can point to many, almost innumerable, similar perceptions : but, after all, no multitude, however great, can be the same thing as universality. Similarly, Empiricism reaches so far as the perception of changes in succession and of objects in juxta-position or co-existence ; but it presents no necessary connexion. If sensation, therefore, is to maintain its claim to be the sole basis of what men hold for truth, univer- sality and necessity can have no right to exist : they become an accident of our minds, a mere custom, the content of which might be otherwise constituted than it is.
It is an important corollary of this theory, that in the em- pirical mode of treatment the truths and rules of justice and morality, as well as the body of religion, are exhibited as the work of chance, and stripped of their objective character and inner truth.
The scepticism of Hume, by which this observation was chiefly made, should be clearly marked off from Greek scepticism. Hume founds his remarks on the truth of the empirical element, on feeling and sensation, and proceeds to attack universal truths and laws, because they do not derive their authority from sense- perception. So far was ancient scepticism from making feeling and sensation a canon of truth, that it turned against the de- liverances of sense first of all. (On Modern Scepticism as com- pared with Ancient, see Schelling and Hegel's Critical Journal of Philosophy : 1802, vol. I. i.)
II. The Critical Philosophy.
40-] In common with Empiricism the Critical Philosophy assumes that experience affords the one sole foundation for cognitions. But a cognition, as it holds, does not express the truth, and means only a knowledge of the phenomenon or appearance.
The Critical theory starts originally from the distinction of elements presented in the analysis of experience, viz. the matter of sense, and its universal relations. Taking into account
70 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [41.
the observations on this distinction made in the paragraph preceding, viz. that sensation does not explicitly apprehend more than an individual and an occurrence or phenomenon, it sticks at the same time to the fact that universality and necessity are seen to perform a function equally essential in constituting what is called experience. This element, not being derived from the empirical facts as such, must belong to the spontaneity of thought ; in other words, it is a priori. The Categories or Notions of the Understanding are the objective feature in the cognitions of experience. In every case they involve a connective reference, and hence through their means are formed synthetic judgments a priori, that is, primary and underivative connexions of contraries with each other.
Even Hume's scepticism does not deny that the character- istics of universality and necessity are found in cognition. And in Kant this fact remains a presumption after all ; it may be said, to use the ordinary phraseology of the sciences, that Kant did no more than offer another explanation of the fact.
41.] The Critical Philosophy proceeds to test the value of the categories employed in metaphysics, as well as in other sciences and in ordinary conception. This scrutiny however is not directed to the content of these categories, nor does it inquire into the exact relation they bear to one another : but simply asks how far they are affected by the contrast between subjective and objective. The contrast, as we are to understand it here, bears upon the distinction (see preced. §) of the two elements included in experience. The name of objectivity is here given to the element of universality and necessity, i.e. to the categories themselves, or what is called the a priori constituent. The Critical Philosophy however extended the contrast so far, that the subjectivity or knowing mind comes to embrace the whole range of experience, including both its elements ; and nothing remains on the other side but the ' thing-in-itself.'
The special forms of the a priori element, in other words,
4i.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 71
of thought, which in spite of its objectivity is looked upon as a purely subjective act, present themselves as follows in a systematic order which, it may be remarked, is solely based upon the history of psychology.
(1) A very important step was undoubtedly made, when the terms of the old metaphysic were subjected to scrutiny. The plain straight-forward thinker managed his unsuspecting way among those categories which had sprung up naturally of themselves. It never occurred to him to ask to what extent these categories had worth and authority. If, as has been said, it is characteristic of free thought to allow no assump- tions to pass unquestioned, the old metaphysicians were not independent thinkers. They accepted their categories as they were, without further trouble, as a sort of a priori datum, not yet investigated by reflection. The Critical philosophy reversed this. Kant undertook to examine how far the forms of thought were capable of assisting the knowledge of truth. In particular he demanded a criticism of the faculty of cognition as pre- liminary to its exercise. That is a fair demand, if it mean that the forms of thought must be made an object of knowledge. Unfortunately there soon creeps in the misconception of seeking knowledge before you know, — the error of refusing to enter the water until you have learnt to swim. True, indeed, the forms of thought should be subjected to a scrutiny before they are used : yet what is this scrutiny but ipso facto a cognition ? So that what we want is a combination in our process of knowledge of the action of the forms of thought with a criticism of them. The forms of thought must be treated on their own merits apart from all other conditions : they are at once the object of research and the action of that object. Hence they must examine themselves, determine the limits, and show the defects attaching to their very nature. This is the action of thought, which will hereafter be specially considered under the name of Dialectic, and regarding which we need only at the outset observe, that instead of being, as many suppose, brought to bear upon the categories from with- out, it is immanent and natural to them.
We may therefore state the first point in Kant's philosophy as follows : Thought must itself investigate how far it has a capacity of knowledge. People in the present day have got over Kant and his philosophy : everybody wants to get further. But there are two ways of going further — a back- ward and a forward. The light of criticism soon shows that many of our modern essays in philosophy are mere repetitions
72 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [41.
of the old metaphysical method, an endless and uncritical thinking at random, following the natural bent of each man's mind.
(2) Kant's criticism of the categories suffers from the grave defect of viewing them, not absolutely and for their own sake, but in order to see whether they are subjective or objective. In the language of common life we mean by objective every- thing existing outside of us and reaching us from without by means of sensation. What Kant did, was to deny that the categories, such as cause and effect, were, in this sense of the word, objective, or given in sensation, and to maintain on the contrary that they proceeded from our own mental faculty, from the spontaneity of thought. To that extent therefore, and in this sense of the terms, they were subjective. And yet in spite of this, Kant gives the name objective to what is thought, to the universal and necessaiy, while he describes as subjective whatever is merely felt. This arrange- ment evidently reverses the first-mentioned use of the word, and has caused Kant to be charged with confusing language. But the charge is unfair. When we more narrowly consider the facts of the case, the vulgar believe that the objects of sensation which confront them, such as an individual animal, or a single star, are independent and permanent existences, compared with which, thoughts seem unsubstantial and de- pendent on something else. In fact however the perceptions of sense are the properly dependent and secondary feature, while the thoughts are really independent and primary. This being so, Kant gave the title objective to the intellectual factor, to the universal and necessary : and he was quite justified in so doing. Our sensations on the other hand are subjective; for sensations lack stability in their own nature, and are no less fleeting and evanescent than thought is permanent and self-subsisting. At the present day, the special line of distinc- tion established by Kant between the subjective and objective is adopted by the phraseology of the educated world. Thus the criticism of a work of art ought, it is said, to be not subjective, but objective ; in other words, instead of springing from the particular and accidental feeling or temper of the moment, it should embrace those general points of view which the laws of art establish. In the same acceptation we can distinguish in any scientific pursuit the objective and the sub- jective interest of the investigation.
But after all, objectivity of thought, in Kant's sense, is again to a certain extent subjective. Thoughts, according to Kant, although universal and necessary categories, are only our thoughts — separated by an impassable gulf from the
42.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 73
thing1, as it exists apart from our knowledge. But a truly objective thought, far from being merely ours, must at the same time be what we have to discover in things, and in every object of perception.
Objective and subjective are convenient expressions in current use, the employment of which may easily lead to confusion. Up to this point, the discussion has shown three meanings of objectivity. First, it means what subsists externally, in distinction from which, the subjective is what is only supposed, dreamed, &c. Secondly, it has the meaning, attached to it by Kant, of the Universal and necessary, as distinguished from the particular, subjective and occasional character which belongs to our sensations. Thirdly, as has been just explained, it means thought as the real essence of the existing thing, in contradistinction from that which is only thought by us, and which consequently is still separated from the thing itself, as it exists apart from our knowledge of it.
42.] (a) The Theoretical Faculty. — Cognition qua cog- nition. The specific ground or basis of the categories is declared by the Critical system to lie in the primary unity or identity of the ' I ' in thought, — what Kant calls the ' transcendental unity of self-consciousness.' The impressions from feeling and perception are, if we look to their contents, constituted of a chaotic congeries of elements : and the diversity or plurality is equally conspicuous in their form. For sense is marked by a mutual exclusion of members ; and that under two aspects, namely space and time, which being the forms, that is to say, the universal type of perception, are themselves a priori. This congeries, afforded by sensation and perception, must however be reduced to an identity or primary and fundamental unity. To accomplish this the 'I' brings itself to bear upon it and unites it there in one undivided consciousness. This, Kant calls 'pure apperception.' The specific modes in which the diversified congeries of sense is referred to the ' I,' are the a priori concepts of the understanding, the Categories.
Kant, it is well known, did not put himself to much trouble in discovering the categories. ' I,' the unit of self- consciousness, being quite abstract and completely indeter- minate, the question arises, how we are to get at the
74 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [42.
specialized forms of the ' I,' the categories ? Fortunately, the common logic offers to our hand an empirical classification of the kinds of judgment. Now, to judge is the same as to think of a determinate object. Thus the various modes of judgment, as enumerated to our hand, provide us with the several categories of thought. The philosophy of Fichte will always have this credit, that it called attention to the need for exhibiting the law of these categories and for giving a genuine deduction of them. Fichte ought to have produced at least one effect on the method of logical treatment. One might have expected that the general terms of thought, the usual stock of the logicians, including the several species of notions, judgments, and syllogisms, would be no longer taken up empirically as a mere datum of observation, but be deduced from the nature of thought itself. If thought is to be capable of proving anything at all, if logic must insist upon proofs, and if it proposes to teach the theory of demonstration, its first care should be to give a reason for its own subject-matter, and to see that it is necessary.
(1) Kant therefore holds that the categories have their source in the 'Ego,' and that the 'Ego' consequently supplies the characteristics of universality and necessity. If we observe what we have before us primarily, we may describe it as a congeries or diversity : and in the categories we find the simple points or units, to which this congeries is made to converge. The world of sense is a scene of mutual exclusion : its being is outside itself. That is the fundamental feature of sensation. To speak of 'now' has no meaning except in reference to a before and a hereafter. Red, in the same way, only subsists by being opposed to yellow and blue. Now this other thing is outside the sensible object ; which latter is, only in so far as it is not the other, and only in so far as that other exists. But thought, or the ' Ego,' occupies a position the very reverse of the sensible, with its mutual exclusions, and its being out of itself. The ' I ' is the primary identity — at one with itself and all at home in itself. The word ' I' expresses the mere act of bringing- to-bear-upon-self : and whatever is placed in this unit or focus, is affected by it and transformed into it. The ' I ' is as it were the crucible and the fire which devours the freely floating plurality of sense and reduces it to unity. This is the process
42.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD, 75
which Kant calls pure apperception in distinction from the common apperception, to which the plurality it receives is a plurality still ; whereas pure apperception is rather an act of appropriation.
This view has at least the merit of giving a correct expression to the nature of all consciousness. The tendency of all man's endeavours is to understand the world, to appropriate and subdue it to himself: and to this end the positive reality of the world must be as it were crushed and squashed, in other words, idealised. At the same time we must note that it is not the mere act of our personal self-consciousness, which introduces an absolute unity into the variety of sense. Bather, this identity is itself the absolute and real truth. The absolute is, as it were, so kind as to leave individual things to their own enjoyment, and then forces them back to the absolute unity.
(2) Expressions, like 'transcendental unity of self- consciousness,' have an ugly look about them, and suggest a monster in the background : but their meaning is not so abstruse as it looks. Kant's meaning of transcendental may be gathered by the way he distinguishes it from transcendent. The transcendent may be said to be what transcends the categories of the understanding : a sense in which the term is first employed in mathematics. Thus in geometry you are told to conceive the circumference of a circle as formed of an infinite number of infinitely small straight lines. In other words, characteristics which the under- standing holds to be totally different, the straight line and the curve, are expressly declared to be identical. Another transcendent of the same kind is the self-consciousness, which is identical with itself, and infinite in itself, as distinguished from the ordinary consciousness which derives its character from finite materials. That unity of self-consciousness, however, Kant calls transcendental only ; and he meant thereby that the unity was only in our minds and did not attach to the objects apart from our knowledge of them.
(3) To regard the categories as subjective only, i.e. as a part of ourselves, must seem absurdly quaint to the natural mind ; and no doubt there is a little mistake in the matter. It is quite true however that the categories are not contained in the sensation as it is given us. When, for instance, we look at a piece of sugar, we find it is hard, white, sweet, &c. All these properties we say are united in one object. Now it is this unity that is not found in the sensation. The same thing happens if we conceive two events to stand in the relation of cause and effect. The senses only inform us of the two isolated occurrences which follow each other in time. But that the one is cause, the other effect, in other words, the causal nexus between the
76 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [43.
two, is not perceived by sense, it is only evident to thought. Still, though the categories, such as unity, or cause and effect, are strictly within the province of thought, it by no means follows that they must be ours merely and not also characteristics of the objects. Kant however confines them to the subject- mind, and his philosophy may be styled subjective idealism : for he holds that both the form and the matter of knowledge are due to the 'Ego' or knowing subject, the form to our thought, the matter to our sensations.
If we look only at the content of this subjective idealism, there is indeed nothing to object to. It might at first sight be imagined, that objects would lose their reality, when their unity was transferred to the subject. But neither we nor the objects would have anything to gain by the mere fact that they possessed being. The main point is not, that they are, but what they are, and whether or not their content is true. It does no good to the things to say merely that they have being. What has being, will also cease to be when time creeps over it. It might also be alleged that subjective idealism tended to promote self-conceit. But surely if a man's world be the sum of his sensible percep- tions, he has no reason to be vain of such a world. Laying aside therefore as unimportant this distinction between subjective and objective, we are chiefly interested in knowing what a thing is : i.e. its content, which is no more objective than it is sub- jective. If mere existence be enough to make objectivity, even a crime is objective : but it is an existence which is nullity at the core, as is definitely made apparent when the day of punishment comes.
43.] The Categories may be viewed in two aspects. On the one hand it is by their instrumentality that the mere perception of sense rises to objectivity and experience. On the other hand these notions are unities in our consciousness merely : they are consequently conditioned by the material given to them, and having nothing in themselves they can be applied to use only within the range of experience. But the other constituent of experience, the impressions of feeling and perception, is not one whit less subjective than the categories.
To assert that the categories taken by themselves hold nothing but emptiness can scarcely be right, seeing that they have a content, at all events, in the special stamp and significance which they possess. Of course the content of the categories is
44-] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 77
not perceptible to the senses, nor is it in time and space : but that is rather an excellence than a defect. A glimpse of this meaning of content may be observed to affect our ordinary thinking. A book or a speech for example is said to have a great deal in it, to be full of content, in proportion to the greater number of thoughts and general results to be found in it : whilst, on the contrary, we should never say that any book, e.g. a novel, had much in it, because it included a great number of single incidents, situations, and the like. Even the popular voice thus recognises that something more than the facts of sense is needed to make a work pregnant with matter. And what is this additional desideratum but thoughts, or in the first instance the categories? And yet it is not altogether wrong, it should be added, to call the categories of themselves empty, if it be meant that they and the logical Idea, of which they are the single members, do not constitute the whole of philosophy, but necessarily lead onwards in due progress to the real regions of Nature and Mind. Only let the progress not be misunderstood. The logical Idea does not thereby come into possession of a content originally foreign to it : but by its own native action is specialized and developed to Nature and Mind.
44.] It follows that the categories are unfit to express the characters of the Absolute — the Absolute not being given in perception; — and Understanding, or knowledge by means of the categories, is consequently incapable of knowing the Things-in-themselves.
The Thing-in-itself (and under ' thing ' we must include Mind and -God) expresses the object, when we leave out of sight all that consciousness makes of it, all the deliverances of feeling, and all specific thoughts about it. It is easy to see what is left, — utter abstraction, total emptiness, only describable still as a 'beyond,' — the negative of imagination, of feeling, and definite thought. Nor does it require much penetration to see that this caput mortimm is still only a product of thought, such as accrues when thought ends in abstraction unalloyed : that it is the work of the empty ' Ego,' which finds an object in this empty self-identity of its own. The negative characteristic which this abstract identity receives, when it is described as an object, is also enumerated among the categories of Kant, and is no less familiar than the empty
78 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [45.
! identity aforesaid. Hence one can only feel surprise at the \perpetual remark that we do not know the Thing-in-itself. jOn the contrary there is nothing we can know so easily.
45.] It is Reason, the faculty apprehending- the Uncondi- tioned, which discovers the conditioned nature of the knowledge comprised in experience. What is thus called the object of Reason, the Infinite or Unconditioned, is nothing but self-same- ness, or that primary identity of the ' Ego' in thought (mentioned in § 42). Reason itself is the name given to the abstract ' Ego ' or thought, which makes this pure identity its aim or object (cf. note to the preceding §). Now this identity, having no definite attribute at all, can receive no illumination from the truths of experience, for the reason that these refer always to definite facts. Such is the sort of Unconditioned that is sup- posed to be the absolute truth of Reason, what is termed the Idea ; whilst the cognitions of experience sink to the level of untruth and turn out to be appearances.
Kant was the first to signalise the distinction between Reason and Understanding. The object of the former, as he applied the term, was the infinite and unconditioned, of the latter the finite and conditioned. Kant did valuable service when he established the finite character of the cognitions of the understanding founded merely upon experience, and stamped their contents with the name of appearance or phenomenon. But the mistake came when he stopped at the purely negative point of view, and limited the unconditionality of Reason to an abstract self- sameness without any shade of distinction. It degrades Reason to a finite and conditioned thing, to identify it with a mere stepping beyond the finite and conditioned range of under- standing. The real infinite, far from being a mere transcend- ence of the finite, always involves the absorption of the finite into its own fuller nature. In the same way Kant restored the Idea to its proper dignity : vindicating it for Reason as distinct from the inadequate categories of the understanding or from the merely sensible conceptions, which usually appro- priate to themselves the name of ideas. But as respects the Idea also, he rested content with a negative result, and a state- ment of what ought to be done.
The doctrine that the objects of immediate consciousness, which constitute the body of experience, are only appearances
46.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 79
(phenomena), was another important result of the Kantian phi- losophy. Common Sense, that mixture of the sense and the understanding1, believes the objects of which it has knowledge to be independent and self-supporting, each individual for itself; and when it becomes evident that they tend towards and limit one another, the interdependence of one upon another is reckoned something- foreign to them and to their true nature. The very opposite is the truth. The things immediately known are mere appearances — in other words, if we wish to know why they are, the answer is found not in themselves but in something else. ' Then,' it may be asked, ' how are we to find this something else ? How is it defined ? ' According to Kant, the things that we know about, are to us appearances only, and we can never know their nature behind the phenomena. That nature belongs to another world which we cannot approach. Plain unpreju- diced minds have not unreasonably taken exception to this sub- jective idealism, with its reduction of the facts of consciousness to a purely personal world, created by ourselves alone. For the true statement of the case is rather as follows. The things that we immediately know about are mere phenomena, not for us only, but in their own nature and without our interference ; and these things, finite as they are, are appropriately described when we say that their being is established not on themselves but on the divine and universal Idea. This view of things, it is true, is as idealist as Kant's ; but in contradistinction to the subjective idealism of the Critical philosophy may be termed absolute idealism. Absolute idealism, however, though it is far in ad- vance of the vulgarly-realistic mind, is by no means merely restricted to philosophy. The truth which it expresses lies at the root of all religion ; for religion too believes the actual world, the sum of existence, to be created and governed by God.
46.] But it is not enough simply to indicate the existence of the object of Reason. Curiosity impels us to seek for knowledge of this identity, this empty thing-in-itself. Now knowledge means such an acquaintance with the object as extends to its distinct and special subject-matter. But such subject-matter involves a complex inter-connexion in the object itself, and supplies a ground of connexion with many other objects. In the present case, to express the nature of the features of the Infinite or Thing-in-itself, Reason would have nothing except the categories : and any endeavour to employ them for that purpose
80 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [47.
exposes Reason to the charge of overleaping itself or becoming ' transcendent.'
Thus begins the second stage of the Criticism of Pure Reason — which, as an independent piece of work, is more valuable than the first. The first part, as has been explained above, teaches that the categories originate in the unity of self-consciousness ; that any knowledge which is gained by their means has nothing objective in it, and that the objectivity claimed for them is really subjective. So far as this goes, the Kantian Critique presents that shallow type of idealism known as Subjective Idealism. It asks no questions about the meaning or scope of the categories, but simply considers the abstract difference of subjective and objective ; and even these terms are examined in such a partial way, that the character of subjectivity from which the criticism begins is retained as a final and purely affirmative character of thought. In the second part, however, when Kant examines the application, as it is called, which Reason makes of the cate- gories in order to know its objects, the meaning or scope of these categories, at least in some of their functions, comes in for discussion : or, at any rate, an opportunity presented itself for a discussion of the question. It is worth while to see what deci- sion Kant arrives at on the subject of metaphysic, as this appli- cation of the categories to the unconditioned is called. His method of procedure we shall here briefly state and criticise.
47.] (a) The first of the unconditioned entities which Kant examines is the Soul (see above, § 34). ' In my consciousness,' he says, ' I always find that I (i) am the determining subject : (2) am singular or abstractly simple : (3) am identical, or one and the same, amid all the variety of which I am conscious : (4) distinguish myself as thinking from everything outside of me.'
The method of the old metaphysic, as Kant correctly states it, consisted in substituting for these statements of experience the corresponding categories or metaphysical terms. Thus by translation from experience arise four new propositions : (a) the Soul is a substance : (b) it is a simple substance : (c] it is nume-
47-] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 81
rically identical at the various periods of existence : (d) it stands in relation to space.
Kant discusses this translation, and draws attention to the Paralogism or mistake of confounding one kind of truth with another. He points out that empirical attributes have here been replaced by categories : and shows that we are not entitled to argue from the former to the latter, or to put the latter in place of the former.
This criticism obviously repeats the observation of Hume (§ 39) that the categories as a whole, the ideas of universality and necessity, are entirely absent from sensation, and that the empirical fact both in form and contents differs from the charac- ters derived from thought.
If the empirical fact is supposed to constitute the verification of thought, then no doubt it becomes indispensable to show, in the case of sensations, how and where thought is present in them.
How does Kant make out, in his criticism of the metaphysical psychology, that the soul cannot be described as substantial, simple, self-same, and as maintaining its independence in inter- course with the material world? He bases it on the single ground, that the several attributes of the soul, which we derive from the experience of consciousness, are not exactly the same attributes as result from the action of thought upon our expe- rience. But we have seen above, that according to Kant all knowledge, even experience, consists in thinking our sensations, — in other words, in transforming into categories of thought the attributes primarily belonging to sensation.
One of the best results of the Kantian criticism was that it emancipated speculation upon the mind from the ' soul- thing,' from the categories, and, consequently, from questions about the simplicity, complexity, materiality, &c. of the soul.
But even for the common sense of ordinary men, the true point of view, from which the inadmissibility of these forms best appears, will be, not that they are thoughts, but that thoughts of such a stamp are, both in their possible tendency and their actual compass, devoid of truth.
G
82 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [48.
If thoughts and phenomena do not perfectly correspond to one another, we are free at least to choose which of the two shall be held the defaulter, The idealism of Kant, where it touches on the world of Reason, throws the blame on the thoughts ; saying that the thoughts are defective, as being inadequate to the sen- sations and to a mode of mind which is restricted within the range of sensation, in which as such there are no traces of the presence of these thoughts. But of the contents of thought for its own sake, we hear nothing.
Paralogisms are a species of unsound syllogism, the especial vice of which consists in employing one and the same word in the two premisses with a different meaning. According to Kant the method adopted by the rational psychology of the old meta- physicians, when they assumed that the qualities of the pheno- menal soul, as given in experience, formed part of its own real essence, was based upon such a Paralogism. Nor can it be denied that predicates like simplicity, permanence, &c. are in- applicable to the soul. But their unfitness is not due to the ground assigned by Kant, that Reason, by applying them, would exceed its appointed bounds. The true ground is that this style of abstract terms is not good enough for the soul, which is very much more than a mere simple or unchangeable sort of thing. And thus, for example, while the soul may be admitted to be simple self-sameness, it is at the same time active, and evolves distinctions from its own nature. But whatever is merely or abstractly simple without complexity is a dead thing. By his polemic against the metaphysic of the past Kant discarded those predicates from the soul or mind. He did well; but when he came to state his reasons, his failure is apparent.
48.] (/3) The second unconditioned object is the World (§ 35)' IQ the attempt which reason makes to comprehend the unconditioned nature of the World, it falls into what are called Antinomies. In other words it maintains two contrary propositions about the same object, and in such a way that each of them has to be maintained with equal necessity. From this it follows that the cosmical body of fact, the specific statements descriptive of which run into contradiction, cannot be anything in its own nature, and is a mere appearance. The explanation offered by Kant alleges that the contradiction
48.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 83
does not affect the object in its own proper essence, but attaches only to the Reason which seeks to comprehend it.
Thus it seems to be made out that the contradiction is occasioned by the subject-matter itself, or by the categories on their own account. And to show this, to discover that the contradiction introduced into the world of Reason by the categories of the Understanding is inevitable and natural, was to make one of the most important steps in the progress of Modern Philosophy. But the more valuable this discovery, the more trivial was the solution. Its only motive was an excess of tenderness for the things of the world. The blemish of contradiction, it seems, could not be allowed to mar the real world : but there could be no objection to attach it to the thinking Reason, to the essence of mind. Probably nobody will feel disposed to deny that the phenomenal world presents contradictions to the observing mind; meaning by 'phenomenal' the world as it is apprehended by the senses and understanding, by the subjective mind. But if a comparison is instituted between the essence of the world and the essence of the mind, it does seem strange to hear how calmly and confidently the modest dogma has been advanced by one, and repeated by others, that thought or Reason, and not the World, is the source of contradiction. It is no escape to turn round and explain that Reason falls into contradiction by applying the categories. For this application of the categories is affirmed to be necessary, and Reason is not supposed to be equipped with any other forms but the categories for the acquisition of truth. Knowledge is specialising and specialised thought: so that, if Reason be mere empty indeterminate thinking, it thinks nothing. And if in the end Reason be reduced to mere identity without diversity, it will in the end also win a happy release from contradiction at the slight sacrifice of all its facts and contents.
His failure to make a more thorough study of the Antinomies was one of the reasons why Kant enumerated only four of them. These four attracted his notice, when, as may be seen
G 2
84 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [48.
in his discussion of the so-called Paralogisms of Reason, he assumed the list of the categories as a basis of his argument. Setting the example of what is now a common artifice, he referred an object to a ready-made schema, instead of deducing its characteristics from the notion of that object. Further deficiencies in the construction of the Antinomies I have pointed out, as occasions offered, in my ' Science of Logic.' Here it will be sufficient to say that the Antinomies are not confined to the four special objects derived from Cosmology : they appear in all objects of every kind, in all conceptions, notions and ideas. To be aware of this and to know objects in this property of theirs, makes a vital part in a philosophical theory. For the quality thus indicated is what we shall afterwards describe as the Dialectical element in logic.
The principles of the metaphysical philosophy gave rise to the belief that, when cognition lapsed into contradictions, it was a mere accidental aberration, due to some subjective mistake in argument and inference. According to Kant, however, thought has a natural tendency to issue in contra- dictions or antinomies, whenever it seeks to apprehend the infinite. We have in the last paragraph referred to the philosophical importance of the antinomies of reason, and shown how this discovery gets rid of the rigid dogmatism of the metaphysic of understanding, and suggests the Dialectical movement of thought. But here too Kant, as we must add, never got beyond the negative result that the thing-in-itself is unknowable, and never penetrated to the discovery of what the antinomies really and positively mean. That true and positive meaning of the antinomies is this : that every actual thing involves a coexistence of contrary elements. Conse- quently to know, or, in other wrords, to comprehend an object is equivalent to being conscious of it as a unified group of contrary determinations. The old metaphysic, as we have already seen, when it studied the objects of which it sought a metaphysical knowledge, went to work by applying categories abstractly and to the exclusion of their contraries. Kant, on the other hand, tried to prove that the statements, issuing through this method, could be met by other statements of contrary import with equal warrant and equal necessity. In the enumeration of these antinomies he has narrowed his ground to the cosmology of the old metaphysical system, and in
48.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 85
his discussion has evolved four antinomies, a number which rests upon the list of the categories. The first antinomy is on the question: Whether we are or are not to consider the world limited in space and time. In the second antinomy we have a discussion of the dilemma : Matter must be conceived either as endlessly divisible, or as consisting of atoms. The third antinomy bears upon the antithesis of freedom and necessity, to such extent as it is embraced in the question, Whether everything in the world must be supposed subject to the condition of causality, or if we can also assume free Beings, in other words, absolute initial points of action in the world. Finally, the fourth antinomy is the dilemma : Either the world as a whole has a cause or it is uncaused.
The method which Kant follows in discussing these an- tinomies is as follows. He arranges the contrasting articles in exposition of each side under the opposite heads of thesis and antithesis, and seeks to prove both : that is to say he tries to exhibit them as inevitably issuing from reflection on the question. He particularly guards himself against the charge of being a special pleader and of grounding his reason- ing on delusions. Speaking honestly, however, the arguments which Kant offers for his thesis and antithesis are mere shams of demonstration. The thing to be proved is invariably implied in the assumption he starts from, and the speciousness of his proofs is a consequence of his prolix and apagogic mode of procedure. Yet it was, and still is, a great achievement for the Critical philosophy, when it exhibited these antinomies : for in this way it gave some expression (at first certainly subjective and without proper deduction) to the actual unity of those categories, which are kept severed from one another in the understanding. The first of the cosmological antinomies, for example, implies a recognition of the doctrine that space and time present a discrete as well as a continuous aspect: whereas the old metaphysic, laying exclusive emphasis on the continuity, had been led to maintain that the world was unlimited in space and time. It is quite correct to say that we can go beyond every definite space and beyond every definite time : but it is no less correct that space and time are real and actual only when they are limited or specialized into 'here' and 'now,' — a specialisation which is involved in the very notion of them. The same observations apply to the rest of the antinomies. Take, for example, the antinomy of freedom and necessity. The main gist of it is that freedom and necessity as understood by abstract thinkers are not independent, as these thinkers suppose, but merely unsub- stantial stages or elements of the true freedom and the true
86 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [49,50.
necessity, and that the abstract and isolated conceptions of both are false.
49-] (y) The third object of the Reason is God; He also must be known and evaluated in terms of thought. But in comparison with an unalloyed identity, any evaluation in precise terms seems to the understanding to be a limit, and a negation : so that all reality must be invested with bound- lessness or indeterminateness. Accordingly God, when he is defined to be the sum of all realities, the most real of beings, turns into a mere abstraction. And the only head under which that most real of real things, or abstract identity, can be brought into articulate form, is the equally abstract category of Being. These are the two elements, an abstract identity, on one hand, which is spoken of in this place as the Notion ; and Being on the other, — which Reason seeks to reconcile into unity. And their union is the Ideal of Reason.
50-] To carry out this union two ways or two forms are admissible. Either we may begin with Being and proceed to the abstraction called Thought : or, the movement may begin with the abstraction and end in Being.
We shall, in the first place, start from Being. But Being, as it is immediately given, presents itself to our view in the shape of a Being characterised by infinite variety, in all the amplitude of a world. And this world may be regarded in two ways: first, as a collection of innumerable unconnected facts ; and second, as a collection of innumerable facts in mutual relation, giving evidence of design. The first aspect is em- phasised in the Cosmological proof: the latter in the proofs of Natural Theology. Suppose however this surcharged sum of Being passes under the agency of thought. Then it is stripped of the form of isolated and unconnected facts, and apprehended as a universal and absolutely necessary Being, which, being self-determined, acts conformably to general ends. And this necessary Being, acting by general purposes or laws, is God.
50.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 87
The main force of Kant's criticism on this process attacks it for being a syllogising, i. e. a transition. Sensations, and that aggregate of sensations we call the world, exhibit no traces of that universality which they afterwards receive from the purifying act of thought. The empirical conception of the world therefore can give no warrant for the assertion of universality. And so any attempt on the part of thought to ascend from the empirical conception of the world to God is checked by referring to the doctrine of Hume (as in the paralogisms, § 47), according to which we have no right to think sensations, that is, to elicit universality and necessity from them.
Man is a being that thinks : and therefore sound Common Sense, as well as Philosophy, will not yield up their right of rising to God from and out of the empirical view of the world. The only basis on which this rise is possible lies in that study of the world, which is made by thought, as dis- tinguished from the senses and the animal nature. Thought and thought alone can compass the essence, substance, uni- versal power, and ultimate design of the world. And what men call the proofs of God's existence are seen to be ways of describing and analysing the inward movement of the mind, which is the great thinker, that thinks the data of the senses. The rise of thought beyond the* world of sense, its passage from the finite to the infinite, the leap into the super-sensible which it takes when it snaps asunder the links of the chain of sense, all this transition is thought and nothing but thought. Say there must be no such passage, and you say there is to be no thinking. And in sooth, animals make no such transi- tion. They never get further than sensation and the perception of the senses, and in consequence they have no religion.
Both on general grounds, and in the particular case, there are two remarks to be made upon the criticism of this exaltation in thought. The first remark deals with the question of form. When the exaltation is represented in a syllogistic process, in the shape of what we call proofs of the Being of God, these reasonings cannot but start from some sort of theory of the
88 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [50.
world, which makes it an aggregate either of contingent facts or of final causes and relations involving design. The thought which syllogises may probably deem this starting-point a solid basis : the beginning may continue to appear throughout in the same empirical light, and be left at last as at the first. In this case, the bearings of the beginning upon the conclusion to which it leads may take a purely affirmative aspect, as if we were only reasoning from one thing which is and continues to be, to another thing which in like manner is. But it is a great error to restrict our notions of the nature of thought to its form in Understanding alone. To think the phenomenal world rather means to re-cast its phenomenal form, and trans- mute it into a universal. And thus the action of thought has a negative as well as an affirmative effect upon its basis : and the matter of sensation, when it receives the stamp of uni- versality, at once loses its first and phenomenal shape. By the removal and negation of the shell, the kernel within what we perceived is brought to the light (§§ 13 and 23). And it is because they do not, with sufficient prominence, express the negative features implied in the exaltation of the mind from the world to God, that the metaphysical proofs of the Being of a God are defective interpretations and descriptions "of the process. If the world is onry a sum of incidents, it follows that it is also deciduous and phenomenal, a complete and utter nonentity. That upward spring of the mind signifies, that the Being which the world has is only a semblance, no real Being, no absolute truth ; it signifies that beyond and above that apparent Being, truth abides in God, so that true Being is another name for God. ' The process of exaltation might thus appear to be transition and to involve a means, but it is no less equally true, that every trace of transition and means is absorbed ; since the world, which might have seemed to be the means of reaching God, is explained to be a nonentity. Unless the world be reduced to non-being, the point d'appui for the exaltation is lost. In this way the apparent means vanishes, and the process of derivation is cancelled in the very
5o.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 89
fact of its existence. It was the affirmative aspect of this relation, as supposed to subsist between two things, each of which is as much as the other, which Jacobi mainly had in his eye when he attacked the demonstrations of the understanding-. He justly reproaches them with seeking conditions (i, e. the world) for the unconditioned, and says that the Infinite or God must in consequence seem to be dependent and derivative. But that elevation, as it takes place in the mind, serves to correct the semblance which it has of imposing conditions on the Infinite : in fact, it has no other meaning than to correct that semblance. Jacobi, however, failed to recognise the genuine nature of essential thought — by which it cancels the mediation in the very act of mediating ; and consequently, his objection, though it tells against the reflective Understanding, is false when applied to thought as a whole, and in particular to reasonable thought.
To explain what we mean by the neglect of the negative force in thought, we may refer by way of illustration to the charges of Pantheism and Atheism brought against the doctrines of Spinoza. The absolute Substance of. Spinoza certainly requires something to make it absolute mind, and it is a right and proper requirement that God should be defined as absolute mind. But when the definition in Spinoza is said to identify the world with God, and to confound God with nature and the finite world, it appears that people assume the finite world to possess a genuine actuality and affirmative reality. If this assumption be admitted, of course a union of God with the world renders God completely finite, and degrades him to the bare finite and adventitious congeries of existence. But there are two objections to be noted. In the first place Spinoza does not define God as the unity of God with the world, but as the union of thought with extension, that is, with the material world. And secondly, even if we accept this stupid interpretation of the teaching of Spinoza in the matter of this unity, it would still be true that his system was not Atheism but Acosmism, defining the world to be a phenomenon lacking
90 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [50.
in true reality. A philosophy which affirms that God and God alone is, should not be stigmatised as atheistic, when even these nations which worship the ape, the cow, or images of stone and brass, are credited with some religion. But the imagination of ordinary men feels a still more vehement reluct- ance to surrender its dearest conviction, that this aggregate of finitude, which it calls a world, has actual reality. To hold that there is no world is a way of thinking we are fain to believe impossible, or at least much less possible than to get into our heads that there is no God. Human nature, not much to its credit, is more ready to believe that a system denies God, than that it denies the world. A denial of God seems so much more intelligible than a denial of the world.
The second remark bears on the criticism of the matter or body of truths, to which that elevation in thought in the first instance leads. If these truths are made up of such principal articles, as substance of the world, its necessary essence, cause which regulates and directs it according to design, they are certainly inadequate to express what is or ought to be under- stood by God. Yet apart from the trick of adopting a pre- liminary and materialised conception of God, and criticising a result by this assumed standard, it is certain that these characteristics have great value, and are necessary factors in the idea of God. But if we wish in this way to bring before thought the genuine idea of God, and give its true value and expression to the body of truths, we must be careful not to start from a subordinate range of facts. The merely contingent things of the world do not tell us very much. If we go on to organic structures, and the evidence they bear to the laws of design, we are in a higher circle of reasonable thought where life is present. But even life is not enough. For even without taking into consideration the possible blemish which the view of animated nature, and of the general relation of existing things to final causes, may contract from the pettiness of these final causes, and from puerile instances of them and their bearings, merely animated nature is, at the best, incapable of giving a
5i.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 91
truthful expression to the idea of God. God is more than life : He is Mind. And therefore if the thought of the Absolute adopts a starting-point for its rise, and desires to take the nearest, the most true and adequate will be found in the nature of Mind alone.
51.] The other way of union by which we seek to realise the Ideal of Reason is to set out from the dbstractum of Thought and seek to characterise it; for which purpose Being is the only available term. This is the method of the Ontological proof. The opposition which is here presented solely from the subjective side, lies between Thought and Being; whereas in the first way of junction, Being is common to the two sides of the antithesis, and the contrast lies between indi- vidualised and universal. Understanding meets this second way with what is implicitly the same objection, as it met the first. As it denied that the empirical involves the universal, so it denies that the universal involves the specialisation, which specialisation in this instance is Being. In other words it says : Being cannot be deduced from the Notion by any analysis.
The unexampled favour and acceptance which attended Kant's criticism of the Ontological proof was undoubtedly due to the illustration which he made use of. To mark the difference between Thought and Being, he took the instance of a hundred sovereigns, which, for anything it matters to the Notion, are the same hundred whether they are real or only possible, though the difference of the two cases is very perceptible in their effect on a man's purse. Nothing can be more obvious than that anything we only think or fancy is not on that account actual : and everybody is aware that a conception, and even a Notion, is no match for Being. Still it may not unfairly be styled a barbarism in language, when the name of Notion is given to things like a hundred sovereigns. And, putting that mistake aside, those who like to taunt the philosophic idea with the difference between Being and Thought, might have admitted that philosophers were not wholly ignorant
92 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [52.
of the fact. Can there be anything pettier in knowledge than this ? Above all, it is well to remember, when we speak of God, that we have an object of another kind than any hundred sovereigns, and unlike any particular notion, conceit, or whatever else it may be styled. The very nature of every- thing finite is expressed by saying that its Being in time and space is discrepant from its Notion. God, on the contrary, ought to be what can only be ' thought as existing ; ' His Notion involves Being. It is this unity of the Notion and Being that constitutes the notion of God.
If this were all, we should have only a formal expression of God; which would not really go beyond a statement of the nature of the Notion itself. And that the Notion in its most abstract terms, involves Being, is plain. For the Notion, whatever additional exposition it may allow, is at least reference back on itself, which results by abolishing the intermediate term, and thus is immediate. And what is that reference to self, but Being ? Certainly it would be strange if the Notion, the very heart of the mind, the 'Ego,' or in one word, the concrete totality we call God, were not rich enough to embrace so poor a category as Being, the very poorest and most abstract of all. For, if we look at the thought it holds, nothing can be more insignificant than Being. And yet there may be something still more insignificant than Being, — that which at first sight seems to be, an external and sensible existence, like that of the paper lying before me. However, in this matter, nobody proposes to speak of the sensible existence of a limited and perishable thing. Besides, the petty stricture which separates being from thought, can at best disturb the process of the mind from the thought of God to the certainty that He is : it cannot take it away. It is this process of transition, depending on the absolute inseparability of the thought of God from his Being, for which its proper authority has been vindicated in the theory of faith or immediate knowledge, — whereof hereafter.
52.] In this way thought, even at its highest pitch, has no
53, 54-] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 93
innate character of its own : and although it is continually termed Reason, is thoroughly abstract thought. And the result of all is that Reason supplies nothing beyond the formal unity required to simplify and systematise experiences ; it is a canon, not an organon of truth, and can furnish only a criticism of knowledge, not a theory of the infinite. In its final analysis this criticism is summed up in the assertion that in strictness thought is only the indeterminate unity and the action of this indeterminate unity.
Kant undoubtedly held reason to be the faculty of the un- conditioned ; but if reason be reduced to abstract identity, it renounces its unconditioned character, and sinks to the level of an empty understanding. For reason is unconditioned, only because it is not stamped with the characters of an alien content, because it is self characterising, and thus, in point of content, is its own master. Kant, however, expressly explains that the action of reason consists solely in an application of the categories to unify and systematise the matter given by perception, i.e. to place it in an outside order, under the guidance of the principle of non-contradiction.
53.] (b) The Practical Reason is understood by Kant to mean a thinking Will, i.e. a Will that determines itself according to general laws. Its office is to give objective, imperative laws of freedom, — laws, that is, which state what ought to happen. The warrant for thus assuming thought to be an activity which makes itself felt objectively or by all, that is, to be one Reason, is sought in the possibility of proving practical freedom by experience, that is, of showing it in the phenomena of self- consciousness. This experience in consciousness is at once met by all that the Necessitarian produces from contrary experience, particularly by the sceptical induction (employed amongst others by Hume), from the endless diversity, of what men hold to be right and duty ; i. e. from the diversity apparent in those laws of freedom, which ought to be objective, or valid for all intelligence.
54.] What, then, is to serve as the law which the Practical Reason embraces and obeys, and as the criterion in its act of self-
94 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [54.
determination? There is no rule at hand but that given by the abstract identity of understanding, which is : There must be no contradiction in the act, by which the will assumes a special direction. Hence the Practical Reason never shakes off the formalism, that terminates the range of the Theoretical Reason.
The Practical Reason does not confine the operation of the universal law or principle of the Good to itself alone : but first becomes practical, in the true sense of the word, when it insists on the Good being manifested in the world with an outward objectivity, and requires that it shall be objective throughout, and not merely subjective. We shall speak of this postulate of the Practical Reason afterwards.
The free control of its own conduct which Kant denied to the speculative, he has expressly vindicated for the practical reason. To many minds this particular aspect of the Kantian philosophy made it welcome ; and that for good reasons. To estimate rightly what we owe to Kant in the matter, we ought to place before our minds the form of practical philosophy or ethics, which prevailed in his time. It may be generally described as a system of Eudaemonism, which, when asked wrhat was man's chief end, replied Happiness. And by happiness Eudaemonism un- derstood the satisfaction of the selfish appetites, wishes and wants of the man : thus raising the contingent and particular into a principle, to guide the will and its actualisation. To this Eudae- monism, which was destitute of stability and consistency, and which left the door open for every whim and caprice, Kant opposed the practical reason, and thus emphasised the need for a principle of will which should be universal, and lay the same obligation on all. The theoretical reason, as has been made evident in the preceding paragraphs, is restricted by Kant to the negative faculty of the infinite; and as it has no positive content of its own, its only function is to discover the finitude of ex- periential knowledge. To the practical reason, on the contrary, he has expressly allowed a positive infinity, by ascribing to the will the power of modifying itself in universal modes, i. e. by thought. Such a power the will undoubtedly has : and it is well to remember that man is free only in so far as he possesses it and avails himself of it in his conduct. But a recognition of the existence of this power is not enough to answer the question, as to what are the contents of the will or practical reason. Hence to say, that a man must make the good the content of his will,
55-] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 95
raises the question, what that content is, and what are the means of ascertaining what good is. Nor does it get over the difficulty to adopt the principle, that the will must coincide with itself, or to assert the obligation to do duty for the sake of duty.
55.] (<?) The Reflective Power of Judgment is invested by Kant with the function of an Intuitive Understanding. That is to say, whereas the particulars had hitherto appeared ac- cidents, so far as the universal or abstract identity was concerned, adventitious to it and incapable of being deduced from it, the Intuitive Understanding apprehends the particulars as moulded, and formed by the universal itself. Experience presents such universalised particulars in the products of Art and organic Nature.
The salient feature in the Critique of the Judgment is, that in it Kant gave utterance to a general image, perhaps even the thought, of the Idea. Such an approximate image, of an Intuitive Understanding, of an adaptation within things them- selves, suggests a universal which is at the same time appre- hended as being in its own nature a concrete unity. It is in these approximations to thought alone that the Kantian philosophy rises to the speculative height. Schiller, and others, have found a way of escape from the abstract and separatist understanding in the idea of artistic beauty. In that idea the thought and the sensuous conception have grown together into one. Others have found the same relief in the perception and consciousness of life and of living things, whether that life be natural or intellectual. The work of Art, as well as the living individual, are, it must be owned, of limited range or content. But Kant goes further than their narrow range, and gives expression to the Idea, comprehensive by content as well as by form, in his postulated harmony between the necessity of nature, and the end sought by freedom, or in the final end of the world, when that end is thought to be realised. But thought is, as it were, indolent and slow ; and when dealing with this supreme Idea, finds a too easy mode of evasion in the ' ouffht to be ' : instead of the actual realisation
96 SECOND ATTJTUDE OF THOUGHT [56-58.
of the ultimate end, it clings hard to the disjunction of the notion from reality. Yet if thought will not think the ideal realised, the senses and the intuition can at any rate see it in the very presence of living organisms, and of the beauty in Art. And consequently Kant's remarks on these objects were well adapted to lead the mind on to grasp and think the concrete Idea. •
56.] We are thus led to conceive a different relation between the universal of understanding, and the particular of perception, than that on which the theory of the Theoretical and Practical Reason is founded. But while this is so, it is not supplemented by the perception that it is the former which gives the genuine relation and the very truth. Instead of that, the unity is accepted only as it exists in finite phenomena, and as it is illustrated by experience. On the side of the observer, such experience may come from two sources. It may spring from Genius, the faculty which produces aesthetic ideas ; meaning by aesthetic ideas, the picture-thoughts of the unfettered imagination, which subserve an idea and suggest thoughts, although their content is not expressed in a notional form, and even admits of no such expression. It may also be due to Taste, the feeling of the congruity of intuitions or imaginations in their freedom, with the understanding in its legality.
57.] The principle by which the Reflective faculty of Judg- ment regulates and arranges the products of animated nature is described as the End or final cause : where the notion is in action, and the universal has and gives its own lines of dif- ferentiation. At the same time Kant is careful to set aside the conception of external or finite adaptation, in which the End is only an adventitious form, so far as concerns the Means and material in which it is realised. Whereas, in the living organism, the final cause is a moulding principle, and an energy immanent in the matter, and every member is in its turn a Means as well as an End.
58.] Such an idea evidently puts a stop to the relation which the understanding institutes between Means and Ends,
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between subjectivity and objectivity. And yet in the face of this unification, the End or design is subsequently explained to be a cause which exists and acts subjectively, and in our imagination only: and design is accordingly explained to be only a principle regulative of criticism, and to be purely per- sonal to our understanding.
After the Critical philosophy had settled that Reason can know phenomena only, there might still have been an option for animated nature between two equally subjective modes of thought. Even according to Kant's own exposition, there might have been an obligation to admit, in the case of natural productions, a knowledge through other categories than those of quality, cause and effect, composition, constituents, and so on. The principle of inward adaptation or design, supposing it to be maintained and developed in a scientific application, might have led to a different and a higher method of obser- vation.
59.] If we adopt this principle, the Idea, when all limita- tions were removed from it, would appear as follows. The universality moulded by Reason, and described as the absolute design of all, or the Good, would be realised in the world, and realised moreover by means of a third thing, the power which proposes this End as well as realises it, — that is, God. Thus in Him, who is the absolute truth, those oppositions of universal and individual, subjective and objective, are solved and explained to be neither self-subsistent nor true.
60.] But Good, which is thus put forward as the final cause of the world — has been already described as good only for us, the moral law of our Practical Reason. This being so, the unity in question goes no further than to make the condition and events of the world harmonise with our morality 1. Besides,
1 In Kant's own words (Criticism of the Power of Judgment, p. 427) : ' Final Cause is merely a notion of our practical reason. It cannot be deduced from any data of experience as a theoretical criterion of nature, nor can it be applied to the knowledge of nature. No employment of this notion is possible except solely for the practical reason, in accordance with moral laws. The final purpose of the Creation is that constitution of the world, which harmonises with that
H
98 SECOND ATTITUDE OF T SOUGHT [60.
even when thus limited, the final cause, or Good, becomes a vague abstraction, and the same vagueness attaches to the proposed idea of Duty. And in particular, this harmony is met by the revival and re-assertion of the antithesis, which the import of this harmony had made false. The accordance is then described as merely subjective, something which merely ought to be, and which at the same time is not real, — some- thing we believe, possessing a subjective certainty, but without truth, or that objectivity which is appropriate to the Idea. This contradiction may seem to be disguised by adjourning the realisation of the Idea to a future, to a time when the Idea will also be. But a sensuous condition like time is the reverse of a reconciliation of the discrepancy ; and an infinite progression — which is the corresponding image adopted by the understanding — is on the very face of it only a constant re- establishment of this contradiction.
A general remark may still be offered on the result at which the Critical philosophy arrived as to the nature of knowledge ; a result which has grown one of the axiomatic beliefs of the day. In every dualistic system, and especially in that of Kant, the fundamental defect makes itself visible in the inconsistency of uni- fying at one moment, what a moment before had been explained to be independent and incapable of unification. And then, when unification has been alleged to be the right state, we suddenly come upon the doctrine, that the two elements, which had been denuded of all independent subsistence in their true status of unification, are only true and actual in their state of separation. Philosophising of this kind wants the little penetration needed to discover, that this shuffling and fluc- tuation only evidences how unsatisfactory each of the two characteristics or terms is. And it fails simply because it is incapable of bringing two thoughts together. (And in point of form there are never more than two.) It argues an utter
which alone we can state definitely in accordance with laws, viz. the final purpose of our pure practical reason, and with that in so far as it means to be practical.'
60.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 99
want of consistency to say, on the one hand, that the under- standing only knows phenomena, and, on the other, assert the absolute character of this knowledge, by such statements as ' Cognition can go no further ' ; ' Here is the natural and absolute limit of human knowledge.' But surely natural is the wrong word here. The things of Nature are limited ; and they are natural things only to such extent as they are not aware of their universal limit, or to such extent as their character is a limit from our point of view, and not from their own. No one is aware that anything is a limit or defect, until he is at the same time above and beyond it. Living beings, for example, possess the prerogative of pain which is denied to the inanimate : even with living beings, a single affection or modification rises into the feeling of a negative. For living beings have within them the universal presence of vitality, which overpasses and includes the single affection; and thus, as they maintain themselves in the negative of themselves, they feel the contradiction to exist within them. But the contradiction is within them, only in so far as one and the same subject comprehends both the universality of their feeling of life, and the individuality which is in negation with it. This illustration will show how a limit or imperfec- tion in knowledge comes to be termed a limit or imperfection, only when it is compared with the idea, which we have at hand of the universal, or perfect whole. A very little con- sideration might show, that to call a thing finite or limited, proves by implication the very actual presence of the infinite and unlimited, and that our knowledge of a limit is co-extensive with the present and actual consciousness of the unlimited.
The result however which Kant assigns to cognition suggests a second remark. The philosophy of Kant could have no influence on the method of the sciences. For it allowed the categories and the method of ordinary knowledge to remain unmolested. Occasionally it may be, in the first sections of a scientific work of that period, we find propositions borrowed from the Kantian philosophy: but the course of the treatise
H 2
100 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [60.
renders it apparent that these propositions were superfluous ornament, which, as well as the few first pages, might have been omitted without producing the least change in the em- pirical contents l.
We may next institute a comparison of Kant with the metaphysics of the empirical school. A plain and unreflecting Empiricism, though it unquestionably insists most upon sensuous perception, still allows the existence of a super-sensible world or spiritual reality, leaving it unsettled how the contents of 1 hat world may be constituted, and whether the details originate from thought or fancy. So far as form goes, the facts em- braced in this super-sensible world rest on the authority of mind, in the same way as the other facts, constituting em- pirical knowledge, rest on the authority of external perception. But when Empiricism takes to reflection and makes a principle of consistency, it turns its arms against this dualism in the ultimate and highest species of fact ; it denies the indepen- dence of the thinking principle, and of a spiritual world which developes itself in thought. Materialism, or Naturalism, therefore, is the only consistent and thorough-going system of Empiricism. In direct opposition to such an Empiricism, Kant asserts the sovereign principle of thought and Freedom, and attaches himself to the first-mentioned form of empirical doctrine, the general principles of which he never departed from. There is a dualism in his philosophy also. On one side stands the world of sen- sation, and of the understanding which reflects upon it. This world, it is true, he alleges to be a world of appearances. But that is only a title or formal description ; for the source, the facts, and the modes of observation continue quite the same as in Empiricism. On the other side and independent stands a self-apprehending thought, the principle of Freedom, which
1 Even Hermann's ' Handbook of Prosody ' begins with paragraphs of Kantian philosophy. In § 8 it is argued that the law of rhythm must be (i) objective, (2) formal, and (3) determined d priori. With these requirements and with the principles of Causalty and Reciprocity which follow later, it were well to compare the treatment of the various measures, upon which those formal principles do not exercise the slightest influence.
6o.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 101
Kant adopts from the metaphysicians of the past, after he has emptied it of all that it held, without being able to infuse into it anything new. For, in the Critical doctrine, thought, or, as it is there called, Reason, is divested of every specific form, and thus bereft of all authority. The main effect of the Kantian philosophy has been to revive the consciousness of Reason, or the absolute inwardness of thought. Its abstract- ness indeed prevented that inwardness from developing into anything, or from originating any special forms, whether cognitive principles or moral laws ; but nevertheless it abso- lutely refused to accept or indulge anything possessing the character of outwardness. Henceforth the principle of the independence of Reason, or of its absolute self-subsistence, will be a general maxim of philosophy, as well as a current dogma of the time.
(1) The Critical philosophy has one great negative merit. It has produced a general conviction that the categories of under- standing are finite in their range, and that any knowledge which goes on within their pale falls short of the truth. But Kant had only a sight of half of the truth. He explained the finite nature of the categories, to mean that they were subjective only, valid only for our thought, from which the thing-in-itself was divided by an impassable gulf. Now, it is not because they are subjective, that the categories are finite : they are finite by their very nature, and it is on their own selves that it is requisite to exhibit their finitude. Kant how- ever holds that, what we think, is false, because it is we who think it. A second deficiency in the system is that it gives only an historical description of thought, and a mere enu- meration of the elements or factors of consciousness. The enu- meration is in the main correct : but nothing is said of the necessity of what is thus empirically colligated. The observa- tions, made on the various stages of consciousness, culminate in the summary statement, that the content of all we are ac- quainted with is only an appearance. And as it is true at least that all finite thinking is concerned with appearances, so far the conclusion is justified. This stage of appearance how- ever— the phenomenal world — is not the terminus of thought : there is another and a higher region. But that region was to the Kantian philosophy an inaccessible ' beyond.'
(2) After all it was only formally, that the Kantian system established the principle that thought acted spontaneously in
102 SECOND ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT, &c.
forming its constitution. Into details of the manner and the extent of this self-determination of thought, Kant never went. It was Fichte who first noticed the omission; and who, after he had called attention to the want of a deduction for the categories, endeavoured really to supply something of the kind. With Fichte, the ' Ego ' is the starting-point in the philo- sophical development : and the outcome of its action is sup- posed to be visible in the categories. But in Fichte the ' Ego ' is not really presented as a free, spontaneous energy; it is supposed to receive its first excitation by an impulse from without. Against this impulse the ' Ego ' will, it is assumed, react, and only through this reaction does it first become con- scious of itself. Meanwhile, the nature of the impulse remains a stranger beyond our pale : and the ' Ego/ with something else always confronting it, is weighted with a condition. Fichte, in consequence, never advanced beyond Kant's conclusion, that the finite only is knowable, while the infinite transcends the range of thought. What Kant calls the thing-by-itself, Fichte calls the impulse from without — that abstraction of another ' Ego,' not otherwise describable or definable than as the negative or non-Ego in general. The ' I ' is thus looked at as standing in relation with the not-I, through which its act of self-deter- mination is first awakened. And in this manner the 'I' is but the continuous act of self-liberation from this impulse, never gaining a real freedom, because with the surcease of the impulse the ' I,' whose being is its action, would also cease to be. Nor is the content produced by the energy of the 'I' at all different from the ordinary content of experience, except by the supple- mentary remark, that this content is mere appearance.
CHAPTER V.
THIRD ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD.
Immediate or Intuitive Knowledge.
61.] IP we are to believe the Critical Philosophy, thought is subjective, and its ultimate vocation, which we cannot get over, lies in an abstract universality or formal identity. It is thus made an antithesis to Truth, which is no abstraction, but a concrete universal. In this highest form of thought, which is called Reason, the Categories are out of the question. The extreme theory on the opposite side denies the universality of thought, and, on the ground of its being an act of the par- ticular only, declares it incapable of apprehending the Truth. This is the Intuitional theory.
62.] If thought be no more than a partial and individual operation, its whole scope and result is seen in the Categories. But, these Categories when reduced to fixity by the under- standing, are limited vehicles of thought, forms of the condi- tioned, dependent and derivative. A thought of this limited compass has no sense of the Infinite and the True, and cannot bridge over the gulf that separates it from them. (This stricture refers to the proofs of God's existence.) These in- adequate terms by which thought tries to fix its objects are also spoken of as notions: and to get a notion of an object therefore can only mean, in this language, to grasp it under the form of being conditioned and derivative. Consequently, if the object in question be the True, the Infinite, the Unconditioned,
104 THIRD ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [62.
we change it by our notions into a finite and conditioned ; whereby, instead of apprehending the truth by thought, we have perverted it into an untruth.
Such is the one simple line of argument advanced by those who maintain that the knowledge of God and of truth must be Immediate, or Intuitive. At an earlier period all sort of anthropomorphic conceptions, as they are termed, were banished from God as being finite, and therefore unworthy of the infinite ; and in this way God has been reduced to a tolerably blank Being. But in those days the terms or formulae given by thought were in general not supposed to come under the head of anthropomorphism. Thought was believed rather to strip fmitude from the conceptions of the Absolute, herein confirming the above-mentioned conviction of all ages, that reflection is the road to truth. But now, at length, even the formula given by thought are pronounced to be anthropomorphic, and thought itself is described as a mere faculty of limitation. Jacobi has presented this argument most distinctly in the seventh supplement to his Letters on Spinoza ; borrowing his line of argument from the works of Spinoza himself, and ap- plying it as a weapon against knowledge in general. In this argument knowledge is taken to mean knowledge of the finite only, a process of thought from one condition in a series to another, all of which are equally conditioning and conditioned. According to such a view, to explain and to get the notion of anything, is the same as to point out the derivation of any- thing from something else. Whatever such knowledge em- braces, consequently, is partial, dependent and finite, while the infinite, or true, i.e. God, lies outside of the mechanical con- nexion, to which knowledge is said to be confined. It is impor- tant to observe, that while Kant makes the finite nature of the Categories consist mainly in the formal circumstance that they are subjective, Jacobi is here speaking of the Categories, apart from subjectivity, in their own proper character, and pronounces them in that capacity to be naturally finite. What Jacobi chiefly had before his eyes, when he thus described science, was
63.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 105
the brilliant advance of the physical or exact sciences in the discovery of natural forces and laws. It is not on the finite ground occupied by these sciences that we can expect to meet the indwelling presence of the infinite. Lalande was right when he said he had swept the whole heaven with his glass, and seen no God. (See notes to § 60.) In the field of purely physical science, the highest attainable result is a universal, describable as the indefinite aggregation of the finite outside us, or in one word, as Matter : and Jacobi well perceived that there was no other issue obtainable in the way of a mere advance from one explanatory clause or law to another.
63-] All the while the doctrine that there is a truth for the mind was so strongly maintained by Jacobi, that Reason alone is declared to be that by which man lives. This Reason is the knowledge of God. But seeing that derivative knowledge is restricted to a finite compass of facts, Reason is knowledge underivative, or Faith.
Knowledge, Faith, Thought, Intuition are the categories that we meet with on this level of intellect. These terms, as pre- sumably familiar to every one, are too frequently subjected to an arbitrary use, under no better guidance than the conceptions and distinctions of psychology ; without any examination of their nature and notion, which is the main question after all. Thus, we often find knowledge contrasted with faith, and faith at the same time explained to be an underivative or intuitive knowledge : — so that it must be at least some sort of knowledge. And, besides, it is unquestionably a fact of experience, firstly, that what we believe is in our consciousness, — which implies that we know about it ; and secondly, that this belief is a certainty in our consciousness,— which implies that we know it, and do not merely know about it. Again, and especially, we find thought opposed to immediate knowledge and faith, and, in particular, to intuition. But if this intuition be qualified as intellectual, we must really mean the intuition of thought, unless, in a question about the nature of God, we are willing to interpret intellect to mean poetical images and conceptions
106 THIRD ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [63.
of fancy. The word faith or belief, in the peculiar dialect of this system, comes to be employed even with reference to com- mon objects that are present to the senses. We believe, says Jacobi, that we have a body, — we believe in the existence of the things of sense. But if we are speaking- of faith in the True and Eternal, and saying that God is given and revealed to us in immediate knowledge or intuition, we are concerned not with the things of sense, but with objects special to our thinking mind, with facts of inherently universal signi- ficance. And when the individual ' I,' or in other words personality, is before the mind — not the ' I ' of experience, or a single partial personality — above all, when the personality of God is before us, we are speaking of personality unalloyed, — of a personality in its own nature universal. Such personality is a thought, and falls within the province of thought only. More than this. Pure and simple intuition is completely the same as pure and simple thought. Intuition and belief are, in the first instance, used to denote the definite conceptions we attach to these words in our ordinary employment of them : and to this extent they differ from thought in certain points where the distinction is generally intelligible. But here, they are taken in a higher sense, and must be interpreted to mean a belief in God, or an intellectual intuition of God ; in short, we must put aside all that especially distinguishes thought on the one side, from belief and intuition on the other. How belief and intuition, when transferred to these higher regions, differ from thought, it is impossible for any one to say. And yet, such are the barren distinctions of words, with which men fancy that they assert an important truth: even while the formulae they maintain are identical with those which they impugn. The term faith brings with it the special advantage of reminding us of the faith of the Christian religion ; it seems to include Christian faith, or perhaps even to coincide with it; and thus the Philosophy of Faith has a thoroughly pious and Christian look, on the strength of which it takes the liberty of uttering its arbitrary dicta with greater pretensions to authority. But
64.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 107
we must not let ourselves be deceived by the semblance sur- reptitiously secured by means of a merely verbal similarity. The two things are radically distinct. Firstly, Christian faith com- prises in it a certain authority of the Church : but the faith of Jacobi's philosophy has no other authority than that of the philosopher who revealed it. And, secondly, Christian faith is objective, with a great deal of substance in the shape of a system of knowledge and doctrine : while the contents of the philosophic faith are so utterly indefinite, that, while its arms are open to receive the faith of the Christian, it equally includes a belief in the divinity of the Dalai-lama, the ox, or the monkey, thus, so far as it goes, narrowing Deity down to its simplest terms, to a Supreme Being. Faith itself, taken in the sense postulated •4qe^ig=>Jj'ij(j'.mi, is nothing but the sapless abstraction of im- mediate knowledge, — a purely formal category applicable to very different facts ; and it ought never to be confused or identified with the spiritual fulness of Christian faith, whether we look at that faith in the heart of the believer and the in- dwelling of the Holy Spirit, or in the doctrines of Christianity with all their breadth of detail.
With what is here called faith or immediate knowledge must also be identified inspiration, the heart's revelations, the truths implanted in man by nature, and, in particular, sound judgment or Common Sense, as it is called. All these forms agree in adopting as their leading principle the immediacy, or the self-evident way, in which a fact or body of truths is presented in consciousness.
64.] This immediate knowledge consists in knowing that the Infinite, the Eternal, the God of our popular conceptions, really is: or, it asserts that in our consciousness there is immediately and inseparably bound up with this conception the certainty of its actual being.
To seek to confute these utterances of immediate knowledge is the last thing philosophers would think of. They may rather find occasion for self-gratulation when these ancient doctrines, ex- pressing as they do the general tenor of philosophic teaching, do,
108 THIRD ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [64.
even in this unphilosophical fashion, become to some extent universal convictions of the age. The true marvel rather is that any one could suppose these principles were opposed to philosophy, — the maxims, I mean, that whatever is held to be true is immanent in the mind, and that there is a truth for the mind (§ 63). From a formal point of view, there is a peculiar interest in the maxim that the being of God is imme- diately and inseparably bound up with the thought of God, that objectivity is bound up with the subjectivity, which is the primd facie character of thought. Not content with that, the philosophy of immediate knowledge goes so far in its one- sided view, as to affirm that the attribute of existence, even in perception, is quite as inseparably connected with the con- ception we have of our bodies and of external things, as it is with the thought of God. Now it is the endeavour of phi- losophy to prove such a unity, to show that it lies in the very nature of thought and subjectivity, to be indissoluble from being and objectivity. In these circumstances therefore, philosophy, whatever estimate may be formed of the character of these proofs, must in any case be glad to see it shown and maintained, that its maxims are facts of consciousness, and in harmony with experience. The difference between philosophy and the asseverations of immediate knowledge rather centres in the exclusive position which immediate knowledge takes up and in its opposition to philosophy. And yet it was as a self- evident or immediate truth that the ' Cogito, ergo sum,' of Descartes, the maxim on which may be said to rest the whole burden of Modern Philosophy, was first stated by its author. The man who calls this a syllogism, must know little more about a syllogism than that the word 'Ergo' occurs in it. Where shall we look for the middle term ? And a middle term is a much more essential point of a syllogism than the word 'Ergo.' If we try to justify the name, by calling the combination of ideas in Descartes an immediate syllogism, this superfluous variety of syllogism is a mere name for a combina- tion of distinct terms of thought, while there is nothing to
65.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 109
bring them together. That being so, the connexion of being with our conceptions, as stated in the maxim of immediate knowledge, has no more and no less claim to the title of syllogism than the axiom of Descartes has. From Hotho's ' Dissertation on the Cartesian Philosophy' (published 1826), I borrow the quotation in which Descartes himself distinctly declares, that the maxim ' Cogito, ergo sum,' is no syllogism. The passages are Respons. ad II Object. : De Methodo IV : Ep. I. 1 18. From the first passage I quote the words more immediately in point. Descartes says : ( That we are thinking beings is " pritna quaedam notio quae ex nullo syllogismo conclu- ditur " ' (a certain primary notion, which is deduced from no syllogism) ; and goes on : ' neqne ciim quis elicit ; ego cogito, ergo sum sive existo, existentiam ex cogitatione per syllogismum deducitS (Nor, when one says, I think, therefore I am or exist, does he deduce existence from thought by means of a syllogism.) Descartes knew what is implied in a syllogism, and so he adds, that, in order to make the maxim admit of a deduction by syllogism, we should have to add the major premiss : ' Illucl omne quod cogitat, est sive existit? (Everything which thinks, is or exists.) Of course, he remarks, this major proposition could only be deduced from the original statement.
The language of Descartes on the maxim that the ' I ' which thinks must also at the same time 6e, his saying that this connexion is given and implied in the simple perception of con- sciousness,— that this connexion is the first principle, the most certain and evident of all things, so that no scepticism can be conceived so monstrous as not to admit it : — all this language is so vivid and distinct, that the modern statements of Jacobi and others on this immediate connexion can only pass for needless repetitions.
65.] The theory of which we are speaking is not satisfied when it has shown that mediate knowledge taken separately is an inadequate vehicle of truth. Its distinctive doctrine is that immediate knowledge alone, to the total exclusion of mediation, can possess a content which is true. This ex-
110 THIRD ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [66.
clusiveness is enough to show that the theory is a relapse into the metaphysics of Understanding-, with its pass-words 'Either — or.' And thus it sinks into the condition of using extrinsic grounds of mediation, the strength of which consists in clinging to those narrow and one-sided categories of the finite, which it falsely imagined itself to have left for ever behind. This point, however, we shall not at present discuss in detail. An exclusively immediate knowledge is asserted as a fact only, and in the present Introduction we can only study it on the surface and as it is so introduced. The real significance of such knowledge will be explained, when we come to the logical question of the opposition between mediate and immediate. But it is characteristic of the view before us to neglect the nature of the fact,, that is, the notion of it ; for, by an examination of that question, it would pave the way for mediation and even for knowledge. The genuine discussion on logical ground, therefore, must be deferred till we come to the proper province of Logic itself.
The whole of the second part of Logic, the Doctrine of Essential Being, is a discussion of the intrinsically self- affirming unity of immediacy and mediation.
66.] Beyond this point then we need not go : immediate knowledge is to be accepted as a fact. Under these cir- cumstances our study passes to the field of experience, to a psychological phenomenon. If that be so, we need only remark, that in the common course of experience, truths, which we well know to be results of complicated and highly mediated trains of thought, present themselves immediately and without effort to the mind of any man who is familiar with the subject. The mathematician, like every one who has mastered a particular science, meets any problem with ready-made solutions, which pre-suppose a very complex analysis: and every educated man has a number of general views and maxims which he can muster without trouble, but which can only have sprung from frequent reflection and long experience. The facility we attain in any sort of know-
67.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WOELD. ill
ledge, art, or technical expertness, consists in having the particular knowledge or kind of action present to our mind in any case that occurs, even we may say, immediate in our very limbs, in an energy that tends outward. In all these instances, immediacy of knowledge is so far from excluding mediation, that the two things are linked together, — immediate knowledge being actually the product and result of mediate knowledge.
It is no less obvious that immediate existence is bound up with its mediation. The seed and the parent are immediate and initial existences in respect of the children which are generated. But the seed and the parent, though they exist immediately, are nevertheless equally generated : and the child, without prejudice to the mediation of its existence, is immediate, because it is. The fact that I am in Berlin, implying my immediate presence, is mediated by my having made the journey hither.
67-] One thing may be observed with reference to the immediate knowledge of God, of abstract right, and of social morality (including under the head of immediate knowledge, what is otherwise termed Instinct, Implanted or Innate Ideas, Common Sense, Natural Reason, or whatever form, in short, we give to the original spontaneity). It is a matter of common experience that education or development is required to bring out into consciousness what is therein contained. It was so with the Platonic reminiscence ; and the Christian rite of baptism, although a sacrament, involves the additional ob- ligation of a Christian up-bringing. In short, religion and morals, however much they may contain of faith or immediate knowledge, are still on every side conditioned by the mediating process which is termed development, education, and formation of character.
The adherents, no less than the assailants, of the doctrine of Innate Ideas have been guilty throughout of the like exclusiveness and narrowness as is here noted. They have drawn a hard and fast line between the essentially immediate
112 THIRD ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [68.
or spontaneous union (as it may be described) of certain universal ideas with the soul, and another union which has to be brought about in an external fashion, and through the channel of objects and conceptions given to us. There is one objection, borrowed from experience, which is raised against the doctrine of Innate Ideas. All men, it is said, must have these ideas, such, for example, as the maxim of contradiction, present in the mind; they must know them; for this maxim and others like it were included in the class of Innate Ideas. The objection may be set down to misconception ; for the ideas or characteristics in question, though innate, need not on that account have the form of ideas or conceptions of something known. Still, the objection completely meets and overthrows the crude theory of immediate knowledge, which expressly asserts its formulae in so far as they are in con- sciousness. Another point calls for notice. We may suppose it admitted by the intuitive school, that the special case of religious faith involves supplementing by a Christian or religious education and development. In that case it is acting capriciously when it seeks to ignore this admission when speaking about faith, or it betrays a want of reflection not to know, that, if the necessity of education be once admitted, mediation is declared to be indispensable.
The reminiscence of ideas spoken of by Plato is equivalent to saying that ideas implicitly exist in man,, instead of being, as the Sophists assert, a foreign importation into his mind. But to conceive knowledge as reminiscence, does not interfere with, or set aside as useless, the development of what is implicitly in man ; — which development is another word for mediation. The same holds good of the innate ideas that we find in Descartes and the Scotch philosophers. These ideas are only potential in the first instance, and seem to have somewhat of the nature of a capacity in the mind.
68.] In the case of these experiences the appeal turns upon something that shows itself bound up with the immediate knowledge. Even if this combination be in the first instance taken as an external and empirical connexion, still the fact
69, 70.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 113
of its being- constant, shows it to be essential and inseparable, so far as empirical observation is concerned. And then, if this immediate knowledge, as exhibited in experience, be examined for its own sake, where it appears as a knowledge of God and the divine nature, the state of mind, which it implies, is generally described as an exaltation above the range of finitude, above the senses, and above the instinctive desires and affections of the natural heart : which exaltation passes over into, and terminates in, faith in God and a divine order. It is apparent, therefore, that, though faith may be an immediate knowledge and certainty, it equally implies the interposition of this process as its antecedent and condition.
It has been already observed that the so-called proofs of the being of God, which start from finite being, give an expression to this exaltation. In that light they are no inventions of an over-subtle reflection, but the necessary and native channel in which the movement of mind runs : though it may be, that, in their ordinary form, these proofs have not their correct and perfect expression.
69-] It is the passage (§ 64) from the subjective idea to being which gives its distinctive feature to the doctrine of immediate knowledge. A primary and self-evident inter- connexion is declared to exist between our idea and being. This central point of transition, taken utterly irrespective of any connexions which show in experience, clearly offers a mediation or means of communication in its own self. And the mediation is of no imperfect or unreal kind, where the mediation takes place with and through something external, but one comprehending both antecedent and conclusion.
7O.] The drift of this view, then, is that truth lies neither in the idea as a merely subjective thought, nor in mere being on its own account. Being on its own account only, a being that is not of the idea, is the sensible and finite being of the world. Now all this only affirms, without demonstration, that the idea has truth only by means of being, and being has truth only by means of the idea. The
i
114 THIRD ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [71.
maxim of immediate knowledge rejects an indefinite and empty immediacy (and such is abstract being, or the pure unity taken by itself), and affirms in its stead the unity of the idea with being. And it acts rightly in so doing. But it is stupid not to see that the unity of characteristics .which are distinct is not immediate unity only, i.e. unity empty and indeterminate, but a clear assertion of the law that truth lies in the mediation of one of the characteristics by the other; or, if the phrase be preferred, in the mediation of each with truth only by means of the other. That the quality of mediation is thus involved in the very immediacy of in- tuition is exhibited as a fact, against which understanding, conformably to the fundamental maxim of immediate know- ledge, that the evidence of consciousness is infallible, should have nothing to object. It is only ordinary abstract under- standing which takes the terms of mediation and immediacy, each by itself absolutely, imagining that they represent an in- flexible line of distinction, and which thus draws upon its own head the hopeless task of reconciling them. The difficulty, as we have shown, has no existence even in the fact, and it vanishes in the speculative notion.
71.] The one-sidedness of the intuitional school has certain characteristics attending upon it, which we shall proceed to point out in their main features, now that we have discussed the fundamental principle. The first of these corollaries is as follows. Since the criterion of truth is found, not in the character of the content, but in the fact of consciousness, all alleged truth has no other basis than subjective knowledge, and the assertion that we discover a certain fact in our consciousness. What we discover in our own consciousness is thus exaggerated into a fact of the consciousness of all, and even passed off for the very nature of the mind.
Among the so-called proofs of the existence of God, there used to stand the consensus gentium, to which, for instance, Cicero appeals. The consensus gentium possesses considerable weight ; for the transition is easy and natural from the circumstance,
7i.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 115
that a certain fact is found in the consciousness of every- one, to the conclusion that it is a necessary element in the very nature of consciousness. In this category of general agreement there was latent the deep-rooted perception, which does not escape even the least cultivated mind, that the consciousness of the individual is particular and contingent. Yet if we do not examine the nature of this consciousness, stripping it of the particular and the accidental, and by the wearisome work of reflection disclosing the universal in its entirety and purity, we can never draw from the general consent upon a given point more than a decent presumption that it is part of the very nature of consciousness. Thought insists on knowing the necessity of what is presented as a fact of general occurrence, and for that requirement the consensus gentium is certainly not sufficient. Even granting the universality of the fact to be a satisfactory proof, we could never in this way demonstrate faith in God, because there are individuals and nations without any such faith1.
1 In order to judge of the greater or less extent to which Experience shows cases of Atheism or of the belief in God, it is all-important to know if the mere general conception of deity suffices, or if a more precise knowledge of God is required. The Christian world would certainly refuse the title of God to the idols of the Hindoos and the Chinese, to the fetiches of the Africans, and even to the gods of Greece themselves. If so, a believer in these idols would not be a believer .in God. If it were contended, on the other ham), that such a belief in idols implies some sort of belief in God, as the species implies the genus, then idolatry would argue not faith in an idol merely, but faith in God. The Athenians took an opposite view. The poets and philosophers who explained Zeus to be a cloud, and maintained that there was only one God, were treated as Atheists at Athens.
The danger in these questions lies in looking at what the mind may make out of an object, and not what that object actually and explicitly is. If we fail to note this distinction, the commonest perceptions of men's senses will be religion : for every such perception, and indeed every act of mind, implicitly contains the principle which, when it is purified and developed, rises to religion. But the capability of religion is one thing and the possession of religion another. And religion yet implicit is only a capacity or a possibility.
Thus in modern times, travellers have found tribes (as Captains Ross and Parry found the Esquimaux) which, as they tell us, have not even that small modicum of religion possessed by African sorcerers, the goetes of Herodotus. On the other hand, an Englishman, who spent the first months of the last Jubilee at
I 2
116 THIRD ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [72, 73.
But there can be nothing shorter and more convenient than to have the bare statement to make, that we discover a fact in our consciousness, and are certain that it is true : and to declare that this certainty, instead of inhering in our particular mental constitution only, belongs to the very nature of the mind.
72.] Since immediate knowledge is declared to be the criterion of truth, it follows, secondly, that all superstition or idolatry is expounded to be truth, and that an apology is prepared for any contents of the will, however unjust and immoral. It is because he believes in them, and not from the reasoning and syllogism of what is termed mediate know- ledge, that the Indian finds God in the cow, the monkey, the Brahmin, or the Lama. But natural desires and affections spontaneously carry and deposit their interests in consciousness, where also immoral purposes make themselves naturally at home : good or bad character could only express the definite being of the will, which would be known, and that most immediately, in the main objects and purposes of the man.
73 •] Thirdly and lastly, the immediate knowledge of God goes no further than to tell us that He is : to tell us what He is, would be an act of knowledge, involving mediation. So that God as an object of religion is expressly narrowed down to that undefined super-sensible, God in general : and the significance of religion is reduced to a minimum.
If it were really needful to win back and secure the bare belief that there is a God, or even to create it, we might well wonder at the poverty of the age, which can see a gain in the merest pittance of religious knowledge, and which in its church has sunk so low as to worship at the altar that stood in Athens long ago, dedicated to the ' Unknown God.3
Rome, says, in his account of the modern Romans, that the common people are bigots, whilst those who can read and write are one mass of atheists.
The charge of Atheism is seldom heard in modern times : principally because the facts and the requirements of religion are reduced to a minimum. (See § 73.)
74-] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 117
74-] We have still to make a brief statement on the general nature of the form of immediacy. For it is the essential narrowness and imperfection of the category, which makes whatever comes under it narrow and, for that reason, finite. And, firstly, it makes the universal no better than an ab- straction external to the particulars, and God a being without determinate quality. But God can only be called a spirit when He is known to be at once the beginning and end, as well as the mean, in the process of mediation. Without this unification of elements He is neither concrete, nor living, nor a spirit. Thus the knowledge of God as a spirit necessarily implies mediation. Secondly, when applied to the particular, the form of immediacy tells us that the particular has being, and stands in connexion with itself. But such predicates contradict the very essence of the particular, in virtue of which it refers to something else outside. They make the finite seem an absolute. But, besides, the form of immediacy is altogether abstract. It has no preference for one set of contents more than another, but is equally susceptible of all: it may as well sanction what is idolatrous and immoral as the reverse. It is only when we come to see that the content is not self-existent, but derivative from something else, that its finitude and untruth are shown in their proper light. Such a perception, where the content is itself accompanied by a recognition of its dependent nature, is a knowledge which involves mediation. The only content which can be held to be the truth, is one not mediated with something else, not limited by other things: or, otherwise expressed, it is one mediated by itself, where mediation and immediate reference- to-self coincide. The understanding that fancies itself freed from the bondage of finite knowledge (beyond the identity of the analytical metaphysicians and the 'Encyclopaedists)' turns back to seek its principle and criterion of truth in immediacy, which is an abstract reference-to-self and the same as abstract identity. Abstract thought (the form used by the metaphysic that plays round its object) and abstract
118 THIRD ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [75, 76.
intuition (the form used by immediate knowledge) are one and the same.
The stereotyped opposition between the form of immediacy and that of mediation gives to the former a halfness and inadequacy, that affects every content which is brought under it. Immediacy means, upon the whole, an abstract reference- to-self, that is, an abstract identity or abstract universality. Accordingly the universal, in its absoluteness, when taken as if it were only immediate, is a mere abstract universal ; and from this point of view God is conceived as a being altogether without determinate quality. To call God a spirit on this hypothesis is only a phrase : for the consciousness and self- consciousness, which a spirit implies, are impossible without a distinguishing of it from itself and from something else, i. e. without a mediation.
75-] It was impossible for us to criticise this, the third attitude, which thought has been supposed to take towards objective truth, in any other direction than what is immediately stated and recognised in the doctrine itself. The theory asserts that immediate knowledge is a fact. It has been shown to be untrue in fact to say that there is an immediate knowledge, a knowledge without mediation either by means of something else or in itself. It has also been explained to be false in fact to say that thought advances through finite and conditioned categories only, which are always mediated by a something else, and to forget that in the very act of mediation, the mediation itself vanishes. And to show that, in point of fact, there is a knowledge, which advances neither by unmixed immediacy nor by unmixed mediation, we can point to the example of Logic and the whole of philosophy.
76-] If we view the maxims of immediate knowledge in connexion with the dogmatic metaphysic of the past from which we started, we shall learn from the comparison the reactionary nature of the school of Jacobi. His doctrine is a return to the modern starting-point of this metaphysic in the Cartesian philosophy. Both Jacobi and Descartes maintain the following three points :
76.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 119
(1) The simple inseparability of the thought and being of the thinker. 'Cogito, ergo sum,' is the same doctrine as that the being, reality, and existence of the 'Ego' is immediately revealed to me in consciousness. (Descartes, in fact, is careful to state that by thought he means consciousness in general. Princip. Phil. I. 9.) This inseparability is the absolutely first and most certain knowledge, not mediated or demonstrated.
(2) The inseparability of existence from the conception of God : the former is necessarily implied in the latter, or the conception never can be without the attribute of existence, which is thus necessary and eternal l.
(3) The immediate consciousness of the existence of ex- ternal things. Nothing move is meant than the consciousness of sense. To have such a thing is the slightest of all cog- nitions; and the only thing worth knowing about it, is that such immediate consciousness is an error and a delusion, the
1 Descartes, Princip. Phil. I. 15 : Magis hoc (ens summe perfectum existere) credet, si attendat, nullius alterius rei ideam apud se inreniri, in qua eodem modo necessarian, exwtentiam contineri animadvertat ; — intelliget illam ideam exhibere veram et immutabilem naturam, quaeque non potest non existere, cum necessaria existentia in ea contineatur. (The reader will be more disposed to believe that there exists a being supremely perfect, if he notes that in the case of nothing else is there found in him an idea, in which he notices necessary existence to be contained in the same way. He will see that that idea exhibits a true and unchangeable nature, — a nature which cannot but exist, since necessary existence is contained in it.) A remark which immediately follows, and which sounds like mediation or demonstration, does not really affect the original principle.
In Spinoza we come upon the same statement that the essence or abstract conception of God implies existence. The first of Spinoza's definitions, that of the Causa Sui (or Self-Cause), explains it to be cujus essentia involvit existen- tiam, sive id, cujus natura non potest concipi nisi existens (that of which the essence involves existence, or that whose nature cannot be conceived except as existing). The inseparability of the notion from being is the main point and fundamental hypothesis in his system. But what notion is thus inseparable from being ? Not the notion of finite things, for they are so constituted as to have a contingent and a created existence. Spinoza's nth proposition, which follows with a proof that God exists necessarily, and his 2oth, showing that God's existence and his essence are one and the same, are really superfluous, and the proof is more in form than in reality. To say, that God is Substance, the only Substance ; and that, as Substance is Causa Sui, God therefore exists necessarily, is merely stating that God is that of which the notion and the being are inseparable.
120 THIRD ATTITUDE OF THOUGHT [77, 78.
sensible world being- altogether void of truth : that the being of these external things is accidental and passes away as a show ; and that they are characterised by having an existence which is separable from their essence and notion.
77-] There is however a distinction between the two points of view:
(1) The Cartesian philosophy, from these unproved postulates, which it assumes to be unprovable, proceeds to wider and wider details of knowledge, and thus gives rise to the sciences of modern times. The modern theory (of Jacobi), on the contrary, arrives (§ 62) at the result (which is valuable on its own account) that knowledge, if it proceeds by finite mediations, can know only the finite, and never embody the truth ; while in our consciousness of God it bids us go no further than the aforesaid very abstract belief that God is }.
(2) The modern doctrine on the one hand makes no change in the Cartesian method of the usual scientific knowledge, and conducts on the same plan the experimental and finite sciences that have sprung from it. But, on the other hand, when it comes to the science which has infinity for its scope, it throws aside that method, and thus, as it knows no other, it rejects all methods. It abandons itself to the control of a wild, capricious and fantastic dogmatism, to a moral prig- gishness and pride of feeling, or to an excessive opining and reasoning which is loudest against philosophy and philosophic themes. Philosophy of course tolerates no mere assertions, or conceits, or arbitrary fluctuations of inference to and fro.
78.] We must at once reject the opposition between an independent immediacy in the contents, or in the knowledge of them, and an equally independent mediation, incompatible
1 Anselm on the contrary says : Negligentiae mihi videtur, si postquam conftrmati sumus in Jlde, non studemus, quod credimus, intelligere. (Methinks it is carelessness, if, after we have been confirmed in the faith, we do not exert ourselves to see the meaning of what we believe.) [Tractat. Cur Deus Homo ?] These words of Anselm, in connexion with the varied unity of Christian doctrine, offer a far harder problem for investigation, than is in the view of the modern theory of faith or intuition .
78.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 121
with the former. The antithesis is a mere dictum, or- as- sertion assumed in virtue of our own pleasure. All other assumptions and postulates must in like manner be left behind at the entrance to philosophy, whether they spring from conception or thought. For philosophy is the science, in which all terms or formulae of that kind must first be scrutinised and the meaning of them and of their oppositions be ascertained. Scepticism, being a negative science running through all forms of knowledge, might seem a suitable introduction for pointing out the nullity of such assumptions. But a sceptical introduction would be an ungrateful and therefore a useless course ; for Dialectic, as we shall soon make appear, forms an essential element of affirmative science. Scepticism, besides, could only find the finite forms as they were suggested by experience, taking them as given, instead of arriving at them scientifically. To require such a thorough-going scepticism, is the same as to insist on science being preceded by universal doubt, or a total absence of axiom and postulate. But there is no necessity for such utter doubt. In the resolve to think purely we have all we require : for we have freedom ; and freedom, letting everything else slip away, grasps its pure abstraction, the simplicity of thought.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PROXIMATE NOTION OF LOGIC WITH ITS SUB-DIVISIONS.
79-] IN point of form Logical doctrine has three stages or aspects : (a) the Abstract stage, or that of the Understanding : (/3) the Dialectical, or that of negative reason : (y) the Specula- tive, or that of positive reason.
This threefold aspect does not mean that there are three parts of logic, but three stages or factors in every logical reality, that is, of every notion and truth whatever. They may all be put under the first stage, that of Understanding, and so kept isolated from each other ; but this would give an in- adequate conception of them. The statement of the dividing lines and the characteristic qualities of logic is at this point no more than a historical anticipation.
80.] (a) Thought, as Understanding, lives in a world where every term or product of thought preserves a stereotyped distinction from every other. Each of these limited abstrac- tions the Understanding believes to be and exist on its own account.
In our ordinary usage of the term thought, and even notion, we often have before our eyes nothing more than the operations of Understanding. And no doubt thought is primarily an exercise of the Understanding: — only it goes farther, and the notion is a term not limited to the Understanding merely. — The action of the Understanding may be described as investing its subject-matter with the form of universality. But this universality is an abstract universal : that is to say, its opposi-
THE PROXIMATE NOTION OF LOGIC. 123
tion to the particular is so rigorously maintained, that it can scarcely be defined in other terms than as a particular itself. In this separating and abstracting attitude towards its objects the Understanding is the reverse of immediate perception and sensation, which, as such, never get beyond their native sphere of action in the concrete.
It is by referring to this opposition of Understanding to sensation or feeling, that we must explain the frequent attacks made upon thought for being hard and narrow, and for leading, if consistently developed, to ruinous and pernicious results. The answer to these charges, in so far as they are warranted by their facts, is, that they do not touch thinking in general, certainly not the thinking of Reason, but only the exercise of the Understanding. It must be added however, that the merit and rights of the mere Understanding should unhesitatingly be admitted. And that merit lies in the fact, that apart from Understanding there is no fixity or accuracy to be found in the region either of theory or of practice. Let us first consider theory, or knowledge. All knowledge begins with the ap- prehension of existing objects in their specific differences. In the study of nature, for example, we distinguish the several matters, forces, genera and the like, and separately appreciate and formulate each. Thought is here acting in its analytic capacity, where its canon is identity, a simple reference of each attribute to itself. It is under the conditions of the same identity that the process in knowledge is effected from one scientific truth to another. Thus, for example, in mathematics magnitude is the principle of identification which guides us, to the exclusion of every other. Hence in geometry we compare one figure with another, by giving prominence to their identity. Similarly in other fields of knowledge, such as jurisprudence, the advance is primarily regulated by identity. In it we argue from one specific law or direction to another: and what is this but to proceed in virtue of the principle of identity?
But Understanding is as indispensable in practice as it is in theory. The essential ground of all conduct is character, and a man of character is an understanding man, who in that capacity has definite ends in view, which he undeviatingly pursues. The man who will do some great thing must learn, as Goethe says, to limit himself. The man who, on the con- trary, would do everything, really would do nothing, and comes to nothing. There is a host of interesting things in the world : Spanish poetry, chemistry, politics, and music are all very inter- esting, and if any one takes an interest in them we need not resent it. But for a person in a given situation to accomplish anything, he must stick to one definite point, and not dissipate
124 THE PROXIMATE NOTION OF LOGIC [80.
his forces in too many directions. In every calling the great thing is to pursue it with Understanding. Thus the judge must stick to the law, and give his verdict in accordance with it, undeterred by one motive or another, and allowing no extenu- ating circumstance to divert him from a straightforward view. Understanding, too, is always an element in thorough culture. A man of culture is not satisfied with cloudy and indefinite ideas, but grasps the objects in their determinate form : whereas the uncultivated man vacillates in his views, so that it often involves a deal of trouble to come to an understanding with him on the matter under discussion, and to bring him to fix his eye on the definite point in question.
It has been already explained that Logic in general, far from being a purely subjective action in our minds, is rather the thorough universal, which as such is objective in the world. This doctrine is illustrated in the case of Understanding, the first form of logical truths. Understanding may be termed the counterpart of what we call the goodness of God, so far as that means that finite things are and subsist. In nature, for ex- ample, we recognise the goodness of God in the fact that the various classes or species of animals and plants are provided with whatever is necessary for their preservation and welfare. Nor is man excepted, who both as an individual and as a nation, possesses in the given circumstances of climate, of the consti- tution and products of the soil in which he is born, and in his natural parts or talent, all that is required for his maintenance and development. Under this shape Understanding is visible in every region of the world around us, and no object of that world can ever be wholly perfect which does not give full satis- faction to the canons of Understanding. A state, for example, is imperfect, so long as it has not instituted a clear distinction of orders and callings, and so long as those functions of politics and government, which are distinguished in thought, have not evolved for themselves special organs, in the same way as we see, for example, the full-grown animal organism provided with its separate organs for the functions of sensation, motion, and digestion.
The previous course of the discussion may serve to show, that Understanding is indispensable even in those spheres and regions of actuality which the popular fancy would deem furthest from it, and that in proportion as Understanding is absent from an object, that object is imperfect. This particularly holds good of Art, Religion, and Philosophy. In the theory of Art, for exam- ple, Understanding is visible where the forms of beauty, which have -an appreciable diiference in their notion, are distinctly defined and clearly presented. The same may be said of single
8 1.] WITH ITS SUB-DIVISIONS. 125
works of art. It is part of the beauty and perfection of a dramatic poem that the several characters should be clearly and distinctly brought out, and that the different aims and interests in question should be plainly and decidedly exhibited. Or again, we may look at the province of Religion. The supe- riority of Greek over Northern mythology (apart from other differences of subject-matter, and the manner in which it is conceived) mainly consists in this : that in the former the individual gods are fashioned into forms of sculpture-like dis- tinctness of outline, while in the latter the figures float vaguely and hazily into one another. Lastly comes the case of Philo- sophy. That philosophy never can get on without the Under- standing hardly calls for special remark after what has been said. Its foremost requirement is that every thought shall be accurately and precisely apprehended, and no acquiescence in vague and indefinite notions permitted.
It is usually added that Understanding must not go too far. Which is so far correct, that Understanding is not the last word, but finite, and so constituted that when carried to extremes it veers round to its opposite. It is the fashion of youth to dash about in abstractions : but the man who has learnt to know life steers clear of the abstract ' either — or,' and adheres to the concrete.
/ 81,] (/3) In the Dialectical stage these finite categories or formulae of thought work their own dissolution, and pass over into the opposite categories.
(1) But when Dialectic, instead of forming an integral part in thought, is taken by the Understanding as a separate and independent act, and especially when its operation is exhibited in the notions of science, Dialectic becomes Scepticism, and the result which then ensues from its action is a mere negation.
(2) It is customary to treat Dialectic as an outer or adven- titious art, which for very wantonness introduces confusion and a mere semblance of contradiction into definite notions. And in that light, the semblance is the nonentity, while the true reality is supposed to belong to the original notions of the Understanding. Often, too, Dialectic is nothing more than a subjective see-saw of arguments pro and con, where the ab- sence of sterling thought is disguised by the subtlety which gives birth to such arguments. But in its true and proper
126 THE PROXIMATE NOTION OF LOGIC [81.
character, Dialectic is the very nature and essence of the cate- gories (formulated by the understanding-) of things, and of the finite as a whole. Dialectic is different from Reflection. In the first instance, Reflection does no more than go out beyond the isolated formula and give it a certain bearing ; by which it is made to enter into a relation, without however in other respects ceasing to be valid in its isolated form. But by Dialectic is meant an indwelling tendency outwards and beyond ; by which the one-sidedness and limitation of the formulae of undertanding is seen in its true light, and shown to be the negation of these formulae. Things are finite, just because they involve their own dissolution. Thus understood, Dialectic is discovered to be the life and soul of scientific progress, the dynamic which alone gives an immanent connexion and necessity to the subject- matter of science ; and, in a word, is seen to constitute the real and true, as opposed to the external, exaltation above the finite.
(1) It is of the highest importance to apprehend and understand rightly the nature of Dialectic. Wherever there is movement, wherever there is life, wherever anything is carried into effect in the actual world, there Dialectic is at work. It is also the soul of all knowledge which is truly scientific. In the popular way of looking at things, the refusal to abide by any one ab- stract form of the understanding is reckoned mere equity. As the proverb has it, Live and let live. Each must have its turn ; we admit the one, but we admit the other also. But when we look more closely, we find that the limitations of the finite do not merely come from without ; that its own nature is the cause of its abrogation, and that by its own means it passes into its counterpart. We say, for instance, that man is mortal, and seem to think that the ground of his death is in external circumstances only ; so that if this way of looking were correct, man would have two special properties, vitality and mortality. But the true view of the matter is, that life, as life, involves the germ of death, and that the finite, being at war within itself, causes its own dissolution.
Of course Dialectic is not to be confounded with mere Sophis- try. The essence of Sophistry lies in attaching an exaggerated and independent value to partial and abstract principles in their isolation, such as may suit the interest and particular situation
8 1.] WITH ITS SUB-DIVISIONS. 127
of the individual at the time. For example, the consideration that I exist and have the means of existence, is an indispensable condition as bearing upon conduct ; but when I exclusively adopt this consideration, or motive of my welfare, and draw the conclusion that I may steal, or betray my country, we have a case of Sophistry. Similarly it is an important principle in conduct that I should be subjectively free, that is to say, that I should have an insight into what I am doing-, and a conviction that it is right. But if I argue from this motive alone I fall into Sophistry, such as would overthrow all the principles of morality. From this sort of reasoning Dialectic is wholly dif- ferent ; its purpose is to observe things by themselves and on their own account, and thus to demonstrate the fmitude of the partial categories of the understanding.
Dialectic, it may be added, is no novelty in philosophy. Among the ancients Plato is termed the inventor of Dialectic, and his right to the name rests on the fact, that the Platonic philosophy first gave the free scientific, and thus at the same time the objective, form to Dialectic. Socrates, as we should expect from the general character of his philosophising, has the Dialectical element, for the most part, in the subjective shape of Irony. He used to turn his Dialectic, first against the common modes of conception, and then especially against the Sophists. In his conversations he used to simulate the wish for some clearer knowledge about the subject under discussion, and after putting- all sorts of questions with that intent, he drew on those with whom he conversed to the opposite of what their first thoughts had pronounced correct. If, for instance, the Sophists claimed to be teachers, Socrates by a series of questions forced_the Sophist Protagoras to confess that all learning is only recollection. In his more strictly scientific dialogues Plato employs the Dialec- tical method to show the finitude of all the rigid demarcations of thought made by the understanding. Thus in the Parme- nides he deduces the many from the one, and shows nevertheless that the many cannot but define itself as the one. In this lofty style did Plato treat Dialectic. In modern times it was (more than any other) Kant who resuscitated the name of Dialectic, and restored it to its post of honour. He did it, as we have seen (§ 48), by working out the Antinomies of the reason. The real object of these Antinomies consists not in the mere sub- jective action, the oscillation between one set of grounds and another, but in showing that every abstract form of the under- standing, taken precisely as it is given, naturally veers round into its opposite.
However reluctant the Understanding may be to admit the action of Dialectic, we must not suppose that the recognition of
128 THE PROXIMATE NOTION OF LOGIC [81.
its existence is peculiarly confined to the philosophic intellect. It would be truer to say that Dialectic gives expression to a law which is felt in all other grades of consciousness, and in general experience. Everything that surrounds us may be viewed as an instance of Dialectic. We are aware that everything finite, instead of being inflexible and ultimate, is rather changeable and transient ; and this is exactly what we mean by that Dia- lectic of the finite, by which the finite, as implicitly other than what it is, is forced to surrender its own immediate or natural being, and to turn suddenly into its opposite. We have before this (§ 80) identified the Understanding with what is implied in the conception of the goodness of God ; we may now remark of Dialectic, in the same objective signification, that its principle answers to the conception of his power. All things, we say, that is, thejinite world as such, meet their doom ; and in saying so, we have a perception that Dialectic is the universal and irre- sistible power, before which nothing can stay, however secure and stable it may deem itself. The category of power does not it is true exhaust the depth of the divine nature or the notion of God ; but it certainly forms a vital element in all religious consciousness.
Apart from this general objectivity of Dialectic, we find traces of its presence in each of the particular regions and formations of the natural and the spiritual world. Take as an illustration the motion of the heavenly bodies. At this moment the planet stands in this spot, but implicitly it is the possibility of being in another spot ; and that possibility of being otherwise the planet brings into existence by moving. Similarly the physical ele- ments prove to be Dialectical. The process of meteorological action is the appearance of their Dialectic. It is the same dynamic that lies at the root of every other natural process, and, as it were, forces nature out of itself. To illustrate the presence of Dialectic in the spiritual world, especially in the provinces of law and morality, we have only to recollect how general experience shows us the excess of one state or action suddenly shifting into its opposite : a Dialectic which is recog- nised in many ways in common proverbs. Thus summum jus summa injuria : which means, that to drive an abstract right to extremity is to commit injustice. In political life, as every one knows, extreme anarchy and extreme despotism naturally lead to one another. The perception of Dialectic in the province of the Ethics of the individual, is seen in the well-known adages, Pride comes before a fall : Too much wit out-wits itself. Even feeling, bodily as well as mental, has its Dialectic. Every one knows how the extremes of pain and pleasure pass into each other : the heart overflowing with joy seeks relief in tears, and
82.] WITH ITS SUB-DIVISIONS. 129
the deepest melancholy will at times betray its presence by a smile.
(2) Scepticism ought never to be esteemed a mere doctrine of doubt. It would be more correct to say that the Sceptic has no doubt of his point, which is the nothing-ness of all finite exist- ence. He who only doubts still clings to the hope that his doubt may be resolved, and that one or other of the definite views, between which he wavers, will turn out a settled truth. Scepticism properly so called is a very different thing1: it is complete hopelessness about all which the understanding counts stable, and the feeling to which it gives birth is one of unbroken calmness and inward repose. Such at least is the noble Scepti- cism of antiquity, especially as exhibited in the writings of Sextus Empiricus, when in the later times of Rome it had received the finishing touch as a complement to the dogmatic systems of Stoic and Epicurean. Of far other stamp, and to be strictly distinguished from it, is the modern Scepticism already mentioned (§ 39), which partly preceded the Critical Philosophy, and partly sprung out of it. That later Scepticism had only one motive — to deny the truth and certitude of the super-sensible, and to uphold the facts of sense and of imme- diate sensation as what we had to rely upon.
Even to this day Scepticism is often spoken of as the irresistible enemy of all positive knowledge, and hence of philosophy, in so far as it deals with positive knowledge. But in these statements there is a misconception. It is only the finite thought of the abstract understanding which has to fear Scepticism, because unable to withstand it : philosophy includes the sceptical prin- ciple as a subordinate function of its own, in the shape of Dialectic. In contradistinction to mere Scepticism, however, pKflosophy does not remain content with the purely negative result of Dialectic. The sceptic mistakes the true value of his result, when he supposes it to be no more than a negation pure and simple. For Dialectic, having the negative for its result, has a result which is at the same time positive, for the reason that it contains what it results from, absorbed into itself, and made part of its own nature. Thus conceived, however, the dialectical stage has presented us with the features characterising the third grade of logical truth, the speculative form, or form of positive reason,
82. (y) The Speculative stage, or stage of Positive Reason, apprehends the unity of the categories in their opposition. It marks or seizes the affirmation, which is latent in their disin- tegration and transition-state.
K
130 THE PROXIMATE NOTION OF LOGIC [82.
(1) The result of Dialectic is positive, because its own content was specific, or because its result, instead of being- an empty and abstract nothing-, is rather the negation of certain specific terms: which terms are contained in the result, for the very reason that it is a result and not an immediate nothing. (2) It follows from this that the rational stage, though it be an abstraction of thought, is still concrete, being not a plain formal unity, but a unity of distinct terms of thought. Bare abstractions, and thoughts which only give a form, are therefore quite foreign to the business of philosophy, which has to deal only with concrete thoughts. (3) The mere logic of Under- standing is involved in Speculative logic, and can at will be elicited from it, by the simple process of omitting the dialectical and rational element. When that is done, there is left the matter of the common logic, a resume of variously compiled principles of thought, which, finite though they are, are taken to be something infinite.
If we consider only what it contains, and not how it contains it, rational truth, so far from being peculiar to philosophy, is really recognised by every one on whatever grade of culture or mental growth he may stand ; which would justify man's ancient title of rational being. The general mode by which experience first makes us acquainted with the principle of reason is, in the first instance, that by accepted and unreasoned belief; and the character of rational truth, as already noted, is to be uncon- ditioned, and thus to have form and speciality to itself. In this sense man above all things becomes acquainted with reason, when he knows about God, and knows him to be the completely self-determined One. Similarly, the perception which a citizen has of his country and its laws, is a perception of rational content, so long as he holds them to be unconditioned and likewise universal powers, to which he must subject his indi- vidual will. And in the same sense, the knowledge and will of the child is rational, when he knows the will of his parents and is willing to do it.
Further, speculative is just another word for rational — that is, positively rational ; but implies in addition that we think the rational thing. The expression ' Speculation ' in common life is often used with a very vague and at the same time secondary sense, as when we speak of a matrimonial or a commercial speculation. By this we mean two things : first, tbat what is
82.] WITH ITS SUB-DIVISIONS. 131
immediately at hand has to be passed and left behind; and secondly, that the subject-matter of such speculations, though in the first place only subjective, must be realised or translated into objectivity.
What was sometime ago remarked respecting the Idea, may be applied to this common usage of the term speculation : and, we may add, that people who rank themselves amongst the educated, speak of speculation as if it were something purely subjective. A certain theory of natural or mental states and relations for example, may be, say these people, very nice and correct as a matter of speculation, but it contradicts experience and cannot be admitted in the actual world. To this the answer is, that the speculative is neither in its preliminary nor in its final sense merely subjective : that, on the contrary, it expressly rises above and absorbs such oppositions, as that between sub- jective and objective, which the understanding cannot master ; and that in this manner its own concrete and all-embracing nature is made obvious. A one-sided proposition therefore can never give utterance to a speculative truth. If we say, for example, that the absolute is the unity of subjective and objective, we are undoubtedly in the right, but so far one-sided as we enunciate the unity only and lay the accent upon it, forgetting that in reality the subjective and objective are not merely identical but distinct.
Speculation, it may also be noted, means very much the same as what, in special connexion with religious consciousness and religious truth, used to be called Mysticism. The term mysticism is at present used to designate what is mysterious and incom- prehensible : and in proportion as their general culture and way of thinking vary, the epithet is applied by one class to denote the real and the true, by another to name all species of super- stition and illusion. On which we first of all remark that there is mystery in the mystical, only however for the understanding, which is ruled by the principle of abstract identity. But the mystical, as synonymous with the speculative, is the concrete unity of those terms of thought, which the understanding only accepts in their separation and opposition. And if those who find in mysticism the source of every truth, understand by mysticism neither more nor less than utter mystery, their conduct only proves that for them too, as well as for their antagonists, thinking means abstract identification, and that in their opinion, therefore, truth can only be won by renouncing thought, or, as it is frequently expressed, by leading the reason captive. But, as we have seen, the abstract thinking of the understanding is so far from being either ultimate or stable, that it has evidently a perpetual tendency to work its own dissolution and swing
K 2
132 TEE PROXIMATE NOTION OF LOGIC.
round into its opposite. Rational thinking1, on the contrary, is secured by making these opposites enter as unsubstantial elements into itself. Thus reason is altogether a mystical ground, not because thought cannot both reach and comprehend it, but merely because it goes beyond the compass of the understanding.
83.] Logic is sub-divided into three parts : —
I. The Doctrine of Being :
II. The Doctrine of Essence :
III. The Doctrine of Notion and Idea. That is, into the Theory of Thought :
I. In its immediacy : the notion implicit, and as it were in germ.
II. In its reflection and mediation : the being-for-self and show of the notion.
III. In its return into itself, and its being all to itself: the notion in and for itself.
The division of Logic now given, as well as the whole of the previous discussion on the nature of thought, is anticipatory : and the justification, or proof of it, must follow from the completed discussion of thought itself. For in philosophy, to prove means to show how the subject by and from itself makes itself what it is. The relation in which these three leading grades of thought, or of the logical Idea, stand to each other must be conceived as follows. Truth comes with the notion : or, more precisely, the notion is the truth of being and essence, both of which when separately maintained in their isolation, cannot but be untrue, the former because it is exclusively immediate, and the latter because it is exclusively mediate. Why then, it may be asked, begin with the false and not at once with the true? To which we answer that truth, to deserve the name, must authenticate or verify its own truth : which verification, here within the sphere of logic, is given, when the notion demonstrates itself to be what is mediated by and with itself, and thus at the same time to be truly immediate. This relation between the three stages of the logical Idea appears in a more real and concrete shape thus : God, who is the truth, is known by us in his truth, that is, as the absolute mind, only in so far as we at the same time recog- nise that the world which He created in nature and the finite mind, whenever they are separated from him, is untrue.
CHAPTER VII. FIRST SUB-DIVISION OF LOGIC.
THE DOCTRINE OP BEING.
84.] BEING is the notion, implicit only: the special types of it are said 'to be'; when they are distinguished they are each of them an 'other': and when dialectic appears in them, i. e. when they are further specialised, it means that they pass over into another. This further determination, or specialisation, means two things : it is an exposition, and in that way a disengaging of the notion implicit in Being ; and at the same time it shows us Being withdrawing inwards and sinking deeper into itself. Thus the explication of the notion in the sphere of Being does two things : it gives the totality of Being, and it abolishes the immediacy of Being, or the form of Being as such.
85.] Being itself and the special types of it which follow, as well as those of logic in general, may be looked upon as definitions of the Absolute, or metaphysical definitions of God : at least the first and third typical form in every triad may, — the first, where the notion of the triad is simply formulated or without detail, and the third, being the return from differen- tiation to a simple self-reference. For a metaphysical definition of God is the expression of his nature in thoughts as such: and logic embraces all thoughts so long as they continue in
134 TEE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [85.
the form of thoughts. The second sub-category in each triad, where this grade of thought is in its differentiation, gives, on the other hand, a definition of the finite. The objection to the form of definition is that it implies a sub-stratum of material thought floating before one's mind. Thus even the Absolute is intended and ought to express God in the style and character of thought. Compared however with its pre- dicate (which really and distinctly expresses in thought what the subject does not), the Absolute continues to be merely an intended thought, a substratum which has no explicit cha- racteristics of its own. The thought, which is in our case the matter of sole importance, is only contained in the predicate : and hence the prepositional form, like the subject, viz. the Absolute, is reduced to a meaningless phrase (§31, and below, on the Judgment.)
Every sphere of the logical idea proves to be a complete group of characteristics, and may serve to represent the Abso- lute. This is the case with Being, containing the three grades of quality, quantity, and measure. Quality is, in the first place, the character identical with being : thus a thing ceases to be what it is, if it loses its quality. Quantity, again, is the character external to being, and does not affect the being at all. Thus e.g. a house remains what it is, whether it be greater or smaller ; and red remains red, whether it be brighter or darker. The third grade of Being, Measure, which is the unity of the first two, is a qualitative quantity. All things have their measure : i. e. they are quantitatively characterised, nor does their being so and so great make any matter, at least within certain limits ; though when these limits are ex- ceeded by an additional more or less, the things cease to be what they were. From measure follows the advance to the second sub-division of the idea, Essence.
The three forms of being here mentioned, just because they are the first, have also least in them, i. e. they are the most abstract. The immediate consciousness of the senses, in so far as it simultaneously adopts an attitude of thought, is espe- cially restricted to the abstract characteristics of quality and quantity. This sensuous consciousness is in ordinary estimation the richest and most concrete form of mental action ; but that is only true in point of matter, whereas, in reference to the thought it contains, it is really the poorest and most abstract.
86.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 135
A. — QUALITY.
(a) Being.
86.] Mere Being makes the beginning : because it is mere thought, and because it is immediacy itself without difference and without any characteristics : for it is impossible that the first beginning can be mediated by anything else, or be more clearly specialised.
All the doubts and the admonitions, which might be evoked against beginning the science with the empty abstraction of being, will disappear, if we only perceive what a beginning naturally implies. Being may be denned as 1 = 1, as Absolute Indifference, or Identity, and so on. And as it is felt to be necessary to begin either with what is absolutely certain, i.e. the certainty of oneself, or with a definition or intuition of the absolute truth, these and other forms of the kind may be taken to represent a necessary first. But these forms all con- tain a mediation, and hence cannot be the real first : for all mediation implies that an advance has been made from a first on to a second, and suggests dependence from some other point. If 1 = 1, or even the intellectual intuition are really taken to mean no more than a first point, they are the same, considered in their mere immediacy, as Being: while conversely, Being, if abstract no longer, but including a mediation in it, is pure thought or intuition.
If we enunciate Being as a predicate of the Absolute, we get the first definition of the latter. The Absolute is Being. So far as thought goes, this is the initial definition, the most abstract and sterile. It is the definition given by the Eleatics, and means the same as the well-known definition of God as the sum of all realities. That is to say, it means that we are to make abstraction of that limitation which attaches to every reality, so that God is the very reality in reality, the super- latively real. Or, if we throw aside reality, as implying a reflection, we get a more immediate or unreflected statement
136 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [86.
of the same thing-, when Jacobi says, that the God of Spinoza is the principium of being in all that there is.
(1) When we begin to think, we have nothing but thought in its merest indeterminateness and absence of specialisation : for we cannot specialise unless there is both one and another ; and in the beginning there is yet no other. The indeterminate, as we have it, is a primary and underived absence of characteristics ; not the annihilation or elimination of all character, but the original and underived indeterminateness, which is previous to all definite character and is the very first of all. And this is what we call Being. It is not something felt, or perceived by spiritual sense, or pictured in imagination : it is only and merely thought, and as such it forms the beginning. Essence, the substratum of Being, also is indeterminate and without any definite character, but in another sense : a process of me- diation has been traversed, and the characteristic has been absorbed and reduced into it.
(2) In the history of philosophy the different stages of the logical Idea assume the shape of successive systems, each of which is based on a particular definition of the Absolute. As the logical Idea is seen to unfold itself in a process from the abstract to the concrete, so in the history of philosophy the earliest systems are the most abstract, and thus at the same time have least in them. The relation too of the earlier to the later systems of philosophy is much like the relation of the earlier to the later stages of the logical Idea : in other words, the former are preserved in the latter, but in a sub- ordinate and functional position. This is the true meaning of a much misunderstood phenomenon in the history of philo- sophy— the refutation of one system by another, of an earlier by a later. Most commonly the refutation is understood in a purely negative sense, and interpreted to mean that the system refuted no longer holds its ground, but is set aside and ren- dered for ever obsolete. Were it so, the history of philosophy would be of all studies most saddening, when it displayed to us the refutation of every system which time has brought forth. Now, although it may be upon the whole admitted that every philosophy has been refuted, it must be in an equal degree maintained, that no philosophy has been refuted, nay, or can be refuted. And that in two ways. For firstly, every philo- sophy that deserves the name, always has the Idea for its subject-matter or contents : and secondly, every system should represent to us one particular factor or particular stage in the evolution of the Idea. The refutation of a philosophy, therefore, only means that its limits are passed, and that the fixed prin-
87-] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 137
ciple in it has been reduced to an organic element in the completer principle that follows. Thus the history of philo- sophy, in its true meaning1, deals not with the past, but with the eternal and the veritable present : and, in its results, re- sembles not a museum of the aberrations of the human intellect, but a Pantheon of Godlike figures. These figures of Gods are the various stages of the Idea, as they come forward one after another in dialectical development. To the historian of philo- sophy we leave it to point out more precisely, how far the growth of its living matter coincides with, or swerves from, the dialectical unfolding of the strictly logical Idea. It is sufficient to mention here, that logic begins where the proper history of philosophy begins. Philosophy began in the Eleatic school, especially with Parmenides. Parmenides, to whom the absolute was known as Being, says that ' Being alone is and Nothing is not.' Such was the true starting-point of philosophy, which is always knowledge by thought : and here for the first time we find thought seized and made an object to itself.
Men indeed thought from the beginning : (for thus only were they distinguished from the animals). But centuries had to elapse before they came to apprehend thought in its entirety, as constituting the real objective world. The Eleatics are cele- brated as daring thinkers. But this nominal admiration is often accompanied by the remark that they went too far, when they made Being alone true, and denied the truth of every other object of consciousness. We must go farther than mere Being, it is true : and yet it is absurd to speak of the other contents of our consciousness as somewhat situated out of and beside Being, or to say that there are other things as well as Being. The true relation is rather as follows. Being, as Being, is nothing fixed or ultimate : it yields to dialectic and sinks into its opposite, which, also taken immediately, is Nothing. After all, the main point is that Being is the first mere Thought ; that whatever else you may begin with (with the 1 = 1, with the absolute indiiference, or with God himself), you begin with a figure of materialised conception, not a product of Thought ; and that, so far as its hold of Thought is concerned, such begin- ning is merely Being.
87.] But this mere Being, as it is mere abstraction, is there- fore absolutely negative : which, in a similarly immediate aspect, is just what may be said of Nothing.
(1) Hence was derived the second definition of the Absolute ; the Absolute is the Nought. In fact this definition is implied in saying that the thing-in-itself is indeterminate, and so with-
138 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [87.
out either form or matter ; or in saying that God is only the supreme Being and nothing more, for this is really an enun- ciation of the same negativity as above ; or, in making, as the Buddhists do, Nothing the principle of all things, the final aim and end of everything. All these views ultimately amount to the same abstraction — of Nothing.
(2) It is difficult, when the opposition in thought is stated in this immediate form of expression, as Being and Nothing, to regard it as devoid of reality, or to refrain from the attempt to fix Being and secure it against the transition into Nothing. So much is this the case, that reflection has recourse to the plan of discovering some fixed predicate for Being, such as could serve to mark it off from Nothing. Thus we find Being identified with what persists amid all change, with matter susceptible of innumerable determinations — or even, unreflect- ingly, with a single existence, any chance object of the senses or of the mind. But every additional and more concrete cha- racteristic causes Being to lose that integrity and simplicity it has in the beginning. Only in, and by virtue of, this mere generality is it Nothing, something inexpressible, whereof the distinction from Nothing lies in feigning opinion only.
All that we seek t6 impress upon consciousness, is that these beginnings are to be apprehended as the merest abstractions, one as empty as the other. The instinct that induces us to attach a settled import to Being, or to both, is the very ne- cessity which leads to the onward movement of Being and Nothing, and gives them a true or concrete significance. This advance is the execution of the problem of Logic, and the round which it is the purpose of this work to present. The analytic reflection which unlocks the deeper characteristics of Being and Nothing, is nothing but logical thought, through which such characteristics are evolved not in an accidental but a necessary way. Every signification, therefore, in which they afterwards appear, is only a more precise specification and truer definition of the Absolute. And when that is done, the mere abstract Being and Nothing are replaced by a concrete notion,
88.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 139
in which both these elements form an organic part. The supreme form of Nought for its own sake would be Freedom : but Freedom is negativity in that stage, when it plunges into itself with such strong intensity, that it is itself an affirmation, and even absolute affirmation.
The distinction between Being and Nought is, in the first place, only implicit, and not yet actually made : they only ought to be distinguished. A distinction of course implies two things, and that one of them possesses an attribute which is not found in the other. Being however is an absolute absence of attri- butes, and so is Nought. Hence the distinction between the two is one of opinion only, it is a quite nominal distinction, which is at the same time no distinction. In all other cases of difference there is some common point which comprehends both things. Suppose we speak of two different species : the genus forms a common ground for both. But in the case of mere Being and Nothing, a distinction would be in an utterly bottomless state : hence there can be no distinction, both deter- minations being baseless. If it be replied that Being and Nothing are both of them thoughts, so that thought may be reckoned common ground, the objector forgets that Being is not a particular or definite thought, and hence, being quite in- determinate, is a thought not to be distinguished from Nothing. Being may perhaps be conceived under the image of absolute riches, and Nothing under the image of absolute poverty. But if when we view the whole world we can only say that Every- thing is, and nothing more; we are neglecting all speciality, and instead of total plenitude we have total emptiness. The same stricture is applicable to those, who define God to be mere Being ; a definition not a whit better than that of the Buddhists, who make God to be Nought, and who from that principle draw the further conclusion that annihilation is the means by which man becomes God.
88.] Nothing, which is thus immediate and identical with itself, is also conversely the same as Being is. The truth of Being and of Nothing is accordingly the unity of the two: and this unity is Becoming.
(1) The proposition that Being is the same as Nothing seems so paradoxical to the imagination or understanding, that it is perhaps taken for a joke. And indeed it is one of the hardest demands made upon thought: for Being and Nothing
140 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [88.
exhibit the contrast in thought in all its immediacy; that is, without any characteristic being explicitly given in the one which would involve its connexion with the other. This characteristic however, as shown in the preceding section, is implicit in them — the characteristic which is just the same in both. So far the deduction of their unity is completely analytical : indeed the whole progress of philosophising in every case, if it be a methodical, that is to say a necessary, progress, merely renders explicit what is implicit in a notion. It is as correct however to say that Being and Nothing are altogether different, as to assert their unity. The one is not what the other is. But since the distinction has not at this point assumed a definite character (Being and Nothing are still the immediate), it is, in the way that they have it, something unutterable, which we merely fancy to exist.
(2) No great amount of wit is needed to throw ridicule on the maxim that Being and Nothing are the same, or even to represent the absurdities which, it is falsely said, are the consequences and illustrations of that maxim.
If Being and Nought are identical, say these objectors, it follows that it makes no difference whether my home, my property, the air I breathe, this city, the sun, the law, mind, God, are or are not. Now in some of these cases, the objectors foist in special and private aims, or the utility a thing may have for a particular person, and then ask, whether it be all the same to that person if the thing exist and if it do not. As to that, indeed, we may note that the teaching of philosophy is precisely what frees man from the endless crowd of finite aims and intentions, by making him so indifferent to them, that their existence or non-existence is to him a matter of no moment. But it is never to be forgotten that, once introduce the mention of a particular subject-matter, and you thereby state a connexion with other existences and other purposes, which are ex hypothesi worth having : and on such hypothesis it comes to depend whether the Being and not-Being of a determinate subject-matter are the same or not. A distinc-
88.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 141
tion of real import is in these cases secretly substituted for the empty distinction of Being and Nought. In others of the cases referred to, we have absolute existences and ideas and aims, which may become essential, subsumed under the mere category of Being or not-Being. But there is more to be said of these concrete objects, than that they merely are or are not. Barren abstractions, like Being and Nothing — the initial categories which, for that reason, are the most barren anywhere to be found — are utterly inadequate to the nature of these objects. Real facts are something far above these abstractions and the opposition between them. And always when a concrete existence is disguised under the name of Being and not-Being, empty-headedness makes the usual mistake of speaking about, and having in the mind an image of, something foreign to the question : and in this place the question is about abstract Being and Nothing.
(3) It may perhaps be said that nobody can comprehend the unity of Being and Nought. As for that, the notion or comprehension of the unity is stated in the sections preceding, and that is all: apprehend that, and you have comprehended this unity. What the objector really means by comprehension — by a notion — is more than his language properly implies : he wants a richer and more complex acquaintance, a material or pictorial conception which will propound the notion as a concrete case and one more familiar to the ordinary operations of thought. And so long as incomprehensibility means only the want of habit uation for the effort needed to grasp an ab- stract thought,free from all sensuous admixture, and to seize a speculative truth, the reply to the criticism is, that philoso- phical knowledge is undoubtedly distinct in kind from the mode of knowledge best known in common life, as well as from that which reigns in the other sciences. But, if to have no notion merely means that we can get no conception or imagination of the oneness of Being and Nought, the state- ment is far from being true ; for every one has countless ways of envisaging this unity. To say that we have no such
142 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [88.
conception can only mean, that in none of these images do we recognise the notion in question, and that we are not aware of their office as examples of the notion. The readiest example of it we can find is Becoming. Every one can form an image of Becoming, and will even allow that his pictorial idea is one and single : he will further allow that, when it is analysed, it involves the attribute of Being, and also what is the reverse of Being, viz. Nothing : and that these two attributes lie undivided in the one conception : so that Becoming is the unity of Being and Nothing. Another tolerably plain instance of the same notion is a beginning. In its beginning, the thing is not yet, but it is more than merely nothing, for its Being is already in the beginning. Beginning is itself a case of Becoming ; only the former term is employed with an eye to the further advance. If we were to adapt logic to the more usual course of the sciences, we might begin logic with the popular conception of a Beginning as abstractly thought, or with Beginning as such, and then analyse this conception ; and perhaps people would more readily accept it as a result of this analysis, that Being and Nothing present themselves as undivided in unity.
(4) It remains to note that such phrases as ' Being and No- thing are the same,' or ' The unity of Being and Nothing ' — like all other such unities, that of subject and object, and others — may give rise to reasonable objection. They misre- present the facts, by giving an exclusive prominence to the unity, and leaving the difference which undoubtedly exists in it (because it is Being and Nothing, for example, the unity of which is declared) without any express mention or notice. It accordingly seems as if the diversity had been unduly put out of count, and deprived of its proper right. The fact is, no speculative category can be correctly expressed by any such prepositional form, for the unity is expected to be apprehended within the diversity, which is all the while at hand and explicitly stated. ' To become ' is the true expres- sion for the resultant of 'To be ' and ' Not to be ' ; it is the
88.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 143
unity of the two; and not only the unity, it is also inherent unrest, — the unity, which is no mere reference-to-self and there- fore without movement, but which through the diversity of Being and Nothing, that is in it, is at war within itself. ' To be there and so ' is this unity of Being and Nothing — or it is ' to become ' in this form of unity : hence all that ' is there and so/ all definite being, is one-sided and finite. The opposition between the two factors seems to have vanished j it is only implied in the unity, it is not explicitly affirmed.
(5) The maxim of Becoming, that Being is the passage into Nought, and Nought the passage into Being, is con- troverted by the maxim of Pantheism, the doctrine of the eternity of matter, that from nothing comes nothing, and that something can only come out of something. The ancients saw plainly that the maxim, ' From nothing comes nothing, from something, something,' really abolishes Becoming : for the source whence it comes into Being and the end to which it comes are one and the same. All that is then at our disposal is the maxim of abstract identity as upheld by the under- standing. It cannot but seem strange, therefore, to hear such maxims as, ' Out of nothing comes nothing : Out of something comes something,' calmly taught in these days, without the teacher being apparently in the least aware that they are the basis of Pantheism, and even without his knowing that the ancients have exhausted all that is to be said about them.
Becoming is the first concrete thought, and therefore the first notion : whereas Being and Nought are empty abstractions. The notion of Being, therefore, of which we sometimes speak, must mean the coming into Being. It does not mean the mere point of Being, which is empty Nothing, any more than No- thing which is empty Being. In Being then we have Nothing, and in Nothing Being : but this Being which does not lose itself in Nothing is Becoming. Nor must we omit the distinction, while we emphasise the unity of Becoming: without that distinction we should once more return to abstract Being. Becoming is only the explicit statement of what Being is in its truth.
We often hear it maintained that thought is opposed to Being.
144 THE DOCTRISE OF BEISG. [89.
Now in the face of such a statement, our first question ought to be, what is meant by Being. If we understand Being, as it is defined by reflection, all that we can say of it is, that it is what is wholly identical and affirmative. And if we then look at thought, it cannot escape us that thought is at least what is absolutely identical with itself. Both therefore. Being as well as thought, have the same attribute. This identity of Being and thought is not however to be taken in a concrete sense, as if we could say that a stone, so far as Being goes, is the same as a thinking man. A concrete thing is always very different from the abstract category as such. And in the case of Being, we are speaking of nothing concrete : for Being is the utter ab- straction. So far then the question regarding the Being of God — a Being which is in itself concrete above all measure — is of slight importance.
As the first concrete category, Becoming is the first truthful category of thought. In the history of philosophy, this stage of the logical Idea finds its analogue in the system of Heraclitus. When Heraclitus says ' All is flowing ' (-navra pel], he enunciates Becomimg as the fundamental category of all that there is, whereas the Eleatics, as already remarked, saw the only truth in Being, a rigid point of Being where there is no process. Glancing at the principle of the Eleatics, Heraclitus then goes on to say : Being no more is than not-Being (ot>dez> fxoAAov TO ov TOV fa) OITOS eort) : a statement expressing the negative nature of abstract Being, and its identity with not-Being, as it is made explicit in Becoming: both abstractions being alike untenable. This may be looked at as an instance of the real refutation of one system by another. To refute is to exhibit the dialectical movement in the principle of the philosophy which is refuted, and thus reduce it to a constituent member of a higher and more concrete form of the Idea. Even Becoming however, if taken in the whole of its own significance, is a category with very little in it, and needs to be further deepened and com- pleted. To deepen it, we must take some of its more developed forms — such as Life. Life is a Becoming, but that is not enough to define the notion of life. A still higher form is found in Mind. Here too is Becoming, but richer and more intensive than mere logical Becoming. The elements, whose unity con- stitutes mind, are not the bare abstractions of Being and Nought, but the system of the logical Idea and of Nature.
(6) Being Determinate.
89.] (o) In Becoming the Being which is one with Nothing, and the Nothing which is one with Being, are only vanishing
89.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 145
factors; they are and they are not. Thus by its inherent contradiction Becoming collapses ; or is precipitated into the unity, in which the two elements are completely lost to view. This result is accordingly Being determinate, or definite.
In this first example we must call to mind, once for all, what was stated in § 82 and in the note there. The only way to make good any growth and progress in knowledge is to hold results fast in their truth. There is absolutely nothing whatever in which we cannot point to contradictions or opposite attributes ; and necessarily so : and all that the abstraction of understanding means is the forcible retention of a single attribute, and the effort to obscure and remove all consciousness of the other attribute which is involved. Whenever such contradiction is laid bare in any object or notion, the usual inference which follows is : After all then, the opposition is nothing. Thus Zeno, who first announced the contradiction native to motion, concluded from it the denial of all motion : and the ancients, who spoke of origin and decease, the two species of Becoming, made them untrue forms of thought, when they used the phrase that the One or Absolute neither arises nor perishes. Such a style of dialectic never got beyond the negative aspect of its result, and failed to notice, what is at the same time really present, the definite result, in the present case a mere nothing, but a Nothing which includes Being, and, in like manner, a Being which includes Nothing. Hence Being Determinate is (1) the unity of Being and Nothing, in which we get rid of the immediacy in these determinations, and, if they are connectively referred to each other, of their con- tradiction. In this unity they are only constituent elements. And (2) since the result is the abolition of the contradiction, it comes in the shape of a simple or uncompounded unity with itself : that is to say, it also is Being, but Being with negation or determinateness : it is Becoming expressly put or stated in the form of one of its elements, viz. Being.
146 THE J)OC TRINE OF BEING. [go.
Even our ordinary conception of Becoming implies that some- what comes out of it : so that Becoming would have a result. But this conception gives rise to the question, how Becoming does not remain mere Becoming, but has a result ? The answer to this question follows from what Becoming has already shown itself to be. Becoming always contains Being and Nothing in such a way, that these two are always changing into each other, and reciprocally cancelling each other. Thus Becoming stands before us in utter restlessness — unable however to maintain itself in this abstract restlessness : for since Being and Nothing vanish in Becoming (and that is the very meaning or notion of Becoming), the latter must vanish also. Becoming is as it were a fire, which dies out in itself, when it consumes its material. The result of this process however is not an empty Nothing — but Being identical with the negation, which we call Being Determinate (being then and there, some being) : the primary import of which evidently is that it has become.
90.] To Being therefore in this stage is attached a deter- minateness (a certain cognisability) which as it is immediate and said to be, is Quality. And as reflected into itself in being so determined, the determinate Being is Somewhat, in being there and then. The categories, which issue by evolution on the basis of determinate Being, need only be mentioned briefly.
Quality may be described as the determinate ness immediate and identical with Being — as distinguished from Quantity (to come afterwards), which, although a determinant of Being, is no longer immediately identical with Being, but a determinant indifferent and external to it. A Something is what it is in virtue of its quality, and losing its quality it ceases to be what it is. Quality, moreover, is completely a category of the finite, and for that reason has its proper place in Nature, not in the world of Mind. Thus, for example, in Nature what are styled the elementary bodies, oxygen, nitrogen, &c., should be regarded as existing qualities. But in the sphere of mind, Quality appears in a subordinate way only, and not as if its qualitativeness could exhaust any specific aspect of mind. If, for example, we consider the subjective mind, which forms the object of psycho- logy? we may describe what is called character, as in logical language identical with Quality. This however would not mean that character is a determinant, which permeates the soul and is immediately identical with it, as is the case in the natural
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world with the elementary bodies before mentioned. A more decided manifestation of Quality as such, in mind even, is found in the case of slavish or diseased states of consciousness, especially in states of passion and when the passion rises to frenzy. The consciousness of a deranged person, being one mass of jealousy, fear, &c., may suitably be described as Quality.
91.] Quality , as determinateness which is, as contrasted with the Negation which is involved in it but distinct from it, is Reality. Negation, which is no longer an abstract nothing, but somewhat which is-there-and-then, becomes a mere form to Being — it is Being other than some-Being. Since this other-Being, though a determination of Quality itself, is in the first instance distinct from it, Quality is Being-for-another — one width as it were of Determinate Being, or of Somewhat. The Being of Quality as such, contrasted with this reference connecting it with another, is Being-by-self.
The foundation of all determinateness is negation (as Spinoza says, Omnis determinatio est negatio}. Opinion, with its usual want of thought, believes that specific things are positive throughout, and retains them fast under the form of Being. Mere Being however is not the end of the matter : — it is, as we have already seen, utter emptiness and instability besides. Still, when abstract being is confused in this way with Being modified or Being determinate, it implies some perception of the fact that, though in determinate Being there is involved an element of negation, this element is at first wrapped up, as it were, and only comes to the front and receives its due in Being-for-self. If we further consider determinate Being as a determinateness or character which is, we get in this way the same as what is called Reality. We speak, for example, of the reality of a plan or a purpose, meaning thereby that they are no longer inner and subjective, but have passed into Being-there-and-then. In the same sense the body may be called the reality, of the soul, and the moral law the reality of freedom, and the world altogether the reality of the divine idea. The word ' reality ' is however used in another acceptation to mean that a thing is in the state conformable to its essential characteristic or notion. For example, we use the expression : This is a real occupation : This is a real man. Here the term does not merely mean the outward and immediate Being which is-there-and-then : but rather means that something, which is-there-and-then, agrees with its notion.
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In which sense, be it added, reality is not distinct from the ideality, which we shall in the first instance become acquainted with in the shape of Being-fbr-self.
92-] 03) Being1, if kept distinct from its determinateness or character, as it is in Being-by-self, would be only the vacant abstraction of mere Being. In Being determinate (there and then), the determinateness is one with Being- ; yet at the same time, when explicitly made a negation, it is a Limit or Barrier. Hence other-being is not indifferent to or outside of a being-, but an element or function proper to it. Somewhat is by its quality, — firstly finite, — secondly alterable ; so that finitude and variability appertain to its being.
In Being-there-and-then, the negation is still directly one with the Being, and this negation is what we call a Limit. A thing is what it is, only in and by reason of its limit. We cannot therefore regard the limit as only external to Being which is then and there. It rather goes through and through every part of such definite Being. The view of limit, as merely an external characteristic of Being-there-and-then, arises from a confusion of quantitative with qualitative limit. Here we are speaking primarily of the qualitative limit. If, for example, we observe a piece of ground, three acres large, that circumstance is its quantitative limit. But, in addition, the ground is, it may be, a meadow, not a wood or a pond. This is its qualitative limit. Man, if he wishes to be actual, must be-there-and-theu, and to this end he must set a limit to himself. People who are too fastidious towards the finite, never reach actuality, but lie idle in abstractions, till their light gradually dies away.
If we take a closer look at what a limit implies, we see it involving a contradiction in itself, and thus evincing its dialec- tical nature. On the one side the limit makes the reality of a thing, on the other it is its negation. But, again, the limit, as the negation of something, is not an abstract nothing but a nothing which is, — what we call an other. Given something, and up starts another to us : we know that there is not some- thing only, but another as well. Nor, again, is the other of such a nature that we can think something apart from it ; a something is implicitly the other of itself, and the somewhat sees its limit become objective to it in the other. If we now ask the difference between something and another, it appears that they are the same : which sameness is expressed in Latin by calling the pair aliud — aliud. The other, as opposed to the
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something-, is itself a something, and hence we say some other, or something- else ; and so on the other hand the first something when opposed to the other, also defined as something, is itself an other. When we say ' something else' our primary conception is that something taken separately is only something, and that the circumstance of being another only attaches to it from certain outside considerations. Thus we suppose that the moon, being something else than the sun, might very well exist without the sun. But really the moon, as a something, has its other thing in itself ; and so it is of finite nature. Plato says : God made the world out of the nature of the ' one ' and the ' other' (row ere'poi/) : having brought these together, he formed from them a third, which is of the nature of the ' one' and the ' other.' In these words we have in general terms a statement of the nature of the finite, which, as something, does not meet the nature of the other as if it had no affinity to it, but being implicitly the other of itself, thus undergoes alteration. Alteration thus exhibits the inherent contradiction which originally attaches to (determinate) being, and which forces it out of its own bounds. To materialised conception a Being stands in the character of something solely positive, and quietly abiding within its own limits : though, we also know, it is true that everything finite (such as Being-then-and -there) is subject to change. Such changeableness in Being which is-there-and-then is a mere possibility to the eye of conception. And its realisation is not supposed to be due to the very nature of such Being. But the fact is, mutability lies in the notion of a (some) Being, and change is only the manifestation of what a something is im- plicitly. The living die, simply because as living they bear in themselves the germ of death.
93.] Some becomes other: this other is itself somewhat: therefore it likewise becomes another, and so on ad infmitum.
94.] This Infinity is the wrong or negative infinity: it is only a negation of a finite : but the finite rises again the same as ever, and is never got rid of and absorbed. In other words, this infinite only expresses that there ought to be an elimination of the finite. The progression into the infinite never gets further than a statement of the contradiction involved in the finite, viz. that it is somewhat as well as somewhat else. It only publishes again and again the alternation between these two terms, each of which calls up the other.
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If we let somewhat and another, the elements of determinate Being (then-and-there) fall asunder, the result is that some becomes other, and this other is itself a somewhat, which then as such changes likewise, and so on ad infinitum. This result seems to superficial reflection something very grand, the grandest possible. But such a progression into the infinite is not the real infinite. That consists in being at home with itself in its antithesis, or, if enunciated as a process, in coming to itself in its other. Much depends on a right estimate of the notion of infinity, as distinguished from the wrong infinity of endless progression, with which we are too apt to rest satisfied. When time and space, for example, are spoken of as infinite, it is in the first place the infinite progression to which our thoughts attach themselves. We say, Now, This moment, and then we keep continually going forwards and backwards beyond this limit. The case is the same with space, the infinity of which has formed the theme of barren declamation to astronomers who were endowed with a talent for edification. In the con- templation of such an infinite, our thought, we are commonly informed, must sink under the attempt. It is true indeed that we must abandon the unending contemplation, not however because the occupation is too sublime, but because it is too tedious. It is tedious to devote ourselves to the contempla- tion of this infinite progression, because the same thing is constantly recurring. We lay down a limit : then we pass it : next we have a limit once more, and so on for ever. All this is but a superficial vicissitude which never leaves the region of the finite behind. To suppose that by stepping out into that infinity we release ourselves from the finite, is in truth but to seek the release which comes by flight. But the man who flees is not yet free : in fleeing he is still conditioned by that from which he flees. If it be also said, that the infinite is unattainable, the statement is true, only because the idea of infinity has been burdened with the circumstance of being simply and solely negative. With such barren forms of thought, that are always in a world beyond, philosophy has nothing to do. Its object is always something concrete, and in the highest sense present.
The problem of philosophy has also been presented, as the discovery of an answer to the question, how the infinite comes to the resolution of issuing out of itself. This question, founded, as it is, upon the assumption of a rigid opposition between finite and infinite, may be answered by saying that the opposition is false, and that in point of fact the infinite eternally proceeds out of itself, and yet does not proceed out of itself. If we farther say, that the infinite is the not-finite, we have in point of fact
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virtually expressed the truth: for as the finite itself is the first negative, the not-finite is the negative of that negation, the negation which is identical with itself and thus at the same time a true affirmation.
The infinity of reflection here discussed is only an attempt to reach the true infinity, an infelicitous half-way house. Generally speaking, it is the point of view which has come to prevail in the modern philosophy of Germany. The finite, this theory tells us, ought to be absorbed only ; the infinite ought not to be a negative merely, but also a positive. That ' ought to be' betrays the incapacity of actually executing and making good, what is at the same time recognised to be right. This stage was never passed by the systems of Kant and Fichte, so far as ethics are concerned. The utmost to which this way will bring us is only the perpetual approximation to the law of Reason. And the same postulate (which demands an infinite as positive) has been employed to demonstrate the immortality of the soul.
95.] (y) What we now in point of fact have before us, is that somewhat comes to be an other, and that the other generally comes to be an other. In its relation to an other, somewhat is virtually an other, as compared with that other: and since what is passed into is quite the same as what passes over, since both have one and the same attribute, viz. to be an other, it follows that something in its passage into other only joins with itself. This reference binding it to itself, in the passage, and in the other, is the genuine Infinity. Or under a negative aspect: what becomes changed is the other, it becomes the other of the other. Thus we find ourselves once more with Being, but as negation of the negation, as Being-for-self.
The dualism, which puts an insuperable opposition between finite and infinite, fails to note the simple circumstance that the infinite is thereby only one of two, and is reduced to A particular, to which the finite forms the other particular. Such an infinite, which is only a particular, is co-ordinate with the finite, which makes for it a limit and a barrier : it is not what it ought to be and means to be, that is, the infinite, but only finite. In such a state of matters, where the finite is here, and the infinite there,— this world as the finite and
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the other world as the infinite, an equal degree of permanence and independence is ascribed to the finite and to the infinite. The Being of the finite is made an absolute Being, and by this dualism gets a fixed ground of its own. Touched, so to speak, by the infinite, it would be annihilated. But it must not be touched by the infinite. There must be an abyss, an impassable gulf between the two, with the infinite abiding on yonder side and the finite steadfast on this. Those who at- tribute to the finite this inflexible persistence in comparison with the infinite, are not, as they imagine, far above metaphy- sic : they are still on the level of the most ordinary metaphysic of understanding. For the same thing occurs here as in the infinite progression. At one time it is admitted that the finite has no independent actuality, no absolute Being, (which is in and for itself,) but is only a mere passing moment. At another time, this is straightway forgotten, and the finite, being made merely a counterpart to the infinite, is represented as wholly separated from it, and as self-subsistent beyond the reach of annihilation. While thought thus imagines itself elevated to the infinite, it is really going the opposite way : it comes to an infinite which is only a finite, and the finite, which it had left behind, has always to be retained and made into an Absolute.
After this examination (with which it were well to compare Plato's Philebus), tending to show the nullity of the meaning which understanding gives to the finite and the infinite, we are in danger of sliding into the mistake of saying that the infinite and the finite are therefore one, and that the true infinity, the truth, must be defined and enunciated as the unity of the finite and infinite. Such a statement would be to some extent correct : but is just as open to perversion and falsehood as the unity of Being and Nothing already noticed. Besides it may very fairly be charged with reducing the infinite to finitude and making a finite infinite. For, so far as the expression goes, the finite seems only left in its place, — it is not expressly and actually absorbed. Or, if we reflect that
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the finite, when identified with the infinite, cannot at all events remain what it was out of such unity, and will at least suffer some change in its characteristics (as an alkali, when combined with an acid, loses some of its properties), we must see that the same fate awaits the infinite, which, as the negative, will on its side likewise have its edge, as it were, blunted on its antithesis. And this does really happen with the abstract and one-sided infinite of the understanding;-. The
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genuine infinite however is not merely in the position of the one-sided acid, and so does not lose itself. The negation of negation is not a neutralisation : the infinite is the affirmative, and it is only the finite which is absorbed.
In Being-for-self we first meet the category of Ideality. Being-there-and-then, when it is in the first instance appre- hended in its Being or affirmation, has reality : and thus the finite sphere also in the first instance belongs to the category of reality. But the truth of the finite is rather its ideality. Similarly, the infinite of understanding which is co-ordinated with the finite, is itself only one of two finites, no whole truth, but a non-substantial element. This ideality or non- substantiality of the finite is the chief maxim of philosophy; and for that reason every true philosophy is idealistic. Every- thing depends upon our rejecting such an infinite, as in the very terms of its characterisation is made both a particular and a finite. For this reason we have bestowed a greater amount of attention on this distinction of finite and infinite. The fundamental notion of philosophy, the genuine infinite, depends upon it. The distinction is cleared up by the simple, and for that reason seemingly insignificant, but incontrovertible, reflections, contained in this section.
(c) Being-for-self.
96.] (a) Being-for-self, considered as a connexion with itself, is immediacy, and considered as a connexion of the nega- tive with itself, is the One, which is for itself. This unit,
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being without distinction in its own self, thus excludes the others out of itself.
To be for self — to be one — is the last stage of Quality, and as such, it contains abstract Being, and Being modified (there- and-then), as nonsubstantial elements of its idea. As simple Being, the One is a simple connexion with self; as Being modified (then-and-there), it is determinate : but the deter- minateness is not in this case a finite determinateness, as in the distinction of somewhat from the other, but infinite, because it contains distinction absorbed and anmilled in itself.
The readiest instance of Being-for-self is found in the 'I/ As being there and then, we know ourselves distinguished in the first place from another Being-there-and-then, and with certain connective bearings thereto. But we also come to know this expanse of Being-there-and-then reduced, as it were, to a point in the simple form of being one, and for self. When we say 'I,' we express the reference-to-self which is infinite, and at the same time negative. Man, it may be said, is distinguished from the animal world, and in that way from nature altogether, by knowing himself as 'I': which amounts to sa}Ting that natural things never attain a free Being-for- self, but as limited to Being-there-and-then, are always and only Being for an other. — Again, Being-for-self may be described as ideality, just as Being-there-and-then was de- scribed as reality. It is said, that besides reality there is also an ideality. Thus the two categories are made equal and parallel. Properly speaking, ideality is not somewhat outside of and beside reality : the notion of ideality just lies in its being the truth of reality. That is to say, when reality is explicitly stated as what it implicitly is, it is at once seen to be ideality. Hence ideality has not received its proper estima- tion, when you allow that reality is not all in all, but that an ideality must be recognised outside of it. Such an ideality, external to or it may be beyond reality, would be no better than an empty name. Ideality only has a meaning or import when it is the ideality of something : but this something is not a mere indefinite this or that, but determinate being (then and there) which is characterised as reality, and which, if retained in isolation, possesses no truth. The distinction between Nature and Mind is not improperly conceived, when the former is traced back to reality, and the latter to ideality as a fundamental category. Nature however is far from being so fixed and complete, as to subsist even without Mind : in Mind it first, as it were, attains its aim and its truth. And similarly, Mind on its part is not merely a world beyond
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Nature and nothing more : it is really, and with full proof, seen to be mind, only when it involves Nature as absorbed in itself. — Apropos of this, we should note the double meaning of the German word, aufheben (to put by, or put aside). We mean by it (1) to clear away, or annul : thus, we say, a law, or a regulation is put aside : (2) to keep, or preserve : in which sense we use it when we say : something is well put aside. This double usage of language, which gives to the same word a positive and negative meaning, is not an accident, and gives no ground for reproaching language as a cause of con- fusion. We should rather recognise in it the speculative spirit of our language rising above the mere 'Either — or' of the understanding.
97-] (/3) The connexion of the negative with itself is a negative connexion, and so a distinguishing of the One from itself, the repulsion of the One; that is, it makes Many Ones. Being-for-self however is also immediacy, and hence these Many are : and the repulsion of every One which is, becomes to that extent, their repulsion against each other as pre-existing units, in other words, their reciprocal exclusion.
Whenever we speak of the One, the Many usually come into our mind at the same time. Whence, then, we are forced to ask, do the Many come? This question is unanswerable by the conception, which supposes the Many to be immediately presented, and the One to be only one among the Many. But the notion teaches, contrariwise, that the One forms the pre- supposition of the Many : and in the thought of the One is implied that it explicitly makes itself Many. The One and Individual, is not like abstract Being, void of all connective reference : it is a reference, as well as Being-there-and-then was : it is not however a reference connecting somewhat with another Being, but as unity of some and other being, it is a connexion with itself, and this connexion, it must be said, is a negative connexion. Hereby the One manifests an utter incompatibility with itself, a self- repulsion : and what it makes itself explicitly be, is the Many. We may denote this side in the process of Being-for-self by the figurative term Repulsion. Repulsion is a term originally employed in the study of matter, to mean that matter, as a Many, in each of these many Ones, stands to all the others in a position of exclusion. It would be wrong however to view the process of repulsion, as if the One were the repellent and the Many the repelled. The One, as already remarked, means an exclusion of self, and so the
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making itself into Many. Each of the Many however is itself a One, and in virtue of its being- so, the general repulsion in all directions is by one stroke converted into its opposite, that is, Attraction.
98.] (y) But the Many are one the same as another : each is One, or even one of the Many ; they are consequently one and the same. Or when we study all that Repulsion involves, we see that as a negative attitude of many Ones to one another, it is just as essentially a connective reference of them to each other; and as whatever the One is connected with in its act of repulsion is a One, it is in them thrown into connexion with itself. The repulsion therefore has an equal right to be called Attraction; and the exclusive One, or Being-for-self, is lost to view and merged. The qualitative character, which in the One or unit has reached its extreme point of characterisa- tion, has thus passed into the character as absorbed and lost to view, i.e. into Being as Quantity.
The philosophy of the Atomists is the doctrine in which the Absolute is formulated as Being-for-self, as One, and many ones. And it is the repulsion which appears in the notion of the One, that constitutes the fundamental force in these atoms. But instead of attraction, it is Accident, that is, the mere absence of thought, which is expected to bring them together. So long as the One is fixed as one, it is certainly impossible to regard its congression with others as anything but external and mechanical. The Void, which is assumed as the comple- mentary principle to the atoms, is repulsion and nothing else, presented under the image of the nothing which is between the atoms. Modern Atomism — and physics always founds on atomic principles— has surrendered the atoms so far as to pin its faith on molecules or infinitesimally small particles. In so doing, science has come closer to sensuous conception, at the cost of losing the precision of thought. To put an attractive by the side of a repulsive force, as the moderns have done, certainly gives completeness to the contrast : and much stress has been laid on the discovery of this natural force as it is
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called. But the reciprocal connexion between the two, which makes what is true and concrete in them, would have to be rescued from the obscurity and confusion in which they were left even in Kant's Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science. In modern times the importance of the atomic theory is even more evident in political than in physical science. Ac- cording to it, the will of individuals as such is the creative principle of the State : the attracting force consists of the particular circumstances of want and inclination ; and the Universal, or the State itself, is the external relation of a compact.
(1) The Atomic philosophy forms a vital stage in the historical growth of the Idea. The principle of that system may be described as Being-for-self in the shape of the Many. At present, students of nature who are anxious to avoid metaphysics, turn a favourable ear to Atomism. But it is not possible to escape metaphysics and cease to trace nature back to terms of thought, by throwing ourselves into the arms of Atomism. The atom in fact is itself a thought; and hence the theory which holds matter to consist of atoms is a metaphysical theory. Newton gave physics an express warning to beware of meta- physics, it is true ; but to his honour be it said, he did not by any means obey his own warning. The only mere physicists are the animals : they alone do not think : while man is a think- ing being and a born metaphysician. The real question is not whether we shall apply metaphysics, but whether our meta- physics are of the right kind : in others words, whether we are not, instead of the concrete logical Idea, adopting one-sided forms of thought, fixed by the understanding, and making these the basis of our theoretical as well as our practical work. It is on this ground that one objects to the Atomic philosophy. The old Atomists viewed the world as a Many, as their successors do to this day. On accident or chance they laid the task of collecting the atoms which float about in the void. But, after all, the nexus binding the Many with one another is by no means a mere accident : as we have already remarked, the nexus is founded on their very nature. To Kant we owe the completed theory of matter as the unity of repulsion and attraction. The theory is correct, so far as it recognises attraction to be the second of the two elements involved in the notion of Being-for- self: and to be an element no less essential than repulsion to constitute matter. Still this dynamical construction of matter,
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as it is termed, has the fault of taking for granted, instead of deducing, attraction and repulsion. Had they been deduced, we should then have seen the How and the Why of a unity which is merely asserted. Kant indeed was careful to inculcate that Matter must not be taken to be already at hand of itself, and then as it were incidentally to be provided with the two forces mentioned, but must be regarded as consisting solely in their unity. German physicists for some time accepted this pure dynamic. But in spite of this, the majority of these physicists in modern times have found it more convenient to return to the Atomic point of view, and in spite of the warnings of one of their number, the late M. Kastner, have begun to regard Matter as consisting of infinitesimally small particles, termed ' atoms ' — which atoms have then to be brought into connexion with one another by the play of forces attractive, repulsive, or whatever they may be. This too is metaphysics: and metaphysics which, for its utter absence of thought, there would be sufficient reason to guard against.
(2) The transition from Quality to Quantity, indicated in the paragraph before us, is not found in our ordinary way of think- ing, which deems each of these categories to exist independently beside the other. We are in the habit of saying that things are not merely qualitatively, but also quantitatively defined ; but how these categories originate, and how they are related to each other, are questions not further examined. The fact is, quantity just means quality superseded and absorbed : and it is by the dia- lectic of quality here examined that this result is effected, and quality reduced to inactivity. First of all, we had Being : as the truth of Being, came Becoming: wThich formed the passage to Being Determinate : and the truth of that we found to be Alteration. And in its result Alteration showed itself to be Being-for-self, withdrawn from the connexion with another and passage into another, which Being-for-self, finally, in the two sides of its process, Repulsion and Attraction, was obviously seen to annul itself, and thereby to annul quality in the sum total of its several stages. Still this superseded and absorbed quality is neither an abstract nothing, nor an equally abstract and uncharacterised being : it is only Being indifferent to determinateness or character. This aspect of Being is also what appears as quantity in our ordinary conceptions. We observe things, first of all, with an eye to their quality — which we take to be the character identical with the Being of the thing. If we proceed to consider the quantity, we get the conception of an indifferent and external character or determinant of such a kind, that a thing remains what it is, though its quantity is altered, and the thing becomes greater or less.
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B. — QUANTITY.
(a] Mere Quantity.
99.] Quantity is mere Being, in the case of which the character or determinateness ceases to be identified with Being itself, and is explicitly set aside or rendered indifferent.
(1) The expression Magnitude especially marks determinate Quantity, and is for that reason not a suitable name for Quantity in general. (2) Mathematics usually define magnitude as what can be increased or diminished. This definition has the defect of containing the thing to be defined over again : but it may serve to show that the category of magnitude is explicitly understood to be changeable and indifferent, so that, in spite of its being altered by an increased extension or intension, the thing does not cease to be ; a house, for example, remains a house, and red remains red. (3) The Absolute is Quantity mere and simple. This point of view is upon the whole the same as when the Absolute is defined to be Matter, in which, though form undoubtedly is present, the form is a characteristic of no importance in one way or another. Quantity too constitutes the main characteristic of the Absolute, when the Absolute is regarded as absolutely indifferent, and only admitting of quan- titative distinction. Otherwise pure space, time, &c. may be taken as examples of Quantity, if we allow ourselves to regard the real as whatever fills up space and time, it matters not what.
The mathematical definition of magnitude as what may be increased or diminished, appears at first sight to be more plau- sible and perspicuous than the exposition of the notion in the present section. When closely examined, however, it involves, under cover of presumptions and popular conception, the same elements as appear in the notion of quantity derived by the method of logical development. In other words, when we say that the notion of magnitude lies in the capacity of being in- creased or diminished, we state that magnitude (or more cor- rectly, quantity) as distinguished from quality, is a characteristic of such kind that the characterised thing is not in the least affected by any change in it. What then, it may be asked, is
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the fault which we have to find with this definition ? It is that to increase and to diminish is the same thing as to characterise magnitude otherwise. If this aspect then were an adequate ac- count of it, quantity would be described merely as whatever can be altered. But quality is no less than quantity open to altera- tion ; and the distinction we have given between quantity and quality is expressed by saying increase or diminution : the meaning being that, towards whatever side the determination of magnitude be altered, the thing still remains what it is.
One remark more. Throughout philosophy we do not seek merely for correct, still less for plausible definitions, whose cor- rectness appeals directly and of itself to the popular imagination ; we seek approved or verified definitions, the content of which is not assumed as given, but is seen and known to be founded on spontaneous thought, and so to be established on itself. To apply this to the present case. However correct and self-evident the definition of quantity usual in Mathematics may be, it will still fail to satisfy the wish to see how far this particular thought is founded in universal thought, and in that way necessary. This difficulty, however, is not the only one. If quantity is not derived from the action of thought, but taken uncritically from our generalised image of it, wre are liable to exaggerate the range of its validity, or even to raise it to the height of an absolute category. And that such a danger is real, we see wrhen the title of exact science is restricted to those sciences the subject- matter of which can be submitted to a mathematical calculation. Here we have another trace of the bad metaphysics (mentioned in § 98, note) which displace the concrete idea to make room for partial and inadequate categories of understanding. Science would be in a very awkward predicament if such objects as free- dom, the moral law, goodness, or even God himself, because they cannot be measured and calculated, or expressed in a mathemati- cal formula, are to be reckoned beyond the reach of exact know- ledge : or if we are forced to put up with a vague generalised image of them, leaving the more exact and particular facts to the pleasure of each individual, to make out of them what he will. The pernicious consequences, to which such a theory gives rise in practice, are at once evident. And this mere mathema- tical view, which identifies with the Idea one of its special stages, viz. quantity, is no other than the doctrine of Materialism. Witness the history of the scientific modes of thought, especially in France since the middle of last century. And the abstract- ness of Matter just means, that in it form may no doubt be found, but only as an indifferent and external attribute.
The present discussion would be utterly misconceived if it were supposed to disparage the value of mathematics. By calling the
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quantitative characteristic merely external and indifferent, we offer no excuse for indolence and superficiality, nor do we assert that quantitative characteristics may be left to mind themselves, or at least require no very careful handling. Quantity, certainly, is a stage of the Idea : and as such it must have its due, first as a logical category, and then in the world of objects, natural as well as spiritual. Still even here we perceive and distinguish the different importance attaching to the category of quantity in objects of the natural and in objects of the spiritual world. For in Nature, where the form of the Idea is to be other than itself, and at the same time to be outside itself, greater importance is for that very reason attached to quantity than in the world of Mind, the world of free inwardness. No doubt we regard even facts of Mind under a quantitative point of view ; but it is at once ap- parent that in speaking of God as a Trinity, the number three has by no means the same prominence, as when we consider the three dimensions of space or the three sides of a triangle ; — which last we have sufficiently described, when we say that it is a surface bounded by three lines. Even inside the realm of Nature we find the same distinction of greater or less importance in the specification of quantity. In the inorganic world, Quantity plays, so to say, a more prominent part than in the organic. Even in inorganic nature when we distinguish mechanical functions from what are called chemical, and in the narrower sense, physical, there is the same difference. Mechanics, as every one knows, is of all branches of science that in which the aid of mathematics can be least dispensed with, where in- deed we cannot take one step without them. On that account mechanics is regarded next to mathematics as the exact science par excellence ; which leads us to repeat the remark about the coincidence of the materialist with the exclusively mathematical point of view. After all that has been said, we cannot but hold it, in the interest of exact and thorough knowledge, one of the most hurtful prejudices, when all distinction and determinate- ness of the objects of knowledge is sought for merely in quantitative differences. Mind to be sure is more than Nature and the animal is more than the plant: but we know very little of these objects and the distinction between them, if a more and less is enough for us, and if we do not proceed to comprehend them in their peculiar, that is their qualitative character.
100.] Quantity, as we saw, has two sources: the exclusive unit, and the identification or equalisation of these units. In the first instance, therefore, when we look at its immediate con- nexion with self, or at the characteristic of self-sameness made
M
162 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [100.
explicit by attraction, quantity is Continuous magnitude; but when we look at the other characteristic, ' the One ' implied in it, it is Discrete magnitude. Still continuous quantity has also a certain discreteness, being but a continuity of the Many : and discrete quantity is no less continuous, its continuity being the One or Unit, that is, the self-same point of the many Ones.
(1) Continuous and Discrete magnitude, therefore, must not be supposed two species of magnitude, as if the characteristic of the one did not attach to the other. The only distinction between them is that the same whole of quantity is at one time explicitly put under the one, at another under the other of its characteristics. (2) The Antinomy of space, of time, or of matter, which deals with the point of their being divisible for ever, or of consisting of indivisible units, just means that we maintain quantity as at one time Discrete, at another Continuous. If we explicitly specify time, space, or matter as Continuous quantity alone, they are divisible ad infinitum. When, on the contrary, they are invested with the attribute of Discrete quan- tity, they are potentially divided already, and consist of indi- visible units. The one view is as inadequate as the other.
Quantity, as the proximate result of Being-for-self, involves the two sides in the process of the latter, attraction and re- pulsion, as constitutive elements of its own idea. It is con- sequently Continuous as well as Discrete. Each of these two elements involves the other also, and hence there is no such thing as a merely Continuous or a merely Discrete quantity. We may speak of the two as two particular and opposite species of magnitude ; but that is merely the result of our abstracting reflection, which in viewing definite magnitudes waives now the one, now the other, of the elements contained in inseparable unity in the notion of quantity. Thus, it may be said, the space occupied by this room is a continuous magnitude, and the hundred men, assembled in it, form a discrete magni- tude. And yet the space is continuous and discrete at the same time ; and in this sense we speak of points of space, or we divide space, a certain length, into so many feet, inches, &c., which can be done only on the hypothesis that space is potentially discrete. Similarly, on the other hand, the discrete magnitude, made up of a hundred men, is also continuous : and the circumstance on
ioi, 102.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 163
which this continuity depends, is the common element, the species man, which goes through all the individuals and unites them with each other.
(#) Quantum (How Much}.
101-] Quantity, when the exclusionist character which it in- volves is explicitly attached to its essence, is a Quantum (or How Much) : i. e. limited quantity.
Quantum is, as it were, the then-and-there, the determinate Being1, of quantity : whereas mere quantity corresponds to ab- stract Being1, and the Degree, which is afterwards to be con- sidered, corresponds to Being-for-self. As for the details of the advance from mere quantity to quantum, it is founded on this : that whilst in mere quantity the distinction, as a distinction of continuity and discreteness, is at first found only implicitly, in quantum the distinction is represented as actually made, so that quantity in general now appears as distinguished or limited. But in this way the quantum breaks up at the same time into an indefinite multitude of Quanta, or definite magnitudes. Each of these definite magnitudes, as distinguished from the others, forms a unity, while on the other hand, viewed on its own account, it is a many. And thus the quantum is described as Number.
102.] Number exhibits the development and perfect cha- racter of the Quantum. Like the One, the medium in which it exists, Number involves two qualitative factors or functions ; Annumeration or Sum, which depends on the discrete influence, and Unity, which depends on continuity.
In arithmetic the various kinds of calculation are usually represented as the methods, in which, as it happens, numbers are treated. If necessity and meaning is to be found in these operations, it must be by a principle: and that must come from the characteristic elements in the notion of number itself. (This principle must here be briefly exhibited). These characteristic elements are Annumeration or aggregation on the one hand, and Unity on the other, which together consti- tute number. Now Unity, when applied to empirical numbers, means the equality of these numbers: hence the principle of
M 2
164 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [102.
arithmetical operations must be to put numbers in the relation of Unity and Sum (or amount), and to elicit the equality of these two functions.
The Ones or the numbers themselves are indifferent towards each other, and hence the unity into which they are translated by the arithmetical operation takes the aspect of an external colligation. To count is therefore to tell number on to number : and the difference between the kinds of counting lies only in the qualitative constitution of the numbers which are told together. The principle for this constitution is given by the respective func- tions of Unity and Aggregation.
Numeration comes first : what we may call, making number ; a colligation of as many Ones as we please. But for a species of calculation, it is necessary that we number together what are numbers already, and no longer bare Ones.
Numbers naturally and at first are quite vaguely numbers in general, and on that account are unequal. The colligation, or telling the tale of these, is Addition.
The second circumstance about numbers is that they are equal, so that they make one unity ; of such there is a Sum or amount before us. To tell the tale of these is Multiplication. It makes no matter in the process, how the functions of Sum and Unity are distributed between the two numbers, or factors of the pro- duct ; either may be Sum and either may be Unity.
The third and final circumstance is the equality of Sum (amount) and Unity. To number together numbers when so characterised is Involution ; and ill the first instance raising them to the Square Power. To raise the number to a higher power, means in point of form the continuation of the multipli- cation of a number with itself on to an indefinite amount of times. — Since this third type of calculation exhibits the com- plete equality of the only existing distinction in number, viz. the distinction between Sum or aggregate and Unity, there can be no more than these three modes of calculation. Corresponding to the con-numeration we have the dissolution of numbers according to the same features. Hence besides the three species
io3.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 165
mentioned, which may to that extent be called positive, there are three negative species of calculation.
Number may be said to be the quantum in its complete spe- cialisation. Hence we may employ it not only to determine what we call discrete, but what are called continuous magnitudes as well. For that reason even geometry must have reference to number, when it is required to state definite figurations of space and their relations.
(c) Degree.
103.] The limit is identical with the whole of the quantum itself. As complex in itself, the limit is Extensive magnitude ; as in itself simple determinateness, it is Intensive magnitude or Degree.
The distinction between Continuous and Discrete magnitude diifers from that between Extensive and Intensive in the circum- stance, that the former refer to quantity in general, while the latter refer to the limit or determinateness of it as such. Inten- sive and Extensive magnitude are not, any more than the other, two species, of which the one might have a character not pos- sessed by the other : what is Extensive magnitude is just as much Intensive, and vice versa.
Intensive magnitude or Degree is in its notion distinct from Extensive magnitude or the Quantum. It is therefore inad- missible to act, as many do, who refuse to recognise this dis- tinction, and without scruple identify, the two forms of magni- tude. They are identified in physics, when the difference of specific gravity is explained by saying, that a body of which the specific gravity is twice that of another contains within the same space twice as many material parts or atoms as the other. So with heat and light, if the various degrees of temperature and brilliancy were to be explained by the greater or less number of particles or molecules of heat and light. No doubt the physicists, who employ such a mode of explanation, usually excuse themselves, when they are remonstrated with on its un- tenableness, by saying that it decides nothing regarding the con- fessedly unknowable essence of such phenomena, and that they employ the expressions in question merely for the sake of greater convenience. This greater convenience is meant to point to the easier application of the calculus : but it is hard to see
166 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [103.
why Intensive magnitudes, having1, as they do, a definite nume- rical expression of their own, should not fit in with calculation as well as Extensive magnitudes. If convenience is all that is desired, surely it would be more convenient to shake off calcu- lation and thought altogether. Another argument against the apology offered by the physicists is, that, by meddling with explanations of this kind, we overstep the sphere of perception and experience, and resort to a region of metaphysics and specu- lation, which at other times would be called idle or even pernicious. It is certainly a fact of experience that, if one of two purses filled with shillings is twice as heavy as the other, the reason of it must be, that the one contains, say two hundred, and the other only one hundred shillings. These pieces of money we can see and feel with our senses : atoms, molecules, and the like, are on the contrary beyond the range of sensuous perception ; and thought alone can decide whether they are admissible, and have a meaning. But (as already noticed in § 98, note) it is the abstract understanding which fixes the factor or element of the Many (involved in the notion of Being-for-self) in the shape of atoms, and adopts it as an ultimate principle. It is the same abstract understanding which, in the present instance, at equal variance with unprejudiced perception and with real concrete thought, regards Extensive magnitude as the sole form of quan- tity, and where Intensive magnitudes occur, does not recognise them in their own character, but makes a violent attempt by a wholly untenable hypothesis to reduce them to Extensive magni- tudes. Among the charges made against modern philosophy, one is heard more than another. Modern philosophy, it is said, reduces everything to identity, and hence its nickname, the Philo- sophy of Identity. But the present discussion may teach us, that it is philosophy, and philosophy alone, that leads us to distinguish what is distinct in notion as well as in experience ; while the professed devotees of experience are the people who erect abstract identity into the chief principle of knowledge. It is their philosophy, which might more appropriately be termed one of identity. Besides it is quite correct that there are no merely Extensive and merely Intensive magnitudes, just as little as there are merely continuous and merely discrete magnitudes. The two characteristics of quantity are not opposed as independent kinds. Every Intensive magnitude is also Extensive, and vice xerm. Thus a certain degree of temperature is an Intensive magnitude, which has a perfectly simple sensation corresponding to it as such. If we look at a thermometer, we find this degree of temperature has a certain extension of the column of mercury corresponding to it; which Extensive magnitude changes simul- taneously with the temperature or Intensive magnitude. The
ic4.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 167
case is similar in the world of mind : a more intensive character has a wider range with its effects than a less intensive.
104.] What we have in Degree is the explicit statement of the notion of quantum. It is magnitude as indifferent on its own account and simple : hut in such a way that the character, which, makes it a quantum, lies quite outside it in other magnitudes. In this contradiction, where the indifferent limit which is-for-self is absolute externality, we have the Infinite Quantitative Progression explicitly stated — an im- mediacy which immediately changes into its counterpart, into mediation (the passing beyond and over the quantum just laid down), and rice versa.
Number is a thought, but thought which is a Being com- pletely external to itself. Because it is a thought, it does not belong to perception : but it is a thought which is characterised by the externality of perception. — Not only therefore may the quantum be increased or diminished without end: the very notion of quantum makes it this pushing out and out beyond itself. The infinite quantitative progression is only the mean- ingless repetition of one and the same contradiction, which is seen in the quantum, both generally, and when explicitly in- vested with its special character, in the degree. Touching the superfluity, which enunciates this contradiction in the form of inh'nite progression, Zeno, as quoted by Aristotle, rightly says, ' It is the same to say a thing once, and to say it for ever.'
(1) If we follow the usual definition of the mathematicians, given in § 99, and say that magnitude is what can be increased or diminished, there may be nothing to urge against the correct- ness of the perception on which it is founded, but the question remains, how we come to assume such a capacity of increase or diminution. If we appeal for an answer to experience, we try an unsatisfactory course, and that for two reasons. In the first place we should merely have a generalised or material image of magnitude, and not the true notion. But, secondly, magnitude would look as if it were a bare possibility of increasing or diminishing. And we should have no insight into the necessity for its exhibiting this behaviour. In the way of our logical evolution, on the contrary, quantity is obviously a grade in the
168 TEE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [104.
process of thought which produces its own types or specific forms ; and it has been shown that it lies in the very notion of quantity to shoot out beyond itself. In that way, the increase or diminution of which we have heard, is not merely possible, but necessary.
(2) The quantitative infinite progression is what the reflective understanding- relies upon most strongly, when it is engaged with the general question of Infinity. The same thing however holds good of this progression, as was already remarked on the occasion of the qualitatively infinite progression. As we then said, it is not the expression of a true, but of a wrong infinity, which is never more than a bare ' ought,' and thus really remains within the limits of finitude. The quantitative form of this infi- nite progression, which Spinoza rightly calls a mere imaginary infinity (injinitum imagination is), is a sensuous conception often employed by poets, such as Haller and Klopstock, to envisage the infinity, not of Nature merely, but even of God himself. Thus we find Haller, in a famous description of God's infinity, saying :
3d? J)tiufe ungefyeure ftafyltn,
©efctrge 2Rtttionen auf,
3d) fefce 3«t «"f 3eit
Unb 9Belt auf 2Bdt gu £auf,
Hub trenn id? Son ber graufen <§6f)'
SWit <Sd)nnnbeI uneber nacfy £>tr fefy:
3ft atte 2Rad?t ber 3af)I,
9}ermefyrt ju Saufenbmal,
9iod? nidjt ein Sljeil Don £>tr.
[I heap up monstrous numbers, mountains of millions ; I add time on to time, and world on the top of world ; and when I turn from the awful height and cast a dizzy look towards Thee, all the power of number, increased a thousand times, is not yet one part of Thee.]
Here then we meet, in the first place, that continual expansion of quantity, and especially of number, beyond itself, which Kant describes as awful. The only really awful thing about it is the awful wearisomeness of ever fixing, and anon unfixing a limit, without advancing a single step. The same poet however well adds to that description of false infinity the closing line :
3d? jiel) fie a&, unb 2)u liegjl ganj t>ot mtr. [These I remove, and Thou liest all before me.]
Which means, that the true infinite is more than a mere world beyond the finite, and that we, in order to become conscious of it, must relinquish that proyressus in infmilum.
1 04-] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 169
(3) Pythagoras, as is well known, philosophised in numbers, and conceived number to be the main characteristic of things. To the ordinary mind this view must at first sight appear a crazy paradox. "What, then, are we to think of it? To answer this question, we must, in the first place, remember that the pro- blem of philosophy consists in tracing back things to thoughts, and, more than that, to definite and special thoughts. Now, number is undoubtedly a thought : it is the thought nearest the sensible, or, more precisely expressed, it is the thought of the sensible itself, if we take the sensible to mean what is many, and in reciprocal exclusion. The attempt to apprehend the uni- verse as number is therefore the first step to metaphysics. In the history of philosophy, Pythagoras, as we know, is placed between the Ionic and the Eleatic philosophers. While the former, as Aristotle says, never get beyond viewing the essence of things as a material v\rj, and the latter, especially Parmenides, advanced as far as pure thought, in the shape of Being, the prin- ciple of the Pythagorean philosophy forms, as it were, the bridge from the sensible to the super-sensible. We may gather from this, what is to be said of those, who suppose that Pythagoras undoubtedly went too far, when he apprehended the essence of things as number. It is true, they admit, that we can number things; but, they contend, things are far more than mere num- bers. But in what respect are they more ? The ordinary sen- suous consciousness, from its own point of view, would not hesitate to answer the question by handing us over to sensuous perception, and adding, that things are not merely numerable, but also visible, odorous, palpable, &c. In the language of modern times the fault of Pythagoras would be described as an excess of idealism. As may be gathered from what has been said on the historical position of the Pythagorean school, the real state of the case is quite the reverse. Let it be conceded that things are more than numbers ; but the meaning of that admission must be that the bare thought of number is still insufficient to enunciate the definite notion or essence of things. Instead, then, of saying that Pythagoras went too far with his philosophy of number, it would be nearer the truth to say that he did not go far enough ; and in fact the Eleatics were the first to make the further step to pure thought.
Besides, even if there are not things, there are states of certain things, and, generally speaking, certain phenomena of nature, the character of which mainly rests on definite numbers and relations of number. This is especially the case with the difference ot tones and their harmonic concord, which, according to the com- mon tradition, first suggested to Pythagoras to conceive the essence of things as number. Though it is unquestionably
170 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [105.
important to science to trace back these phenomena, of which definite numbers form the basis, to their numbers, it is wholly inadmissible to view the character and special function of thought as a whole, as merely numerical. We may certainly feel ourselves prompted to associate the most general character- istics of thought with the first numbers : saying, I is the simple and immediate; 2 is difference and mediation; and 3 the unity of both of these. Such associations however are purely external : and there is nothing in the mere numbers in question which would make them express these definite thoughts. The further we go in this method, the more caprice is shown in associating definite numbers with definite thoughts. Thus, we may view 4 as the unity of I and 3, and of the thoughts associated with them, but 4 is just as much the double of 2 : similarly 9 is not merely the square of 3, but also the sum of 8 and i, of 7 and 2, and so on. The importance which some secret societies of modern times attach to all sorts of numbers and figures, is to some extent an innocent amusement, but it is also a sign of awkwardness in. thought. These numbers, it is said, conceal a profound mean- ing, and they may lead you to think a great deal. But the point in philosophy is, not what you may think, but what you do think : and the genuine air of thought is to be sought in thought itself, and not in symbols arbitrarily chosen.
105.] The fact that the Quantum is external to itself in its independent character or determinant, is what constitutes its quality. In that externality it is itself and referred con- nectively to itself. It is a union of externality, which is the quantitative, and of independent Being (Being-for-self), which is the qualitative part in it. The Quantum when thus ex- plicitly stated in its own self, is the Quantitative Relation. This is a specific character, which while it is an immediate quantum, viz. the exponent, is also mediation, viz. the reference of some one quantum to another. These Quanta are the two sides of the ratio or relation. They are not reckoned at their immediate value. Their value is only in this connexion.
The quantitative infinite progression appears at first as a continual out-going of number beyond itself. On looking closer, it is, however, apparent that in this progression quantity returns to itself: for the meaning of this progression, so far as thought goes, is the fact that number is determined by number. And this is the quantitative relation. Take, for
io6.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 171
example, the ratio 2:4. Here we have two magnitudes not counted in their immediacy as such, and which we are only concerned with in so far as they bear upon one another. This reference of the two terms, which is stated in the exponent of the ratio, is itself a magnitude, distinguished from the magnitudes compared by this, that a change in them is followed by a change of the ratio, whereas the ratio is unaffected by the change of both its sides, and remains the same so long as the exponent is not changed. Consequently, in place of 2 : 4, we can put 3 : 6 without changing the ratio ; as the exponent 2 remains the same in both cases.
106-] The two sides of the ratio are still immediate quanta : and the qualitative and quantitative characteristic still external to one another. But in their truth, seeing that the quanti- tative itself is a connexion with self in its externality, or seeing that the independence and the indifference of the character are combined, we have Measure.
Thus by means of the dialectical movement which has now been discussed, the movement of quantity through its several stages, quantity turns out to be a return to quality. The first notion of quantity presented to us was that of quality abrogated and absorbed. That is to say, quantity seemed an external character not identical with Being, to which it is quite immaterial. This notion, as we have seen, underlies the mathematical definition of magnitude, as what can be increased or diminished. At first sight this definition may encourage a belief that quantity is merely whatever can be altered : — increase and diminution alike implying determination of mag- nitude otherwise — and may tend to confuse it with determinate Being, the second stage of quality, which in its notion is similarly conceived as alterable. We can, however, complete the definition by adding, that in quantity we have something which alters, but which in spite of its changes still remains the same. The notion of quantity, as it thus turns out, implies an inherent contradiction. This contradiction is what forms the dialectic of quantity. The result of the dialectic however is not a mere return to quality, as if that were the true and quantity the false notion, but an advance to the unity and truth of both, to qualitative quantity, or Measure.
It may be well here to draw attention to the circumstance, that if we employ quantitative terms in our observation of the world of objects, it is in all cases the Measure \yhich we have in view, as the goal of our operations. This is hinted
172 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [107.
at even in language, when the ascertainment of quantitative features and relations is called measuring. We measure the length of different chords that have been put into a state of vibration, with an eye to the qualitative difference of the tones caused by their vibration, corresponding to this difference of length. Similarly, in chemistry, we try to ascertain the quantity of the matters that are brought into combination, in order to find out the measures or proportions conditioning such combinations, that is to say, those quantities which give rise to definite qualities. In statistics, too, the numbers with which the study is engaged are important only from the qualitative results conditioned by them. Mere collection of numerical facts, prosecuted without regard to the ends here noted, is justly called an exercise of idle curiosity, and subserves neither a theoretical nor a practical interest.
C. — MEASURE.
107-] Measure is the qualitative quantum, in the first place as immediate, — a quantum, to which a determinate being or a quality is attached.
Measure, where quality and quantity are in one, is thus the completion of Being. Being, as we first apprehend it, is something utterly abstract and characterless : but it is the very essence of Being to characterise itself, and its complete cha- racterisation is reached in the Measure. Measure, like the other stages of Being, may serve as a definition of the Absolute : God, it has been said, is the Measure of all things. The per- ception of this truth is what gives the tone to many of the Hebrew psalms, in which the glorification of God tends in the main to show that He has appointed to everything its bound : to the sea and the solid land, to the rivers and mountains ; and also to the various kinds of animals and plants. To the religious sense of the Greeks the divinity of measure, especially in respect of social morality, was represented by Nemesis. That conception is founded upon a general theory that all human things, riches, honour, and power, as well as joy and pain, have their definite measure, the transgression of which involves ruin and destruction. In the world of objects, too, we have measure. We see, in the first place, existences in Nature, of which the constituent features vitally depend upon the measure. This is the case, for example, with the solar system, which may be described as the empire of free or un- checked measure. As we penetrate into the study of inorganic
io8.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 173
nature, measure retires, as it were, into the background; at least we often find the quantitative and qualitative character- istics showing- an indifference to each other. Thus the quality of a rock or a river is not tied to any definite magnitude. But even these objects when closely inspected are found not to be quite measureless : the water of a river, and the single con- stituents of a rock, when chemically analysed, are seen to be qualities conditioned by quantitative ratios between the matters they contain. In organic nature, however, measure more de- cidedly rises full into the view of immediate perception. The various kinds of plants and animals, in the whole as well as in their parts, have a certain measure : though it is worth noticing that the more imperfect forms, those which are least removed from inorganic nature, are partly distinguished from the higher forms by the greater vagueness of their measure. Thus among fossils, we find some ammonites so small as to require the microscope for seeing them, and others as large as a cart-wheel. The same vagueness of measure appears in several plants, which stand on a low level of organic development, for instance, in the case of ferns.
108.] In so far as Measure presents quality and quantity in a unity which is immediate only, to that extent the distinction between them presents itself in a manner equally immediate. Two cases are then possible. Either the specific quantum or measure is a bare quantum and nothing more, and the definite being (there-and-then) is capable of an increase or a diminution, without thereby setting Measure completely aside. In that case Measure takes the shape of a Rule. Or the alteration of the quantum is equivalent to an alteration of the quality.
The identity between quantity vand quality, which is found in Measure, is at first only implicit, and not yet explicitly realised. In other words, these two categories, which unite in Measure, claim a certain independence and applicability of their own. On the one hand the quantitative features of the definite Being may be altered, without affecting its quality. On the other hand, this increase and diminution, immaterial though it be, has its limit, by exceeding which the quality suffers change. Thus the temperature of water is, in the first place, a point of no consequence in respect of its liquidity : still with the increase or diminution of the temperature of the liquid water, there comes a point where this state of cohesion
174 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [108.
suffers a qualitative change, and the water is converted into steam or ice. A quantitative change takes place, apparently without any further or hidden significance : but there is some- thing lurking behind, and a seemingly innocent change of quantity acts as a kind of snare, to catch hold of the quality. The antinomy of Measure which this implies was envisaged under more than one phase among the Greeks. It was asked, for example, whether a single grain makes a heap of wheat, or whether it makes a bare tail to tear out a single hair from the horse's tail. At first, no doubt, looking at the nature of quantity as an indifferent and external character of Being, we are disposed to answer these questions in the negative. And yet, as we must admit, this indifferent increase and diminution has its limit : a point is finally reached, where a single ad- ditional grain makes a heap of wheat ; and the bare tail is produced, if we continue plucking out single hairs. These examples find a parallel in the story of the peasant, who went on adding pound after pound to the burden of his cheerful ass, till it sunk at length beneath a load that had grown unendur- able. It would be a mistake to treat these examples as pedantic fooling ; they really turn on thoughts, an acquaintance with which is of great importance in the matter of practice, and especially of social morality. Thus in the matter of expense, there is a certain latitude within which a more or less does not matter ; but when the Measure, imposed by the individual cir- cumstances of the special case, is exceeded on the one side or the other, the qualitative nature of Measure (as in the above examples of the different temperature of water) makes itself felt, and a course, which a moment before was held good economy, turns into avarice or prodigality. The same principle may be applied in political science, when the constitution of a state is regarded as independent of, no less than dependent on, the extent of its territory, the number of its inhabitants, and other quantitative points of the same kind. If we look at a state with a territory of ten thousand square miles and a population of four millions, we should without hesitation admit that a few square miles of land or a few thousand in- habitants could exercise no essential influence on the character of its constitution. But, on the other hand, we must not for- get, that by the continual increase or diminishing of a state, we finally get to a point where, apart from all other circumstances, this quantitative alteration necessarily draws with it an alteration in the qualitative features of the constitution. The constitution of a little Swiss canton does not suit a great kingdom ; and, similarly, the constitution of the Roman republic was unsuitable when transferred to the small German towns of the Empire.
lop-in.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 175
109.] In this second case, when a measure through its quantitative nature has to leave its character of quality behind, we meet, what seems at first an absence of measure, the Measureless. But seeing- that the second quantitative re- lation, which in comparison with the first is measureless, is none the less qualitative, the measureless is also a measure. These two transitions, from quality to quantum, and back again to quality, may be represented under the image of an infinite progression — as the self-abrogation of the measure in the measureless, and its restoration.
Quantity, as we have seen, is not only capable of alteration, i. e. of increase or diminution : it is naturally and necessarily a tendency to leave itself behind. This tendency is preserved even in measure. But if the quantity in measure extends further than a certain limit, the quality corresponding to it is also put in abeyance. This however is not a negation of quality altogether, but only of a definite quality, the place of which is at once occupied by another. This process of measure, which appears alternately as a mere change in quantity, and then as a sudden revulsion of quantity into quality, may be envisaged under the figure of a line of nodes. Such a line we find in Nature under a variety of forms. We have already referred to the qualitatively different states of the aggregation of water, as conditioned by increase and diminution. The same pheno- menon is presented by the different degrees in the oxidation of metals. Even the difference of musical notes may be regarded as an example of what takes place in the process of measure, — the revulsion from what is at first merely quantitative into qualitative alteration.
110.] What really takes place here, is that the immediacy which still attaches to measure as such, is set aside. Quality and quantity are in the first place immediate in it, and measure is only their relative identity. But measure shows itself absorbed and lost in the measureless: yet the measureless, although it be the negation of measure, is itself a unity of quantity and quality. Thus in the measureless the measure is still seen to meet only with itself.
111.] Instead of the more abstract factors, Being and Nothing, some and other, &c., the Infinite, which is affirmation
176 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [in.
as a negation of negation, finds its present factors in quality and quantity. These (a) have in the first place passed over, quality into quantity (§ 98), and quantity into quality (§ 105), and thus they both show that they are negations. (/3) But in their unity, that is, in measure, they are originally distinct, and the one owes its place to the intervention of the other. And (y) after the immediacy of this unity has turned out to be self-annul ling, the unity is explicitly carried out into what it implicitly is, into a simple connexion with self, which contains in it Being and all its forms absorbed. Being or immediacy, which by the negation of itself is a mediation with self and a reference to self, — Being which is also a mediation that passes away into reference-to-self, or immediacy, is the Essence, or Permanent Being.
The process of measure, instead of being only the wrong infinite of an endless progression, in the shape of a perpetual recoil from quality to quantity, and from quantity to quality, is also the true infinity of coincidence with self in another. In measure, quality and quantity originally confront each other, like some and other. But quality is implicitly quantity, and conversely quantity is implicitly quality. In the process of measure, these two pass into each other : each of them becomes what it already was implicitly : and thus we get Being thrown into obeyance and absorbed, with its several characteristics denied. Such a Being is Essence. Measure is implicitly Essence ; and its process consists in carrying out what it is implicitly. — The ordinary consciousness conceives things as being, and con- siders them in their quality, quantity and measure. These immediate characteristics soon show themselves to be not fixed but transient ; and Essence is the result of their dialectic. In the sphere of Essence one category does not pass into another, but refers to another merely. In Being, the form of reference or connexion is purely a matter of our own reflection : but it is the special and proper characteristic of Essence. In the sphere of Being, when somewhat becomes another, the somewhat has vanished. Not so in Essence : here there is no real other, but only diversity, the reference of one category to its antithesis. The transition of Essence is therefore at the same time no transi- tion : for in the passage of different into different, the different does not vanish : the different terms remain in their connexion. When we speak of Being and Nought : Being is independent, so is Nought. The case is otherwise with the Positive and the
in.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 177
Negative. No doubt these possess the characteristics of Being and Nought. But the positive by itself has no sense ; its whole Being is in reference to the negative. It is the same with the negative. In the sphere of Being the reference of one term to another is only implicit; in Essence on the contrary it is explicitly stated. And this in general is the distinction be- tween the forms of Being and Essence : in Being everything is immediate, in Essence everything is relative.
CHAPTEE VIII. SECOND SUB-DIVISION OF LOGIC.
THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE.
112.] THE characteristics or special forms in the Essence are relative only to one another, and not yet in all respects reflected into self: the notion therefore at this stage is not fully master of itself, but is laid down and stated by the action of thought. The Essence, which is Being coming into mediation with self through the negativity of itself, is a con- nexion with self, only to the same extent as it is a connexion with another. That other however is not immediately in Being, but is derived from, and created by, something else. Being is not lost to sight : for, firstly, the Essence as a simple reference- to-self is Being; but, secondly, Being, so far as concerns the one-sided characteristic by which it is immediate, is reduced to a mere negative, a show or seeming. And the Essence accordingly is Being as throwing light or showing in itself.
The Absolute is the Essence. This is the same definition as the previous one that the Absolute is Being, in so far as Being is similarly a simple reference to self. It is at the same time higher, because the Essence is Being that has gone into itself: that is to say, its simple reference-to-self is this reference realised as a negation of the negative, as a mediation of it in itself with itself. — Unfortunately when the Absolute is defined to be the Essence, the negativity which this implies is often taken only to mean the withdrawal of all determinate
THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 179
predicates. This negative action of withdrawal or abstraction thus falls outside of the Essence — which is then presented as a result apart from its premisses and made the caput mortuum of abstraction. But as this negativity, instead of being external to Being, is the very dialectic of Being, the truth of the latter, viz. the Essence, will be as Being gone into itself or' abiding in itself. That reflection, or light thrown into itself, constitutes the distinction between the Essence and immediate Being ; and is the peculiar characteristic of the Essence itself.
Any mention of the Essence implies that we distinguish it from Being: the latter is immediate and, compared with the Essence, we look upon it as mere seeming and sham. But, this reflected light or seeming is not an utter nonentity and nothing at all, but Being which has been absorbed. The point of view given by the Essence is the same as what is termed reflection. This word < reflection ' is originally applied, when a ray of light in a straight line impinges upon the surface of a mirror, from which it is thrown back. In this phenomenon we have a double fact : first, an immediate which is, and, secondly, the same thing as derivative or statuted. The same process takes place when we reflect, or think upon an object; for here we aim at knowing the object, not in its immediacy, but as derivative or mediated. The problem or aim of philo- sophy is often represented as the attainment of a knowledge of the essence of things : a phrase which only means that things instead of being left in their immediacy, must be shown to be mediated by, or based upon, something else. The imme- diate Being of things is thus conceived under the image of a rind or curtain behind which the Essence lies hidden.
Everything, it is said, has an Essence : that is, things really are not as they immediately present themselves. There is some- thing more to lie done than merely run about from one quality to another, and merely to advance from qualitative to quan- titative, and vice versa: there is permanence in things, and that permanence is in the first instance their Essence. On the other meaning and uses of the category of Essence, we ma}' note that in the German auxiliary verb ' sein,' the past tense is expressed by the term for Essence (Wesen) : for 'gewesen' is the past participle of the verb. This irregularity of language is based to some extent on a correct perception of the relation between Being and the Essence. The Essence we may regard as past Being, remembering that the past is not utterly denied, but only laid aside and thus at the same time preserved. Thus,
N a
180 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [112.
to say, Caesar was in Gaul, only denies the immediacy of the event, but not his residence in Gaul altogether. That residence is just what forms the gist or fact of the sentence, but that gist or fact is represented as over and gone. So 'Wesen' in ordinaiy life is used to express a collection or sum total : Zeitungswesen (the Press), Postwesen (the Post-Office), Steuer- wesen (the- Revenue). All that these terms mean is that the things in question are not to be taken single, in their imme- diacy, but as a complex system, and in their various bearings or points of connexion. This usage of the term is not very different from our own.
We also speak of finite Essences (or beings), such as man. But the very term Essence implies that we have made a step beyond finitude : and the title as applied to man is so far in- exact. It is often added that there is a supreme Essence, (Being) : by which is meant God. On this two remarks may be noted. In the first place the phrase 'there is' points to the finite only : as when we say, there are so many planets : or, there are plants of such a constitution and plants of such an other. In these cases we are speaking of something which has other things beyond and beside it. But God, who is ab- solutely infinite, is not something out of, and beside whom, there are other essences. All else out of God, if separated from him, possesses no essentiality : in its isolation it becomes a mere show or seeming, without stay or essence of its own. But, secondly, it is a poor way of talking to call God the highest or supreme Essence. The category of quantity which the phrase employs has its proper place within the compass of the finite. When we call one mountain the highest on the earth, we have the picture of other high mountains besides this one in our view. So too is it, when we call any one the richest or most learned in his country. But God, far from being a Being or Essence, even the highest, is the Being or Essence. This definition, however, though as a conception of God it is an important and necessary stage in the growth of the religious consciousness, does not by any means exhaust the depth of that generalised image under which Christianity represents God. If we consider God as the Essence only, and nothing more, we know him only as the universal and irre- sistible Power ; in other words, as the Lord. Now the fear of the Lord is, doubtless, the beginning, — but it is only the beginning, of wisdom. To look at God in this light, as the Lord alone, is especially characteristic of the Jewish and the Mohammedan religions. The defect of these religions lies in neglecting the claims of the finite, which it is the peculiar merit of the heathen and (as they also are) polytheistic religions
113,114.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 181
to maintain, either in the shape of a natural object or as a finite form of the mind. Another not uncommon assertion is that God, as the supreme Essence or Being, cannot be known. Such is the view taken by modern Illumination and the abstract understanding-, which is content to say, II y a un etre supreme : and there lets the matter rest. To speak thus, and treat God as the supreme and super-sensible Essence, implies that we look upon the world before us in its immediacy as something fixed and positive, and forget that the Essence is just the superseding of all that is immediate. If God be the abstract super-sensible Essence or Being which is void of all difference and all specific character, He is only a bare name, a mere caput mortuum of the abstract understanding. The true knowledge of God begins when we know that things, as they immediately are, have no truth.
In reference to other subjects besides God the category of Essence is often liable to an abstract use, by which, in the study of anything, its Essence is held to be something un- affected by, and subsisting in independence of, the determinate circumstances that form its Appearance. Thus we say of a man, it may be, that the main point is not his actions and behaviour, but solely what he essentially is. This is correct, if it means that a man's conduct is to be judged, not in its immediacy, but as due to the instrumentality of his inward part, and as a manifestation of that inward part. Still it should be remem- bered that the only means by which the Essence and the inward part can be verified, is their outward appearance ; whereas the appeal which men make to the essential life, as distinct from the circumstances of their conduct, is generally prompted by a desire to emphasise their own subjectivity and an eagerness to elude the absolute law.
113.] The connexion with self in the Essence is the form of Identity or of reflection-into-self, which thus arises to take the place of the immediacy of Being. They are both the same abstraction, — connexion-with-self.
The senses, with their utter want of thought, took every- thing limited and finite for Being. This passes into the obstinacy of understanding, which views the finite as some- thing identical with itself, and not inherently self-contradictory.
114.] This identity, as it has descended from Being, appears in the first place only possessed of the characteristics of Being, and connected with Being as with something
182 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [114.
external. This external Being, if taken in separation from the true Being of the Essence, is called the Unessential. But that turns out a mistake. Because Essence is Being- within-self, it is essential, only to the extent that it contains in itself its negative, which is connexion with another, or mediation. Consequently, it has the unessential as a part of itself; as it were, its own show. But to show or seem, in other words, to mediate, involves distinguishing : and since what is distinguished, (as distinguished from the identity out of which it arises, and in which it is not, or lies as a show.) receives itself the form of identity, it is still in the mode of Being, or of immediacy referring - itself - to - itself. The sphere of Essence thus turns out to be a still imperfect combination of immediacy and mediation. In it everything is expressly made to refer itself-to-itself, and yet so that one is forced at the same time to go beyond it. We have, in short, a Being of reflection, a Being in which another shows, and which shows in another. And so it is also the sphere, in which the contradiction still implicit in the sphere of Being, is explicitly made.
As the one notion is the common substance of all, there appear in the development of the Essence the same categories or terms of thought as in the development of Being, but in a reflected form. Instead of Being and Nought we have now the forms of Positive and Negative; the former at first as Identity corresponding to pure and uncontrasted Being, the latter developed, (showing in itself) as Difference. So also, we have Becoming represented by the Ground of determinate Being: which itself, after being reflected on the Ground, is to be termed Existence.
The theory of the Essence is the most difficult branch of Logic. It includes the categories of metaphysic and of the sciences in general. These are products of the reflective un- derstanding, which, while it assumes the differences to possess a footing of their own, and at the same time also expressly affirms their relativity, still combines the two statements, side
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by side, or one after the other, by an ' Also,' without bringing these thoughts into one, or uniting them in the notion.
A. — ESSENCE AS GROUND OF EXISTENCE.
(a) The primary characteristics or Categories of Reflection.
(a) Identity.
115.] The Essence shows in itself; in other words, it is mere reflection : and therefore is a connexion with self, not as immediate but as reflected. And that reflected connexion is Identity with self.
This Identity becomes an Identity in form only, or of the understanding, if it be held hard and fast, quite aloof in abstraction from the difference. Or, rather, abstraction means the imposition of this Identity of form, the change of some- thing inherently concrete into this form of elementary sim- plicity. And this may be dpne in two ways. On the one hand, we may neglect a part of the complex features which are found in the concrete thing (by what is called analysis) and select only one of them ; or, on the other hand, neglecting their variety, we may concentrate the numerous characters into one.
If we associate Identity with the Absolute, making the Absolute the subject of a proposition, we get: The Absolute is what is identical with itself. However true this proposition may be, it is doubtful, whether it be meant in its truth : and therefore it is at least imperfect in the expression. For it is left undecided, whether it means the abstract Identity of understanding, — abstract, that is, because contrasted with and opposed to the other characteristics of Essence, or the Identity which is inherently concrete. In the latter case, as will be seen, true Identity is first discoverable in the Ground, and, with a higher truth, in the Notion. Even the word Absolute is often used to mean no more than abstract. Absolute space and absolute time, for example, is another way of saying abstract space and abstract time.
184 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [115.
When the characteristics of the Essence are taken as essential characteristics, they become predicates of a hypothetical subject, which, because it is essential, is ' Everything.' The propositions thus arising- have been expounded as the universal laws of thought. Thus the first of them, the maxim of Identity, reads : Everything is identical with itself, A = A : and, negatively, A cannot at the same time be A and not A. This maxim, instead of being a true law of thought, is nothing but the law of the abstract understanding. The form of the maxim is virtually self-contradictory : for a proposition always pro- mises a distinction between subject and predicate ; while the present one does not fulfil what its form requires. But it is particularly set aside by the following so-called Laws of Thought, which make laws out of the very counterpart of this law. It is asserted that the maxim of Identity, though it cannot be proved, regulates the consciousness of every one, and that experience shows it to be accepted as soon as its terms are apprehended by consciousness. To this pretended experience of the school may be opposed the universal experience that no mind thinks, or forms conceptions, or speaks, in accordance with this law, and that no existence of any kind whatever conforms to it. The language which such a pretended law demands (A planet is a planet ; Magnetism is magnetism ; Mind is mind) is, as it deserves to be, called silliness. That is certainly matter of general experience. The logic which seriously propounds such laws has long ago cost the school, in which they alone are valid, the loss of its credit with sound com- mon sense as well as with reason.
Identity is, in the first place, the repetition of what we had earlier as Being, but having become so by laying aside its immediate character. It is therefore Being as Ideality. It is important to have a thorough understanding of the true mean- ing of Identity : and, for that purpose, we must especially guard against viewing it as abstract Identity, to the exclusion of all Diiference. That is the touch-stone for distinguishing all bad philosophy from what alone deserves the name of philosophy. Identity in its truth, as an Ideality of what im-
n6.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 185
mediately is, makes a high, category, in which to express our religious modes of thought as well as any other forms of our thought and mental activity. The true knowledge of God, it may be said, begins when we know him as identity, — as abso- lute identity. This is to be interpreted as meaning that all the power and glory of the world sinks into nothing in God's pre- sence, and subsists only as the reflection of His power and His glory. In the same way, Identity, as the consciousness of self, is what distinguishes man from nature, particularly from the brutes, which never reach the point of comprehending themselves as ' I,' that is, a mere unity of self in one's self. So again, in connexion with thought, the main thing is not to confuse the true Identity which contains Being and its typical forms bound up indissolubly in it, with an abstract Identity, and one of bare form. A.11 the charges of inadequacy, hardness, meaninglessness, which are so often directed against thought from the quarters of feeling and immediate perception, rest on the erroneous hypo- thesis that thought acts only as a faculty of abstract Identi- fication. The Formal Logic itself confirms this presumption by laying down the supreme laws of thought (so-called) which have been discussed above. If thinking were no more than an abstract Identity, we could not but own it to be a most unnecessary and tedious business. No doubt the notion, and the idea too, are identical with themselves : but identical only in so far as they at the same time involve distinction.
(/3) Difference.
116.] The Essence is mere Identity and show in itself, only as it is the negativity which connects self with self, and by this means a thrusting of it away from itself. It contains there- fore essentially the characteristic of Difference.
Other-Being is here no longer qualitative, taking the shape of the character or limit. It is now in the Essence, which connects self with self, and thus is the negation, which at the same time is a reference of connexion. It is, in short, Distinction, Relativity, Mediation.
To ask, 'How Identity comes to Difference?' assumes that Identity as mere abstract Identity is something of itself, and Difference also something else equally independent. This sup- position renders an answer to the question impossible. If Identity is viewed as diverse from Difference, all that we get in this way is but a Difference ; and hence we cannot demon-
186 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [117.
strate the advance to difference, because the person who wants to know the How of the progress has not the least sense of the point from which we are expected to start. The question then when put to the test has obviously no meaning; and its opposer may be met with the question, what he means by Identity. In that way we should soon see that he attaches no idea to it at all, and that Identity is for him an empty name. As we have seen, besides, Identity is an undoubted negative; not however an abstract empty Nought, but the negation of Being and its chai'acteristics. Being so, Identity is at the same time a reference of connexion, and it is a negative connexion with self, in other words, it draws a dis- tinction between it and itself.
117-] Difference is, first of all, immediate difference, i. e. Diversity or Variety. In Diversity the different things are each individually what they are, and unaffected by the connexion in which they stand to each other. This connective reference is therefore external to them. In consequence of the various things being thus indifferent to the difference between them, it falls outside them into a third thing, the act of Comparison. This external difference, as an identity of the objects con- nectively referred, is Likeness; as a non-identity of them, it is Unlikeness.
The interval, which understanding allows to exist between these characteristics of likeness and unlikeness, is so great, that although comparison has one and the same substratum, in which likeness and unlikeness ought to be distinct sides and points of view ; still likeness by itself is taken to be the first of the elements alone, viz. identity, and unlikeness by itself to be difference.
Diversity has, like Identity, been transformed into a maxim : ' Everything is various or different ' : or, ' There are no two things completely bike each other.' Here Everything is put under a predicate, which is the reverse of the identity attri- buted to it in the first maxim ; and therefore under a law contradicting the first. However there is an explanation. As variety is a matter for the outward comparison only, anything on its own account is expected and understood always to be
1 1 7-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 187
identical with itself, so that the second law need not interfere with the first. But, in that case variety does not belong to the something or everything in question : it constitutes no intrinsic characteristic of the subject : and the second maxim on this showing does not admit of being stated at all. If, on the other hand, the something itself is as the maxim says various, it must be in virtue of its own proper character : but in this case the specific difference, and not variety as such, is what is intended. And this is the meaning of the maxim of Leibnitz.
When understanding proposes to consider Identity, it has already passed beyond it, and is looking at Difference in the shape of bare Variety. If we follow the so-called law of Identity, and say, — The sea is* the sea, The air is the air, The moon is the moon ; these objects appear to us to have no bearing on one another. What we have before us therefore is not Identity, but Difference. We do not stop at this point however, and regard things only as different and various. We compare them one with another, and thus discover the features of likeness and unlikeness. The work of the finite sciences lies to a great extent in the application of these categories, and the phrase ' scientific treatment ' generally means no more than the method which has for its aim the comparison of the objects brought under examina- tion. This method has undoubtedly led to some important results; — we may particularly mention the great advance of modern times in the provinces of comparative anatomy and comparative philology. But it is going too far to suppose that the comparative method can be employed with equal success in all the branches of knowledge. Nor can mere comparison ever ultimately satisfy the requirements of science. Its results are indeed indispensable, but they are still labours preliminary to the adequate notions of science.
If it be the office of comparison to reduce existing differences to Identity, the science, which most perfectly fulfils that end, is mathematics. The reason of that is, that quantitative difference is the difference which is quite external. Thus, in geometry, a triangle and a quadrangle, figures which are qualitatively different, have this qualitative difference discounted by abstraction, and are made equal to one another in their magnitude. It follows from what has been said about the mere Identity of understand- ing that, as has been pointed out (§ 99, note), neither philosophy, nor the empirical sciences, need envy this superiority of Mathe- matics.
The story is told that, when Leibnitz propounded the maxim
188 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [118.
of Variety, the cavaliers and ladies of the court, as they walked round the garden, took the trouble to look for two leaves indis- tinguishable from each other, in order to confute the law stated by the philosopher. Their device was unquestionably a con- venient method of dealing with metaphysics, which has not yet ceased to be fashionable. Unfortunately, as regards the principle of Leibnitz, difference must be understood to mean not an ex- ternal and indifferent diversity merely, but difference in its own nature. Hence the very nature of things implies that they must be different.
118.] Likeness is an Identity only of those things which are not the same, or not identical with each other : and Unlikeness is a reference connecting things unlike. The two therefore do not sink into distinct sides ^or aspects which have no bearing upon each other. The one, as it were, shows or throws light into the other. Variety thus comes to be a difference of reflection, or difference (distinction) as it is in its own self, determinate or specific difference.
While things merely various show themselves unaffected by each other, likeness and unlikeness on the contrary are a pair of characteristics which have in all respects a reciprocal connexion. The one of them cannot be thought without the other. This advance from simple variety to opposition appears in our common acts of thought, when we allow that comparison has a meaning only upon the hypothesis of an existing difference, and that on the other hand we can distinguish only on the hypothesis of existing similarity. Hence, if the problem be the discovery of a difference, we attribute no great cleverness to the man who only distinguishes those objects, of which the difference is palpably open to the day, e.g. a pen and a camel : and similarly, it implies no very advanced faculty of comparison, when the objects compared, e. g. a beech and an oak, a temple and a church, are near akin. In the case of difference, in short, we like to see identity, and in the case of identity we like to see difference. Within the range of the empirical sciences however, the one of these two categories often puts the other out of sight and mind. The scientific problem at one time is to reduce existing differences to an identity ; on another occasion, with equal one- sided ness, to discover new differences. We see this in physical science. There the problem consists, in the first place, in the continual discovery of new matters, new forces, new genera, and species. Or, in another direction, it seeks to show that all bodies hitherto believed to be simple are compound : and modern physicists and chemists smile
up-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 189
at the ancients, who were satisfied with four elements, and these not simple. Secondly, and on the other hand, mere identity is made the chief question. Thus the electrical and chemical forces are regarded as the same, and even the organic processes of digestion and assimilation are looked upon as a mere chemical operation. Modern philosophy has often been nicknamed the Philosophy of Identity. But, as was already remarked (§ 103, note), it is precisely philosophy, and in particular speculative logic, which lays bare the nothingness of the mere identity of the understanding, when kept aloof from difference ; though it also undoubtedly urges its disciples not to rest at mere diversity, but to ascertain the inner unity of all that there is.
119.] Difference implicit or in itself is a difference of the Essence, and includes both the Positive and Negative: and that in this way. The Positive is the identical connexion with self in such a way as not to be the Negative, and the Negative is the different by itself so as not to be the Positive. Thus either is on its own account, in proportion as it is not the other. The one shows in the other, and is only in so far as that other is. The essential difference is therefore Opposition ; according to which the different is not faced by any other (as in mere diversity) but by its other or special antithesis. That is, either of these two (Positive and Negative) is stamped with a characteristic of its own, only by being connected in reference to the other : the one is only reflected into itself, as it is reflected into the other. This applies also to the other. Either in this way is the other of its other.
Difference implicit or essential gives rise to the maxim, Everything is essentially distinct ; or, as it may be expressed, Of two opposite predicates the one only can be assigned to anything, and there is no third possible. This maxim of Contrast or Opposition expressly controverts the maxim of Identity : the one says a thing should be only a reference connecting it with self, the other says that it must be an opposite, a connexion with its other. The native thought- lessness of abstraction betrays itself by setting in juxtaposition two contrary maxims, like these, as laws, without even com- paring them. The Maxim of Excluded Middle is the maxim
190 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [ng.
of the definite understanding, which would fain avoid contradiction, but in so doing falls into it. A must be either + A or — A, it says. It virtually declares in these words a third A which is neither 4- nor — , and which at the same time is yet taken as both + and — . If + W mean 6 miles to the West, and — "W mean 6 miles to the East, and if the + and — cancel each other, the 6 miles of way or space remain what they were with and without the contrast. Even the mere plus and minus of number or ab- stract direction have, if we like, zero, for their third : but it cannot be denied that the empty contrast, which understand- ing institutes between plus and minus, is not without some value in such abstractions as number, direction, &c.
In the doctrine of contradictory notions, the one notion is called, say, blue (for in his doctrine even the sensuous gene-, ralised image of a colour is called a notion) and the other not- blue. This other then would not be an affirmative colour, such as yellow, but would merely be specified as the abstract or simple negative. That the Negative in its own nature is quite as much Positive, is implied in saying that what is opposite to another is its other. The inanity of the oppo- sition between what are called contradictory notions is well presented in what we may call the grandiose formula of a general law, that Everything has the one and not the other of all predicates which are in such opposition. In this way, mind is either white or not-white, yellow or not-yellow, &c. ad infinitum.
It was forgotten that Identity and Opposition are them- selves opposed, and the maxim of Opposition was taken for that of Identity under the form of the maxim of Contradic- tion. A notion, which possesses neither or both of two mutually contradictory attributes, such a notion as a square circle, is held to be logically false. Now though a polygonal circle, and a rectilineal arc, alike contradict this maxim, geometers never hesitate to treat the circle as a polygon with rectilineal sides. But anything like a circle (that is to say its mere
1 1 9.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 191
character or definition) is still no notion. In the notion of a circle, centre and circumference are equally essential ; both marks or attributives belong to it : and yet centre and cir- cumference are opposite and contradictory to each other.
The conception of Polarity, which is so dominant in physics, contains by implication the more correct definition of Oppo- sition. But physics, when it has to deal with thoughts, adheres to the ordinary logic ; and it may therefore well be horrified in case it should ever expand the conception of Polarity, and see the thoughts which are implied in it.
(1) With the positive we return to identity, but in its higher truth as an identical connexion with self, and at the same time in such a way as not to be the negative. The negative on its own account is the same as difference itself. The identical as such is primarily the uncharacterised : the positive on the other hand is what is identical with itself, but characterised as antithetical. And the negative is difference as such, when it is definitely stated not to be identity. This is the difference of difference within its own self,
Positive and negative are supposed to express an absolute difference. The two however are at bottom the same : the name of either might be transferred to the other. Thus, for example, debts and assets are not two particular and self-subsisting species of property. What is negative to the debtor, is positive to the creditor. A way to the east is also a way to the west. Positive and negative are therefore intrinsically conditioned by one another, and have a being only when they are connectively referred to each other. The north pole of the magnet cannot be without the south pole, and vice versa. If we cut a magnet in two, we have not a north pole in one piece, and a south pole in another. Similarly, in electricity, the positive and the negative are not two diverse and independent fluids. In opposition, the different is not followed by any other, but by its own other. Usually we regard different things as unaffected by each other. Thus we say : I am a human being, and around me are air, water, animals, and all sorts of things. Everything is thus put outside of every other. But the aim of philosophy is to banish indifference, and to learn the necessity of things. By that means the other is seen to stand over against its other. Thus, for example, inorganic nature is not to be considered merely some- thing else than organic nature : but the necessary antithesis of it. Both are in essential connexion with one another ; and the one of the two is, only in so far as it excludes the other from it,
192 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [120.
and thus connects itself therewith. Nature in like manner is not without mind, nor mind without nature. An important step in thinking1 has been taken, when we cease to use phrases like : Of course something1 else is also possible. While we so speak, we have not yet thrown off contingency : and all true thinking, we have already said, is a thinking of necessity.
In modern physical science the opposition, first observed to exist in magnetism as polarity, has come to be regarded as a universal law pervading the whole of nature. This would be a genuine advance in science, if care were taken not to let mere variety hold its ground unquestioned by the side of opposition. Thus at one time the colours are regarded as in a polar opposition to one another, and called complementary colours : at another time they become an indifferent and merely quantitative differ- ence of red, yellow, green, &c.
(2) Instead of speaking by the maxim of Excluded Middle (which is the maxim of abstract understanding), we should rather say : Everything is opposite. Neither in heaven nor in earth, neither in the world of mind nor of nature, is there anywhere such an abstract, ' Either — or ' as the understanding maintains. All that there ever is, is concrete, with difference and opposition in itself. The finitude of things lies in the want of correspond- ence between their immediate being there and then, and what they virtually are by themselves. Thus, in inorganic nature, the acid is implicitly at the same time the base : in other words, its only being is to be in reference to its other. Hence also the acid is not something that remains quietly in the contrast : it is always seeking to realise what it potentially is. Con- tradiction, above all things, is what moves the world : and it is ridiculous to say that contradiction is unthinkable. The correct point in that statement is that contradiction is not the end of the matter, but cancels itself. But contradiction, when cancelled, does not give an abstract identity ; for that is itself only one side of the contrariety. The proximate result of oppo- sition when realised as contradiction is the ground, which contains identity as well as difference superseded and reduced to elements in the completer notion.
120.] Contrariety then has two forms. The Positive is the sort of variety, which means to be independent, and yet at the same time must not be unaffected by its connexion with its antithesis. The Negative must be no less independently the negative connexion with self, must be on its own account, but at the same time as Negative must on every point have this its connexion with self, i. e. have its Positive only in its
i2i.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 193
antithesis. Both Positive and Negative are therefore the state- ment of contradiction ; both are potentially the same. Both are so actually also ; since either is the abrogation of the other and of itself. Thus they fall to the Ground, — or, as is plain, the essential difference, as a difference in and for itself, is the difference of it from itself, and thus implies identity : so that to the whole of absolute difference there belongs itself as well as identity. As a difference that connects self with self, it is likewise enunciated to be what is identical with itself. And the opposite is in general that which includes the one and its other, itself and its opposite. The immanence of the essence thus defined is the Ground.
(y) The Ground.
121,] The Ground is the unity of identity and difference, the truth of what difference and identity have turned out to be, — the reflection-into-self, which is equally a reflection- into-other, and vice versa. It is the essence stated as a totality.
The maxim of the Ground runs thus : Everything has its Sufficient Ground : that is, the true and essential Being of any something is not the circumstance that something is identical with itself, or different (various), or merely positive, or merely negative; but that it has its Being in an other, which being its self-same, is its essence. And to this extent the essence becomes not an abstract reflection into self merely, but into an other. The Ground is the essence immanent ; the essence is intrinsically a ground ; and it is a ground only when it is a ground of somewhat, of an other.
We must be careful, when we say that the ground is the unity of identity and difference, not to understand an abstract identity. Otherwise we only change the name, while we still think the iden- tity of understanding which has been already proved to be false. To avoid this misconception we may say, that the ground, besides being the unity, is also the difference of identity and difference. The ground, which originally seemed to supersede and swallow up contradiction, thus presents to us a new contradiction. It is
194 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [121.
however a contradiction, which, so far from persisting quietly in itself, is rather the expulsion of it from itself. The ground is a ground only to the extent that it affords ground : but the result issuing from the ground is only the ground itself. In this lies its formalism. The ground and what is grounded are one and the same content or matter of fact : the difference between the two is the mere difference of form which separates a simple reference to self, on the one hand, from mediation or relativity on the other. The inquiry into the grounds of things marks the point of view which, as already noted (note to § 112), is adopted by reflection. We wish, as it" were, to see the matter double, first in its immediacy, and secondly, in its ground, where it is no longer immediate. This is the plain meaning of the law of sufficient ground, as it is called; it asserts that the light in which things should essentially be viewed is mediation. The manner in which Formal Logic establishes this law of thought, sets a bad example to the other sciences. The Formal Logic asks these sciences not to accept their subject-matter as it is imme- diately given ; and yet herself imposes a law of thought without deducing it, — in other words, without exhibiting the means by which it is reached. With the same justice as the logician maintains our faculty of thought to be so constituted that we must ask for the ground of everything, might the physician, when asked why a man who falls into water is drowned, reply that man happens to be so organised that he cannot live under water ; or the jurist, when asked why a criminal is punished, reply that civil society happens to be so constituted that crimes cannot be left unpunished.
Perhaps however logic could not be expected to give a ground for the law of the sufficient ground. Yet it might at least explain what is to be understood by a ground. The common explanation, which describes the ground as what has a con- sequence, seems at the first glance more evident and intelligible than the preceding determination by the notion. If you ask however what the consequence is, you are told that it is what has a ground; and it becomes obvious that the explanation is intelligible only because it assumes what in our case has been reached as the termination of an antecedent movement of thought. And this is the true business of logic. It shows that those thoughts, which are mere generalised images, and in that way neither understood nor demonstrated, are really grades in the self-determination of thought ; and by this means they are understood and demonstrated.
In common life, and it is the same in the finite sciences, this reflective form is often employed, for the purpose of discovering the real condition of the objects under investigation. So long as
i2i.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 195
we deal with what may be termed the simplest economy of knowledge, nothing- can be urged against this mode of opera- tion. But it can never afford definitive satisfaction, either in theory or practice. And the reason why it fails to do so, is that the ground is yet without a content, which is spontaneously and independently specified ; so that to regard anything as resting upon a ground, merely serves to distinguish the point of form between immediacy and mediation. We see an electrical pheno- menon, for example, and we ask for its ground (or reason) : we are told that electricity is the ground of this phenomenon. What is this but the same content as we had immediately before us, only translated into the form of inwardness ?
The ground however is not simply identity with self only, but also distinction : hence various grounds may be alleged for the same sum of fact. These various grounds, as distinguished, are grounds pro and contra. In any action, such as a theft, there is a sum of fact in which several aspects may be dis- tinguished. The theft has violated the rights of property : it has given the means of satisfying- his wants to the needy thief: possibly too the man, from whom the theft was made, misused his property. The violation of property is unquestionably the decisive point of view, before which the others must give way : but the bare law of the ground cannot settle that question. Usually indeed the law is interpreted to speak of a sufficient ground, not of any ground whatever : and it might be supposed therefore, in the action referred to, that, although other points of view besides the violation of property might be held as grounds, yet they would not be sufficient grounds. But here comes a dilemma. If we use the phrase ' sufficient ground,' the epithet is either otiose, or of such a kind as to carry us past the mere category of ground. The predicate is otiose and tautological, if it only states the capability of giving a ground or reason : for the ground is a ground, only in so far as it has this capability. If a soldier runs away from battle to save his life, his conduct is certainly unconformable to duty: but it cannot be held that the ground which led him so to act was insufficient, otherwise he would have remained at his post. After all there is this much to be said. On the one hand any ground suffices : on the other no ground suffices as ground, because, as already said, it is yet void of a content determined in itself and for itself, and is therefore not self-acting and productive. A content thus determined in itself and for itself, and hence self-acting, will hereafter come before us as the notion : and it is the notion which Leibnitz had in his eye when he spoke of sufficient ground, and urged the examination of things under its point of view. His remarks
O 2
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were originally directed against that merely mechanical method of looking at things, so much in vogue even now ; a method which he justly declares insufficient. We may see an instance of this mechanical theory of investigation, when the organic process of the circulation of the blood is traced back to the contraction of the heart ; or when certain theories in like manner explain the purpose of punishment to lie in deterring people from crime, in rendering the criminal harmless, or in other extraneous grounds of the same kind. It is unfair to Leibnitz to suppose that he was pleased with anything so poor as this formal law of the ground. The method of investigation which he inaugurated is the very reverse of a formalism, which ac- quiesces in mere grounds, where a full and concrete knowledge is sought. Considerations to this effect led Leibnitz to contrast causae efficientes and causae finales ; and he calls on men not to rest satisfied with the former but press on to the latter. If we adopt this distinction, light, heat, and moisture would be the causae efficiencies, not the causa finalis of the growth of plants : the causa finalis is the notion of the plant itself.
To be confined within the range of mere grounds, especially on questions of justice and morality, is the position and principle characterising the Sophists. Sophistry, as we ordinarily con- ceive it, is a mode of examining an object which aims at per- verting what is just and true, and which generally seeks to present things in a false light. Such however is not the proper or primary tendency of Sophistry : which rather occupies the position of inference and argumentation. The Sophists came forward at a time when the Greeks had begun to grow dis- satisfied with mere authority and tradition in the matter of morals and religion, and when they felt how needful it was to see that the sum of facts was due to the intervention and act of thought. That desideratum the Sophists supplied by teaching their countrymen to seek for the various points of view under which things may be considered : which points of view are the same as grounds. But the ground, as we have seen, has no absolutely determined content in itself, and it is as easy to discover grounds for what is wrong and immoral as for what is moral and right. Upon the observer therefore it depends to decide what points shall be regarded. The decision in such circumstances is prompted by his individual views and opinions. Thus the objective foundation of what ought to have been the absolute and universal creed for the acceptance of men, was undermined : and Sophistry by this destructive action drew upon itself merited obloquy. Socrates, as we all know, met the Sophists at every point, not by a bare statement and re-assertion of authority and tradition against their argumen-
122.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 197
were, and by establishing tbe supremacy of justice and goodness, in short, of the universal or the notion of the will. In the present day such a method of argumentation is not quite out of fashion. Nor is that the case only in the discussion of secular matters. It occurs even in sermons, such as those where every possible ground of gratitude to God is propounded. To such conduct Socrates and Plato would not have scrupled to apply the name of Sophistry. For Sophistry has nothing to do with what is taught : — that may always be true. Sophistry lies in the formal circumstance of teaching it by grounds which are as available for attack as for defence. In a time so rich in re- flection and so devoted to ratiocination as our own, he must be a poor creature who cannot advance a good ground for every- thing, even for the worst and most depraved. Everything in the world that has become corrupt, has had good ground for its corruption. An appeal to grounds at first makes the hearer think of beating a retreat : but when experience has taught him the real state of these matters, he closes his ears against them, and refuses to be imposed upon any more.
122.] As it first comes, the chief feature of the Essence is show in itself and intermediation in itself. But when it has completed the circle of intermediation, its unity with itself is explicitly stated as the self-annulling of difference, and therefore of intermediation. Once more then we come back to immediacy or Being ; but Being in so far as it is intermediated by annul- ling the intermediation. And that Being is Existence.
The facts which constitute the ground are not purely and entirely determined by itself: nor is the ground the same as the end or final cause: hence it is not active, nor does it produce anything. An Existence is said only to issue or proceed from the ground. The determinate ground is therefore a little formal : that is to say, any point will do, (if it be expressly put in connexion with its own self, or stated as an affirmation,) to constitute a relation to the immediate existence depending on it. If it be a ground at all, it is a good ground : for the term 'good' is employed abstractly as equivalent to affirmative; and any character is good which can in any way be enunciated as confessedly affirmative. So it happens that a ground can be found and adduced for everything : and a tations, but by showing dialectically how untenable mere grounds
198 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [123.
good ground (for example, a good motive for action) may effect something or may not, it may have a consequence or it may not. It becomes a motive and effects something, e.y. through its reception into the will ; then and there only it becomes active and is made a cause.
(b) Existence.
123.] Existence is the immediate unity of reflection-into- self, and reflection-into-another. It follows from this that existence is the indefinite multitude of existents as reflected- into-themselves, which at the same time equally throw light upon one another, — which, in short, are relative, and form a world of reciprocal dependence, and of infinite inter-connexion between grounds and consequents. The grounds are themselves existences : and the single cases of existence are grounds in as many directions as they are consequents.
The phrase existence (derived from existere) suggests the fact of having issued from something. Existence is Being which issues from the ground, and which has been reinstated by annulling its intermediation. The Essence, as Being set aside and absorbed, originally came before us as shining or showing in self, and the characteristic features of this light, as it were, which is thrown into itself are identity, difference and ground. The last is the unity of identity and difference; and because it unifies them it has at the same time to distinguish itself from itself. But that which is in this way distinguished from the ground is as little mere difference, as the ground itself is abstract sameness. The ground works its own suspension : and when suspended, the result of its negation is existence. Having issued from the ground, existence contains the ground in it : that is to say, the ground does not remain, as it were, behind existence. The very nature of the ground is to suspend itself and translate itself into existence. This is exemplified in our ordinary mode of thinking, when we look upon the ground of a thing, not as something merely and simply inward, but as itself existent. For example, the lightning which has set a house on fire would be considered the ground of the con- flagration : or the manners of a nation and the condition of its life would be regarded as the ground of its constitution. Such indeed is the ordinary aspect in which the existent world
\
124.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 199
originally appears to reflection. It looks like an indefinite crowd of things existent, which being simultaneously reflected in themselves and in one another are related reciprocally to one another as ground and consequence. In this motley play of the world, if we may so call the sum of what exists, there is nowhere a firm footing to be found: everything bears an aspect of relativity, conditioned by and conditioning something else. The reflective understanding makes it its business to elicit and trace these connexions running out in every direc- tion; but the question touching an end or aim does not by these means approach any nearer a solution. Thus the craving of the reason after knowledge passes beyond this position of bare relativity along with the extending evolution of the logical idea.
124.] There flection-into-another of what is existing is how- ever inseparable from the reflection-into-self : the ground is their unity, from which existence has issued. Whatever exists therefore includes in its own self relativity and its complex inter-connexion with other existences, and it is reflected into itself as ground. What exists consequently is, when so de- scribed, a Thing.
The ' thing-in-itself ' (or thing in the abstract), so famous in the philosophy of Kant, shows itself here in its genesis. It is seen to be the abstract reflection-into-self, which is retained, to the exclusion of reflection-into-other-things and of the distinct characteristics in general. And thus it is only the empty substratum of these characteristics of the thing.
If to know means to comprehend an object in its concrete character, then the thing-in-itself, which is thus in general quite abstract and indeterminate, must certainly be as unknowable as it is alleged to be. With as much reason however as we speak of the thing-in-itself, we might speak of quality-in-itself or quantity-in-itself, and of any other category. The expression would then serve to signify that these categories are taken in their abstract immediacy, apart from their development and inward character. It is no better than a whim of the under- standing, therefore, if we attach the qualificatory term ' in-itself ' to the thing only. But this term ' in-itself (or ' in-the-abstract ') is applied to the facts of the mental as well as the natural world : as we speak of electricity or of a plant in itself, so we speak of man or the state in itself. By this ' in-itself in
200 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [125.
these objects is meant what they, rightly and properly speak- ing, are. This usage is liable to the same criticism as the phrase ' thing-in-itself.' For if we stick to the mere ' in-itself ' of an object, we apprehend it not in its truth, but in the inadequate form of mere abstraction. The man-in-himself, for example, is the child. And what the child has to do is to rise out of this abstract and undeveloped ' in- himself,' and become for himself what he is at first only ' in-himself,' — a free and reasonable being. Similarly, the state-in-itself is the yet im- mature and patriarchal state, where the various political func- tions, latent in the notion of the state, have not been constituted as the notion requires. In the same sense, the germ may be called the plant- in-itself. These examples may show the mistake of supposing that the < thing-in-itself ' or the ' in-itself of things is something inaccessible to our cognition. All things are originally in-themselves, but that is not the end of the matter. As the germ, being the plant-in-itself, means self-development, so the thing in general passes beyond its in-itself, the abstract reflection into self, to manifest itself further as a reflection into other things. It is in this sense that it has properties.
(c) Ike Thing.
125-] (a) The Thing is that totality, where the development of the features of the ground and of existence is explicitly stated in one. On the side of one of its factors, viz. reflection- into-other-things, it has in it the differences, in virtue of which it is a characterised and concrete thing, (a) These character- istics are various or diverse from one another ; they have their reflection-into-self not in themselves, but in the thing. They are Properties of the thing : and their connexion with the thing is expressed by the word ' have.'
As a means of connexion, ' to have ' takes the place of ' to be.' True, somewhat has qualities ill it too : but this transference of ' Having' into the sphere of Being is inexact, because the character or quality is directly one with the somewhat, and the somewhat ceases to be, when it loses its quality. But the thing is reflection-into-self: for it is an identity which is dis- tinct even from the difference, the characteristics of the thing. In many languages 'have' is employed to denote past time. And with reason : for the past is absorbed or suspended Being,
ia6.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 201
and the mind is its reflection-into-self ; in the mind only it continues to subsist, — the mind however distinguishing from itself this Being in it which has been absorbed or suspended.
In the Thing all the characteristics of reflection recur as existent. Thus the thing, in its initial aspect as the thing- in-itself, is the self-same or identical. But sameness, it was proved, is not found without difference : so the properties, which the thing has, are the existent difference in the form of diversity. In the case of diversity or variety we were led to see the aspect of reciprocal indifference of the diverse terms, having no other connexion with each other, save what was given by a com- parison external to them. But now in the thing, we have a bond which knits the various properties into union. Property, besides, should not be confused with quality. No doubt, we also say, a thing has qualities. But the phraseology is a mis- placed one: ' having ' hints at an independence, foreign to the ' Somewhat/ which is still directly the same with its quality. Somewhat is what it is only by its quality : whereas, though the thing indeed exists only as it has properties, it is not confined to this or that definite property, and can therefore lose it, without ceasing to be what it is.
126.] (/3) Even in the ground however, the reflection-into- something-else is directly convertible with reflection-into-self. And hence the properties are not merely different from each other ; they are also identical with themselves, independent, and relieved from their attachment to the thing. Still as they are the characters of the thing distinguished from one another (as reflected-into-self) they are not themselves things, if things be concrete ; but only existences reflected into themselves as abstract characters. They are what are called Matters.
Nor would any one give the name of things to Matters, such as magnetic and electric matters. They are qualities proper, at one with their Being, — they are the character that has reached immediacy, and that immediacy a reflected Being ; in other words, existence.
To elevate the properties which the Thing has, to the indepen- dent position of matters, or materials of which it consists, is a proceeding based upon the notion of a Thing: and for that reason is also found in experience. Thought and experience
202 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [127.
however alike protest against concluding from the fact that certain properties of a thing, such as colour, or smell, may be represented as particular colouring or odorous matters, that we are then at the end of the inquiry, and that nothing more is needed to penetrate to the true secret of things than a dis- integration of them into their component materials. This dis- integration into independent matters is properly restricted to inorganic nature only. The chemist is in the right therefore when, for example, he analyses common salt or gypsum into its elements, and finds that the former consists of muriatic acid and soda, the latter of sulphuric acid and calcium. So too the geologist does well to regard granite as a compound of quartz, felspar, and mica. These matters, again, of which the thing consists, are themselves partly things, which in that way may be once more reduced to more abstract or simple matters. Sulphuric acid, for example, is a compound of sulphur and oxygen. Such matters or bodies can as a matter of fact be represented as subsisting by themselves : but frequently we find other properties of things, entirely wanting this self-sub- sistence, also regarded as particular matters. Thus we hear caloric, and electrical or magnetic matters spoken of. Such matters are at the best figments of the understanding. And we see here the usual procedure of the abstract reflection of under- standing. Capriciously adopting certain categories, whose only value and virtue lies in their place in the gradual evolution of the logical idea, it employs them in the pretended interests of explanation, but against the unprejudiced voice of perception and experience, so as to trace back to them every object of research and observation. Nor is this all. The theory, by which a thing consists of independent matters, is frequently applied in a region where it has neither meaning nor force. For within the limits of nature even, wherever there is organic life, this category is obviously inadequate. An animal may be said to consist of bones, muscles, nerves, &c. : but evidently we are here using the term 'consist' in a very different sense from its use when we spoke of the piece of granite as consisting of the above-mentioned elements. The elements of granite are utterly indifferent to their combination : they could subsist as well without it. The different parts and members of an organic body on the contrary subsist only in their union : they cease to exist as such, when they are separated from each other.
127-] Thus Matter is the mere abstract or indeterminate reflec- tion-into-something-else, or reflection-in to-self at the same time as determinate ; it is consequently Thinghood which then and
128.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 203
there is, — the subsistence or substratum of the thing. By this means the thing- finds in the matters its reflection-into- self (the reverse of § 1 25) ; it subsists not in its own self, but in the matters, and is only a superficial association between them, or an external bond over them.
128.] (y) Matter, being the immediate unity of existence with itself, is also indifferent towards any specific character. Hence the numerous and diverse matters coalesce into the one Matter, or into existence under the reflective charac- teristic of identity. In contrast to this one Matter we have these distinct characters or properties and their external con- nexion which they have with one another in the thing. These together constitute the Form, — the reflective characteristic of difference, but a difference which exists and is a totality.
This one uncharacterised Matter is also the same as the Thing-in-itself was : only the latter is quite abstract in itself, while the former properly is also for something else, and in the first place for the Form.
The various matters of which the thing consists are potentially the same as one another. Thus we get one Matter in general to which the difference is expressly attached externally and as if it were a bare Form. This theory which holds things all round to have one and the same matter at bottom, and merely to differ externally in respect of form, is much in vogue with the reflective understanding. Matter in that case counts for naturally indeterminate throughout, but susceptible of any de- termination ; while at the same time it is perfectly permanent, and continues the same amid all change and alteration. And in finite things at least this disregard by matter of any de- terminate form is certainly exhibited. For example, it matters not to a block of marble, whether it receive the form of this or that statue or even the form of a pillar. Be it noted however that a block of marble can disregard form only relatively, that is, in reference to the sculptor : it is by no means purely form- less. And so the mineralogist sees the relatively formless matter of the sculptor, in the light of a special formation of rock, differing from other equally special formations, such as sandstone or porphyiy. Therefore we say it is an abstraction of the understanding, which isolates matter into a certain natural formlessness. For properly speaking the thought of matter
204 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSEX CE. [129, 130.
includes the principle of form throughout, and no formless matter therefore appears anywhere in experience as existing-. Be this as it may, the conception of matter as original and pre-existent, and as naturally formless, is at least very ancient ; it meets us even among the Greeks, at first in the mythical shape of Chaos, which is supposed to represent the unformed substratum of the existing world. Such a conception must of necessity tend to make God not the Creator of the world, but a mere world-moulder or demiurge. A deeper insight into nature reveals God as creating the world out of nothing. And that teaches two things. On the one hand it enunciates that matter as such has no independent subsistence, and on the other that the form does not supervene upon matter from without, but as a totality involves the principle of matter in itself. This free and infinite form will hereafter come before us as the notion.
129-] Thus the Thing suffers a disruption into Matter and Form. Each of these is the totality of thinghood and can stand by itself. But Matter, which is meant to be the positive and indeterminate existence, contains, as an existence, reflection- into-another, every whit as much as it contains Being-within- self. Accordingly as it is a unity of these characteristics, it is itself the totality of Form. But Form, being a complete whole of characteristics, ipso facto involves reflection-into-self ; in other words, as a Form that refers itself to itself, it has what ought to constitute the characteristic of Matter. Both are in the abstract the same. This unity of them, expressly realised, is the reference connecting Matter and Form, which are also distinguished.
130-] The Thing, being this totality, is a contradiction. On the side of its negative unity it is the Form in which matter is determined and deposed to the rank of properties (§ 125). At the same time it consists of Matters, which in the reflection- of-the-thing-into-itself are as much independent as they are at the same time negatived. Thus the thing is the essential existence, in such a way as to be an existence that suspends or absorbs itself in itself. In other words, the thing is an Appearance or Phenomenon.
In physics, Porosity represents the equal place which in the
i3i.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 205
thing is expressly attributed to the negation and to the in- dependence of matters. Each of the several matters (colouring matter, smelling matter, and if we believe some people, even sound-matter, — not excluding caloric, electric matter, &c.) is also negatived : and in this negation of theirs, that is to say interpenetrating their pores, we find the numerous other in- dependent matters, which, being similarly porous, allow the rest in turn to exist in themselves. Pores are not empirical facts ; they are figments of the understanding, which uses them to represent the element of negation in independent matters. The further working-out of the contradictions is concealed by the nebulous confusion in which all matters are independent and all no less negatived in each other. If the faculties or activities of mind are similarly hypostatised, their vital unity also turns into a perplexed mass of inter-actions.
These pores (meaning thereby not the pores in an organic body, such as the pores of wood or of the skin, but those in what are termed matters, such as in colouring matter, caloric, or in metals and crystals) cannot be verified by observation. In the same way matter itself: furthermore form which is separated from matter : in the first instance the thing and its consistence from matters, or the view that the thing subsists itself, and only has properties : all these are products of the reflective understanding, which while it observes and professes to retail only what it observes, is rather creating a metaphysic, bristling with contradictions of which it is un- conscious.
B. — THE APPEARANCE.
131.] The Essence must appear or show itself. In the essence there is a show or shining by which it is suspended and translated into immediacy. That immediacy has a double •character. Whilst, as reflection-into-self, it is matter or sub- sistence, it is also form, reflection-into-something-else, a sub- sistence which sets itself aside. To show or shine is the characteristic by which the essence is distinguished from
206 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [131.
being, — by which it is an essence ; and it is this show which, when it is developed, shows itself, and is the Appearance. The Essence accordingly is not something beyond or behind the appearance. Existence is appearance, just because it is the essence which exists. An Appearance (or Phenomenon) is an essential existence.
Existence stated explicitly in its contradiction, is Appearance. But an appearance or phenomenon is not to be confused with a mere show. Show or sham is the proximate truth of Being or immediacy. The immediate, instead of being what we sup- pose, something independent, resting on its own self, is a mere show, and as such it is packed into or included under the sim- plicity of the immanent essence. The essence is, in the first place, the sum total of the showing in self, but, far from abiding in this inwardness, it comes as a ground forward into existence ; and this existence being grounded not in itself, but on something else, is no more than an appearance. In our imagination we ordinarily combine with the term appearance or phenomenon the conception of an indefinite congeries of things existing, the being of which is purely relative, and which consequently do not rest on a foundation of their own, but are esteemed only as passing stages. But while this is so, essence is not supposed to stay persistently behind or beyond appearance. Rather it is, we may say, the infinite kindness which lets its own show freely issue into immediacy, and gra- ciously allows it the joy of being. The appearance which is thus created does not stand on its own feet, and has its being not in itself but in something else. God who is the essence, when He lends existence to the passing stages of his own show in himself, may be described as the goodness that creates a world : but He is also the power above it, and the righteousness, which manifests the merely phenomenal character of the content of this existing world, whenever it tries to exist for its own sake.
Appearance is upon the whole a very important grade of the logical Idea. Philosophy, in fact, may be marked off from or- dinary consciousness, through the circumstance, that it sees the merely phenomenal character of what the latter supposes to have an independent being. The significance of appearance however must be properly grasped or mistakes will arise. To say that anything is a mere appearance may be misinterpreted to mean, that as compared with what is merely phenomenal, there is greater truth in the immediate, in that which is. Now in strict fact, the case is precisely the reverse. Appearance is
i3i.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 207
higher than mere Being. It is an ampler term of thought, because it holds in combination the two elements of reflection- into-self and reflection-into-another : whereas Being (or im- mediacy) is simply the absence of connective reference, and apparently rests upon itself alone. Still, to say that anything is only an appearance suggests a real flaw, which consists in this, that Appearance is still in a state of rupture, and has no stay in itself. Beyond and above mere appearance comes in the first place Actuality, the third grade of Essence, of which we shall afterwards speak.
In the history of Modern Philosophy, Kant has the merit of first rehabilitating this distinction between the common and the philosophic modes of thought. He stopped half-way how- ever, when he attached to Appearance a subjective meaning only, and established the abstract essence outside of it as the thing-in-itself beyond the reach of our cognition. For it is the very nature of the world of immediate objects to be an appearance only. Knowing it to be so, we know at the same time the essence, which, far from staying behind or beyond the appearance, rather manifests its own essentiality by bringing it down to the level of mere appearance. One can hardly quarrel with the unprejudiced mind, which, in its eagerness after a rounded whole, cannot acquiesce in the doctrine of subjective idealism, that we are solely concerned with pheno- mena. The unprejudiced mind, however, in its desire to save the objectivity of knowledge, may very naturally return to abstract immediacy, and maintain that immediacy to be true and actual. In a short pamphlet published under the title, ' A most Lucid Statement for the General Public touching the proper nature of the Latest Philosophy: an Attempt to force the reader to understand] Fichte examined the opposition between subjective idealism and immediate consciousness in a popular form, under the shape of a dialogue between the author and the reader, and tried hard to prove that the subjective idealist's point of view was right. In this dialogue the reader complains to the author that he has failed to place himself in the idealist's position, and is inconsolable at being told that things around him are no real things but mere appearances. The affliction of the reader is not without grounds to justify it, when he is exhorted to consider himself hemmed in by an impenetrable barrier of purely subjective conceptions. Apart from this subjective view of Appearance, however, we have all reason to rejoice that the things which environ us are appear- ances and not steadfast and independent existences; since in that case we should soon perish of hunger, both bodily and mental.
208 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [132, 133.
(a) The World of Appearance or Phenomenal World.
132-] The Apparent or Phenomenal exists in such a way, that its subsistence is ipso facto thrown into abeyance or suspended and is made only one element in the form itself. The form embraces in it the matter or subsistence as one of its characteristics. In this way the phenomenal has its ground in this matter as its essence, its reflection-into-self in contrast with its immediacy, but, in so doing, has it only in another character of the form. This ground of its is no less phenomenal than itself, and the phenomenon in this way passes into an endless mediation of subsistence by means of form, and thus equally by non-subsistence. This endless inter-mediation is at the same time a unity of con- nexion with self: and existence is developed into a totality, into a world of phenomena, — of reflected finitude.
(b) Content and Form.
133-] In the world of phenomena one phenomenon is outside of another. But they compose a rounded whole, and are quite contained in their connexion with self. In this way the connexion of the phenomenon with self is completely specified, it has the Form in itself: and because it is in this identity, has it as essential subsistence. So it comes about that the form is Content : and, when viewed in its developed character, is the Law of the Phenomenon. When the form on the contrary is not reflected into self it is equivalent to the negative of the phenomenon, to the non-independent and changeable: and that sort of form is the indifferent or Ex- ternal Form.
The essential point to keep in view about the opposition of Form and Content is that the content is not formless, but has the form in its own self, quite as much as the form is external to it. There is a double sort of form. At one time it is reflected into itself. That form is identical with the content.
1 33.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 209
At another time it is not reflected into itself. That is the external existence, which does not at all affect the content. We are here in presence, properly speaking-, of the absolute relation or proportion between content and form : according to which the one lapses into the other, so that content is nothing but the revulsion of form into content, and form nothing but the revulsion of content into form. This mutual revulsion is one of the most important laws of thought. But it is not explicity stated until we come to the Absolute Relation or Proportion.
Form and content are a pair of characteristics frequently employed by the reflective understanding, especially in the way of looking on the content as the essential and independent, the form on the contrary as the unessential and dependent. Against this it is to be noted that both are in fact equally essential ; and that, while a formless content can be as little found as a formless matter, the two (content and matter) are distinguished by this circumstance, that matter, though implicitly not without form, still in being one thing or another manifests a disregard of form, whereas the content, as such, is what it is only because the matured form is included in it. Still the form comes before us sometimes as an existence indifferent and external to content, and does so for the reason that the whole range of Appearance is still encumbered with externality. In a book, for instance, it certainly has no bearing upon the content, whether it be bound in paper or in leather. That however does not in the least imply that apart from such an indifferent and external form, the content of the book is itself formless. There are undoubtedly books enough which even in reference to their content may well be styled formless : but want of form in this case is the same as bad form, and means the absence of the right form, not the absence of all form. So far is this right form from being unaffected by the content that it is rather the content itself. A work of art that wants the right form is for that very reason no right or true work of art : and it is a bad way of excusing an artist, to say that the content of his works is good and even excellent, though they want the right form. Keal works of art are those where content and form are throughout identical. The content of the Iliad, it may be said, is the Trojan war, and especially the wrath of Achilles. In that we have everything, and yet very little after all; for the Iliad is made an Iliad by the poetic form, in which that content is moulded. The content of Romeo and Juliet may similarly be said
210 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [134.
to be the ruin of two lovers through the discord between their families : but something more is needed to make Shakespeare's immortal tragedy.
In reference to the relation of form and content in the field of science, we should recollect the difference between philosophy and the rest of the sciences. The latter are said to be finite, because their mode of thought, as a merely formal act, derives its content from without. Their content therefore is not known as moulded from writhin through the thoughts which lie at the ground of it, and form and content do not thoroughly inter- penetrate each other. This partition disappears in philosophy ; and thus justifies the title of infinite knowledge sometimes given to philosophy. Yet even philosophic thought is often held to be a merely formal act ; and the absence of any content in logic, which by common agreement deals only with thoughts as thoughts, is one of the settled facts of ordinary opinion. And if content means no more than what is palpable and obvious to the senses, all philosophy and logic in particular must be at once acknowledged to be void of content, that is to say, of content perceptible to the senses. Even ordinary forms of thought however and the common usage of language do not in the least restrict the appellation of content to what is perceived by the senses, or to what has a being in place and time. A book without content is, as every one knows, not a book with empty leaves, but one of which the content is as good as none. We shall find as the last result on closer analysis, that by content an educated mind means nothing but the presence of thought. Hence it follows that thoughts are not empty forms without affinity to their content, and that in other spheres than that of art, the truth and thoroughness of the content essentially depend on the content showing itself identical with the form.
134.] But immediate existence is a character of the subsistence itself as well as of the form : the form is consequently external to the character of the content, but in an equal degree this externality, which the content has through the factor of its subsistence, is essential to it. When thus explicitly stated, the phenomenon is the ratio or relation : in which one and the same thing, viz. the content or the developed form, is seen as the externality and antithesis of independent existences, and as their equation or identical connexion. And it is in this connexion alone that the two things distinguished are what they are.
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(c) Ratio (Relation).
135.] (a) The immediate relation (in which the two sides are quasi- independent) is that of the Whole and the Parts. The content is the whole, and consists of the p'arts : these parts are the form and the reverse of the content. The parts are diverse one from another. It is they that possess independent being. But they are parts, only when they are connected with one another as identical, i. e. when equated ; or, in so far as they make up the whole, when taken together. But this term ' Together' is the reverse and negation of the part.
Essential relativity is the specific and completely universal phase in which things appear. Everything that exists stands in relation, and this relation is the veritable nature of every existence. The existent thing in this way is not solely on its own account, its being is in something else : in this other however it is the connexion with self; and relation is the unity of the connexion with self and the connexion with something else.
The relation of the whole and the parts is untrue to this extent, that the notion and the reality of the relation are not in harmony. The notion of the whole is to contain parts : but if the whole is taken and made what its notion implies, i. e. if it is divided, it at once ceases to be a whole. Things there are, no doubt, which correspond to this relation : but for that very reason they are trifling and untrue existences. We must re- member however what ' untrue ' signifies. When it occurs in a philosophical discussion the term 'untrue' does not signify that the thing to which it is applied is non-existent. A bad state or a sickly body may exist, — of that there can be no doubt ; but these things are untrue, because their notion and their reality are out of harmony.
The relation of whole and parts, being the immediate relation, is one that is familiar to the analytic or reflective understanding ; and for that reason it often satisfies when the question really turns on profounder relations. The limbs and organs, for instance, of an organic body, are not merely parts of it : it is only in their unity that they are what they are, and they are unquestionably affected by that unity, as they also in turn affect it. These limbs and organs become mere parts, only when they pass under the hands of the anatomist, whose occupations, be it remembered, are not with the living body but with the corpse. Not that we call dissection a mistake : we only mean that the external and mechanical relation of whole and parts is not
P 2
212 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [136.
sufficient for us, if we want to learn the truth of organic life. And if this be so in organic life, it is the case to a much greater extent when we apply this relation to the mind and the formations., of the spiritual world. Psychologists may not expressly speak of parts of the soul or mind, but the mode in which this subject is treated by the analytic understanding shows traces of copying the pattern of this finite relation. At least that is so, when the different forms of mental activity are enumerated and described merely in their isolation one after another, as so-called special powers and faculties.
136.] (/3) The one-and-same of this ratio, the connexion with self which is found in it, is thus immediately a negative connexion with itself. And it is so, when by its means it is brought about that one and the same is indifferent towards the difference, and that this one and the same is the negative connexion with itself, which repels itself (as reflection-into-self) to difference, and invests itself (as reflection-into-something- else) with existence. Whilst it conversely leads back this reflection-into-other to a connexion with self and to in- difference. Thus comes Force and its Exertion.
In the relation of the whole and the parts, self-sameness is brought immediately, and therefore without thought, into relation with difference and into a revulsion of one into the other. We pass from the whole to the parts, and from the parts to the whole : in the one we forget its opposition to the other, while each on its own account, at one time the whole, at another the parts, is taken to be an independent existence. In other words, when the parts are declared to subsist in the whole, and the whole to consist of the parts, we have either member of the relation at different times taken to be perma- nently subsistent, while the other is non-essential. In its superficial form the mechanical relation consists in making the parts independent of each other and of the whole.
This relation may be adopted for the progression ad infinitum, in the case of the divisibility of matter : and then it becomes an absurd see-saw between the two sides. A thing at one time is taken as a whole : then we go on to specify the parts :
136.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 213
this specifying is forgotten, and what was a part is regarded as a whole : then the specifying of the part comes up again, and so on for ever. But if this infinity be explicitly stated as the negative which it is, it is the negative connexion of the relation with itself. That negative connexion with self is Force, the whole in its self-sameness as Being immanent, and then again as suspending this immanency and putting itself forth : or con- versely it is the Exertion which vanishes and returns into Force. Force, notwithstanding this infinity, is also finite: for the content, or the one and the same of the Force and its out- putting, is this identity at first only for the observer : the two sides of the relation are not yet, each on its own account, the concrete identity of that one and same, not yet the totality. For one another they are therefore different, and the relation is a finite one. Force consequently requires solicitation from without : it works blindly : and on account of this defectiveness of form, the content is also limited and accidental. It is not yet genuinely identical with the form, is not yet found defined as a notion and an end, that is to say, characterised in itself and for its own sake. This difference is most essential, but not easy to apprehend : it must first be more clearly charac- terised in the notion of an End itself. If it be overlooked, it leads to the error of viewing God as Force, a confusion which is especially evident in Herder's conception of God.
It is often said that the nature of Force itself is unknown and that its out-putting or exertion only is apprehended. But, in the first place, it may be replied, all that is specified as contained in Force is the same as what is specified in the Exertion : and the explanation of a phenomenon from a Force is to that extent a mere tautology. What is supposed to remain unknown, therefore, is really nothing but the empty form of reflection-into-self, by which alone the Force is distinguished from the Exertion, — and that form is every whit as well known. It is a form that does not make the slightest addition to the content and to the law, which have to be discovered from the phenomenon alone. Another assertion always made is that
214 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [136.
these remarks do not affect the question as to the nature of Force : and that being so, it is impossible to see why the form of Force has been introduced into the sciences at all. In the second place the nature of Force is undoubtedly unknown : we are still without any necessity binding and connecting its content together in itself, and there is no necessity in the content in so far as it is expressly limited, and hence has its character by means of another thing outside of it.
(1) Compared with the immediate relation of a whole and parts, the relation between force and its putting forth may be esteemed infinite. In it that identity of the two sides is realised, which in the former relation only existed for the observer. The whole, though we can see that it consists of parts, ceases to be a whole when it is divided : whereas force is only shown to be force when it exerts itself, and in its exercise only comes back to itself. The exercise is only force once more. Yet, on further examination even this relation will appear finite, and finite in virtue of its relativity or mediation : just as, conversely, the relation of whole and parts is obviously finite in virtue of its immediacy. The first and simplest evidence for the finitude of the mediated relation of force and its exercise is, that each and every force is conditioned and requires something else than itself for its subsistence. For instance, a special vehicle of magnetic force, as is well known, is iron, the other properties of which, such as its colour, specific weight, or relation to acids, are independent of this connexion with magnetism. The same thing is seen in all other forces, which from one end to the other are found to be conditioned and mediated by something else than themselves. Another proof of the finite nature of force is that it requires solicitation before it can put itself forth. That through which the force is solicited, is itself another exertion of force, which cannot put itself forth without similar solicitation. This brings us either to a repetition of the infinite progression, or to a mutual state of soliciting and being solicited. In either case we have no absolute beginning of motion. Force is not as yet, like the final cause, inherently self-determining : the content is given to it as determined, and force, when it exerts itself, is, according to the phrase, blind in its working. That phrase implies the distinction between the merely one-sided exercise of force, and the activity which is guided by design.
(2) The frequent statements, telling us that the exercise of the force and not the force itself admits of being known, must be rejected as groundless. It is the very essence of force to exert itself, and thus in the whole amount of the exertion, viewed as a
136.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 215
law, we at the same time discover the force itself. And yet this assertion that force in its own self is unknowable betrays a well- grounded presentiment that this relation is finite. The several exertions of a force at first meet us in an indefinite variety, and in their isolation they seem accidental : but, reducing this variety to its inner unity, which we term force, we learn to see that the apparently contingent is necessary, by recognising the law that rules it. But the different forces are themselves a complex mass, and as they stand one beside another seem to be contingent. Hence in empirical physics, we speak of the forces of gravity, magnetism, electricity, &c., and in empirical psychology of the forces of memory, imagination, will, and all the other forces of the soul. All this complication excites a craving to know these different forces as a united whole, nor would this craving be appeased if the several forces were merely traced back to one common primary force. Such a primary force would be really no more than an empty abstraction, with as little content as the abstract thing-in-self. And besides this, the relation of force to its exertion is essentially the mediated relation, and it must therefore contradict the notion of force to view it as primary or resting on itself.
Such being the case with the nature of force, though we may be willing, it is true, to hear the world called an exertion (or utterance) of divine forces, we should object to have God himself viewed as a mere force. For force is after all a subordinate and finite category. At the so-called renascence of the sciences, when there grew up a tendency to trace the single phenomena of nature back to forces lying at the ground of them, the Church branded the enterprise as impious. The argument of the Church on this point was as follows. If it be the forces of gravitation, of vegetation, &c. which occasion the movements of the heavenly bodies, the growth of plants, &c., there is nothing left for divine providence, and God sinks to the level of a leisurely onlooker, surveying such a play of forces. The students of nature, it is true, and Newton more than others, when they employed the reflective category of force to explain natural phenomena, have expressly stated that the honour of God, as the Creator and Governor of the world, would not be impaired. Still it is a consequence of this explanation by means of forces, that the inferential understanding proceeds to give each of these forces a stability of its own, and to maintain them in their finitude as ultimate. And contrasted with this finite world of independent forces and matters, the only terms in which it is possible still to describe God, will present Him in the abstract infinity of an unknowable and supreme Being in some world far away. This is precisely the position of materialism, and of the modern ' free-thinking,' whose theology ignores what God is and restricts
216 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [137, 138.
itself to the mere fact that He is. In this dispute therefore the Church and the religious mind have to a certain extent the right on their side. The finite forms of understanding certainly fail to fulfil the conditions requisite for a knowledge either of Nature or of the formations in the world of Mind as they truly are. Yet on the other side it is impossible to overlook the formal right which, in the first place, entitles the empirical sciences to vindicate for science the existent world in all the speciality of its content, and to seek something better than the bare statement of mere abstract faith that God creates and governs the world. When our religious consciousness, resting upon the authority of the Church, teaches us that God created the world by his almighty will, that he guides the stars in their courses, and grants to all his creatures their existence and their well-being, the question Why ? is still left waiting for an answer. Now it is the answer to this question which forms the common task of empirical science and of philosophy. When religion refuses to recognise this problem, or the justice of putting it, and appeals to the unsearchableness of the decrees of God, it is taking up the same ground as is taken by the superficial Enlightenment of understanding. Such an appeal is no better than an arbitrary dogmatism, which contravenes the express precept of Christianity, enjoining, us to know God in spirit and in truth, and is prompted by a humility which is not Christian, but born of a haughty fanaticism.
137.] Force is a whole, which is in its own self the negative connexion with itself; and as such a whole it continually pushes itself back from itself and puts itself forth. But since this reflection-into-another (corresponding to the distinction between the Parts of the Whole) is equally much a reflection-into-self, this out-putting is the way and means by which Force that returns back into itself is as a Force. The very act of out- putting accordingly sets in abeyance or suspends the diversity of the two sides which is found in this relation, and expressly states the identity which virtually constitutes their content. The truth of Force and utterance therefore is that relation, in which the two sides are distinguished only as Outward and Inward.
138.] (y) The Inward is the ground, when it stands for the mere form of the one side of the Appearance and the Relation, — the empty form of reflection-into-self. As a counter-
i39, MO.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 217
part to it stands the Outward. It is the existence, as the form of the other side of the relation, with the empty charac- teristic of reflection-into-something-else. But Inward and Outward are identified : and their identity is identity consum- mated : viz. the content, that unity of reflection-into-self and reflection-into-other which was at least statuted in the movement of force. Both are the same one totality, and this unity makes them the content.
139- ] In the first place then, the Outward is the same content as the Inward. What is inwardly is also found out- wardly, and vice versa. The appearance shows nothing that is not in the essence, and in the essence there is nothing but what is manifested.
140 •] In the second place, Inward and Outward, as marking the form, are reciprocally opposed, and that thoroughly. The one is the abstraction of identity with self; the other is mere multiplicity or reality. But as constituent elements of the one form, they are essentially identical : so that whatever is at first explicitly put only in the one abstraction, is also as plainly and at one step only in the other. Therefore what is only internal is also only external : and what is only external, is so far only at first internal.
It is the customary mistake of reflection to take the essence to be merely what is inward. If it be so understood, even this contemplation of it is purely external, and that sort of essence is the empty external abstraction.
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218 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [140.
It oujjht rather to have been said that, if the essence of
o *
nature is ever described as the inner part, the person who so describes it onlyknows its outer shell. In Being as a whole, or even in the mere perception of sense, the notion is at first only the inward : and for that very reason it is something external to Being, — a subjective and truthless Being like the thought that believes in it. In Nature as well as in Mind, so long as the notion, design, or law are at first the inner capacity, mere possibilities, they are first only an external, and, what we may call, an inorganic nature, lying in the knowledge of a third person, in foreign ascendancy, and the like. As a man is outwardly, that is to say in his actions (not of course in his merely bodily outwardness), so is he inwardly : and if his virtue, morality, &c. are only inwardly his, that is, if they exist only in his intentions and sentiments, and his outward acts are not identical with them, the one half of him is as hollow and empty as the other.
The relation of the Outward to the Inward unites the two relations that precede, and at the same time suspends and sets in abeyance mere relativity and the whole range of appearance. Yet so long as understanding asserts the stability of the Inward and Outward in their separation, they are empty forms, the one as null as the other. Not only in the study of nature, but also of the spiritual world, much depends on a just appreciation of the relation of inward and outward, and especially on avoiding the misconception that the former only is the essential point on which everything turns, while the latter is unessential and trivial. We find this mistake made when, as is often done, the difference between nature and mind is traced back to the abstract difference between inner and outer. As for nature, it at any rate is upon the whole external, not merely to the mind, but even implicitly. When we say ' upon the whole ' however, we do not mean an abstract externality — for there is no such thing. We rather mean that the Idea which forms the common content
need not recall such a word. We think that, place for place, we are in the inward part.) 'Happy the man, to whom nature only shows her outward shell.' (I have heard that repeated for sixty years, and curse it, — but in secret. Thousands and thousands of times I tell myself : she gives everything abundantly and willingly : Nature has neither kernel nor shell : she is everything at once. Only most of all try thyself and see whether thou art kernel or shell.)"
MO.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 219
of nature and mind, is found in nature as outward only, and for that very reason only inward. The abstract understanding-, with its ^Either — or,' may be reluctant to take this view of nature. It is none the less obviously found in our other modes of consciousness, particularly in religion. It is the lesson of religion that nature, no less than the spiritual world, is a revelation of God : but with this distinction, that while nature never gets so far as to be conscious of its divine essence, that consciousness is the express problem of the mind, which in the matter of that problem is finite. Those who look upon the essence of nature as mere inwardness and therefore inaccessible to us, take up the same line as that ancient creed which regarded God as envious and jealous : a creed against which both Plato and Aristotle have protested. All that God is, He imparts and reveals ; and He does so, at first, in and through nature.
Any object indeed is faulty and imperfect when it is only inward, and thus at the same time only outward, or, (which is the same thing,) when it is only an outward and thus only an inward. For instance, a child, being in a way a man, is no doubt a rational creature; but the reason of the child as child comes before us at first as merely inward, in the shape of his natural ability or vocation, &c. This mere inward, at the same time, has for the child the form of a mere outward, in the shape of the will of his parents, the attainments of his teachers, and the whole world of reason that envelopes him. The education and instruction of a child aim at making him be for his own sake what he is at first potentially, and in that way for others, viz. for his grown-up friends. The reason, which at first exists in the child only as an inner possibility, is actualised through education : and conversely, the child by these means becomes conscious, that the goodness, religion, and science which he had at first looked upon as an outward authority, are his proper and inward nature. As with the child so it is in this matter with the grown-up man, when, in opposition to his true destiny, he remains under the sway of his natural knowledge and will. Thus, the criminal sees the punishment to which he has to submit as an act of violence from without : whereas in fact, the penalty is only the manifestation of his own criminal will.
From what has now been said, we may learn what to think of a man, who, when blamed for feeble performance or even perni- cious acts, appeals to the excellent views and sentiments within him, which he lays claim to and distinguishes from the outward action. There certainly may be individual cases, where the malice of outward circumstances leads to the frustration of well- meant designs, and disturbs the execution of the best-laid plans. But in general even here the essential unity between inward and
220 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [140.
outward is maintained. We are thus justified in saying that a man is what he does ; and to the lying vanity which consoles itself by the sentiment of inward excellence, we may hold lip the words of the gospel : ' By their fruits ye shall know them.' That grand saying applies primarily in a moral and religious aspect, but it also holds good in reference to what is essayed in art and science. The keen observation of a teacher, who perceives in his pupil decided evidences of talent, may lead him to state his opinion that a Raphael or a Mozart lies hidden in the boy : and the result will show how far such an opinion was well- founded. But if a daub of a painter, or a poetaster, soothe themselves by the conceit that their head is full of high ideals, their consolation is a poor one ; and if they insist on being judged not by their actual works but by their projects, we may safely reject their pretensions as unfounded and unmeaning. The converse case however also occurs. In passing judgment on men who have executed something great and good, we often make use of the false distinction between inward and outward. All that they have accomplished, we say, is outward merely, whilst inwardly they are acting from some very different motive, such as a desire to gratify their vanity or some other unworthy passion. Remarks like these betray the spirit of envy. Incapable of any great action of its own, envy tries hard to depreciate greatness and to bring it down to its own level. Better were it to recall the fine expression of Goethe, that there is no means but Love to save us from the great excellences of others. We may seek to rob men's great actions of their praise, by the insinuation of hypocrisy ; but, though it is possible that men in an instance now and then may dissemble and disguise a good deal, they cannot conceal the whole of their inner life, which inevitably betrays itself in the decursus vitae. Even here it is true that a man is nothing but the series of his actions. What is called the pragmatic writing of history sins more than any- thing else in modern times by this untruthful separation of the outward from the inward : and has in many ways marred and confused the true conception of great historical characters. Not content with telling the unvarnished tale of the great acts which have been wrought by the heroes of the world's history, and with acknowledging that their inward being corresponds with the import of their acts, the pragmatic historian fancies himself justified and even obliged to trace the supposed secret motives that lie behind the open facts of the record. The historian, in that case, is supposed to write with more depth in proportion as he succeeds in tearing away the aureole from all that has been heretofore held grand and glorious, and in de- pressing it, so far as its origin and special significance are
i4i, 142.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 221
concerned, to the level of vulgar mediocrity. To make these pragmatical researches in history easier, it is usual to recommend the study of psychology, which is supposed to make us acquainted with the proper motives that lead men to act. The psychology in question however is only that petty knowledge of men, which looks away from the essential and permanent facts of human nature to fasten its glance on the points of chance and singularity shown in isolated instincts and passions. A pragmatical psy- chology ought at least to leave the historian, who investigates the motives at the ground of great actions, a choice between the substantial and unselfish interests of patriotism, justice, religious truth and the like, on the one hand, and the subjective and formal interests of vanity, ambition, avarice and the like, on the other. The latter however are the motives which must be viewed as especially efficient, otherwise the assumption of a contrast between the inward (the disposition of the agent) and the outward (the import of the action) would fall to the ground. But inward and outward have in truth the same content, and the right doctrine is the veiy reverse of this pedantic subtlety. If the heroes of history had been actuated by subjective and formal interests alone, they would never have accomplished what they have. And if we have due regard to the unity between the inner and the outer, we must own that great men willed what they did, and did what they willed.
141.] The empty abstractions, by means of which the one identical content perforce continues in the relation, pass into abeyance in the immediate transition, the one in the other. The content itself is nothing but their identity (§ 138) : and these abstractions are the seeming of essence, taken and put as seeming. By the exertion of force the inward is taken and put into existence : this process of taking and putting means a mediation by empty abstractions. In its own self the inter- mediating process vanishes into the immediacy, in which the inward and the outward are absolutely identical, and their sole distinction is in being stated or statuted. This identity is Actuality.
C. — ACTUALITY.
142.] Actuality brings immediately to pass the unity of essence with existence, or of the inward with the outward. The out-putting of what is actual is no other than the actual : so
222 TUB DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [142.
that in this out-putting it remains as essential, and only in so far is essential as it is in immediate and external existence.
We have ere this met Being- and Existence as forms of the immediate. Being may be described as unreflectecl immediacy and transition into another. Existence is an immediate unity of being and reflexion ; hence it is an appearance or phenomenon : it comes from the ground, and falls to the ground. But when we have actuality this unity is explicitly stated : and the relation has grown identical with itself. Hence the actual is exempted from transition, and its externality is its energising. In that energising it is reflected into itself: so that its Being then and there is only the manifestation of itself and not of somethin else.
thought (or the Idea) are often absurdly opposed. How commonly we hear people saying, that though no objection can be urged against the truth and correctness of a certain thought, there is nothing of the kind to be seen in actuality, or that it cannot be actually executed ! People who use such language only prove that they have not properly apprehended the nature either of thought or of actuality. Thought in such a case is, on one hand, the synonym for a subjective con- ception, plan, intention or the like, just as actuality, on the other, is made synonymous with external and sensible existence. This is all very well in common life, where great laxity is allowed in the categories and the names given to them : and it may always happen that the plan, or, as it is styled, the idea, say of a certain method of taxation, is good and advisable in the abstract, but is not found in what men call actuality, or could not possibly be carried out under the given conditions. But when the abstract understanding gets hold of these categories and exalts the distinction they imply into a hard and fast line of contrast, when it tells us that in this actual world we must drive ideas out of our heads, it is necessary energetically to protest against these doctrines, alike in the name of science and of sound reason. For on the one hand ideas are not confined to our heads merely, nor is the idea, upon the whole, so feeble as to leave the question of its actualisation or non-actualisation dependent on our will. The idea is rather absolutely active as well as actual. And on the other hand actuality is not so bad and irrational, as it is supposed to be by the practical men, who are either without thought altogether or have quarrelled with thought, and have been worsted in the contest. So far is
1 43-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 223
actuality or reality, as distinguished from mere appearance, and as primarily representing the unity of inward and outward, from being in contrariety with reason, that it is rather thoroughly rational, and everything which is not rational must on that very ground cease to be held real. The same view may be traced in the usages of educated speech, which objects to give the name of real poet or real statesman to a poet or a statesman who can do nothing really meritorious or reasonable.
In this common sense attached to actuality, and the confusion of it with what is palpable and directly obvious to the senses, we must seek the ground of a wide-spread belief about the relation of the philosophy of Aristotle to that of Plato. Popular opinion makes the difference to be as follows. While Plato recognises the idea and only the idea as the truth, Aristotle, rejecting the idea, keeps to what is actual : and is on that account to be con- sidered the founder and chief of empiricism. On this it may be remarked : that although actuality certainly is the principle of the Aristotelian philosophy, it is not the vulgar actuality of what is immediately at hand, but the idea as the actuality. Where then lies the controversy between Aristotle and Plato ? It lies in this. Aristotle calls the Platonic idea a mere 8ui>a/xis, and establishes in opposition to Plato that the idea, which both equally recognise to be the only truth, is essentially to be viewed as an e^epyeta, in other words, as the inward, which goes on every hand outwards, or as the unity of inner and outer, or as actuality, in the emphatic sense here given to the word.
143.] Such a concrete category as Actuality includes the characteristics of the Essence aforesaid and the distinction between them, and is therefore also the development of them, in such a way that they are in it at the same time described as a seeming, or as merely statuted (§ 141).
(a) Viewed as an identity in general, Actuality first appears as Possibility — the reflection-into-self, which as in contrast with the concrete unity of the actual, is taken and made an abstract and unessential essentiality. Possibility is what is essential to reality, but in such a way that it is at the same time only a possibility.
It was probably the definition of Possibility which prompted Kant to regard it, along with necessity and actuality, as Moda- lities, ' since these categories do not in the least increase the notion as object, but only express its relation to the faculty of
224 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [143.
knowledge.' In fact, Possibility is the bare abstraction of reflection-into-self, — the same as was formerly called the Inward, only that it is now characterised as the external inwardness which has been suspended and is now only statuted. So far un- doubtedly, Possibility is also statuted as a mere modality or insufficient abstraction, or, looking at it more concretely, as belonging to subjective thought only. It is otherwise with Actuality and Necessity. They are anything but a mere kind and mode for something else : in fact the very reverse of that. They are statuted as a concrete, completed in itself and not merely statuted.
As Possibility is, in the first instance, the mere form of identity-with-self (as compared with the concrete which is actual), its rule is that each thing must not be self-contradictory. Thus everything is possible, for an act of abstraction can give any content this form of identity. Everything however is as impossible as it is possible. In every content, which is and must be concrete, the speciality of its nature may be viewed as a specialised contrariety and in that way as a contradiction. Nothing therefore can be more meaningless than to speak of such possibility and impossibility. In philosophy, in particular, there should never be a word said of showing that something is possible, or that there is still something else possible, or, to adopt another phraseology, that something is conceivable. The writer of history is no less directly reminded never to employ a category which has now been explained to be on its own merits untrue. But the subtlety of the vacant understanding finds its chief pleasure in a hollow devising of possibilities and a good many of them.
Our picture-thought is at first disposed to see in possibility the richer and more comprehensive, in actuality the poorer and narrower category. Everything, it is said, is possible, but everything which is possible is not on that account actual. In real truth, however, if we deal with them as thoughts, actuality is the more comprehensive, because it is the concrete thought which includes possibility as an abstract and unsubstantial stage. And that superiority is to some extent expressed, when we speak of the possible, in distinction from the actual, as only
I43-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 225
possible. Possibility is often said .to consist in a thing's being conceivable. ' Conceive/ however, in this use of the word, only means to apprehend any content under the form of an abstract identity. Now every content can be brought under this form, since nothing is required except to separate it from the con- nexions in which it stands. Hence any content, however absurd and nonsensical, can be viewed as possible. It is possible that the moon might fall upon the earth to-night; for the moon is a body separate from the earth, — and may as well fall down upon it as a stone thrown into the air does. It is possible that the Sultan may become Pope ; for, being a man, he may be converted to the Christian faith, may become a Catholic priest, and so on. In language like this about pos- sibilities, it is chiefly the law of the sufficient ground or reason which is manipulated in the style already explained. Every- thing, it is said, is possible, for which you can state some ground. The less education a man has, or, in other words, the less he knows of the specific connexions of the objects to which he directs his observations, the greater is his tendency to launch out into all sorts of empty possibilities. An instance of this habit in the political sphere is seen in the case of the pot-house politicians. In practical life too it is no uncommon thing to see ill-will and indolence slink behind the category of possibility, in order to escape definite obligations. To such conduct the same remarks apply as were made in connexion with the law of sufficient ground. Reasonable and practical men refuse to be imposed upon by the possible, for the simple ground that it is possible only. They stand fast upon what is actual (not meaning by that word merely whatever im- mediately is now and here). Many of the proverbs of common life express the same contempt for what is abstractly possible. <A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.' After all there is as good reason for viewing everything to be impossible, as to be possible : for every content (a content is always concrete) includes not only diverse but even opposite characteristics. Nothing is so impossible, for instance, as this, that I am : for f I ' is at the same time a simple connexion with self, and as undoubtedly connexion with something else. The same may be seen in every other fact in the natural or spiritual world. Matter, it may be said, is impossible: for it is the unity of attraction and repulsion. The same is true of life, justice, freedom, and above all, of God himself, as the true, i. e. the triune God, — a notion of God, which the abstract Enlightenment of Understanding, in conformity with its canons, rejected on the ground that it was contradictory in thought. Generally speaking, it is the empty understanding which haunts these
226 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [144, 145.
vacant forms : and the business of philosophy in the matter is to show how null and meaningless they are. Whether a thing is possible or impossible, depends altogether on the subject- matter : that is, on the sum total of the elements in actuality, which, as it opens itself out, discloses itself to be necessity.
144.] (/3) But if the Actual be taken as it is distin- guished from possibility (which is reflection-into-self) there is left of it only the outward concrete thing, unessential and im- mediate. In other words, to such extent as the actual is primarily (§ 142) the simple and merely given unity of Inward and Outward, it is obviously made an unessential outward thing, and thus at the same time (§ 140) it is merely inward, the abstraction known as reflection-into-self. Hence it is itself characterised as merely possible. When thus valued at the rate of a mere possibility, the actual is Contingent or Ac- cidental, and, conversely, possibility is mere Accident itself or Chance.
145.] Possibility and Contingency are the two factors of Actuality, — Inward and Outward, taken and made mere forms which constitute the externality of what is actual. They have their reflection-into-self in the actual fact, or content with its intrinsic definiteness, which gives the essential ground of their characterisation. The finitude of the contingent and the possible lies, as we now see, in the distinction drawn between the formal characteristic and the content: and, therefore, it depends on the content alone whether anything is contingent and possible.
As possibility is the mere inside of actuality, it is for that reason a mere outside actuality, in other words, Contingency. The contingent may be described as what has the ground of its being, not in itself but in somewhat else. Such is the aspect under which actuality first comes before consciousness, and which is often by mistake identified with actuality itself. But the contingent is only one side of the actual, the side, namely, of reflection into somewhat else. It is the actual, in the signification of something merely possible. Accordingly we consider the contingent to be what may or may not be, what may be in one way or in another, whose Being or not- Being,
1 45-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 227
and whose being on this wise or otherwise, depends not upon itself but on something- else. To overcome this contingency is generally speaking the problem of science on the one hand ; as in the range of practice on the other, the end of action is to rise above the contingency of the will, or above caprice. It has however often happened, most of all in modern times, that contingency has been unwarrantably elevated, and had a value attached to it, both in nature and the world of mind, to which it has no just claim. Nature — to speak of it first, has been often and especially admired for the richness and variety of its structures. Apart however from what disclosure it contains of the idea, this richness offers none of the higher interests of reason, and in its vast variety of structures, organic and in- organic, affords us only the spectacle of a contingency that runs out into endless detail. At any rate, the chequered scene presented by the several varieties of animals and plants, con- ditioned as it is by outward circumstances, — the complex changes in the figuration and grouping of clouds, and the like, ought not to be set above the equally casual fancies of the mind which surrenders itself to its own caprices. The wonderment with which such phenomena are welcomed is a most abstract state of mind, which should be abandoned for a closer insight into the inner harmony and regularity of nature.
Of contingency in respect of the Will it is especially important to form a proper estimate. The Freedom of the Will is an expression that often means no more than caprice, or the will in the form of contingency. Freedom of choice, or the capacity of determining ourselves towards one thing or another, is un- doubtedly a vital element in the will, which in its very notion is free: but instead of being freedom itself, it is only in the first instance a freedom in form. The genuinely free will, which includes free choice as absorbed into it, is conscious to itself that its own content is absolutely firm and fast, and knows it at the same time to be thoroughly its own. Will, on the contrary, which never rises above mere freedom of choice, even supposing it does decide in favour of what is in import right and true, will always be haunted by the conceit that it might, if it had so pleased, have decided in favour of the reverse course. When more narrowly examined, free choice is seen to be a contradic- tion, to this extent that its form and content stand in antithesis. The content of the will is given, and known as a content grounded, not in the will itself, but in outward circumstances. In reference to such a given content, freedom lies only in the form of choosing, which, as it is only a freedom in form, may consequently be regarded as freedom only in supposition. On an ultimate analysis it will be seen that the same outwardness
228 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [146.
of circumstances, on which is founded the content that the will finds to its hand, can alone account for the will giving its decision for the one and not the other of the two alternatives.
Although contingency, as it now appears, is only one aspect in the whole of actuality, and therefore not to be substituted for actuality itself, it has no less than the rest of the forms of the idea its due office in the world of objects. This is, in the first place, seen in Nature. On the surface of Nature, so to speak, Chance ranges unchecked, and that contingency must simply be recognised, without the pretension which is sometimes, but erroneously, ascribed to philosophy, of seeking in it a necessary and rigidly fixed law. Nor is contingency less visible in the world of Mind. The will, as we have already remarked, involves contingency under the shape of option or free-choice, but involves it only as a vanishing and abrogated element. In respect of Mind and its effects, just as in the case of Nature, we must guard against being misled by a well-meant endeavour after rational knowledge, which would fain exhibit the necessity of phenomena which are marked by a decided contingency, and try, as the phrase is, to construe them a priori. Thus in language, although it be, as it were, the body of thought, there is unquestionably considerable room for Chance ; and the same is true of the special formations of law, of art, &c. The problem of science, and especially of philosophy, undoubtedly consists in eliciting the necessity con- cealed under the semblance of contingency. That however is far from meaning that the contingent belongs to our subjective conception alone, and must therefore be simply set aside, if we wish to get at the truth. All scientific researches which pursue this tendency exclusively, lay themselves fairly open to the charge of mere juggling with their subject, and an over-affectation of precision.
146-] When more closely examined, what the aforesaid outward side of actuality implies is this. Contingency, which is actuality in its immediacy, is self-identical, essentially only as dependent and statuted being ; which, however, being like- wise suspended or set aside is an externality with definite Being then-and-there. Consequently it is somewhat pre-supposed, of which the immediate Being then-and-there is at the same time a possibility, and has the vocation to be suspended or put in abeyance, to be the possibility of something else. Now this possibility is the Condition.
1 47-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 229
The Contingent, which is immediate actuality, is at the same time the possibility of somewhat else, — no longer however that abstract possibility, which we had at first, but the possi- bility in being. And a possibility in being is a Condition. By the Condition of a matter of fact we mean two things; first, a special existence or immediate thing, and secondly the vocation of this immediate to be put in abeyance and to sub- serve the actualising of something else. — Immediate actuality is never what it ought to be ; it is a finite actuality with an inherent flaw, and its vocation is to be consumed. But the other aspect of actuality is its essentiality. This is primarily the inside, which as a mere possibility is no less destined to be suspended. When it ceases to be a possibility, there issues a new actuality, of which the first immediate actuality was the pre-supposition. Here we see the alternation, which is involved in the notion of a Condition. The Conditions of a thing seem at first sight to be quite free and easy. Really however an immediate actuality of this kind includes in it the germ of something else altogether. At first this something else is only a possibility : but the form of possibility is soon absorbed and translated into actuality. This new actuality thus issuing is the very inside of the immediate actuality which it uses up. Thus there comes into being quite an other shape of things, and yet it is not an other: for the first actuality is only taken and put as what it is in its essence. The con- ditions which are sacrificed, which fall to the ground and are spent, when they enter the other actuality, enter only into union with themselves. Such in general is the nature of the process of actuality. The actual is no mere case of immediate Being, but, as essential Being, it sets aside and suspends its own immediacy and is thus mediated with itself.
147.] (y) When this outward side of actuality is developed into a circle of the two categories of possibility and imme- diate actuality, showing the intermediation of the one by the other, it is what is called Real Possibility. Being such a circle, further, it is the totality, and thus the content, or absolutely characterised actual Pact. Whilst in like manner, if we look at the distinction between the two characteristics in this unity, it is the concrete totality of the form by itself, the. immediate self-translation of inner into outer, and of outer into inner. This movement of the form is Activity : it carries into effect the Fact, or real ground, which rises into actuality ;
230 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [147.
and it carries into effect the contingent actuality, or condi- tions ; i. e. it is their reflection-in-self, and their self-abrogation into an other actuality, the actuality of the fact. If all the conditions are at hand, the fact must actually take place; and the fact itself is one of the conditions, for being in the first place only inner, it is at first itself only pre-supposed. Developed actuality, as the coincident alternation of inner and outer, the alternation of their opposite motions which are combined in a single motion, is Necessity.
Necessity has been defined, and rightly so, as the union of possibility and actuality. This mode of expression would give a superficial and therefore unintelligible description of the very difficult notion of necessity. It is difficult because it is the notion itself, with its elementary factors however still appearing as actualities, though they are at the same time to be viewed as forms only, collapsing and transient. In the two following paragraphs therefore an exposition of the elements which constitute necessity must be given at greater length.
When anything is said to be necessary, the first question we ask is, Why? Necessity in this way comes before us as something laid down and imposed, or as the result of certain antecedents. If we go no further than mere derivation from antecedents however, we have not gained a complete notion of what necessity means. What is merely derivative, is what it is, not through itself, but through something else ; and in this way it too is merely contingent. What is necessary, on the other hand, we require to be what it is through itself, and thus, although derivative, it must still contain the ante- cedent whence it is derived as a vanishing element in itself. Hence we say of what is necessary, ' It is.' We thus hold it to be a simple reference to self, in which all dependence on something else is lost to view.
Necessity is often said to be blind. If that means that necessity does not explicitly present the End or Aim in its own character, the statement is correct. The process of ne- cessity begins with the existence of scattered circumstances which do not concern each other and appear to have no inter- connexion among themselves. These circumstances are an immediate actuality which collapses, and out of which a new
M7-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 231
actuality proceeds. Here we have a content which in point of form is doubled in itself, once as content of the fact with which we deal, and once as content of the scattered circum- stances which appear as if they were positive, and make themselves at first felt in that character. The latter content is in itself nought and is accordingly inverted into its negative, and thus becomes content of the fact. The immediate cir- cumstances fall to the ground as conditions, but are at the same time retained as content of the fact. From such cir- cumstances and conditions there has, as we say, proceeded quite another thing, and it is for that reason that we call this process of necessity blind. If on the contrary we consider the action of purpose or design, we have in the end of action a content which is already fore-known. This activity therefore is not blind but seeing. To say that the world is ruled by Providence implies that design, as what has been absolutely pre-determined, is at work, so that the issue corresponds to what has been fore-known and willed. But, let it be noted, the theory which regards the world as determined through necessity and the belief in a divine providence are by no means mutually excluding points of view. Divine Providence, in the light of thought, will soon appear to be based upon the notion. But the notion is the truth of necessity, which it involves as a vanishing element ; just as, conversely, necessity is the notion implicit. Necessity is blind only so long as it is not understood. There is nothing therefore more mistaken than the charge of blind fatalism made against the Philosophy of History, when it claims to understand the necessity of whatever has occurred. The philosophy of history rightly understood takes the rank of a Theodicee ; and those, who fancy they honour Divine Providence by excluding necessity from it, are really degrading it by this strict line of demarcation to a blind and irrational caprice. In the simple language of the religious mind, which speaks of God's eternal and immutable decrees, there is implied an express recognition that necessity forms part of the essence of God. In contradistinction from God, man, with his own private opinion and will, follows the call of caprice and arbitrary humour, and thus often finds his acts turn out something quite different from what he had thought and willed. But God knows what he wills, is determined in his eternal will neither by accident from within nor from without, and accomplishes what he wills, irresistibly.
Necessity gives a point of view which is very important in its bearings upon our sentiments and conduct. When we look upon events as necessary, we seem at first sight to stand in a thoroughly slavish and dependent position. In the creed of the
232 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [147.
ancients, as we know, necessity figured as Destiny. The modern point of view, on the contrary, is that of Consolation. And Con- solation means that we give up our aims and interests, only in prospect of being compensated for our renunciation. Destiny, on the contrary, leaves no room for Consolation. But a close examination of the ancient feeling about destiny, will not by any means reveal any sense of bondage. Rather the reverse. This will clearly appear, if we remember, that the want of freedom springs from clinging tenaciously to an antithesis, and from looking at what is, and what happens, as contradictory to what ought to be and happen. In the ancient mind the feeling was more of the following kind : Because such a thing is, it is, and as it is, so ought it to be. Here there is no contrast to be seen, and therefore no sense of bondage, no pain, and no sorrow. True, indeed, as already remarked, this relation to destiny is void of consolation. But then, on the other hand, it does not need consolation, so long as the personal subject has not acquired its infinite import and significance. It is this point on which special stress should be laid in comparing the ancient sentiment with that of modern Christianity. But there are two ways of looking at Subjectivity. We may understand by it, in the first place, only the natural and finite subjectivity, with its contin- gent and arbitrary content of particular interests and inclina- tions, all, in short, that we call person as distinguished from fact : understanding ' fact ' in the emphatic sense of the word (in which we use the (correct) expression that it is a question of facts and not of persons). In this sense of subjectivity we cannot help admiring the tranquil resignation of the ancients to destiny, and feeling that it is a much higher and worthier mood than that of the moderns, who obstinately pursue their subjective aims, and when they find themselves constrained to give up the hope of reaching them, console themselves with the prospect of a reward in some shape or other. But the term subjectivity is not to be confined merely to the bad and finite kind of it which is contradistinguished from the fact. In its truth subjectivity is immanent in the fact, and as a subjectivity thus infinite is the very truth of the fact. Thus regarded, the doctrine of consola- tion receives a newer and a higher significance. It is in this sense that the Christian religion is to be regarded as the religion of consolation, and even of absolute consolation. Christianity, we know, teaches that God wishes all men to be saved. That teaching declares that subjectivity has an infinite value. And that consoling power of Christianity just lies in the fact that God himself is in it known as the absolute subjectivity, so that, inasmuch as subjectivity involves the element of particularity, our particular or personal part too is recognised not merely as
148.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 233
something to be solely and simply denied, but as at the same time something to be preserved. The gods of the ancient world even, were, it is true, looked upon as personal ; but the person- ality of a Zeus and an Apollo is not a real personality : it is only a fiction of the mind. In other words, these gods are mere personifications, which, being such, do not know them- selves, and are only known. An evidence of this defect and feebleness of the old gods is found even in the religious beliefs of antiquity. In the ancient creeds not only men, but even gods, were represented as bending to destiny (-n^-npta^vov or etjuapjueVr;), a destiny which we ought to figure to ourselves as necessity not unveiled, and thus as wholly impersonal, selfless, and blind. On the other hand, the Christian God is God not known merely, but also self-knowing ; He is a personality not merely figured in our minds, but rather absolutely actual.
We must refer to the Philosophy of Religion for a further discussion of the points here touched. But we may note in passing how important it is for any man to meet everything that befalls him with the spirit of the old proverb, which de- scribes each man as the architect of his own fortune. That means that it is only himself after all that a man gets the benefit of. The other way would be to lay the blame of whatever we experience upon other men, upon unfavourable circumstances, and the like. And this is a fresh example of the language of unfreedom, and at the same time the spring of discontent. If men remembered, on the contrary, that whatever happened to them was only an evolution of themselves, and that they only bore their own guilt, they would stand free, and in everything that came upon them would have the consciousness that they suffered no wrong. A man who is discontented with himself and his destiny, commits much that is perverse and amiss, for no other reason than because of the false opinion that he does not get his rights from others. No doubt there is a great deal of chance in what befalls us. But this accidental con- stituent is founded on human nature. So long as a man is otherwise conscious that he is free, his harmony of soul and peace of mind will not be disturbed by disagreeable events. It is their view of necessity, therefore, which is at the root of the content and discontent of men, and which in that way deter- mines their destiny itself.
148-] Among the three elements in the process of necessity — the Condition, the Fact, and the Activity —
a. The Condition is (a) what is pre-supposed or ante-stated, i. e. it is not only supposed or stated, and so relative to the fact,
234 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [I49.
but also prior, and so independent, a contingent and external circumstance which exists without respect to the fact. While thus contingent, however, this pre-supposed or ante-stated term, is in respect of the fact, which is the totality, a complete circle of conditions. (/3) The conditions are passive, are used as mate- rials for the fact, into the content of which they thus enter. They are likewise conformable to this content, and within them- selves contain its whole characterising.
6. The Fact is also (a) something pre-supposed or ante-stated, i. e. it is at first, and as supposed, only inner and possible, and also, being prior, an independent content by itself. (/3) By using up the conditions, it receives its external existence, the realisation of the articles of its content, which reciprocally cor- respond to the conditions, so that whilst it presents itself out of these as the fact, it also proceeds from them.
c. The Activity similarly has (a) an independent existence of its own (as in a man, or a character), and at the same time it is possible only where the conditions are and the fact, (ft] It is the movement which translates the conditions into fact, and the latter into the former as the side of existence, or rather the movement which educes the fact from the conditions in which it is potentially present, and which gives existence to the fact by abolishing the existence possessed by the conditions.
In so far as these three elements stand to each other in the shape of independent existences, this process has the aspect of an outward necessity. Outward necessity has a limited content for its fact. For the fact is the whole of the process in a simple and undeveloped way. But since in its form this whole is external to itself, it is so even in its own self and in its content, and this externality, attaching to the fact, is a limit of its content.
149.] Necessity, then, is potentially the one essence, self- same but now full of content, in the reflected light of which its distinctions take the form of independent realities. This self-sameness is at the same time, as an absolute form, the activity which reduces into dependency and mediates into imme-
150, isi.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 235
diacy. — Whatever is necessary is through another, which is sub- divided into the mediating- ground (the Fact and the Activity) and an immediate reality, an accidental circumstance, which is at the same time a Condition. Necessity being through an other is not in and for itself: it is merely statuted or dependent. This intermediation is just as immediately however the abrogation of itself. The ground and contingent condition are translated into immediacy, by which that dependency is now lifted into actuality, and the fact has closed with itself. In this return to itself we have a downright necessity, as unconditioned actuality. The necessary is so, mediated through a circle of circumstances : it is so, because the circumstances are so, and in a word it is so, unmediated : it is so, because it is.
(a) Relation of Substantiality.
150.] The necessary is a Relation, absolute in itself, i. e. the process developed (in the preceding paragraphs), in which the relation also loses itself in absolute identity.
In its immediate form Relation is that of substance and acci- dent. The absolute identity of this relation with itself is Sub- stance as such, which as necessity gives the negative to this form of inwardness, and thus makes itself a reality, but also gives the negative to this outward thing. Being thus nega- tived, the actual, as immediate, is rendered only an accident, which through this bare possibility passes into another actuality. This transition is substantial identity as the activity of the form (§§ 148, 149).
151-] Substance is accordingly the sum total of the Accidents, manifesting itself in them as their absolute negativity, that is to say, as an absolute power, and at the same time as the abundance of all content. This content however is nothing but that very manifestation, since the character being reflected in itself to the content is only an active element of the form which drifts away in the power of substance. Substantiality is the absolute activity of form and the power of necessity : all content is but a vanish-
236 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [151.
ing element which merely belongs to this process ; where there is an absolute revulsion of form and content into one another.
In the history of philosophy we meet with Substance as the principle of Spinoza's system. On the import and value of that much-praised and no less decried philosophy there has been great misunderstanding and a deal of talking since the days of Spinoza. The atheistic and, in addition to that, the pantheistic character of the system has formed the commonest ground of accusation. These cries arise because of Spinoza's view that God is substance, and substance only. What we are to think of this charge follows, in the first instance, from the place which substance takes in the system of the logical idea. Though an essential stage in the evolution of the idea, substance is not the same with absolute idea, but the idea under the still limited form of necessity. It is true that God is necessity, or as we may put it, that He is the absolute thing or fact : He is however no less the absolute Person. That He is the absolute Person however is a point which the philosophy of Spinoza never per- ceived : and on that side it falls short of the true notion of God which forms the content of religious consciousness in Chris- tianity. Spinoza was by descent a Jew, and it is upon the whole the Oriental way of seeing things, according to which the nature of the finite world seems frail and transient, that has found its intellectual expression in his system. This Oriental view of the unity of substance certainly gives the basis for all real further development. Still it is not the final idea. It is marked by the absence of the principle of the Western World, the principle of individuality, which first appeared under a philo- sophic shape, contemporaneously with Spinoza, in the Monad- ology of Leibnitz.
From this point we glance back to the alleged atheism of Spinoza. The charge will be seen to be unfounded if we remem- ber that his system instead of denying God, rather recognises that He alone really is. Nor can it be maintained that the God of Spinoza, although he is described as alone true, is not the true God, and therefore as good as no God. If that were a just charge, it would only prove that all the other systems, where speculation has not gone beyond a subordinate stage of the idea, that the Jews and Mohamedans who know God only as the Lord, and that even the many Christians for whom God is merely the most high, unknowable, and transcendental being, are as much atheists as Spinoza. The so-called atheism of Spi- noza is merely an exaggeration of the fact that he defrauds the principle of difference or finitude of its due. Hence his system, as it holds that there is properly speaking no world, at any rate
152, I53-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 237
that the world has no positive being-, should rather be styled Acosmism. These considerations will also show what is to be said of the charge of Pantheism. If Pantheism means, as it often does, the doctrine which takes finite things in their fini- tude and in the complex of them to be God, we must acquit the system of Spinoza of the crime of Pantheism. For in that sys- tem, finite things and the world as a whole, are denied all truth. On the other hand, the philosophy which is Acosmism is for that reason certainly pantheistic. The fault which is thus seen to attach to the content appears also to be a defect of form. Spinoza puts substance at the head of his system, and defines it to be the unity of thought and extension, without demonstrating how he gets to this distinction, and without tracing it back to the unity of substance. The discussion then proceeds in what is called the mathematical method. Definitions and axioms are first laid down : after them follows a regular order of proposi- tions, which are proved by an analytical reduction of them to these unproved postulates. Although even those who altogether reject its content and results, praise the system of Spinoza for the strict sequence of its method, such unqualified praise of the form is as little justified as an unqualified rejection of the con- tent. The fault of the content is that the form is not known as immanent in it, and therefore only accompanies it as an outer and subjective form. As intuitively accepted by Spinoza without a previous mediation by dialectic, substance, as the universal negative power, is as it were a dark shapeless abyss which devours all definite content as utterly null, and produces from itself nothing that has a positive subsistence within itself.
152.] When substance is viewed on that aspect, where being absolute power it is the power that connects itself with itself as a merely inner possibility and thus gives itself the character of accident; and when the externality thus created is distinguished from it, it is Relation Proper just as in the first form of necessity it is substance. This is the Relation of Causality.
(#) Relation of Causality.
153.] The substance is a Cause, in so far as substance reflects into self as against its passage into accidentality and so stands as the primary fact, but again no less suspends this reflection-into-self or its bare possibility, lays itself down as the negative of itself, and thus produces an Effect, an
238 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [153.
actual thing, which though in this respect only a created actuality, is through the process that effectuates it at the same time necessary.
As the primary fact, the cause has the quality of absolute independence and a subsistence that holds good against the effect : but in the necessity, whose identity is constituted by that primariness itself, it has only passed into the effect. So far again as we can speak of a definite content, there is no content in the effect that is not in the cause. That identity in fact is the absolute content itself: but it is no less also the formal characteristic. The primariness of the cause is lost in the effect in which the cause makes itself a dependent being. The cause however does not thereupon vanish and leave the effect to be alone actual. For this dependent being is in like manner directly swallowed up, and is rather the reflection of the cause in itself, its primariness. It is in the effect that the cause first becomes actual and a cause. The cause consequently is in its full truth causa sui. Jacobi, sticking to the partial conception of mediation (in his Letters on Spinoza, second edit. p. 416), regarded the causa sui (and the effectus sui is the same), which is the absolute truth of the cause, as a mere formalism. He also stated that God ought to be defined not as the ground of things, but essenti- ally as cause. A more thorough consideration of the nature of cause would have shown Jacobi that he did not by this means gain what he intended. Even in the finite cause and its conception we can see this identity between cause and effect in point of content. The rain (the cause) and the wet (the effect) are the self-same existing water. In point of form the cause (rain) is dissipated or lost in the effect (wet) : but at the same time the definite characteristic of effect is also lost, for without the cause it is nothing, and we should have only the neutral wet left.
In the common acceptation of the causal relation the cause is finite, to such extent as its content (as in the case of finite substance) is so, and so far as cause and effect are conceived
1 53-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 239
as two different and independent existences : which they are, however, only when we leave the causal relation out of sight. In the finite sphere we never get over the distinc- tion of the special articles of form, even while they are con- nected: and hence we can turn the matter round and define the cause as something dependent or as an effect. This again has another cause, and thus there grows up a progress from effects to causes ad iwfinttum. There is a descending progress too : the effect when we look at its identity with the cause is itself defined as a cause, and at the same time as another cause, which again has other effects, and so on for ever.
The reluctance of the understanding to accept the idea of substance, is equalled by its familiarity with the relation of cause and effect. Whenever it is proposed to view any sum of fact as necessary, it is especially the relation of causality to which the reflective understanding makes a point of tracing it back. Now, although this relation does undoubtedly belong to necessity, it forms only one aspect in the process of that term of thought. That process equally requires that the mediation involved in causality should be set aside, and show itself as a simple con- nexion with self. If we stick to causality as such, we have it not in its truth. Such a causality is merely finite, and its finitude lies in retaining the distinction between cause and effect unas- similated. But these two terms, if they are distinct, are also identical. Even in ordinary consciousness that identity may be found. We say that a cause is a cause, only when it has an effect, and vice versa. Both cause and effect are thus one and the same content : and the distinction between them is primarily only that the one lays down or statutes, and the other is laid down or statuted. This formal difference however is again lost, because the cause is not only a cause of something else, but also a cause of itself ; while the effect is not only an effect of some- thing else, but also an effect of itself. The finitude of~things consists accordingly in this. While cause and effect are in their notion identical, the two forms appear separate. Though the cause is also an effect, and the effect also a cause, the cause is not an effect, in the same connexion as it is a cause, nor the effect a cause in the same connexion as it is an effect. This again gives the infinite progress, in the shape of an endless series of causes, which shows itself at the same time as an endless series of effects.
240 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [154.
154.] The effect is different from the cause. The former as such has a Being- dependent on the latter. But such a dependence is likewise reflection-into-self and immediacy : and the action of the cause, when it makes this thesis or statu- tion, does at the same time make a hypothesis or ante- statution, so far at least as we retain the effect separate from the cause. Hence there must be already in existence another substance on which the effect is to take place. It is imme- diate, and therefore this substance is not a negativity which connects itself with itself: it is in other words not active, but passive. Yet it is a substance, and it is therefore active also : so that setting aside the hypothetical immediacy and the effect put as a thesis into it, it reacts, i. e. it puts in abeyance the activity of the first substance. But this first substance also in the same way sets aside its own immediacy, or the effect which is put into it, and thus suspends the activity of the other substance and reacts. In this manner causality passes into the relation of Action and Beaction, or Reciprocity.
In Reciprocity, although causality is not yet invested with its true characteristic, the rectilinear movement out from causes to effects, and from effects to causes, is curved round and back into itself, and thus the progress ad infinitum of causes and effects is, as a progress, put in abeyance in a real fashion.
This bend, which transforms the infinite progression into a self-contained relation, is here as always the plain reflection that in the above meaningless repetition there is only one and the same thing, viz. one cause and another, and their con- nexion with one another. The carrying out of this connexion, which is reciprocal action, is itself however the alternation of distinguishing not the causes, but the elements of causation. In each of these elements by itself (once more in virtue of the identity that the cause is a cause in the effect, and con- versely), in virtue of this inseparability the other element is also given a place.
155, 156.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 241
(c) Reciprocity or Action and Reaction.
155.] The characteristics which are retained as distinct in Reciprocal Action are (a) potentially the same. The one side is a cause, is primary, active, passive, &c. just as the other is. Similarly the pre-supposition of another side and the action upon it, the immediate primariness and the dependence pro- duced by the alternation, are one and the same thing. The cause assumed to be first is on account of its immediacy passive, a dependent being, and an effect. The distinction of the causes spoken of as two is accordingly vain : and, properly speaking, there is only one cause, losing itself so far as it is substance in its effect, and in this action as a cause first rendering itself complete.
156.] But this unity of the double cause is also (/3) actual. All this alternation is properly the explicit creation of the cause, and in this explicit creation lies its being. The nullity of the distinctions is not only potential, or a reflec- tion of ours (preced. §). Reciprocal action just means that each of the characteristics explicitly stated is also to be set aside and inverted into its opposite, and that in this way the essential nullity of the elements is explicitly stated. An effect is introduced into the primariness ; in other words, the primariness is abolished : the action of a cause becomes reaction, and so on.
Reciprocal action explicitly invests the causal relation with its complete development. It is this relation, therefore, in which reflection usually takes shelter when things can no longer be observed satisfactorily from a causal point of view, on account of the infinite progress already spoken of. Thus in historical research the question may be raised in a first form, whether the character and manners of a nation are the cause of its constitu- tion and its laws, or if they are not rather the effect. Then, as the second step, the character and manners on one side and the constitution and laws on the other may be viewed on the principle of reciprocity : and in that case the cause in the same connexion as it is a cause will at the same time be an effect, and vice versa. The same thing is done in the study of Nature, and especially of living organisms. There the several organs and
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242 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [157.
functions are similarly seen to stand to each other in the relation of reciprocity. Reciprocity is undoubtedly the proximate truth of the relation of cause and effect, and stands, so to say, on the threshold of the notion; but on that very ground, supposing that our aim is intelligent knowledge, we should not rest content with the application of this relation. If we get no further than looking at a given content from the stand-point of reciprocity, we are taking up an attitude which is really unintelligent. It is only dealing with a dry fact, and the call for mediation, which is the chief question in applying the relation of causality, is still unanswered. And if we look more narrowly into the dissatisfaction felt in applying the relation of reciprocity, we shall see that it consists in the circumstance, that this relation cannot possibly stand as an equivalent for the notion, and ought, first of all, to be known and understood in its own nature. And to understand the relation of action and reaction we must not let the two sides rest in their state of being immediately given, but recognise them, as has been shown in the two paragraphs preceding, for factors of a third and higher, which is the notion and nothing else. To make, for example, the manners of the Spartans the cause of their constitu- tion and their constitution conversely the cause of their manners, may no doubt be in a way correct. But, as we have compre- hended neither the manners nor the constitution of the nation, the result of such reflections can never be final or satisfactory. The satisfactory point will be reached only when these two, as well as all other, special aspects of Spartan life and Spartan history are seen and known to be founded in this intelligent notion.
157.] This pure alternation or exchange with its own self is therefore Necessity laid bare or explicitly stated. The link of necessity qua necessity is identity, as still inward and concealed, because it is the identity of what are esteemed actual things, although their very self-subsistence is meant to be necessity. The circulation of substance through causality and reciprocity therefore only expressly makes out or states that self-subsistence is the infinite negative connexion with self. The connexion is negative, in general, for in it the act of distinguishing and intermediating becomes a primariness of actual things independent one against the other ; and it is an infinite connexion with self, because their independence only lies in their identity.
i58.] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE, 243
158.] This truth of necessity, therefore, is Freedom : and the truth of substance is the Notion. The Notion is that independence which is a thrusting of itself off from itself into distinct and independent units, and which, in this re- pulsion, is identical with itself ; a movement of alternation which goes on with itself, and never leaves its own ground.
Necessity is often called hard, and rightly so, if we look only to necessity as such, i. e. to its immediate shape. Here we have, first of all, some condition, or, generally speaking, a fact, possess- ing an independent subsistence : and necessity primarily implies that there falls upon such a fact something else by which it is ruined. In this consists the hard and gloomy feature of necessity immediate or abstract. The identity of the two things, which necessity presents as bound to each other, and thus bereft of their independence, is at first only inward, and therefore has no existence for those under the yoke of necessity. Freedom too from this point of view is only abstract, and is preserved only by renouncing all that we immediately are and have. But, as we have seen already, the process of necessity is of such a nature that it overcomes the rigid externality which it first had and reveals its inward self. It then appears that the members, linked to one another, are not really foreign to each other, but only elements of one whole, each of them, in its connexion with the other, being, as it were, at home, and combining with itself. In this way necessity is transfigured into freedom, — not the freedom that consists in abstract negation, but freedom concrete and positive. From which we may learn what a mistake it is to regard freedom and necessity as mutually excluding one another. Necessity indeed qua necessity is far from being freedom : yet freedom pre-supposes necessity, and contains it as an unsub- stantial element in itself. A good man feels that the subject- matter of his action is a necessary fact of absolute validity. But this consciousness is so far from making any abatement from his freedom, that without it we could not distinguish real and reasonable freedom from arbitrary choice, — a freedom which has nothing in it and is merely potential. The criminal, when punished, may look upon his punishment as a restriction of his freedom. Really the punishment is not foreign constraint to which he is subjected, but the manifestation of his own act : and if he recognises this, he ranks in that way as a free man. In short, man is most independent when he knows himself to be determined by the absolute idea throughout. It was the con- sciousness of this, and this attitude of mind, which Spinoza called the Amor intellectualis Dei.
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244 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [159.
159.] Thus the Notion is the truth of Being and the Essence, inasmuch as the showing or seeming1 of the reflection in its own self is at the same time an independent immediacy, and this Being of a different actuality is immediately only a seeming in itself.
The Notion has exhibited itself as the truth of Being and Essence, which both revert to it as their ground. Con- versely it has been developed out of being as its ground. The former aspect of the advance may be regarded as a deepen- ing of being in itself, the inner nature of which has been thereby laid bare : the latter aspect as an issuing of the more perfect from the less perfect. When such development is viewed on the latter side only, it does prejudice to the method of philosophy. The special meaning which these super- ficial thoughts of more imperfect and more perfect have in this place, is to indicate the distinction of being as an im- mediate unity with itself from the notion as free mediation with itself. Since being has shown that it is an element in the notion, the latter has thus exhibited itself as the truth of being. As this its reflection in itself and as an absorption of the mediation, the notion is the pre-supposition of the immediate — a pre-supposition which is identical with the return to self; and in this identity lies freedom and the notion. If the formative element therefore be called the imperfect, then the notion, or the perfect, is at any rate a development from the imperfect, since its very nature is thus to absorb or suspend its pre-supposition. At the same time it is the notion alone, which, when it lays itself down, makes the pre- supposition ; as has been made apparent in causality in general and especially in reciprocal action.
Thus in reference to Being and Essence the Notion is defined as the Essence which has reverted to the simple immediacy of Being, — the seeming or show of Essence thereby having actuality, and its actuality being at the same time a free seeming or show in itself. In this manner the notion has being as its simple reference to itself, or as the immediacy
1 59-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 245
of its unity in its own self. Being is so poor a category that it is the least thing- which can be exhibited in the notion.
The passage from necessity to freedom, or from actuality into the notion, is the very hardest, because it proposes that independent actuality shall be thought as having all its sub- stantiality in the passage, and in the identity with the independent actuality confronting it. The notion, too, is ex- tremely hard, because it is this very identity. But the actual substance as such, the cause, which in its exclusive being will let nothing penetrate into itself, is ipso facto subjected to necessity or the destiny of passing into dependency : and it is this subjection rather which is the hardest point. To think necessity, on the contrary, rather tends to dissolve that hardness. For thinking means that, in the other, one meets with one's self. — It means a liberation, which is not the flight of abstraction, but consists in that which is actual having itself not as something else, but as its own being and creation in the other actuality with which it is bound up by the force of necessity. As existing in an individual form, this liberation is called I : as developed to its totality, it is free Mind ; as feeling, it is Love ; and as enjoyment, it is Happiness. — The great vision of substance in Spinoza is only a potential liberation from finite exclusiveness and egotism : but the notion itself is actually endowed with the power of necessity and with actual freedom.
When, as now, the notion is called the truth of Being and Essence, we must expect to be asked, why we do not begin with the notion ? The answer is that, where scientific cognition is our aim, we cannot begin with the truth, because the truth, when it forms the beginning, must rest on mere assertion. The truth when it is thought must as such verify itself to thought. If the notion were put at the head of Logic, and defined, quite correctly in point of content, as the unity of Being and Essence, the following question would come up : What are we to think under the terms 'Being' and 'Essence/ and how do they come to be embraced in the unity of the Notion? But if we answered these questions, then our begin- ning with the notion would be merely nominal. The real
246 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE.
start would be made with Being, as we have here done : with this difference, that the characteristics of Being as well as those of the Essence would have to be accepted uncritically from figurate conception, whereas we have observed Being and Essence in their own dialectical development and learnt how they lose themselves in the unity of the notion.
CHAPTER IX. THIRD SUB-DIVISION OF LOGIC.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION.
160.] The Notion is the power of substance in the fruition of its own being, and therefore what is free. It forms a systematic whole, in which each of its elementary functions is the very total which the notion is, and is to be realised as indissolubly one with it. Thus in its identity with itself it is purely and entirely characterised.
The position taken up by the notion is that of absolute idealism. Philosophy is a knowledge through notions when it sees that all which other aspects of consciousness believe to have Being, and to be naturally or immediately independent, is but a constituent stage in the idea. In the logic of under- standing, the notion is generally reckoned a mere form of thought and explained to be a general conception. It is to this inferior view of the notion that the assertion refers, so often urged on behalf of the heart and sentiment, that notions as such are something dead, empty, and abstract. The case is really quite the reverse. The notion is, on the contrary, the principle of all life, and thus possesses in every part a character of concreteness. That it is so follows from the whole logical movement up to this point, and need not be here proved. The contrast between form and content, which is thus used to criticise the notion when it is alleged to be merely formal, has, like all the other contrasts upheld by reflection, been already left behind and overcome dialectically or through itself. The notion, in short, is what contains all the earlier categories of thought merged in it. It certainly is a form, but an infinite and creative form, which includes, but at the same time re- leases, from itself the plenitude of all that it contains. And
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248 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [161.
so too the notion may, if it be wished, be styled abstract, if the name concrete is restricted to the concrete facts of sense or of immediate perception. For the notion is not palpable to the touch, and when we are engaged with it, we must be dead to hearing and seeing. And yet, as it was before re- marked, the notion is the only true concrete ; for no other reason than because it involves Being and the Essence, and the total wealth of these two spheres with them, merged in the unity of thought.
If, as was said at an earlier point, the different stages of the logical idea are to be held equivalent to a series of definitions of the Absolute, the definition which now results for us is that the Absolute is the notion. That necessitates a higher estimate of the notion, however, than is found in the Logic of Understanding, when it supposes the notion to be a form of our subjective thought, with no original content of its own. Considering that Speculative Logic attaches a meaning to the term notion so very different from that usually given, it may be asked why the same word should be employed in two con- trary acceptations, and an occasion thus given for confusion and misconception. The answer is that, great as the interval is between the speculative notion and the notion of Formal Logic, a closer examination shows that the deeper meaning is not so foreign to the general usages of language as it seems at first sight. We speak of the deduction of a content from the notion, e. g. of the specific provisions of the law of property from the notion of property ; and so again we speak of tracing back such a sum of facts to the notion. We thus recognise that the notion is no mere form without a content of its own : for if it were, there would be in the one case nothing to deduce from such a form, and in the other case to trace a given sum of facts back to the empty form of the notion might deprive the fact of its specific character, but would not make it understood.
161.] The onward movement of the notion is no longer either a transition into, or a reflection on something else, but Development. For in the case of the notion, whatever is distinguished is without more ado and at the same time declared to be identical, one with another, and with the whole, and the specific character exhibits free and unchecked the being of the whole notion.
Transition into something else is the dialectical process within the range of Being: reflection (bringing something else into
1 6 2.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 249
light), in the range of Essence. The movement of the notion is development : by which that only is explicitly affirmed which is already naturally and, properly speaking, present. In the world of nature, it is organic life that corresponds to the grade of the notion. Thus, e.g. the plant is developed from its seed. The seed virtually involves the whole plant, but does so only ideally or in thought : and it would therefore be a mistake to regard the development of the root, stem, leaves, and other different parts of the plant, as meaning that they were realiter present, but in a minute form, in the germ. That is the so- called 'box- with in-box' hypothesis; a theory which commits the mistake of supposing an actual existence of what is at first found only as a postulate of the completed thought. The truth of the hypothesis on the other hand lies in its perceiving that in the process of development the notion keeps to itself, and only gives rise to alteration of form, without making any addition in point of content. It is this nature of the notion — this manifestation of itself in its process as a development of its own self, which is the point noted by those who speak of innate ideas in men, or who, like Plato, describe all learning merely as reminiscence. Of course that again does not mean that everything which is embodied in a mind, after that mind has been formed by instruction, had been present in it before- hand, in a definitely expanded shape.
The movement of the notion is after all a sort of illusion. The antithesis which it lays down is no real antithesis. Or, as it is expressed in the teaching of Christianity, not merely has God created a world which forms a kind of antithesis to him : He has also from all eternity begotten a Son in whom He, a Spirit, is at home with himself.
162.] The doctrine of the notion is divided into three parts. The first is the doctrine (1) of the Subjective Notion, the notion as a form. (2) The second is the doctrine of the notion invested with the character of immediacy, or of Objectivity. (3) The third is the doctrine of the Idea, the subject-object, the unity of the notion and objectivity, the absolute truth.
The Common Logic covers only the matters which come before us here as a portion of the third part of the whole system, together with the so-called Laws of Thought which we have already met; and in the Applied Logic it adds a little about cognition. This is combined with psychological, metaphysical, and all sorts of empirical materials, which were introduced
250 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [162.
because, when all was done, those forms of thought could not be made to do all that was required of them. But with these additions the science lost its unity of aim. Then there was a further circumstance against the Common Logic. Those forms, which at least do belong to the proper domain of Logic, were supposed to .be categories of conscious thought only, of thought too in the character of understanding, not of reason.
The preceding logical categories, those viz. of Being and Essence, are, it is true, no mere formulae of thought : they are proved to be notions in their transition, or their dialectical element, and in their return into themselves, and totality. But they are only specific or determinate notions (cp. §§ 84 and 112), notions rudimentary, or, what is the same thing, notions for us. The antithetical term into which each category passes, or which it brings into light, so as to be in this way relative, is not characterised as a particular. The third, in which they return to unity, is not characterised as a subject or an in- dividual : nor is there any explicit statement that the category is identical in its antithesis, — in other words, freedom is not expressly stated : and all this because the category is not a universality. What generally passes current under the name of a notion is a category of the understanding, or even a general conception merely : and therefore, in short, a finite category (cp. § 62).
The Logic of the Notion is usually treated as a science of form only, and understood to deal with the form of notion, judgment, and syllogism as form, without in the least touching the question whether anything is true. The answer to that question is supposed to depend on the content only. If the logical forms of the notion were really dead and inert re- ceptacles of conceptions and thoughts, careless of what they contained, the knowledge of them would be a piece of in- formation very useless and superfluous in the interests of truth. On the contrary they are, as forms of the notion, the vital spirit of the actual world. That only is true of the actual
163.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 251
which is true in virtue of these forms, through them and in them. As yet, however, the truth of these forms has never been considered or examined on their own account any more than their necessary interconnexion.
A. — THE SUBJECTIVE NOTION. («) The Notion as Notion. .
163.] The Notion as Notion contains the three following1 elements or functional parts. The first is (1) Universality — meaning that it is in free equality with itself in its specific character. The second is (2) Particularity — that is, the specific character, in which the universal continues serenely equal to itself. The third is (3) Individuality — meaning the reflection-into-self of the specific characters of universality and particularity. This last negative unity with self is abso- lutely specified ; and is at the same time identical with itself or universal.
Individual and actual are the same thing : only the former has issued from the notion, and is thus, as a universal, stated expressly as a negative identity with itself. The actual, be- cause it is at first no more than a potential or immediate unity of the essence and existence, may possibly work the actual : but the individuality of the notion does work it and on every side is the effective — efficient moreover no longer as the cause is, with a show of bringing about something else, but bringing about its own realisation. Individuality, however, is not to be understood to mean the immediate or natural individual, which is meant when we speak of indi- vidual things or individual men : for that special form of individuality does not appear till we come to the judgment. Every function and element of the notion is itself the whole notion (§ 160) ; but in the individual or subject the notion is expressly realised as a totality.
(1) The notion is generally associated in our minds with ab- stract generality, and on that account it is often described as
252 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [163.
a general conception. We speak of notions of colour, plant, animal, &c. They are supposed to be arrived at by neglecting1 the particular features which distinguish the different colours, plants, and animals from each other, and by retaining those common to them all. This is the aspect of the notion which is familiar to understanding ; and feeling is in the right when it protests against what it holds to be the hollowness and empti- ness of these mere phantoms and shadows. But the universal of the notion is not a mere sum of features common to several things, confronted by a particular which enjoys an existence of its own. It is, on the contrary, self-particularising or self- specifying, and with undimmed clearness finds itself at home in its antithesis. For the sake both of cognition and of our practical conduct, it is of the utmost importance that real universality should not be confused with what is merely held in common. All those charges which the devotees of feeling make against thought, and especially against philosophic thought, and the reiterated statement that it is dangerous to carry thought to what they call too great lengths, originate in the confusion of these two things.
I The universal in its true and comprehensive meaning is one of those thoughts which demanded thousands of years before it entered into the consciousness of men. The thought did not gain its full recognition till the days of Christianity. The Greeks, whose culture was in other respects so advanced, knew neither God nor even man in their true universality. The gods of the Greeks were only the special powers of the mind ; and the universal God, the God of all nations, was to the Athenians still an unknown God. They believed in the same way that an absolute gulf separated themselves from the barbarians. Man as man was not then recognised to be of infinite worth and to have infinite rights. The question has been asked, why slavery has vanished from modern Europe ? One special cir- cumstance after another has been adduced in explanation of this phenomenon. But the real ground why there are no more slaves in Christian Europe is only to be found in the very principle of Christianity itself, the religion of absolute freedom. Only in Christendom is man respected as man, in his infinite and universal nature. What the slave is wanting in, is the recognition that he is a person : and the principle of person- ality is universality. The master looks upon his slave not as a person, but as a selfless thing. The slave is not himself reckoned an ' I ' ; — his ' I ' is his master.
The distinction referred to above between what is merely in common, and what is truly universal, is strikingly expressed by Rousseau in his famous ' Contrat Social,' when he says that the laws of a state must spring from the universal will (volonte
1 64.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 253
generate), but need not on that account be the will of all (volonte de tons). Rousseau would have done better service towards a theory of the state, if he had always kept this distinction in sight. The general will is the notion of will : and the laws are the special articles in exposition of this will and based upon the notion of it.
(2) We add a remark upon the account of the origin and formation of notions which is usually given in the Logic of Understanding. And the remark is this. It is not we who frame the notions. The notion is not something which is originated at all. No doubt the notion is neither mere Being, nor immediate : it involves mediation, but the mediation lies in itself. In other words, the notion is what is mediated through itself and with itself. It is a mistake to imagine that the objects which form the content of our conceptions come first and that our subjective agency supervenes. It is a mis- take to suppose that by the aforesaid operation of abstraction, and by colligating the points possessed in common by the objects, our agency frames the notions of them. Rather the notion is the genuine first, and things are what they are through the action of the notion, immanent in them, and re- vealing itself in them. In our religious consciousness we find the same doctrine, when it is said that God created the world out of nothing. In other words, the world and finite things have issued from the fulness of the divine thoughts and the divine decrees. Thus religion recognises thought and (more exactly) the notion to be the infinite form, or the free creative activity, which can realise itself without the help of a matter that exists outside of it.
164. J The notion is concrete out and out: because the negative unity with itself, as characterisation pure and entire, which forms the individuality, is what constitutes its re- ference to itself, its universality. The several functions or elements of the notion are to this extent indissoluble. The categories of reflection are expected to be severally appre- hended and accepted as current, apart from their opposites. But in the notion, where their identity is expressly realised, each of its functions can be immediately apprehended only from and with the rest.
Universality, particularity, and individuality are, when taken in the abstract, the same as identity, difference, and ground. But the universal is identical with itself, with the express
254 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION, [164.
qualification, that it simultaneously contains the particular and the individual. Again, the particular is what is distin- guished or the specific character, but with the qualification that it is in itself universal and is as an individual. Simi- larly the individual signifies that it is a subject or sub- stratum, which involves the genus and species in itself and possesses a substantial existence. Such is the explicit or realised inseparability of the functions of the notion in their distinction (§ 160) — what may be called the clearness of the notion, in which each distinction causes no dimness or inter- ruption, but is quite as much transparent.
No complaint is oftener made against the notion than that it is abstract. Of course it is abstract, if abstract means that the medium, in which the notion exists, is thought in general and not the sensible thirfg in its empirical concreteness. It is abstract also, because the notion falls short of the idea. To this extent the subjective notion is still formal. This however does not mean that it ought to have or receive another content than its own. It is itself the absolute form, and so is all specific character, but as that character is in its truth. Although it be abstract therefore, it is the concrete, concrete altogether, the subject as such. The absolutely con- crete is the mind (see note to § 159) — the notion when it exists as notion5 distinguishing itself from its objectivity, which still continues to be its own notwithstanding the dis- tinction. Everything else which is concrete, however rich it be, is not so thoroughly identical with itself and therefore not so concrete in its own nature, least of all what is com- monly supposed to be concrete, but is only a congeries held together by external influence. What are called notions, and in fact specific notions, such as man, house, animal, &c. are simple attributive terms, and abstract conceptions. These abstractions retain out of all the functions of the notion only that of universality ; they leave particularity and indi- viduality out of account and have no development in these directions. By so doing they just miss the notion.
1 65.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 255
165.] It is the element of Individuality which first explicitly makes the functions of the notion distinctions in it. Indi- viduality is the negative reflection rof the notion into itself, and it is in that way at first the free distinguishing- of it as the first negation, by which the specific character of the notion is stated, but stated under the form of particularity. That is to say, the elements distinguished each have, in the first place, to each other, only the character of the several functions of the notion, and, secondly, their identity is also explicitly stated, the one being said to be the other. The explicit or imposed particularity of the notion is the Judgment.
The ordinary classification of notions, as clear, distinct and adequate, is no part of the notion; it belongs to psychology. Notions, in fact, are here synonymous with conceptions ; a clear notion is an abstract conception, with a simple attri- bution : a distinct notion is one where, in addition to the simplicity, there is one mark, or character emphasised as a sign for subjective cognition. There is no more striking mark of the formalism and decay of Logic than the favourite category of the 'mark.' The adequate notion comes nearer the notion proper, or even the idea : but after all it expresses only the formal circumstance that a notion or a conception agrees with its object, that is, with an external thing. The division into what are called subordinate and co-ordinate notions is based upon an inept or notionless distinction of universal from par- ticular, and their proportional bearing upon one another in an external reflection. Again, an enumeration of such kinds as contrary and contradictory, affirmative and negative notions, &c. is only a chance-directed gleaning of characters of thought which in their own right belong to the place of Being or Essence, where they have been already examined, and which have nothing to do with the character of the notion as notion. The real distinctions in the notion, universal, particular, and individual, may be said also to constitute species of it, but only when they are severed from each other by external re- flection. The immanent distinguishing and specifying of the
256 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [166.
notion come to sight in the judgment : for to judge is to specify the notion.
(6) The Judgment.
166.] The Judgment is the notion in its particularity, as a connexion of its functions which distinguishes them. These functions or elements are laid down as independent units, and at the same time as identical with themselves, not with one another.
One's first impression about the Judgment is the independ- ence of the two extremes, the subject and the predicate. The former we take to be a thing or a characteristic in its own right, and the predicate a general characteristic outside of the subject and somewhere in our heads. The next thing is for us to bring the latter into combination with the former, and in this way frame a Judgment. The copula 'is' however enunciates the predicate of the subject, and so that subjective subsumption from without is again put in abeyance, and the Judgment taken as a special phase of the object itself. The etymological meaning of the Judgment (Urtheil] in German goes deeper, as it were declaring the unity of the notion to be primary, and its distinction to be the original division. And that is what the Judgment really is.
In its abstract terms a Judgment is expressible in the pro- position: 'The individual is the universal.' These are the features under which the subject and predicate first confront each other, when the functions of the notion are taken in their immediate character or first abstraction. [Propositions such as, 'The particular is the universal,' and 'The individual is the particular/ belong to the further specialisation of the judgment.] It shows a strange want of observation in the logic-books, that in none of them is the fact stated, that in every judgment there is such a statement made, as, The indi- vidual is the universal, or still more definitely, The subject is the predicate : (e. g. God is an absolute mind). No doubt there is also a distinction between the categories of individual
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and universal, of subject and predicate: but it is none the less a universal fact, that every judgment states them to be identical.
The copula 'is' springs from the nature of the notion, by which it is identical with itself even when it divests itself of its own. The individual and universal are its elements, and therefore characters such as cannot be isolated. The earlier categories of reflection in their relations have also con- nexion with one another : but their interconnexion is only ' having ' and not ' being,' i. e. it is not the identity which is realised as identity, or universality. In the judgment, there- fore, for the first time there is seen the genuine particularity of the notion : for it is the speciality or distinguishing of the latter ; which speciality continues to be universality.
Judgments are generally looked upon as combinations of notions differing in kind. This theory of judgment is correct, so far as it implies that it is the notion which forms the pre- supposition of the judgment, and which in the judgment presents itself in the form of difference. But on the other hand, it is false to speak of notions differing in kind. The notion, although concrete, is still as a notion essentially one, and the functions which it contains are not different kinds of it. It is equally false to speak of a combination of the two sides in the judg- ment, if we understand the term ' combination ' to imply the independent existence of the combining members apart from the combination. The same external view of their nature is more forcibly apparent when judgments are described as produced by the ascription of a predicate to the subject. Language like this looks upon the subject as self-subsistent outside, and the pre- dicate as found somewhere in our head. Such a conception of the relation between subject and predicate however is at once contradicted by the copula ' is.' By saying ' This rose is red,' or ' This picture is beautiful/ we declare, that it is not we who from outside attach beauty to the picture or redness to the rose, but that these are the characteristics proper to these objects. An additional fault in the way in which Formal Logic conceives the judgment is, that it makes the judgment look as if it were contingent, and does not offer any proof for the advance from notion on to judgment. For the notion does not, as under- standing supposes, stand still with an innate immobility. It is rather an infinite form of boundless activity, as it were the
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punctum saliens of all vitality, and thereby draws a distinction within itself. This disruption of the notion into a distinction of its constituent functions, — a disruption imposed by the native act of the notion, is the judgment. A judgment therefore means the particularising of the notion. No doubt the notion is virtually and implicitly the particular. But in the notion as notion the particular is not yet explicit, and still remains in transparent unity with the universal. Thus, for example, as we remarked before (§ 160, note), the germ of a plant contains its details or particular, such as root, branches, leaves, &c. : but these details are at first present only potentially, and are not realised till the germ uncloses. This unclosing is, as it were, the judgment (discretion) of the plant. The il- lustration may also serve to show how neither the notion nor the judgment are merely found in our head, or merely framed by us. The notion is what dwells in the very heart of things, and makes them what they are. To form a notion of an object means therefore to become aware of its notion : and when we proceed to a criticism or review of the object, we are not per- forming a subjective act, and merely ascribing this or that predicate to the object. We are, on the contrary, observing the object in the character imposed by its notion.
167.] The Judgment is usually taken in a subjective sense as an operation and a form, which is found merely in self- conscious thought. Such a distinction is one which is not found within the system of Logic, where the judgment is for the present to be understood quite universally. All things are a judgment : that is to say, they are individuals, which are a universality or inner nature in themselves. They are a uni- versal which is individualised. Their universality and indi- viduality are distinguished, but the one is at the same time identical with the other.
The interpretation of the judgment, according to which it is assumed to be merely subjective, as if we ascribed a predicate to a subject, is contradicted by the decidedly objective expression of the judgment. The rose is red ; Gold is a metal. It is not by us that something is first ascribed to them. A judg- ment is however distinguished from a proposition. The latter contains a statement about the subject, which does not stand to it in any relation of universality, but expresses some single
1 68, 169.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 259
action, or some state, or the like. Thus, ' Caesar was born at Rome in such and such a year, waged war in Gaul for ten years, crossed the Rubicon, &c.,' are propositions, but not judgments. Again it is absurd to say that such statements as, ' I slept well last night/ or ' Present arms !' can be turned into the form of a judgment. 'A carriage passes by' — would be a judgment, and a subjective one at best, only if it were doubtful, whether the passing object was a carriage, or whether it and not rather the point of observation was in motion : — in short, only if it were desired to specify a conception which was still short of an appropriate specification.
168.] The judgment is the expression of finitude. Things in that case are said to be finite, because they are a judgment, because their definite Being-then-and-there and their universal nature, because their body and their soul are united indeed (otherwise the things would be nothing), but still elements in their constitution which are already different and also in any case separable.
169-] The abstract terms of the judgment, ' The individual is the universal,' present the subject (as negatively connecting self with self) as what is immediately concrete, while the predicate is what is abstract, and indefinite, is, in short, the universal. But the two elements are connected together by an ' is ' : and thus the predicate in its universality must also contain the speciality of the subject. Thus, this speciality is particularity. Thus is explicitly stated the identity between subject and predicate; which, being now unaffected by this difference in form, is the content.
It is the predicate which first gives the subject, which till then was on its own account a bare conception or an empty name, its specific character and content. In judgments like, ' God is the most real of all things,' or ' The Absolute is identical with itself,' God and the Absolute are mere names, which receive their exposition in the predicate. As to what the subject may be in other respects, as a concrete thing, it does not concern the present judgment. (Cp. § 31.)
S 2
260 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [170, 171.
To define the subject as that of which something- is said, and the predicate as what is said about it, is mere trifling. It gives no information about the distinction between the two. In point of thought, the subject is primarily the in- dividual, and the predicate the universal. As the judg- ment receives further development, the subject ceases to be merely an immediate individual, and the predicate merely an abstract universal : the former acquires the additional signi- fications of particular and universal, — the latter the additional significations of particular and individual. Thus while the same names are given to the two terms of the judgment, their mean- ing passes through a series of changes.
170.] We now go closer into the speciality of subject and predicate. The subject as the negative connexion with self (§§ ^3> J66) is the fixed substratum in which the predicate has its subsistence and where it is ideally present. The predicate, it is said, inheres in the subject. Further, as the subject may be generally and naturally described as concrete, the specific content of the predicate is only one of the numerous characters of the subject. Thus the subject is ampler and wider than the predicate.
Conversely, the predicate is universal and subsists of itself, and is indifferent whether this subject is or not. The predicate transcends the subject, subsuming it under itself: and hence in its own way is also wider than the subject. The specific content of the predicate (preced. §) alone constitutes the identity of the two.
171.] At first, subject, predicate, and the specific content or the identity are, even when they are connected, still stated in the judgment as different and not coinciding with one another. By implication, however, that is, in their notion, they are identi- cal. For the subject is a concrete totality which means not any sort of aggregate whatever, but individuality alone, the par- ticular and the universal in an identity : and the predicate too is the very same unity (§ 170). The copula again, even while imposing an identity upon subject and predicate, does so at first only by an abstract ' is/ Conformably to such an identity, we have to invest the subject with the characteristic of the predicate.
I7i.j THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 261
By this means the latter also receives the character of the former : so that the copula receives its full complement and full force. Such is the continuous specification by which the judgment, through a copula charged with content, comes to be syllogism. As it is primarily exhibited in the judgment, this gradual spe- cification consists in giving a universality, which is originally ab- stract and sensuous, the specific character of allness, of a species, or genus, and finally of the developed universality of the notion.
After we are made aware of this continuous specification of the judgment, we can see a meaning and an inter-connexion in what are usually stated as the kinds of judgment. Not only does the ordinary enumeration seem a work of chance, but it is also superficial, and wild or reckless in its statement of their distinctions. The distinction between positive, cate- gorical and assertory judgments, is either a pure invention of fancy, or is left undetermined. The different judgments, on the right theory, follow necessarily from one another, and present the continuous specification of the notion ; for the judgment itself is nothing but the notion specified.
When we look at the two preceding spheres of Being and Essence, we see that the specified notions as judgments are reproductions of these spheres, but invested with the simple connexion of the notion.
The various kinds of judgment are no empirical aggregate. They are a systematic whole bearing the stamp of thought, and it was one of Kant's great achievements that he first saw this. His proposed division, according to the headings in his table of categories, into judgments of quality, quantity, relation and modality, can not be called satisfactory, partly from the merely formal application of the headings of these categories, partly on account of their content. Still it rests upon a true perception of the fact that the different species of judgment derive their features from the universal forms of the logical idea itself. If we follow this source, it will supply us with three chief kinds of judgment parallel to the stages of Being, Essence, and Notion. The second of these kinds, as required by the character of Essence, which is the stage of differentiation, must be doubled. We find the inner ground for this systematic division of the judgment in the circumstance that when the Notion, which is the unity of
262 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [172.
Being and Essence in a comprehensive thought, unfolds as it does in the judgment, it must reproduce these two stages in a changed shape such as is proper to the notion. The notion meanwhile is seen to specify itself as the genuine judgment.
Far from occupying the same level, and being of equal value, the different species of judgment form a series of steps, the dis- tinction between which rests upon the logical significance of the predicate. That judgments differ in value is evident even in our ordinary ways of thinking. We should not hesitate to ascribe a very slight faculty of judgment to a person who habitually framed such judgments as, ' This wall is green/ ' This oven is hot/ On the other hand we should credit with a genuine capacity of judgment the person whose criticisms dealt with such ques- tions as whether a certain work of art was beautiful, whether a certain action was good, and so on. In judgments of the first-mentioned kind the content forms only an abstract quality, the presence of which can be sufficiently detected by immediate perception. To pronounce a work of art to be beautiful, or an action to be good, requires on the contrary a comparison of the objects with what they ought to be, i.e. with their notion.
(a) Qualitative Judgment.
172.] The immediate judgment is the judgment of definite Being. The subject is invested with a universality as its predicate, which is an immediate, and therefore a sensible quality. It may be, in the first place, (1) a Positive judg- ment : The individual is a particular. But the individual is not a particular : or in more precise language, such a single quality is not congruous with the concrete nature of the subject. This is, secondly, (2) a Negative judgment.
It is one of the fundamental prejudices of Logic to imagine that Qualitative judgments such as, ' The rose is red,' or ' is not red,' can contain truth. They may be correct, i. e. in the limited circle of perception, of finite conception and thought. That depends on the content, which likewise is finite, and, on its own merits, untrue. Truth, however, as opposed to correctness depends solely on the form, viz. on the notion affirmed or stated, and the reality corresponding to it. But truth of that stamp is not found in the Qualitative judgment.
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In common life the terms truth and correctness are often regarded as synonymous. We often speak of the truth of a content, when we are only thinking of its correctness. Correct- ness, generally speaking, concerns only the formal coincidence between our conception and its content, whatever the constitution of this content may be. Truth, on the contrary, lies in the coincidence of the object with itself, that is, with its notion. That a person is sick, or that some one has committed a theft, may certainly be correct. But the content is untrue. A sick body is not in harmony with the notion of body, and there is a want of congruity between theft and the notion of human conduct. These instances may show that an immediate judg- ment, in which an abstract quality is predicated of an imme- diately individual thing, however correct it may be, cannot contain truth. The subject and predicate of it do not stand to each other in the relation of reality and notion.
We may add that the untruth of the immediate judgment lies in the incongruity between its form and content. To say ' This rose is red/ involves (in virtue of the copula ' is ') the coincidence of subject and predicate. The rose however is a concrete thing, and so it is not red only : it has also an odour, a specific form, and many other features not implied in the predicate red. The predicate on its part is an abstract universal, and does not apply to the rose alone. There are other flowers and other objects which are red too. The subject and predicate in the immediate judgment touch, as it were, only in a single point, but do not cover each other. The case is different with the notional judg- ment. In pronouncing an action to be good, we frame a notional judgment. Here, as we at once perceive, there is a closer and a more internal relation than in the immediate judgment. The predicate in the latter is some abstract quality which may or may not be applied to the subject. In the judgment of the notion the predicate is, as it were, the soul of the subject, by which the subject, as a body, is characterised through and through.
173.] This negation of a particular quality, which is the first negation, still leaves the connexion of the subject with the predicate subsisting. The predicate is in that manner a sort of relative universal, of which a special phase only has been negatived. [To say, that the rose is not red, implies that it is still coloured — in the first place with another colour; which however would be only one more positive judgment.] The individual or subject however is not a uni-
264 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [173.
versal. Hence, in the third place, (3) the judgment suffers dis- ruption into one of two forms. It is either (a] the Identical judgment, an empty identical connexion stating that the individual is the individual ; or it is (&) what is called the Infinite judgment, in which we are presented with the total incompatibility of subject and predicate.
Examples of the latter are : ' The mind is no elephant : ' ' A lion is no table ; ' propositions which are correct but absurd, exactly like the identical propositions : ' A lion is a lion ; ' ' The mind is mind.' Propositions like these are un- doubtedly the truth of the immediate, or, as it is called, Qualitative judgment. But they are not judgments at all, and their occurrence is confined to subjective thought, where even an untrue abstraction may hold its ground. In their objective aspect, these Qualitative judgments express the nature of what is, or of sensible things, which, as they declare, suffer disruption into an empty identity on the one hand, and on the other a fully-charged connexion between them — only that this connexion is the qualitative antagonism of the things connected, their total incongruity.
The negatively- infinite judgment in which the subject bears no connexion whatever to the predicate, gets its place in the Formal Logic, solely as a nonsensical curiosity. But the infinite judgment is not really a mere contingent form adopted by subjective thought. It exhibits the proximate result of the dialectical process in the immediate judgments preceding (the positive and simply -negative), and distinctly displays their finitude and untruth. Crime may be quoted as an objective instance of the negatively-infinite judgment. The person com- mitting a crime, such as a theft, does not as in a question about civil rights, merely deny the particular right of another person to some one definite thing. He denies the right of that person in general, and therefore he is not merely forced to restore what he has stolen, but is punished in addition, because he has violated right as right, i. e. right in general. The civil suit on the con- trary is an instance of the negative judgment pure and simple. In a civil wrong it is merely the particular right which is violated, whilst right in general is so far acknowledged. Such a dispute is precisely paralleled by a negative judgment, like, ' This flower is not red : ' by which we merely deny the particular
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colour of the flower, but not its colour in general, which may be blue, yellow, or any other. Similarly death, as a negatively- infinite judgment, is distinguished from disease as simply-nega- tive. In disease, merely this or that function of life is checked or negatived : in death, as we ordinarily say, body and soul part, i. e. subject and predicate are in no point coincident.
(/3) Judgment of Reflection.
174.] The individual in its individual character, i. e. as reflected-into-self, when it is taken and put in a judgment, has a predicate, in comparison with which the subject, con- necting itself with itself and keeping aloof, continues to be still another thing. — In the existent world the subject ceases to be immediately qualitative, it comes to be in relation and inter- connexion with an other thing, — with an external world. In this way the universality of the predicate comes to signify this relativity — (e. g. useful, or dangerous : a weight or an acid ; or again, an instinct ; are examples of such relativity).
The Judgment of Reflection is distinguished from the Qualita- tive judgment by the circumstance that its predicate is not an immediate or abstract quality, but of such a kind as to exhibit the subject as in connexion with something else. When we say, e. g. ' This rose is red,' we regard the subject in its immediate individuality and without reference to anything else. If, on the other hand, we pronounce the judgment, 'This plant is whole- some,' we regard the subject, plant, as standing in connexion with something else (the sickness which it cures), by means of its predicate (its wholesomeness) . The case is the same with judgments like : This body is elastic : This instrument is useful : This punishment has a deterrent influence. In every one of these instances the predicate is some category of reflection. They all exhibit an advance beyond the immediate individuality of the subject, but none of them goes so far as to indicate the adequate notion of it. It is in this mode of judgment that the popular forms of reasoning delight. The greater the concrete- ness of the object in question, the more points of view does it offer to reflection ; by which however its proper nature or notion is not exhausted.
175.] (1) Firstly then the subject, the individual as in- dividual (in the Singular judgment), is an universal. But,
266 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [175.
(2) secondly, in this connexion it is elevated above its singularity. This extension is external, due to subjective reflection, and at first is an indefinite number of particulars. (This is seen in the Particular judgment, which is obviously negative as well as positive : the individual is divided in itself: partly it is connected with itself, partly with something else.) (3) Thirdly, Some are the universal : particularity is thus extended to become universality : or universality is modified by the individuality of the subject, and appears as allness or omnitude, (Community, the ordinary universality of reflection).
The subject when, in the Singular judgment, it is described as a universal, ceases to be its mere individual self. To say, ' This plant is wholesome,' implies not only that this single plant is wholesome, but that some or several are so. We thus have the particular judgment (some plants are wholesome, some men are inventive, &c.). By means of particularity the immediate in- dividual comes to lose its independence, and enters into an inter- connexion with something else. Man, as this man, is not this single man alone, he stands beside other men and becomes one in the crowd. Just by this means however he belongs to his universal, and is consequently raised. The particular judgment is as much negative as positive. If only some bodies are elastic, it is evident that the rest are not elastic.
On this fact again depends the advance to the third form of the Reflective judgment, viz. the judgment of allness (all men are mortal, all metals conduct electricity). It is as ' all ' that the universal is in the first instance generally encountered by reflec- tion. The substratum consists of the individuals, which our subjective reflection collects and describes as ' all.' So far the universal has the aspect of an external fastening, that holds together a number of independent individuals, which have not the least affinity towards it. This semblance of indifference is however unreal : for the universal is the ground and foundation, the root and substance of the individual. Caius, Titus, Sempro- nius, and the other inhabitants of a town or country are all men. That they are so, is not merely something which they have in common, but their universal or kind, without which these individuals would not be at all. The case is very different with that superficial generality falsely so called, which really means only what attaches, or is common, to all the individuals. It has been remarked, for example, that men, in contradistinction from the lower animals, possess in common the appendage of ear- laps. It is evident, however, that the absence of these ear-laps
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in one man or another would not affect the rest of his being-, character, or capacities : whereas it would be nonsense to suppose that Caius, without being1 a man, would still be brave, learned, &c. The individual man is what he is in particular, only in so far as he is before all thing's a man as man and in general. That generality is not something external to, or some- thing in addition to other abstract qualities, or to mere features discovered by reflection. It is what permeates and includes in it everything particular.
176.] The subject, being thus like the predicate invested with a character of universality, is expressly made identical with the predicate : and by this identity the very specialisa- tion of judgment is set forth to be indifferent. This unity of the content (the content being the universality which is identical with the negative reflection-in-self of the subject) makes the connexion in judgment a necessary one.
The advance from the reflective judgment of all ness to the judgment of necessity is found in our usual modes of thought, when we say that everything which appertains to all, appertains to the species, and is therefore necessary. To say All plants, or All men, is the same thing as to say the plant, or the man.
(y) Judgment of Necessity.
177.] The Judgment of Necessity is that, where the content though in distinction is identical. (1) It contains, in the first place, in the predicate, partly the substance or nature of the subject, the concrete universal, the genus; partly, seeing that this universal also contains in it the specific character as negative, the predicate represents the exclusive essential character, the species. This is the Categorical judgment.
(2) Conformably to their substantiality, the two terms receive the aspect of independent actuality, and their identity is inward only. And thus the actuality of the one is at the same time not its own, but the being of the other. This is the Hypothetical judgment.
(3) If, when the notion is thus driven out of its oneness, its inner identity is at the same time set forth, the universal is the
268 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [177.
genus, which in its exclusive individuality is identical with itself. This judgment, which has this universal for both its terms, the one time as a universal, the other time as the circle of its self- excluding particularisation or several species in which the con- junctions 'either — or' as much as the 'as well as' stands for the genus, is the Disjunctive judgment. Universality, at first as a genus, and now also as the circuit of its species, is thus described and expressly stated as a systematic whole.
The Categorical judgment (such as ' Gold is a metal,' ' The rose is a plant ') is the immediate judgment of necessity, and finds within the sphere of Essence its parallel in the relation of substance. All things are a Categorical judgment. In other words, they have their substantial nature, forming their fixed and unchangeable substratum. It is when the point of view from which things are considered is their kind, and when they are regarded as necessarily modified by the kind, that the judg- ment first begins to be real. It betrays a defective logical training to place upon the same level judgments like ' gold is dear/ and judgments like ' gold is a metal.' That ' gold is dear' is a matter of external connexion between it and our wants or inclinations, the costs of obtaining it, and other circumstances. Gold remains the same as it was, though that external reference changes or passes away. Metalleity, on the contrary, constitutes the substantial nature of gold, apart from which it, and all else that is in it, or can be predicated of it, would be unable to subsist. The same is the case if we say, ' Caius is a man.' We express by that, that whatever else he may be, has worth and meaning, only when it corresponds to his substantial nature or manhood.
But even the Categorical judgment is defective to a certain extent. It fails to give due place to the function or element of particularity. Thus, ' gold is a metal/ it is true ; but so are silver, copper, iron : and metalleity as such has no leanings to the particulars of its species. In these circumstances we must advance from the Categorical to the Hypothetical judg- ment, which may be expressed in the formula : If A is, B is. The present case exhibits the same advance as formerly took place from the relation of substance to the relation of cause. In the Hypothetical judgment the specific character of the con- tent shows itself mediated and dependent on something else : and this is exactly the relation of cause and effect. And if we were to give a general interpretation to the Hypothetical judg- ment, we should say that it expressly realises the universal in its
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particularising. This brings us to the third form of the Judg- ment of Necessity, the Disjunctive judgment. A is either _Z? or C or D. A work of poetic art is either epic or lyric or dramatic. Colour is either yellow or blue or red. The two terms in the Disjunctive judgment are identical. The genus is the sum total of the species, and the sum total of the species is the genus. This unity of the universal and the particular is the notion : and it is the notion which, as we now see, forms the content or burden and meaning of the judgment.
(8) Judgment of the Notion.
178.] The Judgment of the Notion has for its content the notion, the systematic whole in a simple form, the universal with its complete speciality. The subject is (1), in the first place, an individual, which has for its predicate the reflection of the particular being on its universal ; and the judgment states the agreement or disagreement of these two terms. That is, the predicate is such a term as good, true, correct. This is the Assertory judgment.
Judgments, such as whether an object, action, &c. is good, bad, true, beautiful, &c., are those to which even ordinary lan- guage first applies the name of judgment. We should never ascribe much judgment to a person who framed positive or negative judgments like, This rose is red, This picture is red, green, dusty, &c.
The Assertory judgment, although rejected by society as out of place when it claims authority on its own showing, has however been made the single and essential form of teaching, even in philosophy, through the influence of the principle of immediate knowledge or faith. In the so-called philosophic works which maintain this principle, we may read hundreds and hundreds of assertions about reason, knowledge, thought, &c. which, now that external authority counts for little, seek to corroborate themselves by an endless restatement of the same thesis.
179.] So far as appears from its primarily immediate subject, the Assertory judgment does not contain the connexion of par-
270 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [180, 181.
ticular with universal which is expressed in the predicate. This judgment is consequently a mere subjective particularity, and is confronted by a contrary assertion with equal right, or rather want of right. It is therefore at once turned into (2), secondly, a Pro- blematical judgment. But when we explicitly invest the sub- ject with its objective particularity, when we take its speciality as the constitution of its Being- then-and-there, the subject (3) then expresses the connexion of that objective particularity with its constitution, i. e. with its genus ; and thus expresses what forms the content of the predicate (see preceding §). [This (the immediate individual) house (the genus] being so and so constituted (particularity] is good or bad.] This is the Apo- dictic judgment. All things are a genus (which is their voca- tion and Aim or End) in an individual actuality of a particular constitution. And they are finite, because the particular in them may and also may not conform to the universal.
180.] In this manner subject and predicate are each the whole judgment. The immediate constitution of the subject is at first exhibited as the intermediating ground, where the individuality of the actual thing meets with its universality, and in this way as the ground of the judgment. What has been really made explicit is the oneness of subject and predi- cate, as the notion itself, consummating the empty ' is ' of the copula. While its constituent elements are at the same time distinguished as subject and predicate, the notion is stated as their unity, as the connexion which serves to intermediate them : in short, as the Syllogism.
(c) The Syllogism.
181.] The Syllogism brings the notion and the judgment into one. It is notion, — being the simple identity into which the distinctions of form in the judgment have retired. It is judgment, — because it is at the same time set in reality, that is, placed in the distinction of its terms. The Syllogism is what is rational, and everything that is rational.
1 8 1.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 271
Even the ordinary theories represent the Syllogism to be the form of rational thought, but only a subjective form; and no inter-connexion whatever is shown to exist between it and any other rational content, such as a rational principle, action, or idea. The name of reason is much and often spoken of, and appealed to : but no one thinks of explaining what its character is, or saying what it is, — least of all that it has any connexion with Syllogism. But formal Syllogism really presents what is rational with such an absence of reason that it has nothing to do with anything of rational quality. But as the matter in question can only be rational in virtue of the character by which thought is made reason, it must be made so by the form only : and that form is Syllogism. And what is a Syllogism but an explicit statement of the real notion, at first real in form only, as stated in the paragraph ? On that account the Syllogism is the essential ground of whatever is true : and we see now that the Syllogism is the definition of the Absolute. Or if we state this characteristic in the form of a proposition it will run: Everything is a Syllogism. Everything is a notion: and its Being then-and-there is the distinction of the constituent func- tions thereof. — In that way the universal nature of the Notion acquires external reality by means of particularity, and thereby, and as a negative reflection-into-itself, makes itself an indivi- dual. Or, conversely : the actual thing is an individual, which by means of particularity rises to universality and renders itself identical with itself. The actual thing is a unit : but it is also the breaking up and partition of the constituent elements of the notion ; and the Syllogism represents the circulating movement by which its elements are intermediated, and by which it ex- plicitly sets itself as a unit.
The Syllogism, like the notion and the judgment, is usually described as a form merely of our subjective thinking. The Syllogism, it is said, is the proof of the judgment. And cer- tainly the judgment does in every case refer us to the Syllo- gism. The step from the one to the other however is not brought about by our subjective action, but by the judgment itself which becomes explicit in the Syllogism, and in the con-
272 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [182.
elusion returns to the unity of the notion. The precise point by which we pass to the Syllogism is found in the Apodictic judg- ment. In it we have an individual which by means of its qualities connects itself with its universal or notion. Here we see the particular becoming the middle ground of intermediation between the individual and the universal. This gives the funda- mental form of the Syllogism, the gradual specification of which, formally considered, consists in the fact that universal and indi- vidual also occupy this place of mean. This again paves the way for the passage from subjectivity to objectivity.
182.] In the immediate Syllogism the several characteristics of the notion confront one another abstractly, and stand in an external relation only. We have first the two extremes, which are Individuality and Universality ; and then the notion, as the mean for locking the two together, is in like manner only abstract Particularity. In this way the extremes are invested with an independence which permits no affinity either towards one another or towards their mean. Such a Syllogism may be rational, but it is void of all notion. It is the formal Syllogism of the Understanding. The subject in it is locked together with another character ; or the universal by this mediation subsumes a subject external to it. In the rational Syllogism, on the con- trary, the subject is by means of the mediation locked together with itself. In this manner it first comes to be a subject : or, in the subject we have the first germ of the rational Syllogism.
In the following examination, the Syllogism of Understanding, according to the interpretation usually put upon it, is expressed in its subjective shape ; the shape which it has when we are said to make such Syllogisms. And it really is only a subjective syllogising. Such Syllogism it is true also has an objective meaning, and expresses only the finitude of things, but it does so in the specific mode, which the form has here reached. In the case of finite things the subjectivity, their ' thinginess,' is separable from their properties or their particularity, but also separable from their universality, not only when the universality is the bare quality of the thing and its external inter-connexion with other things, but also when it is its genus and notion.
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The syllogism, as we have seen, has been described as the rational form par excellence ; and so reason has been denned as the faculty of syllogising-, whilst understanding is denned as the faculty of forming- notions. We might object to the conception on which this depends, and according to which the mind is merely a sum of forces or faculties existing side by side. But apart from that objection, we may observe in regard to the juxta- position of understanding with the notion, as well as of reason with syllogism, that the notion is as little a mere category of the understanding as the syllogism is without qualification definable as rational. For, in the first place, what the Formal Logic usually examines in its theory of syllogism, is really nothing but the mere syllogism of understanding, which has no claim to the honour of being made a form of rationality, still less to be held as the embodiment of all reason. The notion, in the second place, so far from being a form of under- standing, owes its degradation to such a place entirely to the influence of that abstract mode of thought. And it is not unusual to draw such a distinction between a notion of under- standing and a notion of reason. The distinction however does not mean that notions are of two kinds. It means that our own action often makes us stop short at the mere negative and ab- stract form of the notion, when we might also have proceeded to apprehend the notion in its true nature, as at once positive and concrete. It is e. g. the mere understanding, which thinks freedom to be the abstract contrary of necessity, whereas the adequate rational notion of freedom requires the element of necessity to be merged in it. Similarly the definition of God, given by what is called Deism, is merely the mode in which the understanding thinks God : whereas Christianity, to which He is known as the Trinity, contains the rational notion of God.
(a) Qualitative Syllogism.
183.] The first syllogism is a syllogism of immediate or definite being, a Qualitative Syllogism, as stated in the last paragraph. Its form (1) is I — P — U : i. e. a subject as Indivi- dual is locked together with a Universal character by means of one (Particular) quality.
We have nothing at present' to do with the fact that the subject (terminus minor} has other characteristics besides that of individuality, just as the other extreme (the predicate of the conclusion, or terminus major] has other characteristics than
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274 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [183.
merely that of universality. We are concerned only with the forms, in virtue of which these terms make a syllogism.
The syllogism of definite being is a syllogism of under- standing merely, at least in so far as it leaves the individual, the particular, and the universal to confront each other quite abstractly. In this syllogism the notion comes most completely out of itself. We have in it an immediately individual thing as subject : next some one particular aspect, or property attach- ing to this subject is emphasised, and by means of this property the individual turns out to be a universal. Thus we may say, This rose is red : Red is a colour : Therefore, this rose is a coloured object. It is this aspect of the syllogism which the common logics mainly treat of. There was a time when the syllogism was regarded as an absolute rule for all cognition, and when a scientific statement was not held to be valid until it had been shown to follow from a process of syllogism. At present, on the contrary, the different forms of the syllogism are met nowhere save in the compendia of Logic ; and to make an acquaintance with them would be termed an act of stupid pedantry, of no further use either in practical life or in science. It would indeed be both useless and pedantic to parade the whole details of the formal syllogism on every occasion. And yet the several forms of syllogism still make themselves con- stantly felt in our cognition. If any one, when awaking on a winter morning, hears the creaking of the carriages on the street, and is thus led to conclude that it has been a strong frost during the night, he has gone through a syllogistic process:— a process which is every day repeated under the greatest variety of conditions. The interest, therefore, ought at least not to be less in becoming expressly conscious of this daily action of our thinking selves, than is admitted to ac- company the study of the functions of organic life, such as the processes of digestion, assimilation, respiration, or even the processes and structures of the world around us. We do not, however, for a moment deny that a knowledge of Logic is no more necessary to teach us how to draw correct conclusions, than a previous study of anatomy and physiology is required in order to digest or breathe.
Aristotle was the first to observe and describe the different forms, or, as they are called, figures of syllogism, in their subjective meaning : and he performed his work so exactly and surely, that no essential addition has ever been required. But while sensible of the value of what he has thus done, we must not forget that the forms of the syllogism of under- standing, and of finite thought altogether, are not what
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Aristotle has made use of in his properly philosophical in- vestigations. (See § 189.)
184.] This syllogism is completely contingent (a) in the matter of its terms. The Mean is an abstract quality, and is therefore only some one character of the subject : but the subject, being immediate and thus empirically concrete, has several other characters. It could be combined therefore with exactly as many other universalities as it possesses isolated qualities. Similarly any one single quality may have different characters in itself, so that the same medius terminus would serve to connect the subject with several distinct universals.
It is more a caprice of fashion, than a sense of its incorrect- ness, which has led people to abandon the use of ceremonious syllogising. This and the following paragraph state the use- lessness of such syllogising for the ends of truth.
The point noted in the paragraph will show that this style of syllogism can demonstrate (for that is the word) the most diverse conclusions. All that is requisite is to find a medius terminus from which the transition can be made to the formula or conclusion sought. An other medius terminus would enable us to demonstrate something else, and even the contrary of the last. And the more concrete an object is, the more aspects it has, which may become such middle terms. To determine which of these aspects is more essential than another, again, requires a further syllogism of this kind, which attaches itself to the single character : and for it also some aspect or con- sideration may be discovered, by which it can make good its claims to be considered necessary and important.
Little as we usually think on the Syllogism of Understanding in the daily business of life, it never ceases to play its part there. In a civil suit, for instance, it is the duty of the advocate to give due force to the legal titles which make in favour of his client. In logical language, such a legal title is nothing but a middle term. Diplomatic transactions afford another illustration of the same, when, for instance, different powers lay claim to one and the same territory. In such a case the
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276 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [185, 186.
laws of inheritance, the geographical position of the country, the descent and the language of its inhabitants, or any other ground, may be emphasised as a medius terminus.
185.] (/3) This syllogism, if it is contingent in point of its terms, is no less contingent in virtue of the form of connexion which is found in it. In the syllogism, according to its notion, truth lies in connecting two distinct things by a Mean in which they are at one. But connexions of the extremes with the Mean (which are the so-called premisses, the major and minor premiss) are in the case of this syllogism much more decidedly immediate connexions. In other words, they have not a proper Mean.
This contradiction in the syllogism is exhibited in a new case of the infinite progression. Each of the premisses evidently calls for a fresh syllogism to demonstrate it : and as the new syllogism has two immediate premisses, like its predecessor, the demand for proof is doubled at every step, and repeated without end.
186- ] On account of its importance for experience, we have here noted a defect in the syllogism, although in this form absolute correctness had been ascribed to it. This defect how- ever must lose itself in the gradual specification of the syllogism. For we are now within the limits of the notion ; and here therefore, as well as in the judgment, the opposite character is not merely present potentially, but explicitly stated. To work out the gradual specification of the syllogism, therefore, there need only be admitted and accepted what is each time imposed by the laws of the syllogism itself.
Through the immediate syllogism I — P — U, the Individual is mediated with the Universal, and in this conclusion stated expressly as a universal. It follows that the individual sub- ject, becoming itself a universal, serves to unite the two extremes, and to form their ground of intermediation. This gives the second figure of the syllogism (2) U — I — P. It expresses the truth of the first, because it shows that the intermediation has taken place in the individual, and is thus something contingent.
187.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 277
187- ] The universal, by the first conclusion, was specified by means of individuality, and passing over into the second fig-iire now occupies the place of the immediate subject. Thus in the second figure the universal is made to close and unite with the particular. By this conclusion therefore the universal is explicitly stated as particular — and is now made to mediate between the two extremes, the place of which is occupied by the two others (the particular and the individual). This is the third figure of the syllogism : (3) P — U —I.
What are called the Figures of the syllogism (being three in number, for the fourth is a superfluous and even absurd addition to the three known to Aristotle) are in the usual mode of treatment put side by side, without the slightest thought of showing their necessity, and still less of pointing out their import and value. No wonder then that the figures have been in later times treated as an empty piece of formalism. They have however a most profound meaning, which rests upon the necessity that requires every function or characteristic element of the notion to become the whole itself, and to stand as the mean in which they all converge. To find out what other characteristics of the propositions, (such as whether they may be universals, or negatives,) are needed to enable us to draw a correct conclusion in the different figures, is a me- chanical inquiry, which its purely mechanical nature and its want of inner meaning have very properly consigned to oblivion. And Aristotle is the last person to give any countenance to those who wish to attach importance to such inquiries or to the syllogism of understanding in general. It is true that he described these, as well as numerous other forms of mind and nature, and that he has examined and expounded their specialities. But in his metaphysical notions, as well as in his notions of nature and mind, he was very far from seeking a basis, or a criterion, in the syllogistic forms of the under- standing. Indeed it might be maintained that not one of these notions would ever have come into existence, or been allowed to exist, if it had been compelled to submit to the
278 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [188.
laws of understanding, Amid all the descriptive material, and facts of understanding, which Aristotle after his fashion thinks it necessary to adduce, his ruling principle is always the speculative notion ; and that syllogistic of the understanding to which he first gave such a definite expression is never allowed to intrude in the higher domain of philosophy .
In their objective sense, the three figures of the syllogism declare that everything rational is manifested as a triple syllogism ; that is to say, each one of the members takes in turn the place of the extremes, as well as of the mean which reconciles or unites them. Such, for example, is the case with the three branches of philosophy ; the Logical Idea, Nature, and Mind. As we first see them, Nature is the middle term which links the others together. Nature, the systematic whole which is immediately before us, unfolds itself into the two extremes of the Logical Idea and the Mind. But Mind is Mind only when it is mediated through nature. Then, in the second place, the Mind, which we know as the principle of individuality, or as the actualising principle, is the mean, and Nature and the Logical Idea are the extremes. It is Mind which cognises the Logical Idea in Nature and which thus raises Nature to its essence. In the third place again the Logical Idea itself becomes the mean : it is the absolute substance both of mind and of nature, the universal and all-pervading principle. These are the members of the Absolute Syllogism.
188.] In the round by which each constituent function assumes successively the place of mean and of the two extremes, their specific difference from each other has been thrown into abeyance or suspended. In this form, where there is no distinction between its constituent elements, the syllogism at first has for its connective link equality, or the external identity of understanding. This is the Quantitative or Mathematical Syllogism. If two things are equal to a third, they are equal to one another.
Everybody knows that this Quantitative syllogism appears as a mathematical axiom, which like other axioms is said to be a fact, that does not admit of proof, and which indeed being self-evident does not require such proof. These mathematical axioms however are really nothing but logical propositions, which, so far as they enunciate definite and particular thoughts,
i8p, 190.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 279
require to be deduced from the universal and self-characterising thought. To do so, is to give their proof. That is true of the Quantitative syllogism, to which mathematics gives the rank of an axiom. It is really the proximate result of the qualitative or immediate syllogism. Finally, the Quantitative syllogism is the syllogism of no form at all. That distinction between the terms which is formulated by the notion is sus- pended. Extraneous circumstances alone can decide what pro- positions are to be premisses here : and therefore in applying this syllogism we make a pre-supposition of what has been elsewhere proved and established.
189.] Two results follow as to the form. In the first place, each constituent element has taken the place and performed the function of the mean and therefore of the whole, thus im- plicitly losing its partial and abstract character (§ 182 and § 184) ; secondly, the mediation has been completed (§ j85), though the completion too is only implicit, that is, only as a circle of mediations which in turn pre-suppose each other. In the first figure I— P — U the two premisses I — P and P — U are yet without a mediation. The former premiss is mediated in the third, the latter in the second figure. But each of these two figures, again, for the mediation of its premisses pre- supposes the two others.
In consequence of this, we have expressly to state the me- diating unity of the notion, no longer as an abstract and particular quality, but as a developed unity of the individual and universal — and in the first place a reflected unity of these elements. That is to say, the individual gets at the same time the character of universality. A mean of this kind gives the Syllogism of Reflection.
(j3) Syllogism of Reflection.
190.] If the mean, in the first place, be not only an abstract and particular character of the subject, but at the same time all the individual concrete subjects, which possess that character but possess it only along with others, (1) we have the Syllogism of Allness. The major premiss, however, which has for its
280 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [190.
subject the particular character, the terminus medms, as allness, pre-supposes the very conclusion which ought rather to have pre-supposed it. It rests therefore (2) on an Induction, in which the mean is given by the complete list of individuals, as such, — a, b, c, d, &c. On account of the disparity, however, between universality and an immediate and empirical indi- viduality, the list can never be complete. Induction therefore rests upon (3) Analogy. The middle term of Analogy is an individual, which however is understood as equivalent to its essential universality, its genus, or essential character. The first syllogism for its intermediation turns us over to the second, and the second turns us over to the third. But the third similarly calls for a universality specialised in itself, or for individuality in the shape of a genus, after the round of the forms of external connexion between individuality and . universality has been run through in the figures of the Reflective Syllogism.
By the Syllogism of Allness the defect in the typical form of the Syllogism of Understanding, noted in § 184, is remedied, but only to give rise to a new defect. This defect is that the major premiss itself pre-supposes what really ought to be the conclusion, and pre-supposes it as what is thus an immediate proposition. All men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal : All metals conduct electricity, therefore e.g. copper does so. In order to predicate these major premisses, which when they say 'all' express the immediate individuals and are properly intended to be empirical propositions, it is requisite that the propositions about the individual Caius, or the individual copper, should previously have been known to be correct on grounds of their own. Everybody feels not merely the pedantry, but the unmeaning formality of such syllogisms as: All men are mortal, Caius is man, therefore Caius is mortal.
The syllogism of Allness hands us over to the syllogism of Induction, in which the individuals form the middle term where the extremes meet. 'All metals conduct electricity,' is an empirical proposition derived from experiments made with each
j 9o.] THE -DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 281
of the individual metals. We thus get the syllogism of Induction
I
in the following shape P — I — U.
Gold is a metal : silver is a metal : so is copper, lead, &c. : this is the major premiss. Then comes the minor premiss : all these bodies conduct electricity ; and hence results the conclusion, that all metals conduct electricity. The point which brings about a combination here is individuality in the shape of allhood. But this syllogism once more hands us over to another syllogism. Its mean is constituted by the complete list of the individuals. That pre-supposes that over a certain region observation and experience are completed. But the things in question here are individuals. This gives us once more the progression ad infini- tum (i, i, i, &c.). In other words, in no Induction can we ever exhaust the individuals. The 'all metals,' 'all plants,' of our statements, mean only all the metals, all the plants, which we have hitherto become acquainted with. Every Induction is con- sequently imperfect. One and the other observation, many it may be, have been made : but all the cases, all the individuals have not been observed. By this defect of Induction we are led on to Analogy. In the syllogism of Analogy we conclude from the fact that some things of a certain kind possess a certain quality, that the same quality is possessed by other things of the same kind. It would be a syllogism of Analogy, for example, if we said : In all planets hitherto discovered this law of motion has been found, consequently a newly discovered planet will probably move according to the same law. In the experiential sciences Analogy deservedly occupies a high place, and has led to results of the highest importance. Analogy is the instinct of reason, creating an anticipation that this or that characteristic, which experience has discovered, has its root in the inner nature or kind of an object, and arguing on the faith of that anticipation. Analogy it should be added may be superficial or it may be thorough. It would certainly be a very bad analogy to argue that since the man Caius is a scholar, and Titus also is a man, Titus will probably be a scholar too : and it would be bad because a man's learning is not an unqualified consequence of his manhood. Superficial analogies of this kind however are very frequently met with. It is often argued, for example : The moon is a celestial body, and is therefore in all probability inhabited as well as the earth. The analogy is not one whit better than that previously mentioned. That the earth is inhabited does not depend on its being a celestial body, but
282 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [191, 192.
on other conditions, such as the presence of an atmosphere, and of water in connexion with the atmosphere, &c. : and these are precisely the conditions which the moon, so far as we know, does not possess. What has in modern times been called the Philosophy of Nature consists principally in a frivolous play with empty and external analogies, which, however, claim the respect due to profound results. The natural consequence has been to discredit the philosophical study of nature.
(y) Syllogism of Necessity.
191.] The Syllogism of Necessity, if we look to its purely abstract characteristics or terms, has for its mean the Universal in the same way as the Syllogism of Reflection has the Individual, the latter being in the second, and the former in the third figure (§ 187). The Universal is expressly set forth as essentially specified in itself. In the first place (1) the Particular, meaning by the particular the specific genus or species, is the term for mediating the extremes — as is done in the Categorical syllogism.
(2) The same office is performed by the Individual, meaning by the individual immediate being, so that it is as much mediating as mediated : — as happens in the Hypothetical syllogism.
(3) We have also the mediating Universal explicitly stated in the shape of the sum total of its particular members, and as a single particular, or as an exclusive individuality : — which happens in the Disjunctive syllogism. It is one and the same universal which is in these terms of the Disjunctive syllogism; they are only different forms for expressing it.
192.] The syllogism has been taken conformably to the distinctions which it contains, and the general result of the course of their evolution has been to show, that these differences work out their own abolition and destroy the notion's out- wardness to its own self. And, as we see, in the first place,
(1) each of the dynamic elements has proved itself the syste- matic whole of these elements, in short a whole syllogism, — they are consequently implicitly identical. In the second place,
(2) the negation of their distinctions and of the mediation of one through another makes each independent, so that it is one
1 92.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 283
and the same universal which is in these forms, and which as their identity is in this way also explicitly stated. In this ideality or solidarity of its dynamic elements, the syllo- gistic process may be described as essentially involving the negation of the characters through which its course runs, as being a mediative process through the suspension of media- tion,— as the subject becoming bound up with a merged antithesis, another which is not another, in one word, with itself.
In the common logic, the doctrine of syllogism is supposed to conclude the first part, or what is called the elementary theory. It is followed by the second part, the doctrine of Method, which proposes to show how a body of scientific knowledge is created by applying to existing objects the forms of thought discussed in the elementary part. Whence these objects originate, and what the thought of objectivity generally speaking implies, are questions to which the Logic of Understanding vouchsafes no further answer. It believes thought to be a mere subjective and formal activity ; and the objective fact, which confronts thought, it holds to be permanent and self-subsistent. But this dualism is a half-truth : and there is no thought in a procedure which accepts without question, or inquiring into their origin, the categories of subjectivity and objectivity. Both of them, subjectivity as well as objectivity, are certainly thoughts — even specific thoughts : which must show themselves founded on the universal and self-determining thought. This has here been done — at least for subjectivity. We have recognised it, or the notion subjective, which includes the notion proper, the judgment, and the syllogism, as the dialectical result of the first two main stages of the Logical Idea, Being and Essence. To say that the notion is subjective and subjective only, is so far quite correct : for the notion certainly is subjectivity itself. Not less subjective than the notion are also the judgment and syllogism: and these forms, together with the so-called Laws of Thought (the Laws of Identity, Difference, and Sufficient Ground), make up the contents of what is called the elementary part in the common logic. But we may go a step further. This subjectivity, with its functions of notion, judgment, and syllogism, is not an empty framework, which holds nothing until it receives, from without, objects having an independent existence. It would be truer to say that it is subjectivity itself, which, as dialectical, breaks through its own barriers and developes itself to objectivity by means of the syllogism.
284 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [193.
193.] This realisation of the notion, — a realisation in which the universal is this one totality withdrawn back into itself (of which the distinct members are no less the whole, and) which has given itself a character of immediate unity by merging the mediation : — this realisation of the notion is the Object.
This transition from the Subject, the notion in general, and especially the syllogism, to the Object, may, at the first glance, appear strange, particularly if we look only at the Syllogism of Understanding, and suppose syllogising to be only an act of consciousness. But that strangeness imposes on us no obligation to seek to make the transition plausible to the image-loving conception. The only question which can be considered is, whether our usual conception of what is called an object approximately corresponds to the object as here described. An object is commonly understood to mean not an abstract being, or an existing thing merely, or any sort of actuality, but implies independence, concreteness, and completeness in itself, this com- pleteness being the totality of the notion. That the object is also what confronts thought and perception, and that it is external to something else, will be more precisely seen, when we come to the explicit statement of its contrast to the subject. At presetit as that into which the notion has passed from its mediation, it is only an immediate object and nothing more, just as the notion is not describable as subjective, previous to the subse- quent contrast with objectivity.
Further, the Object in general is the one total, in itself still unspecified, the Objective. World as a whole, God, the Absolute Object. The object, however, has also distinction in it, it breaks up into a vague variety and multitude (making an objective world) ; and each of these individualised parts is also an object, has a being then-and-there, concrete in itself, complete and independent.
Objectivity has been compared with being, existence, and actuality ; and so too the transition to existence and actuality (not to being, for it is the primary and quite abstract imme- diate) may be compared with the transition to objectivity. The
I93-] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 285
Ground from which existence proceeds, — the Relation of reflec- tion, which is merged in actuality, — are nothing- but the as yet imperfectly realised notion. They are only abstract aspects of it, — the Ground being its unity, which only attaches to the essence, and the Relation only the connexion of real sides which are supposed to be only reflected in themselves. The notion is the unity of the two; and the object is not a unity which attaches to the essence alone, but a unity in itself universal, not only containing real distinctions, but containing them as totalities in itself.
It is evident that in all these transitions there is a further purpose than merely to show the indissoluble connexion between the notion or thought and being. It has been more than once remarked that being is nothing more than the simple reference on self, and this meagre category is certainly implied in the notion, or even in thought. But the meaning of these transitions is not to accept characteristics or categories, as only implied : a fault which mars even the Ontological argu- mentation for God's existence, when it is stated that being is one among the realities. What such a transition does, is to take the notion as it ought to be primarily characterised on its own account as a notion, with which this remote abstraction of being, or even of objectivity, has as yet nothing to do ; and looking at its specific character as a notional character alone, to see when and whether it passes over into a form, which is different from the character as it belongs to the notion and appears in it.
If the object, the product of this transition, be brought into connexion with the notion, which, so far as its special form is concerned, has vanished in it, we may give a correct expression to the result, by saying that notion (or, if it be preferred, subjectivity) and object are implicitly the same. But it is equally correct to say that they are different. In short, the two modes of expression are equally correct and incorrect. The true relation can be presented in no expres- sions of this kind. That word ' implicit ' is an abstraction,
286 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [193.
still more partial and inadequate than the notion itself, of which the inadequacy is upon the whole merged, when it merges itself in the object with its opposite inadequacy. Hence that implicit being also must, by the negation of it, give itself the character of a being of its own. As in every case, speculative identity is not the above-mentioned trivial state- ment that notion and object are implicitly identical : a remark which has been repeated often enough, but cannot be too often repeated, if the intention be to put an end to the stale and purely malicious misconception in regard to this identity : of which however there does not seem to be much hope.
Looking at that unity as a whole and without noting the one-sided form of its implicitness, we find it notoriously forming the hypothesis of the ontological proof for the ex- istence of God, and of God as the sum of all perfection. Anselm, in whom we first come upon the remarkable thought of this proof, no doubt originally restricted himself to the question whether a certain matter of fact was in our thinking only. His words are briefly these : ' Certe id quo majus cogitari nequit, non potest esse in intellects, solo. Si enim vel in solo intellectu est, potest cogitari et in re : quod majus est. Si ergo id quo majus cogitari non potest, est in solo intellectu; id ipsum quo majus cogitari non potest, est quo majus cogitari potest. Sed certe hoc esse non potest? (Certainly that, than which nothing greater can be thought, cannot be in the intellect alone. For even if it is in the intellect alone, it can also be thought in fact : and that is greater. If then that, than which nothing greater can be thought, is in the intellect alone ; then the very thing, which is greater than anything which can be thought, can be ex- ceeded in thought. But certainly this is impossible.) Speak- ing in the phraseology and on the level of the categories before us, we may say that, to call a thing finite, means that its objective existence is not in harmony with the thought of it, with its universal calling, its kind and End or Aim. The same unity was stated more objectively by Descartes, Spinoza
I93-] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 287
and others : while the theory of immediate certitude or faith presents it, on the contrary, in somewhat the same subjective aspect as Anselm. These Intuitionalists hold that in our consciousness the attribute or category of being is indissolubly associated with the conception of God. The theory of faith brings even the conception of external finite things under the same inseparable nexus between the consciousness and the being of them, on the ground that perception presents them in association with the attribute of existence : and in so doing, it may be correct. It would be utterly absurd, how- ever, to suppose that the association in consciousness between existence and our conception of finite things is of the same description as the association between existence and the conception of God. Such an assumption fails to note that finite things are changeable and transient, i. e. that existence is associated with them for a season, but that the association is neither eternal nor inseparable. Anselm, consequently, neglecting such association, when it is presented in finite things, has with right imputed perfection only to what is not merely in a subjective, but also in an objective mode. All the disdain that is lavished on the Ontological proof, as it is called, and on Anselm's definition of perfection is in vain. The argument is one latent in every unsophisticated mind, and it recurs in every philosophy, even against its wish and without its knowledge — as may be seen in the theory of immediate belief.
The real fault in the argumentation of Anselm is one which is chargeable on Descartes and Spinoza, as well as on the theory of immediate knowledge. It is this. This unity which is enunciated as the supreme perfection or, it may be, subjectively, as the true knowledge, is pre-supposed, i. e. it is accepted only as potential. This identity, abstract as it thus appears, between the two categories may be im- mediately met and opposed by their diversity ; and this was the very answer given to Anselm long ago. In short, the conception and existence of the finite is set in antagonism
288 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [194.
to the infinite ; for, as previously remarked, the finite possesses objectivity of such a kind as is at once incongruous with and different from the End or Aim, its essence and notion. Or, the finite is such a conception and in such a way subjective, that it does not involve existence. This objection and this antithesis are got over, only by showing the finite to be untrue and these categories severally and in- dividually to be inadequate and null. Their identity is thus seen to be one into which they spontaneously pass over, and in which they are reconciled.
B. — THE OBJECT.
194.] The Object is immediate being ; for the distinction or difference is merged in it, and it is therefore indifferent to its distinction. It is, further, a totality in itself, whilst at the same time (as this identity is only the implicit identity of its dynamic elements) it is equally indifferent to its immediate unity. It thus breaks up into distinct parts, each of which is itself a totality. Hence the object represents the absolute contradiction between a complete independence of the congeries, and the equally complete non-independence of the distinct members.
The definition, which states that the Absolute is the Object, is most definitely implied in the Leibnitzian Monad, which is a would-be object — but an object with a potentiality of figurative conception, and in fact the totality of the concep- tion of the world. In the indecomposable unity of the monad all distinction becomes merely ideal and without a stand- ing of its own. Nothing from without penetrates into the monad : it is the whole notion in itself, only distinguished by its greater or less degree of development. Similarly, this indecomposable totality parts into the absolute multitude of differences, each member becoming an independent monad. In the monad of monads, and the Pre-established Harmony of their inward developments, these substances are in like manner again reduced to be members of a larger thought,
1 94.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 289
and to be without subsistence of their own. The philosophy of Leibnitz, therefore, represents contradiction in its complete development.
As Fichte was one of the earliest among modern philosophers to remark, the theory which regards the Absolute or God as the Object and nothing more, expresses the point of view taken by superstition and slavish fear. No doubt God is the Object, and the fulness of Objectivity, confronted with which our particular or subjective opinions and desires have no truth and no validity. As absolute object however, God does not therefore take up the position of a dark and hostile power in antithesis to subjec- tivity. He rather involves it as a vital element in himself. Such also is the meaning of the Christian doctrine, according to which God has willed that all men should be saved and all be made happy. The salvation and the happiness of men are effected by bringing them to feel themselves at one with God, so that God, on the other hand, ceases to be for them a mere object, and, in that way, an object of fear and terror, as was especially the case with the religious consciousness of the Romans. But God in the Christian religion is also known as Love. In his Son, who is one with him, he has revealed himself to men as a man amongst men, and thereby redeemed them. This religious dogma is only another way of saying that the antithesis of subjective and objective is given to us as already overcome, and that on us lies the obligation of participating in this redemption by laying aside our immediate subjectivity, putting off the old Adam, and learning to know God as our true and essential self. And as it is the aim of religion and religious worship to win the victory over this antithesis of subjectivity and objectivity, so science too and philosophy have no other task than to overcome this antithesis by the medium of thought. The aim of know- ledge is to divest the objective world that stands opposed to us of its strangeness, and, as the phrase is, to find ourselves at home in it : which means no more than to trace the objective world back to the notion, — to our innermost self. We may learn from the present discussion the mistake of regarding the antithesis of subjectivity and objectivity as an abstract and permanent one. The two correlatives are wholly dialectical. The notion is at first only subjective : but without the assistance of any foreign material or stuff it proceeds, in obedience to its own action, to objectify itself. So, too, the object is not rigid and immovable. Its process is to show itself as what is at the same time subjective, and thus to promote the advance to the idea. Any one who, from want of familiarity with the categories of subjectivity and objectivity, seeks to retain them in their
290 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [195.
abstraction, will find that the isolated categories slip through his fingers before he is aware, and that he says the exact contrary of what he wanted to say.
(2) Objectivity contains the three forms of Mechanism, Chem- ism, and the nexus of Design. The object of mechanical type is the immediate and indifferent object. No doubt it implies distinc- tion, but the different members stand, as it were, without affinity to each other, and their connexion is only extraneous. In chemism, on the contrary, the object exhibits an essential tendency to difference, in such a way that the objects are what they are only by their nexus with each other : this tendency to difference constitutes their quality. The third type of objectivity, the teleological relation, is the unity of mechanism and chemism. Design, like the mechanical object, is a self-contained totality, enriched however by the principle of differentiation which was made so prominent in chemism : and thus design is connected with the objective world that stands over against it. Finally, it is the realisation of design, which forms the transition to the idea.
(a) Mechanism.
195.] The object (1) in its immediacy is the notion only potential ; the notion as subjective is primarily outside it ; and all its specific character is imposed from without. The immediate object is a unity of distinct parts and is in consequence a composite or an aggregate ; and its capacity of acting on anything else continues to be an external nexus. This is Formal Mechanism. Notwithstanding and in this connexion and non-independence, the objects remain inde- pendent and offer resistance outwardly to each other.
Pressure and impact are examples of mechanical relations. Our knowledge is said to be mechanical or by rote, when the words have no meaning for us, but continue external to the senses, to conception and thought ; and when being similarly external to each other, they form a meaningless sequence. Conduct, piety, &c. are in the same way mechani- cal, when a man's behaviour is settled for him by ceremonial laws, by a spiritual adviser, &c. ; in short, when his own mind and will are not in his actions, which in this way are extraneous to himself.
I95-] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 291
Mechanism, the first form of objectivity, is also the category which primarily offers itself to reflection, as it examines the objective world. It is also the category beyond which reflection seldom goes. It is, however, a shallow and superficial mode of observation, with which it would be impossible to effect much in connexion with Nature and still less in connexion with the world of Mind. In Nature it is only the veriest abstract re- lations of matter in its massive and elementary state, which obey the law of mechanism. On the contrary the phenomena and operations of the province to which the term physical in its narrow sense is applied, such as the phenomena of light, heat, magnetism, and electricity, cannot be explained by any mere mechanical processes, such as pressure, impact, displacement of parts, and the like. Still less satisfactory is it to transfer these categories and apply them in the field of organic nature ; at least if it be our aim to understand the specific features of that field, such as the growth and nourishment of animals, or, it may be, even animal sensation. It is at any rate a very deep-seated, and perhaps the main, defect of modern researches into nature, that even where other and higher categories than those of mere mechanism are in operation, they still stick obstinately to the mechanical laws ; although they thus conflict with the testimony of unbiassed perception, and foreclose the gate to an adequate knowledge of nature. But even in considering the formations in the world of Mind, the mechanical theory has been invested with an authority which it has no right to. Take as an instance the remark that man consists of soul and body. In this language, the two things stand each self-subsistent, and associated only from without. Similarly we find the soul regarded as a mere group of forces and faculties, subsisting independently side by side.
Thus decidedly must we reject the mechanical mode of in- quiry when it comes forward and arrogates to itself the place of rational cognition in general, and when it seeks to get mechanism accepted as an absolute category. But we must not on that account forget expressly to vindicate for mechanism the right and import of a general logical category. It would be wrong to restrict it to the special region of nature from which it derives its name. There is no harm done, for example, in directing the attention to mechanical agency, such as that of weight, the lever, &c. even in places beyond the reach of mechanics proper. This is the case particularly in physics and physiology. It must however be remembered, that within these spheres the laws of mechanism cease to be final or decisive, and sink, as it were, to a subservient position. To which may be added, that, in Nature, when the higher or organic functions are in any way checked or
u 2
292 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [196.
disturbed in their normal activity, the otherwise subordinate category of mechanism is immediately seen to take the upper hand. Thus a sufferer from indigestion feels pressure on the stomach, after he has eaten certain food in slight quantity, whereas those whose digestive organs are sound remain free from the sensation, although they have eaten as much. The same phenomenon occurs in the general feeling of heaviness in the limbs, experienced during a morbid state of the body. Even in the world of Mind, mechanism has its place, though there, too, it is a subordinate one. We are right in speaking of mechanical memory, and of thoroughly mechanical operations, such as reading, writing, playing on musical instruments, &c. In memory, indeed, the mechanical quality of the action is essential : a circumstance, the neglect of which produces great injury in the education of the young, from the misapplied zeal of modern Educationalists for the freedom of intelligence. It would betray bad psychology, however, to have recourse to mechanism for an explanation of the nature of memory, and to proceed, without further modifications, to apply mechanical laws to the soul. The mechanical feature in memory lies in the fact that certain tones, signs, &c. are apprehended in their purely external association, and then reproduced in this association, for the most part without attention being expressly directed to their meaning- and inward association. To become acquainted with these conditions of mechanical memory requires no further study of mechanics, nor would that study cause any advantage to accrue to the special inquiry of psychology.
196-] The want of stability in itself which allows the object to suffer violence, is possessed by it (see preceding §) only in so far as it has a certain stability. Now as the object is only implicitly invested with the character of notion, the one of these characteristics is not merged into its other. The object however in virtue of the negation of itself, or by its want of stability, coalesces with itself and becomes independent or stable only by so coalescing. Thus at the same time in distinction from the outwardness, and negativing that outwardness in its independ- ence, does this independence form a negative unity with itself, Centrality or subjectivity. And in being so centred, the object is itself directed towards, and connected with, what is external to it. But the external object is similarly central in itself, and being so is still only connected with the other centre. In this
197, i98-] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 293
way it has its centralism in something else. This is (2) Mecha- nism with Affinity, and may be illustrated by gravity, desire, social instinct , &c.
197-] This relation, when fully carried out, forms a syllogism. In that syllogism the immanent negativity, as the central indi- viduality of an object, (which is the abstract centre,) is connected with dependent and unstable objects, as the other extreme, by a mean which combines in itself the centrality with the non- independence of the objects ; (which is a relative centre). This relation is (3) Absolute Mechanism.
198.] The syllogism thus indicated (I — P — U) is a triad of syl- logisms. The wrong individuality of non-independent and unsta- ble objects, in which formal Mechanism is at home, is, by reason of that non-independence, no less universality, though it be only external. Hence these objects also form the mean between the absolute and the relative centre (the form of syllogism being U — I — P) : for it is by this want of independence that those two are kept asunder and made extremes, as well as connected with one another. Similarly absolute centralism, as the universal substance (illustrated by the gravity which continues identical), which as pure negativity also includes individuality in it, is what mediates between the relative centre and the non-inde- pendent objects (the form of syllogism being P — U — I). It does so no less essentially as a disintegrating force, in its character of immanent individuality, than in virtue of universality, acting as an identical bond of union and tranquil self-containedness.
Like the solar system, so for example in the sphere of ethics, the state may be represented as a system of three syllogisms.
(1) The Individual or single person, in virtue of his particular being, or his physical or mental needs (which when carried out to their full development give civil society), enters into union with the Universal, i. e. with society, law, right, government.
(2) The will or action of the individuals, is the intermediating force which procures for these needs satisfaction in society, in law, &c., and which gives to society, law, &c. their fulfilment and actualisation. (3) But the universal, that is to say, the state,
294 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [199, 200.
government, and law, is the mean and substance in which the individuals and their satisfaction have and receive their fulfilled reality, inter-mediation, and persistence. Each of the functions of the notion, as it is brought by inter-mediation to coalesce with the other extreme, is brought into union with itself and produces itself: which production is self-preservation. — It is only by the nature of this conjunction, by this triad of syllo- gisms with the same termini, that a whole is thoroughly under- stood in its organisation.
199-] The immediacy of existence, which the objects have in Absolute Mechanism, is implicitly negatived by the fact that their independence is derived from, and due to, their connexions with each other, and therefore to their want of stability in themselves. Thus the object must be explicitly stated as in its existence having an Affinity towards its antithesis.
(6) Chemism.
200-] The differenced object has an immanent character which constitutes its nature, and in which it has existence. It is an explicit totality of the notion, however, and thus it is the contradiction between this totality and the special form of its existence. Consequently it is the constant endeavour to cancel this contradiction and to make its definite being equal to the notion.
Chemism is a category of objectivity which, as a rule, is not particularly emphasised, and is generally put under the bead of mechanism. The common name of mechanical relation is applied to both, in contra-distinction to the relation of design. There is a reason for this in the common feature which belongs to mecha- nism and chemism. They are the existent notion only implicitly and in their essence, and are thus marked off from the aim or end which is the existing notion in the fulness of its being. This is true : and yet chemism and mechanism are very de- cidedly distinct. The object, in the form of mechanism, is primarily only an indifferent reference to self, while the chemical object is seen to be completely in connexion with something else. No doubt even in mechanism, as it developes itself, there spring up references to something else : but the nexus of me- chanical objects with one another is at first only an external
zoi, 202.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 295
nexus, so that the objects in connexion with one another still retain the semblance of independence. In nature, for example, the several celestial bodies, which compose our solar system, stand to one another in the relation of movement, and thereby show that they are in connexion with one another. Motion, however, as the unity of time and space, is a connexion which is purely abstract and external. And it would therefore seem that these celestial bodies, which are thus externally connected with each other, would continue to be what they are, even apart from this reciprocal connexion of theirs. The case is quite dif- ferent with chemism. Objects chemically charged with differ- ence, are what they are expressly by that difference alone. Hence they are the absolute instinct towards integration by and in one another.
201.] The product of the chemical process, consequently is to release the two extremes from their state of tension, and to develope the Neutral object out of them. The notion, or con- crete universal, by means of the differentiation or peculiarities of the objects, coalesces with the individuality in the shape of the product, and in that only with itself. In this process too the other syllogisms are equally involved. The place of mean is taken both by individuality as an activity, and by the concrete universal, the essence or real nature of the extremes which are in tension ; which essence reaches a definite being in the product.
202.] Chemism, as it is that relation of objectivity which belongs to reflection, has along with the actively-differenced nature of the objects, at the same time still pre-supposed their immediate independence or stability. The process of chemistry consists in passing to and fro from one form to another ; which forms continue to be as unconnected as before. In the neutral product the specific properties, which the extremes bore towards each other, are merged. The product is indeed conformable to the notion ; but the inspiring principle of active differentiation does not exist in it, for it has sunk back to immediacy. The neutral body is therefore capable of dissolution. But the dis- cerning principle, which breaks up the neutral body into ac- tively-differenced extremes, and which gives to the indifferent
296 THE DOQTRTNE OF THE NOTION. [203, 204.
object in general its affinity and animation towards another ; — that principle and the process as a separation with tension, falls outside of that first process.
The chemical process does not rise above a conditioned and finite process. The notion as notion is only the heart and core of the process, and does not in this stage come to existence in its own individual being. In the neutral product the process is extinct, and the existing cause falls outside it.
203-] Each of these two processes, the reduction of the actively-differenced to the neutral, and the differentiation of the indifferent or neutral, goes its own way without hindrance from the other. But that want of inner connexion shows that they are finite by their passage into products, in which they are merged and lost. Conversely the process exhibits the nonentity and emptiness of the pre-supposed immediacy of the differenced objects. By this negation of immediacy and of externalism in which the notion as object was sunk, it is made free and insti- tuted in a being of its own, as contrasted with the old exter- nalism and immediacy. In these circumstances it is the End, or Aim.
The passage from chemism to the teleological relation is im- plied in the mutual cancelling of both of the forms of the chemical process. The result thus attained is the liberation of the notion, which in chemism and mechanism was present only in the germ, and not yet evolved. The notion in the shape of the aim or end thus comes into an existence of its own.
(c] Teleology.
204.] The Aim or End is the notion entered into a free exist- ence and having a being of its own, by means of the negation of immediate objectivity. It is characterised as subjective, seeing that this negation is, in the first place, abstract ; and hence at first the only relation between it and objectivity is one of antagonism. This character of subjectivity, however, if it be compared with the totality of the notion, is one-sided. Indeed the notion of an Aim or End shows that this character is one-
204-] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 297
sided : for all specific character lias been explicitly stated to be absorbed in it. To the End therefore even the object, which it pre-supposes, is only an ideal reality, potentially null and void. The End therefore is a contradiction of its identity with itself against the negation stated in it, i. e. its antithesis to objectivity. It is therefore the eliminative or destructive activity which negatives the antithesis and renders it identical with itself. This is the realisation of the Aim : in which, while it renders itself the antithesis of its subjectivity and objectifies itself, and has cancelled the distinction between the two, it has only closed with itself, and in short retained itself.
The notion of Design or Aim, while on one hand it is called superfluous, is on another justly described as the rational notion, and contrasted with the abstract universal of understanding. The latter only subsumes the particular, and so connects it with itself: but has it not in its own nature. The distinction be- tween the Aim or final cause, and the mere efficient cause, which is the cause of ordinary language, is of the utmost importance. Causes, properly so called, belong to the sphere of necessity, blind, and not yet laid bare. The cause therefore appears as passing into its correlative, and to be losing its primordiality in the latter, by sinking into dependency. It is only by impli- cation, or for our perception, that the cause is in the effect made for the first time a cause, and that it there returns into itself. The Aim or End, on the other hand, is expressly stated as con- taining the specific character in its own nature, — the effect, namely, which in the causal relation is never without a certain otherness. The Aim therefore in its agency does not pass over, but retains itself, i. e. it carries into effect itself only, and is at the end what it was in the beginning or primordial state. Until it thus retains itself, it is not genuinely primordial. The Aim or End requires to be speculatively apprehended, and grasped as the notion, which itself in the proper unity and ideality of its characteristics contains the judgment or negation, the antithesis of subjective and objective, and which to an equal extent sus- pends that antithesis.
298 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [204.
By Aim or End we must not at once, nor must we ever merely, think of the form which it has in consciousness as a category found in our picture-thinking. By means of the notion of Inner Design Kant has resuscitated the idea in general and particularly the idea of life. Aristotle's definition of life virtually implies inner design, and is thus far in advance of the notion of design in modern Teleology, which had in view finite and outward design only.
Want and appetite are some of the readiest instances of the Aim or End. They represent the felt contradiction, which exists within the living subject, and they pass into the activity seeking to negative this felt negation which has not gone beyond mere subjectivity. The satisfaction of the want or appetite restores the peace between the subject and the object. The objective thing which, while the con- tradiction has not received its quietus, i. e. while the want exists, stands away and out of reach, is now, so far as its one-sidedness goes, cancelled by its union with the subject. Those who talk of the permanence and immutability of the finite, as well subjective as objective, may see the reverse illustrated in the operations of every appetite. Appetite is, so to speak, the certainty that the subjective is only a half- truth, no more adequate than the objective. But appetite in the second place makes its certainty good. It brings about the absorption of their finitude, and cancels the anti- thesis between the objective which is and seeks to remain an objective only, and the subjective which in like manner is and seeks to remain a subjective only.
As regards the action of the Aim, we may call attention to the fact, that in the syllogism, which represents that action, and shows the end closing with itself by the means of realisation, the negation of the termini is essentially brought to view. That negation is the one just mentioned both of the immediate subjectivity appearing in the End as such, and of the immediate objectivity as seen in the means and the object pre-supposed. This is the same negation, as
205-] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 299
is in operation when the mind leaves the contingent things of the world as well as its own subjectivity and rises to God. It is the element or factor which (as noticed in the Introduction and § 192) was overlooked and neglected in the analytic form of syllogisms, under which the so-called proofs of the Being of a God presented this elevation.
205.] In its primary and immediate aspect the Teleological reference appears as external design, and the notion appears as contrasted with the object, the object being pre-supposed. The End is consequently finite ; and thus partly in its content, partly in the circumstance that it has an external condition in the object, which has to be found existing, and which is taken as material for its realisation, its self-characterisation is to that extent in form only. On its immediacy it further depends that the particularity (which as specifying the form gives the subjectivity of the final cause) as reflected in itself, the content, in short, appears to be distinct from the totality of the form, or the subjectivity in itself, that is, the notion. This difference constitutes the finitude of Design within its own nature. By this means the content is quite as limited, contingent, and given, as the object is particular and found ready to hand.
Generally speaking, the final cause is taken to mean nothing more than external design. In accordance with this view of it, things are supposed not to carry their vocation in themselves, but merely to be means employed and spent in realising a purpose which lies outside of them. That may be said to be the point of view taken by Utility, which once played a. great part even in the sciences. Of late, however, utility has fallen into disrepute, now that people have begun to see that it failed to give a genuine insight into the nature of things. It is true that finite things as finite ought in justice to be viewed as non- ultimate, and as pointing beyond themselves. This negativity of finite things however is their own dialectic, and in order to ascertain it we must pay attention to their positive content.
Teleological modes of investigation often proceed from a well- meant desire of displaying the wisdom of God, especially as it is revealed in nature. Now in thus trying to discover final causes, for which the things serve as means, we must remember that we
300 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [206, 207.
are stopping short at the finite, and are liable to fall into trifling reflections. An instance of such triviality is seen, when we first of all treat of the vine solely in reference to the well-known uses which it confers upon man, and then proceed to view the cork- tree in connexion with the corks which are cut from its bark to put into the wine-bottles. Whole books used to be written in this spirit. It is easy to see that they promoted the genuine interest neither of religion nor of science. External design stands immediately in front of the idea : but what thus stands on the threshold often for that reason gives the least satisfaction.
206.] The teleological connexion is represented by a syl- logism : in which subjective design is made to coalesce with the objectivity external to it through the instrumentality of a middle term, which is the unity of both ; a unity which is at once an action regulated by design, and also an objec- tivity immediately put under the design. This middle term is the Means.
The development from the End to the Idea ensues by three stages, first, the Subjective End ; second, the End in process of 1 accomplishment ; and third, the End accomplished. First of all we have, the Subjective End ; and that, as the notion with a being of its own, is itself the sum total of the elementary func- tions of the notion. The first of these functions is that of universality identical with itself, as it were the neutral first water, in which all is involved, but nothing as yet discriminated. The second of these elements is the particularising of this univer- sal, by which it acquires a specific content. As this specific content again is realised by the enactment of the universal, the latter returns by its means back to itself, and coalesces with itself. Hence when we set some end before us, we say that we ' conclude ' to do something, a phrase which implies that we were, so to speak, open and accessible to this or that deter- mination. Similarly we also speak of a man ( resolving ' to do something, meaning that the subject steps forward out of its self-regarding inwardness and enters into dealings with the objectivity which confronts it. This introduces us to the step from the merely Subjective End to the action which tends outwards under the regulation of design.
207.] (1) The first syllogism of the final cause represents the Subjective End. The universal notion is brought to unite with individuality by means of particularity, so that the
2o8.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 301
individual in the capacity of self-characterisation acts as judge. That is to say, the individual not only particularises or makes into a specific content the universal which is still indefinite, but also explicitly states the antithesis of subjectivity and objectivity. In its own self, it is at the same time a return to itself; for it stamps the subjectivity of the notion, pre- supposed as against objectivity, with the mark of defect, in comparison with the totality embraced in itself, and thereby at the same time turns outwards.
208.] (2) This action which is directed outwards is the individuality, which in the Subjective End is identical with the particularity under which the external objectivity is also comprised, together with the content. It throws itself in the first place and immediately upon the object, which it appro- priates to itself as a Means. The notion is this immediate power ; for the notion is the negativity identical with itself, in which the being of the object is characterised as wholly and merely ideal. The whole Mean then is this inward power of the notion, in the shape of an agency, with which the object as Means is immediately united and in obedience to which it stands.
In finite design the Mean is thus broken up into two elements external to each other, the action and the object, which serves as the Means. The connexion of the final cause as a power with this object, and the subjugation of the object to it, is immediate (it forms the first premiss in the syllogism) to this extent, that in the notion as the self- existent ideality the object is set forth as potentially null. This connexion, as represented in the first premiss, itself becomes the Mean, which is at the same time within itself the syllogism. By this connexion in fact, that is, by its action in which it remains involved and dominant, the End is brought into union with objectivity.
The execution of the End is the mediated mode of realising the End ; but the immediate realisation is not less needful. The End lays hold of the object immediately, because it is
302 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [209, 210.
the power over the object, because in the End particularity, and in particularity objectivity also, is involved. Every living being has a body ; the soul takes possession of it and in that act has at once objectified itself. The human soul has much to do, before it makes its corporeal nature into a means. Man must, as it were, take possession of his body, so that it may be the instrument of his soul.
209.] (3) Action, under the guidance of design, along with its Means, is still directed outwards, because the End is also not identical with the object, and must consequently first be mediated with it. The Means in its capacity of object stands, in this second premiss, in immediate connexion with the other extreme of the syllogism, namely, the material, or objectivity which is pre-supposed to exist. This connexion is the sphere of chemism and mechanism, which now become the servants of the End or Aim, where lies their truth and free notion. Thus the Subjective End, which is the power ruling these processes, in which the objective things wear themselves away against one another, contrives to keep itself free from them, and to preserve itself in them. Doing so, it appears as the Cunning or Craft of reason.
Reason is as cunning as it is powerful. Cunning may be said to lie in the inter-mediative action, which, while it permits the objects to follow their own bent and act upon one another, till they waste away, and does not itself directly interfere in the process, is nevertheless only working out the execution of its own aims. With this explanation, Divine Providence may be said to stand to the world and its process in the capacity of absolute cunning. God lets men direct their particular passions and interests as they please ; but the result is the accomplish- ment of — not their plans, but His, and these differ decidedly from the ends primarily sought by those whom He employs.
210.] The realised End thus states or puts before us the unity of the subjective and the objective. It is however essentially characteristic of this unity, that the subjective and objective are neutralised and cancelled only in the point of their one- sidedness. But the objective is subdued and made conformable to the End, as the free notion, and thereby to the power
2ii,2i2.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 303
which dominates the objective. The End maintains itself against and in the objective fact : for it is not merely the one-sided subjective or the particular, it is also the concrete universal, the implicit identity of subjective and objective. This universal, as simply reflected in itself, is the content which remains unchanged through all the three termini of the syllogism and their movement.
211.] In finite design, however, even the executed and ac- complished Aim is something no less fragmentary and defec- tive than was the Mean and the initial Aim. We have got therefore a form only extraneously impressed on the material ready to hand before us : and this form, by reason of the limited content of the Aim, is also a contingent character- istic, which may be removed from the material. The End achieved consequently is only an object, which again becomes a Means or material for other purposes, and so on for ever.
212.] But what virtually happens in the realising of the End is that the one-sided subjectivity, and the show of objective inde- pendence confronting it, are both cancelled. In laying hold of the means the notion lays itself down as the very implicit essence of the object. In the mechanical and chemical processes the independence or stability of the object has been already dis- sipated implicitly, and in the course of their movement under the dominion of the End or Aim, the show of that independence, the negative which confronts the notion, is got rid of. But in the fact that the End achieved is characterised J^only as a^eans and a material, this object, viz. the teleological, is there and then affirmed to be implicitly null, and only ideal. This being so, the antithesis between form and content has also vanished. While the End by the removal and absorption of all charac- teristics of form coalesces with itself, the form as identical with itself is thereby affirmed to be the content, so that the notion, which is the action of form, has only itself for content. Through this process we get explicitly stated what lay in the notion of design : viz. the implicit unity of subjective and objective comes to be on its own account. And this is the Idea.
304 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [213.
This fmitude of the End or Aim consists in the circumstance, that, in the process of realising- it, the material, which is employed as a means, is only externally subsumed under it and made conformable to it. But, as a matter of fact, the object is the notion implicitly : and thus when the notion, in the shape of End or Aim, is realised in the object, we have but the manifestation of the inner nature of the object itself. Objec- tivity is tLus, as it were, only a shell or covering under which the notion lies concealed. Within the range of the finite we can never see or experience that the End or Aim has been really secured. The consummation of the infinite Aim, therefore, con- sists merely in removing the illusion which makes it seem yet un- accomplished. Good and absolute -goodness is eternally accom- plishing itself in the world : and the result is that it needs not wait upon us, but is already by implication, as well as in full actuality, accomplished. It is this illusion under which we live. It alone supplies at the same time the actualising force on which the interest in ^-the world reposes. In the course of its process the Idea makes itself that illusion, by setting an antithesis to confront it ; and its action consists in getting rid of the illusion which it has created. Only out of this error does the truth arise. In this fact lies the reconciliation with error and with finitude. Error or other-being, when it is uplifted and absorbed, is itself a necessary dynamic element of truth : for truth can only be where it makes itself its own result.
C.— THE IDEA.
213.] The Idea is truth in itself and for itself, — the absolute unity of the notion and objectivity. Its ideal content in thought is only the notion with its functional characteristics : its real content is only the exhibition which it gives itself in the form of outward Being-then-and-there, whilst by retaining this outward shape included in its ideality, it retains it in its power and thus retains itself in that form.
The definition, which declares the Absolute to be the Idea, is itself absolute. All former definitions come back to this. The Idea is the Truth : for Truth is the correspondence of ob- jectivity with the notion. By that correspondence, however, is not meant the correspondence of external things with my con- ceptions : — for these are only correct conceptions held by me, the individual person. In the idea we have nothing to do with the individual, nor with figurate conceptions, nor with
2 1 3.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 305
external things. And yet, again, everything actual, in so far as it is true, is the Idea, and has its truth by and in virtue of the Idea alone. Every individual being is some one aspect of the Idea : for that being therefore, yet other actualities are needed, which in their turn appear to have a self-subsistence of their own. In the whole of them together and in their connexion alone, is the notion realised. The individual does not of itself correspond to its notion. It is this limitation of its existence which constitutes the finitude and the ruin of the individual. The Idea itself is not to be taken as an idea of something or other, any more than the notion is to be taken as merely a specific notion. The Absolute is the uni- versal and one idea, which, as discerning, or in the act of judg- ment, specialises itself to the system of specific ideas ; which after all are constrained by their nature to come back to the one idea where their truth lies. It is out of and from this discerning judgment that the Idea is in the first place only the one universal substance: but its developed and genuine actuality is to be as a subject and in that way as mind.
Because it has no existence to start from and support itself upon, the Idea is frequently taken to be a mere form of Logic. Such a view must be abandoned to those theories, which ascribe so-called reality and genuine actuality to the existent thing and all the other categories, which have not yet penetrated as far as the Idea. It is no less false to imagine the idea to be a mere abstraction. It is abstract certainly, in so far as every- thing that is untrue is consumed and destroyed in it: but in its own self it is essentially concrete, because it is the free notion giving character to itself, and that character, reality. It would be an abstract form, only if the notion, which is its principle, were taken to be an abstract unity, and not the negative return of it into self, and the subjectivity which it really is.
By truth we understand, in the first place, that we ourselves know how something is. This is truth, however, only in re- ference to consciousness ; it is formal truth, and bare correctness.
306 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [214.
Truth in the deeper sense consists in the identity between ob- jectivity and the notion. It is in this deeper sense that truth is understood when we speak of a true state, or of a true work of art. These objects are true, if they are as they ought to be, i.e. if their reality corresponds to their notion. When thus viewed, to be untrue means much the same as to be bad. A bad man is an untrue man, one who does not behave as his notion or his vocation requires of him. Nothing however can subsist, if it be wholly devoid of identity between the notion and reality. Even bad and untrue things have being, in so far as their reality still, somehow, conforms to their notion. Whatever is thoroughly bad or contrary to the notion, for that very reason must break into pieces. It is by the notion alone that the things in the world have their subsistence ; or, as it is expressed in the figurate language of religious conception, things are what they are, only in virtue of the divine and thereby creative thought which dwells within them.
When we hear the Idea spoken of, we need not imagine something far away beyond this mortal sphere. The idea is rather what is completely present : and it is found in every consciousness, although it may be in an indistinct and stunted form. We conceive the world to ourselves as a great totality, which is created by God, and so created that in it God has manifested himself to us. We regard the world also as ruled by Divine Providence : implying that the division between the parts of the world is continually brought back, and made con- formable, to the unity from which it has issued. The purpose of philosophy has always been to know the idea by thought; and everything deserving the name of philosophy has con- stantly been based on the consciousness of an absolute unity where the understanding sees and accepts only separation. It is too late now to ask for proof that the idea is the truth. The proof of that is contained in the whole construction and development of thought up to this point. The idea is the result of this course of dialectic. Not that it is to be sup- posed that the idea is mediate only, i.e. mediated through some- thing else than itself. It is rather its own result, and being so, is no less immediate than mediate. The stages hitherto considered, viz. those of Being and the Essence, as well as those of the Notion and of Objectivity, are not, when so distinguished, something permanent, resting upon themselves. They have proved to be dialectical, and their only truth is that they are dynamic elements of the idea.
214.] The Idea may be described in many ways. It may be called reason (and this is the proper philosophical signifi-
2 1 4-] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 307
cation of reason) ; a subject-object; the unity of the ideal and the real, of the finite and the infinite, of soul and body ; the possibility which has its actuality in its own self; that of which the nature can be thought only as existent, &c. All these descriptions apply, because the Idea contains all the re- lations of understanding, but contains them in their infinite return and identity in themselves.
It is not difficult for the understanding to show that every statement made about the Idea is self-contradictory. So much indeed may be conceded to understanding : or, to put it more correctly, is accomplished in the Idea. And this work, which is the work of reason, is certainly not so easy as that of the understanding. Understanding may demonstrate that the Idea is self-contradictory : because the subjective is subjective only and is always confronted by the objective, — because being is different from the notion and therefore cannot be deduced from it, — because the finite is finite only, the exact antithesis of the infinite, and therefore not identical with it; and so on with every term of the description. The reverse of all this however is the doctrine of Logic. Logic shows that the sub- jective which is to be subjective only, the finite which would be finite only, the infinite which would be infinite only, and so on, have no truth, but contradict themselves, and pass over into their opposites. Hence this transition, and the unity in which the extremes are merged and where they take the rank of mere show, or of organic elements, reveals itself as their truth.
The understanding, which addresses itself to the Idea, commits a double misunderstanding. It takes the extremes of the Idea (be they expressed as they will, so long as they are in their unity) not as they are understood when stamped with this concrete unity, but as if they remained abstractions outside of it. It no less mistakes the connexion, even when it has been expressly stated. Thus, for example, it overlooks even the nature of the copula in the judgment, which affirms that the individual, or subject, is after all not an individual, but
x 2
308 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [215.
a universal. But, above all else, the understanding believes its reflection, — that the Idea, which is identical with itself, contains its own negative, or contains contradiction, to be an external reflection which does not occur to the Idea itself. But the reflection is really no peculiar cleverness of the understanding. The Idea itself is the dialectic which for ever divides and dis- tinguishes what is identical with self from what is differenced, the subjective from the objective, the finite from the infinite, the soul from the body. Only on these terms is it an eternal creation, eternal vitality, and eternal mind. But while it thus passes or translates itself into the abstract understanding, it for ever remains reason. The Idea is the dialectic which again makes this mass of understanding and diversity understand its finite nature and the false show of independence in its productions: and which brings the diversity back to unity. Since this double movement is not separate or distinct in time, nor indeed in any other way — otherwise it would be only a repetition of the abstract understanding — the Idea is the eternal perception of itself in the other. The Idea is the notion which has achieved itself in its objectivity : it is the object, which is inward design, or essential subjectivity.
The different modes of apprehending the Idea as a unity of the ideal and the real, of finite and infinite, of identity and difference, &c. are more or less formal. They designate some one stage of the specific notion. Only the notion itself, how- ever, is free and the genuine universal. In the Idea, therefore, the character or specific quality of the notion is only itself, — an objectivity, viz. into which it, being the universal, continues itself, and in which it has only its own character, the total character. The Idea is the infinite judgment, of which the terms are severally the independent totality ; and in which as each grows to the fulness of its own nature it has thereby at the same time passed into the other. None of the other specific notions exhibits this totality complete on both its sides, except the notion itself and objectivity.
215.] The Idea is essentially a process, because its identity
2 1 5.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 309
is the absolute and free identity of the notion, only in so far as it is absolute negativity and for that reason dialectical. It represents the course or round, in which the notion, in the capacity of universality which is individuality, gives itself the character of objectivity and of the antithesis to objectivity: and in which this externality which has the notion for its substance, finds its way back to subjectivity through its immanent dialectic.
As the idea is (a) a process, it follows that the expression for the Absolute (such as unity of thought and being, of finite and infinite, &c.) is false ; for unity expresses a tranquil and abstract identity at rest. As the Idea is (b] subjectivity, it follows that the expression is equally false on another account. That unity of which it speaks expresses the substance or implicit nature of the genuine unity. The infinite would thus seem to be merely neutralised by the finite, the subjective by the objective, thought by being. But in the negative unity of the Idea, the infinite overlaps and includes the finite, thought overlaps being, subjectivity overlaps objectivity. The unity of the Idea is though t, infinity, and subjectivity, and is in consequence to be essentially distinguished from the Idea as substance, just as this overlapping subjectivity, thought, or infinity is to be distinguished from the one-sided subjectivity, one-sided thought, one-sided infinity to which it descends in judging and defining.
The idea as a process runs through three stages in its development. The first form of the idea is Life : that is, the idea in the form of immediacy. The second form is that of mediation or differentiation ; and this is the idea in the form of Knowledge, which appears under the double aspect of the Theo- retical and Practical idea. The process of knowledge eventuates in the restoration of the unity enriched by difference. This gives the third form of the idea, the Absolute Idea : which last stage of the logical idea evinces itself to be at the same time really first, and to have a being due to itself alone.
310 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [216.
(a) Life.
216-] The immediate idea is Life. The notion is realised as a soul in a body. The body is external, and the soul is its im- mediate Universality which connects self with self; but also its Particularising', so that the body has no other differences than the characteristic of the notion impresses upon it ; and finally is the Individuality of the body as infinite negativity. The soul, in short, is the dialectic of that bodily objectivity, with its parts lying- out of parts, and carries it away from the semblance of independent subsistence back into subjectivity, so that all the members are reciprocally organic means as well as organic ends. Thus life not only is the initial particularisation : it results in the negative unity which feels itself to be, and in the corporeal part, as being dialectical, it only coalesces with itself. In this way life is essentially a living thing, and in point of its im- mediacy this individual living- thing. It is characteristic of finitude in this sphere that, by reason of the immediacy of the idea, body and soul are separable. This constitutes the mortality of the living being. It is only, however, when the living being dies, that these two sides of the idea are different constituents.
The single members of the body are what they are only by and in connexion with their unity. A hand, e,g. when hewn off from the body is a hand in name only, not in fact, as Aristotle has observed. To the understanding, and from its point of view, life for the most part seems an inexplicable mystery. By giving it such a name, however, the Understanding only con- fesses its own finitude and nullity. So far is life from being- in- comprehensible, that it is the very notion which is presented to us, or rather the immediate idea existing as a notion. And having said this, we have indicated the defect of life. Its notion and reality do not thoroughly correspond to each other. The notion of life is the soul, and this notion has the body for its reality. The soul is, as it were, poured out and diffused into its corporeity ; and in that way it is at first sentient only, and not yet freely self-conscious. The process of life consists in getting the better of the immediacy which continues to affect it : and this process, which is itself threefold, results in the idea under the form of judgment, i. e. the idea as Cognition.
2 1 7-2 1 9.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 311
217.] Whatever lives is a syllogism, of which the very ele- ments are in themselves systems and syllogisms (§§ 198, aoi, 207). They are however active syllogisms or processes ; and in the subjective unity of the vital agent make only one process. Thus the living being is the process by which it coalesces with itself, and this coalescence runs on through three processes.
218.] (1) The first is the process of the living being inside itself. In that process it makes a split on its own nature, and reduces its corporeity to its object or its inorganic nature. This corporeity, being relatively external, passes in its own self into a distinction and antagonism between its elements, which are surrendered to one another, and assimilate one another, and are retained by producing themselves. This act of the several members is only the one act of the living subject to which their productions return; so that in these productions nothing is produced except the subject : in other words, the subject repro- duces itself only.
The process of the vital subject within its own limits has in Nature the threefold form of Sensibility, Irritability, and Repro- duction. As Sensibility, the living being is immediately simple connexion with self — it is the soul, which is everywhere present in its body, the mutual exclusiveness of which has no truth for it. As Irritability, the living being appears to be split up in itself; and as Reproduction, it is perpetually restoring itself from the inner distinction of its members and organs. A vital agent is thus only found as this constantly renewed process within its own limits.
219.] (2) But the judgment of the notion proceeds, as free, to discharge the objective or bodily nature as an independent totality from itself; and the negative connexion of the living thing with itself makes, as immediate individuality, the pre- supposition of an inorganic nature confronting it. As this negative of vitality is no less a function in the notion of the living thing itself, it exists consequently in this universal (which is at the same time concrete) in the shape of a defect or want. The dialectic by which the object, being implicitly null, is merged, is the action of the living thing, which is certain
312 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [220, 221.
of itself, and which in this process against an inorganic nature thus retains, developes, and objectifies itself.
The living being stands face to face with an inorganic nature : it conducts itself as a power over that nature and assimilates it to itself. The result of the assimilation is not, as in the chemical process, a neutral product in which the independence of the two confronting sides is merged; but the living being shows itself as overlapping its antithesis which cannot withstand its power. The inorganic nature which is subdued by the vital agent suffers this fate, because it is virtually the same as what life is actually. Thus in its antithesis, the living being only coalesces with itself. But when the soul has fled from the body, the elementary forces of objectivity begin their play. These powers are, as it were, continually on the spring, ready to begin their process in the organic body ; and life is the constant battle against them.
220.] (3) The living individuum in its first process behaves as subject and notion in itself, and by means of its second assimilates its external objectivity and thus puts the character of reality into itself. It is now therefore implicitly a Kind, a substantial universal. The particularising of the Kind is the connexion of the living subject, with another subject of its Kind : and the judgment is the relation of the Kind to these individuals presenting such features towards each other. This is the Affinity of the Sexes.
221.] The process of the Kind brings it to a being of its own. Life being no more than the idea immediate, the product of this process breaks up into two sides. On the one hand, the living individuum, which was at first pre-supposed as immediate, is now seen to be mediated and generated. On the other, however, the living individuality, which, on account of its first immediacy, stands in a negative attitude towards universality, sinks in the superior power of the latter.
The living being dies, because it is a contradiction. Implicitly it is the universal or Kind, and yet immediately it exists as an individual only. Death shows the Kind to be the power that rules the immediate individual. For the animal the process of Kind is the highest point of its vitality. But the animal never gets so far in its Kind as to have a being of its own ; it falls a
222-224.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 313
victim to the supremacy of Kind. In the process of Kind the immediate living- being mediates itself with itself, and thus rises above its immediacy, only however to sink back into it again. Life thus runs away, in the first instance, only into the false infinity of the progress ad infinitum. The real result, however, of the process of life, in the point of its notion, is to merge and overcome that immediacy with which the idea, in the shape of life, never ceases to be oppressed.
222.] In this manner however the idea of life has thrown off not some one particular and immediate ' This/ but the first immediacy as a whole. It thus comes to itself, to its truth : it enters upon existence as a free Kind on its own behoof. By the death of the merely immediate and individual vitality, the spirit comes forward.
(&) Cognition in general.
223.] The idea exists free for itself, in so far as it has universality for the medium of its existence, or as it is objec- tivity itself, in the shape of the notion, or as the idea has itself for object. Its subjectivity, as stamped with the character of universality, is an act of pure distinguishing within its own limits — an act of perception which keeps itself in this identical universality. But, as specific distinction, it is the further judgment of repelling itself as a totality from itself, and thus, in the first place, pre-supposing itself as an external universe. There are two judgments, which though implicitly identical are not yet explicitly stated as identical.
224.] The connexion between these two ideas, which impli- citly and as life are identical, is thus a relative connexion : and it is that relativity which constitutes the characteristic of finitude in this sphere. It is the relation of reflection, seeing that the distinguishing of the idea in its own self is only the first judgment, the presumption or hypothesis is not yet sumption or thesis, and not yet explicit. And thus for the subjective idea the objective, i. e. the world immediately presented to us, or the idea as life, is contained in the phenomenon of individual existence. At the same time, in so far as this judgment is a
314 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [225, 226.
pure distinguishing within its own limits (preced. §), the idea is in one conscious of itself and of its antithesis. Consequently it is the certitude of the virtual or implicit identity between itself and the objective world. Reason comes to the world with an absolute faith in its ability to make the identity explicit, and to raise its certitude to truth ; and with the instinct of stating explicitly the nullity of that contrast which it sees to be implicitly null.
225.] This process may be in general described as Cognition. In Cognition in a single act the contrast is virtually absorbed, both the one-sidedness of subjectivity and the one-sidedness of objectivity. At first, however, the merging or suspension of the contrast is but implicit. The process as such is in conse- quence immediately infected with the finitude of this sphere. It, therefore, parts into the twofold movement of the instinct of reason, a movement which is stated as different. On the one hand it gets rid of the narrowness of the subjectivity of the idea by receiving the world of Being into itself, into subjective conception and thought, and with this objectivity, which is thus taken to be real and true, for its content it fills up the abstract certitude of itself. On the other hand, it gets rid of the narrowness of the objective world, which is now valued, on the contrary, as only a mere show or semblance, a collection of contingencies and of forms with no meaning in them. It modifies and moulds that world by the inward nature of subjectivity, which is here taken to be the genuine objective, and works the subjectivity into it. The former is the tendency or instinct of science in the search for Truth, Cognition properly so called: — the Theoretical action of the idea. The latter is the tendency or instinct of the Good to bring about itself — the Practical activity of the idea or Volition.
(a) Cognition proper.
226.] The universal finitude of Cognition, which lies in the one judgment, the presumption of the contrast as objectivity (§ 224), a presumption against which its own action is the
227-] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 315
implanted contradiction, specialises itself more precisely on the face of its own idea. The result of that specialisation is, that its two elements receive the aspect of being diverse from each other, and, as they are at least complete, they take up the relation of reflection, not of the notion, to one another. The assimilation of the matter, therefore, as what is given, presents itself in the light of a reception of it into categories which never enter into thorough union with it, and which meet each other in the same style of diversity. Reason is active here, but it is reason in the shape of understanding. The truth which such Cognition can reach will be only finite : while the infinite truth of the notion is fixed for finite Cog- nition as a transcendent world far away, which exists in itself only and not for knowledge. Still in its external action it stands under the guidance of the notion, and the laws of the notion give the inward clue to its onward movement.
The finitude of Cognition lies in the presumption of a world awaiting our action, and in the consequent view of the knowing subject as a tabula rasa. The conception is one attributed to Aristotle, but no man is further than Aristotle from such an outside theory of Cognition. Such a style of Cognition is un- aware that it is the activity of the notion — an activity which it is implicitly, but not consciously. In its own estimation its procedure is passive. Really that procedure is active.
227-] Finite Cognition, when it presumes what is distin- guished from it to be something ready made and in anti- thesis to itself — when it pre-supposes the various facts of external nature or of consciousness — has, in the first place, (1) Formal identity or the abstraction of universality for the form in which it acts. Its activity therefore consists in the analysis of the given concrete object, in isolating the dif- ferences, and giving them the form of abstract generality. Or it leaves the concrete thing as a ground, and by leaving aside the apparently unessential particulars, it elicits a concrete universal, the Genus, or the Force and the Law. This is the Analytical Method.
316 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [228, 229.
People generally speak of the analytical and synthetical methods, as if it depended solely on our choice which we pursued. This is far from correct. It depends on the form of the objects of our investigation, which of the two methods, that are derivable from the notion of finite cognition, ought to be applied. In the first place, cognition is analytical. Ana- lytical cognition deals with an object which is presented in isolation, and the aim of its action is to trace back to a uni- versal the individual object that lies before it. Thought in such circumstances means no more than an act of abstraction or of formal identity. That is the sense in which thought is understood by Locke and the empirical school. Cognition, it is often said, can never do more than separate the given con- crete objects into their abstract elements, and then consider these elements in their isolation. It is, however, at once ap- parent that this turns things upside down, and that cognition which resolves to take things as they are will fall into con- tradiction with itself. Thus the chemist e.g. places a piece of flesh in his retort, tortures it in many ways, and then in- forms us that it consists of nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, &c. True : but these abstract matters have ceased to be flesh. The same defect occurs in the reasoning of an empirical psychologist when he divides an action into the various aspects which it presents, and then sticks to these aspects in their separation. The object which is subjected to analysis is treated as a sort of onion, from which one coat is peeled off after another.
228-] This universality is also a specific universality. That is to say : (2) the activity moves onward in accordance with the organic functions of the notion, which (as it has not its infinity in finite cognition) is the specific or definite notion of understanding. The reception of the object into the form of this notion is the Synthetic Method.
The movement of the Synthetic method is the reverse of the Analytical method. The latter starts from the individual, and proceeds to the universal ; in the former the starting-point is given by the universal (as a definition), from which we proceed by particularising (in division) to the individual or theorem. The Synthetical method thus presents itself as the development of the functions of the notion as they offer themselves on the object.
229.] (a) When the object has been in the first instance brought by cognition into the form of the specific notion
230.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 317
in general, so that its genus and its universal character or speciality are explicitly stated with it, we have the Definition. The materials and the proof of Definition are procured by means of the Analytical method (§ 227). The specific character however is expected to be a ' mark' only : that is to say it must be in behoof only of the purely subjective cognition, which is ex- ternal to the object.
Definition involves the three organic elements of the notion : the universal or proximate genus (gemis proximuni), the par- ticular or character of the genus (qualilas specifica), and the individual, or object defined. The first question that definition raises, is where it comes from. The general answer to this question is to say, that definitions originate by way of analysis. This fact will explain how it happens that people can quarrel about the correctness of proposed definitions. In these cases everything depends on what perceptions we started from, and what points of view we had before our eyes. The richer the object to be defined is, that is, the more numerous are the aspects which it offers to our notice, the more various are the definitions we may frame of it. Thus there are quite a host of definitions of life, of the state, &c. Geometry, on the contrary, dealing with a theme so abstract as space, has an easy task in giving definitions. Again, in respect of the matter or contents of the objects defined, there is no constraining ne- cessity present. We have only to take it for granted that space exists, that there are plants, animals, &c. Nor is it the business of geometry, botany, &c. to demonstrate that the objects in question are necessary. This very circumstance makes the synthetical method of cognition as little suitable for philosophy as the analytical : for philosophy has above all things to leave no doubt of the necessity of its objects. And yet several attempts have been made to introduce the syn- thetical method into philosophy. Thus Spinoza, in particular, begins with definitions. He says, for instance, that substance is the causa sui. In his definitions there is an undoubted deposit of speculative truth, but it takes the shape of dogmatic asser- tions. The same thing is also true of Schelling.
230.] (/3) The statement of the second element of the notion, i. e. of the character of the universal as particularising, is given by Division in accordance with some one external consideration.
318 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [231.
Division we are told ought to be complete. That requires a principle or ground of division so constituted, that the division based upon it embraces the whole extent of the region designated by the definition in general. Or, in more precise language, the main point in division is that the principle of it must be borrowed from the nature of the object in question. If this condition be satisfied, the division becomes natural and not merely artificial, that is to say, capricious. Thus, in zoology, the ground of division adopted in the classification of the mammalia is mainly afforded by their teeth and claws. That is so far sensible, as the mammals themselves are distinguished from one another by these parts of their bodies ; back to which therefore the general type of their various classes may be traced. In every case the genuine division must be determined by the notion. To that extent a division, in the first instance, has three members : but as particularity exhibits itself as double, the division extends to the number of even four parts. In the sphere of mind trichotomy is predominant, a circumstance which Kant has the credit of bringing into notice.
231.] (y) In the concrete individuality, where the character which in the definition is simple is viewed as a relation, the object is a synthetical nexus of distinct characteristics. It is a Theorem. Being different, these characteristics possess but a mediated identity. To supply the materials, which form the middle terms, is the office of Construction : and the process of mediation itself, from which cognition derives the necessity of that nexus, is the Demonstration.
As the difference between the analytical and synthetical methods is commonly stated, it seems wholly dependent on our will which of the two we employ. Taking as our hypothesis the concrete thing which the synthetic method presents as a result, we can analyse, or derive from it as consequences, the abstract characteristics which made up the hypothesis and the material for the proof. The algebraical definitions of curved lines are theorems in the method of geometry. Perhaps even the Pythagorean proposition, if made the definition of a right-angled triangle, would yield to analysis those propositions which geometry had already demonstrated on its behoof. The liberty of choosing either method is due to
23i.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 319
the external presumption from which both alike start. So far as the nature of the notion is concerned, analysis is prior, since it has to raise the given material with its empirical con- creteness into the form of general abstractions. That done, they can be set in the front of the synthetical method as definitions.
That these methods, however indispensable and brilliantly successful in their own province, are useless for philosophical cognition, is self-evident. They have pre-suppositions, and their style of cognition is that of understanding, under the canon of formal identity. Spinoza, who was especially ad- dicted to the use of the geometrical method, although for really speculative notions, at once strikes us by the charac- teristic formalism of it. He indeed was truly speculative : but Wolf, who carried the method out into a gigantic system of pedantry, taught even in his subject-matter a metaphysic of the understanding. The misapplication of these methods and the formalism with which they overspread philosophy and science has passed away in modern times, and given place to the abuse of what is called Construction. Kant brought into vogue the conception that mathematics constructs its notions. What is really meant by the phrase is that mathe- matics has not to do with notions at all, but with the ab- stract qualities derived from the perceptions of sense. ' Con- struction of notions ' has since been the name given to a statement of sensible attributes which were picked up from perception, quite guiltless of any influence of the notion ; and the additional formalism of classifying scientific and philoso- phical objects in a tabular form after some assumed scheme, but in other respects as conceit and caprice suggested, has in like manner been termed Construction. In the back- ground of all this, certainly, there is a dim conception of the idea, of the unity of the notion and objectivity : a con- ception, too, that the idea is concrete. But the agency of construction, as it is called, is far from presenting the unity adequately — a unity which is none other than the notion
320 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [232.
properly so called : and the sensuously-concrete object of per- ception is as little the concrete object known to reason and the idea.
Another point calls for notice. Geometry works with the sensuous but abstract perception of space; and in space it experiences no difficulty in fixing simple characteristics of understanding. To geometry alone belongs in its perfection the synthetical method of finite cognition. In its course, how- ever (and this is the remarkable point), it stumbles upon what are termed irrational and incommensurable quantities, and in their case any attempt at further specification drives it beyond the principle of the understanding. This is only one of many instances in terminology, where the title rational is perversely applied to the province of understanding, while we stigmatise as irrational that which shows a beginning and a trace of rationality. Other sciences, removed as they are from the simplicity of space or number, often and necessarily reach a point where understanding can no longer assist them to ad- vance : but they get over the difficulty without trouble. They make a break in the strict sequence of their procedure, and assume whatever they require, though it be the reverse of what preceded, from some external quarter, — opinion, percep- tion, conception or any other source. The want of all consciousness about the nature of its methods and their re- lation to the content has awkward consequences for finite cognition of this stamp. It cannot see that, when it proceeds by definitions and divisions, &c. it is really led on by the necessity of the laws of the notion. It cannot see when it has reached its limit ; nor, if it have transgressed that limit, does it perceive that it is in a sphere, where the categories of understanding are altogether out of place, however much it may rudely apply them.
232-] The necessity, which finite cognition produces in the demonstration, is, in the first place, an external necessity, intended for the subjective intelligence alone. But in neces- sity as such, cognition itself has left behind its hypothesis
233, 234.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 321
and starting-point, which consisted in accepting- its content as given or found. Necessity qua necessity is implicitly the notion which connects self with self. The subjective idea has thus implicitly reached what is in itself and for itself characterised, — a something not given, and for that reason immanent in the subject. It has passed over into the idea of Will.
The necessity which cognition reaches by means of the de- monstration is the reverse of what formed its starting-point. In its starting-point cognition had a given and a contingent content ; but now, at the close of its movement, it knows its content to be necessary. This necessity is reached through the means of subjective agency. Similarly, subjectivity at starting was quite abstract, a bare tabula rasa. It now shows itself as a modifying and determining principle. By this means we pass from the idea of cognition to that of will. The passage, as will be apparent on a closer examination, means that the universal, to be truly apprehended, must be apprehended as subjectivity, as a notion self-moving, active, and imposing modifications.
03) Volition,
233.] The subjective idea as what is characterised in itself and for itself, and as a simple content which is equal to itself, is the Good. Its tendency or instinct towards self-realisation has the reverse relation to what that of the idea of truth has, and is rather directed towards moulding the world, which it finds before it, into a shape conformable to its purposed End.— This Volition has, on the one hand, the certitude of the nothingness of the pre-supposed object ; but, on the other, as finite, it pre-supposes at the same time the purposed End or Aim of Good as a subjective idea only, and also pre-supposes the self-subsistence of the object.
234.] This action of the will is finite: and its finitude lies in the contradiction that in the self-contradictory features of the objective world the End or Aim of Good is just as much not executed as executed; that the end in question is stated to be unessential as much as essential, — to be actual and at the same time merely possible. This contradiction presents
322 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [234.
itself to imagination as an endless progress in the actualising of the Good ; which is therefore set up and fixed as a mere ' ought/ or goal of perfection. In point of form however this contradiction vanishes, when the action puts an end to the subjectivity of the purpose, and along with it the objectivity, the contrast which makes the two finite ; abolishing subjectivity as a whole and not merely the one-sidedness of this form of it. (For another new subjectivity of the kind, that is, a new generation of the contrast, is not distinct from that which is supposed to be obsolete.) This return into itself is at the same time the recollection into itself of the content, which is the Good and the implicitly given identity of the two sides, — it is a recollection of the pre-supposition made by the theoretical point of view (§ 224), viz. that the object is identical with the substance and truth which it contains.
While Intelligence merely proposes to take the world as it finds it, the Will proposes to make the world what it ought to be. The Will looks upon the immediate and given present not as a solid being, but as a mere show or semblance without reality. It is here that we meet those contradictions which cause so much trouble in the field of abstract morality. This position in its bearings on practical philosophy is the one taken by the philosophy of Kant, and even by that of Fichte. The Good, say these writers, has to be realised : we have to work in order to produce it : and the Will is only the Good actualising itself. If the world then were as it ought to be, the action of the Will would be at an end. The Will itself therefore requires that its Aim should not be realised. In these words, a correct expression is given to the finitude of the Will. But this finitude was not meant to be the ultimate point : and it is the process of the Will itself which abolishes the finitude and the contradiction involved in that finitude. The reconciliation is achieved, when the Will in its result returns to the pre-supposition made by cognition. In other words, it consists in the unity of the theoretical and practical idea. The Will knows the purposed end to be its own, and Intelligence apprehends the world as the notion actual. This is the right attitude of rational cognition. Nullity and transitori- ness constitute only the superficial features and not the real essence of the world. That essence is the notion in itself and for itself: and thus the world is itself the idea. All unsatisfied
235, 236.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 323
endeavour ceases, when we learn that the final purpose of the world is accomplished no less than ever accomplishing itself. Generally speaking, this is the belief and attitude of the man ; while the young imagine that the world is utterly sunk in wickedness, and that the first thing needful is to change it into something else. The religious mind, on the contrary, views the world as ruled by Divine Providence, and therefore correspondent with what it ought to be. But this harmony between the ' is ' and the ' ought to be ' is not torpid and rigidly stationary. Good, the final end of the world, has being, only while it constantly produces itself. And the world of mind and the world of nature continue to have this distinction, that the latter moves only in a recurring cycle, while the former at any rate also makes progress.
235-] Thus the truth of the Good is stated or laid down as the unity of the theoretical and practical idea. Good has been in itself and for itself achieved. The objective world is thus in itself and for itself the Idea, as it at the same time eternally lays itself down as an Aim or End, and by action brings about its actuality. This life which has returned to itself from the differentiation and finitude of cognition, and which the notion by its own agency has made identical with it, is the Speculative or Absolute Idea.
(c) The Absolute Idea.
236.] The Idea as a unity of the Subjective and Objective Idea, is the notion of the Idea, which the Idea as such confronts as its object, and to which objectivity is found in the Idea : — an Object in which all characteristics have coalesced. This unity is consequently the absolute and all truth, the Idea which thinks itself, and here at least as a thinking, or Logical Idea.
The Absolute Idea is, in the first place, the unity of the theoretical and practical idea, and thus at the same time the unity of life with the idea of cognition. In cognition we had the idea in the shape of differentiation. The process of cogni- tion has issued in the overthrow of this differentiation and the restoration of that unity, which as unity, and in its im- mediacy, is in the first instance the Idea of Life. The defect
Y 2
324 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [237.
of life lies in its being- only the idea in itself or naturally : whereas cognition is in an equally one-sided way the merely conscious idea, or, the idea for itself. The unity and truth of these two is the Absolute Idea, which is both in itself and for itself. Hitherto we have dwelt with the idea in develop- ment through its various grades, but now the idea comes to confront itself. This is the vo'^o-is i>o??o-ea>s, which Aristotle long ago termed the supreme form of the idea.
237-] Seeing that there is in it no transition, or pre-sup- position, and in general no character other than what is fluid and transparent, the Absolute Idea is for itself the pure form of the notion, which can contemplate its content as its own self. It is its own content, in so far as it distinguishes itself from itself in thought; the one of the two things dis- tinguished is an identity with itself, but in it is contained the sum total of the form as the system of terms describing its content. This content is the system of Logic. All that is at this stage left for the idea as a form, is the Method of this content, — the specific knowledge of the value and currency of the organic elements in its development.
To speak of the absolute idea may suggest the conception that we are at length reaching the right thing and the sum of the whole matter. It is certainly possible to indulge in a vast amount of senseless declamation about the idea absolute. But its true content is only the whole system, of which we have been hitherto examining the development. It may also be said in this strain that the absolute idea is the universal, but the universal not merely as an abstract form, which is confronted by its opposite in the particular content, but as the absolute form, into which all the categories, the whole plenitude of the content which it states, has retired. The absolute idea may in this respect be compared to the old man who utters the same religious propositions as the child, but for whom they are pregnant with the significance of a lifetime. Even if the child understands the truths of religion which these propositions include, he cannot but imagine them to be something unconnected with, and lying outside of, the whole of life and the whole of the world. The same may be said to be the case with human life as a whole and the occurrences with which it is fraught. All work is directed only to the aim or end, and when it is attained, people are surprised to
DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 325
find nothing else but the very thing- which they had wished for. The interest lies in the whole movement. When a man follows up his life, the end may appear to him very narrow: but in that conclusion the whole decursus vitae is comprehended. So, too, the content of the absolute idea is the whole breadth of ground which has passed under our view up to this point. Last of all comes the perception, that the whole evolution is what constitutes the content and the interest. It is indeed the prerogative of the philosopher to see that everything, which, when taken on its own merits, is narrow and restricted, receives its value by its union with the whole, and by forming an organic element of the idea. Thus it is that we have had the content already, and what we have now is the knowledge that the content is the living development of the idea. This simple retrospect is contained in the form of the idea. Each of the stages hitherto reviewed is an image of the absolute, but at first in a limited mode, and thus it is forced onwards to the whole, the evolution of which is what we termed Method.
238.] The organic elements of the Speculative Method are, first of all, (a) the Beginning, which is Being or Immediacy : for itself, for the simple reason, that it is the beginning. But looked at from the speculative idea, Being is its self- specialising act, which as the absolute negativity or movement of the notion makes a judgment and states itself as its own negative. Being, which to the beginning as beginning seems mere or abstract affirmation, is thus rather negation, a state of dependence, derivation, and pre-supposition. But it is the notion of which Being is the negation : and the notion, when it is something else, is identical with itself throughout, and is the very certainty of itself. Being therefore is the notion implicit, before it has been explicitly stated as a notion. This Being therefore is the still unspecified notion,— a notion that is only implicitly or immediately specified ; and may be equally described as the Universal.
When it means immediate being the beginning is taken from sensation and perception — which form the initial stage in the analytical method of finite cognition. When it means universality, it is the beginning of the synthetic method. But since the Logical Idea is as much a universal as it is in
326 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [239.
Being — since it is pre-supposed by the notion as much as it itself immediately is, its beginning is synthetical as well as analytical.
The philosophical method is analytical as well as synthetical, not indeed in the sense of a bare juxtaposition or alternating employment of these two methods of finite cognition, but rather in such a way that it holds them merged in itself. In every one of its motions therefore it displays an attitude at once analytical and synthetical. Philosophic thought pro- ceeds analytically, in so far as it only accepts its object, the idea, and while allowing it its own way, is only, as it were, an on-looker at its movement and development. To this extent philosophising is wholly passive. Philosophic thought however is equally synthetic, and evinces itself to be the action of the notion itself. To that end, however, there is required an effort to keep off the ever forward-pressing throng of our own fancies and opinions.
239.] (#) The Advance from this Beginning is the out-stated judgment of the idea. The immediate universal, as the notion implicit, is the dialectical force which in its own self deposes its immediacy and universality to the level of a mere stage or element. Thus the negative of the beginning, or the true first, is invested with its specific character: it is for one thing the connexion of what are distinct — the stage of Re- flection.
Seeing that the immanent dialectic only states explicitly what was involved in the immediate notion, this advance is Analytical, but seeing that in this notion this distinction was not yet stated, — it is equally Synthetical.
In the onward movement of the idea, the beginning exhibits itself as what it is implicitly. It is seen to be mediated and derivative, and neither to have proper being nor proper im- mediacy. It is only for the consciousness which is itself immediate, that Nature forms the commencement or im- mediacy, and that Mind appears as what is mediated by Nature. The truth is that Nature is due to the statuting of Mind, and it is Mind itself which gives itself a pre-supposition in Nature.
240-242.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 327
24O.] The abstract form of the continuation or advance is, in Being, an other (or antithesis) and transition into an other ; in the Essence showing- or reflection in its opposite; in the Notion, the distinction of the individual from the universality, which continues itself as such into, and forms an identity with, what is distinguished from it.
241.] In the second sphere the primarily implicit notion has come as far as showing, and thus is already the idea in germ. The development of this sphere becomes a retrogression into the first, just as the development of the first is a transition into the second. It is only by means of this double move- ment, that the difference first gets its due, when each of the two members distinguished, when observed in its own self, completes itself to the totality, and in this way works out its unity with the other. It is only by merging the one- sidedness of both in their own selves, that the unity is kept from becoming one-sided.
242.] The second sphere developes the connexion of what were distinguished to what it primarily is, — to the contradiction in its own Nature. That contradiction is seen in the infinite progress, which is resolved (c) into the End, where the differ- enced is explicitly stated as what it is in the notion. The end is the negative of the first, and as the identity with that, is the negativity of itself. It is consequently the unity in which both of these Firsts, the immediate and the real First, are made constituent stages in thought, merged, and at the same time preserved in the unity. The notion, which from its implicitness thus comes by means of its differentiation and the merging of that differentiation to close with itself, is the realised notion, — the notion which contains the relativity or dependence of its special features in its own independence. It is the idea, which as absolutely first (in the method) regards this end as merely the annihilation of the show or semblance, which made the beginning appear immediate, and made itself seem a result. It is the knowledge that the idea is the one systematic whole.
328 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION.
243.] It thus appears that the method is not an extraneous form, but the soul and notion of the content, from which its only distinction is that the dynamic elements of the notion even in their own selves come in their own specific character to appear as the totality of the notion. This specific character, or the content, leads itself with the form back to the idea; and thus the idea is presented as a systematic totality which is only one idea, of which the several elements are implicitly the idea itself, whilst they equally by the dialectic of the notion produce the simple independence of the idea. The science in this manner concludes by apprehending the notion of itself, as of the pure idea, for which the idea is.
244.] The idea which is independent or for itself, when viewed on the point of this its unity with itself, is Perception, or Intuition, and the idea to be perceived is Nature. But as intuition the idea is invested with the one-sided character- istic of immediacy, or of negation, by means of an external reflection. But the idea is absolutely free : and its freedom means that it does not merely pass over into life, or as finite cognition allow life to show in it, but in its own absolute truth resolves to let the element of its particularity, or of the first characterisation and other-being, the immediate idea, as its reflection, go forth freely itself from itself as Nature.
We have now returned to the notion of the idea with which we began. This return to the beginning is also an advance. We began with Being, abstract Being : where we now are we also have the idea as Being : but this idea which has Being is Nature.
INDEX.
A.
Absolute, various definitions of, 133, 137, 159, 178, 248, 271, 288.
Abstraction, 252.
Accidents (and Substance), 235.
Activity, 229.
Actuality, 221 ; its relations to reason, 7, 222.
Affinity (in Chemism), 294.
Analogy, 280.
Analysis, 67.
Analytical Method, 315.
Anselm, quoted, 120, 280.
Antinomies (Kant's), 82, 85.
Appearance, 205.
Apperception, 73.
Aristotle, his idealism, n, 63, 223, 315; his Logic, 33, 274, 277 ; on the dig- nity of philosophy, 38 ; definition of life, 298 ; on the Idea, 324.
Arithmetic, classification of its modes of operation, 163.
Atheism, charged against Spinoza, 89, 236 ; what it implies, 115.
Atomic philosophy, 157 ; in physics and politics, 156.
Attraction, a principle of matter, 157.
Aufheben, explained, 155.
Axioms (mathematical), 278.
B.
Becoming, 139.
Beginning, what it implies, 142.
Being, as descriptive of God, 60 ; in con- trast to thought, 91 ; the category of, 135 ; Determinate being, 144; Being- by-self, 147 ; Being-for-self, 151.
Buddhists, their view of the Absolute, 138-
C.
Categorical judgment, 267 ; syllogism,
282.
Categories (Kant's), 70, 76. Causality, 237. Chance, 228.
Chaos (mythical conception of matter), 204.
Chemism (a relation of objectivity), 294.
Christianity, a religion of reason, 61 ; of faith, 106 ; its precept, 216; a religion of consolation, 232 ; in- fluence on slavery, 252 ; presents God as Love, 289.
Cognition, as described by Kant, 73; its nature and methods, 315.
Comparison, as a scientific method, 187.
Conception, its nature (distinguished from sense and thought), 30, 41 ; pre- liminary in time to thought, I.
Condition, 228 ; supposed to be the nature of thought, 103.
Construction (in the process of demon- stration), 318.
Content (as opposed to form), 208.
Contingency, 226.
Continuous (quantity), 162.
Contradiction, 190.
Copula (in judgments), 257.
Correctness, distinguished from truth,
305. Cosmology (a branch of Metaphysics),
its problems, 58 ; criticised by Kant,
84 ; its proofs of God's being, 86. Critical Philosophy, its main thesis, 13,
36 ; examined at length, 69-102. Cunning (in Reason), 302.
D.
Definition, its elements, 317.
Degree (intensive magnitude), 165.
Demonstration, true nature of, 87 ; in method, 318.
Descartes, his principle, 108 ; his agreement with Jacobi, 119; his dif- ference from Jacobi, 120 ; his proof of a God, 287.
Design (as a teleological principle), 297.
Development, a corrective to innate ideas, 112; its nature and action, 248.
330
INDEX.
Dialectic, innate in reasoning, 14 ; its operations explained and illustrated, 125 ; distinguished from Scepticism, 129 ; from reflection, 125; in Socrates and Plato, 127.
Difference, its several grades, 185.
Discrete (quantity), 162.
Disjunctive judgment, 268 ; syllogism, 282.
Diversity, 186.
Division (in method), 317.
Dogmatism, characteristic of Meta- physics, 55.
Dualism, in Theology, 60 ; in the Criti- cal Philosophy, 98.
E.
Education, its office, 112; mistake in, 292.
Effect (Cause and), 237.
Eleatics, their doctrine, 135, 137.
Empirical, science in its relation to philosophy, 12 ; Theory or School, 64; its principle, 65.
Encyclopaedia (common and philoso- phical), 20.
End (in teleology), 96, 297.
Essence, 178.
Eudaemonism (before Kant), 94.
Evil (Good and), 59 ; origin of, 45.
Existence, 197.
Experience, cause of philosophic pro- gress, 7, 9, 15 ; as a philosophic principle, 64.
F.
Faith, as a philosophic principle, 105.
Fall of man, an allegory, 45.
Fate (necessity), 233.
Fichte, deduction of the categories, 102 ; his 'ought,' 151, 322 ; defence of idealism, 207 ; against defining God as Object, 289.
Figures of Syllogism, three in number, 977.
Final Causes, 96, 299.
Finite, 99, 148 ; thinking, 52.
Force, 212.
Form (and Content), 208 ; (and Mat- ter), 203.
Freedom, the character of thought, 27, 100 ; and necessity, 59, 85.
G.
Genius (defined by Kant), 96. Geometry, its method, 320.
God, logical definitions of, 133, 138, 180 ; how far he is known, 61, 107 ; proofs for his Being examined and defended, 3, 62, 86, 103, 285, 299 ; proof by consensus gentium, 115 ; a trinity, 161, 225, 273.
Goethe quoted, 67, 123, 217, 220.
Good (The), 59, 97.
Greek Philosophers, 29 ; Greek Gods, 252.
Ground (or reason), principle of suffi- cient, 193.
H.
Haller quoted, 168.
Heraclitus, 144.
Herder, 213.
History (recording facts), 220 ; philo- sophy of, 231.
Hume, criticism of the ideas of univer- sality and necessity, 69, 70, 81, 93.
Hypothetical judgment, 267; syllogism, 282.
I.
I, its universality, 32, 40 ; source of the categories, 74.
Idea, 304 ; Absolute, 323 ; Ideas in- nate, in.
Idealism, subjective (the Kantian philo- sophy), 76, 80 ; character of every philosophy, 153.
Ideality, 153.
Identity, philosophy of, 166 ; what it is, 181, 183 ; Law of, 184.
Immediacy, 16; immediate knowledge, 45, 103 seqq.
Individual, 254.
Induction, 280.
Infinity, false, 149 ; true, 151.
Intuition (and thought), 105.
Inward (and Outward), 217.
J.
Jacobi, against the demonstrations of understanding, 89 ; against know- ledge, 104; compared with Descartes, 119; on Cause, 238.
Judgment, 256 ; classification of, 261 ; qualitative, 262 ; reflective, 265 ; of necessity, 267 ; of the notion, 269 ; distinguished from proposition, 258.
Judgment (Reflective Faculty of), 95.
K.
Kant, referred to, 13, 32 ; his doctrine of categories, 70 seqq. ; his philo-
INDEX.
331
sophy, 69-102 ; theory of matter, 157; doctrine of phenomena, 207; on modality, 223; classification of judgments, 261 ; on teleology, 298; bis moral philosophy, 322. Kind (genus), 312. „
L.
Law (of phenomenon), 208.
Leibnitz, principle of variety, 187 ; law
of sufficient reason, 195 ; his Monad-
ology, 288. Life (as a logical category), 310; an
example of becoming, 144. Likeness (and Unlikeness), 188. Limit, 148.
Locke, theory of knowledge, 316. Logic, denned, 25 ; subdivided, 132 ;
common logic, 247, 283.
M.
Magnitude, 159 ; distinguished from quantity, 159.
Many (and One), 155.
Marks (in a notion), 255.
Materialism, consistent result of em- piricism, 100 ; and of an exclusively mathematical theory, 160.
Mathematics, their proper place, 161.
Matter (and form), 203 ; matters in a thing, 20 1.
Mean (middle term), 275.
Means (and ends), 300.
Measure (as a logical category), 171,
173-
Mechanism, 290 ; mechanical theories, 291 ; distinguished from chemism, 294.
Memory, its mechanical nature, 292.
Metaphysics (pre-Kantian), their me- thod and branches, 50 seqq.
Method, various for apprehending truth, 44; analytical, 315 ; synthetic, 316 ; of philosophy, 324.
Middle (Law of Excluded), 189.
Monads, 288.
Mysticism, 131.
Necessity (and freedom), 59, 85 ; and universality, 69 ; its nature analysed, 230-234 ; its relation to the notion,
243-
Negation, 147 ; Negative, 189. Nemesis, 172.
Newton, referred to, IO, 215. Nothing (and Being), 137. Notion, contrasted with Being, 91 ; its
theory, 247 eeqq. ; classifications of, 245-
Number, 163 ; the Pythagorean doc- trine of, 169 ; as symbols, 170.
O.
Object (as opposed to Subject), 284. Objective and Subjective, their various
meanings, 72. One (and Many), 155. Ontology (branch of Metaphysics), 56 ;
ontological proof, 91. Opposition (in logic), 189. Outward (and Inward), 217.
P.
Pantheism, in Metaphysics, 60 ; in Spinoza, 89, 237; its maxim, 143.
Paralogism (as used by Kant), 81, 82.
Parmenides, 137.
Particular, 251.
Parts (and Whole), 211.
Phenomena (in Kant), 79 ; as a general category, 208.
Phenomenology of the Spirit, 49.
Philosophy, distinguished from thought in general, 2, 6 ; its scope, 7 ; me- thod, 325 ; History of, 18, 136 ; must be a system, 19 ; sub-divided,
33-
Plato, reminiscence of ideas, in, 112; his Dialectic, 127; on the finite, 149; his Philebus, 152; relation to Aristotle, 223.
Pneumatology (branch of Metaphysics),
57-.
Polarity (in Physics), 191. Porosity, 205. Positive (and Negative), 189 ; positive
elements in the sciences, 21. Possibility, 223. Properties (of a thing), 200. Proverbs quoted, 225. Psychology, rational, 57 ; classifications
in, 212. Pythagoras, 169.
Q.
Quality (special), 146 ; in general, 135,
158- Quantity (special), 159; in general,
159-172.
R.
Ratio (quantitative), 171. Reality, 147.
Reason, faculty of the Unconditioned, 78 ; theoretical, 73 ; practical, 93 ;
332
INDEX.
as a stage of logical truth, 125-132 ;
as a syllogism, 271. Reciprocity (Action and Re-action),
241. Reflection, as a mode of thought, 34 ;
distinguished from dialectic, 126. Reinhold, on a beginning of philosophy,
X3- Relation (in Essence), 209.
Repulsion, 156.
Eousseau, on generality, 252.
Rule (or Measure), 173.
S.
Scepticism, ancient, 44 ; opposed to dogmatism, 55 ; modern, 69 ; pro- posed as a beginning of philosophy, 121 ; its right function in thought, 129.
Schoolmen, their logic, 33 ; definition of God, 58 ; relation to metaphysics, 63 ; and to Christianity, 68.
Science, relation to philosophy, 12 ; opposed by religion, 215.
Sensation, described, 30, 32 ; Common Sense, 107.
Sextus Empiricus, 129.
Sin, original, 47.
Slavery, its abolition, 252.
Socrates, his method, 127.
Somewhat (a logical category), 146.
Sophists, held ideas to be adventitious, 112 ; opposed by Socrates, 127 > na" ture of Sophistry, 196.
Soul, object of psychology, 57 ; error alleged by Kant to exist in the de- scription of the soul, 80 ; the notion which is realised in the body, 310.
Speculation, as describing concrete and positive reason, 129-132 ; as opposed to dogmatism, 56.
Spinoza, charged with Pantheism and Atheism, 89, 236 ; definition of God, 119, 136, 287; on determination, 147 ; the imaginary infinite, 168 ; his method, 317, 319.
State, atomic theory of the, 157; mechanical, 293.
Subjective, 72 : Subjectivity, 232.
Substance (category of), 235.
Syllogism, 270 ; qualitative, 273 ; quantitative, 278 ; of reflection, 279 : of necessity, 282 ; universal form of things, 271; in mechanism, 293 ; and teleology, 300.
Synthetic Method, 316.
T.
Taste (defined by Kant), 96.
Teleology, 296.
Theology (natural), 60-62 ; criticised by Kant, 86.
Theorem (in method), 318.
Thing, 200; in-itself, 77, 199.
Thought, its meaning and activity popularly understood, 29-48 ; sub- jective, 33 ; objective, 48 ; distin- guished from figurate conception, I,
31-
Transcendent, 80 ; transcendental, 74.
Truth, the object of philosophy, I, 26 ; described, 43 ; distinguished from correctness, 263, 305 ; found in the Idea, 304.
U.
Unconditioned, the, 78.
Understanding, its finitude, 48 ; its action described, 122-125.
Universal, characteristic product of thought, 29 ; distinguished from par- ticular, 1 8 ; element in notion, 251.
Universality (and necessity), 69.
L'rtheil, 256.
Utility, a principle of science, 299.
V.
Volition (as a logical category), 321.
W.
Wesen, 180.
Whole (and Parts), 21 1.
Will, or practical reason. 93 ; how far it is free, 227 ; its action, 322.
World (object of Cosmology), 58 ; dis- cussed by Kant, 82.
Z.
Zeno, referred to, 145, 167.
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