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Ex Libris
I C. K. OGDEN

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THE LOGIC OF HEGEL

TRANSLATED FROM
THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCIENCES

WITH

PKOLEGOMENA

WILLIAM WALLACE, M.A.

FELLOW AND TUTOR OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD

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Annex

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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.

OXFORD,
September, 1873.

J k .

LJ kJU L.

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

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

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

B. — QUANTITY.

(a) Mere Quantity 159

(6) Quantum (How Much) . . . . ' . . . .163

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

B. — APPEARANCE 205

(a) The World of Appearance or Phenomenal World . . . 208

(b) Content and Form 208

C. — ACTUALITY 221

(a) Relation of Substantiality 235

(6) Relation of Causality 237

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

B.— THE OBJECT 288

(a) Mechanism 290

(6) Chemism 294

C.— THE IDEA . 304

(a) Life 310

(6) Cognition in General 313

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.

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 » '

&r*SUyS*

Greece into the melancholy mists of Western Europe. ' We / //

l*~JJ>^,

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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xxiv PROLEGOMENA. [in.

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.

/•> /

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.'

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.

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.

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

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

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,

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.

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

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

32 PRELIMINARY NOTION. [20.

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.

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,

59, 6o.] TOWARDS THE OBJECTIVE WORLD. 97

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

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

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.

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

9i-] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 147

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.

L 2

148 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [92.

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

93, 94-] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 149

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.

150 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [94.

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

95-] TUR DOCTRINE OF BEING. 15 L

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

152 THE DOCTRINE OF BEISG. [95.

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

96.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 153

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

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.

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,

154 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [96.

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

97-] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 155

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

156 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [98.

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

98.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 157

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,

158 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [98.

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.

99-] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 159

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

160 THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. [99.

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

ioo.] THE DOCTRINE OF BEING. 161

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

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.

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

1 1 5-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 183

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

196 THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. [121.

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.

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.

1 3 5-] THE DOCTRINE OF ESSENCE. 211

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.

3n3 3nnere bet 9ktut,
Dringt fern etfcfyaffner ®eifi,
3u gtutfUd) rcem fie nur
5)te aufjere €>d)aale rceift.1

1 Compare Goethe's indignant outcry — ' To Natural Science ' — vol. i . pt. 3 :

£>a$ f)ct' id) fed)jtg Satjre ftieberfcoten,

Itub fludje braitf, abet uetflofyten,—

SUleg ifl fte ntit einem SWalt.

The poem or dialogue is to this effect : " ' Into the inward parts of Nature (oh !
thou Philistine !) no created mind can reach.' (To me and my brethren only ye

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

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

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.

R 2

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

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

1 66.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 257

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

258 THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. [167.

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.

1 73-] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 263

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

174, 1 75-] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 265

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

176, 1 77-] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 267

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

178, 1 7 9.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 269

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.

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.

183.] THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 273

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

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

i84-J THE DOCTRINE OF THE NOTION. 275

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

T 2

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

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.

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.

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.

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-

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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, 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.

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.

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. „

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quality (special), 146 ; in general, 135,

158-
Quantity (special), 159; in general,

159-172.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Volition (as a logical category), 321.

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.

Zeno, referred to, 145, 167.

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Full text of "The logic of Hegel : translated from the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences with Prolegomena"

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