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ffiomtaj: GEORGE BELL AND SONS.STUDIES
IN THE
HEGELIAN DIALECTIC
BY
JOHN McTAGGART ELLIS McTAGGART, M.A.
FELLOW OF TRINIT'! COLLEGE IN CAMBRIDGE.
CAMBRIDGE:
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
1896
P
[All Rights reserved.]^4^77“
\
Cambribgr:
PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY,
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.1
TO
MISS FRANCES POWER COBBE
WITH MUCH GRATITUDE.PEEFACE.
HE first four chapters of this book are based on a
dissertation submitted at the Fellowship Examination
of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1891. The fourth and fifth
chapters, nearly in their present form, were published in Mind
(New Series, Nos. 1, 2, 8, and 10). A part of the second chapter
appeared in the Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale for
November 1893.
In quoting from the Smaller Logic and the Philosophy of
Spirit, I have generally availed myself of Professor Wallace’s
valuable translations.
I am most deeply indebted to Professor J. S. Mackenzie, of
University College, Cardiff, for his kindness in reading the
proof-sheets of these Studies, and in assisting me with many
most helpful suggestions and corrections.TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
THE GENERAL NATURE OF THE DIALECTIC.
1.	The logical connection	of categories..............................1
2.	The form of this connection is progressively modified .	.	2
3.	The dialectic is a process of reconstruction .	.	.3
4.	Which takes place by alternate production and removal of
contradictions................................................ 4
5.	An objection to this raised by Hartmann ....	5
6.	In what sense the dialectic may be said to be objective .	6
7.	The imperfection of finite things does not involve, for Hegel,
the objective reality of the dialectic as a process	.	.	7
8.	The dialectic does not violate the law of contradiction .	8
9.	The importance of the idea of negation is only secondary .	10
10.	The relation of the dialectic to ordinary thought .	.	.11
11.	Hartmann’s criticisms of this relation	....	12
12.	The same continued.............................................. 14
13.	The dialectic must prove its validity to the Understanding .	14
14.	The relation of the dialectic to experience ....	16
15.	The relation of the dialectic to experience further defined .	17
16.	The basis upon which the dialectic works is the nature of
experience....................................................19
17.	The postulate which it assumes is the validity of the category
of Being......................................................20
18.	And the denial of this postulate is contradictory ...	21
19. The argument of the dialectic is transcendental .	.	.21
20.	The epistemological result of the dialectic ....	22
21.	The negative effects of	this..................................22
22.	Its positive effects.............................................23
23.	We are not entitled to	consider	pure thought as independent
of experience.................................................24
24.	The relation of Hegel’s epistemology to Kant’s ...	25TABLE OF CONTENTS.
viii
PAGE
25.	The ontological result of the dialectic—ambiguity	of the phrase	26
26.	Hegel’s deduction of Nature and Spirit from the Logic	.	27
27.	This deduction does not treat pure thought as independent
of experience...........................................28
28.	The importance of the ontological result of the	dialectic	.	29
29.	Comparison of Hegel with his immediate predecessors in
philosophy.............................................30
CHAPTER II.
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE DIALECTIC.
30.	Introductory..............................................32
A.
31.	Trendelenburg’s view that the dialectic is per se sterile, and
gains its advance by illegitimate appeals to experience .	32
32.	The errors involved in this view..........................33
33-43. Passages from the Encyclopaedia bearing on this view .	35
44.	The true relation of the dialectic to experience is not made
clear by Hegel.........................................48
45.	Reasons for this..........................................49
46.	Hegel’s assertion that the dialectic is without presuppo-
sition ......................................................50
B.
47.	The relation of the Absolute Idea to experience	...	51
48.	The Absolute Idea transcends contingency,	but	not	im-
mediacy .....................................................52
49.	Hegel’s definition of the Absolute Idea...................54
C.
50.	Professor Seth’s view as to the ontological claims of the
dialectic..............................................55
51.	Hegel’s description of the transition from Logic to Nature
and Spirit.............................................55
52. The interpretation placed on this by Professor Seth .	.	57
53.	Who confuses two charges—that Hegel	tried	to	synthetically
deduce Nature and Spirit from thought, and that he tried
to deduce Existence from Essence.......................58
54.	But the first of these does not involve the second .	.	60
55. Hegel would have been wrong in trying to do the first	.	61
56.	But the arguments in support of the theory that he did try
are untenable..........................................62TABLE OF CONTENTS.	ix
PAGE
57.	And Hegel says himself that his deduction is of a different
nature.........................................64
58. There is a deduction, but it is not purely synthetic .	.	65
59. The treatment of Contingency in the Logic as bearing on
this question..................................65
60.	The second charge—deducing Existence from Essence. We
cannot do this.................................67
61.	But if the deduction of Nature and Spirit is purely analytic,
this second charge must fall to the ground ...	68
62.	The meaning of the phrase “absolute” as used by Hegel of
his own philosophy.............................69
63.	Hegel’s treatment of Kant’s objections to the ontological
argument.......................................69
64.	It depends on the different definitions of God adopted by
Hegel and Kant.................................71
65.	Professor Seth’s assertion that Hegel depreciates the individual 72
66.	And that his Absolute Spirit is a mere abstraction	.	.	74
CHAPTER III.
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
67.	Introductory......................................76
A.
68.	Mr Balfour’s criticism of transcendental arguments	.	.	77
69.	Which rests on a confusion of the different senses in which
we may be said to be conscious of an element in experience	78
70.	The same subject continued........................80
71.	The justification of the Reason to the Understanding. The
longing for the Absolute is not merely ethical or emotional 80
72.	The Understanding demands a complete	explanation of the
universe.......................................82
73.	Which it cannot itself supply.....................83
74.	Since many of its categories lead to contradictions	.	.	84
75.	And this must lead to scepticism ; not, as Hartmann suggests,
to separation between thought and being	....	85
76.	The Reason can supply such an explanation	....	86
77.	Which the Understanding must therefore	accept ...	87
78.	The Understanding and the Reason are not separate and
unconnected faculties..........................88
B.
79.	We are justified in assuming the validity of the category
of Beiug as a starting-point..................90X
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
80.	As to the process—first from a synthesis to the new thesis 91
81.	The process from thesis to antithesis. Neither sterile nor
empirical................................................91
82.	The consideration of the categories in detail is impossible
here ...........	93
83.	The process from thesis and antithesis to synthesis .	.	94
84.	Hartmann’s objection to the possibility of this ...	94
85.	Trendelenburg’s objection that the dialectic is merely a
history of subjective knowledge .....	96
86.	But, although it only retraces abstractions, it gives new
knowledge ...	 97
87.	And	reverses the order of explanation current in	science .	98
88.	Nor	is it merely a process of subjective thought	.	.	99
89.	The dialectic does not displace the finite sciences, but does
not depend on them......................................100
90.	Though an advanced state of the finite sciences may be an
aid in discovering the dialectic ......	102
91.	The idea of Motion—according to Trendelenburg introduced
empirically in the category of Becoming ....	103
92.	But	in reality it is deducible, by pure thought .	.	.	104
93.	Nor	does Becoming specially involve time or space	.	.	106
94.	Nor is it, if taken correctly, much more concrete than
Being ..........	108
C.
95.	The ontological validity of the dialectic. The denial of the
thing-in-itself is justifiable ...	.	.	108
96.	Mr Schiller’s objection that thought may be inadequate to
reality.................................................110
97.	Unjustifiable, since reality itself can only be known to us
by thought..............................................Ill
98.	Transition from Logic to Nature and Spirit .	.	113
99.	Thought can never be self-subsistent, but must have a given
datum.	.	........	114
100.	The transition might have been made differently. Im-
portance of this .	.	.	.	.	.	.115
101.	Lotze’s criticism of “ the identity of Thought and Being.1'
Ambiguity of this phrase................................116
102.	Lotze seems to take it as meaning that Being is identical
with what is thought about Being........................117
103. In this sense Hegel did not hold the doctrine .	.	.	118
104.	He held it in the sense that Being is identical with what
it thinks:—perhaps he was mistaken .	.	.	.118
105.	The essence of Idealism is the assertion that Being is
rational, not that it is Thought........................119TABLE OF CONTENTS.	xi
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD
PAGE
106.	Introductory.............................................121
A.
107.	Hegel’s own expressions on this subject .	.	.	.121
108.	As the process continues the categories become less stable
and self-contained....................................123
109.	And the antithesis marks an advance	from the	thesis	.	124
110.	This second change is connected with the first .	.	.	125
111.	The first is explicitly mentioned by Hegel. The second is
not...................................................126
112.	The change seems to be continuous from category to
category..............................................127
113.	Such a change in the method of the dialectic is antecedently
probable..............................................129
114.	And it is antecedently probable that it will be	continuous	131
115.	The change consists in combining the search for complete-
ness and the search for harmony, which were originally'
separate stages .	  131
116.	Hence the change does not destroy the validity of the
process...............................................133
117.	The subordinate importance of negation in the dialectic is
thus made still clearer than before...................134
B.
118.	Hegel asserts that the dialectic process is an adequate
analysis of the Absolute Idea.........................135
119.	But this we now see reasons to doubt ....	136
120.	Hegel’s own premises lead us, on this point, to reject his
conclusion............................................137
121.	The dialectic thus becomes, in a sense, subjective .	.	139
122.	Owing to an inevitable characteristic of our thought.	.	140
123.	It does not give a fully adequate account of its own nature .	141
124.	This does not diminish its power of	demonstrating that
the Absolute Idea alone is completely valid of reality	.	143
125.	Nor of determining the relative truth of the different
categories............................................144
126.	Nor are we left ignorant of the nature of the Absolute Idea .	145
127.	The essential and unessential elements in the process .	146
128.	The dialectic process may be looked on as primarily
continuous. This is confirmed by the inequality of the
subdivisions of the Logic..........................147TABLE OF CONTENTS.
xii
PAGE
129.	And by the possibility of discovering direct dialectic con-
nection between divisions which are not the lowest .	148
130.	The effect of this with regard to any error in the detail
of the dialectic.................................149
C.
131.	The triad of Logic, Nature, and Spirit ....	150
132.	This transition is made by a triad of the Notion-type .	151
133.	But it could be made by a triad of the Being-type .	.	152
134.	This confirms the view taken above of the change of method	154
135.	The alternative adopted by Hegel was on the whole the best	154
136.	But the other has some advantages...................155
137.	Which Hegel’s does not share........................156
138.	The same continued..................................157
139.	Conclusion .	.	...........................158
CHAPTER V.
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
A.
140.	Difficulties in the way of taking the development of the
dialectic in time as ultimately	real.............159
141.	Such a process in time must be finite in length .	.	160
142.	And the question would arise : Why did it begin where
it did ?.........................................161
143.	Which cannot be avoided by referring it to a timeless basis .	163
144.	Nor by the suggestion that time only begins when change
begins. ..........	164
145.	Nor by arguing that the idea of finite time cannot be
contradictory, since that of infinite time is impossible .	165
146.	We must rather suppose that the idea of time is not
ultimate ..........	166
147.	The lower stages of the dialectic cannot exist by themselves,
since they are contradictory.....................167
148.	And we saw above that the dialectic must be a process of
reconstruction .	.	...........................168
149.	Hegel’s own language is against the theory of development
in time..........................................169
B.
150.	But the rejection of this theory involves that the universe
is now perfect...................................172
151.	Which involves us again in serious difficulties .	.	.	173
152.	Hegel’s answer that evil is a delusion is unsatisfactory .	173TABLE	OF	CONTENTS.	xiii
FADE
153.	Since on his theory a delusion could never be completely
rational.....................................................175
154.	The suggestion that the universe is perfect sub specie
aeternitatis ..........	175
155.	It is more effective than Hegel’s own answer .	.	.177
156.	And must not be confounded with	the	theory that	im-
perfections of the parts disappear in the whole .	.	177
157.	But it was not Hegel’s own view—nor will it solve the
difficulty...................................................179
158.	Which seems to be insoluble................................180
159.	And naturally so, since it is, in fact, the problem of the
origin of evil.........................................181
C.
160.	Can any other theory extricate us from the difficulties
which are involved in the assertion that the universe is
eternally perfect?.................................182
161.	Not the theory that it is fundamentally irrational .	.	184
162.	An absolute dualism is impossible..........................184
163.	And, if possible, would not solve the difficulty, supposing
one side predominated..................................186
164. Or supposing both were exactly balanced .	.	.	.187
165.	We should succeed no better with the theory that reality
is totally indifferent to reason.......................188
166.	Or indifferent to the higher categories ....	188
167.	And to take refuge in scepticism proves equally impossible .	189
168.	Our difficulty does not arise from a reductio ad absurdum	190
169.	And we have no more right to reject the dialectic than
we have to reject the arguments against it	.	.	191
170.	We may hope for a synthesis of the opposed positions .	192
171.	Since they are opposed as contraries, not as contradictories	193
172.	But we do not know of what nature such a synthesis could
be, nor have we any positive evidence	for	its existence.	195
173.	We should have such evidence if we knew that the detail
of the dialectic were correct throughout .	.	.	.195
174.	Conclusion.................................................196
175-178. Note on Mr Schiller’s paper “The Metaphysics of the
Time-Process"..........................................197XIV
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
A.
PAGE
179.	Hegel makes the highest stage in the nature of Spirit to
he Philosophy .....................................203
180.	His account of this...............................204
181.	Philosophy must be considered to be merely a state of
knowledge.............................. 205
182.	Philosophy, as we have it at present, is clearly not adequate
for this position.	.	.......................206
183.	And llcgcl never attempted to deduce facts from the
nature of pure thought..........................207
184.	Xor will it suffice to make philosophy end by proving the
necessity of philosophy.........................208
185.	Taking a wider meaning of philosophy—we shall never be
able to dispense with immediate data .	.	209
180 Hut a perfect system of knowledge is conceivable, in which
contingency vanishes..................................210
187.	Such an ideal is remote, but not contradictory .	.	.	212
I hm	[t would leave no question unanswered, except Why	is	the
universe as a whole what it is?—which is an unmeaning
question	.	 213
B.
189.	Even such knowledge, however, is not a complete expression
of Spirit	.	  214
190.	For volition	is not reducible to knowledge ....	215
191.	Though both of them may perhaps be synthesised in a
higher unity..........................................216
192.	Xor are pleasure and pain reducible to knowledge	.	.	217
193.	Though, like volition, they are inseparable from it	.	.	217
194.	But can knowledge, as such, be even part of the true
nature of Spirit I ..	.......................218
195.	Tt	postulates complete unity	and	differentiation	between
subject and object ........	218
196.	The This in knowledge ........	219
197.	1\ hich is essential to knowledge, and which knowledge
must always regard as alien	....	221
198.	The This piovents knowledge reaching complete unity and
differentiationTABLE	OF	CONTENTS.	XV
PAGE
199.	Thus knowledge can never express quite adequately the
harmony of the universe...............................223
200.	Nor does the possibility of self-knowledge get over the
difficulty............................................223
201.	This defect is the reason why we cannot cease to ask,
Why is the universe as a whole what it is ?—though
we know the question	to	be	unmeaning ....	224
202.	We find some support for this view in the Logic .	.	226
203.	Since philosophy there comes under the subordinate category
of Cognition..........................................227
204.	Hegel’s treatment of the last stages of the Philosophy of
Spirit is imperfect...................................228
205.	Philosophy should rather be part of the antithesis—not
the synthesis .	.	...	229
206.	Conclusion .	......	231
CHAPTER VII.
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
207.	Introductory ....	.	.	.	.	233
208.	The application of the dialectic to determine the nature of
ultimate reality .........	234
209.	The practical importance of this .	...	235
210.	The application of the dialectic to the interpretation of the
facts round us........................................236
211.	This is the part of Hegel’s system which is now most generally
received..............................................238
212.	But it seems doubtful if it is valid.....................238
213.	The first difficulty—we cannot recognise theses, antitheses,
or syntheses, except in relation to one another .	.	239
214.	Thus we shall require points independently fixed to begin
from or end at. We have such in the Logic.	.	.	240
215.	But not in the applications of the Logic ....	241
216.	The terms of which, till seen in relation to each other,
only differ quantitatively......................... .	241
217.	The initial point of the Philosophy of Nature, and the final
point of the Philosophy of Spirit, are exceptions .	.	242
218.	Attempts to fix the extreme points in the Philosophies of
Nature, Spirit, and Religion,.........................243
219.	in the History of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Law .	244
220.	and in the Philosophy of History. A criticism by Lotze .	245
221.	The reason of the exceptions mentioned in Section 217	.	246TABLE OF CONTENTS.
xvi
PAGE
222.	The	second difficulty. In	Religion, History, Law,	and
Philosophy, the dialectic process is affected by external
influences.............................................248
223.	And,	in another manner, in	Nature and Spirit . .	.	249
224.	We know that there is a dialectic process in facts, but are
unable to trace it	.......	250
225.	The	third dificvlty. The	extent and intricacy of	the
subject-matter.........................................251
226.	These difficulties can be avoided by taking abstract quali-
ties, rather than actual facts, as the terms of our dia-
lectic ...........	252
227.	As in Hegel’s treatment	of Innocence, Sin, and Virtue .	254
228.	Or of the conception of	Dying to	live....................255
229.	But the main practical interest of philosophy lies in up-
holding the abstract assertion that reality is rational and
righteous..............................................255
230.	For this cannot be done at	all, except by philosophy	.	256
231.	Nor is this view unduly	abstract.........................258CHAPTER I.
THE GENERAL NATURE OF THE DIALECTIC.
1. Hegel’s primary object in his dialectic is to establish
the existence of a logical connection between the various
categories which are involved in the constitution of ex-
perience. He teaches that this connection is of such a kind
that any category, if scrutinised with sufficient care and
attention, is found to lead on to another, and to involve it,,
in such a manner that an attempt to use the first of any subject
while we refuse to use the second of the same subject results
in a contradiction. The category thus reached leads on in a
similar way to a third, and the process continues until at last
we reach the goal of the dialectic in a category which betrays
no instability.
If we examine the process in more detail, we shall find that
it advances, not directly, but by moving from side to side, like
a ship tacking against an unfavourable wind. The simplest
and best known form of this advance, as it is to be found in
the earlier transitions of the logic, is as follows. The exami-
nation of a certain category leads us to the conclusion that, if
we predicate it of any subject, we are compelled by consistency
to predicate of the same subject the logical contrary of that
category. This brings us to an absurdity, since the predication
of two contrary attributes of the same thing at the same time
violates the law of contradiction. On examining the two
contrary predicates further, they are seen to be capable of
reconciliation in a higher category, which combines the con-
tents of both of them, not merely placed side by side, but
absorbed into a wider idea, as moments or aspects of which
they can exist without contradiction.
M. H.
12
THE GENERAL NATURE
This idea of the synthesis of opposites is perhaps the most
characteristic in the whole of Hegel’s system. It is certainly
one of the most difficult to explain. Indeed the only way of
grasping what Hegel meant by it is to observe in detail how he
uses it, and in what manner the lower categories are partly
altered and partly preserved in the higher one, so that, while
their opposition vanishes, the significance of both is neverthe-
less to be found in the unity which follows.
Since in this way, and in this way only so far as we can see,
two contrary categories can be simultaneously true of a subject,
and since we must hold these two to be simultaneously true, we
arrive at the conclusion that whenever we use the first category
we shall be forced on to use the third, since by it alone can the
contradictions be removed, in which we should otherwise be
involved. This third category, however, when it in its turn is
viewed as a single unity, similarly discloses that its predication
involves that of its contrary, and the Thesis and Antithesis
thus opposed have again to be resolved in a Synthesis. Nor
can we rest anywhere in this alternate production and re-
moval of contradictions until we reach the end of the ladder
of categories. It begins with the category of Pure Being, the
simplest idea of the human mind. It ends with the category
which Hegel declares to be the highest—the Idea which
recognises itself in all things.
2. It must be remarked that the type of transition, which
we have just sketched, is one which is modified as the dialectic
advances. It is only natural, in a system in which matter and
form are so closely connected, that the gradual changes of the
matter, which forms the content of the system, should react
on the nature of the movement by which the changes take
place. Even when we deal with physical action and reaction
we find this true. All tools are affected, each time they are
used, so as to change, more or less, their manner of working
in the future. It is not surprising, therefore, that so delicate
a tool as that which is used by thought should not remain
unchanged among changing materials.
“ The abstract form of the continuation or advance ” says
Hegel “ is, in Being, an other (or antithesis) and transition
into another; in the Essence, showing or reflection in itsOF THE DIALECTIC.
3
opposite; in the Notion, the distinction of the individual
from the universality, which continues itself as such into, and
is as an identity with, what is distinguished from it1.” This
indicates a gradual increase in the directness of the advance,
and a diminished importance of the movement from contrary
to contrary. But this point, which Hegel leaves undeveloped,
will require further consideration2.
3. The ground of the necessity which the dialectic process
claims cannot, it is evident, lie merely in the category from
which we start. For in that case the conclusion of the process
could, if it were valid, have no greater content than was
contained in the starting point. All that can be done with
a single premise is to analyse it, and the mere analysis of
an idea could never lead us necessarily onwards to. any other
idea incompatible with it, and therefore could never lead us
to its contrary. But the dialectic claims to proceed from the
lower to the higher, and it claims to add to our knowledge, and
not merely to expound it. At the same time it asserts that
no premise other than the validity of the lower category is
requisite to enable us to affirm the validity of the higher.
The solution of this difficulty, which has been the ground of
many attacks on Hegel, lies in the fact that the dialectic must
be looked on as a process, not of construction but of recon-
struction. If the lower categories lead on to the higher, and
these to the highest, the reason is that the lower categories
have no independent existence, but are only abstractions from
the highest. It is this alone which is independent and real.
In it all one-sidedness has been destroyed by the successive
reconciliation of opposites. It is thus the completely concrete,
and for Hegel the real is always the concrete. Moreover,
according to Hegel, the real is always the completely rational.
(“The consummation of the infinite aim...consists merely in
removing the illusion which makes it seem as yet unac-
complished3.”) Now no category except the highest can be
completely rational, since every lower one involves its contrary.
* The Absolute Idea is present to us in all reality, in all the
phenomena of experience, and in our own selves. Everywhere
1 Encyclopaedia, Section 240.	2 Chap. iv.
3 Enc. Section 212, lecture note.
1—24
THE GENERAL NATURE
it is the soul of all reality. But although it is always present
to us, it is not always explicitly present. In the content of
consciousness it is present implicitly. But we do not always
attempt to unravel that content, nor are our attempts always
successful. Very often all that is explicitly before our minds is
some finite and incomplete category. When this is so, the
dialectic process can begin, and indeed must begin, if we are
sufficiently acute and attentive,—because the ideal which is
latent in the nature of all experience, and of the mind itself,
forbids us to rest content with the inadequate category. The
incomplete reality before the mind is inevitably measured
against the complete reality of the mind itself, and it is in
this process that it betrays its incompleteness, and demands its
contrary to supplement its one-sidedness. " Before the mind
there is a single conception, but the whole mind itself, which
does not appear, engages in the process, operates on the datum,
and produces the result1.”
4. The dialectic process is not a mere addition to the
conception before us of one casually selected moment after
another, but obeys a definite law. The reason of this is that
at any point the finite category explicitly before us stands in a
definite relation to the complete and absolute idea which is
implicit in our consciousness. Any category, except the most
abstract of all, can be analysed, according to Hegel, into two
others, which in the unity of the higher truth were reconciled,
but which, when separated, stand in opposition to each other as
contraries. If abstraction consists in this separation, then, when
we are using the most abstract of the categories, we fall short
of the truth, because one side of the completely concrete truth
has been taken in abstraction, and from that relatively concrete
truth again one side has been abstracted, and so on, until the
greatest abstraction possible has been reached. It must there-
fore cause unrest in the mind which implicitly contains the
concrete whole from which it was abstracted. And through
this unrest the imperfection will be removed in the manner
described above, that is, by affirming, in the first place, that
contrary category, the removal of which had been the last stage
' Bradley’s Lo<jic, Book hi. Part I. Chap. 2, Section 20.OF THE DIALECTIC.
5
of the abstraction, then by restoring the whole in which those
two opposites had been reconciled, and so on.
Thus the first and deepest cause of the dialectic movement
is the instability of all finite categories, due to their imperfect
nature. The immediate result of this instability is the pro-
duction of contradictions. For, as we have already seen, since
the imperfect category endeavours to return to the more
concrete unity of which it is one side, it is found to involve
the other side of that unity, which is its own contrary. And,
again, to the existence of the contradiction we owe the advance
of the dialectic. For it is the contradiction involved in the
impossibility of predicating a category without predicating its
opposite which causes us to abandon that category as inade-
quate. We are driven on first to its antithesis. And when we
find that this involves the predication of the thesis, as much as
this latter had involved the predication of the antithesis, the
impossibility of escaping from contradictions in either extreme
drives us to remove them by combining both extremes in a
synthesis which transcends them.
5. It has been asserted that Hegel sometimes declares the
contradictions to be the cause of the dialectic movement,
and sometimes to be the effect of that movement. This is
maintained by Hartmann1. No doubt the contradictions are
considered as the immediate cause of the movement. But the
only evidence which Hartmann gives for supposing that they
are also held to be the effect, is a quotation from the second
volume of the Logic. In this, speaking of that finite activity
of thought which he calls Vorstellung, Hegel says that it has
the contradictions as part of its content, but is not conscious of
this, because it does not contain “ das Uebergehen, welches das
Wesentliche ist, und den Widerspruch enthalt2.” Now all that
this implies seems to be that the contradictions first become
manifest in the movement, which is not at all identical with
the assertion that they are caused by it, and is quite compatible
with the counter-assertion that it is caused by them.
Moreover, Hartmann also gives the same account of the
origin of the contradictions which I have suggested above. He
says “Der (im Hegel’schen Geiste) tiefer liegende Grund der
1 Ueber die dialektische Methode, B. n. 3.	2 Logic, Vol. ii. p. 71.6
THE GENERAL NATURE )
Erscheinung ist aber die Fliissigkeit des Begriffes selbst1.”
Fliissigkeit is certainly not equivalent to movement, and may
fairly be translated instability. There is then no inconsistency.
It is quite possible that the instability of the notion may be
the cause of the contradictions, and that the contradictions
again may be the cause of the actual motion. Hartmann does
not, apparently, see that there is any change in his position
when he gives first instability and then motion as the cause of
the contradictions, and it is this confusion on his own part
which causes him to accuse Hegel of inconsistency.
He endeavours to account for Hegel’s supposed error by
saying that the contradictions were given as the cause of the
dialectic movement when Hegel desired to show the subjective
action of the individual mind, while the dialectic movement
was given as the cause of the contradictions when he wished to
represent the process as objective. If, as I have endeavoured
to show, there is no reason for supposing that Hegel ever did
hold the dialectic movement to be the cause of the contra-
dictions, there will be no further necessity for this theory.
But it may be well to remark that it involves a false conception
of the meaning in which it is possible to apply the term
objective to the dialectic at all.
6. There is a sense of the word objective in which it may
be correctly said that the dependence of the contradictions
on the instability of the notion is more objective than the
dependence of the dialectic movement on the contradictions.
For the former is present in all thought, which is not the case
with the latter. A contradiction can be said to be present in
thought, when it is implied in it, even though it is not clearly
seen. But it can only cause the dialectic movement, when it is
clearly seen. Whenever a finite category is used it is abstract,
and consequently unstable, and, implicitly at least, involves its
contrary, though this may not be perceived, and, indeed, in
ordinary thought is not perceived. On the other hand, the
actual dialectic movement does not take place whenever a
category is used, for in that case finite thought would not exist
at all. It is only when the contradictions are perceived, when
they are recognised as incompatible, in their unreconciled form,
1 Op. cit. B. n. 3.OF THE DIALECTIC.	7
with truth, and when the synthesis which can reconcile them
has been discovered, that the dialectic process is before us.
The contradiction has therefore more objectivity, in one sense
of the word, because it is more inevitable and less dependent
on particular and contingent circumstances. But we are not
entitled to draw the sort of distinction between them which
Hartmann makes, and to say that while the one is only an
action of the thinking subject, the other is based on the nature
of things independently of the subject who thinks them. Both
relations are objective in the sense that they are universal, and
have validity as a description of the nature of reality. Neither
is objective in the sense that it takes place otherwise than in
thought. We shall have to consider this point in detail later1:
at present we can only say that, though the dialectic process is
a valid description of reality, reality itself is not, in its truest
nature, a process but a stable and timeless state. Hegel says
indeed that reason is to be found in actual existence, but it is
reason in its complete and concrete shape, under the highest and
absolute form of the notion, and not travelling up from category
to category. Till the highest is reached, all the results are
expressly termed abstract, and do not, therefore, come up to the
level of reality. Moreover they contain unsynthesised contra-
dictions, and that which is contradictory, though it may have
a certain relative truth, can never exist independently, as would
be the case if it existed in the world of fact. The dialectic
movement is indeed a guide to that world, since the highest
category, under which alone reality can be construed, contains
all the lower categories as moments, but the gradual passage
from one stage of the notion to another, during which the highest
yet reached is for the moment regarded as independent and
substantial, is an inadequate expression of the truth.
7. This is not incompatible with the admission that various
isolated phenomena, considered as phenomena and as isolated,
are imperfect, for in considering them in this way we do not
consider them as they really are. Hegel speaks of the untruth
of an external object as consisting in the disagreement between
the objective notion, and the object2. From this it might be
inferred that even in the world of real objects there existed
1 Chap. v.	3 Enc. Section 24, lecture note. I8
THE GENERAL NATURE
imperfections and contradictions. But, on looking more closely,
we see that the imperfection and contradiction are really, ac-
cording to Hegel, due only to our manner of contemplating the
object. A particular thing may or may not correspond to the
notion. But the universe is not merely an aggregation of
particular things, but a system in which they are connected,
and a thing which in itself is imperfect and irrational may be a
part of a perfect and rational universe. Its imperfection was
artificial, caused by our regarding it, in an artificial and unreal
abstraction, as if it could exist apart from other things.
A diseased body, for example, is in an untrue state, if we
merely regard it by itself, since it is obviously failing to fulfil
the ideal of a body. But if we look at it in connection with
the intellectual and spiritual life of its occupant, the bodily
imperfection might in some cases be seen, without going
further, to be a part in a rational whole. And, taking the
universe as a whole, Hegel declares “ God alone exhibits a real
agreement of the notion and the reality. All finite things
involve an untruth.” God, however, is held by Hegel to be
the reality which underlies all finite things. It is therefore
only when looked at as finite that they involve an untruth.
Looked at sub specie Dei they are true. The untruth is
therefore in our manner of apprehending them only. It would
indeed, as Hartmann remarks, be senseless tautology for Hegel
to talk of the objective truth of the world. But this Hegel
does not do. It is in the nature of the world as a whole that
it must be objectively true1. But isolated fragments of the
world, just because they are isolated, cannot fully agree with
the notion, and may or may not agree with a particular aspect
of it. According as they do or do not do this Hegel calls them
true or false.
Hegel’s theory that the world as a whole must be objectively
true, so rational, and therefore, as he would continue, perfect.,
comes no doubt in rather rude contact with some of the facts
of life. The consideration of this must for the present be
deferred2.
8. We have seen that the motive power of the dialectic lies
in the relation of the abstract idea explicitly before the mind to
1 Cp. Eiic. Section 212, quoted on p. 3 above.	- Chap. v.OF THE DIALECTIC.
9
the concrete idea implicitly before it in all experience and all
consciousness. This will enable us to determine the relation in
which the ideas of contradiction and negation stand to the
dialectic.
It is sometimes supposed that the Hegelian logic rests on a
defiance of the law of contradiction. That law says that what-
ever is A can never at the same time be not-A. But the
dialectic asserts that, when A is any category, except the
Absolute Idea, whatever is A may be, and indeed must be,
not-A also. Now if the law of contradiction is rejected, argu-
ment becomes impossible. It is impossible to refute any
proposition without the help of this law. The refutation
can only take place by the establishment of another proposition
incompatible with the first. But if we are to regard the simul-
taneous assertion of two contradictories, not as a mark of error,
but as an indication of truth, we shall find it impossible to
disprove any proposition at all. Nothing, however, can ever
claim to be considered as true, which could never be refuted,
even if it were false. And indeed it is impossible, as Hegel
himself has pointed out to us, even to assert anything without
involving the law of contradiction, for every positive assertion
has meaning only in so far as it is defined, and therefore nega-
tive. If the statement All men are mortal, for example, did
not exclude the statement Some men are immortal, it would be
meaningless. And it only excludes it by virtue of the law of
contradiction. If then the dialectic rejected the law of contra-
diction, it would reduce itself to an absurdity, by rendering all
argument, and even all assertion, unmeaning.
The dialectic, however, does not reject that law. An un-
resolved contradiction is, for Hegel as for every one else, a sign
of error. The relation of the thesis and antithesis derives its
whole meaning from the synthesis, which follows them, and
in which the contradiction ceases to exist as such. “ Contradic-
tion is not the end of the matter, but cancels itself1.” An
unreconciled predication of two contrary categories, for instance
Being and not-Being, of the same thing, would lead in the
dialectic, as it would lead elsewhere, to scepticism, if it was not
for the reconciliation in Becoming. The synthesis alone has
1 Enc. Section 119, lecture note.10
THE GENERAL NATURE
reality, and its elements derive such importance as they have
from being, in so far as their truth goes, members of a unity in
which their opposition is overcome.
In fact, so far is the dialectic from denying the law of contra-
diction, that it is especially based on it. The contradictions
are the cause of the dialectic process. But they can only be
this if they are received as marks of error. We are obliged to
say that we find the truth of Being and not-Being in Becoming,
and in Becoming only, because, if we endeavour to take them
in their independence, and not as synthesised, we find an
unreconciled contradiction. But why should we not find an
unreconciled contradiction and acquiesce in it without going
further, except for the law that two contradictory propositions
about the same subject are a sign of error? Truth consists, not
of contradictions, but of moments which, if separated, would be
contradictions, but which in their synthesis are reconciled and
consistent.
9. It follows also from this view of the paramount impor-
tance of the synthesis in the dialectic process that the place of
negation in that process is only secondary. The really funda-
mental aspect of the dialectic is not the tendency of the finite
category to negate itself but to complete itself. Since the
various relatively perfect and concrete categories are, according
to Hegel, made up each of two moments or aspects which stand
to one another in the relation of contrary ideas, it follows that
one characteristic of the process will be the passage from an
idea to its contrary. But this is not due, as has occasionally
been supposed, to an inherent tendency in all finite categories
to affirm their own negation as such. It is due to their inherent
tendency to affirm their own complement. It is indeed, accord-
ing to Hegel, no empirical and contingent fact, but an absolute
and necessary law, that their complement is in some degree their
negation. But the one category passes into the other, because
the second completes the meaning of the first, not because it
denies it.
This, however, is one of the points at which the difficulty,
always great, of distinguishing what Hegel did say from that
which he ought in consistency to have said becomes almost
insuperable. It may safely be asserted that the motive forceOF THE DIALECTIC.
11
of the dialectic was clearly held by him to rest in the implicit
presence in us of its goal. This is admitted by his opponents as
well as his supporters. That he did to some extent recognise
the consequence of this—the subordinate importance which it
assigned to the idea of negation—seems also probable, especially
when we consider the passage quoted above1, in which the
element of negation appears to enter into the dialectic process
with very different degrees of prominence in the three stages of
which that process consists. On the other hand, the absence of
any detailed exposition of a principle so fundamental as that
of the gradually decreasing share taken by negation in the
dialectic, and the failure to follow out all its consequences, seem
to indicate that he had either not clearly realised it, or had not
perceived its full importance. But to this point it will be
necessary to return.
10. What relation, we must now enquire, exists between
thought as engaged in the dialectic process, and thought as
engaged in the ordinary affairs of life ? In these latter we
continually employ the more abstract categories, which, accord-
ing to Hegel, are the more imperfect, as if they were satisfactory
and ultimate determinations of thought. So far as we do this
we must contrive to arrest for the time the dialectic movement.
While a category is undergoing the changes and transformations
in which that movement consists, it is as unfit to be used as an
instrument of thought, as an expanding rod would be for a yard
measure. We may observe, and even argue about, the growth
of the idea, as we may observe the expansion of a rod under
heat, but the argument must be conducted with stable ideas, as
the observation must be made with measures of unaltering size.
For if, for example, a notion, when employed as a middle term,
is capable of changing its meaning between the major and the
minor premises, it renders the whole syllogism invalid. And all
reasoning depends on the assumption that a term can be
trusted to retain the same meaning on different occasions.
Otherwise, any inference would be impossible, since all connec-
tion between propositions would be destroyed.
There are two ways in which we may treat the categories.
The first is, in the language of Hegel, the function of the
1 Enc. Section 240, quoted on p. 2 above.12
THE GENERAL NATURE
Reason—to perform, namely, the dialectic process, and when
that culminates in the highest category, which alone is without
contradiction, to construe the world by its means. As this
category has no contradictions in it, it is stable and can be
used without any fear of its transforming itself under our hands.
The second function is that of the Understanding, whose
characteristic it is to treat abstractions as if they were in-
dependent realities. They are thus forced into an artificial
stability and permanence, and can be used for the work of
ordinary thought. Of course the attempt to use an imperfect
and unbalanced category as if it were perfect and self-subsistent
leads to errors and contradictions—it is just these errors and
contradictions which are the proof that the category is im-
perfect. But for many purposes the limit of error is so small,
that the work of the Understanding possesses practical use
and validity. If we take an arc three feet long of the cir-
cumference of a circle a mile in diameter, it will be curved, and
will show itself to be so, if examined with sufficient accuracy.
But in practice it would often produce no inconvenience to
treat it as a straight line. So, if an attempt is made to explain
experience exclusively by the category, for example, of causality,
it will be found, if the matter is considered with enough care,
that any explanation, in which no higher category is employed,
involves a contradiction1. Nevertheless, for many of the every-
day occurrences on which we exercise our thoughts, an explana-
tion by the Understanding, by means of the category of causality
only, will be found to rationalise the event sufficiently for the
needs of the moment.
11. To this explanation an objection has been raised by
Hartmann^ He “emphatically denies" our power to arrest the
progress of the Notion in this manner. It might, he admits, be
possible to do so, if the Notion were changed by us, but it is
represented as changing itself. The human thinker is thus only
“the fifth wheel to the cart,” and quite unable to arrest a process
which is entirely independent of him.
Now in one sense of the words it is perfectly true, that, if
the Notion changes at all, the change is caused by its own
nature, and not by us. If the arguments of the dialectic are
1 Enc. Sections 153, 154.	2 Op. cit. B. ii. 6.OF THE DIALECTIC.
13
true, they must appeal with irresistible force to every one who
looks into the question with sufficient ability and attention, and
thus the process may be said to be due to the Notion, and not
to the thinker. But this is no more than may be said of every
argument. If it is valid, it is not in the power of any man who
has examined it, to deny its validity. But when there is no
logical alternative there may be a psychological one. No intelli-
gent man, who carefully examines the proofs, can doubt that
the earth goes round the sun. But any person who will not
examine them, or cannot understand them, may remain con-
vinced all his life that the sun goes round the earth. And any
one, however clearly he understands the truth, can, by diverting
his attention from comparatively remote astronomical argu-
ments, and fixing it on the familiar and daily appearances,
speak of and picture the movement as that of the sun, as most
men, I suppose, generally do.
So with the dialectic. The arguments are, if Hegel is right,
such as to leave the man who examines them no option. But
for those who have no time, inclination, or ability to examine
them, the categories will continue to be quite separate and
'independent, while the contradictions which this view will
produce in experience will either be treated as ultimate, or,
more probably, will not be noticed at all. And even for the
student of philosophy, the arguments remain so comparatively
abstruse and unfamiliar that he finds no difficulty, when
practical life requires it, in assumiug for a time the point of
view of the Understanding, and regarding each category as
unchanging and self-supporting. This he does merely by
diverting his attention from the arguments by which their
instability is proved.
Although therefore the change in the Notion is due to its
nature, it does not follow that it cannot be stopped by
peculiarities in the nature of the thinker, or by his arbitrary
choice. The positive element in the change lies wholly in the
Notion, but that it should take place at all in any particular case
requires certain conditions in the individual mind in question,
and by changing these conditions we can at will arrest the
process of the categories, and use any one of them as fixed
and unchanging.14
THE GENERAL NATURE
Any other view of the dialectic process would require us to
suppose that the movement of the categories became obvious
to us, not as the result of much hard thinking, but spontaneously
and involuntarily. It can scarcely be asserted that Hegel held
such a theory, which would lead to the conclusion that everyone
who ever used the category of Being—that is everyone who ever
thought at all, whether he reflected on thought or not,—had
gone through all the stages of the Hegelian logic, and arrived
at all its conclusions.
12.	Another difficulty which Hartmann brings forward in
this connection arises from a misapprehension of Hegel’s
meaning. He affirms1 that, so far from stopping the dialectic
process, we could not even perceive it when it took place. For
we can only become aware of the change by comparing stage A
with stage B, and how is it possible that we should do this,
if A turns into B, beyond our control, whenever it appears ?
In the first place, we may answer, it is possible, as we have
seen, to arrest the dialectic movement, in any given case, at will,
so that the development of the categories is not beyond our
control. In the second place the thesis is not held by Hegel to
turn into the antithesis in the simple and complete way which
this objection supposes. The one category leads up to and
postulates the other but does not become completely the same
as its successor. The thesis and antithesis are said no doubt
to be the same, but the same with a difference. If we predicate
A, we are forced to predicate B, but there remains nevertheless
a distinction between A and B. It is just the coexistence of
this distinction with the necessary implication of the one
category in the other, which renders the synthesis necessary as
a reconciliation. If the thesis and antithesis were not different,
the simultaneous predication of both of them would involve no
difficulty.
13.	Such is the general nature of the dialectic as conceived
by Hegel. How does he attempt to prove its truth and
necessity ? The proof must be based on something already
understood and granted by those to whom it is addressed. And
since the proof should be one which must be accepted by all
men, we must base it on that which all men allow to be
1 Op. cit. B. ii. c.OF THE DIALECTIC.
15
justifiable—the ordinary procedure, that is, of thought in
common sense and science, which Hegel calls the Under-
standing as opposed to the Reason. We must show that if we
grant, as we cannot help granting, the validity of the ordinary
exercise of our thought, we must also grant the validity of the
dialectic.
This necessity Hegel recognises. He says, it is true, that,
since only the Reason possesses the complete truth, up to
which the merely partial truth of the Understanding leads, the
real explanation must be of the Understanding by the Reason *.
But this is not inconsistent with a recognition of the necessity
of justifying the Reason to the Understanding. The course of
real explanation must always run from ground to consequent,
and, according to Hegel, from concrete to abstract. On the j
other hand, the order of proof must run from whatever is f
known to whatever is unknown. When, as we have seen is~j
the case with the dialectic, we start from explicit knowledge of\
the abstract only, and proceed to knowledge of the concrete,
which alone gives reality to that abstract, the order of ex- |
planation and the order of proof must clearly be exactly 1
opposite to one another.
The justification of the Reason at the bar of the Under-
standing, depends upon two facts. The one is the search for
the Absolute which is involved in the Understanding, the other
is the existence in the Understanding of contradictions which
render it impossible that it should succeed in the search. The
Understanding demands an answer to every question it can ask.
But every question which it succeeds in answering suggests
fresh questions. Any explanation requires some reference to
surrounding phenomena, and these in their turn must be
explained by reference to others, and nothing can therefore be
fully explained unless everything else which is in direct or
indirect connection with it, unless, that is, the whole universe,
be fully explained also. And the explanation of a phenomenon
requires, besides this, the knowledge of its causes and effects,
while these again require a knowledge of their causes and
effects, so that not only the whole present universe, but the
whole of the past and future must be known before any single
1 Loyic, Vol. i. p. 198.16
THE GENERAL NATURE
fact can be really understood. Again, since the knowledge of
a phenomenon involves the knowledge of its parts, and all
phenomena, occurring as they do in space and time, are
infinitely divisible, our knowledge must not only be infinitely
extended over space and time, but also infinitely minute. The
connection of the phenomenal universe by the law of reciprocity
has a double effect on knowledge. It is true, as Tennyson tells
us, that we could not know a single flower completely without
also knowing God and man. But it is also true that, till we
know everything about God and man, we cannot answer satis-
factorily a single question about the flower. In asking any
question whatever, the Understanding implicitly asks for a
complete account of the whole Universe, throughout all space
aDd all time. It demands a solution which shall really solve
the question without raising fresh ones—a complete and
symmetrical system of knowledge.
This ideal it cannot, as Hegel maintains, reach by its own
exertions, because it is the nature of the Understanding to
treat the various finite categories as self-subsistent unities, and
this attempt leads it into the various contradictions pointed out
throughout the dialectic, owing to the inevitable connection of
every finite category with its contrary. Since, then, it postu-
lates in all its actions an ideal which cannot be reached by
itself, it is obliged, unless it would deny its own validity, to
admit the validity of the Reason, since by the Reason alone
can the contradictions be removed, and the ideal be realised.
And, when it has done this, it loses the false independence which
made it suppose itself to be something different from the Reason.
14. One of the most difficult and important points in
determining the nature of the Hegelian logic is to find its
exact relation to experience. Whatever theory we may adopt
has to fall within certain limits. On the one hand it is asserted
by Hegel’s critics, and generally admitted by his followers,
that, rightly or wrongly, there is some indispensable reference
~fo experience in the dialectic—so that, without the aid of
experience it would be impossible for the cogency of the
dialectic process to display itself. On the other hand it is
impossible to deny that, in some sense, Hegel believed that
by the dialectic process takes place in pure thought, that,OF THE DIALECTIC.
17
however incomplete the Logic might be without the Philosophy
of Nature, and the Philosophy of Spirit, however much the
existence of Nature and Spirit might be involved in the exist-
ence of pure thought, yet nevertheless within the sphere of
logic we had arrived at pure thought, unconditioned in respect
of its development as thought.
And both these characteristics of the dialectic are, inde-
pendently of Hegel’s assertion, clearly necessary for the validity
of any possible dialectic. The consideration of pure thought)"?
without any reference to experience, would be absolutely sterile,
or rather impossible. For we are as unable to employ “empty”
pure thought (to borrow Kant’s phrase) as to employ “ blind ”
intuition. Thought is a process of mediation and relation, and
implies something immediate to be related, which cannot be found
in thought. Even if a stage of thought could be conceived as
existing, in which it was self-subsistent, and in which it had no I
reference to any data—and it is impossible to imagine such a
state, or to give any reason for supposing thought thus to /
.change its essential nature—at any rate this is not the ordinary )
thought of common life. And as the dialectic process professes;
to start from a basis common to everyone, so as to enable it to)'
claim universal validity for its conclusions, it is certain that it /
will be necessary for thought, in the dialectic process, to have/'
some relation to data given immediately, and independent of
that thought itself. Even if the dialectic should finally tran
scend this condition it would have at starting to take thought
as we use it in every-day life—as merely mediating, andl
not self-subsistent. And I shall try to show later on that it\
never does transcend, or try to transcend that limitation1	J
On the other hand it is no less true that any argument
would be incapable of leading us to general conclusions relating
to pure thought, which was based on the nature of any par-
ticular piece of experience in its particularity, and that,
whatever reference to experience Hegel may or may not have
admitted into his system, his language is conclusive against the
possibility that he has admitted any empirical or contingent
basis to the dialectic.
15. The two conditions can, however, be reconciled. There
1 Chap. ii.
M. H.
218
THE GENERAL NATURE
is a sense in which conclusions relating to pure thought may
properly be based on an observation of experience, and in this
sense, as I believe, we must take the Logic in order to arrive at
Hegel’s true meaning. According to this view, what is observed
fis the spontaneous and unconditioned movement of the pure
(notion, which does not in any way depend on the matter of
(intuition for its validity, which, on the contrary, is derived from
the character of the pure reason itself. But the process,
although independent of the matter of intuition, can only be
perceived when the pure notion is taken in conjunction with tie
matter of intuition—that is to say when it is taken in ex-
perience—because it is impossible for us to grasp thought in
absolute purity, or except as applied to an immediate datum.
. Since we cannot observe pure thought at all, except in ex-
perience, it is clear that it is only in experience that we can
observe the change from the less to the more adequate form
which thought undergoes in the dialectic process. But this
•change of form is due to the nature of thought alone, and not
to the other element in experience—the matter of intuition'.
The presence of this other element in experience is thus a
condition of our perceiving the dialectical movement of pure
thought. We may go further. It does not follow, from the
fact that the movement is due to the nature of pure thought
alone, that pure thought can ever exist, or ever be imagined
to exist by itself. We may regard pure thought as a mere
abstraction of one side of experience, which is the only concrete
reality, while the matter of intuition is an abstraction of the
other side of the same reality—each, when considered by itself,
being false and misleading. This, as we shall see, is the
position which Hegel does take up. Even so, it will still
remain true that, in experience, the dialectic process was due
1 Since I am here dealing only with the question of epistemology, it will be
allowable, I think, to assume that there is a matter of intuition, distinct from
thought, and not reducible to it, (though incapable of existing apart from it,)
since this is the position taken up within Hegel’s Logic. Whether the dialectic
process has any relation to it or not, its existence is, in the Logic, admitted,
at least provisionally. If Hegel did make any attempt to reduce the whole
universe to a manifestation of pure thought, without any other element, he
certainly did not do so till the transition to the world of Nature at the end of
the Logic. Even there I believe no such attempt is to be found.OF THE DIALECTIC.
19
exclusively to that element of experience which we call pure
thought, the other element—that of intuition—being indeed an
indispensable condition of the dialectic movement, but one
which remains passive throughout, and one by which the
movement is not determined. It is only necessary to the
movement of the idea because it is necessary to its existence.
It is not itself a principle of change, which may as fairly he
said to be independent, as the changes in the pictures of a
magic lantern may be ascribed exclusively to the camera, and
not at all to the canvas on which they are reflected, although,
without the canvas, the pictures themselves, and therefore the
transition from one to another of them would be impossible.
16. If this is the relation of the dialectic process to the
medium in which it works, what postulate does it require to
start from ? We must distinguish its postulate from its basis.
Its basis is the reality which it requires to have presented to
itself, in order that it may develop itself. Its postulate is the
proposition which it requires to have admitted, in order that
from this premise it may demonstrate its own logical validity
as a consequence. The basis of the dialectic is to be found in
the nature of pure thought itself, since the reason of the process
being what it is, is due, as we have seen, to the nature of the
highest and most concrete form of the notion, implicit in all
experience. Since pure thought, as we have seen, even i
could exist at all in any other manner, could only become
evident to us in experience, the basis which the dialectic
It is only the general nature of experience—those charac--
teristics which are common to all of it—which forms the basisj
of the process. For it is not the only object of the dialectic tff
prove that the lower and subordinate categories are unable to
explain all parts of experience without resorting to the higher
categories, and finally to the Absolute Idea. It undertakes
also to show that the lower categories are inadequate, when
considered with sufficient intelligence and persistence, to ex-
plain any part of the world. What is required, therefore, is
not so much the collection of a large mass of experience to
work on, but the close and careful scrutiny of some part.
method will require to work on.
experience in general.
, may be called the nature ofj
2—220
THE GENERAL NATURE
however small. The whole chain of categories is implied in
any and every phenomenon. Particular fragments of experience
may no doubt place the inadequacy of some finite category in a
specially clear light, or may render the transition to the next
stage of the idea particularly obvious and easy, but it is only
greater convenience which is thus gained; with sufficient
power any part, however unpromising, would yield the same
result.
I 17. The basis of the dialectic process, then, is the nature
! of experience, in so far as the nature of pure thought is con-
I tained in it. If the other element in experience has really a
P primary and essential nature of its own, it will not concern us
here, for, as it takes no part in the development of the idea, its
L-existence, and not its particular qualities, is the only thing
with which we are at present concerned. The nature of ex-
perience however, though it is the basis of the dialectic, is not
its logical postulate. For it is not assumed but ascertained by
the dialectic, whose whole object is the gradual discovery and
demonstration of the Absolute Idea, which is the fundamental
principle which makes the nature of experience. The general
laws governing experience are the causa essendi of the logic,
but not its causa cognoscendi.
The only logical postulate which the dialectic requires is
the admission that experience really exists. The dialectic is
derived from the nature of experience, and therefore if it is to
have any validity of real existence, if it is to have, that is to
say, any importance at all, we must be assured of the existence
of some experience—in other words, that something is.
The object of the dialectic is to discover the forms and laws
of all possible thought. For this purpose it starts from the
idea of Being, in which all others are shown to be involved.
The application of the results of the dialectic to experience thus
depends on the application to experience of the idea of Being,
and the logical postulate of the dialectic is no more than that
something is, and that the category of Being is therefore valid.
It will be noticed that the basis and the postulate of the
dialectic correspond to the two aspects of the idea which we
mentioned above as the fundamental cause of the process. The
basis—the nature of pure thought—is the complete and con-OF THE DIALECTIC.
21
cretc idea which is present in our minds, though only implicitly,
and which renders it impossible that we should stop short of it
by permanently acquiescing in any finite category. The pos-
tulate—the abstract idea in its highest state of abstraction,
which is admitted to be valid—is that which is explicitly
before the mind, and from which the start is made.
18.	We are justified in assuming this postulate because it
is involved in every action and every thought, and its denial is
therefore suicidal. All that is required is the assertion that
there is such a thing as reality—that something is. Now the
very denial of this involves the reality of the denial, and so
contradicts itself and affirms our postulate. And the denial
also implies the reality of the person who makes the denial.
The same dilemma meets us if we try to take refuge from
dogmatic denial in mere doubt. If we really doubt, then the
doubt is real, and there is something of whose reality we do not
doubt; if on the other hand we do not really doubt the pro-
position that there is something real, we admit its truth. And
doubt, as well as denial, places beyond doubt the existence of
the doubter. This is, of course, the Cartesian argument, which
is never stated by Hegel precisely in this form, but on which
the justification of his use of the category of Being, as valid
of reality, appears to depend.
19.	The dialectical process thus gains its validity and
importance by means of a transcendental argument. The
higher categories are connected with the lower in such a
manner that the latter inevitably lead on to the former as the
only means by which they can be rescued from the contra-
dictions involved in their abstractness. If the lower categories
be admitted, and, ultimately, if the lowest of all, the category
of Being, be admitted, the rest follows. But we cannot by the
most extreme scepticism deny that something is, and we are
therefore enabled to conclude that the dialectic process does
apply to something. And as whatever the category of Being
did not apply to would not exist, we are also able to conclude
that there’ is nothing to which the dialectic process does not
apply.
It will be seen that this argument is strictly of a trans-
cendental nature. A proposition denied by the adversary—in22
THE GENERAL NATURE
this case the validity of the higher categories—is shown to be
involved in the truth of some other proposition, which he is not
prepared to attack—in this case the validity of the category of
Being. But the cogency of ordinary transcendental arguments
is limited, and they apply only to people who are prepared to
yield the proposition which forms the foundation of the argu-
ment, so that they could be outflanked by a deeper scepticism.
Now this is not the case with the dialectic. For the proposition
on which it is based is so fundamental, that it could be doubted
only at the expense of self-contradiction, and the necessity of
considering that proposition true is therefore universal, and not
only valid in a specially limited argument, or against a special
oiDponent. It is doubtful indeed whether a condition so essential
as this is correctly termed a postulate, which seems to denote
more properly a proposition which it would be at least possible
for an adversary to challenge. At any rate the very peculiar
nature of the assumption should be carefully remembered, as it
affords a clue for interpreting various expressions of Hegel’s,
which might otherwise cause serious difficulties1- *
20.	Having thus endeavoured to explain the nature of the
dialectic, we must ask ourselves at what results we are entitled
to arrive by means of that process. These results will be, to
begin with, epistemological. For the conditions of the dialectic
are, first, the concrete notion, which we are able to examine
because it is implicit in all our consciousness, and, second, the
category of Being, which we are entitled to postulate, because
it is impossible to avoid employing it in judging experience.
Our conclusions will therefore relate primarily to the general
laws of experience, and will so far be, like those of Kant’s
Aesthetic and Analytic, concerned with the general conditions
of human knowledge. And the result arrived at will be that
no category will satisfactorily explain the universe except the
Absolute Idea. Any attempt to employ for that purpose a
lower category must either accept a gradual transformation of
the idea employed until the Absolute Idea is reached, or
acquiesce in unreconciled contradictions—which involves the
rejection of a fundamental law of reason.
21.	This jrosition has two results. In the first place it
1 Cp. Cliap. n. Section 46.OF THE DIALECTIC.
23
disproves the efforts which are made from time to time to
explain the whole universe by means of the lower categories
only. Such an attempt lay at the bottom of Hume’s scepticism,
when he endeavoured to treat the notion of causality as derived
from that of sequence, and to consider all that was added as
false and illusive. For absolute scepticism is impossible, and
his treatment of the higher category as an unwarranted in-
ference from the lower involves the assertion of the validity of
the latter. Such an attempt, again, has been made by Mr
Spencer, as well as by the large number of writers who adopt
the provisional assumptions of physical science as an ultimate
position. They endeavour to explain all phenomena in terms
of matter and motion, and to treat all special laws by which
they may be governed as merely particular cases of fundamental
principles taken from physical science.
But if we agree with Hegel in thinking that the category of
Being is inadequate to explain the world which we know with-
out the successive introduction of the categories, among others,
of Cause, Life, and Self-Consciousness, and that each category
inevitably requires its successor, all such attempts must
inevitably fail. Any attempt, for example, to reduce causation
to an unjustifiable inference from succession, to explain life
merely in terms of matter and motion, or knowledge merely in
terms of life, would involve a fatal confusion. For it would be
an attempt at explanation by that which is, in itself, incomplete,
unreal, and contradictory, and which can only be made rational
by being viewed as an aspect of those very higher categories,
which were asserted to have been explained away by its means.
22. Even if this were all, the result of the dialectic would
be of great importance. It would have refuted all attempts to
establish a complete and consistent materialism, and would have
demonstrated the claims of the categories of spirit to a place in
construing part at least of the universe. But it has done more
than this. For it does not content itself with showing that the
lower categories lead necessarily to the higher, when the question
relates to those portions of experience in which the higher cate-
gories are naturally applied by the uncritical consciousness. It
also demonstrates that the lower categories, in themselves, and
to whatever matter of intuition they may be applied, involve24
THE GENERAL NATURE
the higher categories also. Not only is Being inadequate to
explain, without the aid of Becoming, those phenomena which
we all recognise in ordinary life as phenomena of change, but
it is also unable to explain those others which are commonly
considered as merely cases of unchanging existence. Not only
is the idea of Substance inadequate to deal with ordinary cases
of scientific causation, but without the idea of Cause it becomes
involved in contradictions, even when keeping to the province
which the uncritical consciousness assigns to it. Not only is it
impossible to explain the phenomena of vegetable and animal
life by the idea of mechanism, but that idea is inadequate even
to explain the phenomena of physics. Not only can conscious-
ness not be expressed merely in terms of life, but life is an
inadequate category even for biological phenomena. With such
a system we are able to admit, without any danger either to its
consistency or to its practical corollaries, all that science can
possibly claim as to the interrelation of all the phenomena of the
universe, and as to the constant determination of mind by purely
physical causes. For not only have we justified the categories
of spirit, but we have subjected the whole world of experience
to their rule. We are entitled to assert, not only that spirit
cannot be reduced to matter, but also that matter must be
reduced to spirit. It is of no philosophical importance, there-
fore, though all things should, from the scientific standpoint be
determined by material causes. For all material determination
is now known to be only spiritual determination in disguise.
23. The conclusion thus reached is one which deals with
pure thought, since the argument has rested throughout on
the nature of pure thought, and on that only, and the conclusion
itself is a statement as to the only form of pure thought which
we can use with complete correctness. But we have not found
anything which would enable us to discard sensation from its
I position as an element of experience as necessary and funda-
mental as pure thought itself, and if Hegel did draw such a
consequence from it, we must hold that he has taken an un-
justifiable step forwards. All the thought which we know is in
its essential nature mediate, and requires something immediate
to act on, if it is to act at all. And this immediate element can
be found—so far as our present knowledge is concerned—only inOF THE DIALECTIC.
25
sensation, the necessary background and accompaniment of the
dialectic process, which is equally essential at its end as at its
beginning. For an attempt to eliminate it would require that
Hegel should, in the first place, explain how we could ever
conceive unmediated or self-mediated thought, and that he
should, in the second place, show that the existence of this self-
subsistent thought was implied in the existence of the mediating
and independent thought of every-day life. For since it is only"
the validity of our every-day thought which we find it impossible
to deny, it is only that thought which we can take as the basis
of the dialectic process. Even if, in the goal of the dialectic,
thought became self-subsistent in any intelligible sense, it would
be necessary to show that this self-subsistence issued naturally
from the finite categories, in which thought is unquestionably
recognised as mediate only.
I shall endeavour to prove later on1 that Hegel made no
attempt to take up this position. The conclusion of the Logic
is simply the assertion that the one category by which experi-
ence can be judged with complete correctness is the Absolute
Idea. It makes no attempt to transcend the law which we find
in all experience by which the categories cannot be used of
reality, nor indeed apprehended at all, without the presence of
immediate data to serve as materials for them.
24. To sum up, the general outline of the Hegelian Logic,
from an epistemological point of view, does not differ greatly, I
believe, from that of Kant. Both philosophers justify the
application of certain categories to the matter of experience,
by proving that the validity of those categories is implied in
the validity of other ideas which the sceptical opponent cannot
or does not challenge. The systems differ largely in many
points, particularly in the extent to which they push their
principles. And Hegel has secured a firmer foundation for his
theory than Kant did, by pushing back his deduction till it
rests on a category—the category of Being,—the validity of
which with regard to experience not only never had been
denied, but could not be denied without contradiction. It is
true also that Kant’s work was clearly analytic, while Hegel’s
had also a synthetic side, and may even be said to have brought
1 Chap. n. Section 48.26
THE GENERAL NATURE
that side into undue, or at any rate misleading, prominence.
But the general principle of the two systems was the same, and
the critic who finds no fundamental fallacy in Kant’s criticism
of knowledge, should have no difficulty in admitting that the
Hegelian Logic, if it keeps itself free from errors of detail, forms
a valid theory of epistemology.
25. But the Logic claims to be more than this, and we
must now proceed to examine what has been generally held to be
at once the most characteristic and the weakest part of Hegel’s
philosophy. How far does he apply the results of his analysis
of knowledge to actual reality, and how far is he justified in
doing so ?
It is beyond doubt that Hegel regarded his Logic as
possessing, in some manner, ontological significance. But this
may mean one of two very different things. It may mean
only that the system rejects the Kantian thing-in-itself, and
denies the existence of any reality except that which enters into
experience, so that the results of a criticism of knowledge are
valid of reality also. But it may mean that it endeavours to
dispense with or transcend all data except the nature of thought
itself, and to deduce from that nature the whole existing
universe. The difference between these two positions is con-
siderable. The first maintains that nothing is real but the
reasonable, the second that reality is nothing but rationality.
The first maintains that we can explain the world of sense, the
second that we can exjilain it away. The first merely confirms
and carries further the process of rationalisation, of which all
science and all finite knowledge consist; the second differs
entirely from science and finite knowledge, substituting a
self-sufficient and absolute thought for thought which is
relative and complementary to the data of sense.
It is, I maintain, in the first of these senses, and the first
only, that Hegel claims ontological validity for the results of
the Logic, and that he should do as much as this is inevitable.
For to distinguish between conclusions epistemologically valid
and those which extend to ontology implies a belief in the
existence of something which does not enter into the field of
actual or possible knowledge. Such a belief is totally un-
warranted. The thing-in-itself as conceived by Kant, behindOF THE DIALECTIC.
27
and apart from the phenomena which alone enter into experience,
is a contradiction. We cannot, we are told, know what it is,
but only that it is. But this is itself an important piece of
knowledge relating to the thing. It involves a judgment, and
a judgment involves categories, and we are thus forced to
surrender the idea that we can be aware of the existence of
anything which is not subject to the laws governing experience.
Moreover, the only reason which can be given for our belief in
things-in-themselves is that they are the ground or substratum
of our sensuous intuitions. But this is a relation, and a relation
involves a category. Indeed every statement which can be
made about the thing-in-itself contradicts its alleged isolation.
26. It cannot be denied, however, that Hegel does more
than is involved in the rejection of a thing-in-itself outside the
laws of experience. Not only are his epistemological conclusions
declared to have also ontological validity, but he certainly goes
further and holds that, from the consideration of the existence
of pure thought, we are able to deduce the existence of the
worlds of Nature and Spirit. Is this equivalent to an admission
that the worlds of Nature and Spirit can be reduced to, or
explained away by, pure thought ?
We shall see that this is not the case when we reflect thati
the dialectic process is no less analytic of a given material than
it is synthetic from a given premise, and owes its impulse as j
much to the perfect and concrete idea which is implicit in
experience, as to the imperfect and abstract idea which is
explicitly before the student. For if the idea is, when met with
in reality, always perfect and concrete, it is no less true that it
is, when met with in reality, invariably, and of necessity, found
in connection with sensuous intuition, without which even the
relatively concrete idea which ends the Logic is itself an
illegitimate abstraction. This being the case it follows that, as
each stage of the Logic insists on going forward to the next
stage, so the completed logical idea insists on going forward and
asserting the coexistence with itself of sensuous perception.
It does not postulate any particular sensuous perception, for the
idea is equally implicit in all experience, and one fragment is as
good as another in which to perceive it. We are thus unable
to deduce any of the particulars of the world of sense from the28
THE GENERAL NATURE
Logic. But we are able to deduce that there must be such a
world, for without it the idea would be still an abstraction and
therefore still contradictory. We are able to predicate of that
world whatever is necessary to make it the comjDlement of the
world of pure thought. It must be immediate, that thought
may have something to mediate, individual and isolated piece
from piece that thought may have something to relate. It
must be, in short, the abstract individual, which, together with
the abstract universal of thought, forms the concrete reality,
alike individual and universal, which alone is consistent and
self-sustained.
27. If this is so, it follows that there is nothing mysterious
or intricate about the deduction of the world of Nature from
the Logic, and of the world of Spirit from the world of Nature.
It is simply the final step in the self-recovery of the spirit from
the illegitimate abstractions of the understanding—the recovery
which we have seen to be the source of all movement in the
dialectic. Once granted a single category of the Logic, and all
the others follow, since in the world of reality each lower
category only exists as a moment of the Absolute Idea, and can
therefore never by itself satisfy the demands of the mind. And,
in like manner, the world of pure thought only exists as an
abstraction from concrete reality, so that, granted pure thought,
we are compelled by the necessity of the dialectic to grant the
existence of some sensuous intuition also. It is perhaps
conceivable that, in some future state of knowledge, the
completion of the dialectic process might be seen to involve, not
only the mere existence of Nature and Spirit, but their
existence with particular characteristics, and that this might be
carried so far that it amounted to a complete determination, in
one way or another, of every question which could be asked
concerning them. If this should be the case, we should be able
to deduce a priori from the character of pure thought the
whole contents of science and history. Even then, however, we
should not have taken up the position that the immediate
element in Nature and Spirit could be reduced to pure
thought. For we should not be endeavouring to deduce the
immediate merely from the mediate, but from the mediate
compared with the concrete reality of which they are bothOF THE DIALECTIC.
29
moments. The true force of the proof would lie in the
existence of this synthesis. At present, however, the world of
sense appears to us to contain a large number of particulars
which are quite indifferent to pure thought, so that it might be
as well embodied in one arrangement of them as in another.
This may possibly be an inevitable law of knowledge. It
certainly expresses the state of our knowledge at present. It
follows that the Philosophy of Nature and Spirit will consist
only in observing the progress of the pure idea as it appears in
the midst of phenomena to a large extent contingent to it, and
cannot hope to account for all the particulars of experience.
But this is all that Hegel attempts to do. He endeavours to
find the idea in everything, but not to reduce everything to a
manifestation of the idea. Thus he remarks in the Philosophy
of Spirit, “This development of reality or objectivity brings
forward a row of forms which must certainly be given
empirically, but from an empirical point of view should not be
placed side by side and outside each other, but must be known
as the expression which corresponds to a necessary series of
definite notions, and only in so far as they express such a series
of notions have interest for philosophic thought1.”
28. If this explanation be correct, it will follow that Hegel
never endeavoured to claim ontological validity for his Logic in
the second sense mentioned above—by attempting, that is, to
deduce all the contents of experience from the nature of pure
thought only. The deduction which does take place is not
dependent merely on the premise from which it starts, which is
certainly to be found in the nature of pure thought, but also on
the whole to which it is working up, and which is implicit in
our thought. If we can proceed in this way from Logic to
Nature and Spirit, it proves that Logic without the additional
elements which occur in Nature and Spirit is a mere abstraction.
And an abstraction cannot possibly be the cause of the reality
from which it is an abstraction. There can be no place here,
therefore, for the attempt to construct the world out of abstract
thought, of which Hegel’s philosophy is sometimes supposed to
have consisted.
1 Enc. Section 387, lecture note, p. 42.30
THE GENERAL NATURE
The importance of the ontological significance of the dialectic,
even in this limited extent, is, however, very great. We are now
enabled to assert, not only that, within our experience, actual or
possible, everything can be explained by the Absolute Idea, but
also that all reality, in any sense in which we can attach any
intelligible meaning to the word, can also be explained by that
idea. I cannot have the least reason to believe in, or even to
imagine possible, anything which does not in the long run turn
out to contain and be constituted by the highest category.
And since that category, as was pointed out above, expresses
the deepest nature of the human mind, we are entitled to
believe that the universe as a whole is in fundamental agree-
ment with our own nature, and that whatever can rightly be
called rational may be safely declared to be also real.
29. From this account of the Hegelian system it will
appear that its main result is the completion of the work which
had been carried on by German philosophy since the publication
of the Critique of Pure Reason—the establishment, by means of
the transcendental method, of the rationality of the Universe.
There was much left for Hegel to do. For the Critique of Pure
Reason was a dualism, and had all the qualities of a dualism.
Man’s aspirations after complete rationality and complete justice
in life were checked by the consideration of the phenomenal
side of his own nature, which delivered him over to the mercy
of a world in one of whose elements—the irrational manifold—
he saw only what was alien to himself. And the defect of the
Critique of Pure Reason in this respect was not completely
remedied by the Critique of Practical Reason. The reconciliation
was only external: the alien element was not to be absorbed
or transcended but conquered. It was declared the weaker, but
it kept its existence. And the whole of this argument had a
slighter basis than the earlier one, since it rested, not on the
validity of knowledge, but on the validity of the moral sense—
the denial of which is not as clearly a contradiction of itself.
Moreover, it is not by any means universally admitted that the
obligation to seek the good is dependent on the possibility of
realising it in full. And if it is not so dependent then the
validity of the moral sense does not necessarily imply the
validity of the Ideas of Reason. Even in the Critique ofOF THE DIALECTIC.
31
Judgment the reconciliation of the two sides was still external
and incomplete.
Nor had spirit a much stronger position with Kant’s im-
mediate successors. Fichte, indeed, reduced the Non-Ego to a
shadow, but just for that reason, as Dr Caird remarks, rendered
it impossible to completely destroy it. And the Absolute of
Schelling, standing as it did midway between matter and spirit,
could be but slight comfort to spirit, whose most characteristic
features and most important interests had little chance of
preservation in a merely neutral basis.
Hegel on the other hand asserted the absolute supremacy of
reason. For him it is the key to the interpretation of the
whole universe; it finds nothing alien to itself wherever it
goes. And the reason for which he thus claimed unrestricted
power was demonstrated to contain every category up to the
Absolute Idea. It is this demonstration—quite as much as the
rejection of the possibility that anything in the universe should
be alien to reason—which gives his philosophy its practical
interest. For from the practical point of view it is of little
consequence that the world should be proved to be the
embodiment of reason, if we are to see in reason nothing
higher than reciprocity, and are compelled to regard the higher
categories as mere subjective delusions. Such a maimed reason
as this is one in which we can have scarcely more pleasure or
acquiescence than in chaos. If the rational can be identified
with the good, it can only be in respect of the later categories,
such as End, Life, and Cognition.CHAPTER II.
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE DIALECTIC.
30.	In the last chapter I have explained the view of
Hegel’s philosophy which seems to me the most probable. It
is now necessary to examine some objections which have been
raised to the possibility of interpreting Hegel in this manner.
With regard to three points in particular various commentators
have taken a different view of Hegel’s meaning. It has been
held that the dialectic process has no reference whatever to
experience, but takes place in pure thought considered apart
from anything else. It has been held that, whether this be
so or not, yet at the end of the dialectic we reach, in the
Absolute Idea, a form of thought which exists in and by itself,
and does not merely mediate data immediately given to the
mind by some other source. And, lastly, it has been held that
the deduction of Nature and Spirit from Logic is to be taken
as an attempt to degrade them into mere forms of the latter,
and to declare that all things are reducible to thought alone.
31.	The first of these points has been discussed by
Trendelenburg in his Logisclie Untersucliungen. According
to him, Hegel attempted what was impossible, and achieved
what was useless. He attempted, by observation of the pure
notion in its most abstract stage, and apart from everything
but itself, to evoke all the other stages of the pure notion, and
so reach a result of general validity a. priori. But since we can
extract from an idea, taken by itself, nothing more than is
already in it, and since an idea, independent of the data which
it connects and mediates, is unthinkable, any such dialecticalDIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF THE DIALECTIC. 33
evolution as Hegel desired was impossible. In point of fact, all
appearance of advance from one category to another is due,
according to Trendelenburg, to surreptitious appeals to ex-
perience. In this way the sterility of pure thought was
conquered, but with it the cogency of this dialectic process also
disappeared, and it became merely empirical and contingent,
without a claim to be called philosophy.
On the question as to the actual results of the dialectic we
shall consider Trendelenburg’s views further on. As to Hegel’s
intention, he says “ Although the Wissenschaftslehre of Fichte
extracted the Non-Ego from the Ego, yet he does not go on to
real notions. The dialectic has appropriated his methods; it
takes the same course in position, opposition, and reconciliation.
It does not make so much difference that it begins with the
notion of Being, for it is the empty image of Being. If it
nevertheless comes to the notions of reality and to concrete
forms, we do not perceive whence it gets to them. For pure
thought will not accept them, and then permeate them, but
endeavours to make them. Thought, expressed in this way, is
born blind and has no eyes towards the outside
32. In answer to this we may quote Mr F. H. Bradley. “ An
idea prevails that the Dialectic Method is a sort of experiment
with conceptions in vacuo. We are supposed to have nothing
but one single isolated abstract idea, and this solitary monad
then proceeds to multiply by gemmation from or by fission of
its private substance, or by fetching matter from the impalpable
void. But this is a mere caricature, and it comes from confusion
between that which the mind has got before it and that which
it has within itself. Before the mind there is a single
conception, but the mind itself, which does not appear,
engages in the process, operates on the datum, and produces
the result. The opposition between the real, in the fragmentary
character in which the mind possesses it, and the true reality
felt within the mind, is the moving cause of that unrest which
sets up the dialectical process2.”
The fact seems to be that Trendelenburg’s interpretation of
1 Logisehe Untersuchungen, Vol. i. p. 92. My references to this work are to
the edition of 1862.
- Logic, Book hi. Part i. Chap. 2. Section 20.
M. H,
334
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
Hegel’s attempt to construct a dialectic of pure thought, is
inadequate in two ways. He supposes, first, that the incomplete
thought from which we start is conceived to exist only in its
incompleteness, and is intended to have as yet no actual relation
to the concrete reality to which it is afterwards to attain. In
fact, he says, the process does depend on a reference to concrete
reality, but, in so far as this is so, the original attempt, which
was to construct an objectively valid dialectic by means of pure
thought, has broken down. I shall try, however, to show that
such a relation to reality was in Hegel’s mind throughout, and
that it leads to conclusions of objective validity. If pure
thought meant anything inconsistent with this, it would
certainly be sterile. But there is nothing in this which is
inconsistent with pure thought, for the notion, as contained
implicitly in reality and experience, is precisely of the same
nature as the isolated piece which we begin by consciously
observing, though it is more complete.
And, secondly, Trendelenburg appears to think that thought,
to be pure, must be perceived by itself, and not in concrete
experience, which always contains, along with pure thought,
the complementary moment of sensation. If this was the case,
it would most certainly be sterile, or rather impossible. So
far from one category being able to transform itself, by the
dialectic process, into another, no category could exist at all.
For all thought, as we have seen1, requires something im-
mediate on which to act. But this need not prevent the
dialectic process from being one of pure thought. As was
explained above2 the only part of experience from which the
dialectic process derives its cogency, and the only part which
changes in it, is the element of pure thought, although the
dialectic process, like all other acts of reasoning, can only take
place when the thought is joined with sensation.
Whether the reference to experience in Hegel’s Logic
destroys its claims to absolute and d, priori validity will be
discussed in the next chapter. At present we have to ask
whether the appeal to experience is inconsistent with the
original intention of the dialectic, as Trendelenburg asserts,
and whether it was only used by Hegel because the absurdity
1 Chap. i. Section 27.	° Chap. i. Section 15.OF THE DIALECTIC.
35
of his original purpose drove him, more or less unconsciously, to
make such an appeal, or whether, on the other hand, it was all
along an essential part of the system that it should have such a
relation to experience.
33.	At the beginning of Section 6 of the Encyclopaedia
Hegel says that “ at first we become aware of these contents ”
of philosophical knowledge “in what we call experience....As it
is only in form that philosophy is distinguished from other
modes of obtaining an acquaintance with this same sum of
being, it must necessarily be in harmony with actuality and
experience.” This passage supports the view that Hegel was
conscious of the manner in which his dialectic rested on
experience. For, even if it were possible for philosophy to
observe pure thought independently of experience, it is certain
that “ other means of obtaining an acquaintance with this same
sum of being ”—science, namely, and common sense—have no
field for their action except experience. It is no doubt the
case that, as Hegel mentions in Section 8, philosophy has
“ another circle of objects, which ” empirical knowledge “ does
not embrace. These are Freedom, Mind, and God.” But,
although philosophy deals with these conceptions, it does so,
according to Hegel, only by starting from empirical knowledge.
It is, for example, only by the contemplation of the finite
objects perceived by the senses that we arrive at the knowledge
of God1. And, as we are now considering the basis, and not
the extent, of philosophy, the fact that we can rise to knowledge
of that which is never represented in sensuous intuition is not
to the point.
34.	Again, in Section 9, he points out that “ the method of
empirical science exhibits two defects. 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 on its own account connected with the Particular
or the details. Either is external and accidental to the 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
1 Enc. Section 12, quoted on p. 37 below.
3—236
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
points the form of necessity fails to get its due. Hence
reflection, whenever it sets itself to remedy these defects,
becomes speculative thinking, the thinking proper to phi-
losophy.” Further on in the same section he says that “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 other 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, into the categories
of science, it introduces, and gives currency to, other categories.
The difference looked at in this way is only a change of
categories.”
The method of philosophy then is separated by no difference
of kind from the method of science, and must therefore also
deal with experience. It takes the materials of science, and
carries further the process of arrangement and analysis which
science began. Whether, in doing so, it actually goes so far as
to destroy the basis from which it started, is a question which
will be considered later1. The changes which it produces are
in any case very extensive. Fresh categories are introduced,
and not merely as additions, but as altering materially the
meaning of the categories of science which now turn out to be
abstract and of imperfect validity. The process must not be
confounded with one which should simply carry scientific
generalisations up to the highest point, using only the
categories of science, and making the ordinary scientific
presuppositions. The result may in one sense be said to differ
from the result of science in kind and not only in degree. But
the method only differs in degree. The special categories of
philosophy are not introduced “ out of a pistol ” but are the
necessary consequence of reflection on the categories of science
and the contradictions they display. And, if there is this
continuity between science and phdosophy, we are placed in
the dilemma of either supposing that Hegel imagined science
to be possible without experience, or admitting that for him
the dialectic method, the method of philosophy, also required
experience as its presupposition.
1 Sections 47-49.OF THE DIALECTIC.
37
35. The whole of Section 12 has a very important bearing
on this question. The following extracts are especially signi-
ficant. Philosophy “ takes its departure from experience;
including under that name both our immediate consciousness
O
and the inductions 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 into its own unadulterated element, and by assuming,
accordingly, at first a stand-aloof and negative attitude towards
the point from which it draws its origin.” And further on
“ On the relation between immediacy and mediation in con-
sciousness... here it may be sufficient to premise that, although
the two ‘moments’ or factors present themselves as distinct,
still neither of them can be absent, nor can one exist apart
from the other. Thus the knowledge of God ” (compare
Section 1—“ Truth, in that supreme sense in which God and
God only is the Truth ”) “ as of every supersensible reality, is
in its true character an exaltation above sensations or per-
ceptions : it consequently involves a negative attitude to the
initial data of sense, and to that extent implies mediation. For
to mediate is to take something as a beginning, 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 (selbststandig) and not a mere conse-
quence 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
conditionedness (Bedingtheit), it may be said—not that the
remark would mean much—that philosophy is the child of
experience, and owes its rise to an a posteriori fact. (As a matter
of fact, thinking is always the negation of what we have
immediately before us.) With as much truth however 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.” And again, “ In relation to the first38
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
abstract universality of thought there is a correct and well-
grounded sense in which we may say, that we may thank
experience for the development of philosophy. For, firstly, the
empirical sciences do not stop short at the perception of the
individual features of a phenomenon. By the aid of thought,
they come forward to meet philosophy with materials for it, in
the shape of general uniformities, i.e. laws and classifications of
the phenomena. When this is done, the particular facts which
they contain are ready to he received into philosophy. This,
secondly, implies a certain compulsion on thought itself to
proceed to these concrete specific truths. The reception into
philosophy of these scientific materials, now that thought has
removed its immediacy, and made it cease to be mere data
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—gives them, in short, an a priori character.
These contents are now warranted 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.”
36. The peculiar importance of this section lies in the
emphasis laid simultaneously on both the elements of the
dialectic process. On the one hand the start is definitely
asserted, as in the quotation from Section 9, to be made from
experience. On the other hand we are told that the result
relates itself negatively towards the point from which it draws
its origin. This precludes on the one side the theory that
Hegel endeavoured to produce the dialectic process by mere
reflection on the nature of pure thought in abstraction, and, on
the other side, denies that a reference to experience involves a
merely empirical argument. The reception into philosophy of
the material furnished by science is declared to be identical
with the development of thought out of itself. We are enabled
also to understand correctly, by means of this Section, certain
expressions with regard to the dialectic process which are
occasionally interpreted by critics as meaning that the medium
of the Logic is abstract pure thought. For example, here as inOP THE DIALECTIC.
39
other places, Hegel repudiates the idea that “ philosophy is a
child of experience, and owes its existence to an a posteriori
element.” Such an idea, we are told, is “unfair.” Such
expressions might lead us to reject the theory of the dialectic
offered above, if it was not for the explanation which here
follows them. It is only unfair to say this, Hegel continues, in
the same sense in which it would be unfair to say that we owe
eating to the means of nourishment. N ow it is unquestionable
that, without something to eat, eating is impossible, and if
eating does not depend on the existence of something to eat, it
follows that the existence of experience may be indispensable
to the existence of philosophy, although philosophy has been
declared not to depend on experience. Mediation, as Hegel
uses the word, is not equivalent to dependence, and it is
possible for thought to require a mediation by sense, and
therefore to be helpless without it, while it is nevertheless, in
Hegelian terminology, not in a state of dependence (Bedingtheit)
on it. Without the data which are supplied to us by sense, the
dialectic could not exist. It is not, however, caused by those
data, but is necessarily combined with them in a higher unity.
It is no more dependent on them than any other abstraction
from a whole is on its fellow abstractions from the same whole.
Each step which it takes depends, as we have seen, on the
relation which the previous step bears to the goal of the
process. The whole process may thus fairly be said not to be
dependent at all.
The independence of the idea of God is declared to rest on
its negation and exaltation above the empirical side of con-
sciousness. This independence cannot possibly mean, therefore,
the absence of all connection between the two, for to be related
to a thing even negatively, is, as Hegel himself points out on
occasion (as in his treatment of the ideas of finitude and
infinity, Section 95), itself a condition, and in this sense a
dependence. The independence here can only consist in the
fact that, although the beginning is in experience, which
contains an empirical side, yet in the result the idea of God is
separated from the particular empirical facts with which the
process started, and is free from all likeness to them, although
they form its demonstration and justification. Whether this is40
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
possible or not, it appears to be this which Hegel means in
asserting his dialectic to be independent of all experience, and
this is quite compatible with an experiential basis.
It may be objected that in this Section Hegel is not
speaking of his own system, but of the origin of philosophy in
general. It is, no doubt, true that the origin of philosophy
from a historical standpoint is one of the points discussed here.
But if we look at Section 14, we shall find that the two
questions are considered by Hegel as identical. “ The same
evolution of thought,” he says, ‘‘which is exhibited in the
history of philosophy is presented in the System of Philosophy
itself.” It is clear, therefore, that he regards the process traced
in Section 12 as one which is not only historically accurate but
also philosophically valid, and that he holds the relation of
experience to the dialectic, which is there defined, as that
which really exists.
37. We find similar statements in his criticism of the
Intuitionist School. In explaining their position, he says
(Section 70), “What this theory asserts is that truth lies
neither in the Idea as a merely subjective thought, nor in mere
being on its own account; that mere being per se, 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 maxim of immediate knowledge rejects
an indefinite empty immediacy (and such is abstract being, or
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 distinct terms or modes
is not merely a purely immediate unity, i.e. unity empty and
indeterminate, but that it involves the principle that one term
has truth only as mediated through the other, or, if the phrase
be preferred, that either term is only mediated with truth
through the other.”
On the one hand then he asserts that truth does not lie in
the idea as separated from the sensible and finite being of the
world. But the idea in its unity with the sensible and finite
being of the world is experience. This unity, however, is only
mediate—that is to say, it is not, as the Intuitionists supposedOF THE DIALECTIC.
41
it to be, perceived immediately, nor evident from the nature of
thought itself. It lies rather in the mediation of each with
truth only by means of the other, which supports the view
asserted above—that Hegel makes no attempt to use pure
thought in abstraction from the data of sense, but holds truth
to lie only in the whole from which these two elements are
abstracted.
Hegel here denies one immediacy and admits another, both
of which are called by the same name in English. He denies
the validity of intuition, if by intuition is meant Jacobi’s
unmittelbares Wissen, which perceives immediately the unity
of thought and being. But he admits that intuition, if we mean
by it the Kantian Anschauung, is essential to knowledge, for
without “ the sensible and finite being of the world ” the idea
has no truth.
38. Bearing this in mind we are able to see that there is
nothing in Section 75 inconsistent with the position I have
attributed to Hegel. He there says, “ 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 something else,
and to forget that in the very act of mediation the mediation
itself vanishes.”
The first of these statements will present no difficulties, for
it is quite consistent to deny the existence of immediate
knowledge, while admitting the existence of an immediate
element in knowledge. Indeed, the assertion that all knowledge
consists in the mediation of the immediate at once affirms that
there is an immediate, and denies that it is knowledge.
Hegel’s reminder that in the act of mediation the mediation
itself vanishes does not concern us here. For we are now
considering the basis on which the dialectic process rests, and
not the end which it reaches. The latter must be considered
further on. The fact that the dialectic process consists in
mediating the immediate is enough to show that it must
have some relation to experience, since only in experience
can the immediate be found.42
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
39. Passing on to the Doctrine of the Notion, we have
(Section 166, lecture note): “The notion does not, as under-
standing supposes, stand still in its own immobility. It is
rather an infinite form, of boundless activity, as it were the
puiictum saliens of all vitality, and thereby self-differentiating
(sich von sich selbst unterscheidend). This disruption of the
notion into the difference 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 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 (Section 160, lecture
note), the germ of a plant contains its 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 of the plant. The
illustration may also serve to show how neither the notion nor
the judgment is merely found in our head, or merely framed
by us. The notion is 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 judgment of the object, we are not performing a
subjective act, and merely ascribing this or that predicate to
the object. We are, on the contrary, observing the object in
the specific character imposed by its notion.”
This analogy may illustrate the view which we j^lve been
considering. In the growth of a tree the positive element is in
the seed only. The air, earth, and water, although they are
necessary to the development of the tree^ffi not play a positive
part in its growth. It is the nature of the seed alone which
determines that a plant shall be produced, and what sort of
plant it shall be. But the surrounding conditions, of suitable
soil and so on. are conditions without which the seed cannot
realise the end of its nature. In this analogy, the seed will
correspond to the category of Being, the completely mature
plant to the Absolute Idea, and the air, earth, and water, to the
matter of intuition. If we look more closely, the resemblance
to actual plant life is not perfect, since different amounts ofOF THE DIALECTIC.
43
light, heat, and manure will change the size and colour, though
not the species of the flower, which gives to these surroundings
a more active part than Hegel allows to the matter of intuition.
But since Hegel says, without restriction, that the germ of the
plant contains its particulars, he must be supposed to ignore
the amount of quantitative change which depends on the
circumstances in which the plant is placed, and in this case the
analogy is exact.
The point of the comparison, if the above explanation is
correct, lies in the fact that the growth of the plant has
certain conditions which do not determine the nature of the
development, though without their presence the development
could not exist at all. That this is the point which Hegel
wished to make is rendered probable by his having taken as his
example a case of organic life. For in organic life we are able
to distinguish between the cause of growth and the essential
conditions of it in a way that would be impossible if we were
considering an event governed only by mechanical laws. In
the latter case we can only say that the cause is the sum of all
the necessary conditions, and we are unable to consider any one
of them as more fundamental than the others. But with
organic life we have introduced the idea of a final cause, and,
we are thus enabled to distinguish between the positive cause
and the conditions which are necessary but not positive. Hegel’s
declaration that the growth of the notion must be judged by
the principles of organic growth, enables us to make this
distinction, without which we should be unable to understand
that the relation held by the data of sense to the dialectic
process should be indispensable, and yet negative.
40. Again (Section 232, lecture note) he says, “ The
necessity which cognition (Erkennen) reaches by means of
demonstration 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 by means of
subjective activity. Similarly, subjectivity at starting was quite
abstract, a bare tabula rasa. It now shows itself as a modi-
fying and determining principle. In this way we pass from
the idea of cognition to that of will. The passage, as will be44
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
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 form-imposing.” Hegel is
speaking here of finite cognition at the point at which it
passes over into volition. But he is speaking of it before the
change has yet been made, for the “ it ”, which knows its
content to be necessary, can only be taken as meaning
cognition. The process here described starts with finite
cognition, which is not philosophy, but the ordinary thought
of every-day life. By this process the passage is made to
volition. The advance lies in the fact that, while knowledge
started from the given and contingent, it now knows its con-
tent to be necessary. But when this change has taken place
in the content, cognition has become philosophy. (Compare
Section 9, quoted on p. 35 above. “ 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 thinking proper to philosophy.”) And the universal, under
the form of subjectivity, has been apprehended as a self-
moving notion, which also shows that by this point knowledge
has become philosophy. And the process by which it has
advanced begins with the given and the contingent, which can
only be found in sense. The advance of the dialectic towards
the Absolute Idea has therefore a basis in experience.
41. In Section 238, Hegel, in considering the organic
elements of the speculative method, states that its beginning
is being or immediacy. “ When it means immediate being the
beginning is taken from intuition (Anschauung) and perception
—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 (das Logische) is as much
a universal as it is in being, since it is as much presupposed by
the notion as the notion itself immediately is, its beginning is
a synthetical as well as an analytical beginning.
(Lecture note.) “ Philosophical method is analytical as well
as synthetical, not indeed in the sense of a bare juxtaposition
or mere alternating employment of these two methods of finiteOF THE DIALECTIC.
45
cognition, but rather in such a way that it holds them merged
in itself. In every one of its movements, therefore, it displays
an attitude at once analytical and synthetical. Philosophic
thought proceeds 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 onlooker 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 back the incessant impertinence of our own
fancies and private opinions.”
Continuing the same subject, he says in Section 239, “ The
advance renders explicit the judgment implicit in the Idea.
The immediate universal, as the notion implicit, is the
dialectical force, which on its own part deposes its immediacy
and universality to the level of a mere stage or ‘ moment.’
Thus is produced the negative of the beginning, the original
datum is made determinate : it exists for something, as related
to those things which are distinguished from it—the stage of
Reflection.
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.
(Lecture note.) “ In the advance of the idea the beginning
exhibits, itself as what it implicitly is. It is seen to be
mediated and derivative, and neither to have proper being nor
proper immediacy. It is only for the consciousness which is
itself immediate, that Nature forms the commencement or
immediacy, and that Spirit appears as what is mediated by
Nature. The truth is that Nature is due to the statuting of
Spirit, (das durch den Geist Gesetzte,) and it is Spirit itself
which gives itself a presupposition in Nature.’'
42. In this passage the double foundation of the dialectic
is clearly admitted, and its connection with the double aspect
of the process is made clear. We must have, in the first place,
pure thought given to us as a fact—we cannot know the nature
of thought unless thinking has taken place. From one point
of view, then, the dialectic process is the observation of a46
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
subject matter already before us. In this aspect philosophy
“ allows the idea its own way ” and “ is only, as it were, an
onlooker at its movement and development.” And in so far
as this is so we have the unequivocal declaration that “the
beginning is taken from sensation or perception ”—since pure
thought is never found except as an element in the whole of
experience. But at the same time the process is not merely
one of empirical selection of first one character and then
another from the concrete whole. When once the first and
simplest judgment has been made about experience—the
judgment which is involved in the application of the category
of Being—the various steps of the dialectic process will grow
by an inner necessity out of that judgment. This judgment
will be the beginning as universality, as the other aspect was
the beginning as immediate being; and, in so far as the
beginning is universal, the process is synthetic and " evinces
itself to be the action of the notion itself.”
The explanation of the union of the two processes lies in the
fact that the reality present to our minds in experience is
always the full and concrete notion. This is the logical prim
of the movement, although the unanalysed mass and the
abstract notion of Being may be the temporal prius in that
stage of finite reflection which precedes philosophy. “ 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 immediacy.” And
again, in Section 242, the notion “is the idea, which, as
absolutely first (in the method) regards this terminus 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 one systematic whole.”
All less complete ideas are illegitimate abstractions from this
whole, and naturally tend therefore to approximate to it. And
such a process may be viewed from two sides. It may be
regarded from the point of view of the whole—in which case
the dialectic process will be viewed as gradually retracing the
steps of abstraction which had led to the idea of pure Being,
and rebuilding the concrete object till it again coincided with
reality. Or it may be regarded from the point of view of theOF THE DIALECTIC.
47
incomplete and growing notion, when the advance will seem to
be purely out of the notion itself. “ 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.”
And these two aspects—the analytic from the stand-point
of the concrete and perfect notion, and the synthetic from the
stand-point of the yet imperfect notion,—correspond respectively
to aspects for which the beginning is taken from sensation or
perception, and from the action of the notion itself. In so far
as we look on the motive force of the dialectic process as
residing in the completeness of the concrete notion, the process
depends on the contemplation of reality and therefore of
sensation and perception. For the sensation, although con-
tributing no positive element to the process, is the necessary
condition of our becoming conscious of the nature of thought.
But in so far as we look on the motive force of the process as
supplied by the incompleteness of the growing notion, we shall
bring into prominence the fact that the process is after all one
of pure thought. And we only get a true view of the whole
when we combine the two and see that the stimulus is in the
relation of the abstract and explicit idea to the complete and
implicit idea, that the process is one of pure thought perceived
in a medium of sensation and therefore synthetic and analytic
at once.
43. To this we may add the following extract from the
Philosophy of Spirit (Encyclopaedia, Section 447, lecture note),
“ In sensation there is present the whole Reason—the collected
material of Spirit. All our images, thoughts, and ideas, of
external nature, of justice, of ethics, and of the content of
religion, develop themselves from our intelligence as used in
sensation; as they themselves, on the other hand, when they
have received their complete explanation are again concentrated
in the simple form of sensation___This development of Spirit
out of sensation, however, has commonly been understood as if
the intelligence was originally completely empty, and therefore
received all content from outside as something quite strange
to it. This is a mistake. For that which the intelligence48
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
appears to take in from outside is in reality nothing else than
the reasonable, which is therefore identical with spirit, and
immanent in it. The activity of spirit has therefore no other
goal, except, by the removal of the apparent externality to self
of the implicitly reasonable object, to remove also the apparent
externality of the object to spirit.”
Here we learn that the reasonable, with which the Logic
deals, is first given to us in sensation, and as apparently
external to self, and that it is by starting from that which
is given in sensation that we learn the nature of spirit.
To act in this way is a fundamental characteristic of spirit—
“ the activity of spirit has no other goal ”—and therefore it
must be in this way that our minds act when they are engaged
on the dialectic process.
44. I have endeavoured to show, by the consideration of
these passages from Hegel’s writings, that his method possesses
two characteristics. These are, first, that it is a process of pure
thought, but only possible in the presence of matter of
intuition; second, that the motive force of the whole process
is involved in the relation between the incomplete form of the
notion, which at any moment may be explicitly before us, and
the complete form which is present implicitly in all our thought
as in all other reality.
We must now pass to another cpiestion. The validity of
each stage of the dialectic, as we have seen, depended on the
one before, and all of them ultimately on the first stage—the
category of Being. The validity of this again we found to
depend on the fact that its denial would be suicidal’.
Now it must be admitted that this is a mere inference, and
not explicitly stated by Hegel. Such a statement would be
most natural at the beginning of the whole dialectic process,
but it is neither there nor elsewhere. No justification whatever
is given of the idea of Being. It is merely assumed and all the
consequences that follow from it, however cogent in themselves,
are left, so to speak, suspended in the air with no explicit
argument anywhere to attach them to reality. The explanation
of this strange peculiarity is, I think, largely to be found in the
state of philosophy at the time when Hegel wrote.
1 C'hap. i. Section 18.OF THE DIALECTIC.
49
45. The argument of the dialectic could, if the theory in
the previous chapter is correct, have been so arranged as to be
obviously transcendental. The basis of the whole would be the
existence of the world of experience, which no sceptic can.
wholly deny, since denial itself always implies the existence of
something. The barest admission that could be made, however,
with regard to this world of experience, would involve that it
should be brought under the category of Being whose validity
would be therefore granted. But as, in the process of the
dialectic, the category of Being developed contradictions which
led up to fresh categories, and so on, the validity of these
categories also, as applied to reality, must be granted, since
they follow from the validity of the category of Being.
Kant, who had to establish his system in the face of
sceptical criticism, naturally emphasised the transcendental
character of the argument, and the cogency with which his
conclusions could be applied to the world of reality, involved
as they were in propositions which his adversaries were not
prepared to dispute. But Hegel’s position was different. He
lived in an age of Idealism, when the pure scepticism of Hume
had ceased to be a living force, and when it was a generally
accepted view that the mind was adequate to the knowledge of
reality. Under such circumstances Hegel would naturally lay
stress on the conclusions of his system, in which he more or
less differed from his contemporaries, rather than on the original
premises, in which he chiefly agreed with them, and would point
out how far the end was from the beginning, rather than how
clearly it might be derived from it. To this must be added
Hegel’s marked preference for a constructive, rather than a
polemical treatment, which appears so strongly in all his works.
Transcendental arguments, as Mr Balfour remarks in the Defence
of Philosophic Doubt, convince by threats, and are not the form
into which an exposition addressed, as Hegel’s was, to a friendly
audience, would naturally fall. But this has exposed his system
to severe disadvantages in the reaction against all Idealism
which has taken place since his death. For the transcendental
form becomes necessary when the attacks of scepticism have
to be met, and its absence, though due chiefly to the special
character of the audience to whom the philosophy was first
4
M. H.50
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
addressed, has led to the reproaches which have been so freely
directed against Absolute Idealism, as a mere fairy tale, or
as a theory with internal consistency, but without any relation
to facts.
The same causes may perhaps account for the prominence
of the synthetic over the analytic aspect of the dialectic,
which may be noticed occasionally throughout the Logic. The
criticism of idealists would naturally be devoted more to the
internal consistency of the system than to its right to exist at
all, on which point they would probably have no objection to
raise. To meet such criticisms it would be necessary to lay
emphasis on the synthetic side of the process, while to us, who
in most cases approach the whole question from a comparatively
negative stand-point, it would seem more natural to bring
forward the analytic side, and to show that the whole system
was involved in any admission of the existence of reality.
46. Hegel speaks of his logic as without any pre-supposition.
This is taken by Trendelenburg as equivalent to an assertion that
it has no basis in experience. But we have seen that the only
postulate which Hegel assumed was the validity of the category
of Being—that is, the existence of something. Now this, though
not directly proved, can scarcely be said to be assumed, if it is
involved in all other assertions. And a system which requires
no other postulate than this might fairly be said to have no
pre-supposition. The very fact that the argument exists
proves that it was entitled to its assumption, for if the
argument exists, then the category of Being has validity, at
any rate, of one thing—the argument itself. And this is
compatible with all the relation to experience which the
dialectic needs, or will admit.
A parallel case will be found in Hegel’s criticism of Kant’s
refutation of the ontological argument1. He then treats the
actual existence of God, who for him is equivalent to the
Absolute Reality, as a matter which can be passed over in
silence, since its denial—the denial of any reality in the
universe—is suicidal. It is really the same fact—the existence
of some reality—which, under another aspect, is assumed at
the beginning of the Logic. We may reasonably suppose that
1 Cp. Sections 63, 64.OF THE DIALECTIC.
51
Hegel treated it in the same way, holding that a postulate
which could not be denied without self-contradiction need
not be considered as a pre-supposition at all. From all more
particular pre-suppositions he doubtless claims that his logic
is free. But this claim is not incompatible with the relation
of the dialectic to experience, which was suggested in the last
chapter.
It must also be noted that Hegel says of the proofs of the
existence of God which are derived from the finite world “ the
process of exaltation might thus appear to be transition, and to
involve a means, but it is not a whit less 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 nullity1.” And in section 12, in the passage
quoted above, he tells us that philosophy is unfairly said to be
the child of experience, since it “ involves a negative attitude
to the initial acts of the senses.” Now in the Logic the result
certainly stands in a negative relation to the beginning, for the
inadequacy of the category of Being to express reality has
been demonstrated in the course of the dialectic. The category
of Being would then, in Hegel’s language, have been absorbed,
and it would be unfair to say that the dialectic depended on it.
Under these circumstances it is only natural that he should not
call its validity a pre-supposition.
47. There is, then, a constant relation to experience
throughout the course of the dialectic. But, even if this is
so, does that relation remain at the end of the process ? It
has been asserted that, although throughout the Logic Hegel
may treat thought as mediate, and as only existing as an
element in a whole of which the other element is an immediate
datum, yet, when we reach the Absolute Idea, that Idea is
held to be self-centred and capable of existing by itself in
abstraction from everything else. It must be admitted that
such a transition would be unjustifiable2, but I am unable
to see any reason to suppose that Hegel held any such belief.
We must discriminate between those characteristics of the
immediate element of experience which are indispensable if
experience is to be constituted at all, and those which are not
1 Enc. Section 50.	2 Cp. Chap. in. Section 99.
4—252
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
indispensable. The essential characteristics may all be summed
up in immediacy. All thought that we know, or that we can
conceive, has its action only in mediation, and its existence
without something immediate on which it may act would be a
contradiction. On the other hand it is not essential that this
immediate should be also contingent. “ The contingent may
be described as what has the ground of its being, not in itself,
but in somewhat else.1” Now it is quite possible that, in a
more advanced state of knowledge, we might be able to trace
back all the data immediately given in experience till we had
referred them to an individuality or organic whole from the
nature of which they could all be deduced. Contingency
would be here eliminated, for all experience would be referred
to a single unity and determined by its notion. The only
question which could then arise would be, “ Why was the
ultimate nature of reality thus and not otherwise ?” The
question would, no doubt, be one to which no answer could
be given. This would not, however, render the nature of
reality in any way contingent. For such a question would
be meaningless. Enquiries as to the reasons of things have
their place only within the universe, whose existence they
presuppose. We have no right to make them with regard to
the universe itself. Thus in the case we have supposed
contingency would be entirely eliminated, yet immediacy would
remain untouched. We should still know reality, not by
thought alone, but because it was given to us.
48. It seems probable that Hegel did suppose that the
Absolute Idea, when completely' realised, involved the elimi-
nation of the contingent, which indeed he treats2 as part of a
lower category, which is, of course, transcended in the highest.
It may certainly be doubted whether human knowledge could
ever attain, as a matter of fact, to this height of perfection. In
particular, it may be asked whether such a state of knowledge
would not require other means than our present senses for the
perception of reality outside ourselves. But whether the
elimination of Contingency is or is not possible, the point
which is important to us here is that, should it take place,
it does not involve the elimination of the immediate, and
1 Enc. Section 145, lecture note. 2 Enc. Section 145.OF THE DIALECTIC.
53
therefore does not prove that Hegel had any intention of
declaring thought to be self-sufficing, even when it reached the
Absolute Idea.
In the stage immediately before the Absolute Idea—that of
ordinary cognition and volition—it is evident that the idea is
not self-sufficing, since it is certain that we can neither
nor resolve in every-day life without some immediate
Now the point of transition between this category an
Absolute Idea is stated to be “ the unity of the theoretical and
practical idea, and thus at the same time the unity of the idea
of life with that of cognition. In cognition we had the idea in
the shape of differentiation. The process of cognition has
issued in the overthrow of this differentiation, and the restora-
tion of that unity which, as unity, and in its immediacy, is in
the first instance the Idea of Life1.” In this there is nothing
which tends to the elimination of immediacy, or to the
self-sufficiency of thought, but only the complete discovery in
the outside world of the pure thought which is also in us.
Again, in the idea of Life, thought is certainly not self-
sufficing, since one of the essential characteristics of this
category is that the soul is in relation to a body, which involves,
of course, sensation. Now the Absolute Idea is a synthesis
of this category and the category of Cognition. Thought is
mediate in both of these. How then can it be immediate in
the synthesis ? The correction of inadequacies in the Hegelian
logic comes by the emphasis of one side in the thesis and of
the other in the antithesis, the synthesis reconciling the two.
The synthesis, throughout the entire dialectic, can only advance
on the thesis and antithesis on points in which they disagree
with one another. On points in which they agree it can make
no change. And when, in Absolute Spirit, Hegel reaches that
which he unquestionably believes to be self-mediated and
self-sufficing, he only does so because it is a synthesis of the
mediating logic and the element of immediacy or “ givenness ”
which first occurs in nature. But within the logic there is no
immediacy to balance the admitted mere mediacy of the finite
categories, and the distinction of mediacy and immediacy cannot
therefore, within the logic, be transcended.
1 Enc. Section 236, lecture note..54
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
49. We find no sign again of transcended mediation in
the direct definition of the Absolute Idea. " Dieses aus der
Differenz und Endlichkeit des Erkennens zu sich zuriick-
gekommene und durch die Thatigkeit des Begritfs mit ihm
identisch gewordene Leben ist die speculative oder absolute
Idee. Die Idee als Einheit der subjectiven und der objectiven
Idee ist der Begriff der Idee, dem die Idee als solche der
Gegenstand, dem das Objekt sie ist; ein Objekt, in welches
alle Bestimmungen zusammen gegangen siud1.”
The second sentence of the definition asserts that the idea
is the “Gegenstand und Objekt” to the notion of the idea.
This cannot, it appears to me, be taken as equivalent to a
statement that thought here becomes self-subsistent and self-
mediating. It seems rather to signify that that which is
immediately given to thought to mediate, is now known to
be itself thought, although still immediately given. In other
words, the Absolute Idea is realised when the thinker sees in
the whole world round him nothing but the realisation of the
same idea which forms his own essential nature—is at once
conscious of the existence of the other, and of its fundamental
similarity to himself. The expression that the idea as such is
the object to the notion of the idea seems rather to support
this view by indicating that the idea as object is viewed in a
different aspect from the idea as subject. If immediacy was
here gained by thought, so that it required no object given
from outside, it would have been more natural to say that the
idea was its own object, or indeed that the distinction of subject
and object had vanished altogether.
If this is the correct interpretation of this passage, then
thought remains, for Hegel, in the Absolute Idea, what it has
been in all the finite categories. Although the content of all
experience contains, in such a case, nothing which is not a
manifestation of the pure Absolute Idea, yet to every subject
in whom that idea is realised, the idea is presented in the form
of immediate data, which are mediated by the subject’s own
action. The fundamental nature of subject and object is the
same, but the distinction between them remains in their relation
to one another.
1 fine. Sections 235, 23(5.OF THE DIALECTIC.
55
No doubt Hegel regards as the highest ideal of the dialectic
process something which shall be self-mediated, and in which
mediation as an external process vanishes. But this he finds in
Absolute Spirit, which is a synthesis of the Absolute Idea with
the element of immediate presentation. The Absolute Idea is
still an abstraction, as compared with the whole of Absolute
Spirit, and is not self-mediated.
50.	We have now to consider the third objection which
has been raised to the theory of Hegel’s meaning explained in
the first chapter. This objection is that Hegel has ascribed
ontological validity to his dialectic to a greater extent than this
theory admits, and that he has attempted to account by pure
thought, not only for the rationality, but also for the entire
existence of the universe. This is maintained by Professor
Seth, who objects to the system chiefly, it would seem, on this
ground. He says, for example, " Hegel apparently says, on one
occasion, that his own elaborate phraseology means no more
than the ancient position that vovs rules the world, or the
modern phrase, there is Reason in the world1 If the system is
reducible to this very general proposition, our objections would
certainly fall to the ground2.”
Somewhat earlier he expresses the position, which he
believes Hegel to hold, with great force and clearness. Hegel
“ apparently thinks it incumbent upon him to prove that spirit
exists by a necessity of thought. The concrete existence of the
categories (in Nature and Spirit) is to be deduced from their
essence or thought-nature; it is to be shown that they cannot
not be. When we have mounted to the Absolute Idea, it is
contended, we cannot help going further. The nisus of thought
itself projects thought out of the sphere of thought altogether
into that of actual existence. In fact, strive against the idea
as we may, it seems indubitable that there is here once more
repeated in Hegel the extraordinary but apparently fascinating
attempt to construct the world out of abstract thought or mere
universals3.”
51.	The passages from which most information on this
1 Enc. Section 24, lecture note.
, a Hegelianism and Personality, pp. 124, 125.
3 op. cit. pp. 110, 111.56
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
point, are to be expected will be those in the Greater and
Smaller Logics, in which the transition to the world of Nature
is described. These are quoted and abridged as follows by
Professor Seth. “ ‘ The Absolute Idea is still logical, still
confined to the element of pure thoughts...But inasmuch as
the pure idea of knowledge is thus, so far, shut up in a species
of subjectivity, it is impelled to remove this limitation; and
thus the pure truth, the last result of the logic, becomes also
the beginning of another sphere and science1.’ The Idea, he
recalls to us, has been defined as ‘ the absolute unity of the
pure notion and its reality ’—‘ the pure notion which is related
only to itself; ’ but if this is so, the two sides of this relation
are one, and they collapse, as it were, ‘ into the immediacy of
Being.’ ‘The Idea as the totality in this form is Nature. This
determining of itself, however, is not a process of becoming, or
a transition ’ such as we have from stage to stage in the Logic.
‘ The passing over is rather to be understood thus—that the
Idea freely lets itself go, being absolutely sure of itself and at
rest in itself. On account of this freedom, the form of its
determination is likewise absolutely free—namely, the extern-
ality of space and time existing absolutely for itself without
subjectivity.’ A few lines lower he speaks of the ‘ resolve
(Entschluss) of the pure Idea to determine itself as external
Idea.’ Turning to the Encyclopaedia we find, at the end of
the smaller Logic2, a more concise but substantially similar
statement. ‘ The Idea which exists for itself, looked at from
the point of view of this unity with itself, is Perception; and
the Idea as it exists for perception is Nature...The absolute
freedom of the Idea consists in this, that in the absolute truth
of itself’ (i.e., according to Hegel’s usage, when it has attained
the full perfection of the form which belongs to it) ‘it resolves
to let the element of its particularity—the immediate Idea as
its own reflection—go forth freely from itself as Nature.’ And
in the lecture-note which follows we read, as in the larger
Logic, ‘ We have now' returned to the notion of the Idea with
which we began. This return to the beginning is also an
advance. That with which we began w'as Being, abstract
1 Werlce, v. pp. 352, 353.
2 Knc. Section 244.OF THE DIALECTIC.
57
Being, and now we have the Idea as Being; but this existent
Idea is Nature1.’ ”
52. It is certainly possible at first sight to take these
passages as supporting Professor Seth’s theory. But we must
consider that, according to that theory, Hegel is made to
occupy a position, not only paradoxical and untenable, but also
inconsistent. If, as I have endeavoured to show above, and as
is admitted by Professor Seth, Hegel fully recognises the fact
that the whole dialectic movement of pure thought only takes
place in that concrete whole in which sense data are a moment
correlative with pure thought—because thought could not exist
at all without immediate data—how can he suppose that the
movement of pure thought produces the sensations which are
the conditions of its own existence ? Are we not bound to
adopt any other explanation, rather than suppose him guilty
of such a glaring contradiction ?
Such an explanation was offered in the last Chapter2, where
it was pointed out that, as the comparison of the abstract idea
with the concrete idea was the origin of the dialectic move-
ment within the Logic, so the comparison of the concrete idea
with the full whole of reality, compared with which the concrete
notion itself was an abstraction, was the origin of the transition
from Logic to Nature and Spirit—a transition in which there
was no attempt to construct the world out of abstract thought,
because the foundation of the argument was the presence,
implicit in all experience, of the concrete reality whose necessity
was being demonstrated.
Such a theory, at one time, Professor Seth was willing to
accept as correct, and now considers as “ the explanation which
a conciliatory and soberminded Hegelian would give of Hegel’s
remarkable tour de force.” His account is substantially the
same as that given above. “ Here, again, then, as throughout
the Logic, it might be said we are merely undoing the work of
abstraction and retracing our steps towards concrete fact. This,
as we have seen, implies the admission that it is our experiential
knowledge of actual fact which is the real motive-force impelling
us onward—impelling us here from the abstract determinations
1 Hegelianism and Personality, pp. 105, 106.
3 Section 26.58
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
of the Logic to the quasi-reality of Nature, and theDce to the
full reality of spirit. It is because we ourselves are spirits that
we cannot stop short of that consummation. In this sense we
can understand the feeling of ‘ limitation ’ or incompleteness of
which Hegel speaks at the end of the Logic. The pure form
craves, as it were, for its concrete realisation1.”
He subsequently, however, rejects this position, and indeed
seems scarcely to see its full meaning. For his “soberminded
Hegelian,” who accepts this reading, will, he informs us, “lay
as little stress as possible upon the so-called deduction. Further
reflection,” he continues, “ has convinced me, however, that
Hegel’s contention here is of more fundamental import to his
system than such a representation allows. Perhaps it may
even be said, that, when we surrender this deduction, though
we may retain much that is valuable in Hegel’s thought, we
surrender the system as a whole. For, however readily he may
admit, when pressed, that in the ordo ad individuum experience
is the quarry from which all the materials are derived, it must
not be forgotten that ho professes to offer us an absolute phi-
losophy. And it is the characteristic of an absolute philosophy
that everything must be deduced or constructed as a necessity
of thought. Hegel’s system, accordingly, is so framed as to
elude the necessity of resting anywhere on mere fact. It is
not enough for him to take self-conscious intelligence as an
existent fact, by reflection on whose action in his own conscious
experience and in the history of the race certain categories
are disclosed, reducible by philosophic insight to a system of
mutually connected notions, which may then be viewed as
constituting the essence or formal structure of reason. He
apparently thinks it incumbent on him to prove that spirit
exists by a necessity of thought. The concrete existence of the
categories (in Nature and Spirit) is to be deduced from their
essence or thought-nature: it is to be shown they cannot
not be2.”
53. Now in this passage there are two separate charges
made against Hegel, which Professor Seth apparently thinks
are identical. The one is that “ thought of its own abstract
nature gives birth to the reality of things,” that is, that, given
op. cit. pp. 108, 109.	2 op. cit. pp. 109, 110.OF THE DIALECTIC.
59
thought, Nature and Spirit can be deduced. That they are
deduced from thought in some way cannot be denied, but
Professor Seth rejects the idea that the deduction is partly
analytical, and declares that Hegel endeavoured to demonstrate
the existence of the worlds of Nature and Spirit by pure syn-
thesis from the world of Logic. But this is not all. Hegel is
also accused of endeavouring to prove “the concrete existence
of the categories from their essence.” This is properly a second
charge. But Professor Seth appears to identify it with the
first, by speaking of the concrete existence as “ in nature and
spirit,” and by making essence identical with the nature of
thought. This identification is, I venture to think, unjustifiable.
In the first place every proposition about Nature and Spirit
is not one which involves real existence. We might say, for
example, “ Dragons must occupy space,” or “ Angels must have
some way of gaining immediate knowledge.” Both propositions
might be perfectly correct, even if neither dragons nor angels
existed, because our propositions would deal only with essence.
They might be put in a hypothetical form, such as, “ If there
were dragons, they would occupy space.” (In this discussion
I adopt Professor Seth’s use of the word essence to signify the
nature of a thing, which remains the same, whether the thing
exists or not. It must not, of course, be confounded with
Hegel’s use of the same word to denote the second stage of
the Logic, which merely describes one stage among others in
what Professor Seth would call the essence of thought.)
On the other hand, as we have seen above, a proposition
relating to pure thought may refer to real existence. “ Being is
synthesised in Becoming” is such a proposition, for the category
of Being is applicable, we know, to real existence. And as the
essences of Being and Becoming are united, and as the existence
of Being has been proved, we are able to state the proposition
concerning the relation of Being and Becoming as one of real
existence.
The confusion of real existence with the worlds of Nature
and Spirit is not inexplicable. For all real existence has its
immediate side, and must therefore be presented by sense, outer
or ioner, while thought, again, is correlative to sense, and, so to
speak opposed to it, both being complementary elements in experi-60
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
ence. Thought consequently gets taken as if it was opposed to
real existence. But the fact of the existence of thought can be
presented to us by inner sense as something immediate, and
we are then as sure of its real existence as we could be of
anything in the world of Nature. The office of thought is to
mediate; but it actually exists, or it could not mediate; and
in virtue of its actual existence any instance of thought may
be immediately known ; in which case it is mediated by other
thought. The existence of logic proves in itself that we can
think about thought. Thought therefore can become a datum,
and its real existence can be known. It is true that it is an
abstraction, and that its real existence is only as an element
of experience. But this is true also of the particulars of sense.
54. Since, then, propositions concerning Nature and Spirit
may be really " essential and hypothetical ” while propositions
concerning pure thought may deal with real existence, it
follows that the deduction of Nature and Spirit from Logic does
not necessarily involve the fallacious attempt to argue from
essence to existence. This is the case whether the deduction
is both analytic and synthetic in its nature, as I have en-
deavoured to maintain, or is of a purely synthetic nature, as
Professor Seth supposes.
In the first of these suppositions the argument might have
been merely from the essence of thought to the essence of
Nature. In that case the final conclusion would have run,
thought cannot exist without Nature, or, if there is thought
there is Nature. Hegel, however, was not satisfied with such
a meagre result, and his argument is from existence to exist-
ence. The course of the Logic, in the first place, may be
summed up thus—we have an immediate certainty that some-
thing exists, consequently the category of Being is valid of
reality. But the Absolute Idea is involved in the category of
Being. Therefore the Absolute Idea is applicable to that which
really exists, and we can predicate reality of that Idea. After
this follows the transition to the world of Nature, which is of a
similar character. The Absolute Idea really exists. But it
(since it is of the nature of thought) can only exist in combi-
nation with data of sense. Therefore data of sense really
exist. Thus the conclusion certainly deals with real existence,OF THE DIALECTIC.
61
but that character has been given to the argument, not by
any juggling with pure thought, but by a premise at the be-
ginning relating to real existence—namely, that something must
exist. The evidence for this proposition is immediate, for
it rests on the impossibility of denying it without asserting at
the same time the reality at least of the denial and of the
thinker. And this assertion depends on the immediately given,
for the existence of the words or ideas which form the denial
are perceived by sense, outer or inner, while the existence of
the thinker is an inference from, or rather an implication in,
the fact that he has sensations or thoughts, of the existence
of which—thoughts as well as sensations—he has immediate
knowledge.
The same would be the case if the deduction were purely
synthetic, one which endeavoured to make the world of Nature
and Spirit a mere consequence and result of the world of thought.
The argument would be invalid for reasons which we shall pre-
sently notice, but not because it attempted to pass from essence
to existence. For -we have every right to believe that thought
exists, and it is from this existent thought (the presence of
which within the Logic passes unchallenged by Professor Seth),
that Hegel passes on to Nature and Spirit.
The two charges then—of deducing Nature and Spirit
merely from thought, aud of deducing existence from essence—
are by no means identical, and must be taken separately. It
will perhaps be more convenient to begin with the first, which
is the less sweeping of the two.
55.	“ Thought out of its own abstract nature gives birth
to the reality of things ” says Professor Seth in his criticism,
and, if this is Hegel’s meaning, we must certainly admit that
he has gone too far. Thought is, in its essential nature, mediate.
As Trendelenburg remarks1 the immediacy of certain ideas
in the dialectic is only comparative and equivalent to self-
mediation. Real immediacy belongs to nothing but the data
of intuition. And therefore thought cannot exist unless it
has something immediately given which it may mediate. It
is, of course, perfectly true that the immediate cannot remain
unmediated. The only merely immediate thing is the pure
,	1 Logische Untersvcliungen, Vol. I. p. 68.62
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
sensation, and the pure sensation taken by itself cannot become
part of experience, and therefore, since it has certainly no
existence out of experience, does not exist at all. But although
immediacy, as such, is a mere abstraction, so is mediation, and,
therefore, thought. Green’s extraordinary suggestion that “ the
notion that an event in the way of sensation is something over
and above its conditions may be a mistake of ours1,” and again
that “ for the only kind of consciousness for which there is
reality, the conceived conditions are the reality,” ignores the
fact that the ideal of knowledge would in this case be a mass
of conditions which conditioned nothing, and of relations with
nothing to relate. Such an elevation of an abstraction into an
independent reality is not excelled in audacity by any of the
parallel fallacies of materialism, against which Green was never
weary of protesting.
But if thought is a mere element in the whole of reality,
having no more independent existence than mere sense has,
it is certainly impossible that thought should produce reality—
that the substantial and individual should depend on an ab-
straction formed from itself. And this is what Hegel believed,
if we are to accept Professor Seth’s statement.
56. This theory is rendered the more remarkable by the
admission that, within the Logic, the deduction has that ana-
lytic aspect which is required to make it valid. “ The forward
movement is in reality a movement backward: it is a retracing
of our steps to the world as we know it in the fulness of its
real determinations2.” Can we believe that Hegel, after using
one method of dialectic process to display the nature of pure
thought, employs the same dialectic in an absolutely different
sense when he wishes to pass from logic to nature ? Logic,
Nature, and Spirit are declared to be thesis, antithesis, and
synthesis; so are Being, Not-Being, and Becoming. In the
case of the latter it is admitted that the true reality lies only
in the synthesis, and that no attempt is made to construct it
out of the thesis. What reason is there for supposing such
an attempt in the case of the more comprehensive deduction
which we are now discussing ?
Professor Seth attempts to answer the question by drawing
1 Works, Vol. ii. p. 190.	2 Hegelianism and Personality, p. 92.OP THE DIALECTIC.
63
a distinction between epistemology and ontology in this respect.
As to the former, he says, it may be true that Hegel held
that we only arrive at a knowledge of pure thought by ab-
straction from experience, while yet it may be true that he
considered that the other element in experience was originally
produced by, and is in the objective world dependent on, pure
thought. It is perhaps worth remarking that this derives no
countenance from Sections 238 and 239 of the Encyclopaedia
quoted above1, where the union of analysis and synthesis is
spoken of as “ the philosophic method ” and as belonging to
“philosophic thought” without any suggestion that it only
applies to one department of philosophy.
But the distinction is one which would only be tenable if
the elements of which experience is composed were self-
subsistent entities, capable of existing apart as well as together.
Thus it might be said that, although in a certain experiment
oxygen and hydrogen were produced out of water, yet from
a scientific point of view we should rather consider them as
the elements of which water was made up, they, and not the
water, being the ultimate reality. But this analogy will not
hold here. For the element of immediacy—the datum given
through sense—is as necessary and essential to the existence
of the idea, as the sides of a triangle are to its angles. The
existence of the immediate element is essential to anything
really concrete, and the idea is only an element in, and an
abstraction from, the concrete. Now the existence of an ab-
straction apart from the concrete, or the dependence of the con-
crete on an abstraction from itself, is a contradiction. And that
the idea is a mere abstraction from experience is not merely
an accident of a particular way of discovering it, but its very
essence. Its existence lies solely in mediation, and it cannot
therefore, ever be self-sufficient. It is rather an aspect which
we can perceive in experience, than an element which can be
separated from it, even ideally, without leading us into error.
Its independent existence would thus be a very glaring
contradiction. And for Hegel, as for other people, contradictions
could not really exist. Each stage in the Logic is a contra-
diction, it is true, but then those stages have no independent
1 p. 44,64
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
existence. The self-consistent reality is always behind it. “ The
consummation of the infinite aim...consists merely in removing
the illusion which makes it seem as yet unaccomplished1.”
57. And Hegel himself distinctly denies the asserted purely
synthetical character of the transition. “ It is clear,” he says,
“ that the emergence of Spirit from Nature ought not to be
expressed as if nature was the Absolute Immediate, the First,
that which originally statutes, and Spirit on the other hand was
only statuted (gesetzt) by it; rather is Nature statu ted by
Spirit, and the latter is the absolute First. Spirit, in and for
itself, is not the simple result of Nature, but in truth its own
result; it evolves itself out of the assumptions which it itself
makes, out of the logical idea and external nature, and is the
truth of the former as well as of the latter—that is to say the
true form of the Spirit which is merely in itself, and of the
Spirit which is merely outside itself. The appearance of the
mediation of Spirit by' another is transcended by Spirit itself,
since this, so to say, has the consummate ingratitude to tran-
scend that through which it seeks to be mediated, to mediatise
it, to reduce it to something which only exists through spirit,
and in this way to make itself completely independent2.” Spirit,
the final result of the process, is thus declared to be also its
logical ground, and the process of the Idea to Nature and from
Nature to Spirit has therefore an analytic, as well as a synthetic
aspect, since the end of the process is only to come to explicit
knowledge of its ground, which, as its ground, must have been
present to it all along, though not yet in full and explicit
consciousness. It may be remarked that Hegel uses exactly
the same metaphor of ingratitude to describe the relation of
Spirit to the apparent commencement of the process, as he
used long before to express the connection between pure thought
and the empirical details, from the consideration of which pure
thought started8. This may serve as a slight additional reason
for our belief in the theory that the force of the transition to
Spirit lies in the implicit presence of Spirit all along, and not in
a merely synthetic advance from pure thought through Nature.
1	Enc. Section 212, lecture notes.
2	Enc. Section 381, lecture note, p. 23.
' Enc. Section 12, p. 37 above.OF THE DIALECTIC.
65
For in the logic, as Professor Seth admits, the logical prius of the
advance is to be found at the end, and not at the beginning,
of the process. We may also compare Section 239 of the
Encyclopaedia, lecture note—“ the truth is that Nature is due
to the statuting of Spirit, and it is Spirit itself which gives
itself a presupposition in Nature.” This view is incompatible
with any attempt to represent Nature as statuted by Logic
alone.
58.	To deny the purely synthetic deduction of Nature
from Logic, which we have just been considering, is not equiva-
lent to denying that there is any deduction at all intended,
which would be obviously incorrect. It is implied that these
are the only two alternatives, when Professor Seth tells us that
the “soberminded Hegelian,” who denies the purely synthetic
deduction, “ will lay as little stress as possible upon the so-
called deduction. Further reflection has convinced me, how-
ever,” he continues, “ that Hegel’s contention here is of more
fundamental importance to his system than such a represen-
tation allows. Perhaps it may even be said that, when we
surrender this deduction, though we may retain much that is
valuable in Hegel’s thought, we surrender the system as a
whole1.” No doubt it is essential to the theory that there
shall be a deduction, so that the whole system, from the
category of Being to Absolute Spirit, shall be bound closely
together. But this is not incompatible with the soberminded
view of the dialectic, for, as we have seen, the deduction may
be one which is analytic as well as synthetic, and may derive
its cogency from the implicit presence, at its starting point,
of its result.
59.	The treatment of the problem of contingency in the
dialectic presents a curious alternation between two incom-
patible points of view, by the first of which contingency is
treated as a category, while by the second it is attributed to
the incapacity of Nature to realise the Idea. It is not neces-
sary to consider here the criticisms which might be made on
either of these explanations. It is sufficient to point out that,
while the former does not imply the theory which Professor
1 op. cit. pp. 109, lio.
M. H,
566
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
Seth adopts as to the general purpose of the Logic, the latter
is quite incompatible with it.
As to the first, it is to be noticed that the attempt to
convert contingency into a logical category is not necessarily
identical with an attempt to ignore reality. “ The contingent,”
says Hegel, “ roughly speaking, is what has the ground of its
being, not in itself, but in somewhat else.... The contingent
is only one side of the actual, the side namely of reflection into
somewhat else1.” It is thus by no means the same thing as
the real, which includes, even if it does not consist exclusively
of, the self-subsistent entity or entities which have their ground
in themselves, or, if that expression be objected to, are primary
and without any ground at all. The elimination of the con-
tingent is thus quite compatible with the existence of factual
reality. This is confirmed by Hegel’s remark in the same
section that “ to overcome this contingency is, roughly speaking,
the problem of science.” For the object of ordinary science is
certainly not to eliminate factual reality.
The same expression suggests that the elimination of con-
tingency does not, for Hegel, involve the elimination of
immediacy. For the object of ordinary science is not to
eliminate the data of sense, but to arrange and classify them.
And this is confirmed by the definition quoted above. Con-
tingency consists in explanation from the outside. That which
can be explained entirely from itself ..would not, it appears, be
contingent to Hegel, even if part of the explanation was given
in the form of a mere datum. No doubt at present all
immediacy, involving as it does presentation in sense, outer
or inner, requires explanation from outside, and is therefore
contingent. But, as was pointed out above in a different
connection2, there is nothing in the nature of immediacy
which prevents us from supposing a state of knowledge in
which the immediate data, being traced back to some self-
centred reality, should require no explanation from without, and
consequently should lose their contingency, while they preserved
their immediacy. The introduction, therefore, of contingency as
a category which, like other categories, is transcended, does not
1 Enc. Section 145, lecture note.
2 Section 47.OF THE DIALECTIC.
67
fairly lead to the conclusion that Hegel believed in the pos-
sibility of mediating thought ever becoming self-sufficient.
On the other hand, the theory that contingency is caused
by the inability of Nature to realise the idea1, is clearly incom-
patible with an attempt to produce Nature out of pure thought.
For, if the world of Nature, as such an attempt would require, is
deduced by pure synthesis from the world of reason, and by the
free passage of the latter, how can the impotence arise ? The
only possible explanation of such impotence must be in some
independent element, which the idea cannot perfectly subdue,
and this is inconsistent with the theory of pure synthesis. It
may be doubted whether this view is compatible with the
general theory of the dialectic at all. But it is certainly, as
Professor Seth admits2, quite incompatible with “ an absolute
philosophy ” in his use of the phrase. If this was Hegel’s view
of contingency, it must be taken as a proof of the presence of
an analytic element in the process. For then the failure of
thought to embody itself completely in nature, whether con-
sistent or not, would not be so glaringly inconsistent as in the
other case. It might then possibly be a casual error. But it
is difficult to suppose that Hegel could have slipped by mistake
into the assertion that thought, while producing the whole
universe, was met in it by an alien element.
60. We must now proceed to the second charge made
against the transition from the Logic—that it involves an
argument from essence to existence. Such an argument would
doubtless be completely fallacious. Any proposition about
existence must either be directly based on immediate experi-
ence of reality, or must be connected, by a chain of inferences,
with a proposition that is so based. The difference between
the real and the ideal worlds is one which mere thought can
never bridge over, because, for mere thought, it does not exist.
As Kant says, the difference between twenty real thalers and
twenty thalers which are only imagined to be real, does not
appear in the idea of them, which is the same whether they
exist or not. The difference lies in the reference to reality,
which makes no part of the idea. If, therefore, we confined
ourselves to thought, we should be unable to discover whether
1 Enc. Section 16.	2 op. cit. p. 139.
5—268
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
our thalers were in truth real, or whether we had only
imagined their reality. And even if, starting from the
nature of thought taken in abstraction from sense, we could
evolve the idea of the entire universe (and we have seen1 that
without sense we could perceive nothing of the nature of
thought), it would remain purely ideal, and never be able to
explain the fact that the world actually existed. For the
difference between the real world, and a world, exactly like it,
but only imagined to exist, is a difference which pure thought
could not perceive, and therefore could not remove. It is
impossible to argue that contradictions would drive it on, for
the contradictions of thought, as we have seen, arise from its
being abstract, and can do no more than restore the concrete
whole from which a start was made. If reality was not given
as a characteristic of that concrete whole, no abstraction from it
will afford a basis from which the dialectic process can attain to
reality.
61. Before, however, we decide that Hegel has been guilty
of so great a confusion, we should require convincing evidence
that his language must be interpreted to mean that existence
in reality can be deduced from the essence of thought. And
the evidence offered seems by no means sufficient.
In discussing the first charge made by Professor Seth, I
have given reasons for supposing that the analytic aspect of
the method, which Professor Seth admits t<> be present within
the Logic, is also to be found in the transition from Logic to
Nature and Spirit. Now we have seen above2 that the absence
of such an analytic element would not imply of necessity that
the argument is from essence to existence. But, on the other
hand, the presence of that element would render it certain that
no attempt was made to proceed to existence from essence.
For the presence of the analytic aspect in the transition
means that we are working towards the development, in ex-
plicit consciousness, of the full value of the whole which was
previously before us in implicit consciousness, and the exis-
tence of this whole is the motive force of the transition. If,
therefore, the result reached by the dialectic has real existence,
so also the datum, of which the dialectic process is an analysis,
1 Section 14.	2 Section 54,OF THE DIALECTIC.
69
must have real existence. The argument is thus from existence
to existence. That a movement is in any way analytic implies
that its result is given, at any rate implicitly, in its data. But
an argument from essence to existence would most emphatically
go beyond its data, producing something fresh. If, therefore,
we have reason to reject the first charge of Professor Seth
against the validity of the transition from the Logic to the
rest of the system, the second charge falls to the ground
with it.
62.	In defence of his view Professor Seth, pointing out
that Hegel calls his philosophy absolute, says that “ it is the
characteristic of an absolute philosophy that everything must
be deduced or constructed as a necessity of thought1.” No
quotations, however, are given from Hegel in support of this
interpretation. And the one definition which Hegel himself
gives of the word in the Enyclopaedia turns on quite a different
point. “According to Kant, the things that we know about
are to us appearances only, and we can never know their
essential nature, which belongs to another world, which we
cannot approach.... The true statement of the case is rather
as follows. The things of which we have direct consciousness
are mere phenomena, not for us only, but in their own nature;
and the true and proper case of these things, finite as they are,
is to have their existence founded not in themselves but in the
universal divine 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 should be termed absolute
idealism2.” The meaning of the epithet Absolute is here
placed exclusively in the rejection of the Kantian theory that
knowledge is only of phenomena. But the assertion that
reality may in itself become the object of knowledge is not
equivalent to the assertion that conclusions regarding reality
can be reached by merely considering the nature of thought.
If Absolute had this additional and remarkable meaning Hegel
would surely have mentioned it explicitly.
63.	Again, Hegel rejects Kant’s well known criticism on
the ontological proof of the existence of God, and, as this
criticism turns on the impossibility of predicating reality
1 op. cit. p. 110.	” Enc. Section 45, lecture note.70
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
through any arguments based only on the definition of the
subject, it has been supposed that Hegel did not see this
impossibility. “ It would be strange,” Hegel says, “ if the
Notion, the very inmost of mind, if even the Ego, or above all
the concrete totality we call God were not rich enough to
include so poor a category as Being1.” “ Most assuredly ” is
Professor Seth’s comment on this, “the Notion contains the
category of Being; so does the Ego, that is to say, the Idea of
the Ego, and the Idea of God, both of which are simply the
Notion under another name. The category of Being is con-
tained in the Ego and may be disengaged from it.” But, he
continues, “ It is not the category ‘ Being ’ of which we are in
quest, but that reality of which all categories are only descrip-
tions, and which itself can only be experienced, immediately
known, or lived. To such reality or factual existence, there
is no logical bridge2.”
But before we conclude that Hegel has asserted the exist-
ence of such a logical bridge, it will be well to bear in mind
his warning in the section quoted above, that in God “ we have
an object of another kind than any hundred thalers, and unlike
any one particular notion, representation, or whatever else it
may be called.” In what this peculiarity consists is not .clearly
explained here. But in the middle of the preceding section
we find, “ 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
appearance, truth abides in God, so that true being is another
name for God3.”
Now, if God is identical with all true being, he certainly
has “ that reality of which all categories are only descriptions.”
For, if he has not, nothing has it, since there is no reality out-
side him, and the denial of all reality is as impossible as the
denial of all truth,—to deny it is to assert it. For if the denial
is true, it must be real, and so must the person who makes it.
The only question then is whether the category of Being can
be predicated of this real God, and in this case Professor Seth
admits that Hegel was quite right in his judgment that the
predication could be made, if it was worth while. It would
1 Enc. Section 51.	2 op. cit. p. 119.
■' Enc. Section 50.OP THE DIALECTIC.
71
seem then that he is scarcely justified in charging Hegel with
endeavouring to construct a logical bridge to real or factual
existence. Hegel was speaking of something whose real ex-
istence could not be doubted except by a scepticism which
extended to self-contradiction. Thus he considered himself
entitled to assume in his exposition the actual existence of
God, and only deliberated whether the predicate of Being could
or could not be attached to this existence. To do this he
pronounced to be perfectly legitimate, and perfectly useless—
legitimate, because we can say of all reality that it is; useless,
because the full depth of reality, in which all categories can
be fouud, is expressed so inadequately by this, the simplest and
most abstract of all the categories.
64. Kant’s objections do not affect such an ontological
argument as this. He shows, no doubt, that we have no right
to conclude that anything really exists, on the ground that
we have made real existence part of the conception of the
thing. No possible attribute, which would belong to the thing
if it existed, can give us any reason to suppose that it does
exist. But this was not Hegel’s argument. He did not try
to prove God’s existence simply from the divine attributes.
He relied on two facts. The first was that the conception of
God proved that all attributes predicated of anything must, in
the last resort, be predicated of God. The second was that
experience did exist, and consequently that attributes must
be predicated of some existent subject, to account for ex-
perience. The important point in the conception of God, for
Hegel’s purpose here, was not that he was the most real of beings,
nor that he contained all positive qualities, but that he was
the only real being. For the existence of an ens realissimum
or of an omnitudo realitatis can be denied. But the existence
of all reality cannot be denied, for its denial would be con-
tradictory. And, on Hegel’s definition, to deny God’s existence
is equivalent to denying all reality, for “ true being is another
name for God.”
"If, in an identical judgment,” says Kant, “I reject the
predicate and retain the subject, there arises a contradiction
and hence I say that the former belongs to the latter neces-
sarily. But if I reject the subject as well as the predicate72
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
there is no contradiction, because there is nothing left which
can be contradicted______ The same applies to the concept of
an absolutely necessary being. Remove its existence, and you
remove the thing itself, with all its predicates, so that a con-
tradiction becomes impossible1.” But the Hegelian argument
rests on the fact that you cannot remove “ the thing itself ”
because the statement by which you do it, and yourself likewise,
are actually existent, and must have some ultimate reality
behind them, which ultimate reality, called by Hegel God, is
the thing whose removal is in question. Thus there is a
contradiction. You can only get rid of the Hegelian God by
getting rid of the entire universe. And to do this is im-
possible.
It must be noticed, however, that this form of the onto-
logical argument can only prove the existence of a God who
is conceived as the sole reality in the universe. If we ourselves,
or anything else, are conceived as existing, except as parts of
him, then the denial of his existence does not involve the
denial of all reality, and has therefore no contradiction con-
tained in it. Kant’s refutation will stand as against all
attempts to prove, by the ontological argument, the existence
of a God not conceived as immanent in all existence. It will
also be conclusive against all attempts to demonstrate, by
means of the ontological argument, any particular quality or
attribute of God, unless that attribute can be shown to be
essential to his all-inclusive reality, in which case, of course,
we should, by denying it, deny the reality also. Kant was
right in holding that the ontological argument could not es-
tablish the existence of a God, as conceived by his dogmatic
predecessors, or as conceived by himself in the Critique of
Practical Reason. Hegel was right in holding that it was valid
of a God, defined in the Hegelian manner.
65. Professor Seth also relies on Hegel’s treatment of the
individual character of existence. “ He adroitly contrives to
insinuate that, because it is undefinable, the individual is
therefore a valueless abstraction2.” And he quotes from the
Smaller Logic, “ Sensible existence has been characterised by
1	Critique of Pure Reason, Book ii. Chap. hi. Section 4.
2	op. cit. p. 128.OF THE DIALECTIC.
73
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.... Language is the work of
thought, and hence all that is expressed in language must be
universal.... And what cannot be uttered, feeling or sensation,
far from being the highest truth is the most unimportant and
untrue1.” Professor Seth calls this “ Hegel’s insinuated dis-
paragement of the individual.” But, if anything is disparaged,
it is not the individual, but sensible existence. When we say
that individuality is not a quality of sensible existence, but
depends upon thought, this diminishes the fullness and reality
of sensible existence, but not necessarily of individuality. And
it is of vital importance which of these two it is which Hegel
disparages. For “the individual is the real,” and an attack on
individuality, an attempt to make it a mere product of thought,
would go far to prove that Hegel did cherish the idea of
reducing the whole universe to a manifestation of pure thought.
“ The meanest thing that exists has a life of its own, absolutely
unique and individual, which we can partly understand by
terms borrowed from our own experience, but which is no more
identical with, or in any way like, the description we give of
it, than our own inner life is identical with the description
we give of it in a book of philosophy5.” But to deny the
importance of the sensible element in experience, taken as
independent, is justifiable.
It is no doubt perfectly true that we are only entitled to
say that a thing is real, when we base that judgment on some
datum immediately given to us, and also that those data can
only be given us by sense,—inner or outer. But it does not
at all follow that the sensible, taken by itself, is real. Thought
also is essential to reality. In the first place it would be im-
possible for us to be self-conscious without thought, since mere
unrelated' sensation is incompatible with self-consciousness.
Now without self-consciousness nothing would be real for us.
Without self-consciousness sensations could not exist. For an
unperceived sensation is a contradiction. Sensations exist only
in being perceived; and perception is impossible without com-
1 Elio. Section 20.
Hegelianism and Personality, p. 125.74
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS
parison at the least, which involves thought, and so self-
consciousness.
Mere sensation may surely then be called unimportant—
even Kant called it blind—since it has no reality at all,
except in a unity in which it is not mere sensation. It is as
much an abstraction as mere thought is. The importance
lies only in the concrete whole of which they are both parts,
and this reality is not to be considered as if it was built up
out of thought and sensation. In that case the mere sensation
might be said to have some reality, though only in combination.
But here the sensation, as a mere abstraction, must be held
not to exist in the concrete reality, but merely to be capable
of distinction in it, and thus to have of itself no reality
whatever.
It is of course true that it is only the immediate contents
of experience which need mediation by thought to give them
reality, and not self-subsistent entities,—such as our own selves.
But Hegel’s charge of unimportance was made against sen-
sations, which are not self-subsistent entities, but simply part
of,the content of experience.
In the Introductory Chapter, in which the passage quoted
above is found, Hegel was merely trying to prove that thought
was essential, not that it was all-sufficient. It will therefore
quite agree with the context if we take this view of what it
was to which he denied importance. It would certainly have
made his position clearer, if he had, at the same time, asserted
the abstractness and unimportance of thought without sense,
as emphatically as he had asserted the abstractness and un-
importance of sense without thought, but the former is implied
in the passages1 by which the dialectic is made to depend on
experience, and explicitly affirmed in the passage from the
Philosophy of Spirit* in which the logical idea is declared to
be dependent on Spirit, and to be mediated by it. For in Spirit
we have the union of the two sides which, when separated,
present themselves to us as the mediating thought and the
immediate datum.
66. We are told also that the tendency of the whole system
is towards the undue exaltation of logic and essence, at the
1 Sections 33-42 above.	2 Section 43 above.OF THE DIALECTIC.
75
expense of nature and reality. In support of this it is said
that, although Hegel “ talks (and by the idiom of the language
cannot avoid talking) of ‘ der absolute Geist ’ (the absolute
spirit) that by no means implies, as the literal English trans-
lation does, that he is speaking of God as a Subjective Spirit,
a singular intelligence...... The article goes with the noun in
any case, according to German usage; and ‘ absolute spirit ’
has no more necessary reference to a Concrete Subject than
the simple ‘ spirit ’ or intelligence which preceded it1.” It may
be the case that Hegel did not conceive Absolute Spirit as
a single intelligence. Indeed it seems probable that he did
not do so, but the point is too large to be discussed here.
But even in that case, it does not follow that the Absolute
Spirit cannot be concrete. If it is conceived as an organism
or society of finite intelligences, it will still be a concrete
subject, although it will possess no self-consciousness or
personality of its own. If it is regarded as manifested in
an unconnected agglomeration of finite intelligences, it may
not be a subject, but will still be concrete, since it will consist1
of the finite intelligences, which are certainly concrete. No
doubt, if a definition or description be asked for of Absolute
Spirit, the answer, like all definitions or descriptions, will be
in abstract terms, but a definition, though in abstract terms,
may be the definition of a concrete thing. Even if the Absolute
Spirit was a singular intelligence, any explanation of its nature
would have to be made by ascribing to it predicates, which are
necessarily abstract terms.
And against this asserted tendency on Hegel’s part to take
refuge in abstractions we may set his own explicit declarations.
He continually uses abstract as a term of reproach and declares
that the concrete alone is true. Now it cannot be denied that
Nature is more concrete than the pure idea, or that Spirit is
more concrete than Nature. This would lead us, apart from
other considerations, to suppose that the logical prius of the
universe was to be looked for in Spirit, which is the most con-
crete of all things2, and not in the Idea, which is only im-
perfectly concrete, even in its highest form.
1 Hegelianism and Personality, p. 151.
5 Philosophy of Spirit, Section 377, p. 3.CHAPTER III.
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
67. The question now arises, whether the dialectic as
sketched in the last two chapters, is a valid system of
philosophy. The consideration of this question here must
necessarily be extremely incomplete. Some seventy or eighty
transitions from one category to another may be found in the
Logic, and we should have to consider the correctness of each
one of these, before we could pronounce the dialectic, in its
present form at least, to be correct. For a chain is no stronger
than its weakest link, and if a single transition is inconclusive,
it must render all that comes beyond it uncertain. All we can
do here is to consider whether the starting point and the
general method of the dialectic are valid, without enquiring
into its details.
We shall have in the first place to justify the dialectical
procedure—so different from that which the understanding
uses in the affairs of every-day life. To do this we must show,
first, that the ordinary use of the Understanding implies a
demand for the complete explanation of the universe, and then
that such an explanation cannot be given by the Understanding,
and can be given by the Reason in its dialectical use, so that the
Understanding itself postulates in this way the validity of
dialectic thought. In the second place we must prove that the
point from which the dialectic starts is one which it may
legitimately take for granted, and that the nature of the
advance and its relation to experience are such as will render
the dialectic a valid theory of knowledge. In this connection
the relation of the idea of Movement to the dialectic processTHE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
77
must also be considered. And finally the question will arise
whether we are justified in applying this theory of knowledge
as also a theory of being, and in deducing the worlds of Nature
and Spirit from the world of Logic.
68. It is to be noticed that both the first and second
arguments are of a transcendental nature. We start respectively
from the common thought of the Understanding, and from the
idea of Being, and we endeavour to prove the validity of the
speculative method and of the Absolute Idea, because they are
assumed in, and' postulated by, the propositions from which we
started. Before going further, therefore, we ought to consider
some general objections which have been made against trans-
cendental arguments as such.
They have been stated with great clearness by Mr Arthur
Balfour in his Defence of Philosophic Doubt. " When a man,”
he says, “ is convinced by a transcendental argument, it must
be...because he perceives that a certain relation or principle is
necessary to constitute his admitted experience. This is to
him a fact, the truth of which he is obliged to recognise. But
another fact, which he may also find it hard to dispute, is that
he himself, and, as it would appear, the majority of mankind, have
habitually had this experience without ever thinking it under
this relation; and this second fact is one which it does not
seem easy to interpret in a manner which shall harmonise with
the general theory. The transcendentalist would, no doubt,
say at once that the relation in question had always been
thought implicitly, even if it had not always come into clear
consciousness; and having enunciated this dictum he would
trouble himself no further about a matter which belonged
merely to the ‘ history of the individual.’ But if an implicit
thought means in this connection what it means everywhere else,
it is simply a thought which is logically bound up in some
other thought, and which for that reason may always be called
into existence by it. Now from this very definition, it is plain
that so long as a thought is implicit it does not exist. It is
a mere possibility, which may indeed at any moment become
an actuality, and which, when once an actuality, may be
indestructible; but which so long as it is a possibility can be
said to have existence only by a figure of speech.78
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
“If, therefore, this meaning of the word ‘implicit’ be
accepted, we find ourselves in a difficulty. Either an object can
exist and be a reality to an intelligence which does not think of
it under relations which, as I now see, are involved in it, i.e.
without which I cannot now think of it as an object; or else I
am in error, when I suppose myself and other people to have
ignored these relations in past times
The second of these alternatives, as Mr Balfour points out,
cannot be adopted. It is certain that a large part of mankind
have never embraced the transcendental philosophy, and that
even those who accept it did not do so from their earliest
childhood. It follows, he continues, that we must accept the
first alternative, in which case the whole transcendental system
“ vanishes in smoke.”
69. The dilemma, however, as it seems to me, rests upon a
confusion of the two different senses in which we may be said
to be conscious of thought. We may be said, in the first place,
to be conscious of it whenever we are conscious of a whole
experience in which it is an element. In this sense we must
be conscious of all thought which exists at all. We must agree
with Mr Balfour that “ if the consciousness vanishes, the
thought must vanish too, since, except on some crude mate-
rialistic hypothesis, they are the same thing2.” But in the
second sense we are only conscious of a particular thought
when we have singled it out from the mass of sensations and
thoughts, into which experience may be analysed, when we
have distinguished it from the other constituents of experience,
and know it to be a thought, and know what thought it is. In
this sense we may have thought without being conscious of it.
And indeed we must always have it, before we can be conscious
of it in this sense. For thought first comes before us as an
element in the whole of experience, and it is not till we have
analysed that whole, and separated thought from sensation, and
one thought from another, that we know we have a particular
thought. Till then we have the thought without being
explicitly conscious that we have it.
Now I submit that Mr Balfour’s argument depends on a
1 Defence of Philosophic Doubt, p. 94.
2 op. cit. p. 100.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
79
paralogism. When he asserts that we must always be conscious
of any relation which is necessary to constitute experience, he
is using "to be conscious of” in the first sense. When he
asserts that all people are not always conscious of all the ideas
of the dialectic as necessary elements in experience, lie is using
"to be conscious of” in the second sense. And if we remove
this ambiguity the difficulty vanishes.
We are only conscious of thought as an element in
experience. Of thought outside experience we could not be
conscious in any sense of the word, for thought except as
relating and mediating data cannot even be conceived. But
thought of which we are not conscious at all is, as Mr Balfour
remarks, a non-entity. And no thought does exist outside
experience. Both thought and the immediate data which it
mediates exist only as combined in the whole of experience,
which is what comes first into consciousness. In this lie the
various threads of thought and sensation, of which we may be
said to be conscious, in so far as we are conscious of the whole
of which they are indispensable elements. But w'e do not
know how many, nor of what nature, the threads are, until we
have analysed the whole in which they are first presented to us,
nor, till then, do we clearly see that the whole is made up of
separate elements. Even to know this involves some thinking
about thought. There is no contradiction between declaring
that certain relations must enter into all conscious thought,
and admitting that those relations are known as such only to
those who have endeavoured to divide the whole of experience
into its constituent parts, and have succeeded in the attempt.
The use of the word “ implicit ” to which Mr Balfour
objects, can be explained in the same way. If it means only
what he supposes, so that an implicit thought is nothing but
one “ which is logically bound up in some other thought, and
which for that reason may always be called into existence by
it ”—then indeed to say that a thought is implicit is equivalent
to saying that it does not exist. But if we use the word—and
there seems no reason why we should not—in the sense
suggested by its derivation, in which it means that which is
wrapped up in something else, then it is clear that a thing may
be implicit, and so not distinctly seen to be itself, while it80
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
nevertheless exists and is perceived as part of the whole in
which it is involved.
70.	In speaking of such an answer to his criticisms, Mr
Balfour objects that it concedes more than transcendentalism
can afford to allow. “ If relations can exist otherwise than as
they are thought, why should not sensations do the same ?
Why should not the ' perpetual flux ’ of unrelated objects—the
metaphysical spectre which the modern transcendentalist labours
so hard to lay—why, I say, should this not have a real
existence ? We, indeed, cannot in our reflective moments think
of it except under relations which give it a kind of unity; but
once allow that an object may exist, but in such a manner as to
make it nothing for us as thinking beings, and this incapacity
may be simply due to the fact that thought is powerless to
grasp the reality of things*.”
This, however, is not a fair statement of the position. The
transcendentalist does not assert that an object can exist in
such a manner as to be nothing for us as thinking beings, but
only that it may exist, and be something for us as thinking
beings, although we do not recognise the conditions on which
its existence for us depends. Thus we are able to admit that
thought exists even for those people who have never made the
slightest reflection on its nature. And, in the same way, no
doubt, we can be conscious of related sensations without seeing
that they are related, for we may never have analysed
experience as presented to us into its mutually dependent
elements of sensation and thought. But it does not follow
that sensations could exist unrelated. That would mean that
something existed in consciousness (for sensations exist no-
where else), which not only is not perceived to comply with the
laws of consciousness, but which actually does not comply with
them. And this is quite a different proposition, and an
impossible one.
71.	Passing now to the peculiarities of the dialectic
method, their justification must be one which will commend
itself to the Understanding—that is to thought, when, as
happens in ordinary life, it acts according to the laws of formal
logic, and treats the various categories as stable and independent
1 op. cit. p. 101.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
81
entities, which have no relation to one another, but that of
exclusion. For if speculative thought, or Reason, cannot be
justified before the Understanding, there will be an essential
dualism in the nature of thought, incompatible with any
satisfactory philosophy. And since mankind naturally, and
until cause is shown to the contrary, takes up the position of the
Understanding, it will be impossible that we can have any
logical right to enter on the dialectic, unless we can justify it
from that standpoint, from which we must set out when we
first begin to investigate metaphysical questions.
The first step towards this proof is the recognition that the
Understanding necessarily demands an absolute and complete
explanation of the universe. In dealing with this point,
Hartmann1 identifies the longing for the Absolute, on which
Hegel here relies, with the longing to “ smuggle back ” into our
beliefs the God whom Kant had rejected from metaphysics.
God, however, is an ideal whose reality may be demanded on
the part either of theoretical or of practical reason. It is
therefore not very easy to see whether Hartmann meant that
the longing, as he calls it, after the Absolute, is indulged
only in the interest of religion and ethics, or whether he admits
that it is demanded, whether justifiably or not, by the nature of
knowledge. The use of the term “ longing,” (Sehnsucht),
however, and the expressions “ mystisch-religioses Bediirfuiss,”
and “ unverstandliche Gefuhle,” which he applies to it, seem
rather to suggest the former alternative.
In this case grave injustice is done to the Hegelian position.
The philosopher does not believe in the Absolute merely
because he desires it should exist. The postulate is not only
an emotional or ethical one, nor is the Absolute itself by any
means primarily a religious ideal, whatever it may subsequently
become. If, for example, we take the definition given in the
Smaller Logic, “ der Begriff der Idee, dem die Idee als solche
der Gegenstand, dem das Objekt sie ist2,” it is manifest that
what is here chiefly regarded is not a need of religion, but of
cognition. Indeed the whole course of the Logic shows us that
it is the desire for complete knowledge, and the impatience of
knowledge which is seen to be unsatisfactory, which act as the
1 Ueber die dialehtische Methode, B. n. 4.	2 Enc. Section 236.
M. H.	682
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
motive power of the system. It is possible, no doubt, that
Hegel’s object iii devoting himself to philosophy at all was, as
has often been the case with philosophers, mainly practical, and
that his interest in the absolute was excited from the side of
ethics and religion rather than of pure thought. But so long
as he did not use this interest as an argument, it does not
weaken his position. The ultimate aim which a philosopher
has in his studies is irrelevant to our criticism of his results, if
the latter are valid in themselves.
72. The need of the Absolute is thus a need of cognition.
We must ask, then, whether the Understanding, in its attempts
to solve particular problems, demands a complete explanation
of the universe, and the attainment of the ideal of knowledge ?
This question must be answered in the affirmative. For
although we start with particular problems, the answer to each
of these will raise fresh questions, which must be solved before
the original difficulty can be held to be really answered, and
this process goes on indefinitely, till we find that the whole
universe is involved in a complete answer to even the slightest
question. As was pointed out above1 any explanation of
anything by means of the surrounding circumstances, of an
antecedent cause, or of its constituent parts, must necessarily
raise fresh questions as to the surroundings of those sur-
roundings, the causes of those causes, or the parts of those
parts, and such series of questions, if once started, cannot stop
until they reach the knowledge of the whole surrounding
universe, of the whole of past time, or of the ultimate atoms,
which it is impossible to subdivide further.
In fact, to state the matter generally, any question which
the Understanding puts to itself must be either, What is the
meaning of the universe ? or, What is the meaning of some
part of the universe ? The first is obviously only to be
answered by attaining the absolute ideal of knowledge. The
second again can only be answered by answering the first. For
if a thing is part of a whole it must stand in some relation to
the other parts. The other parts must therefore have some
influence on it, and part of the explanation of its nature must
lie iu these other parts. From the mere fact that they are
1 Section 13.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
88
parts of the same universe, they must all be connected, directly
or indirectly.
73. The Understanding, then, demands the ideal of know-
ledge, and postulates it whenever it asks a question. Can it,
we must now enquire, attain, by its own exertions, to the ideal
which it postulates ? It has before it the same categories as the
Reason, but it differs from the Reason in not seeing that the
higher categories are the inevitable result of the lower, and in
believing that the lower are stable and independent. “ Thought,
as Understanding, sticks to fixity of characters, and their
distinctness from one another: every such limited abstract it
treats as having a subsistence and being of its own Y’ It can
use the higher categories, then, but it has no proof of their
validity, which can only be demonstrated, as was explained in
Chap. I., by showing that they are involved in the lower ones,
and finally in the simplest of all. Nor does it see that an
explanation by a higher category relieves us from the necessity
of finding a consistent explanation by a lower one. For it does
not know, as the Reason does, that the lower categories are
abstractions from the higher, and are unfit to be used for the
ultimate explanation of anything, except in so far as they are
moments in a higher unity.
It is this last defect which prevents the Understanding
from ever attaining a complete explanation of the universe.
There is, as we have said, nothing to prevent the Understanding
from using the highest category, that of the Absolute Idea.
It contains indeed a synthesis of contradictions, which the
Understanding is bound to regard as a mark of error, but so
does every category above Being and Not-Being, and the
Understanding nevertheless uses these categories, not per-
ceiving that they violate the law of contradiction, as conceived
by formal logic. It might therefore use the Absolute Idea as
a means of explaining the universe, if it happened to come
across it (for the perception of the necessary development of
that idea from the lower categories belongs only to the Reason)
but it would not see that it summed up all other categories.
And this would prevent the explanation from being com-
pletely satisfactory. For the only way in which contradictions
1 Enc. Section 80.
6—284
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
caused by the use of the lower categories can be removed by
the employment of the Absolute Idea lies in the synthesis, by
the Absolute Idea, of those lower categories. They must be
seen to be abstractions from it, to have truth only in so far as
they are moments in it, and to have no right to claim existence
or validity as independent. This can only be known by means
of the Reason. For the Understanding each category is
independent and ultimate. And therefore any contradictions
in which the Understanding may be involved through the use
of the lower categories can have no solution for the Under-
standing itself. Till we can rise above the lower categories, by
seeing that they express only inadequate and imperfect points
of view, the contradictions into which they lead us must remain
to deface our system of knowledge. And for this deliverance
we must wait for the Reason.
74. If the lower categories do produce contradictions, then,
we can only extricate ourselves from our difficulty by aid of the
Reason. But are such contradictions produced, in fact, when
we treat those categories as ultimate and endeavour to com-
pletely explain anything by them? This question would be
most fitly answered by pointing out the actual contradictions in
each case, which is what Hegel undertakes throughout the
Logic. To examine the correctness of his argument in each
separate case would be beyond the scope of this work. We
may however point out that this doctrine did not originate
with Hegel. In the early Greek philosophy we have demon-
strations of the contradictions inherent in the idea of Motion,
and traces of a dialectic process are found by Hegel in Plato.
Kant, also, has shown in his Antinomies that the attempt to
use the lower categories as complete explanations of existence
leads with equal necessity to directly contradictory conclusions.
And we may say on general grounds that any category
which involves an infinite regress must lead to contradictions.
Such are, for example, the category of Force, which explains
things as manifestations of a force, the nature of which must
be determined by previous manifestations, and the category of
Causality, which traces things to their causes, which causes
again are effects and must have other causes found for them.
Such an infinite regress can never be finished. And anTHE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
85
unfinished regress, which we admit ought to be continued,
explains nothing, while to impose an arbitrary limit on it is
clearly unjustifiable.
Again, all categories having no ground of self-differentiation
in themselves may be pronounced to be in the long run
unsatisfactory. For thought demands an explanation which
shall unify the data to be explained, and these data are in
themselves various. If the explanation, therefore, is to be
complete, and not to leave something unaccounted for, it must
show that there is a necessary connection between the unity of
the principle and the plurality of the manifestation.
Now many of the lower categories do involve an infinite
regress, and are wanting in any principle of self-differentiation.
They cannot, therefore, escape falling into contradictions, and
as the Understanding cannot, as the Reason can, remove the
difficulties by regarding these categories as sides of a higher
truth in which the contradiction vanishes, the contradictions
remain permanent, and prevent the Understanding from reaching
that ideal of knowledge at which it aims.
75. On this subject Hartmann1 reminds us that Hegel
confesses that the Understanding cannot think a contradiction
—in the sense of unifying it and explaining it. All, as he
rightly points out, that the Understanding can do is to be
conscious of the existence of contradictions. This, he contends,
will not serve Hegel’s purpose of justifying the Reason. For,
since the recognition of the existence of contradictions can
never change the incapacity of the Understanding to think them,
the only result would be “ a heterogeneity or inconsequence ” of
being, which presents these contradictions, and thought, which is
unable to think them. This inconsequence might end, if Hegel’s
assertion be correct that contradictions are everywhere, in a
total separation between thought and being, but could have no
tendency to make thought dissatisfied with the procedure of the
Understanding, and willing to embrace that of the Reason.
This, however, misrepresents Hegel’s position. The con-
tradictions are not in being, as opposed to thought. They are
in all finite thought, whenever it attempts to work at all. The
contradiction on which the dialectic relies is, that, if we use
1 op. cit. B. h. 4.86
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
one finite category of any subject-matter, we find ourselves
compelled, if we examine what is implied in using, to use also,
of the same subject-matter, its contrary. The Understanding
recognises this contradiction, while at the same time it cannot
think it,—cannot, that is, look at it from any point of view
from which the contradiction should disappear. It cannot
therefore take refuge in the theory that there is a heterogeneity
between itself and being, for it is in its own working that it
finds something wrong. If the law of contradiction holds,
thought must be wrong when it is inevitably led to ascribe
contrary predicates to the same subject, while .if the law of
contradiction did not hold, no thought would be possible at all.
And if, as the dialectic maintains, such contradictions occur
with every finite category—that is, whenever the Understanding
is used, the Understanding must itself confess that there is
always a contradiction in its operations, discoverable when they
are scrutinised with sufficient keenness. Either, then, there is
no valid thought at all—a supposition which contradicts itself,
—or there must be some form of thought which can harmonise
the contradictions which the Understanding can only recognise.
76. But if the Understanding is reduced to a confession of
its own insufficiency, is the Reason any better off? Does the
solution offered by the Reason supply that complete ideal of
knowledge which all thought demands ? The answer to this
question will depend in part on the actual success which the
Absolute Idea may have in explaining the problems before us
so as to give satisfaction to our own minds. But the difference
between the indication in general terms of the true explanation,
and the working out of that explanation in detail is so enormous,
that we shall find but little guidance here. It may be true
that “ the best proof that the universe is rational lies in
rationalising it,” but, if so, it is a proof which is practically
unattainable1.
The only general proof open to us is a negative one.
The dialectic comes to the conclusion that each of the lower
categories cannot be regarded as ultimate, because in each, on
examination, it finds an inherent contradiction. In proportion
as careful consideration and scrutiny fail to reveal any corre-
1 Cf. Chap. vii.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
87
sponding contradiction in the Absolute Idea, we may rely on
the conclusion of the dialectic that it is the ultimate and only
really adequate category.
It may, however, be worth while to point out that the
Absolute Idea does comply with several requirements which we
should be disposed to regard d priori as necessary for an idea
which should prove itself adequate to the task of offering a
complete explanation of the universe. The explanation afforded
by the use of the Absolute Idea is that in all reality the idea,
while it finds an independent Other given to it, finally learns
that in that Other there is nothing alien to itself, so that it
finds itself in everything. The key which is applied is thus
the idea of the human mind itself, as engaged in activity,
whether theoretical or practical. Such an explanation, if it
can be proved to be true, must, it would seem, be satisfactory
to us. For we can reach no standing point outside the human
mind, from which we could pronounce that an explanation
which showed the intelligibility of the whole universe, and its
fundamental similarity to that mind, was unsatisfactory. Our
object, in pursuit of which we rejected the limitations of the
Understanding and took to the use of the Reason, was to
explain, that is, to rationalise the universe. And it would
be impossible to rationalise it more than this category does,
which regards it as the manifestation and incarnation of reason.
77. What then should be the attitude of the Understanding
towards the Reason ? We have shown that the Understanding
at once postulates, and cannot attain, a complete and harmonious
ideal of knowledge. Supposing that the Reason can, as it
asserts, attain this ideal, is the Understanding therefore bound
to admit its validity ?
It is no doubt perfectly true, as Hartmann points out', that
our power of seeking for anything, or even the necessity we
may be under of seeking it, is not in itself the least proof that
we shall succeed in our search. It does not then directly follow
that, because there is no other way than the Reason by which
we could attain that which the Understanding postulates, we
can therefore attain it by means of the Reason. And this
might have been a decisive consideration if Hegel had at-
1 op. cit. n. B. t,88
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
tempted to prove the validity of the Reason to the Understanding
in a positive manner. But to do this would have been
unnecessary, and, indeed, self-destructive. For such a proof
would have gone too far. It would have proved that there was
nothing in the Reason which was not also in the Understanding
—in other words, that there was no difference between them.
If there are two varieties of thought, of which one is higher and
more comprehensive than the other, it will be impossible from
the nature of the case for the lower and narrower to be directly
aware that the higher is valid. From the very fact that the
higher will have canons of thought not accepted by the lower,
it must appear invalid to the latter, which can only be forced
to accept it by external and indirect proof of its truth. And of
this sort is the justification which the Reason does offer to the
Understanding. It proves that we have a need which the
Understanding must recognise, but cannot satisfy. This leaves
the hearer with two alternatives. He may admit the need and
deny that it can be satisfied in any way, which, in the case of
a fundamental postulate of thought, would involve complete
scepticism. If he does not do this, he must accept the
validity of the Reason, as the only source by which the demand
can be satisfied.
The first alternative, however, in a case like this, is only
nominal. If we have to choose between a particular theory and
complete scepticism, we have, in fact, no choice at all. For
complete scepticism is impossible, contradicted as it would be
by the very speech or thought which asserted it. If Hegel’s
demonstrations are correct, there is to be found in every thought
something which for the Understanding is a contradiction. But
to reject all thought as incorrect is impossible. There must
therefore be some mode of thought, higher than the Under-
standing, and supplementary to it, by which we may be
justified in doing continually that which the Understanding
will not allow us to do at all. And this is the Reason.
78. We are thus enabled to reject Hartmann’s criticism
that the dialectic violates all the tendencies of modern thought,
by sundering the mind into two parts, which have nothing in
common with one another1. The Understanding and the
1 op. cit. ii. B. 3.THE VALIDITY Of THE DIALECTIC.
89
Reason have this in common, that the Reason is the only
method of solving the problems which are raised by the
Understanding, and therefore can justify its existence on the
principles which the Understanding recognises. For the
distinctive mark of the Reason is, as Hegel says, that “it
apprehends the unity of the categories in their opposition,” that
it perceives that all concrete categories are made up of
reconciled contradictions, and that it is only in these syntheses
that the contradictory categories find their true meaning.
Now this apprehension is not needed in order to detect the
contradictions which the finite categories involve. This can be
done by the Understanding. And when the Understanding
has done this, it has at any rate proved its own impotence,
and therefore can scarcely be said to be essentially opposed
to Reason, since it has forfeited its claim to any thorough or
consistent use at all.
The whole justification of the Reason, as the necessary
complement of the Understanding, is repeated in each triad of
the Logic. The fact that the thesis leads of necessity to the
antithesis, which is its contrary, is one of the contradictions
which prove the impotence of the Understanding. We are
forced either to admit the synthesis offered by the Reason, or
to deny the possibility of reconciling the thesis and antithesis.
The thesis itself, again, was a modified form of the synthesis of
a lower thesis and antithesis. To deny it will therefore involve
the denial of them also, since it offers the only means of
removing their contradiction. And thus we should be driven
lower and lower, till we reach at last an impossible scepticism,
the only escape from which is to accept the union of opposites
which we find in the Reason.
Thus the Reason, though it does something which the
Understanding cannot do, does not really do anything which
the Understanding denies. What the Understanding denies is
the possibility of combining two contrary notions as they stand,
each independent and apparently self-complete. What the
Reason does, is to merge these ideas in a higher one, in which
their opposition, while in one sense preserved, is also trans-
cended. This is not what is denied by the Understanding, for
the Understanding is incapable of realising the position.90
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
Reason is not contrary to, but beyond the Understanding. It
is true that whatever is beyond the Understanding may be said
to be in one sense contrary to it, since a fresh principle is
introduced. But as the Understanding has proved that its
employment hy itself would result in chaos, it has given up its
assertion of independence and leads the way naturally to
Reason. Thus there are not two faculties in the mind with
different laws, but two methods of working, the lower of which,
though it does not of course contain the higher, yet leads up to
it, postulates it, and is seen, in the light of the higher method,
only to exist as leading up to it, and to be false in so far as it
claims independence. The second appears as the completion of
the first; it is not merely an escape from the difficulties of the
lower method, but it explains and removes those difficulties; it
does not merely succeed, where the Understanding had failed,
in rationalising the universe, but it rationalises the Under-
standing itself. Taking all this into consideration the two
methods cannot properly be called two separate faculties,
however great may be the difference in their working.
79. We must now pass to the second of the three questions
proposed at the beginning of this chapter—namely, the internal
consistency of the system. And it will be necessary to consider
in the first place what foundation is assumed, upon which to
base our argument, and whether we are entitled to this
assumption.
Now the idea from which the dialectic sets out, and in
which it professes to show that all the other categories are
involved, is the idea of Being. Are we justified in assuming
the validity of this idea ? The ground on which we can answer
this question in the affirmative is that the rejection of the idea
as invalid would be self-contradictory, as was pointed out
above'. For it would be equivalent to a denial that anything
whatever existed. And in that case the denial itself could not
exist, and the validity of the idea of Being has not been denied.
But, on the other hand, if the denial does exist, then there is
something whose existence we cannot deny. And the same
dilemma applies to doubt, as well as to positive denial. If the
doubt exists, then there is something of whose existence we
1 Char. !• Section 18.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
91
are certain; if the doubt does not exist, then we do not doubt
the validity of' the category. And both denial and doubt
involve the existence of the thinking subject.
We have thus as firm a base as possible for our trans-
cendental argument. It is not only a proposition which none of
our opponents do in fact doubt, but one which they cannot by
any possibility doubt, one which is involved and postulated in
all thought and in all action. Whatever may be the nature of
the superstructure, the foundation is strong enough to carry it.
80. The next consideration must be the validity of the
process by which we conclude that further categories are
involved in the one from which we start. In this process there
are three steps. We go from thesis to antithesis, from thesis
and antithesis to synthesis, and from synthesis again to a fresh
thesis. The distinctness of the separate steps becomes some-
what obscured towards the end of the Logic, when the
importance of negation, as the means by which the imperfect
truth advances towards perfection, is considerably diminished.
It will perhaps be most convenient to take the steps here in
the form in which they exist at the beginning of the Logic.
The effect produced on the validity of the process by the
subsequent development of the method will be discussed in the
next chapter.
It is not necessary to say much of the transition from the
synthesis to the fresh thesis. It is, in fact, scarcely a
transition at all. It is, as can be seen when Becoming passes
into Being Determinate, rather a contemplation of the same
truth from a fresh point of view—immediacy in the place of
reconciling mediation—than an advance to a fresh truth.
Whether in fact this new category is always the same as the
previous synthesis, looked at from another point of view, is a
question of detail which must be examined independently for
each triad of the Logic, and which does not concern us here, as
we are dealing only with the general principles of the system.
But if the old synthesis and the new thesis are really only
different expressions of the same truth, the passage from the one
to the other is valid even according to formal Logic. Since
nothing new is added at all, nothing can be added improperly.
81.	Our general question must be put in a negative form92
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
to suit the transition between thesis and antithesis. It would
be misleading to ask whether we were justified in assuming
that, since the thesis is valid, the antithesis is valid too. For
the result of the transition from thesis to antithesis is to
produce, till the synthesis is perceived, a state of contradiction
and scepticism, in which it will be doubted if either category is
valid at all, since they lead to contradictions. Our question
should rather be, Are we justified in assuming that, unless the
antithesis is valid, the thesis cannot be valid ?
The ground of this assumption is that the one category
implies the other. If we examine attentively what is meant
by pure Being, we find that it cannot be discriminated from
Nothing. If we examine Being-for-self, we find that the One
can only be defined by its negation and repulsion, which
involves the category of the Many.
It is objected that these transitions cannot be justified,
because they profess to be acts of pure thought, and it is
impossible to advance by pure thought alone to anything new.
To this an answer was indicated in the last chapter, where we
found that the motive to the whole advance is the presence in
experience, and in our minds as they become conscious of
themselves in experience, of the concrete reality, of which all
categories are only descriptions, and of which the lower cate-
gories are imperfect descriptions1. Since pure thought has a
double ground from which it may work—the abstract and
imperfect explicit idea from which the advance is to be made,
and the concrete and perfect implicit idea towards which the
explicit idea gradually advances—real progress is quite com-
patible with pure thought. Because it has before it a whole
which is so far merely implicit, and has not been analysed, it
can arrive at propositions which were not contained, according
to the rules of formal logic, in the propositions from which it
starts, but are an advance upon the latter. On the other hand,
the process remains one of pure thought only, because this
whole is not empirically given. It is not empirically given,
although it could not be given if experience did not exist. For
it is necessarily in all experience; and being the essential
nature of all reality, it can be deduced from any piece of
1 Section 32.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
93
experience whatever. Our knowledge of it is dependent, not
on experience being thus and thus, but only on experience
existing at all. And the existence of experience cannot be
called an empirical fact. It is the presupposition alike of all
empirical knowledge, and of all pure thought. We should not
be aware even of the existence of the laws of formal logic
without the existence of experience. Yet those laws are not
empirical, because, although they have no meaning apart from
experience, they are not dependent on any one fact of
experience, but are the ouly conditions under which we can
experience anything at all. And for a similar reason, we need
not suppose that dialectic thought need be sterile because it
claims to be pure.
82. From another point of view, it is sometimes said that
the transitions of the dialectic only exist because the connection
between the two categories has been demonstrated by means of
facts taken from experience. In that case the dialectic, what-
ever value it might have, could not possess the inherent
necessity, which characterises the movements of pure thought,
and which its author claimed for it. It could at most be an
induction from experience, which could never rise above
probability, nor be safely applied beyond the sphere in which
it had been verified by experience. I have endeavoured to
show above that, since thought can be pure without being
sterile, it does not follow that an advance must be empirical
because it is real. Whether it is in fact empirical or not, is
another matter. If we can conceive any change in the nature
of the manifold of sensations, as distinct from the categories by
which they are built up, which would invalidate any of the
transitions of the dialectic, then no doubt we should have to
admit that the system had broken down. It is of course
impossible to prove generally and d priori that no such flaw
can be found in any part of the system. The question must be
settled by an investigation of each category independently,
showing that the argument in each depends upon the move-
ment of the pure notion, and not on any particulars of sense.
To do this would be beyond the scope of my present essay,
but the special importance of the idea of Motion renders it
necessary to discuss Trendelenburg’s theory that it has been94
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
illegitimately introduced into the dialectic by the observation
of empirical facts1.
83. The remaining transition is that from thesis and
antithesis to synthesis. We have seen above2 that if the
synthesis does reconcile the contradictions, we are bound to
accept it as valid, unless we can find some other means of
reconciling them. For otherwise, since we cannot accept
unreconciled contradictions as true, we should have to deny the
validity of thesis and antithesis. And since the thesis itself
was the only reconciliation possible for a lower thesis and
antithesis, we should have also to deny the validity of the
latter, and so on until, in the denial of Being, we reached a
reductio ad absurdum. All that remains, therefore, is to
consider whether the synthesis is a satisfactory reconciliation of
contradictions.
With regard to the general possibility of transcending
contradictions, we must remember that the essence of the
whole dialectic lies in the assertion that the various pairs of
contrary categories are only produced by abstraction from the
fuller category in which they are synthesised. We have not,
therefore, to find some idea which shall be capable of reconciling
two ideas which had originally no relation to it. We are merely
restoring the unity from which those ideas originally came. It
is not, as we might be tempted to think, the reconciliation of
the contradiction which is an artificial expedient of our minds
in dealing with reality. It is rather the creation of the
contradiction which was artificial and subjective. The syn-
thesis is the logical prius of its moments. Bearing this in
mind, we shall see that the possibility of transcending con-
tradictions is a simpler question than it appears to be. For all
that has to be overcome is a mistake about the nature of
reality, due to the incomplete insight of the Understanding.
The contradiction has not so much to be conquered as to be
disproved.
84.	Hartmann objects that the only result of the union of
two contraries is a blank, and not a richer truth3. This is
certainly true of the examples Hartmann takes, + y and — y, for
1 Sections 91-04.	2 Section 78.
J op. cit. ii, B. 7.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
95
these, treated as mathematical terms, do not admit of synthesis,
hut merely of mechanical combination.
Hegel never maintained that two such terms as these,
opposed in this way, could ever produce anything but a blank.
Hartmann appears to think that he endeavoured to synthesise
them in the passage in the Greater Logic', when he makes + y
and — y equal to y and again to 2y. But clearly neither y nor
2y could be a synthesis of + y and — y, for a synthesis must
introduce a new and higher idea. All Hegel meant here was
that both + y and — y are of the nature of y, and that they are
also both quantities, so that from one point of view they are both
simply y (as a mile east and a mile west are both a mile) and
from another point of view they are 2y (as in going a mile east,
and then returning westwards for the same distance, we walk
two miles). This gives us no reason to suppose that Hegel did
not see that if we oppose + y to —y, taking the opposition of
the signs into consideration, the result will be 0.
But this tells us nothing about the possibility of synthesis.
For Hegel does not, to obtain a synthesis, simply predicate the
two opposite categories of the same subject,—a course which
he, like everyone else, would admit to be impossible. He
passes to another category, in which the two first are contained,
yet in such a way that the incompatibility ceases. The result
here is by no means an empty zero, because the synthesis is
not a mere mechanical junction of two contradictory categories,
but is the real unity, of which the thesis and antithesis are two
aspects, which do not, however, exhaust its meaning. Whether
the attempt to find such syntheses has in fact been successful
all through the Logic, is, of course, another question. Such
a solution however would meet Hartmann’s difficulty, and he
has given no reason why such a solution should be impossible.
The nature of his example in itself proves that he has failed to
grasp the full meaning of the process. In algebra there is no
richer notion than that of quantity, in which + y and — y are
directly opposed. No synthesis is therefore possible, and the
terms cannot be brought together, except in that external
unity which produces a mere blank. But such a case, which
can only be dealt with by the most abstract of all sciences,
1 We:rhe, Vol. iv. p. 53.90	THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
cannot possibly be a fair example of a system whose whole life
consists in the gradual removal of abstractions.
85. We have seen that the cogency of the entire process
rests mainly7 on the fact that the system is analytic as well as
synthetic, and that it does not evolve an entirely new result,
but only7 renders explicit what was previously implicit in all
experience. On the ground of this very characteristic of the
dialectic, Trendelenburg denies that it can have any objective
validity. It may be convenient to quote his account of the
dialectic process, which Professor Seth translates as follows1:
“ The dialectic begins according to its oivn declaration with
abstraction ; for if ‘ pure being ’ is represented as equivalent to
‘ nothing ’ thought has reduced the fulness of the world to the
merest emptiness. But it is the essence of abstraction that the
elements of thought which in their original form are intimately
united are violently7 held apart. What is thus isolated by
abstraction, however, cannot but strive to escape from this
forced position. Inasmuch as it is a part torn from a whole, it
cannot but bear upon it the traces that it is only a part; it
must crave to be completed. When this completion takes
place, there will arise a conception which contains the former in
itself. But inasmuch as only one steji of the original abstraction
has been retraced, the new conception will repeat the process;
and this will go on until the full reality7 of perception has been
restored....Plainly a whole world may develop itself in this
fashion, and, if we look more narrowly, we have discovered here
the secret of the dialectic method. That method is simply the
art by which we undo or retrace our original abstraction. The
first ideas, because they7 are the products of abstraction, are
recognised on their first appearance as mere parts or elements
of a higher conception, and the merit of the dialectic really lies
in the comprehensive survey of these parts from every side, and
the thereby increased certainty we gain of their necessary
connection with one another2.” And he immediately continues,
“ What meanwhile happens in this progress is only a history of
subjective knowledge, no development of the reality itself from
its elements. For there is nothing corresponding in reality
1	Hegelianism and Personality, p. 92.
2	Logische Untersuchungeny Yol. i. p. 94.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
97
which answers to the first abstraction of pure being. It is a
strained image, produced by the analysing mind, and no right
appears anywhere to find in pure being the first germ of an
objective development.”
In answer to this objection I may quote Mr F. H. Bradley,
“you make no answer to the claim of Dialectic, if you establish
the fact that external experience has already given it what it
professes to evolve, and that no synthesis comes out but what
before has gone in. All this may be admitted, for the question
at issue is not, What can appear, and How comes it to appear ?
The question is as to the manner of its appearing, when it is
induced to appear, and as to the special mode in which the
mind recasts and regards the matter it may have otherwise
acquired. To use two technical terms which I confess I regard
with some aversion—the point in dispute is not whether the
product is a posteriori, but whether, being a posteriori, it is not
a priori also and as well1.” And in the previous Section,
speaking of the difference between common recognition and the
dialectic, he says “ The content in one case, itself irrational,
seems to come to our reason from a world without, while in
the other it appears as that natural outcome of our inmost
constitution, which satisfies us because it is our own selves.”
86. The process is more than is expressed by Tren-
delenburg’s phrase “ the art by which we retrace or undo our
original abstractions,” (“die Kunst wodurch die urspriingliche
Abstraction zuriickgethan wird”). For the abstractions are not
passively retraced by us, but insist on retracing themselves on
pain of contradiction. Doubtless, as Trendelenburg says, to do
this belongs to the nature of abstractions from a concrete
whole. But then the significance of the dialectic might not
unfairly be said to lie in the fact that it proved that our more
abstract thought-categories were abstractions in this sense—a
truth which without the dialectic we should not have known.
All analysis results, no doubt, in ideas more or less abstract, but
not necessarily in abstractions which spontaneously tend to
return to the original idea analysed. The idea of a living foot
apart from the idea of a body does contain a contradiction.
We know that a living foot can only exist in connection with
1 Logic, Book m. Part i. Chap n. Section 20.
M. H.
798
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
a living body, and if we grant the first to exist at any given
time and place we know that we also admit, by implication, the
other. Now the idea of a steam flour-mill can in like manner
be separated into two parts—that it is moved by steam, and
that its object is to grind com. But to admit that one of these
ideas can be applied as a predicate to any given subject is not
equivalent to admitting that the other can be applied to it
also, and that the subject is a steam flour-mill. For a machine
moved by steam can be used to weave cotton, and water-power can
be used to grind corn. We have formed from our original idea
two which are more abstract—the idea of a machine moved by
steam, and the idea of a machine which grinds corn. But
neither of them shows the least impulse to “ retrace or undo
our original abstraction.”
The important question is, then, of which sort are the
abstractions of which Hegel treats in the dialectic ? It would,
probably, be generally admitted that those which he ranks as
the lower categories are more abstract, that is to say have less
content, than those which he considers higher. But they may
be, for anything that superficial observation can tell us, the real
units, of which the higher categories are mere combinations.
No one will deny that the idea of Causality includes the idea of
Being. But it might contain it only as the idea of a steam flour-
mill contains the idea of steam-power, so that it would not at
all follow that the category of Causality is applicable to all
being, any more than that all steam-power is used for grinding
corn. And we should not be able, from this inclusion of the idea
of Being in the idea of Causality, to conclude that the law of
Causality was applicable anywhere at all, even if the validity
of the idea of Being was admitted. For the particular case
in which Being was combined with Causality might be one
which never really occurred, just as there might be machines
moved by steam-power without any of them being flour-
mills.
87. The dialectic, however, puts us in a different position.
From that we learn that Being is an abstraction, the truth of
which can be found only in Causality, and in the higher
categories into which Causality in turn develops. Being,
therefore, inevitably leads us on to Causality, so that, toTHE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
99
whatever subject-matter we can apply the first as a predicate,
to that we must necessarily apply the other.
The same change takes place in the relations of all the
other categories. Without the dialectic we might suppose Life
to be an effect of certain chemical combinations; with it we
find that Chemism is an abstraction from Life, so that,
wherever there is Chemism there must be Life also. Without
the dialectic, again, we might suppose self-consciousness to be
a mere effect of animal life; with it, we are compelled to
regard all life as merely relative to some self-consciousness.
The result of the dialectic is thus much more than “ the
increased certainty we gain of the necessary connection ” of
parts of thought “with one another.” For it must be remem-
bered that organic wholes are not to be explained by their
parts, but the reverse, while on the other hand merely
composite wholes can be best explained from the units of
which they are made up. We cannot explain a living body by
putting together the ideas of the isolated limbs, though we
might, if our knowledge was sufficiently complete, explain a
limb by the idea of the body as a whole. But we cannot
explain the sizes and shapes of stones from the idea of the
beach which they make up, while, on the other hand, if we
knew the sizes, shapes, and positions of all the stones, we should
have complete knowledge of the beach. And the dialectic
professes to show that the lower categories are contained in the
higher in a manner more resembling that in which a foot is
related to a body, than that in which a stone is related to a
beach. The success of the dialectic, therefore, means no less
than this—that, for purposes of ultimate explanation, we
reverse the order of science and the understanding, and, instead'
of attempting to account for the higher phenomena of nature
(i.e. those which prima facie exhibit the higher categories) by
means of the laws of the lower, we account for the lower by
means of the laws of the higher. The interest of this for the
theoretical reason is obvious, and its importance for the
practical reason is no less, since the lower categories are those
of matter and the higher those of spirit.
88. So also it is not fair to say that the process is only one
of subjective thought. It is doubtless true that the various
7—2100
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
abstractions which form the steps of the dialectic have no
separate existence corresponding to them in the world of
reality, where only the concrete notion is to be found. But the
result is one which has validity for objective thought. For it
is by that result that we learn that the notion is really a
concrete unity, and that there is nothing corresponding in the
outside world to the separated fragments of the notion which
form the stages of finite thought. This is the same conclusion
from another point of view as the one mentioned in the
preceding paragraph, and it is surely both objective and
important.
Moreover the objective significance of the dialectic process
is not confined to this negative result. For the different
imperfect categories, although they have no separate objective
existence, yet have an objective existence, as elements in the
concrete whole, which is made up of them. If we ask what is
the nature of the Absolute Idea, we must, from one side,
answer that “ its true content is only the whole system, of
which we have been hitherto studying the development1.”
Since the one absolute reality may be expressed as the
synthesis of these categories, they have reality in it.
Besides this, in the sphere of our ordinary finite thought, in
which we use the imperfect categories as stable and permanent,
the dialectic gives us objective information as to the relative
amounts of truth and error which may be expected from the
use of various categories, and as to the comparative reality and
significance of different ways of regarding the universe,—as, for
example, that the idea of Life goes more deeply into the nature
of reality than the idea of Mechanism.
89. We are now in a position to meet the dilemma with
which Trendelenburg challenges the dialectic. “ Either ” he
says “ the dialectic development is independent, and only
conditioned by itself, then in fact it must know everything for
itself. Or it assumes finite sciences and empirical knowledge,
but then the immanent process and the unbroken connection
are broken through by what is assumed from outside, and it
relates itself to experience quite uncritically. The dialectic
can choose. We see no third possibility2.” And just before he
1 Enc. Section 237, lecture note.	2 op. cit. Vol. i. pp. 91, 92,THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
101
gives a further description of the second alternative. “It
works then only in the same way and with the same means as
the other sciences, only differing from them in its goal,—to
unite the parts to the idea of the whole.”
Neither of these two alternatives is valid. The dialectic
development is only so far “ independent and only conditioned
by itself,” that it does not depend on any particular sensuous
content of experience, and would develop in the same way,
whatever that content might be. But it does not follow that
it knows everything for itself. All that part of knowledge
which depends upon one content rather than another—the
whole, that is, of what is ordinarily called science—certainly
cannot be reached from the dialectic alone in the present state
of our knowledge, and perhaps never will be L. Nor does the
dialectic, as we have seen, assume finite sciences and empirical
knowledge. In one sense, indeed, their subject-matter is the
condition of its validity, for it endeavours to analyse the
concrete idea which is implicit in all our experience. The
dialectic may be said therefore, in a sense, to depend on the
fact that we have empirical knowledge, without which we should
be conscious of nothing, not even of ourselves (since it is only
in experience that we become self-conscious), and in that case
there would be no chance of the complete and concrete idea
being implicitly in our minds, which is a necessary preliminary
to our subsequently making it explicit in the dialectic.
This however does not make it depend upon the finite
sciences and empirical knowledge. It is dependent for its
existence on the existence of empirical knowledge, but its
nature does not at all depend on the nature of our empirical
knowledge. And it would only be this latter relation which
would “ break through the immanent process by what is assumed
from outside.” The process can be, and is, one of pure thought,
although pure thought is only given as one element in ex-
perience.
The dialectic retraces the steps of abstraction till it arrives
at the concrete idea. If the concrete idea were different, the
dialectic process would be different. The conditions of the
dialectic are therefore that the concrete idea should be what it
1 Cp. Chap. ii. Section 59.102
THE VAUDITV OF THE DIALECTIC.
is, and that there should be experience in which we may
become conscious of that idea. But it is not a condition of the
dialectic that all the contingent facts which are found in
experience should be what they are, and not otherwise. So
far as we know, the relation of the categories to one another
might be the same, even if sugar, for example, was bitter to
the taste, and hare-bells had scarlet flowers. And if such
particulars ever should be deducible from the pure idea, so that
they could not be otherwise than they are without some
alteration in the nature of the pure idea, then they would cease
to be merely empirical knowledge. In our present state the
particulars of sense are only empirically and contingently
connected with the idea under which they are brought. And
although, if the dialectic is to exist, the idea must be what it
is, and must have some sensations to complement it, yet the
particular nature of those sensations is entirely indifferent to
the dialectic, which is not dependent upon it in any sense of
the word.
90. It is no doubt the case that an advanced state of the
finite sciences is a considerable help to the discovery of the
dialectic process, and this for several reasons. In the first place
the labour is easier because it is slighter. To detect the
necessary relation between two categories will be easier when
both are already explicitly before us in consciousness than
when only one is given in this way, and the other has to be
constructed. The inadequacy, for example, of the category of
Teleology would be by itself logically sufficient ground for
discovering the category of Life. But it is much easier to see,
when that idea is necessarily before us in biological science,
that it is the necessary consequence of the idea of Teleology,
than it would be to construct it by the dialectic, although that
would be possible for a sufficiently keen observer. In the
second place, the more frequently, and the more keenly, the
finite categories are used in finite science, the more probable it
will be that the contradiction involved in their use will have
become evident, on some occasion or the other, to some at
least of those who use them, and the easier will it be, therefore,
to point out the various inadequacies of each category in
succession, which are the stepping stones of the dialectic. ButTHE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
103
all this only shows that the appearance of the theory of the
dialectic in a philosophical system is partly determined by
empirical causes, which surely no one ever denied. It is
possible that we might have had to wait for the theory of
gravitation for some time longer, if it had not been for the
traditional apple, and no one could go beyond a certain point
in mathematical calculation without the help of pens and
paper. But the logical validity of the theory of gravitation,
when once discovered, does not come as a deduction from the
existence of the apple, or of writing materials. With sufficient
power, any of the calculations could have been made without
the help of writing. Any other case of gravitation would have
done as well as the apple, if it had happened to suggest to
Newton the problem which lay in it as much as in the other.
And, in the same way, with sufficient mental acuteness the
whole dialectic process could have been discovered, by starting
from any one piece of experience, and without postulating any
other empirical knowledge whatever. For the whole concrete
idea lies behind experience, and manifests itself in every part
of it. Any fragment of experience, therefore, would be suffi-
cient to present the idea to our minds, and thus give us
implicitly the concrete truth, whose presence in this manner is
the real source of our discontent with the lower categories, and
consequently is the spring of the dialectic process. In any
single fact in experience, however trifling and wherever
selected, the dialectic could find all the basis of experience
that it needs. Doubtless it would have been a task beyond
even Hegel’s strength to evolve the dialectic without a far
larger basis, and without the aid of specially suggestive
portions of experience. But this, while it may have some
interest for empirical psychology, can have none for meta-
physics.
91. I have thus endeavoured to show that the dialectic
process is related to experience in such a way as to avoid
sterility, and at the same time not necessarily to fall into
empiricism. We have now to consider Trendelenburg’s con-
tention 1 that at one point an idea of great importance, the idea
of Motion, has in fact been introduced from experience in a
1 op. cit. Vol. i. p. 38.104
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
merely empirical maimer, thus destroying the value of the Logic
as a theory of the nature of pure thought.
He points out that Hegel endeavours to deduce the
category of Becoming, which involves the idea of Motion, from
the two categories of Being and Not-Being, which are ideas of
rest. His inference is that the idea of Motion has been
uncritically imported from experience, and breaks the con-
nection of the Logic. Certainly no flaw could be more fatal
than this, for it occurs at the second step in the dialectic, and,
if it is really a flaw, must make everything beyond this point
useless.
It is certainly true that the category of Becoming involves
the idea of Motion, and that neither the category of Being, nor
the category of Not-Being, do so. There is something in the
synthesis which is in neither the thesis nor the antithesis, if
each of these is taken alone and separately. This, however, is
the necessary result wherever the dialectic process is applied.
That process does not profess to be merely analytic of the
premises we start from, but to give us new truth. If it vvere
not so, it could have no philosophical importance whatever, but
would be confined to the somewhat sterile occupation of
discovering what consequence could be drawn by formal logic
from the assertion of the simple notion of pure Being—the
only premise from which we start.
92. Whatever Hegel meant by his philosophy, he certainly
meant more than this. We must presume then that he had
faced the fact that his conclusions contained more than his
premises. And there is nothing unjustifiable,—nothing which
necessitates the illegitimate introduction of an empirical
element—in this. For we must recollect that the dialectic
process has nut merely as its basis the consciously accepted
premises, from which it proceeds synthetically, but also the
implicit concrete and complete idea which it analyses and
brings into distinct consciousness. There is, therefore, nothing
unjustifiable in the synthesis having more in it than both the
thesis and antithesis, for this additional element is taken from
the concrete idea which is the real motive power of the
dialectic advance. As this concrete idea is pure thought, no
introduction of an empirical element is necessary.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
105
And, if we examine the process in detail, we shall find that
no such empirical element has been introduced. The first
point at which Motion is involved in the dialectic is not that at
which the category of Becoming is already recognised explicitly
as a category, and as the synthesis of the preceding thesis and
antithesis. Before we have a category of motion, we perceive a
motion of the categories ; we are forced into the admission that
Becoming is a fundamental idea of the universe because of the
tendency we find in the ideas already accepted as fundamental
to become one another. There is therefore no illegitimate step
in the introduction of the synthesis, for the idea of Motion is
already involved in the relation of the two lower categories to
each other, and the synthesis only makes this explicit.
The introduction of empirical matter must come then, if it
comes at all, in the recognition of the fact that Being is just as
much Nothing, and Nothing is just as much Being. If we
start by positing the first, we find ourselves also positing the
second. The one standpoint cannot be maintained alone, but
if we start from it, we find ourselves at the other. To account
for this it is not necessary to bring in any empirical element.
For although neither of the two categories has the idea of
Motion explicitly in it, each of them is, of its own nature, forced
into the movement towards the other, by reason of its own
incompleteness and inadequacy. Now in this there is nothing
that requires any aid from empirical observation. For Tren-
delenburg remarks himself, in the passage quoted above, that
all abstractions “ cannot but strive to escape from this false
position.” It is thus simply as the result of the nature of pure
thought that we arrive at the conclusion that there is a motion
of the categories. And, having discovered this, we are only
using the data fairly before us when we recognise a category of
motion, and so reconcile the contradiction which arises from
the fact that two categories, which profess, as all terms must,
to have a fixed and constant meaning, are nevertheless them-
selves in continual motion.
Of course all this can only take place on the supposition
that experience does exist. For, in the first place, since pure
thought is only an abstraction, and never really exists except as
an element in experience, it is impossible to come across the106
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
ideas of Being and Not-Being at all, except in experience.
And, secondly, it is only in experience that the concrete idea is
implicit, which brings about the transition from category to
category, and so first introduces the idea of Motion. But this,
as was pointed out above *, involves no dependence on empirical
data. All that is required for the purpose is that element in
experience which is called pure thought, and, although this
cannot be present without the empirical element, the argument
does not in the least depend on the nature of the latter.
93. We are told also that Becoming involves time and
space, which Hegel admits not to be elements of pure thought,
but to belong to the world of nature. Now in the first place it
does not seem necessary that the Becoming referred to here
should be only such as must take place in time or space. It
no doubt includes Becoming in time and space. But it would
seem to include also a purely logical Becoming—where the
transition is not from one event in time to a subsequent event,
nor from one part of space to another, but from one idea to
another logically connected with it. The movement is here
only the movement of logic, such as may be said to take place
from the premises to the conclusion of a syllogism. This
involves neither space nor time. It is, of course, true that this
process can only be perceived by us by means of a process in
time. We have first to think the premises and then the
conclusion. But this does not make the syllogism itself a
process in time. The validity of the argument does not depend
upon the fact that we have perceived it; and the movement of
attention from one step to another of the process—a movement
which is certainly in time—must not be confounded with the
logical movement of the argument itself, which is not in
time.
It is again, no doubt, true that if we wish to imagine the
process of Becoming, we cannot imagine it, except as taking
place in time. But this is no objection. Imagination is a
sensuous process, and involves sensuous elements. It does not
follow that it is impossible to think Becoming except as in
time.
If then the Becoming of the Logic includes a species of
1 Chap. I. Section 15.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
107
Becoming which does not take place in time or space, it follows,
of course, that the introduction of that category does not
involve the introduction of time and space into the dialectic.
But even if we leave out this point, and confine ourselves to
those species of Becoming which can only take place in time
and space, it would not follow that these notions have been
introduced into the dialectic. For, even on this hypothesis,
Becoming only involves time and space in the sense that it
cannot be represented without them. It could still be dis-
tinguished from them, and its nature as a pure category
observed. If indeed the argument by which we are led on
from Becoming to the next category was based on anything in
the nature of time and space, Trendelenburg’s objection would
doubtless be made good. But it is no more necessary that this
should be the case, because time and space are the necessary
medium in which we perceive the idea of Becoming, than that
every step of the whole dialectic process should be tainted with
empiricism, because every category can only be perceived in
the whole of experience, in which it is bound up with empirical
elements. And the transition which Hegel gives to the
category of Being-determinate does not seem in any way to
depend upon the nature of time and space, but rather on the
nature of Becoming, as a determination of thought.
And, again, is the connection, which pure thought has with
time and space, introduced for the first time in the category of
Becoming ? That category surely does not require both time
and space, for we are able to apply it to the passage of our
thoughts, when space is out of the question. And, on the other
hand, is it possible for pure Being to exist except either in time
or space ? What sort of reality could be supposed to belong to
immediate being apart from both these determinations, I am
unable to see. And if it does require at least one of them, it
would seem to follow that the transition to Becoming involves
no other connection with the matter of intuition than is
involved in the categories from which it is deduced. (I do not
mean to suggest that no reality can be conceived as existing
except in time or space, but only that it must be conceived as
existing in time or space unless it is considered under some
higher category than pure Being.)108
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
94.	Again, it is said that Being and Not-Being are
abstractions, while Becoming is a “concrete intuition ruling
life and deathl.” It is no doubt true that we never encounter,
and cannot imagine, a case of Becoming without sensuous
intuition. But the same might be said of any other category.
Thought can never exist without sensation. And the quality
of Becoming itself is not sensation, but thought. What
becomes, indeed, must be told us by sensation, but that it
becomes is as much a conception of pure thought as that it is,
or is not. And the ideas of Being and Not-Being are scarcely
more abstractions than Becoming is. For they also cannot
come into consciousness without the presence of intuition.
They are doubtless abstractions in the sense that we feel at
once their inadequacy to any subject-matter. But this is the
case to almost the same exteut with Becoming, if we take it
strictly. As a general rule, when we talk in ordinary discourse
of Becoming, or of any other of the lower categories, we do not
take it by itself, but mix it up with higher categories, such as
Being-determinate, Substance, and Cause. If we do this,
Being and Not-Being may pass as concrete. If we do not do
it, but confine ourselves to the strict meaning of the category,
Becoming shows itself to be almost as abstract and inadequate
as pure Being. The philosophy which corresponds to Becoming
is the doctrine of the eternal flux of all things, and it is
difficult to see how this represents reality much more adequately
than the Eleatic Being, or the Buddhist Nothing. Of course
Becoming is to some extent more adequate than the categories
that precede it, but this is the natural and inevitable result of
the fact that it is a synthesis of them.
95.	We must, in conclusion, consider the claims of the
Hegelian system to ontological validity. This subject divides
itself into two parts. In the first place Hegel denies the
Kantian restriction of knowledge to mere phenomena, behind
which lie things in themselves which we cannot know and
he asserts that the laws of thought traced in the logic, as
applicable to all possible knowledge, are applicable also to all
reality. In the second place he deduces from the Logic the
philosophies of Nature and Spirit.
1 Trendelenburg, op. cit. Vol. r. p. 38.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
ion
Now as to the first of these two points, I have already
endeavoured to show that any denial of it involves a con-
tradiction1. We are told by those who attempt this denial
that there are or may be things which we cannot know. But
to know of the actuality or possibility of such things is to know
them—to know that of which knowledge is impossible. Of
course to know only that things are possible, or even that they
actually exist, and to know nothing else about them, is very
imperfect and inadequate knowledge of them. But it is
knowledge. It involves a judgment, and a judgment involves
a category. It is thus impossible to say that the existence of
anything which does not conform to the universal laws of
knowledge is either actual or possible. If the supporters of
things-in-themselves were asked for a defence of their doctrine,
they would be compelled to relate these things with our
sensuous intuitions, through which alone data can be given to
our minds. And this relation would bring them in connection
with the world of knowledge, and destroy their asserted
independence.
In fact the question whether there is any reality outside
the world which we know by experience is unmeaning. There
is much reality which we do not know; it is even possible that
there is much reality which we never shall know. But it must,
if we are to have any right to speak of it at all, belong to the
same universe as the facts which we do know—that is, be
connected with them by the same fundamental laws as those
by which they are connected with one another. Otherwise we
can have no justification for supposing that it exists, since all
such suppositions must rest on some connection with the world
of reality. We are not even entitled to say that it is possible
that there may exist a world unconnected with the world of
experience. For possibility is a phrase which derives all its
meaning to us from its use in the world of experience, and
beyond that world we have no right to use it, since anything
brought under that, or any other predicate, is brought thereby
into the world of the knowable. And a mere empty
possibility, not based on the known existence of at least
one of the necessary conditions, is too indefinite to possess any
1 Chap. i. Section 25,no
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
significance. Anything, however impossible, may be pro-
nounced possible, if we are only ignorant enough of the subject-
matter, for if our ignorance extends to all the circumstances
incompatible with the truth of the proposition, all evidence of
impossibility is obviously beyond our reach. But the more
ignorance is involved in such a conclusion, the less valuable it
is, and when it is based on complete ignorance, as any
proposition relating to the possibility of a world outside
knowledge must inevitably be, the judgment becomes entirely
frivolous. It is merely negative and does not, as a real
judgment of possibility does, create the slightest expectation of
reality, but is devoid of all rational interest. Such a judgment,
as Mr Bradley points out “ is absurd, because a privative
judgment, where the subject is left entirely undetermined in
respect of the suggestion, has no kind of meaning. Privation
gets a meaning where the subject is determined by a quality or
an environment which we have reason to think would give
either the acceptance or the rejection of X. But if we keep
entirely to the bare universal, we cannot predicate absence,
since the space we call empty has no existence1.” And as
Hegel’s theory, if valid at all, covers the whole sphere of actual
and possible knowledge, any speculations on the nature of
reality outside its sphere are meaningless, and the results of
the dialectic may be predicated of all reality.
96. The demand that the dialectic shall confine itself to
a purely subjective import, and not presume to limit reality by
its results, has been made from a fresh point of view by Mr
F. C. S. Schiller. He says “ It does not follow that because all
truth in the narrower sense is abstract, because all philosophy
must be couched in abstract terms, therefore the whole truth
about the universe in the wider sense, i.e. the ultimate account
that can be given of it, can be compressed into a single abstract
formula, and that the scheme of things is nothing more than,
e.g., the self-development of the Absolute Idea. To draw this
inference would be to confuse the thought-symbol, which is,
and must be, the instrument of thought, with that which the
symbol expresses, often only very imperfectly, viz. the reality
which is 1 known ’ only in experience and can never be evoked
1 Logic, Book i. Chap. vii. Section 30.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
Ill
by the incantations of any abstract formula. If we avoid this
confusion, we shall no longer be prone to think that we have
disposed of the thing symbolized when we have brought home
imperfection and contradiction to the formulas whereby we seek
to express it...to suppose, e.g., that Time and Change cannot
really be characteristic of the universe, because our thought,
in attempting to represent them by abstract symbols, often
contradicts itself. For evidently the contradiction may result
as well from the inadequacy of our symbols to express realities
of whose existence we are directly assured by other factors in
experience, and which consequently are data rather than
problems for thought, as from the ‘ merely apparent ’ character
of their reality, and the moral to be drawn may only be the old
one, that it is the function of thought to mediate and not to
create1.”
It is no doubt true that there is something else in our
experience besides pure thought—namely, the immediate data
of sensation. And these are independent of thought in the
sense that they cannot be deduced from it, or subordinated to
it, but must be recognised as a correlative and indispensable
factor in experience. But it is not an independent element in
the sense that it can exist or express reality apart from
thought. And it would have, it seems to me, to be inde-
pendent in this sense before we could accept Mr Schiller’s
argument.
97. Sensation without thought could assure us of the
existence of nothing. Not of any objects outside the sentient
being—for these objects are for us clearly ideal constructions.
Not of the self who feels sensation—for a self is not itself a
sensation, and the assurance of its reality must be an inference.
Nay, sensation cannot assure us of its own existence. For the
very terms existence, reality, assurance, are all terms of
thought. To appeal (as Mr Schiller wishes to do, if I have
understood him rightly) from a dialectic which shows, e.g. that
Time cannot be real, to an experience which tells us that it is
real, is useless. For our assurance of reality is itself an act of
thought, and anything which the dialectic has proved about
the nature of thought would be applicable to that assurance.
1 “The Metaphysics of the Time-Process,” Mind, n. b. Vol, iv. No. 14. p. 40.112
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
It is difficult to see how sensations could even exist without
thought. For sensations certainly only exist for consciousness,
and what could a consciousness be which was nothing but a
chaotic mass of sensations, with no relations among them, and
consequently no unity for itself? But, even if they could exist
without thought, they could tell us nothing of reality or
existence, for reality and existence are not themselves sensa-
tions, and all analysis or inference, by which they might be
reached from sensations, must be the work of thought.
By the side of the truth that thought without data can
never make us aware of reality, we must place the corresponding
truth that nothing can make us aware of reality without thought.
Any law therefore which can be laid down for thought, must be
a law which imposes itself on all reality which we can either
know or imagine—and a reality which we can neither know nor
imagine is, as I fancy Mr Schiller would admit, a meaningless
abstraction.
To the demand then that we should admit the reality of
anything although “ we have brought home imperfection and
contradiction to the formulas whereby we seek to express it,” I
should answer that it is only by the aid of these formulas that
we can pronounce it real. If we cannot think it, we have no
right to pronounce it real, for to pronounce it real is an act
of thought. We should not, therefore, by pronouncing it real, be
appealing from thought to some other means of knowledge.
We should be thinking it, at the same time, to be real and to
be self-contradictory. To say that a thing whose notion is
self-contradictory is real, is to say that two or more contradictory
propositions are true—that is, to violate the law of contradiction.
If we do this we put an end to all possibility of coherent
thought anywhere. If a contradiction is not a sign of error it
will be impossible to make any inference whatever.
And so it seems to me, in spite of Mr Schiller’s arguments,
that if we find contradictions in our notion of a thing, we must
give up its reality. This does not mean, of course, that we are
to say that there was nothing real behind the contradictory
appearance. Behind all appearance there is some reality. But
this reality, before we can know it, must be re-thought in terms
which are mutually coherent, and although we certainly haveTHE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
113
not “ disposed of the thing symbolized when we have brought
home imperfection and contradiction to the formulas whereby
we seek to express it,” we can only retain our belief in the
thing’s existence by thinking it under some other formula, by
which the imperfection and the contradiction are removed.
98. There remains only the transition from Logic to
Nature and Spirit. From what has been said in Chapters I
and II, it will be seen that the validity of this transition must
be determined by the same general considerations as determine
the validity of the transitions from one category to another
within the Logic. \ For the motive power of the transition was
the same—the impatience of its incompleteness felt by an
abstraction, since the whole of thought, even when it has
attained the utmost completeness of which it is capable, is
only an abstraction from the fuller whole of reality. And the
method of the transition is also the same—the discovery of a
contradiction arising from the inadequacy of the single term,
which leads us on to the opposite extreme, which is also found
to be contradictory, and so leaves us no refuge but a synthesis
which comprehends and reconciles both extremes. I have
endeavoured to show in the last Chapter that this was all that
Hegel ever intended to do, and that no other deduction of
Nature and Spirit from pure thought can be attributed to him.
We have now to consider whether he was justified in proceeding
in this manner.
Is thought incomplete as compared with the whole of
reality ? This can scarcely be denied. To admit it does not
involve any scepticism as to the adequacy of knowledge.
Thought may be perfectly capable of expressing the whole of
reality, all that is real may be rational, but it will nevertheless
remain true that all that is real cannot be merely reasoning.
For all reasoning as such is merely mediate, and it is obvious
that a mediation without something which it mediates is a
contradiction. This something must be given immediately.
It is true that thought itself, as an event in our consciousness,
may be given immediately, and may be perceived by inner
sense, in the same way that colours, sounds, and the like, may
be perceived by outer sense. But this means that thought,
considered as it is in the Logic (i.e. not as a datum, but as an
8
M. H,114
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
activity), can never be self-subsistent, but must always depend
on something (even if that something is other thought), which
presents itself immediately. And thus the Logic, which only
deals with the forms by which we may mediate what is imme-
diately given, does not by itself contain the whole of reality.
99. This is obviously the case while, as at present, a large
amount of experience is concerned with physical data apparently
entirely contingent to the idea, and with mental data scarcely
less contingent. It is quite clear that the Logic does not as
yet express the whole universe, while we still find ultimate
and unexplained such facts as that one particular number of
vibrations of ether in a second gives us the sensation of blue, and
that another particular number gives us the sensation of red.
But even if the process of rationalisation was carried as far as
it could by any possibility go, if all matter was reduced to
spirit, and every quality of spirit was deduced from the Logic,
nevertheless to constitute experience something would have to
be immediately given, and the Logic contemplates nothing but
thought as it deals with something given already. The
existence of thought requires the existence of something given.
It is undeniable that we think. But we could not think unless
there were something to think about. Therefore there must
be something. This is all of the world of Nature and Spirit
which we can deduce from the Logic. Logic must have its
complement and correlative, and the two must be united in one
whole. This, as I have tried to show, is all Hegel did attempt
to deduce from the Logic. But whether this is so or not, we
must admit that it is all that he has a right to deduce from it.
The concrete whole towards which we are working is the
universalised particular, the mediated immediate, the ration-
alised datum. Logic is the universal, the mediating, the
rationalising element. There must therefore be a particular,
immediate, given element, and the two must be reconciled. So
much we can deduce by pure thought. But if this other
element has any other qualities except those just mentioned
which make it correlative to Logic, we cannot deduce them.
We must treat them as contingent, and confine ourselves to
pointing out the way in which the Logic is incarnate in Nature
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115
Philosophy can tell us a priori that Nature and Spirit do
exist, and that all the categories of the Logic must be realised
in them, but how they are realised in the midst of what seem,
at any rate at present, to be contingent particulars, must be a
matter for empirical observation, and not for deduction from
Logic.
100. In what way does the transition from Logic take
place? The suggestion which most naturally occurs to us is
that the element which supplements the deficiency of Logic
should be its antithesis, and the combination of the two in a
concrete whole should form the synthesis. In this case the
antithesis would be the mere abstract and unconnected par-
ticularity, which is really unnameable, since all names imply
that the matter of discourse has been qualified by some
judgment. With the very beginnings of Nature, on this view,
we pass to the synthesis, for in Nature we have already the
idea as immediate, as given, as realised in fact. Spirit and
Nature together would thus form the synthesis, Spirit being
distinguished from Nature only as being a more complete and
closer reconciliation of the two elements. It makes explicit
the unity which in Nature is only implicit. But it does not
add any aspect or element which is not in Nature, it is more
elaborated, but not more comprehensive.
This, however, is not the course of the transition which is
actually adopted by Hegel. In this, while the Logic is the
thesis, the antithesis is Nature, and the synthesis is Spirit.
The bond of connection here is that they are the universal, the
particular, and the individual, and that the individual is the
synthesis of the universal and the particular. If it should be
objected to this that there is more in Nature than mere
particularity, since the idea is realised, though imperfectly
realised, in Nature, and the idea is the universal, Hegel’s reply,
I suppose, would be that this is the case' also with every
particular thing, since mere particularity is an abstraction.
We can never perceive anything without a judgment, and a
judgment involves a category. Indeed the very phrase
“ thing" implies this.
The difference between the two methods is thus very
marked, not only because of the different place assigned to
8—2116
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
Nature in them, but because in the second the antithesis marks
a distinct advance upon the thesis, as a concrete reality, though
an imperfect one, while in the first the thesis and antithesis
are both alike mere abstractions and aspects which require a
reconciliation before anything concrete is reached.
Here we have two examples of the dialectic process, each
starting from the same point—the Logic—and each arriving at
the same point—Absolute Spirit—but reaching that point in
different ways. What are we to say about them ? Is one
wrong and the other right ? Or can we argue, from the fact
that the principles of the dialectic would seem to justify either
of them, to the conclusion that there must be some error in
those principles, since they lead to two inconsistent results?
Or, finally, can we pronounce them both to be correct ? To
these questions Hegel, as far as I can find, affords no definite
answer, but one may, I think, be found by following up some
indications which he gives. This I shall endeavour to do in the
next chapter1
101. Before leaving this part of the subject, we must
consider some criticisms which have been passed by Lotze on
Idealism, the most important and elaborate of which occurs in
the MicrocosmusIn this he considers the assertion, which
he attributes to Idealism, that Thought and Being are identical.
He does not mention Hegel by name here, but it would seem,
from the nature of the criticisms, and from scattered remarks
in other parts of his writings, that he held his criticisms to
apply to the Hegelian dialectic.
Now in what sense does Hegel say that Thought and Being
are identical ? In the first place we must carefully distinguish,
from such an assertion of identity, another assertion which he
does make,—namely, that Being is a category, and therefore a
determination of thought, and that, in consequence, even the
mere recognition that a thing is, can only be effected by thought.
He uses this undeniable truth as an argument against appeals
from the results of thought to immediate facts. For it means
that we can only know that a thing is a fact by means of
thought, and that it is impossible to find any ground, upon
which we can base a proposition, which does not involve
1 Sections 131—138.	2 Book vm. Chap. i. towards the end.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
117
thought, and which is nob subject to all the general laws which
we can obtain by analysing what is involved in thinking.
This, however, is not what is meant by Lotze. That the
predicate of Being can only be applied by us to a subject by
means of thought, is a statement which Lotze could not have
doubted, and which he had no reason to wish to deny. He
attacks a very different proposition—that everything which is
included under the predicate of Being, that is, everything in
the universe, is identical with thought.
This, again, may have two very different meanings. If we
call the particular reality, of which we are speaking, A, then
we may mean, in the first place, that A’s being is identical with
B’s thought, when B is thinking about A,—or would be so, if B's
thought was in a state of ideal perfection. Or we may mean,
in the second place, that H’s being is identical with his own
thought, i.e. that his only nature is to be a thinking being, and
his only activity is to think. The first view is that A is
identical with what may be thought about him, the second is
that A is identical with what he thinks. These are clearly
very different.
102. It is the first of these meanings, it seems, which
Lotze supposes his Idealist to adopt. This appears from his
considering that he has refuted it by showing that there is
always in our knowledge of anything an immediate datum,
which thought must accept as given, and without which it
cannot act at all. “ Thought,” he says, “ is everywhere but a
mediating activity moving hither and thither, bringing into
connection the original intuitions of external and internal
perception, which are predetermined by fundamental ideas and
laws the origin of which cannot be shown; it develops special
and properly logical forms peculiar to itself, only in the effort to
apply the idea of truth (which it finds in us) to the scattered
multiplicity of perceptions, and of the consequences developed
from them. Hence nothing seems less justifiable than the
assertion that this Thinking is identical with Being, and that
Being can be resolved into it without leaving any residuum;
on the contrary, everywhere in the flux of thought there remain
quite insoluble those individual nuclei which represent the
several aspects of that important content which we designate118
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
by the name of Being1 *.” The fact that there are immediate
elements in our knowledge of other things could be no reason
for doubting that our nature—and theirs also—lay in thinking,
as we shall see later on. But it would doubtless be an
excellent reason for denying that our thought of the object
could ever be identical with the object itself. And it is this
last theory which Lotze must have had in view.
103.	No doubt Hegel would have been wrong if he had
asserted that Thought and Being were identical in this sense.
But, as I have tried to show in the last chapter -, there is no
reason to suppose that he failed to appreciate the fact that
there is an element of immediacy in all knowledge, and that
thought, without such data, would not only be inadequate, but
completely impotent. The passage which I then quoted from
the Philosophy of Spirit3, declares that Spirit is the logical
prius, not only of Nature but of Logic. Now Spirit differs
from Logic by reason of the element of immediacy, introduced
in Nature, and completely harmonised with Logic in Spirit.
It seems clear then that Hegel can never have imagined that
pure thought could dispense with the element of immediacy.
And, if so, our pure thought by itself could never have been
identical with the content of its object.
104.	The necessity of immediacy for thought, however,
does not prevent the identity of Thought and Being in the
second sense mentioned above. If all reality in the universe
consisted simply of thinking beings there would be no lack of
immediate data for them to mediate. For thought itself can
be observed, and, when observed, forms itself a datum for
thought. And a universe of thinking beings, in connection
with one another, would find their immediate data, A in B, and
B in A.
In this sense it seems that Hegel did hold the identity of
Thought and Being—though the phrase is not a very happy
one. That is to say, he held that all reality consisted of
self-conscious beings; and it appears from the Philosophy of
Spirit that he also held that the highest—the only ultimate—
1 loc. cit, (English Translation, Vol. u. p. 354, 4tli ed.)
Sections 56, 57.	3 Enc. Section 381, lecture note.THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.	110
activity of Spirit, in which all others are transcended and
swallowed up, is that of pure thought.
In doing this, he ignored a fact which is made prominent by
Lotze in many parts of his system, though not in the chapter
from which I have quoted. This is, that Spirit has two other
aspects besides thought—namely, volition and feeling—which
are as important as thought, and which cannot be deduced from
it, nor explained by it. I shall have to consider this point at
greater length in Chapter vi, and shall there endeavour to
show that, while Hegel was justified in identifying all Being
with Spirit, he was not justified in taking the further step of
identifying the true nature of Spirit exclusively with pure
thought.
105. Such a conclusion, no doubt, would make a con-
siderable change in the Hegelian system. But it would not
involve that Hegel had ignored the immediate aspect of reality,
nor would it prove that he was wrong in asserting all being to
be Spirit. Nor would it make his philosophy less thoroughly
Idealistic. For the essence of Idealism does not lie in the
assertion of the identity of Thought and Being, though it does
be very largely in the assertion of a relation between them.
That relation may be expressed by saying that Thought is
adequate to express Being, and Being adequate to embody
Thought. On the one hand, no reality exists beyond the
sphere of actual or possible knowledge, and no reality, when
known as completely as possible, presents any contradiction or
irrationality. On the other hand, there is no postulate which
Thought demands in order to construct a harmonious and
self-consistent system of knowledge, which is not realised in
Being.
Hegel, as we have seen, establishes this by demonstrating
that the higher categories are so involved in the lower that, if
we say a thing exists at all, we are obliged to bring it under
predicates which ensure that it will answer completely to the
demands of our reason. In doing this, he arrives at the
conclusions that the true nature of all Being is Spirit, and that
the true nature of all Spirit is Thought. But important as
these results,—true or false—are, they are only subsidiary as
compared with the more general result that Thought and120
THE VALIDITY OF THE DIALECTIC.
Being—whether identical or not—are yet in complete harmony.
From the point of view of theory, we thus know that reality is
rational From the point of view of practice, we know that
reality is righteous, since the only view of reality which we can
consider as completely rational, is shown to be one which
involves our own complete self-realization. And it is this
assertion that reality is both rational and righteous which is the
distinguishing mark of Idealism.CHAPTER IV.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
106.	My object in this chapter will be to show that the
method, by which Hegel proceeds from one category to another
in his Logic, is not the same throughout, but changes materially
as the process advances. I shall endeavour to show that this
change may be reduced to a general law, and that from this
law we may derive important consequences with regard to the
nature and validity of the dialectic.
The exact relation of these corollaries to Hegel’s own views
is rather uncertain. Some of them do not appear to be denied
in any part of the Logic, and, since they are apparently involved
in some of his theories, may be supposed to have been recog-
nised and accepted by him. On the other hand, he did not
explicitly state and develope them anywhere, which, in the case
of doctrines of such importance, is some ground for supposing
that he did not hold them. Others, again, are certainly in-
compatible with his express statements. I desire, therefore, in
considering them, to leave on one side the question of how far
they were believed by Hegel, and merely to give reasons for
thinking that they are necessary consequences of his system,
and must be accepted by those who hold it.
107.	The passage in which Hegel sums up his position on
this point most plainly runs as follows: “ The abstract form of
the advance is, in Being, an other and transition into an other;
in Essence, showing a reflection in the opposite; in notion, the
distinction of individual from universality, which continues122
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
itself as such into, and- is as an identity with, what is dis-
tinguished from it1.”
The difference between the procedure in the doctrine of
Being and in the doctrine of Essence is given in more detail
earlier. “ In the sphere of Essence one category does not pass
into another, but refers to another merely. In Being the form
of reference is simply due to our reflection on what takes place;
but this form 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, reference of the one to its other.
The transition of Essence is therefore at the same time no
transition; for in the passage of different into different, the
different does not vanish : the different terms remain in their
relation. When we speak of Being and Nought, Being is
independent, so is Nought. The case is otherwise with the
Positive and the Negative. No doubt these possess the char-
acteristic of Being and Nought. But the positive by itself has
no sense ; it is wholly in reference to the negative. And 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 explicit. And this in general is the distinction
between the forms of Being and Essence: in Being everything
is immediate, in Essence everything is relative2.”
And again, in describing the transition from Essence to the
Notion, he says: “ Transition into something else is the dia-
lectical process within the range of Being; reflection (bringing
something else into light) in the range of Essence. The
movement of the Notion is development', by which that only is
explicitly affirmed which is already implicitly 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
germ. The germ 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 very minute form, in the germ.
1	Enc. Section 240.
2	Enc. Section HI, lecture note.THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
123
That is the so-called ‘ box-within-box ’ hypothesis; a theory
which commits the mistake of supposing an actual existence
of what is at first found only in the shape of an ideal. 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 chiefly in view by those who speak of
innate ideas, or who, like Plato, describe all learning as merely
reminiscence. Of course that again does not mean that every-
thing which is embodied in a mind, after that mind has been
formed by instruction, had been present in that mind before-
hand in a definitely expanded shape.
“ The movement of the notion is after all to be looked on
only as a kind of play. The other which it sets up is in reality
not another. Or, as it is expressed in the teaching of Christi-
anity, not merely has God created a world which confronts Him
as another; He has also from all eternity begotten a Son, in
whom He, a Spirit, is at home with Himself1.”
108. The result of this process may be summed up as
follows: The further the dialectic goes from its starting point
the less prominent becomes the apparent stability of the
individual finite categories, and the less do they seem to be
self-centred and independent. On the other hand, the process
itself becomes more clearly self-evident, and is seen to be the
only real meaning of the lower categories. In Being each
category appears, taken by itself, to be permanent and exclusive
of all others, and to have no principle of transition in it. It is
only outside reflection which examines and breaks down this
pretence of stability, and shows us that the dialectic process is
inevitable. In Essence, however, each category by its own
import refers to that which follows it, and the transition is seen
to be inherent in its nature. But it is still felt to be, as it
were, only an external effect of that nature. The categories
have still an inner nature, as contrasted with the outer relations
which they have with other categories. So far as they have
1 Enc. Section 161, lecture note.124	THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
this inner nature, they are still conceived as independent and
self-centred. But with the passage into the notion things
alter; that passage “ is the very hardest, because it proposes
that independent actuality shall be thought as having all its
substantiality in the passing over and identity with the other
independent actuality1.” Not only is the transition now neces-
sary to the categories, but the transition is the categories. The
reality in any finite category, in this stage, consists only in its
summing up those which went before, and in leading on to
those which come after.
109. Another change can be observed as the process
continues. In the categories of Being the typical form is a
transition from a thesis to an antithesis which is merely com-
plementary to it, and is in no way superior to it in value or
comprehensiveness. Only when these two extremes are taken
together is there for the first time any advance to a higher
notion. This advance is a transition to a synthesis which
comes as a consequence of the thesis and antithesis jointly.
It would be impossible to obtain the synthesis, or to make any
advance, from either of the two complementary terms without
the other. Neither is in any respect more advanced than the
other, and neither of them can be said to be more closely
connected than the other with the synthesis, in which both of
them alike find their explanation and reconciliation. But when
we come to Essence the matter is changed. Here the transition
from thesis to antithesis is still indeed from positive to nega-
tive, but it is more than merely this. The antithesis is not
merely complementary to the thesis, but is a correction of it.
It is consequently more concrete and true than the thesis, and
represents a real advance. And the transition to the synthesis
is not now made so much from the comparison of the other two
terms as from the antithesis alone, For the antithesis does not
now merely ojipose a contrary defect to the original defect of
the thesis. It corrects, to some degree, that original mistake,
and therefore has—to use the Hegelian phraseology—" the
truth ” of the thesis more or less within itself. As the action
of the synthesis is to reconcile the thesis and the antithesis it
1 Enc. Section 159.THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
125
can only be deduced from the comparison of the two. But if
the antithesis has—as it has in Essence—the thesis as part of
its own significance, it will present the whole of the data which
the synthesis requires, and it will not be necessary to recur to
the thesis, before the step to the synthesis is taken.
But although the reconciliation can be inferred from the
second term, apart from the first, a reconciliation is still
necessary. For, while the antithesis is an advance upon the
thesis, it is also opposed to it. It is not simply a completion of
it, but also a denial, though a denial which is already an approxi-
mation to union. This element of opposition and negation tends 'I
to disappear in the categories of the Notion. As these approach
the end of the whole process, the steps are indeed discriminated
from one another, but they can scarcely be said to be in oppo-
sition. For we have now arrived at a consciousness more or less
explicit that in each category all that have gone before are
summed up, and all that are to come after are contained
implicitly. “The movement of the Notion is after all to be
looked on only as a kind of play. The other which it sets up
is in reality not another.” And, as a consequence, the third
term merely completes the second, without correcting one-
sidedness in it, in the same way as the second term merely
expands and completes the first. As this type is realised, in
fact, the distinctions of the three terms gradually lose their
meaning. There is no longer an opposition produced between
two terms and mediated by a third. Each term is a direct
advance on the one before it. The object of the process is not
now to make the one-sided complete, but the implicit explicit.
For we have reached a stage when each side carries in it
already more or less consciousness of that unity of the whole
which is the synthesis, and requires development rather than
refutation.
110. It is natural that these changes should accompany
the one first mentioned. For, as it is gradually seen that each
category, of its own nature, and not by mere outside reflection
on it, leads on to the next, that next will have inherent in it
its relation to the first. It will not only be the negation and
complement of the thesis, but will know that it is so. In so
far as it does this, it will be higher than the thesis. It is true126
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
that the thesis will see in like manner that it must be connected
with the category that succeeds it. But this knowledge can
only give a general character of transition to the thesis, for it
only knows that it is connected with something, but does not
yet know with what. But the antithesis does know with what
it is connected, since it is connected with a term which pre-
cedes it in the dialectic process. And to see how it is in-
separably connected with its opposite, and defined by its
relation to it, is an important step towards the reconciliation
of the opposition. A fortiori the greater clearness and ease of
the transition will have the same effect in the case of the
Notion. For there we see that the whole meaning of the
category lies in its passage to another. The second therefore
has the whole meaning of the first in it, as well as the addition
that has been made in the transition, and must therefore be
higher than the first.
From this follows naturally the change in the relation of the
terms to their synthesis. We have seen that, in proportion as
the meaning of the thesis is completely included in the meaning
of the antithesis, it becomes possible to find all the data required
for the synthesis in the antithesis alone. And when each term
has its meaning completely absorbed in the one which follows it,
the triple rhythm disappears altogether, in which case each
term would be a simple advance on the one below it, and would
be deduced from that one only.
111. While Hegel expressly notices, as wc have seen, the
increasing freedom and directness of the dialectic movement,
he makes no mention of the different relation to one another
assumed by the various members of the process, which I have
just indicated. Traces of the change may, however, be observed
in the detail of the dialectic. The three triads which it will be
best to examine for this purpose are the first in the doctrine of
Being, the middle one in the doctrine of Essence, and the last
in the doctrine of the Notion. For, if there is any change
within each of these three great divisions (a point we must
presently consider), the special characteristics of each will be
shown most clearly at that point at which it is at the greatest
distance from each of the other divisions. The triads in
question are those of Being, Not-Being, and Becoming; of theTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
127
World of Appearance, Content and Form, and Ratio1; and of
Life, Cognition, and the Absolute Idea2.
Now, in the first of these, thesis and antithesis are on an
absolute level. Not-Being is no higher than Being: it does
not contain Being in any sense in which Being does not contain
it. We can pass as easily from Not-Being to Being as vice versa.
And Not-Being by itself is helpless to produce Becoming—as
helpless as Being is. The synthesis can only come from the
conjunction of both of them. On the other hand the idea of
Content and Form, according to Hegel, is a distinct advance on
the idea of the World of Appearance, since in Content and
Form “the connection of the phenomenon with self is completely
stated.” Ratio, again, although the synthesis of the two previous
terms, is deduced from the second of them alone, while it could
not be deduced from the first alone. It is the relation of
Content and Form to one another which leads us on to the
other relation which is called ratio. The idea of Cognition,
also, is a distinct advance upon the idea of Life, since the
defect in the latter, from which Hegel explains the existence of
death, is overcome as we pass to Cognition. And it is from
Cognition alone, without any reference back to Life, that we
reach the Absolute Idea.
112. Another point arises on which we shall find but little
guidance in Hegel’s own writings. To each of the three great
divisions of the dialectic he has ascribed a particular variation
of the method. Are we to understand that one variety changes
into another suddenly at the transition from division to division,
or is the change continuous, so that, while the typical forms of
each division are strongly characterised, the difference between
the last step in one and the first step in the next is no greater
than the difference between two consecutive steps in the same
division? Shall we find the best analogy in the distinction
between water and steam—a qualitative change suddenly
brought about when a quantitative change has reached a
certain degree—or in the distinction between youth and man-
1	I follow the divisions of Essence as given in the Encyclopaedia.
2	Cognition is used by Hegel in two senses. Here it is to be taken as Cognition
in general, of which Cognition proper and Volition are species.128
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
hood, which at their most characteristic points are clearly
distinct, but which pass into one another imperceptibly.
On this point Hegel says nothing. Possibly it had never
presented itself to his mind. But there are signs in the Logic
which may lead us to believe that the change of method is
gradual and continuous.
In the first place we may notice that the absolutely pure
type of the process in Being, is not to be met with in any triad
of Quality or Quantity except the first. Being and Not-Being
are on a level. But if we compare Being an sich with Being
for another, the One with the Many, and mere Quantity with
Quantum, we observe that the second category is higher than
the first in each pair, and that it is not merely the complement
of the first, but to a certain degree transcends it. The inherent
relation of thesis to antithesis seems to develop more as we pass
on, so that before Essence is reached its characteristics are
already visible to some extent, and the mere passivity and
finitude of Being is partly broken down.
If, again, we compare the first and last stages of Essence,
we shall find that the first approximates to the type of Being,
while the last comes fairly close to that of the Notion, by
substituting the idea of development for the idea of the
reconciliation of contradictions. Difference, as treated by
Hegel, is certainly an advance on Identity, and not a mere
opposite, but there is still a good deal of opposition between
the terms. The advance is shown by the fact that Difference
contains Likeness and Unlikeness within itself, while the
opposition of the two categories is clear, not only in common
usage, but from the fact that the synthesis has to reconcile
them, and balance their various deficiencies. But when we
reach Substance and Causality we find that the notion of
contradiction is subordinated to that of development, nearly
as fully as if we were already at the beginning of the doctrine
of the Notion.
So, finally, the special features of the doctrine of the Notion
are not fully exhibited until we have come to its last stage. In
the transitions of the Notion as Notion, of the Judgment, and
of the Syllogism, we have not by any means entirely rid
ourselves of the elements of opposition and negation. It isTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
129
not until we reach the concluding triad of the Logic that we
are able fully to see the typical progress of the Notion. In the
transition from Life to Cognition, and from Cognition to the
Absolute Idea, we perceive that the movement is all but com-
pletely direct, that the whole is seen to be in each part, and that
there is no longer a contest, but only a development.
It is not safe, however, to place much weight on all this.
In the first place, while Hegel explicitly says that each of the
three doctrines has its special method, he says nothing about
any development of method within each doctrine. In the
second place the difficulty and uncertainty of comparing,
quantitatively and exactly, shades of difference so slight and
subtle, must always be very great. And, so far as we can
compare them, there seem to be some exceptions to the rule
of continuous development. We find some triads which
approximate more closely to the pure Being-type than others
which precede them, and we find some which approximate
more closely to the pure Notion-type than others which
follow them. But that there are some traces of continuous
development cannot, I think, be denied, and this will become
more probable if we see reason to think that, in a correct
dialectic, the development would. be continuous.
113. Before we consider this question we must first enquire
whether the existence of such a development of any sort,
whether continuous or not, might be expected from the nature
of the case. We shall see that there are reasons for supposing
this to be so, when we remember what we must regard as the
essence of the dialectic. The motive power of all the categories
is the concrete absolute truth, from which all finite categories
are mere abstractions and to which they tend spontaneously to
return. Again, two contradictory ideas cannot be held to be
true at the same time. If it ever seems inevitable that they
should be, this is a sign of error somewhere, and we cannot
feel satisfied with the result, until we have transcended and
synthesised the contradiction. It follows that in so far as the
finite categories announce themselves as permanent, and as
opposed in pairs of unsynthesised contradictories, they are
expressing falsehood and not truth. We gain the truth by
transcending the contradictions of the categories and by
9
M. H.130
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
demonstrating their instability. Now the change in the
method, of which we are speaking, indicates a clearer perception
of this truth. For we have seen that the process becomes
more spontaneous and more direct. As it becomes more
spontaneous, as each category is seen to lead on of its own
nature to the next, and to have its meaning only in the
transition, it brings out more fully what lies at the root of
the whole dialectic—namely that the truth of the opposed
categories lies only in the synthesis. And as the process
becomes more direct and leaves the opposition and negation
behind, it also brings out more clearly what is an essential
fact in every stage of the dialectic,—that is, that the impulse
of imperfect truth, as we have it, is not towards self-contra-
diction as such, but towards self-completion. The essential
nature of the whole dialectic is thus more clearly seen in the
later stages, which approximate to the type of the Notion,
than in the earlier stages which approximate to the type of
Being.
This is what we might expect a priori. For the content
of each stage in the dialectic is nearer to the truth than that
of the stage before it. And each stage forms the starting-point
from which we go forward again to further truth. At each
step, therefore, in the forward process, we have a fuller know-
ledge of the truth than at the one before, and it is only natural
that this fuller knowledge should react upon the manner in
which the next step is made. The dialectic is due to the
relation between the concrete whole, implicit in consciousness,
and the abstract part of it which has become explicit. Since
the second element alters at every step, as the categories
approximate to the complete truth, it is clear that its relation
to the unchanging whole alters also, and this would naturally
affect the method. And, since the change in the relation
will be one which will make that relation more obvious
and evident, we may expect that every step which we take
towards the full truth will render it possible to proceed more
easily and directly to the next step.
Even without considering the special circumstance that
each step in the process will give us this deeper insight into
the meaning of the work we are carrying on, we might findTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
131
other reasons for supposing that the nature of the dialectic
process is modified by use. For the conception of an agent
which is purely active, acting on a material which is purely
passive, is a mere abstraction, and has a place nowhere in
reality. Even in the case of matter, we find that this is true.
An axe has not the same effect at its second blow as at its first,
for it is more or less blunted. A violin has not the same tone
the second time it is played on, as it had the first. And it
would be least of all in the work of the mind that a rigid
distinction could be kept up between form and matter, between
the tool and the materials.
114.	Now these arguments for the existence of change in
the method are also arguments for supposing that the change
will be continuous. There is reason to expect a change in the
method whenever we have advanced a step towards truth. But
we advance towards truth, not only when we pass from one chief
division of the Logic to another, but whenever we pass from
category to category, however minute a subdivision of the
process they may represent. It would therefore seem that it
is to be expected that the method would change after each
category, and that no two transitions throughout the dialectic
would present quite the same type. However continuous the
change of conclusions can be made, it is likely that the change
of method will be equally continuous.
It may also be noted that the three doctrines themselves
form a triad, and that in the same way the three divisions
of each doctrine, and the three subdivisions of each division,
form a triad. The similarity of constitution which exists be-
tween the larger and smaller groups of categories may perhaps
be some additional reason for anticipating that the smaller
transitions will exert on the method an influence similar to
that of the larger transitions, although, of course, less in
amount.
115.	We may therefore, I think, fairly arrive at the con-
clusion, in the first place, that the dialectic process does and
must undergo a progressive change, and, in the second place,
that this change is as much continuous as the process of the
dialectic itself. Another question now arises. Has the change
in the method destroyed its validity ? The ordinary proofs
9—2132
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
relate only to the type characteristic of Being, which, as
we have now found reason to believe, is only found in its
purity in the very first triad of all. Does the gradual
change to the types characteristic of Essence and the Notion
make any difference in the justification of the method as a
whole ?
This question must be answered in the negative. The
process has lost none of its cogency. It consisted, according
to the earliest type, of a search for completeness, and of a
search for harmony between the elements of that complete-
ness, the two stages being separate. Later on we have the
same search for completeness and for harmony, but both objects
are attained by a single process. In Being, the inadequacy
of the thesis led on to the antithesis. Each of these ideas
was regarded as an immediate and self-centred whole. On
the other hand each of them implied the other, since they
were complementary and opposite sides of the truth. This
brought about a contradiction, which had to be reconciled by
the introduction of the synthesis. Now the change in the
process has the effect of gradually dropping the intermediate
stage, in which the two sides of the whole are regarded as
incompatible and yet as inseparably connected. In the stage
of Essence, each category has a reference in its own nature
to those which come before and after it. When we reach the
antithesis therefore, we have already a sort of anticipation of the
synthesis, since we recognise that the two sides are connected
by their own nature, and not merely by external reasoning. Thus
the same step by which we reach the idea complementary to
our starting-point, and so gain completeness, does something
towards joining the two extremes in the harmony which we
\ require of them. For, when we have seen that the categories
are inherently connected, we have gone a good way towards
the perception that they are not incompatible. The harmony
thus attained in the antithesis is however only partial, and
leaves a good deal for the synthesis to do. In the Notion, the
change is carried further. Here we see that the whole meaning
of the category resides in the transition, and the whole thesis
is really summed up in the antithesis, for the meaning of the
thesis is now only the production of the antithesis, and it isTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
133
absorbed and transcended in it. In fact the relation of thesis,
antithesis and synthesis would actually disappear in the typical
form of process belonging to the Notion, for each term would
be the completion of that which was immediately before it,
since all the reality of the latter would be seen to be in its
transition to its successor. This never actually happens, even
in the final triad of the whole system. For the characteristic
type of the Notion represents the process as it would be when
it started from a perfectly adequate premise. When however
the premise, the explicit idea in the mind, became perfectly
adequate and true, we should have rendered explicit the whole
concrete idea, and the object of the dialectic process would
be attained, so that it could go no further. The typical process
of the Notion is therefore an ideal, to which the actual process
approximates more and more closely throughout its course,
but which it can only reach at the moment when it stops
completed.
116. The process always seeks for that idea which is
logically required as the completion of the idea from which
it starts. At first the complementary idea presents itself as
incompatible with the starting-point, and has to be inde-
pendently harmonised with it. Afterwards the complementary
idea is at once presented as in harmony with the original
idea in which it is implied. All the change lies in the fact
that two operations, at first distinct, are fused into one. The
argument of the dialectic all through is, If we start with a
valid idea, all that is implied in it is valid, and also everything
is valid that is required to avoid a contradiction between the
starting-point and that which we reach by means of the
starting-point. As we approximate to the end of the process,
we are able to see, implied in the idea before us, not merely a
complementary and contradictory idea on the same level, but
an idea which at once complements and transcends the starting-
point. The second idea is here from the first in harmony with
the idea which it complements. But its justification is exactly
the same as that of the antithesis in the Being-type of the
process—that is, that its truth is necessarily involved in the
truth of an idea which we have already admitted to be valid.
And thus if we are satisfied with the cogency of the earlier131	THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
forms of the process, we shall have no reason to modify our
belief on account of the change of method.
117. We may draw several important conclusions with
regard to the general nature of the dialectic, from the manner
in which the form changes as it advances towards completion.
The first of these is one which we may fairly attribute to Hegel
himself, since it is evident from the way in which he deals with
the categories, although it is not explicitly noticed by him.
This is the subordinate place held by negation in the whole
process. We have already observed that the importance of
negation in the dialectic is by no means primary*. In the
first place Hegel’s Logic is very far from resting, as is supposed
by some critics, on the violation of the law of contradiction.
It rather rests on the impossibility of violating that law, and
on the necessity of finding, for every contradiction, a recon-
ciliation in which it vanishes. And not only is the idea of
negation destined always to vanish in the synthesis, but even
its temporary introduction is an accident, though an inevitable
accident. The motive force of the process lies in the dis-
crepancy between the concrete and perfect idea implicitly in
our minds, and the abstract and imperfect idea explicitly in
our minds, and the essential characteristic of the process is in
the search of this abstract and imperfect idea, not after its
negation as such, but after its complement as such. Its com-
plement is, indeed, its contrary, because a relatively concrete
category can be analysed into two direct contraries, and there-
fore the process does go from an idea to its contrary. But it
does not do so because it seeks denial, but because it seeks
completion.
But this can now be carried still further. Not only is the
presence of negation in the dialectic a mere accident, though a
necessary one, of the gradual completion of the idea. We are
now led to consider it as an accident which is necessary indeed
in the lower stages of the dialectic, but which is gradually
eliminated in proportion as we proceed further, and in propor-
tion as the materials from which we start are of a concrete and
adequate character. For in so far as the process ceases to be
from one extreme to another extreme equally one-sided, both of
1 Chap. i. Section 9.THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
135
which regard themselves as permanent, and as standing in a
relation of opposition towards one another, and in so far as it
becomes a process from one term to another which is recognised
as in some degree mediated by the first, and as transcending
it—in so far the negation of each category by the other dis-
appears. For it is then recognised that in the second category
there is no contradiction to the first, because, in so far as the
change has been completed, the first is found to have its mean-
ing in the transition to the second.
The presence of negation, therefore, is not only a mere
accident of the dialectic, but an accident whose importance
continuously decreases as the dialectic progresses, and as its
subject-matter becomes more fully understood.
118. We now come to a fresh question, of very great
importance. We have seen that in the dialectic the relation
of the various finite ideas to one another in different parts of
the process is not the same—the three categories of Being, Not-
Being, and Becoming standing in different relations among
themselves to those which connect Life, Cognition, and the
Absolute Idea. Now the dialectic process professes to do more
than merely describe the stages by which we mount to the
Absolute Idea—it also describes the nature of that Idea itself.
In addition to the information which we gain about the latter
by the definition given of it at the end of the dialectic, we also
know that it contains in itself as elements or aspects all the
finite stages of thought, through which the dialectic has passed
before reaching its goal. It is not something which is reached
by the dialectic, and which then exists independently of the
manner in which it was reached. It does not reject all the
finite categories as absolutely false, but pronounces them to be
partly false and partly true, and it sums up in itself the truth
of all of them. They are thus contained in it as moments.
What relation do these moments bear to one another in the
Absolute Idea?
We may, in the first place, adopt the easy and simple
solution of saying that the relation they bear to one another, as
moments in the Absolute Idea, is just the same as that which
they bear to one another, as finite categories in the dialectic
process. In this case, to discover their position in the Absolute136
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
Idea, it is only necessary to consider the dialectic process, not
as one which takes place in time, but as having a merely logical
import. The process contemplated in this way will be a perfect
and complete analysis of the concrete idea which is its end,
containing about it, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth. And this, apparently, would have been Hegel’s
answer, if the question had been explicitly proposed to him.
For he undoubtedly asserts that the dialectic expresses the
deepest nature of objective thought.
119. But this conclusion seems open to doubt. For the
change of method results, as we have seen, from a gradually
growing perception of the truth which is at the bottom of the
whole dialectic—the unreality of any finite category as against
its synthesis, since the truth and reality of each category
consists only in its reference to the next, and in its passage
onwards to it. If this was not true all through the dialectic,
there could be no dialectic at all, for the justification of the
whole process is that the truth of the thesis and the antithesis
is contained in the synthesis, and that in so far as they are
anything else but aspects of the synthesis they are false and
deceptive. This then must be the true nature of the process of
thought, and must constitute the real meaning and essence of
the dialectic. Yet this is only explicitly perceived in the Notion,
and at the end of the Notion—or rather, as I pointed out above,
we never attain to complete perception of it, but only approxi-
mate towards it as our grasp of the subject increases. Before
this the categories appear always as, in their own nature,
permanent and self-centred, and the breaking down of this
self-assertion, and the substitution for it of the knowledge that
truth is only found in the synthesis, appears as opposed to what
went before, and as in contradiction to it, although a necessary
and inevitable consequence of it. But if this were really so,
the dialectic process would be impossible. If there really were
any independent element in the lower categories, or any
externality in the reconciliation, that reconciliation could never
be complete and the dialectic could never claim, as it un-
doubtedly does claim, to sum up all the lower elements
of truth.
The very existence of the dialectic thus tends to prove thatTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
137
it is not in every sense objectively correct. For it would be
impossible for any transition to be made, at any point in the
process, unless the terms were really related according to the
type belonging to the Notion. But no transition in the dialectic
does take place exactly according to that type, and most of them
according to types substantially different. We must therefore
suppose that the dialectic does not exactly represent the truth,
since if the truth were as it represents it to be, the dialectic
itself could not exist. There must be in the process, besides
that element which actually does express the real notion of
the transition, another element which is due to the inadequacy
of our finite thought to express the character of the reality which
we are trying to describe.
This agrees with what was said above—that the change of
method is no real change, but only a rearrangement of the
elements of the transition. It is, in fact, only a bringing out
explicitly of what is implicitly involved all along. In the
lower categories our data, with their false appearance of
independence, obscure and confuse the true meaning of the
dialectic. We can see that the dialectic has this true meaning,
even among these lower categories, by reflecting on what is
implied in its existence and success. But it is only in the later
categories that it becomes explicit. And it must follow that
those categories in which it is not yet explicit do not fully
represent the true nature of thought, and the essential character
of the transition from less perfect to more perfect forms.
120. The conclusion at which we are thus compelled to
arrive must be admitted, I think, to have no warrant in Hegel.
Hegel would certainly have admitted that the lower categories,
regarded in themselves, gave views of reality only approximating,
and, in the case of the lowest, only very slightly approximating,
to truth. But the procession of the categories, with its advance
through oppositions and reconciliations, he apparently regarded
as presenting absolute truth—as fully expressing the deepest
nature of pure thought. From this, if I am right, we are forced,
on his own premises, to dissent. For the true process of thought
is one in which each category springs out of the one before it,
not by contradicting it, but as an expression of its truest sig-
nificance, and finds its own truest significance, in turn, by138
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
passing on to another category. There is no contradiction, no
opposition, and, consequently, no reconciliation. There is only
development, the rendering explicit what was implicit, the
growth of the seed to the plant. In the actual course of the
dialectic this is never attained. It is an ideal which is never
quite realised, and from the nature of the case never can be
quite realised. In the dialectic there is always opposition, and
therefore always reconciliation. We do not go straight onward,
but more or less from side to side. It seems inevitable, there-
fore, to conclude that the dialectic does not completely and
perfectly express the nature of thought.
This conclusion is certainly startling and paradoxical. For
the validity of the dialectic method for any purpose, and its
power of adequately expressing the ultimate nature of thought,
appear to be so closely bound up together, that we may easily
consider them inseparable. The dialectic process is a distinct-
ively Hegelian idea. Doubtless the germs of it are to be found
in Fichte and elsewhere ; but it was only by Hegel that it was
fully worked out and made the central point of a philosophy.
And in so far as it has been held since, it has been held sub-
stantially in the manner in which he stated it. To retain the
doctrine, and to retain the idea that it is of cardinal importance
while denying that it adequately represents the nature of
thought, looks like a most unwarranted and gratuitous dis-
tinction between ideas which their author held to be insepar-
able.
Yet I cannot see what alternative is left to us. For it is
Hegel himself who refutes his own doctrine. The state to
which the dialectic, according to him, gradually approximates,
is one in which the terms thesis, antithesis, and synthesis can
•have no meaning. For in this state there is no opposition to
create the relation of thesis and antithesis, and, therefore, no
reconciliation of that opposition to create a synthesis. “ The
elements distinguished are without more ado at the same time
declared to be identical with one another, and with the whole.
...The other which the notion sets up is in reality not another1.”
Now, nowhere in the dialectic do we entirely get rid of the
relation of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; even in the final
1 Euc. Section 161.THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
139
triad of the process there are traces of it. The inference seems
inevitable that the dialectic cannot fully represent, in any part
of its movement, the real and essential nature of pure thought.
The only thing to be done is to consider whether, with this
important limitation, the process has any longer a claim to any
real significance, and, if so, to how much ? I shall endeavour
to show that its importance can scarcely be said to have di-
minished at all.
121. Since the dialectic, if the hypothesis I have advanced
be correct, does not adequately represent the nature of pure
thought itself, although it does represent the inevitable course
our minds are logically bound to follow, when they attempt to
deal with pure thought, it follows that it must be in some
degree subjective. We have now to determine exactly the
meaning in which we are using this rather ambiguous word.
On the one hand it is clear that the dialectic is not subjective
in that sense in which the word has been defined as meaning
“that which is mine ur yours.” It is no mere empirical
description or generalisation. For, whatever view we may
hold with regard to the success or failure of the dialectic in
apprehending the true nature of thought, it will not at all affect
the question of its internal necessity, and of its cogency for us.
The dialectic is not an account of what men have thought, or
may think. It is a demonstration of what they must think,
provided they wish to deal with Hegel’s problem at all, and to
deal with it consistently and truly.
On the other hand, we must now pronounce the dialectic
process to be subjective in this sense—that it does not fully
express the essential nature of thought, but obscures it more
or less under characteristics which are not essential. It may not
seem very clear at first sight how we can distinguish between
the necessary course of the mind when engaged in pure thought,
which the dialectic method, according to this hypothesis, is
admitted to be, and the essential nature of thought, which it is
not allowed that it can adequately express. What, it may be
asked, is the essential nature of thought, except that course
which it must and does take, whenever we think ?
We must remember, however, that according to Hegel
thought can only exist in its complete and concrete form—that140
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
is, as the Absolute Idea, The import of our thought may be,
and of course often is, a judgment under some lower category,
but our thought itself, as an existent fact, distinguished from
the meaning it conveys, must be concrete and complete. For
to stop at any category short of the complete whole involves
a contradiction, and a contradiction is a sign of error. Now
our judgments can be, and often are, erroneous. And so we
can, and do, make judgments which involve a contradiction.
But there would be no meaning in saying that a fact is
erroneous, and therefore, if we find a contradiction in any judg-
ment, we know that it cannot be true of facts. It follows that,
though it is unquestionably true that we can predicate in
thought categories other than the highest, and even treat them
as final, it is no less certain that we cannot, with complete
truth, explain thought, any more than any other aspect of reality,
by any category but the Absolute Idea.
This explains how it is possible for the actual and inevit-
able course of thought not to express fully and adequately
its own nature. For thought may be erroneous or deceptive,
when it is treating of thought, as much as when it is treating
of any other reality. And it is possible that under certain
circumstances the judgment expressed in our thoughts may
be inevitably erroneous or deceptive. If these judgments have
thought as their subject-matter we shall then have the position
in question—that the necessary course of thought will fail to
express properly its own nature.
122. The mistake, as we have already noticed, comes from
the fact that, whereas the logical relations, which form the
content of the Absolute Idea, and express the true nature of
thought, consist in a direct development in which each term
only exists in the transition to another, the actual process, on
the other hand, is one from contradictory to contradictory, each
of which is conceived as possessing some stability and inde-
pendence. The reason of this mistake lies in the nature of the
process, which is one from error to truth. For while error
remains in our conclusions, it must naturally affect our com-
prehension of the logical relations by which those conclusions
are connected, and induce us to suppose them other than they
are. In particular, the mistake may be traced to the circum-THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
141
stance that the dialectic starts with the knowledge of the part,
and from this works up to the knowledge of the whole. This
method of procedure is always inappropriate in anything of the
nature of an organism. Now the relation of the moments of the
Absolute Idea to the whole of which they are parts is still more
close and intimate than is the relation of the parts of a living
organism to the organism itself. And here, therefore, even
more than with organisms, will it be inadequate and deceptive
to endeavour to comprehend the whole from the standpoint of
the part. And this is what the dialectic, as it progresses, must
necessarily do. Consequently, not only are the lower categories
of the dialectic inadequate when taken as ultimate, but their
relation to each other is not the relation which they have in
the Absolute Idea, and consequently in all existence. These
relations, in the dialectic, represent more or less the error
through which the human mind is gradually attaining to the
truth. They do not adequately represent the relations existing
in the truth itself. To this extent, then, the dialectic is
subjective.
123. And the dialectic is also to be called subjective
because it not only fails to show clearly the true nature of
thought, but, as we noticed above, does not fully express its
own meaning—the meaning of the process forwards. For the
real meaning of the advance, if it is to have any objective
reality at all—if it is to be a necessary consequence of all
attempt at thorough and consistent thinking, must be the
result of the nature of thought as it exists. Our several
judgments on the nature of thought have not in themselves
any power of leading us on from one of them to another. It
is the relation of these judgments to the concrete whole of
thought, incarnate in our minds and in all our experience,
which creates the dialectic movement. Since this is so, it
would seem that the real heart and kernel of the process is the
movement of abstractions to rejoin the whole from which they
have been separated, and that the essential part of this move-
ment is that by which we are carried from the more abstract to
the more concrete. This will be determined by the relations in
which the finite categories stand to the concrete idea, when
they are viewed as abstractions from it and aspects of it—the142
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
only sense in which they have any truth. But the true relation of
the abstractions to the concrete idea is, as we have already seen,
that to which the dialectic method gradually approximates, but
which it never reaches, and not that with which it starts, and
which it gradually, but never entirely, discards. And so the
dialectic advance has, mixed up with it, elements which do not
really belong to the advance, nor to the essence of pure thought,
but are merely due to our original ignorance about the latter,
of which we only gradually get rid. For all that part of the
actual advance in the dialectic, which is different from the
advance according to the type characteristic of the Notion, has
no share in the real meaning and value of the process, since it
does not contribute to what alone makes that meaning and
value, namely the restoration of the full and complete idea.
What this element is, we can learn by comparing the move-
ment of the dialectic which is typical of Being, with that which
is typical of the Notion. It is the opposition and contradiction,
the immediacy of the finite categories, and the way in which
they negate their antitheses, and resist, until forced into sub-
mission, the transition to their syntheses. It is, so to speak,
the transverse motion as opposed to the direct motion forward.
The dialectic alwa3's moves onwards at an angle to the straight
line which denotes advance in truth and concreteness. Starting
unduly on one side of the truth, it oscillates to the other, and
then corrects itself. Once more it finds that even in its cor-
rected statement it is still one-sided, and again swings to the
opposite extreme. It is in this indirect way alone that it
advances. And the essence of the process is the direct part
alone of the advance. The whole point of the dialectic is that
it gradually attains to the Absolute Idea. In so far then as
the process is not direct advance to the absolute, it does not
express the essence of the process only, but also the inevitable
inadequacies of the human mind when considering a subject-
matter which can only be fully understood when the consider-
ation has been completed.
And, as was remarked above, it also fails to express its own
meaning in another way. For the imperfect type of transition,
which is never fully eliminated, represents the various categories
as possessing some degree of independence and self-subsistence.THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
143
If they really possessed this, they could not be completely
absorbed in the syntheses, and the dialectic could not be
successful. The fact that it is successful proves that it has not
given a completely correct account of itself, and, for this reason
also, it deserves to be called subjective, since it does not fully
express the objective reality of thought.
124. Having decided that the dialectic is to this extent
subjective, we have to consider how far this will reduce its
cardinal significance in philosophy, or its practical utility. I
do not see that it need do either. For all that results from this
new position is that the dialectic is a process through error to
truth. Now we knew this before. For on any theory of the
dialectic it remains true that it sets out with inadequate ideas
of the univei’se and finally reaches adequate ideas. We now go
further and say that the relation of these inadequate ideas to
one another does not completely correspond to anything in the
nature of reality. But the general result is the same—that we
gain the truth by the dialectic, but that the steps by which we
reach it contain imperfections. We shall see that our new view
does not destroy the value of the dialectic, if we consider in
more detail in what that value consists.
The importance of the dialectic is threefold. The first
branch of it depends chiefly on the end being reached, and the
other two chiefly on the means by which it is reached. The
first of these lies in the conclusion that if we can predicate any
category whatever of a thing, we are thereby entitled to predi-
cate the Absolute Idea of it. Now we can predicate some
category of anything whatever, and the Absolute Idea is simply
the description in abstract terms of the human spirit, or, in
other words, the human spirit is the incarnation of the Absolute
Idea. From this it follows that the mind could, if it only saw
clearly enough, see a nature like its own in everything. The
importance of this conclusion is obvious. It gives the assurance
of that harmony between ourselves and the world for which
philosophy always seeks, and by which alone science and
religion can be ultimately justified.
Hegel was entitled, on his own premises, to reach this
conclusion by means of the dialectic. And the different
view of the relation of the dialectic to reality, which I have144
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
ventured to put forward, does not at all affect the validity of
the dialectic for this purpose. For the progress of the dialectic
remains as necessary as before. The progress is indirect, and
we have come to the conclusion that the indirectness of the
advance is not in any way due to the essential nature of pure
thought, but entirely to our own imperfect understanding of
that nature. But the whole process is still necessary, and the
direct advance is still essential. And all that we want to know
is that the direct advance is necessary. We are only interested,
for this particular purpose, in proving that from any possible
stand-point we are bound in logical consistency to advance to
the Absolute Idea. In this connection it is not of the least
importance what is the nature of the road we travel, provided
that we must travel it, nor whether the process expresses truth
fully, provided that the final conclusion does so. Now the
theory propounded above as to the dialectic process leaves the
objectivity and adequacy of the result of the dialectic unim-
paired. And therefore for this function the system is as well
\ adapted as it ever was.
125. The second ground of the importance of the Hegelian
logic consists in the information which it is able to give us
about the world as it is here and now for us, who have not yet
been able so clearly to interpret all phenomena as only to find
our own most fundamental nature manifesting itself in them.
As we see that certain categories are superior in concreteness
and truth to others, since they come later in the chain and
have transcended the meaning of their predecessors, we are
able to say that certain methods of regarding the universe are
more correct and significant than others. We are able to see
that the idea of organism, for example, is a more fundamental
explanation than the idea of causality, and one which we should
prefer whenever we can apply it to the matter in hand.
Here also the value of the dialectic remains unimpaired.
For whether it does or does not express the true nature of
thought with complete correctness; it certainly, according to
this theory, does show the necessary and inevitable connection
of our finite judgments with one another. The utility which
we are now considering lies in the guidance which the dialectic
can give us to the relative validity and usefulness of these finiteTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
145
judgments. For it is only necessary to know their relations to
one another, and to know that as the series goes further, it goes
nearer to the truth. Both these things can be leamt from the
dialectic. That it does not tell us the exact relations which
subsist in reality is unimportant. For we are not here judging
reality, but the judgments of reason about reality.
126. The third function of the dialectic process is certainly
destroyed by the view of it which I have explained above.
The dialectic showed, for Hegel, the relation of the categories to
one another, as moments in the Absolute Idea, and in reality.
We are now forced to consider those moments as related in a
way which is inadequately expressed by the relation of the
categories to one another. We are not however deprived of
anything essential to the completeness of the system by this.
In the first place, we are still able to understand completely
and adequately what the Absolute Idea is. For although one
definition was given of it by which “ its true content is only
the whole system of which we have been hitherto studying the
development,” yet a more direct and independent one may also
be found1. Our inability to regard the process any longer as
an adequate analysis of the Absolute Idea will not leave us
in ignorance of what the Absolute Idea really is.
And, in the second place, we are not altogether left in the
dark even as regards the analysis of the Absolute Idea. The
dialectic, it is true, never fully reveals the true nature of
thought which forms its secret spring, but it gives us data by
which we can discount the necessary error. For the connection
of the categories resembles the true nature of thought (which is
expressed in the typical transition of the Notion), more and
more closely as it goes on, and at the end of the Logic it differs
from it only infinitesimally. By observing the type to which
the dialectic method approximates throughout its course, we
are thus enabled to tell what element in it is that which is due
to the essential nature of thought. It is that element which
alone is left when, in the typical movement of the Notion, we
see how the dialectic would act if it could act with full self-con-
1 “Der Begriff der Idee, dem die Idee als solclie der Gegenstand, dem das
Objekt sie ist.”—Enc. Section 236. The definition quoted in the text is in
Section 237, lecture note.
M. H.
10146	THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
sciousness. It is true that in the lower categories we can never
see the transition according to this type, owing to the necessary
confusion of the subject-matter in so low a stage, which hides
the true nature of the process to which the dialectic endeavours
to approximate. But we can regard the movement of all the
categories as compounded, in different proportions according
to their positions in the system, of two forces, the force of
opposition and negation, and the force of advance and
completion, and we can say that the latter is due to the real
nature of thought, and the former to our misconceptions
about it. In other words, the element of imperfection in the
dialectic is inevitable, but its amount can be ascertained,
and it need not therefore introduce any doubt or scepticism
into the conclusions to which the dialectic may lead us.
127. What then is this real and essential element in the
advance of thought which is revealed, though never completely,
in the dialectic ? In the first place, it is an advance which is
direct. The element of indirectness which is introduced by the
movement from thesis to antithesis, from opposite to opposite,
diminishes as the dialectic proceeds, and, in the ideal type,
wholly dies away. In that type each category is seen to carry
in itself the implication of the next beyond it, to which thought
then proceeds. The lower is only lower because part of its
meaning is still implicit; it is no longer one-sided, requiring to
be corrected by an equal excess on the other side of the truth.
And, therefore, no idea stands in an attitude of opposition to
any other; there is nothing to break down, nothing to fight.
All that aspect of the process belongs to our misapprehension
of the relation of the abstract to the concrete. While looking
up from the bottom, we may imagine the truth is only to be
attained by contest, but in looking down from the top—the
only true way of examining a process of this sort—we see that
the contest is only due to our misunderstanding, and that the
growth of thought is really direct and unopposed.
The movement of the dialectic may perhaps be compared to
that of a ship tacking against the wind. If we suppose that
the wind blows exactly from the point which the ship wishes to
reach, and that, as the voyage continues, the sailing powers of
the ship improve so that it becomes able to sail closer andTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
147
closer to the wind, the analogy will be rather exact. It is
impossible for the ship to reach its destination by a direct
course, as the wind is precisely opposite to the line which that
course would take, and in the same way it is impossible for
the dialectic to move forward without the triple relation of
its terms, and without some opposition between thesis and
antithesis. But the only object of the ship is to proceed
towards the port, as the only object of the dialectic process
is to attain to the concrete and complete idea, and the
movement of the ship from side to side of the direct line is
labour wasted, so far as the end of the voyage is concerned,
though necessarily wasted, since the forward movement would,
under the circumstances, be impossible without the combination
with it of a lateral movement. In the same way, the advance in
the dialectic is merely in the gradually increasing completeness
of the ideas. The opposition of one idea to another, and the
consequent negation and contradiction, do not mark any real
step towards attaining the knowledge of the essential nature of
thought, although they are necessary accompaniments of the
process of gaining that knowledge. Again, the change in the
ship’s sailing powers which allows it to go nearer to the wind,
and so reduces the distance which it is necessary to travel in
order to accomplish the journey, will correspond to the gradual
subordination of the elements of negation and opposition,
which we have seen to take place as we approach the end of
the dialectic.
128. Not the whole, then, of each category represents the
objective nature of the dialectic, but only a certain element in
it. And this is the element of unity and continuity. The
element which keeps the categories apart, and gives them the
appearance of distinction and stability, is just the element
which we are now led to believe is due to our incapacity
to grasp the nature of thought until we arrive at the end
of the dialectic.
This would seem to render it probable that the dialectic
may be looked on primarily as continuous and not discrete.
The categories, if this view is right, should not be taken as
ultimate units, which are combined in groups of three, and these
' again in larger groups of three, till at last the whole dialectic is
10—2148
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
in this manner built up. On the contrary the whole dialectic
should be looked on as primarily a unity, which can be analysed
into three members, each of which can again be analysed into
three members, and so on, as long as our interest and insight
are sufficient to induce us to pursue the division.
This theory is confirmed by two other characteristics of the
dialectic. The first of these is the great difference in the
lengths to which the sub-division of the categories is carried
in different parts of the system. If, for example, in the Smaller
Logic, we take the first division of Essence, which is Darned
Essence as Ground, we find that its first two sub-divisions are
called, respectively, Primary Characteristics of Reflection, and
Existence. In the latter there is no trace of further sub-
division, while the former is divided again into Identity,
Difference, and Ground, and in Difference, once more, we find
distinguished Diversity, Likeness and Unlikeness, and Positive
and Negative. Similar differences are to be found at other
points of the system, and also in the Greater Logic. If the
individual categories were ultimate units, such discrepancies
in their size and importance would be strange and inexplicable.
But if we regard the whole of the dialectic as logically prior to
its parts, and the parts as produced by analysis, we have an
easy and natural explanation of the inequality—namely, that it
is due to some circumstance which rendered Hegel, or which
perhaps renders all men, more interested or more acute when deal-
ing with one part of the process than when dealing with another.
129. There is also a second characteristic of the dialectic
which supports this theory. It is not necessary to descend to
the lowest sub-divisions which Hegel gives, in order to observe
the dialectic process. The larger divisions, also, lead on to
one another by the same necessity as the smaller ones do.
Reasons could be given, without going into greater detail, why
Quality should involve Quantity, and both of them Measure;
or, again, why Notion must lead us on to Judgment, and Judg-
ment to Syllogism. An argument which confined itself to so
few steps would be far more obscure, and consequently more
dangerous and doubtful, than the argument which we actually
have in the Logic. But still such a chain of demonstrations
could be formed, and in many places Hegel gives us part of it.THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
149
Now this is incompatible with the view of the dialectic as
ultimately discrete. For then every larger division would be
nothing but an aggregate of smaller ones. No such division
could then be used as a transition from the one below it to the
one above it, without descending into the lowest sub-divisions.
Being an aggregate of separate units, it could not be treated
as a coherent whole until all its separate parts had been
demonstrated to be linked together. And the fact that the
dialectic process can go from one to another of the larger
divisions, ignoring their sub-divisions, will confirm us in sup-
posing that the dialectic is not a chain of links, but rather a
continuous flow of thought, which can be analysed into divisions
and sub-divisions.
130. The belief that the dialectic is continuous may have
an important influence on our position if we are led, on closer
examination, to the conclusion that any of Hegel’s transitions
are erroneous and cannot be justified. On the hypothesis that
the steps of the dialectic are discrete, one such error would
destroy the validity of the whole process, beyond the point
where it occurs, as completely as the two ends of a chain
would be separated by the breaking of a single link, even if
all the rest held fast. Our only reason for not considering the
whole value of the process, beyond the faulty link, as absolutely
destroyed, would rest on a rough argument from analogy. It
might be said that, if there was a valid dialectic process up to
a certain point, and again from that point onwards, it was not
probable that there would, at that one point, be an absolute
gulf, and we might therefore hope that a fresh transition might
be discovered at this point, instead of the one which we had
been compelled to reject. But such an analogy would not
be very strong.
On the other hand, the theory of the continuity of the
dialectic will make such a discovery much less serious. For if
the larger division, in a sub-division of which the fault occurs,
forms itself a valid transition from the division before it to the
one which follows it, we shall be sure that to do this it must
be a coherent whole, and capable, therefore, of being analysed
into a coherent chain of sub-divisions. And therefore, though
we cannot be satisfied with the dialectic until we have replaced150
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
the defective member with one that will stand criticism, we
shall have good grounds for supposing that such a change can
be effected.
131. The gradual change in the method of the dialectic
can be well exemplified by examining the supreme and all-
including triad, of which all the others are moments. This
triad is given by Hegel as Logic, Nature, and Spirit.
If we enquire as to the form which the dialectic process is
likely to assume here, we find ourselves in a difficulty. For the
form of transition in any particular triad was determined by its
place in the series. If it was among the earlier categories, it
approximated to the character given as typical of Being; if it
did not come till near the end, it showed more or less resem-
blance to the type of the Notion. And we were able to see
that this was natural, because the later method, being more
direct, and less encumbered with irrelevant material, was only
to be attained when the work previously done had given us
sufficient insight into the real nature of the subject-matter.
This principle, however, will not help us here. For the trans-
ition which we arc here considering is both the first and the
last of its series, and it is impossible, therefore, to determine its
characteristic features by its place in the order. The less
direct method is necessary when we are dealing with the
abstract and imperfect categories with which our investiga-
tions must begin, the more direct method comes with the
more adequate categories. But this triad covers the whole
range, from the barest category of the Logic—that of pure
Being—to the culmination of human thought in Absolute
Spirit.
Since it covers the whole range, in which all the types of
the dialectic method are displayed, the natural conclusion
would seem to be that one of them is as appropriate to it as
another, that whichever form may be used will be more or
less helpful and significant, because the process docs cover the
ground in which that form can appropriately be used; while,
on the other hand, every form will be more or less inadequate,
because the process covers ground on which it cannot appro-
priately be used. If we cast it in the form of the Notion, we
shall ignore the fact that it starts at a point too early for aTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
151
method so direct; if, on the other hand, we try the form of the
categories of Being, the process contains material for which
such a method is inadequate.
132. And if we look at the facts we shall find that they
confirm this view, and that it is possible to state the relation of
Logic, Nature, and Spirit to one another, in two different ways.
Hegel himself states it in the manner characteristic of the
Notion. It is not so much positive, negative, and synthesis, as
universal, particular, and individual that he points out. In the
Logic thought is to be found in pure abstraction from all par-
ticulars, (we cannot, of course, think it as abstracted from par-
ticulars, but in the Logic we attend only to the thought, and
ignore the data it connects). In Nature we find thought again,
for Nature is part of experience, and more or less rational, and
this implies that it has thought in it. In Nature, however,
thought is rather buried under the mass of data which appear
contingent and empirical; we see the reason is there, but we
do not see that everything is completely rational. It is de-
scribed by Hegel as the idea in a state of alienation from itself.
Nature is thus far from being the mere contrary and correlative
of thought. It is thought and something more, thought incar-
nate in the particulars of sense. At the same time, while the
transition indicates an advance, it does not indicate a pure
advance. For the thought is represented as more or less
overpowered by the new element which has been added, and
not altogether reconciled to and interpenetrating it. In going
forward it has also gone to one side, and this requires, therefore,
the correction which is given to it in the synthesis, when
thought, in Spirit, completely masters the mass of particulars
which for a time had seemed to master it, and when we perceive
that the truth of the universe lies in the existence of thought as
fact, the incarnation of the Absolute Idea—in short, in Spirit.
Here we meet all the characteristics of the Notion-type.
The second term, to which we advance from the first, is to some
extent its opposite, since the particulars of sense, entirely
wanting in the first, are in undue prominence in the second.
But it is to a much greater extent the completion of the first,
since the idea, which was taken in the Logic in unreal abstrac-
tion, is now taken as embodied in facts, which is the way it152	THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
really exists. The only defect is that the embodiment is not
yet quite complete and evident. And the synthesis which
removes this defect does not, as in earlier types of the dialectic,
stand impartially between thesis and antithesis, each as de-
fective as the other, but only completes the process already
begun in the antithesis. It is not necessary to compare the
two lower terms, Logic and Nature, to be able to proceed to
Spirit. The consideration of Nature alone would be sufficient
to show that it postulated the existence of Spirit. For we have
already in Nature both the sides required for the synthesis,
though their connection is so far imperfect, and there is con-
sequently no need to refer back to the thesis, whose meaning
has been incorporated and preserved in the antithesis. The
existence of the two sides, not completely reconciled, in the
antithesis, in itself postulates a synthesis, in which the recon-
ciliation shall be completed.
133. But it would also be possible to state the transition
in the form which is used in the Logic for the lower part of the
dialectic. In this case we should proceed from pure thought to
its simple contrary, and from the two together to a synthesis.
This simple contrary will be the element which, together with
thought, forms the basis for the synthesis which is given in
Spirit. And as Nature, as we have seen, contains the same
elements as Spirit, though less perfectly developed, we shall
find this contrary of thought to be the element in experience,
whether of Nature or Spirit, which cannot be reduced to
thought. Now of this element we know that it is immediate
and that it is particular—not in the sense in which Nature is
particular, in the sense of incompletely developed individuality,
but of abstract particularity. It is possible to conceive that in
the long run all other characteristics of experience except these
might be reduced to a consequence of thought. But however
far the process of rationalisation might be carried, and however
fully we might be able to answer the question of why things
are as they are and not otherwise, it is impossible to get rid of
a datum which is immediate and therefore unaccounted for.
For thought is only mediation, and therefore, taken apart
from immediacy, is a mere abstraction. If nothing existed
but thought itself, still the fact of its existence must be in theTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.	153
long run immediately given, and something for which thought
itself could not account. This immediacy is the mark of the
element which is essential to experience and irreducible to
thought.
If then we wished to display the process from Logic to
Spirit according to the Being-type of transition we should,
starting from pure thought as our thesis, put as its antithesis
the element of immediacy and “givenness” in experience.
This element can never be properly or adequately described,
since all description consists in predicating categories of the
subject, and is therefore mediation; but by abstracting the
element of mediation in experience, as in Logic we abstract the
element of immediacy, we can form some idea of what it is like.
Here we should have thought and immediacy as exactly oppo-
site and counterbalancing elements. They are each essential
to the truth, but present themselves as opposed to one another.
Neither of them has the other as a part of itself, though they
can be seen to be closely and intimately connected. But each
of them negates the other as much as it implies it, and the
relation, without the synthesis, is one of opposition and contra-
diction. We cannot see, as we can when a transition assumes
the Notion-form, that the whole meaning of the one category
lies in its transition to the other. The synthesis of our triad
would be the notion of experience or reality, in which we have
the given immediate mediated. This would contain both
Nature and Spirit, the former as the more imperfect stage,
the latter as the more perfect, culminating in the completely
satisfactory conception of Absolute Spirit. Nature stands in
this case in the same relation to Absolute Spirit as do the
lower forms of Spirit,—as less perfectly developed forms of the
concrete reality.
This triad could be proved as cogently as the other. It
could be shown, in the first place, that mere mediation is
unmeaning, except in relation to the merely immediate, since,
without something to mediate, it could not act. In the same
way it could be shown that the merely given, without any
action of thought on it, could not exist, since any attempt to
describe it, or even to assert its existence, involves the use of
some category, and therefore of thought. And these two1.54
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
extremes, each of which negates the other, and at the same
time demands it, are reconciled in the synthesis of actual
experience, whether Nature or Spirit, in which the immediate
is mediated, and both extremes in this way gain for the first
time reality and consistency.
134.	The possibility of this alternative arrangement affords,
as I mentioned above, an additional argument in favour of the
view that the change of method is essential to the dialectic,
and that it is due to the progressively increasing insight into
the subject which we gain as we pass to the higher categories
and approximate to the completely adequate result. For, in
this instance, when the whole ground from beginning to end
of the dialectic process is covered in a single triad, we find
that either method may be used,—a fact which suggests of itself
that the two methods are appropriate to the two ends of the
series, which are here, and here only, united by a single step.
Independently of this, however, it is also worth while to con-
sider the possibility of the double transition attentively, be-
cause it may help us to explain the origin of some of the
misapprehensions of Hegel’s meaning which are by no means
uncommon.
135.	We saw above that the dialectic represented the real
nature of thought more closely in the later categories, when
it appeared comparatively direct and spontaneous, than in the
earlier stages, when it was still encumbered with negations
and contradictions. It would appear probable, therefore, be-
forehand, that of the two possible methods of treating this
particular triad, the one which Hegel has in fact adopted would
be the more expressive and significant. On examination we
shall find that this is actually the case. For there is no real
separation between thought and immediacy ; neither can exist
without the other. Now, in the method adopted by Hegel,
the element of immediacy comes in first in Nature, and comes
in, not as an element opposed to, though necessarily connected
with, pure thought, but as already bound up with it in a
unity. This expresses the truth better than a method which
starts by considering the two aspects as two self-centred and
independent realities, which have to be connected by reasoning
external to themselves. For by this second method, evenTHE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
155
when the two terms are finally reconciled in a synthesis, it
is done, so to speak, against their will, since their claims to
independence are only overcome by the reductio ad absurdum
to which they are brought, when they are seen, as independent,
to be at once mutually contradictory and mutually implied
in each other. In this method the transitory nature of the
incomplete categories and the way in which their movement
forward depends on their own essential nature, are not suf-
ficiently emphasised.
And we shall find that the subject-matter of the transition
is too advanced to bear stating according to the Being-typo
without showing that that type is not fully appropriate to it.
Logic and Immediacy are indeed as much on a level as Being
and Not-Being. There is no trace whatever in the former
case, any more than in the latter, of a rudimentary synthesis
in the antithesis. But the other characteristic of the lower
type—that the thesis and the antithesis should claim to be
mutually exclusive and independent—cannot be fully realised.
Being and Nothing, although they may be shown by reasoning
to be mutually implicated, are at any rate primd facie distinct
and independent. But mediation and immediacy, although
opposed, are nevertheless connected, even primd facie. It is
impossible even to define the two terms without suggesting
that each of them is, by itself, unstable, and that their only
real existence is as aspects of the concrete whole in which
they are united. The method is thus not sufficiently advanced
for the matter it deals with.
136. It is, however, as I endeavoured to show above, pro-
bable d priori that neither method would completely suit this
particular case. And not only the method which we have
just discussed, but the one which Hegel preferred to it, will
be found to some extent inadequate to its task here. Hegel’s
is, no doubt, the more correct and convenient of the two;
yet its use alone, without the knowledge that it does not
in this case exclude the concurrent use of the other as equally
legitimate, may lead to grave miscomprehensions of the system.
For the use of that method which Hegel does not adopt—
the one in which the terms are Logic, Immediacy, and Nature
and Spirit taken together—has at any rate this advantage, that156
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
it brings out the fact that Immediacy is as important and
ultimate a factor in reality as Logic is, and one which cannot
be reduced to Logic. The two terms are exactly on a level.
We begin with the Logic and go from that to Immediacy,
because it is to the completed idea of the Logic that we
come if we start from the idea of pure Being, and we naturally
start from the idea of pure Being, because it alone, of all our
ideas, is the one whose denial carries with it, at once and
clearly, self-contradiction. But the transition from Immediacy
to Logic is exactly the same as that from Logic to Immediacy.
And as the two terms are correlative in this way, it would
be comparatively easy to see, by observing them, that neither
of them derived its validity from the other, but both from
the synthesis.
137. This is not so clear when the argument takes the
other form. The element of Immediacy here never appears
as a separate and independent term at all. It appears in
Nature for the first time, and here it is already in combination
with thought. And Nature and Logic are not correlative
terms, from either of which we can proceed to the other. The
transition runs from Logic to Nature—from thought by itself,
to thought in union with immediacy. It is not unnatural,
therefore, to suppose that immediacy is dependent on pure
thought, and can be deduced from it, while the reverse process
is not possible. The pure reason is supposed to make for itself
the material in which it is embodied. “ The logical bias of
the Hegelian philosophy,” says Professor Seth, “tends... to
reduce things to mere types or ‘ concretions ’ of abstract for-
mulae1.” It might, I think, be shown that other considerations
conclusively prove this view to be incorrect. In the first place,
throughout the Logic there are continual references which
show that pure thought requires some material, other than
itself, in which to work. And, secondly, the spring of all
movement in the dialectic comes from the synthesis towards
which the process is working, and not from the thesis from
which the start is made. Consequently, progress from Logic
to Nature could, in any case, prove, not that the additional
element in nature was derived from thought, but that it
1 Hegelianism and Personality, p. 126.THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
157
co-existed with thought in the synthesis which is their goal.
But although the mistake might have been avoided, even
under the actual circumstances, it could scarcely have been
made if the possibility of the alternative method of deduction
had been recognised. Immediacy would, in that case, have
been treated as a separate element in the process, and as one
which was correlative with pure thought, so that it could
scarcely have been supposed to have been dependent on it.
138. The more developed method, again, tends rather to
obscure the full meaning and importance of the synthesis,
unless we realise that, in this method, part of the work of the
synthesis is already done in the second term. This is of great
importance, because we have seen that it is in their synthesis
alone that the terms gain full reality and validity, which they
did not possess when considered in abstraction. In the earlier
method we see clearly that pure thought is one of these ab-
stractions, as mere immediacy is the other. It is, therefore,
clear that each of these terms, taken by itself, is a mere aspect,
and could not possibly, out of its own nature, produce the
other aspect, and the reality from which they both come.
From this standpoint it would be impossible to suppose that
out of pure thought were produced Nature and Spirit.
Now, in the type characteristic of the Notion, the same
element appears both in thesis and antithesis, although in the
latter it is in combination with a fresh element. There is,
therefore, a possibility of misunderstanding the process. For
an element which was both in thesis and antithesis might
appear not to be merely a one-sided abstraction, but to have
the concreteness which is to be found in the synthesis, since
it appears in both the extremes into which the synthesis may
be separated. When, for example, we have Logic, Nature,
and Spirit, we might be tempted to argue that pure thought
could not be only one side of the truth, since it was found
in each of the lower terms—by itself in Logic and combined
with immediacy in Nature—and hence to attribute to it a
greater self-sufficiency and importance than it really possesses.
This mistake will disappear when we realise that the only
reason that pure thought appears again in the second term of
the triad is that the synthesis, in transitions of this type, has158
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD.
already begun in the second term. It is only in the synthesis
that thought appears in union with its opposite, and, apart
from the synthesis, it is as incomplete and unsubstantial as
immediacy is.
But the change in the type of the process is not sufficiently
emphasised in Hegel, and there is a tendency on the part of
observers to take the type presented by the earliest categories
as that which prevails all through the dialectic. And as, in
the earlier type, one of the extremes could not have been found
both in the first and second terms of a triad, it is supposed
that pure thought cannot be such an extreme, cannot stand in
the same relation to Spirit, as Being does to Becoming, aDd
is rather to be looked on as the cause of what follows it, than
as an abstraction from it.
139. I have endeavoured to show that the view of the
dialectic given in this chapter, while we cannot suppose it to
have been held by Hegel, is nevertheless not unconnected
with his system. The germs of it are to be found in his ex-
position of the changes of method in the three great divisions
of the process, and the observation of the details of the system
confirm this. But it was not sufficiently emphasised, nor did
Hegel draw from it the consequences, particularly as regards
the subjective element in the dialectic, which I have tried to
show are logically involved in it.
But there is, nevertheless, justification for our regarding
this theory as a development and not a contradiction of the
Hegelian system, since it is only by the aid of some such theory
that we can regard that system as valid at all. And we have
seen that such a modification will not affect either of the great
objects which Absolute Idealism claims to have accomplished—
the demonstration, namely, that the real is rational and the
rational is real, and the classification, according to their neces-
sary relations and intrinsic value, of the various categories
which we use in ordinary and finite thought.CHAPTEE Y.
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
140. One of the most interesting and important questions
which can arise in connexion with Hegel’s philosophy is the
question of the relation between the succession of the categories
in the dialectic and the succession of events in time. Are we
to regard the complex and concrete Absolute Idea, in which
alone true reality is to be found, as gradually growing up in
time by the evolution of one category after another ? Or are
we to regard the Absolute Idea as existing eternally in its full
completeness, and the succession of events in time as something
which has no part as such in any ultimate system of the universe ?
The succession of categories in Hegel’s Logic is, of course,v
not primarily a temporal succession. We pass from one to
another because the admission of the first as valid requires
logically the admission of the second as valid. At the same
time there are various reasons for accepting the view that one
category succeeds another in time. One of the facts of the
universe which requires explanation is the existence of time A''
and it seems at first sight a simple and satisfactory explanation
to account for it by the gradual development of the Notion from
Pure Being to the Absolute Idea. And Hegel certainly explains
the past to some extent by bringing the successive events under
successive categories.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that such a view is incom-
patible with the system. There are doubtless difficulties in
either interpretation of Hegel’s meaning, but there seems no
doubt that we must reject the development of the process in time.160
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
In the first place, the theory that time is an ultimate reality
would lead to insoluble difficulties as to the commencement of
the process. Secondly, the Absolute Idea must be held to be
the presupposition and the logical prius of the lower categories.
It follows that a theory which makes the appearance of the
lower category the presupposition of the appearance of the
higher one, cannot fully represent the ultimate reality of the
process. And, finally, Hegel’s language seems to be decisively
on the side of the interpretation that the Absolute Idea exists
eternally in its full perfection, and the movement from the lower
to the higher is reconstruction and not construction.
141. Let us consider the first of these points. Hegel, of
course, maintains that the universe is fully rational. Can we
regard as fully rational a universe in which a process in time is
fundamentally real ? The theory before us maintains that
the universe starts with a minimum of reality, corresponding
only to the category of Pure Being. From this point it
develops by the force of the dialectic. Gradually each of
the higher categories becomes real, and this gradual evolution
of logical completeness makes the process which constitutes
the life of the universe. All the facts around us are to be
attributed to the gradually developing idea, and when the
development is complete, and reality has become an incarnation
of the Absolute Idea, then the process will end in perfection.
The spiritual character of the universe, up till then explicit and
partial, will have become complete and explicit. The real
will be completely rational, and the rational will be completely
real.
On this we must remark, in the first place, that the process
in time by which the dialectic develops itself must be regarded
as finite and not as infinite. Neither in experience nor in a
prion criticism can we find any reason to believe that infinite
time really exists, or is anything more than an illegitimate
inference from the infinite extensibility of time. Nor, if it did
exist, could it form part of an ultimate rational explanation of
the universe. An unending regress, whether it is true or not, is
certainly not a solution which meets the demands of reason.
More especially is it impossible that it should be accepted as
part of an Hegelian theory. For infinite time would be theTHE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
161
strongest possible example of the “ false infinite ” of endless
aggregation, which Hegel invariably condemns as a mere
mockery of explanation.
And, independently of this, it is clear that an infinite series
in time would not be an embodiment of the dialectic. For the
dialectic is most emphatically a process with a beginning and
an end, and any series which embodies it must have a beginning
and an end also. If the dialectic has any truth, there can be
no steps before Pure Being, nor any steps after the Absolute
Idea. As the number of steps is finite, either the time taken
by each of them is infinite,-—and in that case there would be
no process at all—or the time taken by the whole series must
be finite.
We may consider, then, that any theory which imagines the
dialectic to develop itself in time at all, will regard it as doing
so in a limited time. What follows from this hypothesis ?
142. The first difficulty which arises is that every event in
time requires a previous event as its cause. How then shall we
be able to explain the first event of the complete series ? The
first event, like all the others, is an event in time, that is, it
had a beginning, before which it did not exist. What deter-
mined the change which brought it into existence ? Whatever
determined it must be itself an event in time, for if the cause
had not a definite place in the time series it could not account
for its effect having one. But in this case it will itself need a
determining cause, which will also be an event, and we have
thus lost our finite series with a definite beginning, and em-
barked on an infinite series, which cannot, as we have seen, be
of any assistance to us in our present purpose.
On the other hand, to deny that the first term of such a
series requires a determining cause is impossible. It is perhaps
not impossible that our minds should form the conception of
something on which other things depend, while it depends
itself on nothing. But an event in time could never hold such
a place. For an event in time has always before it a time when
it was not, and this coming into existence deprives it of the
possibility of being self-subsistent. Time, as Hegel says,
is still outside itself1. It has no principle of unity or
1 Enc. Section 257.
M. H.
11162 THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
coherence. It can only be limited by something external to
it. Our finite series in time can only have the definite
beginning which it requires by means of further time beyond
it. To fix any point in time is to imply the existence of time
upon both sides of it. And thus no event in time could be
accepted as an ultimate beginning. On the other hand, some
such event would have to be accepted as the ultimate beginning,
if a finite series were to be accepted as an ultimate explanation.
If we apply this to the particular problem before us, we
shall find that the theory that the Absolute Idea develops in
time lands us in a hopeless difficulty. Let us suppose that all
the phenomena of the universe have been accounted for as the
manifestations of the gradually developing Idea, and let us
suppose that each of these manifestations of the Idea has been
shown to be the logical consequence of the existence of the
previous manifestation. Then the final and ultimate fact upon
which our explanation will depend will be that, at the beginning
of time, the first of the categories—the category of Pure
Being—manifested itself in reality. And for this fact itself
an external explanation is required. No such explanation,
indeed, would be required for the deduction of the universe
from the idea of Pure Being. If the system is correct, the
categories are so inseparably connected that the existence of
one stage in the dialectic process implies the existence of all,
and the existence of any reality, again, implies the existence of
the categories. The category of Pure Being can thus be
deduced from the fact that the universe exists, and the
fact that the universe exists does not require, as it does
not admit, any outside cause. But here, to account for the
existence of the universe in time, we have taken as our
ultimate fact the realisation of the first category at a particular
time. Time is in itself quite empty and indifferent to its
content. No possible reason could be given why the process
should not have begun a hundred years later than it did, so
that we should be at the present moment in the reign of
George III. The only way of fixing an event to a parti-
cular time is by connecting it with some other event which
happened in a particular time. This would lead here to an
infinite regress, and, independently of this, would be impracti-THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
163
cable. For, by the hypothesis, the dialectic development was
to account for the entire universe, and there can, therefore, be
no event outside it to which it can be referred in order that it
can be accounted for itself. And yet the question—why it
happened now and not at another time—is one which we
cannot refrain from asking, since time must be regarded as
infinitely extensible.
143. Various attempts have been made to evade this
difficulty. It has been suggested that the temporal process has
its root in a timeless state. If we ask what determined the
first event, we are referred to the timeless state. If we ask
what caused the latter, we are answered that it had no begin-
ning, and consequently required no cause.
But how could a timeless reality be the cause of a succession
in time? It could, no doubt, be the cause of everything else
in a series of successive events, except of the fact that they did
take place in time. But how are we to account for that ? No
reconciliation and no mediation is possible upon the hypothesis
with which we are here dealing. According to some views of
the question, time might be regarded as nothing but a form
assumed by eternity, or time and the timeless might be
regarded as forms of a higher reality. But such a view is
impossible here. The theory which we are here considering '
had to explain the fact of a succession in the universe, and did
so by making the central principle of the universe to be the
realisation of the dialectic in time. The realisation in time,
according to this theory, is as much part of the ultimate
explanation of the universe as the dialectic itself. By making
time ultimate we certainly get rid of the necessity for explaining
it. But, on the other hand, we lose the possibility of treating
time as a distinction which can be bridged over, or explained
away, when we wish to make a connection between time and
the timeless. If time is an ultimate fact, then the distinction
between that which does, and that which does not, happen in
time must be an ultimate distinction; and how are we to make,
if this is so, a transition from the one to the other ?
So far as a thing is timeless, it cannot change, for with
change time comes necessarily. But bow can a thing which
does not change produce an effect in time ? That the effect
11—2164
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
was produced in time implies that it had a beginning. And if
the effect begins, while no beginning can be assigned to the
cause, we are left to choose between two alternatives. Either
there is something in the effect—namely, the quality of coming
about as a change—which is altogether uncaused. Or the
timeless reality is only a partial cause, and is determined
to act by something which is not timeless. In either case,
the timeless reality fails to explain the succession in time,
and we are no better off than we were before. It would be
equally available as an explanation if the process had begun at
any point besides the one at which it actually did begin, and
a cause which can remain the same while the effect varies, is
obviously unsatisfactory.
144. It may be objected to this that, if the dialectic
process is the ultimate truth of all change, the point in time at
which it is to begin is determined by the nature of the case.
For time only exists when change exists. The changeless
would be the timeless. Therefore the beginning of the change
must come at the beginning of time, and there can be no
question why it should come at one moment rather than
another.
This, however, will not remove one difficulty. Actual time,
no doubt, only began with actual change. But possible time
stretches back indefinitely beyond this. It is part of the
essential nature of time that, beyond any given part of it, we
can imagine a fresh part—that, indeed, we must do so. We
cannot conceive time as coining to an end. And with this
indefinite stretch of possible time the question again arises—
what determined the timeless to first produce change at the
point it did, and not in the previous time, which we now regard
as possible only, but which would have become actual by the
production of change in it ? And again there is no reason why
the series of actual time should not have been placed later in
the series of possible time than it actually was. Actual time
begins whenever change begins, and so cannot be regarded as a
fixed point, by which the beginning of change can be deter-
mined. A certain amount of the dialectic process has now
been realised in time. Can we give any reason why the
amount should not have been greater or less ? Yet, if no suchTHE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
165
reason can be given, the present state of the universe is left
unaccounted for by our system.
The difficulty lies in the fact that we are compelled by the
nature of time to regard the time series as indefinitely extended,
and to regard each member of it as, in itself, exactly like each
other member. We may call that part of the series which is
not occupied by actual change, possible time, but the very
name implies that there is no reason why it should not have
been occupied by events, as much as the actual time which
really is occupied by them. And, as possible time is indefinite,
it is indefinitely larger than any finite time. The question we
have been discussing will then take the form—why is this
particular part of the time series filled with reality rather
than any other part ? And since, apart from its contents, one
moment of time is exactly like another, it would seem that the
question is insoluble.
145. It has sometimes been attempted to ignore on general
grounds all endeavours to show that development throughout a
finite period in time cannot be accepted. Time, it has been
said, must be either finite or infinite. If we accept the objec-
tions to taking finite time as part of our ultimate explanation,
it can only be because we are bound to an infinite regress. An
infinite regress involves infinite time. But infinite time is
impossible—an unreal abstraction, based on the impossibility
of limiting the regress in thought. Any argument which
involves its real existence is thereby reduced to an absurdity.
And, since the objections to finite time as part of our ultimate
explanation do involve the real existence of infinite time, we
may, it is asserted, safely ignore the objections and accept the
principle.
The answer which we must make to this, in the first
place, is that the argument might as well be reversed. If
the difficulties in the way of infinite time are to be taken as
a reason for ignoring all difficulties in the way of finite time,
why should we not make the difficulties in the way of finite
time a ground for accepting with equally implicit faith the
existence of infinite time ?
Nor can we escape by saying that we do know finite time
to exist, and that therefore we are entitled to ignore the106
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
objections to it, while we must accept the objections to infinite
time. For we have no more experience of finite time, in the
sense in which the phrase is used in this argument, than we
have of infinite time. What we meet in experience is a
time series, extending indefinitely both before and after our
immediate contact with it, out of which we can cut finite
N portions. But for a theory which makes the development of
the Notion in time part of its ultimate formula, we require a
time which is not merely limited in the sense of being cut off
from other time, but in the sense of having none before it and
none after it. Of this we have no more experience than we
have of infinite time, and if there are difficulties in the way of
both, we have no right to prefer the one to the other.
146. Since either hypothesis as to the extension of time
leads us into equal difficulties, our course should surely be, not
to accept either, but to reject both. Time must, we are told,
be either finite or infinite. But there is a third alternative.
There may be something wrong in our conception of time, or
rather, to speak more precisely, there may be something which
renders it unfit, in metaphysics, for the ultimate explanation of
the universe, however suited it may be to the finite thought of
> every-day life. If we ask whether time, as a fact, is finite or
infinite, we find hopeless difficulties in the way of either answer.
Yet, if we take time as an ultimate reality, there seems no
other alternative. Our only resource is to conclude that time
is not an ultimate reality.
This is the same principle which is at work in the dialectic
itself. When we find that any category, if we analyse it
sufficiently, lands us, in its application to reality, in contra-
dictions, we do not accept one contradictory proposition and
reject the other. We conclude the category in question to be
an inadequate way of looking at reality, and we try to find a
higher conception, which will embrace all the truth of the
lower one, while it will avoid the contradictions. This is what
we ought, it would seem, to do with the idea of time. If it
only presents us with a choice between impossibilities, we must
regard it as an inadequate way of looking at the universe.
And in this case we cannot accept the process in time as part
of our ultimate solution.THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
167
147. We now come to the second objection to the develop-
ment of the dialectic in time. That which we have just been
discussing would equally perplex any other idealistic system
which should adopt a time process as an original element. The
new difficulty belongs specially to the dialectic. It appears, as
we have seen1, to be essential to the possibility of a dialectic
process that the highest term, in which the process ends, should
be taken as the presupposition of all the lower terms. The
passage from category to category must not be taken as an
actual advance, producing that which did not previously exist,
but as an advance from an abstraction to the concrete whole
from which the abstraction was made—demonstrating and
rendering explicit what was before only implicit and imme-
diately given, but still only reconstructing, and not constructing 1
anything fresh.
This view of Hegel’s system becomes inevitable when we
consider, on the one hand, that his conclusion is that all that is
real is rational, and, on the other hand, that his method consists
in proving that each of the lower steps of the dialectic, taken
by itself, is not rational. We cannot then ascribe reality to t
any of these steps, except in so far as they lose their indepen-
dence and become moments of the Absolute Idea.
We are compelled, according to Hegel, to pass from each
thesis and antithesis to their synthesis, by discovering that the
thesis and antithesis, while incompatible with one another,
nevertheless involve one another. This produces a contra-
diction, and this contradiction can only be removed by finding
a term which reconciles and transcends them.
Now if we suppose that the dialectic process came into
existence gradually in time, we must suppose that all the
contradictions existed at one time or another independently,
and before reconciliation, i.e., as contradictions. Indeed, as the
time process is still going on, all the reality round us at the
present day must consist of unreconciled contradictions.
Such an assertion, however, would, it is clear, be absolutely
untenable. To say that the world consists of reconciled contra-
dictions would produce no difficulty, for it means nothing more
than that it consists of things which only appear contradictory
1 Chap. i. Section 6.168
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
when not thoroughly understood. But to say that a contradic-
tion can exist as such would plunge us in utter confusion. All
reasoning, and Hegel’s as much as anybody else’s, involves
that two contradictory propositions cannot both be true. It
would be useless to reason, if, when you had demonstrated
your conclusion, it was as true to assert the opposite of that
conclusion.
And, again, if contradictory propositions could both be true,
the special line of argument which Hegel follows would have lost
all its force. We are enabled to pass on from the thesis and anti-
thesis to the syn thesis just because a contradiction cannot be true,
and the synthesis is the only way out of it. VBut if contradictions
are true, there is no necessity to find a way out of it, and the
advance of the dialectic is no longer valid. If the contra-
dictions exist at all, there seems no reason that they should not
continue to do so. We should not be able to avoid this by
saying that they are real, but that their imperfection made
them transitory. For the dialectic process, even if we suppose
it to take place in time, is not a mere succession in time, but
essentially a logical process. Each step has to be proved to
follow from those before it by the nature of the latter. It is
clear that it would be impossible, by consideration of the nature
of a logical category, to deduce the conclusion that for some
time it could exist independently, but that, after that, its
imperfection would drive it on to another stage.
148. It is, too, only on the supposition that reality always
corresponds to the Absolute Idea, and is not merely approxi-
mating to it, that we can meet another difficulty which is
propounded by Trendelenburg. Either, he says, the conclusion
of the whole process can be obtained by analysis of the original
premise, or it cannot. The original premise of the whole
process is nothing but the validity of the idea of Pure Being.
If the whole conclusion can be got out of this, we learn nothing
new, and the whole dialectic process is futile. If, on the other
hand, we introduce anything not obtained from our original
premise, we fail in our object—which was to prove that the
whole system followed, when that premise was admitted.
We considered this difficulty above', and came to the con-
1 Chap. ii. Section 32.THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
169
elusion that the answer was contained in Mr Bradley’s state-
ment of the true nature of dialectic. The passage in which he
dealt with the matter was, it will be remembered, as follows,
“ An idea prevails that the Dialectic Method is a sort of experi-
ment with conceptions in vacuo. We are supposed to have
nothing but one single isolated abstract idea, and this solitary
monad then proceeds to multiply by gemmation from or by
fission of its private substance, or by fetching matter from the
impalpable void. But this is a mere caricature, and it comes
from confusion between that which the mind has got before it
and that which it has within itself. Before the mind there is a
single conception, but the whole mind itself, which does not
appear, engages in the process, operates on the datum, and
produces the result. The opposition between the real, in that
fragmentary character in which the mind possesses it, and the
true reality felt within the mind, is the moving cause of that
unrest which sets up the dialectical process.” And again:
“The whole, which is both sides of this process, rejects the
claim of a one-sided datum, and supplements it by that other
and opposite side which really is implied—so begetting by
negation a balanced unity. This path once entered on, the
process starts afresh with the whole just reached. But this
also is seen to be the one-sided expression of a higher synthesis;
and it gives birth to an opposite which co-unites with it into a
second whole, a whole which in its turn is degraded into a
fragment of truth. So the process goes on till the mind,
therein implicit, finds a product which answers its unconscious
idea; and here, having become in its own entirety a datum to
itself, it rests in the activity which is self-conscious in its
object
If we hold, according to this view, that the dialectic process
depends on the relation between the concrete whole and the
part of it which has so far become explicit, it is clear that we
cannot regard the concrete whole as produced out of the in-
complete and lower category by means of the dialectic process,
since the process cannot possibly produce its own presuppo-
sition.
149. And finally Hegel’s own language appears to be
1 Logic ; Book in. Part i. Chap. ii. Sections 20 and 21.170
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
clearly incompatible with the theory that the dialectic is
gradually evolved in time. It is true that, in the Philosophy
of Religion, the Philosophy of History, and the History of
Philosophy, he explains various successions of events in time as
manifestations of the dialectic. But this proves nothing as to
the fundamental nature of the connection of time with the
universe. The dialectic is the key to all reality, and, therefore,
whenever we do view reality under the aspect of time, the
different categories will appear as manifesting themselves as a
process in time. But this has no bearing on the question
before us—whether they first came into being in time, or
whether they have a timeless and eternally complete existence.
Even in this part of his work, too, Hegel’s adherence to the
eternal nature of the dialectic becomes evident in a manner all
the more significant, because it is logically unjustifiable. In
several places he seems on the point of saying that all dissatis-
faction with the existing state of the universe, and all efforts to
reform it, are futile and vain, since reason is already and always
the sole reality. This conclusion cannot be fairly drawn from
the eternity of the dialectic process. For if we are entitled to
hold the universe perfect, the same arguments lead us to
consider it also timeless and changeless. Imperfection and
progress, then, may claim to share whatever reality is to be
allowed to time and change, and no conclusion can be drawn,
such as Hegel appears at times to suggest, against attempting
to make the future an improvement on the past. Neither
future and past, nor better and worse, can be really adequate
judgments of a timeless and perfect universe, but in the sense
in which there is a future it may be an improvement on the
past. But the very fact that Hegel has gone too far in his
application of the idea that reality is timeless, makes it more
clear that he did hold that idea.
1 There are not, I believe, any expressions in the Logic which
can be fairly taken as suggesting the development of the
dialectic in time. It is true that two successive categories
are named Life and Cognition, and that science informs us
that life existed in this world before cognition. But the
names of the categories must be taken as those of the facts
in which the idea in question shows itself most clearly, andTHE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
171
not as indicating the only form in which the idea can show
itself at all. Otherwise we should be led to the impossible
result that Notions, Judgments, and Syllogisms existed before
Cognition.
A strong assertion of the eternal nature of the process is to
be found in the Doctrine of the Notion. “Die Vollfuhrung
des unendlichen Zwecks ist so nur die Tauschung aufzuheben,
als ob er noch nicht vollfuhrt sey. Das Gute, das absolute
Gute, vollbringt sich ewig in der Welt und das Resultat ist,
dass es schon an und fur sich vollbracht ist und nicht erst auf
uns zu warten braucht1.”
Another important piece of evidence is his treatment of his
own maxim: “ All that is real is rational.” To the objections
to this he replies by saying that reality does not mean the
surface of things, but something deeper behind them. Besides
this he admits occasionally, though apparently not always, that
contingency has rights within a sphere of its own, where reason
cannot demand that everything should be explained. But he
never tries to meet the attacks made on his principle by
drawing a distinction between the irrational reality of the
present and the rational reality of the future. Such a dis-
tinction would be so natural and obvious, and would, for those
who could consistently make use of it, so completely remove
the charge of a false optimism about the present, that we can
scarcely doubt that Hegel’s neglect of it was due to the fact
that he saw it to be incompatible with his principles.
Hegel’s treatment of time, moreover, confirms this view.
For he considers it merely as a stage in the Philosophy of
Nature, which is only an application of the Logic. Now if
the realisation of the categories of the Logic only took place
in time, time would be an element in the universe correlative
with those categories, and of equal importance with them.
Both would be primary elements in a concrete whole. Neither
could be looked on as an application of, or deduction from,
the other. But the treatment of time as merely one of the
phenomena which result from the realisation of the Logic, is
incompatible with such a theory as this, and we may fairly
conclude that time had not for Hegel this ultimate importance.
1 Enc. Section 212, lecture note.172
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
150.	We have thus arrived at	the	conclusion	that	the
dialectic	is not for Hegel a process in	time, but	that	the
Absolute Idea must be looked on as eternally realised. We
are very far, however, from having got rid of our difficulties.
It looks, indeed, as if we were brought, at this point, to a
reductio ad absurdum. For if the other theory was incom-
patible with Hegel, this seems to be incompatible with the
facts.
The dialectic process is one from incomplete to complete
rationality. If it is eternally fulfilled, then the universe must
he completely rational. Now, in the first place, it is certain
that the	universe is not completely	rational for us.	We	are
not able	to see everything round us	as a	manifestation of	the
Absolute Idea. Even those students of philosophy who believe
on general grounds that the Absolute Idea must be manifested
in everything are as unable as the rest of us to see how it is
manifested in a table or a thunder-storm. We can only explain
these things—at present, at any rate—by much lower categories,
and we cannot, therefore, explain them completely. Nor are
we by any means able, at present, to eliminate completely the
contingency of the data of sense, which are an essential element
in reality, and a universe which contains an ultimately contingent
element cannot be held to be completely rational. It would
seem, too, that if we are perfectly rational in a perfectly rational
universe, there must always be a complete harmony between
our desires and our environment. And this is not invariably
the case.
But if the universe appears to us not to be perfect, can it
be so in reality? Does not the very failure to perceive the
perfection destroy it ? In the first place, the Absolute Idea, as
defined by Hegel1, is one of self-conscious rationality—the
Idea to which the Idea itself is “Gegenstand” and “Objekt.”
If any part of reality sees anything, except the Absolute Idea,
anywhere in reality, this ideal can scarcely be said to have
been fulfilled.
And, more generally, if the universe appears to us to be
only imperfectly rational, we must be either right or wrong.
If we are right, the world is not perfectly rational. But if we
1 Enc. Section 236.THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
173
are wrong, then it is difficult to see how we can be perfectly
rational. And we are part of the world. Thus it would seem
that the very opinion that the world is imperfect must, in one
way or another, prove its own truth.
151.	If this is correct, we seem to be confronted with a
difficulty as hopeless as those which encountered us when we
supposed the dialectic to develop itself in time. These, we saw,
were due to our hypothesis being found incompatible with the
system, while our present view appears untenable because,
though a logical development from the system, it is incompati-
ble with the facts. The result with regard to the first is that
we come to the conclusion that the development in time cannot
be part of Hegel’s philosophy. The result of the second would
at first sight seem to be that Hegel’s philosophy must be
abandoned, since it leads to such untenable conclusions.
We rejected the hypothesis of the development of the
Absolute Idea in time upon two grounds. The first was that
we had to choose between a false infinite and an uncaused
beginning. Each of these hypotheses left something unex-
plained and contingent, and was consequently incompatible
with a system which demanded above all things that the
universe should be completely rationalised, and which believed
itself to have accomplished its aim. Our second objection was1'
due to the fact that the development of the dialectic at all,
upon Hegel’s principles, presupposed the existence of its goal,
which could not therefore be supposed to be reached for the
first time by the process. But our difficulty now is not at all
incompatible with the system. It is one which must arise
from it, and which must, in some form or another, arise in any
system of complete idealism. Every such system must declare
that the world is fundamentally rational and righteous through-
out, and every such system will be met by the same difficulty.
How, if all reality is rational and righteous, are we to explain
the irrationality and unrighteousness which are notoriously part
of our every-day life ? • We must now consider the various
attempts which have been made to answer this question.
152.	Hegel’s answer has been indicated in the passage
quoted above1. The infinite end is really accomplished eter-
1 Enc. Section 212, lecture note.174
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
nally. It is only a delusion on our part which makes us
suppose otherwise. And the only real progress is the removal
of the delusion. The universe is eternally the same, and
eternally perfect. The movement is only in our minds. They
trace one after another in succession the different categories of
the Logic, which in reality have no time order, hut continually
coexist as elements of the Absolute Idea which transcends and
unites them.
This solution can, however, scarcely be accepted, for the
reasons given above. How can we account for the delusion
that the world is partially irrational, if, as a matter of fact, it is
completely rational ? How, in particular, can we regard such
a delusion as compatible with our own complete rationality ?
To this it may be possibly objected that our argument is
based on a confusion. That a thought is a delusion need not
imply that it, or the being who thinks it, is irrational. Every-
thing which, like a thought, is used as a symbol, can be viewed
in two aspects—firstly as a fact, and secondly as representing,
as a symbol, some other fact. In the first aspect we say that
it is real or unreal; in the second that it is true or false.
These two pairs of predicates have no intrinsic connection. A
false judgment is just as really a fact as a true one.
Now the conclusion from the Hegelian dialectic was that
whatever was real was rational. We are, therefore, compelled
to assert that every thought, and every thinking being, is com-
pletely rational—can be explained in a way which gives entire
rest and satisfaction to reason. But, it may be said, this is not
in the least interfered with by the fact that many real thoughts
are defective symbols of the other reality which they profess
to represent. The false can be, and, indeed, must be, real, for
a thought cannot misrepresent reality unless it is itself real.
Till it is real it can do nothing. And if the false can be real,
why can it not be rational ? Indeed we often, in every-day life,
and in science, do find the false to be more or less rational.
It is as possible to account, psychologically, for the course of
thought which brings out an erroneous conclusion as for the
course of thought which brings out a correct one. We can
explain our failures to arrive at the truth as well as our
successes. It would seem then that there is nothing to preventTHE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
175
ourselves and our thoughts being part of a completely rational
universe, although our thoughts are in some respects incorrect
symbols.
153. But it must be remembered that the rationality
which Hegel requires of the universe is much more than
complete determination under the category of cause and effect
—a category which the dialectic maintains to be quite in-
sufficient, unless transcended by a higher one. He requires,
among other things, the validity of the idea of final cause.
And if this is brought in, it is difficult to see how delusions
can exist in a rational world. For a delusion involves a
thwarted purpose. If a man makes a mistake, it means that
he wishes to know the truth, and that he does not know it.
Whether this is the case or not, with regard to simple per-
ception of the facts before us, it cannot be denied that
wherever there is a long chain of argument, to which the
mind is voluntarily kept attentive, there must be a desire
to know the truth. And if this desire is unsuccessful, the
universe could not be, in Hegel’s sense, completely rational.
This becomes more evident if we look at Hegel’s definition
of complete rationality, as we find it in the Absolute Idea.
The essence of it is that reality is only completely rational
in so far as it is conscious of its own rationality. The idea is
to be “ Gegenstand ” and “Objekt” to itself. If this is the
case, it follows that the rationality of Spirit, as an existent
object, depends upon its being a faithful symbol of the ratio-
nality expressed in other manifestations of Spirit. The de-
lusion by which Hegel explains all imperfection will of course
prevent its being a faithful symbol of that rationality, and will
therefore destroy the rationality itself. In so far as we do
not see the perfection of the universe, we are not perfect our-
selves. And as we are part of the universe, that too cannot
be perfect. And yet its perfection appears to be a necessary
consequence of Hegel’s position.
154.	Hegel’s attempt to make the imperfection which is
evident round us compatible with the perfection of the universe
must, then, be rejected. Can we find any other solution which
would be more successful ? One such solution suggests itself.
It was the denial of the ultimate reality of time which caused176
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
our difficulty, since it forced us to assert that the perfect
rationality, which idealism claims for the universe, cannot be
postponed to the future, but must be timelessly and eternally
present. Can the denial of the reality of time be made to
cure the wound, which it has itself made ? Would it not he
possible, it might he said, to escape from our dilemma as
follows ? The dialectic itself teaches us that it is only the
concrete whole which is completely rational, and that any
abstraction from it, by the very fact that it is an abstraction,
must be to some extent false and contradictory. An attempt
to take reality moment by moment, element by element, must
make reality appear imperfect. The complete rationality is
only in the whole which transcends all these elements, and
any one of them, considered as more or less independent, must
be false. Now, if we look at the universe as in time, it will
appear to be a succession of separate events, so that only part
of it is existing at any given instant, the rest being either
past or future. Each of these events will be represented as
real in itself, and not merely a moment in a real whole. And
in so far as events in time are taken to be, as such, real, it
must follow that reality does not appear rational. If an organic
whole is perfect, then any one of its parts, taken separately
from the whole, cannot possibly be perfect. For in such a
whole all the parts presuppose one another, and any one, taken
by itself, must bear the traces of its isolation and incomplete-
ness. Now the connection of the different parts of the universe,
viewed in their ultimate reality, is, according to the dialectic,
even closer than the connection of the parts of an organism.
And thus not only each event, but the whole universe taken
as a series of separate events, would appear imperfect. Even
if such a series could ever be complete, it could not fully
represent the reality, since the parts would still, by their
existence in time, be isolated from one another, and claim
some amount of independence. Thus the apparent imperfection
of the universe would be due to the fact that we are regarding
it sub specie temporis—an aspect which we have seen reason
to conclude that Hegel himself did not regard as adequate to
reality. If we could only see it sub specie aeternitatis, we
should see it in its real perfection.THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME. 177
155.	It is true, I think, that in this way we get a step
nearer to the goal required than we do by Hegel’s own theory,
which we previously considered. Our task is to find, for the
apparent imperfection, some cause whose existence will not
interfere with the real perfection. We shall clearly be more
likely to succeed in this, in proportion as the cause we assign
is a purely negative one. The appearance of imperfection was
accounted for by Hegel as a delusion of our own minds. Now
a delusion is as much a positive fact as a true judgment is, and
requires just as much a positive cause. And, as we have seen,
we are unable to conceive this positive cause, except as some-
thing which will prevent the appearance from being a delusion
at all, since it will make the universe really imperfect. On th'p
theory just propounded, however, the cause of the imperfection
is nothing but the fact that we do not see everything at once.]
Seen as we see things now, reality must be imperfect. But'
if we can attain to the point of looking at the whole universe
mb specie aeternitatis, we shall see just the same subject-
matter as in time ; but it will appear perfect, because seen
as a single concrete whole, and not as a succession of separated
abstractions. The only cause of the apparent imperfection will
be the negative consideration that we do not now see the whole
at once.
156.	This theory would be free from some of the objections
which are fatal to a rather similar apology for the universe
which is often found in systems of optimism. It is admitted
in such apologies that, from the point of view of individuals, the
world is imperfect and irrational. But, it is asserted, these
blemishes would disappear if we could look at the world as
a whole. The part which, taken by itself, is defective, may
we are told, be an element in a perfect harmony. Such a
theory, since it declares that the universe can be really perfect,
although imperfect for individuals, implies that some indi-
viduals, at any rate, can be treated merely as means, and not
as ends in themselves. Without enquiring whether such a
view is at all tenable, it is at any rate clear that it is incom-
patible with what is usually called optimism, since it would
permit of many—indeed of all—individuals being doomed to
eternal and infinite misery. We might be led to the formula
12
M. H.178 THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
in which Mr Bradley sums up optimism:—“ The world is the
best of all possible worlds, and everything in it is a necessary
evil1.” For if the universal harmony can make any evil to
individuals compatible with its own purposes, there is no
principle upon which we can limit the amount which it can
tolerate. It is more to our present purpose to remark that
such a view could not possibly be accepted as in any way
consistent with Hegel’s system. It would be in direct oppo-
sition to its whole tendency, which is to regard the universal
as only gaming reality and validity when, by its union with
the particular, it becomes the individual. For Hegel the ideal
must lie, not in ignoring the claims of individuals, but in seeing
in them the embodiment of the universal.
Mr Bradley’s own treatment of the problem is, as far as I
can see, of a rather similar type. He has to reconcile the
harmony which he attributes to the Absolute, with the dishar-
mony which undoubtedly prevails, to some extent, in experience.
This he does by taking the finite individual to be, as such, only
appearance and not reality, from which it follows that it must
distort the harmony of the Absolute, and cannot adequately
manifest it. It may be doubted whether we do not fall into
more difficulties than we avoid by this low estimate of the
conscious individual. But, at any rate, such a solution would
be impracticable for anyone who accepted Hegel’s version of the
Absolute Idea, to which the individual is the highest form that
the imiversal can take.
Some of the objections which apply to such attempts to
save the perfection of the Absolute by ignoring the claims of
individuals will not hold against our endeavour to escape from
our difficulty by ignoring, so to speak, the claims of particular
moments of time. None of those considerations which make
us consider each separate person as an ultimate reality, whose
claims to self-realisation must be satisfied and cannot be
transcended, lead us to attribute the same importance to
separate periods of time. Indeed the whole drift of Hegel's
system is as much against the ultimate reality of a succession
of phenomena, as such, as it is in favour of the ultimate reality
of individual persons, as such. To deny any reality in what
1 Appearance and Reality, Preface, p. xiv.THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
179
now presents itself to us as a time-series would indeed be
suicidal. For we have no data given us for our thought,
except in the form of a time-series, and to destroy our data
would be to destroy the super-structure. But while philosophy
could not start if it did not accept its data, it could not proceed
if it did not alter them. There is then nothing obviously
impossible in the sujoposition that the whole appearance of
succession in our experience is, as such, unreal, and that reality
is one timeless whole, in which all that appears successive is
really co-existent, as the houses are co-existent which we see
successively from the windows of a train.
157. It cannot, however, be said that this view is held by
Hegel himself. In the Philosophy of Nature he treats time as
a stage in the development of nature, and not as a cause
why there is any appearance of successive development at all.
Indeed he says there that things are not finite because they
are in time, but are in time because they are finite1. It would
be thus impossible, without departing from Hegel, to make time
the cause of the apparent imperfection of the universe.
Everything else in the Hegelian philosophy may indeed be
considered as of subordinate importance to the Dialectic, and to
its goal, the Absolute Idea. If it were necessary, we might,
to save the validity of the Dialectic, reject Hegel’s views even
on a subject so important as time, and yet call ourselves
Hegelians. But we should not gain much by this reconstruc-
tion of the system. For it leaves the problem no more solved
than it was before. The difficulty which proved fatal to Hegel’s
own attempt to explain the imperfection comes back as surely
as before, though it may not be quite so obvious. However
much we may treat time as mere appearance, it must, like all
other appearance, have reality behind it. The reality, it may
be answered, is in this case the timeless Absolute. But this
reality will have to account, not merely for the facts which
appear to us in time, but for the appearance of succession
which they do undoubtedly assume. How can this be done ?
What reason can be given why the eternal reality should
manifest itself in a time process at all ? If we tried to find
the reason outside the nature of the eternal reality, we should
1 Enc. Section 258, lecture note.
12—2180
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
be admitting that time had some independent validity, and we
should fall hack into all the difficulties mentioned in the earlier
part of this chapter. But if we try to find the reason inside
the nature of the eternal reality, we shall find it to he
incompatible with the complete rationality which, according
to Hegel’s theory, that reality must possess. For the process
in time is, by the hypothesis, the root of all irrationality,
and how can it spring from anything which is quite free of
irrationality? Why should a concrete and perfect whole
proceed to make itself imperfect, for the sake of gradually
getting rid of the imperfection again ? If it gained nothing
by the change, could it he completely rational to undergo it ?
But if it had anything to gain by the change, how could it
previously have been perfect ?
\y 158. We have thus failed again to solve the difficulty.
( However much we may endeavour to make the imperfection
of the universe merely negative, it is impossible to escape from
the fact that, as an element in presentation, it requires a
positive ground. If we denied this, we should he forced into
the position that not only was our experience of imperfection a
delusion, hut that it was actually non-existent. And this, as
was mentioned above, is an impossibility. All reasoning depends
on the fact that every appearance has a reality of which it is
the appearance. Without this we could have no possible basis
upon which to rest any conclusion.
Yet, on the other hand, so long as we admit a positive
ground for the imperfection, we find ourselves to he inconsistent
with the original position from which we started. For that
position asserted that the sole reality was absolutely perfect.
On this hangs the appearance of imperfection, and to this real
perfection as cause we have to ascribe apparent imperfection as
effect. Now it is not impossible, under certain circumstances,
to imagine a cause as driven on, by a dialectic necessity, to
produce an effect different from itself. But in this case it does
seem impossible. For any self-determination of a cause to
produce its effect must be due to some incompleteness in the
former without the latter. But if the cause, by itself, was
incomplete, it could not, by itself, be perfect. If, on the other
hand it was perfect, it is impossible to see how it could produceTHE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
181
anything else as an effect. Its perfection makes it in complete
harmony with itself. And, since it is all reality, there is
nothing outside it with which it could be out of harmony.
What could determine it to production?
Thus we oscillate between two extremes, each equally fatal.
If we endeavour to treat evil as absolutely unreal, we have to
reject the one basis of all knowledge—experience. But in so
far as we accept evil as a manifestation of reality, we find it
impossible to avoid qualifying the cause by the nature of the
effect which it produces, and so contradicting the main result
of the dialectic—the harmony and perfection of the Absolute.
159. We need not, after all, be surprised at the apparently
insoluble problem which confronts us. For the question has
developed into the old difficulty of the origin of evil, which
has always baffled both theologians and philosophers. An
idealism which declares that the universe is in reality perfect,
can find, as most forms of popular idealism do, an escape from
the difficulties of the existence of evil, by declaring that the
world is as yet only growing towards its ideal perfection. But
this refuge disappears with the reality of time, and we are left
with an awkward difference between what our philosophy tells
us must be, and what our life tells us actually is.
The aim of the dialectic was to prove that all reality was
completely rational. And Hegel’s arguments led him to the
conclusion that the universe as a whole could not be rational,
except in so far as each of its parts found its own self-realisation.
It followed that the universe, if harmonious on the theoretical
side, would be harmonious also in a practical aspect—that is,
would be in every respect perfect. This produces a dilemma.
Either the evil round us is real, or it is not. If it is real, then
reality is not perfectly rational. But if it is absolutely unreal,
then all our finite experience—and we know of no other—must
have an element in it which is absolutely irrational, and which,
however much we may pronounce it to be unreal, has a
disagreeably powerful influence in moulding the events of our
present life. Nor can we even hope that this element is
transitory, and comfort ourselves, in orthodox fashion, with the
hope of a heaven in which the evil shall have died away, while
the good remains. For we cannot assure ourselves of such a182
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
result by any empirical arguments from particular data, which
would be hopelessly inadequate to support such a conclusion.
The only chance would be an a priori argument founded on the
essential rationality of the universe, which might be held to
render the imperfection transitory. But we should have no
right to use such an argument. To escape the difficulties
involved in the present coexistence of rationality and irra-
tionality, we have reduced the latter to such complete unreality
that it is not incompatible with the former. But this cuts both
ways. If the irrationality cannot interfere with the rationality
so as to render their present coexistence impossible, there can
be no reason why their future coexistence should ever become
impossible. If the irrational is absolutely unreal now, it can
never become less real in the future. Thus our ascription of
complete rationality to the universe leads us to a belief that
one factor in experience, as it presents itself to us, is funda-
mentally and permanently irrational—a somewhat singular
conclusion from such a premise.
To put the difficulty from a more practical point of view,
either the imperfection in experience leaves a stain on the
perfection of the Absolute, or it does not. If it does, there is
no absolute perfection, and we have no right to expect that the
imperfection around us is a delusion or a transitory phase. But
if it does not, then there is no reason why the perfection should
ever feel intolerant of it, and again we have no right to hope
for its disappearance. The whole practical interest of philo-
sophy is thus completely overthrown. It asserts an abstract
perfection beyond experience, but that is all. Such a perfection
might almost as well be a Thing-in-itself, since it is unable to
explain any single fact of experience without the aid of another
factor, which it may call unreal, but which it finds indispensable.
It entirely fails to rationalise reality or to reconcile it with our
aspirations.
160. The conclusion we have reached is one which it
certainly seems difficult enough to reconcile with continued
adherence to Hegelianism. Of the two possible theories as to
the relation of time to the dialectic process, we have found that
one, besides involving grave difficulties in itself, is quite incon-
sistent with the spirit of Hegel’s system. The other, again,THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
183
while consistent with that system, and, indeed, appearing to be
its logical consequence, has landed us in what seems to be a
glaring contradiction to the facts. Is it not inevitable that we
must reject a system which leads us to such a result ?
Before deciding on such a course, however, it might be wise
to see if we can really escape from the difficulty in such a way.
If the same problem, or one of like nature, proves equally
insoluble in any possible system, we may be forced to admit the
existence of an incompleteness in our philosophy, but we shall
no longer have any reason to reject one system in favour of
another. Now, besides the theory which has brought us into
this trouble—the theory that reality is fundamentally rational—
there are, it would seem, three other possibilities. Reality may
be fundamentally irrational. (I shall use “ irrational ” here to
signify anything whose nature and operation are not merely
devoid of reason, but opposed to it, so that its influence is
always in the opposite direction to that exercised by reason.)
Or reality may be the product of two independent principles
of rationality and irrationality. Or it may be the work of some
principle to which rationality and irrationality are equally
indifferent—some blind fate, or mechanical chance.
These possibilities may be taken as exhaustive. It is true
that, on Hegelian principles, a fifth alternative has to be added,
when we are considering the different combinations in which
two predicates may be asserted or denied of a subject. We
may say that it is also possible that the two predicates should
be combined in a higher unity. This would leave it scarcely
correct to say, without qualification, that either is asserted or
either denied of the subject. But synthesis is itself a process
of reasoning, and unites its two terms by a category in which
we recognise the nature of each extreme as a subordinate
moment, which is harmonised with the other. The harmony
involves that, wherever a synthesis is possible, reason is
supreme. And so, if the truth were to be found in a syn-
thesis of the rational and irrational, that synthesis would itself
be rational—resolving, as it would, the whole universe into a
unity expressible by thought. Thus we should have come
round again to Hegel’s position that the world is funda-
mentally rational.184
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
161.	We need not spend much time over the supposition
that the world is fundamentally irrational—not only regardless
of reason, but contrary to reason. To begin with, such a
hypothesis refutes itself. The completely irrational cannot be
real, for even to say that a thing is real implies its determina-
tion by at least one predicate, and therefore its comparative
rationality. And our hypothesis would meet with a difficulty
precisely analogous to that which conflicts with Hegel’s theory.
In that case the stumbling-block lay in the existence of some
irrationality, here it lies in the existence of some rationality.
We can no more deny that there are signs of rationality in the
universe, than we can deny that there are signs of irrationality.
Yet it is at least as impossible to conceive how the fundamentally
irrational should manifest itself as rationality, as it is to conceive
the converse process. We shall gain nothing, then, by deserting
Hegel for such a theory as this.
162.	It might seem as if a dualistic theory would be well
adapted to the chequered condition of the actual world. But
as soon as we try to construct such a theory, difficulties arise.
The two principles, of rationality and irrationality, to which the
universe is referred, will have to be absolutely separate and
independent. For if there were any common unity to which
they should be referred, it would be that unity, and not its two
manifestations, which would be the ultimate explanation of the
universe, and the theory, having become monistic, resolves
itself into one of the others, according to the attitude of this
single principle towards reason, whether favourable, hostile,
or indifferent.
We must then refer the universe to two independent and
opposed forces. Nor will it make any important difference if
we make the second force to be, not irrationality, but some
blind force not in itself hostile to reason. For, in order to
account for the thwarted rationality which meets us so often
in the universe, we shall have to suppose that the result of the
force is, as a fact, opposed to reason, even if opposition to reason
is not its essential nature.
In the first place can there be really two independent
powers in the universe ? Surely there cannot. As Mr Bradley
points out: “Plurality must contradict independence. If theTHE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
185
beings are not in relation, they cannot be many; but if they
are in relation, they cease forthwith to be absolute. For, on
the one hand, plurality has no meaning, unless the units are
somehow taken together. If you abolish and remove all
relations, there seems no sense left in which you can speak
of plurality. But, on the other hand, relations destroy the
real’s self-dependence. For it is impossible to treat relations
as adjectives, falling simply inside the many beings. And it is
impossible to take them as falling outside somewhere in a
sort of unreal void, which makes no difference to anything.
Hence .. . the essence of the related terms is carried beyond
their proper selves by means of their relations. And, again, the
relations themselves must belong to a larger reality. To stand
in a relation and not to be relative, to support it and yet not to
be infected and undermined by it, seem out of the question.
Diversity in the real cannot be the plurality of independent
beings. And the oneness of the Absolute must hence be more
than a mere diffused adjective. It possesses unity, as a whole,
and is a single system1.”
The argument has additional strength in this case. For the
two forces which we are asked to take as absolutely opposed
are, by the hypothesis which assumed them, indissolubly
united. Both forces are regarded as all-pervading. Neither
can exist by itself anywhere. Every fact in the universe is
due to the interaction of the two. And, further, they can only
be described and defined in relation to one another. If the
dualism is between the rational and the irrational as such, it
is obvious that the latter, at any rate, has only meaning in
relation to its opposite. And if we assume that the second
principle is not directly opposed to rationality, but simply
indifferent to it, we shall get no further in our task of ex-
plaining the imperfect rationality which appears in our data,
unless we go on to assume that its action is contrary to that of
a rational principle. Thus a reference to reason would be
necessary, if not to define our second principle, at any rate
to allow us to understand how we could make it available for
our purpose.
We cannot, besides, describe anything as irrational, or as
1 Appearance and Reality, Chap. 13, p. 141.186
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
indifferent to reason, without ascribing to it certain predi-
cates—Being, Substance, Limitation, for example. Nor can
we refer to a principle as an explanation of the universe
without attributing to it Causality. These determinations
may be transcended by higher ones, but they must be there,
at least as moments. Yet anything to which all these predi-
cates can be ascribed cannot be said to be entirely hostile or
indifferent to reason, for it has some determinations common to
it and to reason, and must be, therefore, in more or less harmony
with the latter. But if this is so, our complete dualism has
been surrendered.
The two principles then can scarcely be taken as absolutely
independent. But if they cannot our dualism fails to help us,
and indeed vanishes. We were tempted to resort to it because
the two elements in experience—the rationality and the want
of rationality—were so heterogeneous as to defy reduction to a
single principle. And if we cannot keep our two principles
distinct, but are compelled to regard them as joined in a higher
unity, we might as well return explicitly to monism.
163. But, even if we could keep the two principles
independent, it seems doubtful if we should be able to reach,
by means of this theory, a solution of our difficulty. The
forces working for and against the rationality of the universe
must either be in equilibrium or not. If they are not in
equilibrium, then one must be gaining on the other. The
universe is thus fundamentally a process. In this case we
shall gain uothing by adopting dualism. For the difficulties
attendant on conceiving the world as a process were just the
reason which compelled us to adopt the theory that the universe
was at present perfectly rational, and so produced the further
difficulties which are now driving us to look round for a
substitute for idealism. If we could have taken development
in time as ultimately real, we should have found no hindrance
in our way when we endeavoured to conceive the universe as
the product of a single rational principle. But we could not do
so then, and we shall find it as impossible now. The process
must be finite in length, since we can attach no meaning to an
actual infinite process. And, since it is still continuing, we
shall have to suppose that the two principles came intoTHE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
187
operation at a given moment, and not before. And since
these principles are, on the hypothesis, ultimate, there can
be nothing to determine them to begin to act at that point,
rather than any other. In this way we shall be reduced, as
before, to suppose an event to happen in time without ante-
cedents and without cause—a solution which cannot be accepted
as satisfactory.
164. Shall we succeed any better on the supposition that
the forces which work for and against rationality are exactly
balanced ? In the first place we should have to admit that the
odds against this occurring were infinity to one. For the two
forces are, by the hypothesis, absolutely independent of one
another. And, therefore, we cannot suppose any common
influence acting on both of them, which should tend to make
their forces equal, nor any relationship between them, which
should bring about this result. The equilibrium could only be
the result of mere chance, and the probability of this producing
infinitely exact equilibrium would be infinitely small. And the
absence of any a priori reason for believing in such an equili-
brium could not, of course, be supplied by empirical observation.
For the equilibrium would have to extend over the whole
universe, and we cannot carry our observations so far.
Nor can we support the theory by the consideration that it,
and no other, will explain the undoubted co-existence of the
rational and irrational in our present world. For it fails to
account for the facts. It fails to explain the existence of
change—at any rate of that change which leaves anything
more or less rational, more or less perfect, than it was before.
It is a fact which cannot be denied that sometimes that which
was good becomes evil, and sometimes that which was evil
becomes good. Now, if the two principles are exactly balanced,
how could such a change take place ? Of course we cannot
prove that the balance between the two forces does not remain
the same, if we consider the whole universe. Every movement
in the one direction, in one part of the whole, may be balanced
by a corresponding move in the other direction somewhere else.
As we do not know the entire universe in detail it is impossible
for us to refute this supposition. But even this supposition
will not remove the difficulty. We have two principles whose188
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
relations to one another are constant. Yet the facts around
us, which are manifestations of these two principles, and of
these two principles only, manifest them in proportions which
constantly change. How is this change to be accounted for ?
If we are to take time and change as ultimate facts, such a
contradiction seems insuperable. On the other hand, to deny
the ultimate validity of time and change, commits us to the
series of arguments, the failure of which first led us to doubt
Hegel’s position. If time could be viewed as a manifestation
of the timeless, we need not have abandoned monism, for the
difficulty of imperfection could then have been solved. If,
however, time cannot be viewed in this way, the contradiction
between the unchanging relation of the principles and the
constant change of their effects appears hopeless.
165.	There remains the theory that the world is exclusively
the product of a principle which regards neither rationality nor
irrationality, but is directed to some aim outside them, or to no
aim at all. Such a theory might account, no doubt, for the
fact that the world is not a complete and perfect manifes-
tation either of rationality or irrationality. But it is hardly
exaggerated to say that this is the only fact about the world
which it would account for. The idea of such a principle is
contradictory. We can have no conception of its operation, of
its nature, or even of its existence, without bringing it under
some predicates of the reason. And if this is valid, the
principle is, to some extent at least, rational.
166.	So far indeed, the rationality would be but slight.
And it might be suggested that the solution of the difficulty
would be found in the idea that reality was, if we might so
express it, moderately rational. Up to this point we have
supposed that our only choice was between a principle mani-
festing the complete and perfect rationality, which is embodied
in Hegel’s Absolute Idea, and a principle entirely hostile or
indifferent to reason. But what if the ultimate principle of
the universe was one of which, for example, the categories of
Being and Essence were valid, while those of the Notion
remained unjustified ideals ? This would account, it might
be said, at once for the fact that the universe was sufficiently
in accord with our reason for us to perceive it and attempt toTHE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
189
comprehend it, and also for the fact that we fail to comprehend
it completely. It would explain the judgment that the world,
as we see it, might be better and might also be worse, which
common sense pronounces, and which philosophy, whether it
accepts it or not, is bound to explain somehow.
The supporters of such a theory, however, would have a
difficult task before them. They might claim to reject Hegel’s
general theory of the universe on the ground that, on this
question of imperfection, it was hopelessly in conflict with the
facts. But when they, in their turn, set up a positive system,
and asserted the earlier categories to be valid of reality, while
the later ones were delusions, they would have to meet in detail
Hegel’s arguments that the earlier categories, unless synthesised
by the later ones, plunge us in contradictions. The dialectic,
being now merely negative and critical of another system, could
not be disposed of on the ground that its own system broke down
as a whole. Its arguments against the independent validity of
the earlier categories would have to be met directly. What the
issue of the conflict would be cannot be considered here, as
considerations of space have prevented me from including in
this book any discussion of the steps of the dialectic in
detail. It may be remarked in passing, however, that several
of the commentators, who unhesitatingly reject the system as a
whole, admit the cogency of the argument from step to step in
the Logic—which is all that is wanted here.
This, at any rate, is certain, that the possibility of explaining
the existence of imperfection by such a theory as we have been
considering, can give us no grounds for rejecting Hegel’s system
which we did not possess before. For if the deduction of the
categories is defective, Hegelianism must be rejected as un-
proved, independently of its success or failure in interpreting
the facts. And if the deduction of the categories is correct,
then the theory of the partial rationality of reality must be
given up. For, in that case, to assert the validity of the lower
categories without the higher would be to assert a contradiction,
and to do this is to destroy all possibility of coherent thought.
167. It would seem then that any other system offers as
many obstacles to a satisfactory explanation of our difficulty as
were presented by Hegel’s theory. Is the inquirer then bound190	THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
to take refuge in complete scepticism, and reject all systems of
philosophy, since none can avoid inconsistencies or absurdities
on this point ? This might perhaps be the proper course to
pursue, if it were possible. But it is not possible. For every
word and every action implies some theory of metaphysics.
Every assertion or denial of fact—including the denial that
anything is certain—implies that something is certain; and a
doubt, also, implies our certainty that we doubt. Now to admit
this, and yet to reject all ultimate explanations of the universe,
is a contradiction at least as serious as any of those into which
we were led by our attempt to explain away imperfection in
obedience to the demands of Hegel’s system.
We find then as many, and as grave, difficulties in our way
when we take up any other system, or when we attempt to
take up no system at all, as met us when we considered Hegel’s
theory, and our position towards the latter must be to some
degree modified. We can no longer reject it, because it appears
to lead to an absurdity, if every possible form in which it can
be rejected involves a similar absurdity. At the same time
we cannot possibly acquiesce in an unreconciled contradiction.
Is there any other course open to us ?
168. We must remark, in the first place, that the position
in which the system finds itself, though difficult enough, is not
a reductio ad absurdum. When an argument ends in such a
reduction, there can never be any hesitation or doubt about
rejecting the hypothesis with wdiich it started. It is desired
to know if a certain proposition is true. The assumption is
made that the proposition is true, and it is found that the
assumption leads to a contradiction. Thus there is no conflict
of arguments. The hypothesis was made, not because it had
been proved true, but to see what results would follow. Hence
there is nothing to contradict the inference that the hypothesis
must be false, which we draw' from the absurdity of its con-
sequences. On the one side is only a supposition, on the other
ascertained facts.
\ This, however, is not the case here. The conclusion, that
the universe is timelessly perfect, which appears to be in
conflict with certain facts, is not a mere hypothesis, but asserts
itself to be a correct deduction from other facts as certain asTHE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
191
those which oppose it. Hence there is no reason why one
should yield to the other. The inference that the universe
is completely rational, and the inference that it is not, are both
deduced by reasoning from the facts of experience. Unless
we find a flaw in one or the other of the chains of deduction,
we have no more right to say that Hegel’s dialectic is wrong
because the world is imperfect, than to deny that the world is
imperfect, because Hegel’s dialectic proves that it cannot be so.
It might appear at first sight as if the imperfection of the
world was an immediate certainty. But in reality only the data
of sense, upon which, in the last resort, all propositions must
depend for their connection with reality, are here immediate.
All judgments require mediation. And, even if the existence
of imperfection in experience was an immediate certainty, yet
the conclusion that its existence was incompatible with the
perfection of the universe as a whole, could clearly only be
reached mediately, by the refutation of the various arguments
by means of which a reconciliation has been attempted.
It is, no doubt, our first duty, when two chains of reasoning
appear to lead to directly opposite results, to go over them
with the greatest care, that we may ascertain whether the
apparent discrepancy is not due to some mistake of our own.
It is also true that the chain of arguments, by which we arrive
at the conclusion that the world is perfect, is both longer and
less generally accepted than the other chain by which we reach
the conclusion that there is imperfection in the world, and that
this prevents the world from being perfect. We may, therefore,
possibly be right in expecting beforehand to find a flaw in the
first chain of reasoning, rather than in the second.
This, however, will not entitle us to adopt the one view as
against the other. We may expect beforehand to find an error
in an argument, but if in point of fact we do not succeed in
finding one, we are bound to continue to accept the conclusion.
For we are compelled to yield our assent to each step in the
argument, so long as we do not see any mistake in it, and we
shall in this way be conducted as inevitably to the end of the
long chain as of the short one.
169. We may, I think, assume, for the purposes of this
paper, that no discovery of error will occur to relieve us from192
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
our perplexity, since we are endeavouring to discuss here, not
the truth of the Hegelian dialectic, hut the consequences which
will follow from it if it is true. And we have now to consider
what we must do in the presence of two equally authoritative
judgments which contradict one another.
The only course which it is possible to take appears to me
that described by Mr Balfour. The thinker must “ accept both
contradictories, thinking thereby to obtain, under however un-
satisfactory a form, the fullest measure of truth which he is
at present able to grasp1.” Of course we cannot adopt the
same mental attitude which we should have a right to take
in case our conclusions harmonised with one another. We
must never lose sight of the fact that the two results do not
harmonise, and that there must be something wrong some-
where. But we do not know where. And to take any step
except this, would imply that we did know where the error lay.
Tf we rejected the one conclusion in favour of the other, or if
we rejected both in favour of scepticism, we should thereby
assert, in the first case, that there was an error on the one side
and not on the other, in the second case that there were errors
on both sides. Now, if the case is as it has been stated above,
we have no right to make such assertions, for we have been
unable to detect errors on either side. All that we can do is
to hold to both sides, and to recognise that, till one is refuted,
or both are reconciled, our knowledge is in a very unsatis-
factory state.
At the same time we shall have to be very careful not to
let our dissatisfaction with the conflict, from which we cannot
escape, carry us into either an explicit avowal or a tacit
acceptance of any form of scepticism. For this would mean
more than the mere equipoise of the two lines of argument.
It would mean the entire rejection, at least, of the one which
asserts that the universe is completely rational. And, as has
been said, we have no right to reject either side of the contra-
diction, for no flaw has been found in either.
170. The position in which we are left appears to be this:
If we cannot reject Hegel’s dialectic, our system of knowledge
will contain an unsolved contradiction. But that contradiction
1 Defence of Philosophic Doubt, p. 313.THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME. 193
gives us no more reason for rejecting the Hegelian dialectic
than for doing anything else, since a similar contradiction
appears wherever we turn. We are merely left with the con-
viction that something is fundamentally wrong in knowledge
which all looks equally trustworthy. Where to find the error
we cannot tell. Such a result is sufficiently unsatisfactory.
Is it possible to find a conclusion not quite so negative ?
We cannot, as it seems to us at present, deny that both the
propositions are true, nor deny that they are contradictory.
Yet we know that one must be false, or else that they cannot
be contradictory. Is there any reason to hope that the solu-
tion lies in the last alternative ? This result would be less
sceptical and destructive than any other. It would not involve
any positive mistake in our previous reasonings, as far as they
went, such as would be involved if harmony was restored by
the discovery that one of the two conclusions was fallacious.
It would only mean that we had not gone on far enough. The
two contradictory propositions—that the world was fundamen-
tally perfect, and that imperfection did exist—would be har-
monised and reconciled by a synthesis, in the same way that
the contradictions within the dialectic itself are overcome.
The two sides of the opposition would not so much be both
false as both true. They would be taken up into a higher
sphere where the truth of both is preserved.
Moreover, the solution in this case would be exactly what
might be expected if the Hegelian dialectic were true. For,
as has been said, the dialectic always advances by combining
on a higher plane two things which were contradictory on a
lower one. And so, if, in some way now inconceivable to us,
the eternal realisation of the Absolute Idea were so synthesised
with the existence of imperfection as to be reconciled with it,
we should harmonise the two sides by a principle already
exemplified in one of them.
171. It must be noticed also that the contradiction before
us satisfies at any rate one of the conditions which are neces-
sary if a synthesis is to be effected. It is a case of contrary and
not merely of contradictory opposition. The opposition would
be contradictory if the one side merely denied the validity
of the data, or the correctness of the inferences, of the other.
13
M. H.194 THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
For it would not then assert a different and incompatible con-
clusion, but simply deny the right of the other side to come to
its own conclusion at all. But it is a contrary opposition,
because neither side denies that the other is, in itself, coherent
and valid, but sets up against it another line of argument, also
coherent and valid, which leads to an opposite and incompatible
conclusion. We have not reasons for and against a particular
position, but reasons for two positions which deny one another.
If the opposition had been contradictory, there could have
been no hope of a synthesis. We should have ended with two
propositions, one of which was a mere denial of the other—the
one, that the universe is eternally rational, the other, that this
is not the case. And between two merely contradictory pro-
positions, as Trendelenburg points out, there can be no possible
synthesis I One only affirms, and the other only denies. And,
between simple affirmation and simple negation, we can find
nothing which will succeed in reconciling them. For their
whole meaning is summed up in their denial of one another,
and if, with their reconciliation, the reciprocal denial vanished,
the whole meaning would vanish also, leaving nothing but a
blank. Instead of having equally strong grounds to believe
two different things, we should have no grounds to believe
either. Any real opposition may conceivably be synthesised.
But it is as impossible to get a harmony out of an absolute
blank, as it is to get anything else.
Here, however, when we have two positive conclusions,
which appear indeed to be incompatible, but have more in
them than simple incompatibility, it is not impossible that a
higher notion could be found, by which each should be recog-
nised as true, and by which it should be seen that they were
really not mutually exclusive.
The thesis and antithesis in Hegel’s logic always stand to
one another in a relation of contrary opposition. In the higher
stages, no doubt, the antithesis is more than a mere opposite of
the thesis, and already contains an element of synthesis. But
the element of opposition, which is always there, is always an
opposition of contraries. Hence it does not seem impossible
that this further case of contrary opposition should he dealt
1 Logische Untersuckungent Yol. 1. p. 56.THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
195
with on Hegel’s principle. Incompatible as the two terms
seem at present, they can hardly seem more hopelessly opposed
than many pairs of contraries in the dialectic seem, before their
syntheses are found.
172.	It is possible, also, to see some reasons why such a
solution, if possible at all, should not be possible yet, and why
it would be delayed till the last abstraction should be removed,
as the dialectic process rebuilds concrete realities. Our aim is
to reconcile the fact that the Absolute Idea exists eternally in
its full perfection, with the fact that it manifests itself as
something incomplete and imperfect. Now the Absolute Idea
only becomes known to us through a process and consequently
as something incomplete and imperfect. We have to grasp its
moments successively, and to be led on from the lower to the
higher. And, in like manner, all our knowledge of its manifes-
tations must come to us in the form of a process, since it must
come gradually. We cannot expect to see how all process
should only be an element in a timeless reality, so long as we
can only think of the timeless reality by means of a process.
But, sub specie aeternitatis, it might be that the difficulty
would vanish.
I am not, of course, trying to argue that there is such a
reconciliation of these two extremes, or that there is the
slightest positive evidence that a reconciliation can exist. As
we have seen above, the eternal realisation of the Absolute
Idea, and the existence of change and evil, are, for us as we are,
absolutely incompatible, nor can we even imagine a way in
which they should cease to be so. If we could imagine such a
way we should have solved the problem, for, as it would be the
only chance of rescuing our knowledge from hopeless confusion,
we should be justified in taking it.
All I wish to suggest is that it is conceivable that there
should be such a synthesis, although we cannot at present
conceive what it could be like, and that, although there is no
positive evidence for it, there is no evidence against it. And as
either the incompatibility of the two propositions, or the
evidence for one of them, must be a mistake, we may have at
any rate a hope that some solution may lie in this direction.
173.	If indeed we were absolutely certain that neither the
13—2196
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
arguments for the eternal perfection of the Absolute Idea, nor
the arguments for the existence of process and change, were
erroneous, we should be able to go beyond this negative
position, and assert positively the existence of the synthesis,
although we should be as unable as before to comprehend of
what nature it could be. We could then avail ourselves of Mr
Bradley’s maxim, “ what may be and must be, certainly is.”
That the synthesis must exist would, on the hypothesis we are
considering, be beyond doubt. For if both the lines of
argument which lead respectively to the eternal reality of the
Absolute Idea, and to the existence of change, could be known,
not merely to be at present unrefuted, but to be true, then they
must somehow be compatible. That all truth is harmonious is
the postulate of reasoning, the denial of which would abolish
all tests of truth and falsehood, and so make all judgment
unmeaning. And since the two propositions are, as we have
seen throughout this chapter, incompatible as they stand in
their immediacy, the only way in which they can possibly be
made compatible is by a synthesis which transcends them and
so unites them.
Can we then say of such a synthesis that it may be ? Of
course it is only possible to do so negatively. A positive
assertion that there was no reason whatever why a thing
should not exist could only be obtained by a complete know-
ledge of it, and, if we had a complete knowledge of it, it would
not be necessary to resort to indirect proof to discover whether
it existed or not. But we have, it would seem, a right to say
that no reason appears why it should not exist. If the Hegelian
dialectic is true (and, except on this hypothesis, our difficulty
would not have arisen), we know that predicates which seem to
be contrary can be united and harmonised by a synthesis. And
the fact that such a synthesis is not conceivable by us need not
make us consider it impossible. Till such a synthesis is found,
it must always appear inconceivable, and that it has not yet
been found implies nothing more than that the world, con-
sidered as a process, has not yet worked out its full meaning.
174. But we must admit that the actual result is rather
damaging to the prospects of Hegelianism. We may, as I
have tried to show, be sure, that, if Hegel’s dialectic is true,THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
197
then such a synthesis must be possible, because it is the only
way of harmonising all the facts. At the same time, the fact
that the dialectic cannot be true, unless some synthesis which
we do not know, and whose nature we cannot even conceive,
relieves it from an obstacle which would otherwise be fatal,
certainly lessens the chance that it is true, even if no error in
it has yet been discovered. For our only right to accept such
an extreme hypothesis lies in the impossibility of finding any
other way out of the dilemma. And the more violent the
consequences to which an argument leads us, the greater is the
antecedent probability that some flaw has been left undetected.
Not only does such a theory lose the strength which comes
from the successful solution of all problems presented to it, but
it is compelled to rely, with regard to this particular proposition,
on a possibility which we cannot at present fully grasp, even in
imagination, and the realisation of which would perhaps involve
the transcending of all discursive thought. Under these circum-
stances it is clear that our confidence in Hegel’s system must
be considerably less than that which was possessed by its
author, who had not realised the tentative and incomplete
condition to which this difficulty inevitably reduced his
position.
The result of these considerations, however, is perhaps on
the whole more positive than negative. They can scarcely
urge us to more careful scrutiny of all the details of the dialectic
than would be required in any case by the complexity of the
subjects with which it deals. And, on the other hand, they do
supply us, as it seems to me, with a ground for believing that
neither time nor imperfection forms an insuperable objection to
the dialectic. If the dialectic is not valid in itself, we shall
any way have no right to believe it. And if it is valid in
itself, we shall not only be entitled, but we shall be bound, to
believe that one more synthesis remains, as yet unknown to us,
which shall overcome the last and most persistent of the
contradictions inherent in appearance.
175. Note.—After this chapter, in a slightly different
form, had appeared in Mind, it was criticised by Mr F. C. S.
Schiller, in an article entitled ‘ The Metaphysics of the Time
Process.’ (Mind, N. S. Vol. iv. No. 14.) I have endeavoured198
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
to consider his acute and courteous objections to my view with
that care which they merit, but I have not succeeded in finding
in them any reason for changing the position indicated in the
preceding sections. I have already discussed one of Mr Schiller’s
objections1, and there are some others on which I will now
venture to make a few remarks.
Mr Schiller complains that I overlook “ the curious incon-
sistency of denying the metaphysical value of Time, and yet
expecting from the Future the discovery of the ultimate
synthesis on which one’s whole metaphysics depends2.” It was
not, of course, from the advance of time as such, but from the
more complete manifestation through time of the timeless
reality that I ventured to expect a solution. But it is, no
doubt, true that I did express a hope of the discovery of a
synthesis which has not yet been discovered, so that its
discovery must be an event in time. I fail, however, to see the
inconsistency. Time is certainly, on the theory which I have
put forward, only an appearance and an illusion. But then, on
the same theory, the inconsistency which requires a synthesis
is also an illusion. And so is the necessity of discovering a
synthesis for two aspects of reality which are really eternally
moments in a harmonious whole.
Sub specie aeternitatis, the temporal process is not, as such,
real, and can produce nothing new. But then, sub specie
aeternitatis, if there is an ultimate synthesis, it does not
require to be produced, for it exists eternally. Nor does the
contradiction require to be removed, for, if there is a synthesis,
the contradiction never, sub specie aeternitatis, existed at all.
Sub specie temporis, on the other hand, the contradiction has to
be removed, and the synthesis discovered. But, sub specie tem-
poris, the time process exists, and can produce something new.
The inconsistency of which Mr Schiller accuses me comes
only from combining the assertions that a change is required,
and that no change is possible, as if they were made from
the same stand-point. But, on the theory in question, the first
is only true when we look at things from the stand-point of
time, and the second when we look at them from the stand-
point of the timeless idea. That the possible solution is
1 Chap. hi. Section 96.	2 Op. cit. p. 37.THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME. 1D9
incomprehensible, I have fully admitted. But I cannot see
that it is inconsistent.
176. Mr Schiller further says, if I understand him rightly,
that it is obviously impossible that Hegel could have accounted
for time, since he started with an abstraction which did not
include it. Without altogether adopting Mr Schiller’s explana-
tions of the motives of idealist philosophers we may agree with
him when he says that their conceptions “ were necessarily
abstract, and among the things they abstracted from was the time-
aspect of Reality He then continues, “ Once abstracted from,
the reference to Time could not, of course, be recovered.” And,
a little later on, “ You must pay the price for a formula that will
enable you to make assertions that hold good far beyond the
limits of your experience. And part of the price is that you
will in the end be unable to give a rational explanation of those
very characteristics, which had been dismissed at the outset as
irrelevant to a rational explanation.”
I have admitted that Hegel has failed, not indeed to give a
deduction of time, but to give one which would be consistent
with the rest of his system. But this is a result which, as it
seems to me, can only be arrived at by examining in detail the
deduction he does give, and cannot be settled beforehand by
the consideration that the abstraction he starts from excludes
time. Such an objection would destroy the whole dialectic.
For Hegel starts with pure Being, precisely because it is the
most complete abstraction possible, with the minimum of
meaning that any term can have. And if nothing which was
abstracted from could ever be restored, the dialectic process,
which consists of nothing else than the performance of this
operation, would be completely invalid.
I have endeavoured to show in the earlier chapters that
there is nothing unjustified in such an advance from abstract
to concrete. Of course, if we make an abstraction, as we do
in geometry, with the express intention of adhering to it
uncritically throughout our treatment of the subject, and ig-
noring any inaccuracy as irrelevant for our present purposes,—
then, no doubt, our final conclusions must have the same
abstractness as our original premises. But this is very unlike
1 Op. cit. p. 38.200
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
the position of the dialectic. Here we begin with the most
complete abstraction we can find, for the express purpose of
seeing how far we can, by criticism of it, be forced to consider it
inadequate, and so to substitute for it more concrete notions
which remedy its incompleteness. Right or wrong, this cau
scarcely be disposed of as obviously impossible.
Nor does it seem quite correct to say that Hegel’s phi-
losophy was “ constructed to give an account of the world
irrespective of Time and Change1,’’ if, as appears to be the
case, “ constructed to give ” implies a purpose. Hegel’s purpose
was not to give any particular account of the universe, but
to give one which should be self-consistent, and he declared
time and change to be only appearances, because he found
it impossible to give a consistent account of the universe if
he treated time and change as ultimate realities. He may
have been wrong, but his decision was the result of argument,
and not a preconceived purpose.
177. Mr Schiller suggests that the whole device of using
abstract laws and generalisations at all in knowledge is one
which is justified by its success, and which may be discarded,
in whole or in part, for another, if another should promise
better. " Why should we want to calculate the facts by such
universal formulas ? The answer to this question brings us
to the roots of the matter. We make the fundamental as-
sumption of science, that there are universal and eternal laws,
i.e. that the individuality of things together with their spatial
and temporal context may be neglected, not because we are con-
vinced of its theoretic validity, but because we are constrained
by its practical convenience. We want to be able to make pre-
dictions about the future behaviour of things for the purpose of
shaping our own conduct accordingly. Hence attempts to fore-
cast the future have been the source of half the superstitions
of mankind. But no method of divination ever invented could
compete in ingenuity and gorgeous simplicity with the as-
sumption of universal laws which hold good without reference
to time; and so in the long run it alone could meet the want
or practical necessity in question.
“ In other words that assumption is a methodological device
1 Op. cit. p. 38.THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
201
and ultimately reposes on the practical necessity of discovering
formulas for calculating events in the rough, without awaiting
or observing their occurrence. To assert this methodological
character of eternal truths is not, of course, to deny their
validity,—for it is evident that unless the nature of the world
had lent itself to a very considerable extent to such inter-
pretation, the assumption of ‘ eternal ’ laws would have served
our purposes as little as those of astrology, chiromancy, necro-
mancy, and catoptromancy. What however must be asserted
is that this assumption is not an ultimate term in the ex-
planation of the world.
“ That does not, of course, matter to Science, which is not
concerned with such ultimate explanation, and for which the
assumption is at all events ultimate enough. But it does matter
to philosophy that the ultimate theoretic assumption should
have a methodological character1.”
178. But, I reply, our habit of abstracting and generalising
(and all universal laws are nothing more than this) is not
a tool that we can take up or lay down at pleasure, as a car-
penter takes up or lays down a particular chisel, which he
finds suited or unsuited to the work immediately before him. It
is rather the essential condition of all thought—perhaps it
would be better to say an essential moment in all thought.
All thought consists in processes which may be described as
abstractions and generalisations. It is true, of course, that we
could have no thought unless the complex and the particular
were given to us. But it is no less true that everything which
thought does with what is given to it involves abstraction
and generalisation.
If we had merely unrelated particulars before us we should
not be. conscious. And even if we were conscious, unrelated
particulars could certainly give us no knowledge. We can
have no knowledge without, at the lowest, comparison. And
to compare—to perceive a similar element in things otherwise
dissimilar, or the reverse—is to abstract and to generalise.
Again to find any relation whatever between two particulars
is to abstract and to generalise. If we say, for example, that
a blow causes a bruise, this is to separate and abstract one
1 Op. cit. p. 42.202
THE RELATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO TIME.
quality from the large number which are connoted by the
word blow, and it is also to generalise, since it is to assert
that a blow stands in the same relation to a bruise, as, let us
say, friction to heat.
Without abstraction and generalisation, then, we can have
no knowledge, and so they are not a methodological device but
a necessity of our thought. It is, indeed, not certain before-
hand that the laws which are the result of generalisation and
abstraction will be, as Mr Schiller says, “ eternal,” that is, will
disregard time. But if the result of the criticism of reality
does lead us to laws which do not accept time as an ultimate
reality, and if these laws do, as I have admitted they do,
plunge us into considerable difficulties, still we cannot, as
Mr Schiller seems to wish, reject the process of generalisation
and abstraction if, or in as far as, it does not turn out well.
For it is our only mode of thought, and the very act of thought
which rejected it would embody it, and be dependent on it.
There remain other points of high interest in Mr Schiller’s
paper—his conception of metaphysics as ultimately ethical,
and his view of what may be hoped for from time, regarded
as real and not as merely appearance. But he is here con-
structive and no longer critical, and it would be beyond the
purpose of this note to attempt to follow him.CHAPTER YI.
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
179. From a practical point of view the chief interest in
Hegel’s system must centre in the last stages of the Philosophy
of Spirit. Even if we hold that the pure thought of the Logic
is the logical prius of the whole dialectic, and that all Nature
and Spirit stand in a purely dependent relation, still our most
vital interest must be in that part of the system which touches
and interprets the concrete life of Spirit which we ourselves
share. And this interest will be yet stronger in those who
hold the view, which I have endeavoured to expound in pre-
vious chapters, that the logical prius of the system is not pure
thought but Spirit. For then, in the highest forms of Spirit
we shall see reality in its truest and deepest meaning, from
which all other aspects of reality—whether in Logic, in Nature,
or in the lower forms of Spirit—are but abstractions, and to
which they must return as the only escape from the contra-
diction and inadequacy which is manifested in them. Upon
this view the highest form, in .which Spirit manifests itself,
will be the ultimate meaning of all things.
Many students must have experienced some disappointment
when, turning to the end of the Philosophy of Spirit, they
found that its final stage was simply Philosophy. It is true
that any thinker, who has the least sympathy with Hegel,
must assign to philosophy a sufficiently important place in the
nature of things. Hegel taught that the secrets of the universe
opened themselves to us, but only on condition of deep and
systematic thought, and the importance of philosophy was204
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
undiminished either by scepticism or by appeals to the healthy
instincts of the plain man. But there is some difference be-
tween taking philosophy as the supreme and completely ade-
quate means, and admitting it to be the supreme end. There
is some difference between holding that johilosophy is the
knowledge of the highest form of reality, and holding that
it is itself the highest form of reality.
It seems to me that Hegel has been untrue to the ten-
dencies of his own system in seeking the ultimate reality of
Spirit in philosophy alone, and that, on his own premises, he
ought to have looked for a more comprehensive explanation.
What that should have been, I shall not attempt to determine.
I only wish to show that it should have been something more
than philosophy.
180. Hegel does not give any very detailed account of
philosophy, considered as the highest expression of reality.
Most of the space devoted, in the Philosophy of Spirit, to
Philosophy is occupied in defending it against the charge of
pantheism—in Hegel’s use of the word. The following are
the passages which appear most significant for our purpose.
571.	“These three syllogisms” (i.e. of religion) “con-
stituting the one syllogism of the absolute self-mediation of
spirit, are the revelation of that spirit whose life is set out
as a cycle of concrete shapes in pictorial thought. From this
its separation into parts, with a temporal and external sequence,
the unfolding of the mediation contracts itself in the result—
where the spirit closes in unity with itself,—not merely to the
simplicity of faith and devotional feeling, but even to thought.
In the immanent simplicity of thought the unfolding still
has its expansion, yet is all the while known as an indivisible
coherence of the universal, simple, and eternal spirit in itself.
In this form of truth, truth is the object of philosophy!'...
572.	Philosophy “ is the unity of Art and Religion.
Whereas the vision-method of Art, external in point of form,
is but subjective production and shivers the substantial content
into many separate shapes, and whereas Religion, with its
separation into parts, opens it out in mental picture, and
mediates what is thus opened out; Philosophy not merely keeps
them together to make a total, but even unifies them into theTHE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
205
simple spiritual vision, and then in that raises them to self-
conscious thought. Such consciousness is thus the intelligible
unity (cognised by thought) of art and religion, in which the
diverse elements in the content are cognised as necessary, and
this necessary as free.”
573.	" Philosophy thus characterises itself as a cognition
of the necessity in the content of the absolute picture-idea,
as also of the necessity in the two forms—on the one hand,
immediate vision and its poetry, and the objective and external
revelation presupposed by representation,—on the other hand,
first the subjective retreat inwards, then the subjective move-
ment of faith and its final identification with the presupposed
object. This cognition is thus the recognition of this content
and its form ; it is the liberation from the one-sidedness of the
forms, elevation of them into the absolute form, which de-
termines itself to content, remains identical with it, and is
in that the cognition of that essential and actual necessity.
This movement, which philosophy is, finds itself already ac-
complished, when at the close it seizes its own notion,-—i.e.
only looks back on its knowledge.” ...
574.	“ This notion of philosophy is the self-thinking Idea,
the truth aware of itself (Section 236),—the logical system, hut
with the signification that it is universality, approved and
certified in concrete content as in its actuality. In this way
the science has gone back to its beginning: its result is the
logical system but as a spiritual principle: out of the pre-
supposing judgment, in which the notion was only implicit,
and the beginning an immediate,—and thus out of the appear-
ance which it had there—it has risen into its pure principle,
and thus also into its proper medium.”
181. The word Philosophy, in its ordinary signification,
denotes a purely intellectual activity. No doubt, whenever we
philosophise we are acting, and we are also feeling either
pleasure or pain. But philosophy itself is knowledge, it is
neither action nor feeling. And there seems nothing in Hegel’s
account of it to induce us to change the meaning of the word
in this respect. It is true that he speaks of philosophy as the
union of art and religion. Both art and religion are more
than mere knowledge, since they both present aspects of206
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
volition and of feeling. But, if we look back on his treatment
of art and religion as separate stages, we shall see that he
confines himself almost entirely to the truth which lies in them,
ignoring the other elements. And when, in Section 572, he
points out how philosophy is the unity of these two, it is
merely as expressing the truth more completely than they
do, that he gives it this position. There is nothing said of a
higher or deeper ideal of good, nothing of any increased har-
mony between our ideal and our surroundings, nothing of any
greater or deeper pleasure. Philosophy is “the intelligible
unity (cognised by thought) of art and religion, in which the
diverse elements in the content are cognised as necessary, and
this necessary as free.”
We are thus, it would seem, bound down to the view that
Hegel considered the supreme nature of Spirit to be expressed
as knowledge, and as knowledge only. There are two senses
in which we might take this exaltation of philosophy. We
might suppose it to apply to philosophy as it exists at present,
not covering the whole field of human knowledge, but standing
side by side with the sciences and with the mass of unsystem-
atised knowledge, claiming indeed a supremacy over all other
sources of knowledge, but by no means able to dispense with
their assistance. Or we might suppose that this high position
was reserved for philosophy, when, as might conceivably happen,
it shall have absorbed all knowledge into itself, so that every
fact shall be seen as completely conditioned, and as united
to all the others by the nature of the Absolute Idea. Which
of these meanings Hegel intended to adopt does not seem
to be very clear, but neither appears, on closer examination,
to be acceptable as a complete and satisfactory account of the
deepest nature of Spirit.
182. Let us consider first philosophy as we have it at
present. In this form it can scarcely claim to be worthy of
this supreme place. It may, no doubt, reasonably consider
itself as the highest activity of Spirit—at any rate in the de-
partment of cognition. But in order to stand at the end of
the development of Spirit it must be more than this. It must
not only be the highest activity of Spirit, but one in which all
the others are swallowed up and transcended. It must haveTHE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
207
overcome and removed all the contradictions, all the in-
adequacies, which belong to the lower forms in which Spirit
manifests itself.
Now all the knowledge which philosophy gives us is, from
one point of view, abstract, and so imperfect. It teaches us
what the fundamental nature of reality is, and what, there-
fore, everything must be. But it does not pretend to show us
how everything partakes of that nature—to trace out in every
detail of the universe that rationality which, on general
grounds, it asserts to be in it. It could not, indeed, do this,
for, in order to trace the Notion in every detail, it would have
first to discover what every detail was. And this it cannot
do. For what the facts are in which the Notion manifests
itself, we must learn not from philosophy but from experience.
183. But, it may be said, Hegel did not accept this view.
He held that it was possible, from the nature of the pure Idea,
to deduce the nature of the facts in which it manifested itself,
and on this theory philosophy would cover the whole field of
knowledge, and our criticism would fall to the ground.
My object here, however, is to show that Hegel’s view of the
ultimate nature of Spirit is inconsistent with the general prin-
ciples established in his Logic, and not that it is inconsistent
with the rest of his attempts to apply the Logic. Even, there-
fore, if Hegel had attempted to deduce particular facts from
the Logic, it would be sufficient for my present purpose to
point out, as I have endeavoured to do above, that, on his
own premises, he had no right to make the attempt. But, as I
have also tried to show, he never does attempt to deduce facts
from the Logic, but only to interpret and explain them by it1.
Moreover, whether we are to consider the applications of
the Logic as deductions or as explanations, it is perfectly clear
that they are limited in their scope. Hegel says, more than
once, that certain details are too insignificant and contingent
to permit us to trace their speculative meaning. Even in the
cases which he works out most fully, there is always a residuum
left unexplained. He may have pushed his desire to find
speculative meanings in biological details beyond the limits
of prudence, but he never attempted to find any significance
1 Chap. ii. Sections 55—57.208
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
in the precise number of zoological species. He may have
held that the perfection of the Prussian constitution was philo-
sophically demonstrable, but he made no endeavour to explain,
from the nature of the Idea, the exact number of civil servants
in the employment of the Crown. And yet these are facts,
which can be learned by experience, which are links in chains
of causes and effects, and which, like everything else in the
universe, the dialectic declares on general grounds must rest on
something, which is rational because it is real.
Philosophy then must be contented with an abstract demon-
stration that things must be rational, without being able in
all cases to show how they are rational. Part of our knowledge
will thus remain on an empirical basis, and the sphere of
philosophy will be doubly limited. Not only will it be limited
to knowledge, but to certain departments of knowledge. An
activity which leaves so much of the workings of Spirit un-
touched cannot be accepted as adequately expressing by itself
the ultimate nature of Spirit. Indeed, taken by itself, philosophy
proclaims its own inadequacy. For it must assert things to be
completely rational, and therefore completely explicable, which,
all the same, it cannot succeed in completely explaining.
184. It has been asserted that it is natural and right that
Hegel’s system should end simply with philosophy, since it is
simply with philosophy that it begins. Thus Erdmann says:
“ It is with intelligible sarcasm that Hegel was accustomed to
mention those who, when the exposition had reached this point,
supposed that now for the first time (as if in a philosophy of
philosophy) that which was peculiar and distinctive had been
reached. Rather has everything already been treated, and it
only remains to complete by a survey of it the circle of the
system, so that its presence becomes an Encyclopaedia. If,
that is to say, religion fallen into discord with thought (as, for
that matter, the Phenomenology of Spirit had already shown)
leads to speculative, free thought, while logic had begun with
the determination to realise such thought, then the end of the
Philosophy of Religion coincides with the beginning of the
Logic, and the requirement laid down by Fichte that the
system be a circle is fulfilled1.”
1 History of Philosophy, Section 329, 9.THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.	209
This, however, scarcely disposes of the difficulty. The
object of philosophy is not simply to account for the existence
of philosophy. It aims at discovering the ultimate nature of
all reality. To start with philosophising, and to end by ex-
plaining why we must philosophise, is indeed a circle, but a
very limited one, which leaves out of account most of our know-
ledge and most of our action, unless we are prepared to prove
independently that all reality is synthesised in the conscious
spirit, and all the reality of the conscious spirit is synthesised
in philosophising. Without this proof philosophy would leave
vast provinces of experience completely outside its influence—
a position which may be modest, but is certainly not Hegelian.
It is true that, on the way to Philosophy as it occurs at
the end of the Philosophy of Spirit, Hegel goes through many
other branches of human activity and experience. But since
the process is a dialectic, the whole meaning of the process
must be taken as summed up in the last term. Either then
we must make philosophy include all knowledge—to say nothing,
for the present, of anything besides knowledge—or else we
must admit at once that Hegel is wrong in making philosophy
the highest point of Spirit, since at that point we have to
find something which adequately expresses all reality, and
philosophy, in the ordinary sense of the word, does not even
include all cognition of reality.
185. Let us take then the second meaning of philosophy—
that in which we conceive it developed till all knowledge forms
one harmonious whole, so that no single fact remains con-
tingent and irrational.
This ideal may be conceived in two ways. Philosophy
would, in the first place, become equivalent to the whole of
knowledge, if pure thought could ever reach the goal, at which
it has been sometimes asserted that Hegel’s dialectic was
aiming, and deduce all reality from its own nature, without
the assistance of any immediately given data. If this could
ever happen, then, no doubt, philosophy and knowledge would
be coincident. The only reality would be pure thought. The
nature of that thought would be given us by the dialectic,
and so philosophy would be able to explain completely the
whole of reality.
M. H.
14210
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
But, as we have seen above1, such a goal is impossible and
contradictory. For thought is only a mediating activity, and
requires something to mediate. This need not, indeed, be
anything alien to it. The whole content of the reality, which
thought mediates, may itself be nothing but thought. But
whatever the nature of that reality, it must be given to thought
in each case from outside, as a datum. Supposing nothing
but thought existed, still in the fact that it existed, that it
was there, we should have an immediate certainty, which
could no more be deduced from the nature of thought, than
the reality of a hundred thalers could be deduced from the
idea of them.
It is thus impossible that any acquaintance with the nature
of thought could ever dispense us with the necessity of having
some immediate datum, which could not be deduced, but must
be accepted, and we have seen that there are reasons for
believing that Hegel never proposed to philosophy such an
impossible and suicidal end. There is, however, another sense
in which it is possible to suppose that philosophy may become
coincident with the whole of knowledge, and thereby make
knowledge one single, symmetrical, and perfectly rational sys-
tem. And it may be said that when philosophy has thus
broadened itself to include all knowledge, it may be taken as
expressing adequately the whole nature of spirit, and therefore,
on Hegel’s system, of all reality. Let us examine more closely
what would be the nature of such a perfected knowledge.
186. All knowledge must have immediate data, which are
not deduced but given. But it does not follow that knowledge
must consequently be left imperfect, and with ragged edges.
That which indicates the defect of knowledge is not immediacy,
but contingency, in the Hegelian sense of the word, that is,
the necessity of explanation from outside. Now all data of
knowledge as originally given us, by the outer senses or through
introspection, are not only immediate but contingent. But
the two qualities do not necessarily go together, and we can
conceive a state of things, in which knowledge should rest on
data—or, rather, on a datum—which should be immediate,
without being contingent.
1 Chap. ii. Sections 55—57.THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
211
Supposing that the theory of the nature of reality, which
Hegel lays down in his Logic, is true, then, if knowledge were
perfect, the abstract certainty (Gewissheit) of what must he
would be transformed into complete knowledge (Erkennen) of
what is. We should then perceive all reality under the only
form which, according to Hegel, can be really adequate to
it—that is, as a unity of spirits, existing only in their con-
nection with one another. We should see that the whole
nature of each individual was expressed in these relations with
others. And we should see that that nature, which was what
marked him out as an individual, was not to be conceived as
something merely particular and exclusive, so that reality con-
sisted of a crowd or aggregate of separate individuals. On
the contrary the nature of each individual is to be taken as
determined by his place in a whole, which we must conceive
on the analogy of an organism,—a unity manifesting itself in
multiplicity. The individual has his entire nature in the
manifestation of this whole, as the whole, in turn, is nothing
else but its manifestation in individuals. Through this unity
the parts will mutually determine one another, so that from
any one all the rest could, with sufficient insight, be deduced,
and so that no change could be made in any without affecting
all. This complete interdependence is only approximately
realised in the unity which is found in a picture or a living
being, but in the Absolute the unity must he conceived as
far closer than aesthetic or organic unity, though we can only
imagine it by aid of the analogies which these afford us. And
in this complete interdependence and mutual determination each
individual would find his fullest self-development. For his re-
lations with others express his place in the whole, and it is this
place in the whole which expresses his deepest individuality.
If knowledge ever did fill out the sketch that the Hegelian
logic gives, it must be in some such form as this that it would
do so. For it is, I think, clear, from the category of the Ab-
solute Idea, that reality can only be found in selves, which
have their whole existence in finding themselves in harmony
with other selves. And this plurality of selves, again, must
be conceived, not as a mere aggregate, but as a unity whose
intimacy and strength is only inadequately represented by the
14—2212
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
idea of Organism. For, if not, then the relations would be
merely external and secondary, as compared with the reality
of the individuals between whom the relations existed. And
this would be incompatible with Hegel’s declaration that the
individuals have their existence for self only in their relation
to others.
187. Of course such an ideal of knowledge is indefinitely
remote as compared with our present condition. It would
require, in the first place, a knowledge of all the facts in the
universe—from which we are now separated by no inconsider-
able interval. And, at the same time, it would require a great
increase in the depth and keenness of view which we can
bring to bear in knowledge, if all that part of reality which
we only perceive at present under the lower categories of Being
and Essence, is to be brought under the Absolute Idea, and,
in place of the inorganic, the merely animal, and the imperfectly
spiritual, which now presents itself to us, we are to see the
universe as a whole of self-conscious selves, in perfect unity
with one another.
But that the ideal should be remote from our present state
need not surprise us. For it is the point at which the world-
process culminates, and whatever view we may hold as to the
ultimate reality of the conception of process, it is clear enough
that, from any point of view which admits of the conception
of process at all, we must have a long way still to go before
we reach a consummation which leaves the universe perfectly
rational and perfectly righteous. It would be more suspicious
if any ideal not greatly removed from our present state should
be held out to us as a complete and adequate satisfaction. It
is enough that this ideal is one which, if Hegel’s logic be true,
must be attainable sub specie temporis, because, sub specie
aeternitatis, it is the only reality. And it is an ideal which
is not self-contradictory, for the immediacy of the data is re-
tained, although their contingency has vanished.
The immediacy is retained, because we should have, as a
given fact, to which reason mounts in the process of discovery,
and on which it bases its demonstrations in the process of
explanation, that there are such and such selves, and that
they are connected in such and such a way. On the otherTHE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
213
hand, the contingency has vanished. For while everything is
determined, nothing is determined merely from outside. The
universe presents, indeed, an aspect of multiplicity, but then
it is not a mere multiplicity. The universe is a super-organic
unity1 2, and therefore, when one part of it is determined by
another, it is determined by the idea of the whole, which is
also in itself, and the determination is not dependent on some-
thing alien, but on the essential nature of that which is de-
termined. Hence determination appears as self-development,
and necessity, as Hegel points out at the beginning of the
Doctrine of the Notion, reveals itself as in reality freedom.
188. Neither this, nor any other possible system of know-
ledge, could give us any ground of determination for the
universe as a whole, since there is nothing outside it, by which
it could be determined. This, however, would not render our
knowledge defective. If we reached this point the only ques-
tion which would remain unanswered would be:—Why is the
universe as a whole what it is, and not something else ? And
this question could not be answered. But we must not infer
from this the incomplete rationality of the universe. For the
truth is that the question ought never to have been asked. It
is unmeaning, since it applies a category, which has significance
only inside the universe, to the universe as a whole. Of any
part we are entitled and bound to ask Why, for by the very fact
that it is a part, it cannot be directly self-determined, and
must depend on other thingsBut, when we speak of an all-
embracing totality, then, with the possibility of finding a cause,
disappears also the necessity for finding one. Independent and
uncaused existence is not in itself a contradictory or impossible
idea. It is contradictory when it is applied to anything in
1	This expression is, I believe, new. I fear that it is very barbarous. But
there seems a necessity for some such phrase to denote that supreme unity,
which, just because it is perfect unity, is compatible with, and indeed requires,
the complete differentiation and individuality of its parts. To oall such unity
merely organio is dangerous. For in an organism the unity is not complete,
nor the parts fully individual (cp. Hegel’s treatment of the subject under the
category of Life).
2	The parts of a super-organic whole are, indeed, self-determined, but not
direotly. Their self-determination comes through their determination by the
other parts.214
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
the universe, for whatever is in the universe must be in con-
nection with other things. But this can of course be no reason
for suspecting a fallacy when we find ourselves obliged to use
the idea in reference to the universe as a whole, which has
nothing outside it with which it could stand in connection.
Indeed the suggestion, that it is possible that the universe
should have been different from what it is, would, in such a
state of knowledge, possess no meaning. For, from the com-
plete interdependence of all the parts, it would follow that if
it was different at all, it must be different completely. And
a possibility which has no common element with actuality,
which would be the case here, is a mere abstraction which is
devoid of all value.
This, then, is the highest point to which knowledge, as
knowledge, can attain, upon Hegel’s principles. Everything is
known, and everything is known to be completely rational.
And, although our minds cannot help throwing a shadow of
contingency and irrationality over the symmetrical structure,
by asking, as it is always possible to ask, what determined
the whole to be what it is, and why it is not otherwise, yet
reflection convinces us that the question is unjustifiable, and
indeed unmeaning, and that the inability to answer it can
be no reason for doubting the completely satisfactory nature
of the result at which we have arrived.
189. But even when knowledge has reached this point,
is it an adequate expression of the complete nature of reality ?
This question, I think, must be answered in the negative. We
have, it is true, come to the conclusion,—if we have gone so
far with Hegel—that Spirit is the only and the all-sufficient
reality. But knowledge does not exhaust the nature of Spirit.
The simplest introspection will show us that, besides know-
ledge, we have also volition, and the feeling of pleasure and
pain. These are privia facie different from knowledge, and it
does not seem possible that they should ever be reduced to
it. Knowledge, volition, and feeling remain, in spite of all
such attempts, distinct and independent. They are not, indeed,
independent, in the sense that any of them can exist without
the others. Nor is it impossible that they might be found
to be aspects of a unity which embraces and transcends themTHE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
215
all. But they are independent in so far that neither of the
others can be reduced to, or transcended by, knowledge.
Let us first consider volition. Volition and knowledge have
this common element, that they are activities which strive to
bring about a harmony between the conscious self and its
surroundings. But in the manner in which they do this they
are the direct antitheses of one another. In knowledge the
self endeavours to conform itself to its surroundings. In vo-
lition, on the other hand, it demands that its surroundings
shall conform to itself. Of course the knowing mind is far
from being inactive in knowledge—it is only by means of its
own activity that it arrives at the objective truth which is
its aim. Nor is the self by any means purely active in volition.
For it has sometimes only to recognise and approve a harmony
already existing, and not to produce one by its action. And
sometimes the surroundings react on the self, and develop it
or crush it into acquiescence in facts against which it would
previously have protested.
But it remains true that in knowledge the aim of the self
is to render its own state a correct mirror of the objective
reality, and that, in so far as it fails to do this, it condemns
its own state as false and mistaken. In volition, on the con-
trary, its aim is that objective reality shall carry out the
demands made by the inner nature of the self. In so far as
reality fails to do this, the self condemns it as wrong. Now
this is surely a fundamental difference. Starting with the aim,
which is common to both, that a harmony is to be established,
what greater difference can exist between two ways of carrying
out this aim, than that one way demands that the subject
shall conform to the object, while the other way demands that
the object shall conform to the subject ?
190. We may put this in another way. The aim of know-
ledge is the true. The aim of volition is the good (in the
widest sense of the word, in which it includes all that we
desire, since all that is desired at all, is desired sub specie
boni). Now one of these aims cannot be reduced to the other.
There is no direct transition from truth to goodness, nor from
goodness to truth. We may of course come to the conclusion,
which Hegel has attempted to demonstrate, that the content216
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
of the two ideas is the same, that the deepest truth is the
highest good, and the highest good is the deepest truth, that
whatever is real is righteous, and whatever is righteous is
real. But we can only do this by finding out independently
what is true and what is good, and by proving that they coincide.
If we have come to this conclusion, and established it to
our own satisfaction as a general principle, we are entitled, no
doubt, to apply it in particular cases where the identity is not
evident. To those, for example, who have satisfied themselves
of the existence of a benevolent God, it is perfectly open to
argue that we must be immortal, because the absence of
immortality would make life a ghastly farce, or, by a converse
process, that toothache must be good because God sends it.
But if the harmony of the two sides has not been established
by the demonstration of the existence of a benevolent and
omnipotent power, or of some other ground for the same con-
clusion, such an argument depends on an unjustifiable as-
sumption.
There is nothing in the mere fact of a thing’s existence
to make it desired or desirable by us. There is nothing in the
mere fact that a thing is desired or desirable by us to make it
exist. Two mental activities for which the test of validity is
respectively existence and desirability must surely, therefore,
be coordinate, without any possibility of reducing the one to
a case or application of the other. If indeed we considered
volition as merely that which leads to action, it might be
considered less fundamental than knowledge, since it would
inevitably disappear in a state of perfect harmony. But vo-
lition must be taken to include all affirmations of an ideal
in relation to existence, including those which lead to no action
because they do not find reality to be discrepant with them.
And in this case we shall have to consider it as fundamental
an activity of Spirit as knowledge is, and one, therefore, which
cannot be ignored in favour of knowledge when we are in-
vestigating the completely adequate form of Spirit.
191. No doubt the fact that knowledge and volition have
the same aim before them—a harmony between the self and
its surroundings—and that they effect it in ways which are
directly contrary to one another, suggests a possible union ofTHE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
217
the two. The dialectic method will lead us to enquire whether,
besides being species of a wider genus, they are not also ab-
stractions from a deeper unity, which unity would reveal itself
as the really adequate form of Spirit. But although this
may be a Hegelian solution, it is not Hegel’s. Whatever he
may have hinted in the Logic—a point to which we shall
presently return—in the Philosophy of Spirit he attempts to
take knowledge by itself as the ultimate form of Spirit. And
such a result must, if volition is really coordinate with know-
ledge, be erroneous.
192. There is yet a third element in the life of Spirit,
besides knowledge and volition. This is feeling proper—
pleasure and pain. And this too must rank as a separate
element of spiritual activity, independent of knowledge. This
does not involve the assertion that we could ever experience
a state of mind that was purely pleasure or pain. So far as
our experience reaches, on the contrary, we never do feel
pleasure or pain, without at the same time recognising the
existence of some fact, and finding ourselves to be or not to be
in harmony with it. Thus feeling is only found in company
with knowledge and volition. But although it is thus in-
separable from knowledge, it is independent of it in the sense
that it cannot be reduced to it. Knowledge is essentially and
inevitably a judgment—an assertion about matter of fact. Now
in the feeling of pleasure and pain there is no judgment and no
assertion, but there is something else to which no judgment can
ever be equivalent.
Hegel’s views as to feeling proper are rather obscure. He
says much indeed about Gefiihl, but this does not mean pleasure
and pain. It appears rather to denote all immediate or intui-
tive belief in a fact, as opposed to a reasoned demonstration of
it. The contents of Gefiihl and of Philosophy, he says, may be
the same, but they differ in form. It is thus clear that he is
speaking of a form of knowledge, and not only of pleasure and
pain. But whatever he thinks about the latter, it seems certain
that they cannot, any more than volition, find a place in philo-
sophy. And in that case Hegel’s highest form of Spirit is
defective on a second ground.
193.	To this line of criticism an objection may possibly be218
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
taken. It is true, it may be said, that philosophy includes
neither volition nor feeling. But it implies them both. You
cannot have knowledge without finding yourself, from the point
of view of volition, in or out of harmony with the objects of pure
knowledge, and without feeling pleasure or pain accordingly.
This is no doubt true. And we may go further, and say that,
on Hegel’s principles, we should be entitled to conclude that
perfect knowledge must bring perfect acquiescence in the
universe, and also perfect happiness. For when our know-
ledge becomes perfect, we should, as the Logic tells us, find
that in all our relations with that which was outside us, we
had gained the perfect realisation of our own natures. De-
termination by another would have become, in the fullest and
deepest sense, determination by self. Since, therefore, in all
our relations with others, the demands of our own nature found
complete fulfilment, we should be in a state of perfect acqui-
escence with the nature of all things round us. And from this
perfect harmony, complete happiness must result.
Hegel would, no doubt, have been justified in saying that
in reaching complete knowledge we should, at the same time,
have reached to the completeness of all activities of Spirit. But
he did say more than this. He said that complete knowledge
would be by itself the complete activity of Spirit. He tried, it
would seem, to ignore volition, and to ignore pleasure and pain.
And a view of Spirit which does this will be fatally one-sided.
194.	But we must go further. We have seen that know-
ledge cannot, by itself, be the full expression of the complete
nature of Spirit. But can it, we must now ask, be, as know-
ledge, even part of that full expression ? Can it attain its own
goal ? Or does it carry about the strongest mark of its own
imperfection by postulating an ideal which it can never itself
reach ?
195.	The ideal of knowledge may be said to be the
combination of complete unity of the subject and object
with complete differentiation between them. In so far as
we have knowledge there must be unity of the subject and
object. Of the elements into which knowledge can be analysed,
one class—the data of sensation—come to us from outside, and
consequently involve the unity of the subject and the object,THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
210
without which it is impossible that anything outside us could
produce a sensation inside us. On the other hand the categories
are notions of our own minds which are yet essential to objective
experience. And these, therefore, involve no less the unity of
the subject and the object, since otherwise we should not be
justified in ascribing to them, as we do ascribe, objective
validity.
Differentiation of the subject and object is no less necessary
to knowledge than is their unity. For it is of the essence of
knowledge that it shall refer to something not itself, something
which is independent of the subjective fancies of the subject,
something which exists whether he likes it or not, which exists
not only for him, but for others, something in fact which is
objective. Without this, knowledge changes into dreams or
delusions, and these, however interesting as objects of know-
ledge, are totally different from knowledge itself. In so far
as knowledge becomes perfect, it has to apprehend the object
as it really is, and so in its full differentiation from the subject.
All knowledge, in so far as it is complete, requires unity and
differentiation. Perfect knowledge will require perfect unity
and differentiation. And since the dialectic has taught us that
all knowledge, except that highest and most complete know-
ledge which grasps reality under the Absolute Idea, is contra-
dictory and cannot stand except as a moment in some higher
form—we may conclude that all knowledge implies complete
unity and differentiation. For the lower knowledge implies
the higher, and the complete unity and differentiation are
implied by the higher knowledge.
This is confirmed by the final results of the Logic. There
we find that the only ultimately satisfactory category is one in
which the self finds itself in relation with other selves and in
harmony with their nature. To be in harmony with other
selves implies that we are in unity with them, while to
recognise them as selves implies differentiation.
Knowledge requires, then, this combination of antithetical
qualities. Is it possible that this requirement can ever be
realised by knowledge itself?
196. The action of knowledge consists in ascribing predi-
cates to an object. All our knowledge of the object w<5 owe220
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
to the predicates which we ascribe to it. But our object is not
a mere assemblage of predicates. There is also the unity in
which they cohere, which may be called epistemologically the
abstract object, and logically the abstract subject.
Here,—as in most other places in the universe—we are met
by a paradox. The withdrawal of the abstract object leaves
nothing but a collection of predicates, and a collection of predi-
cates taken by itself is a mere unreality. Predicates cannot
exist without a central unity in which they can cohere. But
when we enquire what is this central unity which gives reality
to the object, we find that its unreality is as certain as the
unreality of the predicates, and perhaps even more obvious.
For if we attempt to make a single statement about this
abstract object—even to say that it exists—we find ourselves
merely adding to the number of predicates. This cannot help
us to attain our purpose, which was to know what the sub-
stratum is in which all the predicates inhere. We get no
nearer to this by learning that another predicate inheres in it.
Thus the abstract object is an unreality, and yet, if it is
withdrawn, the residuum of the concrete object becomes an
unreality too. Such a relation is not uncommon in metaphysics.
All reality is concrete. All concrete ideas can be split up into
abstract elements. If we split up the concrete idea, which
corresponds to some real thing, into its constituent abstractions,
we shall have a group of ideas which in their unity correspond
to a reality, but when separated are self-contradictory and
unreal. The position of the abstract object is thus similar to
that of another abstraction which has received more attention
in metaphysics—the abstract subject.
Mr Bradley has given this abstract object the name of the
This, in opposition to the What, which consists of the predicates
which we have found to be applicable to the This. While know-
ledge remains imperfect, the This has in it the possibility of an
indefinite number of other qualities, besides the definite number
which have been ascertained and embodied in predicates.
When knowledge becomes perfect—as perfect as it is capable
of becoming—this possibility would disappear, as it seems to
me, though Mr Bradley does not mention this point. In perfect
knowledge all qualities of the object would be known, and theTHE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
221
coherence of our knowledge as a systematic whole would be the
warrant for the completeness of the enumeration. But even
here the abstract This would still remain, and prove itself
irreducible to anything else. To attempt to know it is like
attempting to jump on the shadow of one’s own head. For all
propositions are the assertion of a partial unity between the
subject and the predicate. The This on the other hand is just
what distinguishes the subject from its predicates.
197. It is the existence of the This which renders it
impossible to regard knowledge as a self-subsistent whole,
and makes it necessary to consider it merely as an approxi-
mation to the complete activity of spirit for which we search.
In the This we have something which is at once within and
without knowledge, which it dares not neglect, and yet cannot
deal with.
For when we say that the This cannot be known, we do not
mean, of course, that we cannot know of its existence. We
know of its existence, because we can perceive, by analysis,
that it is an essential element of the concrete object. But the
very definition which this analysis gives us shows that we can
know nothing about it but this—that there is indeed nothing
more about it to know, and that even so much cannot be put
into words without involving a contradiction. Now to know
merely that something exists is to present a problem to know-
ledge which it must seek to answer. To know that a thing
exists, is to know it as immediate and contingent. Knowledge
demands that such a thing should be mediated and rationalised.
This, as we have seen, cannot be done here. This impossibility
is no reproach to the rationality of the universe, for reality is
no more mere mediation than it is mere immediacy, and the
immediacy of the This combines with the mediation of the
What to make up the concrete whole of Spirit. But it is a
reproach to the adequacy of knowledge as an activity of Spirit
that it should persist in demanding what cannot and should not
be obtained. Without immediacy, without the central unity
of the object, the mediation and the predicates which make
up knowledge would vanish as unmeaning. Yet knowledge is
compelled by its own nature to try and remove them, and
to feel itself baffled and thwarted when it cannot succeed.222
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
Surely an activity with such a contradiction inherent in it can
never be a complete expression of the Absolute.
198. In the first place the existence of the This is incom-
patible with the attainment of the ideal of unity in knowledge.
For here we have an element, whose existence in reality we are
forced to admit, but which is characterised by the presence of
that which is essentially alien to the nature of the knowing
consciousness in its activity. In so far as reality contains a
This, it cannot be brought into complete unison with the
knowing mind, which, as an object, has of course its aspect
of immediacy like any other object, but which, as the knowing
subject, finds all unresolvable immediacy to be fundamentally
opposed to its work of rationalisation. The real cannot be
completely expressed in the mind, and the unity of knowledge
is therefore defective.
And this brings with it a defective differentiation. For
while the This cannot be brought into the unity of knowledge,
it is unquestionably a part of reality. And so the failure of
knowledge to bring it into unity with itself involves that the
part of the object which is brought into unity with the subject
is only an abstraction from the full object. The individuality
of the object thus fails to be represented, aDd so its full
differentiation from the subject fails to be represented also.
The result is that we know objects, so to speak, from the out-
side, whereas, to know them in their full truth, we ought to
know them from inside. That every object1 has a real centre
of its own appears from the dialectic. For we have seen that
the conclusion from the dialectic is that all reality consists of
spirits, which are individuals. And, apart from this, the fact
that the object is more or less independent as against us—and
without some independence knowledge would be impossible,
as has already been pointed out—renders it certain that every
object has an individual unity to some extent. Now knowledge
1 In saying “ every object ” I do not necessarily mean every chair, every
crystal, or even every amoeba. Behind all appearance there is reality. This
reality we believe, on the authority of the dialectic, to consist of individuals.
But how many such centres there may be behind a given mass of appearance we
do not know. Every self-conscious spirit is, no doubt, one object and no more.
It is with regard to the reality behind what is called inorganic matter and the
lower forms of life that the uncertainty arises.THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
223
fails to give this unity its rights. The meaning of the object
is found in its This, and its This is, to knowledge, something
alien. Knowledge sees it to be, in a sense, the centre of the
object, but only a dead centre, a mere residuum produced by
abstracting all possible predicates, not a living and unifying
centre, such as we know that the synthetic unity of appercep-
tion is to our own lives, which we have the advantage of seeing
from inside. And since it thus views it from a standpoint which
is merely external, knowledge can never represent the object so
faithfully as to attain its own ideal.
199.	And here we see the reason why knowledge can never
represent quite accurately that harmony of the universe which
knowledge itself proves. We saw above that when knowledge
should have reached the greatest perfection of which it is capable
there would still remain one question unanswered—Why is the
universe what it is and not something else ? We may prove
the question unmeaning and absurd, but we cannot help asking
it. And the possibility of asking it depends on the existence of
the This, which knowledge is unable to bring into unity with
the knowing subject. The This is essential to the reality of
the object, and is that part of the object to which it owes its
independence of the subject. And the question naturally arises
Why should not this core of objectivity have been clothed with
other qualities than those which it has, and with which the
subject finds itself in harmony ?
The question arises because the existence of this harmony is
dependent on the This. The This alone gives reality to the
object. If it vanished, the harmony would not change into a
disharmony, but disappear altogether. And the This, as we
have seen, must always be for knowledge a something alien and
irrational, because it must always be an unresolved immediate.
Now a harmony which depends on something alien and irrational
must always appear contingent and defective. Why is there a
This at all ? Why is it just those qualities which give a
harmony for us that the favour of the This has raised into
reality ? To answer these questions would be to mediate the
This, and that would destroy it.
200.	It may be urged, as against this argument, that we
do not stand in such a position of opposition and alienation224
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
towards the This in knowledge. For we ourselves are objects
of knowledge as well as knowing subjects, and our abstract
personality, which is the centre of our knowledge is also the
This of an object. Now it might be maintained that the inter-
connection of the qualities of all different objects, which would
be perfect in perfect knowledge, would enable us to show why
all reality existed, and why it is what it is, if we could only
show it of a single fragment of reality. The difficulty, it might
be said, lies in reaching the abstract realness of the real by
means of knowledge at all. And if, by means of our own
existence as objects we were able to establish a single con-
nection with the objective world, in which the immediate
would not mean the alien, it is possible that no other connection
would be required. The last remaining opposition of the subject
to the object would disappear.
The difficulty, however, cannot be escaped in this way.
For the self as the object of knowledge is as much opposed
to the self as the subject as any other object could be. We
learn its qualities by arguments from data based on the
“ internal sense,” as we learn the qualities of other objects
by arguments from data given by the external senses. We
are immediately certain of the first, but we are immediately
certain of the second. And the central unity of our own nature
can no more be known directly in itself, apart from its qualities,
than can the central unities of other objects. We become aware
of its existence by analysing what is implied in having ourselves
for objects, and we become aware of the central unities of other
things by analysing what is implied in having them for objects.
We have no more direct knowledge of the one than of the other.
Of course nothing in our own selves is really alien to us,—not
even the element of immediacy which makes their This. But
then the existence of knowledge implies, as we have seen, that
the reality of other things is not really alien to us, although we
know it immediately. It is the defect of knowledge that it fails
to represent the immediate except as alien.
201. Here, then, we seem to have the reason why our
minds could never, in the most perfect state of knowledge
possible, get rid of the abstract idea of the contingency of
the whole system. We saw, in the first part of this chapterTHE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
225
that such an idea was unmeaning, since it would be impossible
for any reality to be destroyed or altered, unless the same
happened to all reality, and the possibility of this, which has
no common ground with actuality, is an unmeaning phrase.
And we have now seen another reason why the possibility
is unmeaning. For we have traced it to the persistence of
thought in considering its essential condition as its essential
enemy. The existence of such a miscalled possibility, there-
fore, tells nothing against the rationality of the universe. But
it does tell against the adequacy of knowledge as an expression
of the universe. By finding a flaw in perfection, where no
flaw exists, it pronounces its own condemnation. If the pos-
sibility is unmeaning, knowledge is imperfect in being com-
pelled to regard it as a possibility.
It may seem at first sight absurd to talk of knowledge as
inadequate. If it were imperfect, how could we know it ?
What right have we to condemn it as imperfect when the
judge is of necessity the same person as the culprit? This
is, of course, so far true, that if knowledge did not show us
its own ideal, we could never know that it did not realise it.
But there is a great difference between realising an ideal and
indicating it. It is possible, and I have endeavoured to show
that it is actually the case, that knowledge can do the one, and
not the other. When we ask about the abstract conditions
of reality, it is able to demonstrate that harmony must exist,
and that immediacy is compatible with it, and essential to it.
But when it is asked to show in detail how the harmony
exists, which it has shown must exist, it is unable to do so.
There is here no contradiction in our estimate of knowledge,
but there is a contradiction in knowledge, which prevents
us from regarding it as adequate, and which forces us to
look further in search of the ultimate activity of Spirit.
We saw before that this activity could not consist solely
of knowledge, but we have now reached the further conclusion
that knowledge, as knowledge, could not form even a part of
that activity. For it carries a mark of imperfection about it,
in its inability to completely attain the goal which it cannot
cease to strive for, and in its dependence on that which it
must consider an imperfection. We must therefore look for
15
M. H.226
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
the ultimate nature of Spirit in something which transcends
and surpasses cognition, including it indeed as a moment, but
transforming it and raising it into a higher sphere, where its
imperfections vanish.
202. In doing this we are compelled, of course, to reject
Hegel’s own treatment of the subject, in the Philosophy of
Spirit. But we may, I think, find some support for our position
in the Logic. For there, as it seems to me, we find the sketch
of a more complete and adequate representation of Absolute
Keality, than the one which is worked out in the Philosophy
of Spirit.
We have in the Logic, immediately before the Absolute
Idea, a category called Cognition in general. This is again
divided into Cognition proper and Volition. These two cate-
gories ai'e treated by Hegel as a thesis and antithesis, and,
according to the method pursued in every other part of the
Logic, the triad should have been completed by a synthesis,
before we pass out of Cognition in general to the final syn-
thesis—the Absolute Idea. No such synthesis, however, is
given by Hegel as a separate term. According to his ex-
position, the Absolute Idea itself forms the synthesis of the
opposition of Cognition proper and Volition, as it does also of
the larger opposition of Life and Cognition in general.
The significance of this part of the Logic for us lies in
the fact that Cognition proper requires to be synthesised with
Volition before we can reach the absolute reality. Of course
Hegel is not dealing, in the Logic, with the concrete activities
of cognition and volition, any more than he is dealing, rather
earlier in the Logic, with the concrete activities of mechanism
and chemistry. The Logic deals only with the element of
pure thought in reality, and when its categories bear the
names of concrete relations—this only means that the pure
idea, which is the category in question, is the idea which
comes most prominently forward in that concrete relation,
and which therefore can be usefully and significantly called
by its name.
This, however, does not destroy the importance of the Logic
for our present purpose. Although the concrete activities are
not merely their own logical ideas, they must stand in theTHE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.	227
same relation inter se as the logical ideas do inter se. For the
process in the Philosophy of Spirit, as in all the applications
of the dialectic, while it does not profess to be logical in the
sense that all its details can he logically deduced, certainly
professes to be logical in the sense that the relation of its
stages to one another can be logically explained1. Indeed, if it
did not do this, it could no longer be called an application of
the Logic at all, but would be a mere empirical collection of
facts. If then the idea of cognition proper—that is, of know-
ledge as opposed to volition—is by itself so imperfect and
one-sided, that it must be transcended, and must be synthesised
with the idea of volition, before the adequate and Absolute
Idea can be reached, it would seem to follow that a concrete
application of this philosophy is bound to regard cognition
as an inadequate expression of the full nature of reality, and
to endeavour to find some higher expression which shall unite
cognition and volition, preserving that which is true in each,
while escaping from their imperfections and one-sidedness.
203. It may be objected that the Cognition proper, which
is treated by Hegel as an inadequate category, denotes only
that knowledge which is found in ordinary experience and in
science, and that the place of knowledge in its highest shape—
the shape of philosophy—must be looked for under the Ab-
solute Idea. This view does not appear tenable on closer
examination. At the end of Cognition proper, Hegel tells us,
the content of cognition is seen to be necessary. This would
indicate philosophic knowledge, if “necessary” is taken as re-
ferring to the necessity of freedom, which is its normal use
in the Doctrine of the Notion. There is certainly a good deal
of discussion of philosophic method under the head of the
Absolute Idea. But this appears to be introduced, not because
this category is the one under which our philosophising comes,
but because it is the last category of the philosophy, and it
is therefore natural to look back, at this point, on the method
which has been pursued.
The most cogent argument, however, against this view is
that the Absolute Idea is defined as the union of Cognition
1 Cp. Chap. vii. Sections 207, 210.
15—222S
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
proper with Volition. Therefore the Absolute Idea must be
an idea richer and fuller than that of Cognition—richer and
fuller by the content of the idea of Volition. Now we can
have no reason to suppose that philosophic knowledge is the
union of ordinary knowledge with volition. For philosophy
stands in just the same relation to volition as ordinary know-
ledge does. We never have knowledge without having vo-
lition, but neither can be reduced to the other. The Absolute
Idea then contains within itself the idea of Knowledge only
as a transcended moment. If there is any difference between
them, indeed, we must consider the idea of Volition the higher
of the two, since it is Volition which forms the antithesis,
and we have seen that, in the Doctrine of the Notion, the
antithesis may be expected to be more adequate than the
thesis to which it is opposed1.
I am not attempting to argue from this that we ought
to take Hegel as putting anything more concrete than phi-
losophy into the nature of absolute reality. We are especially
bound in the case of so systematic a writer as Hegel, to look
for the authoritative exposition of his views on any subject
in the part of his work which professedly deals with that
subject. And in the Philosophy of Spirit it seems clear that
Hegel means the highest stage of Spirit to be nothing but
philosophy. But, in giving the abstract framework of absolute
reality in the Logic, he has given, as we have seen above, a
framework for something which, whatever it is, is more than
any form of mere cognition. And so, when saying that the
conclusion of the Philosophy of Spirit is inconsistent with the
general tenor of Hegel’s philosophy, we can strengthen our
position by adding that it is inconsistent with the final result
of the Logic.
204. Let us now turn to the Philosophy of Spirit, and
consider the way in which Hegel introduces Philosophy as
the culminating point of reality. The three terms which form
the triad of Absolute Spirit are Art, Revealed Religion, and
Philosophy. Of the relation of these three stages he speaks
as follows: “ Whereas the vision-method of Art, external in
Chap. iv. Sections 109, 110.THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
229
point of form, is but subjective production and shivers the
substantial content into many separate shapes, and whereas
Religion, with its separation into parts, opens it out in mental
picture, and mediates what is thus opened out; Philosophy
not merely keeps them together to make a total, but even
unifies them into the simple spiritual vision, and then in that
raises them to self-conscious thought. Such consciousness is
thus the intelligible unity (cognised by thought) of art and
religion, in which the diverse elements in the content are
cognised as necessary, and this necessary as free1.”
On examining this more closely, doubts present them-
selves. Is Philosophy really capable of acting as a synthesis
between Art and Religion ? Should it not rather form part
of the antithesis, together with Religion ? All the stages in
this triad of Absolute Spirit are occupied in endeavouring to
find a harmony between the individual spirit—now developed
into full consciousness of his own nature—on the one hand,
and the rest of the universe on the other hand. Such a
harmony is directly and immediately presented in beauty.
But the immediacy makes the harmony contingent and de-
fective. Where beauty is present, the harmony exists; where
it is not present—a case not unfrequently occurring—the
harmony disappears. It is necessary to find some ground of
harmony which is universal, and which shall enable us to
attribute rationality and righteousness to all things, inde-
pendently of their immediate and superficial aspect.
This ground, according to Hegel, is afforded us by the doc-
trines of Revealed Religion, which declares that all things are
dependent on and the manifestation of a reality in which we
recognise the fulfilment of our ideals of rationality and right-
eousness. Thus Revealed Religion assures us that all things
must be in harmony, instead of showing us, as Art does, that
some things are in harmony.
205. Now Philosophy, it seems to me, can do no more
than this. It is true that it does it, in what, from Hegel’s
point of view, is a higher and better way. It is true that it
substitutes a completely reasoned process for one which, in
1 Enc. Section 572.230
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
the last resort, rests on authority. It is true that it changes
the external harmony, which Revealed Religion offers, into a
harmony inherent in the nature of things. It is true that
the process, which is known to Revealed Religion as “ a cycle
of concrete shapes in pictorial thought,” and as “ a separation
into parts, with a temporal and external sequence,” is in
Philosophy “known as an indivisible coherence of the universal,
simple, and eternal spirit in itself1.” But all this does not
avail to bring back the simplicity and directness of Art, which
must be brought back in the synthesis. Art shows us that
something is as we would have it. Its harmony with our
ideals is visible on the surface. But Philosophy, like Religion,
leaving the surface of things untouched, points to their inner
nature, and proves that, in spite of the superficial discord and
evil, the true reality is harmonious and good. To unite these
we should require a state of spirit which should present us
with a harmony direct and immediate on the one hand, and
universal and necessary on the other. Art gives the first and
Philosophy the second, but Philosophy can no more unite the
two than Art can.
This is clear of philosophy, as we have it now, and so long
as it has not absorbed into itself all other knowledge. For
it is the knowledge of the general conditions only of reality.
As such, it can lay down general laws for all reality. But it is
not able to show how they are carried out in detail. It may
arrive at the conclusion that all that is real is rational. This
will apply, among other things, to toothache or cowardice.
Now we are shown by the whole history of religion that op-
timism based on general grounds may be of great importance
to the lives of those who believe it, and philosophy, if it can
give us this, will have given us no small gift. But jihilosophy
will not be able to show us how the rationality or the righteous-
ness come in, either in toothache or in cowardice. It can only
convince us that they are there, though we cannot see them.
It is obvious that we have as yet no synthesis with the direct-
ness and immediacy of art.
If philosophy should ever, as was suggested in the earlier
1 Enc. Section 571.THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
231
part of this chapter, develop so as to include all knowledge in
one complete harmony, then, no doubt, we should not only
know of every fact in the universe that it was rational, but
we should also see how it was so. Even here, however, the
required synthesis would not be attained. Our knowledge
would still be only mediate knowledge, and thus could not be
the synthesis for two reasons. Firstly, because, as we have seen,
it has to regard the immediate element in reality as to some
extent alien. Secondly, because the synthesis must contain
in itself, as a transcended moment, the immediate harmony
of art, and must therefore be lifted above the distinction of
mediate and immediate.
Besides this, a merely intellectual activity could not be
the ultimate truth of which art and religion are lower stages.
For both of these involve not merely knowledge, but volition,
and also feeling. And so the highest stage of spirit would
have to include, not only the perception of the rationality of
all things, which is offered by philosophy, but also the complete
acquiescence which is the goal of successful volition, and the
pleasure which is the inevitable result of conscious harmony.
206. The result of all this would appear to be, that, in
order to render the highest form of Absolute Spirit capable,
as it must be on Hegel’s theory, of transcending and summing
up all other aspects of reality, we shall have to recast the last
steps of the Philosophy of Spirit, so as to bring the result more
in accordance with the general outlines laid down at the end
of the Logic. Philosophy, together with Revealed Religion,
will be the antithesis to Art. And a place will be left vacant
for a new synthesis.
It forms no part of the object of this work to enquire what
this synthesis may be. My purpose has been only to give
some reasons for thinking that Hegel had not found an
adequate expression for the absolute reality, and I do not ven-
ture to suggest one myself. But we can, within very wide and
general limits, say what the nature of such an expression must
be. It must be some state of conscious spirit in which the
opposition of cognition and volition is overcome—in which we
neither judge our ideas by the world, nor the world by our
ideas, but are aware that inner and outer are in such close232
THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC.
and necessary harmony that even the thought of possible dis-
cord has become impossible. In its unity not only cognition
and volition, but feeling also, must be blended and united. In
some way or another it must have overcome the rift in dis-
cursive knowledge, and the immediate must for it be no longer
the alien. It must be as direct as art, as certain and universal
as philosophy.CHAPTER VII.
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
207. We have now to enquire in what manner the results
which we have gained by the dialectic process are applicable to
real life. I do not propose to discuss the utility of these results
as a guide to conduct, but there is another question more closely
connected with the dialectic itself. How, if at all, can the
pure theory, which is expounded in the Logic, be so used as to
assist in the explanation of the various facts presented to us in
experiencej Hegel divides the world into two parts—Nature
and SpirjBk What can his philosophy tell us about them ?
We hiSJfceen in our consideration of the dialectic that there
are certaj^ functions, with regard to our knowledge of Nature
and Spirit, which pure thought cannot perform, and which there
is no reason to think, in spite of the assertions of some critics,
that Hegel ever intended it to perform. In the first place, we
saw that the concrete world of reality cannot be held to be a
mere condescension of the Logic to an outward shape, nor a
mere dependent emanation from the self-subsistent perfection
of pure thought. For, so far from pure thought being able to
create immediate reality, it cannot itself exist unless something
immediate is given to it, which it may mediate and relate. And
we saw that, so far from Hegel’s theory being inconsistent with
this truth, it is entirely dependent on it. The force of his
deduction of Nature and Spirit from Logic lies in the fact that
pure thought is a mere abstraction which, taken by itself, is
contradictory. And therefore, since pure thought unquestion-
ably exists somehow, we are led to the conclusion that it cannot234
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
exist independently, but must be a moment in that more concrete
form of reality, which is expressed imperfectly in Nature and
adequately in Spirit.
And we saw, in the second place, that even this deduction
can only extend to the general nature of the reality, because it
is only that general nature which we can prove to be essential
for the existence of pure thought. We know, a priori, that
the reality must contain an immediate moment, in order that
thought may mediate it, that something must be given in order
that thought may deal with it. But further than this we
cannot go without the aid of empirical observation. No con-
sideration of the nature of pure thought can demonstrate
to us the necessity that a particular man should have red hair.
To do this we require immediate data. And here again we
found no reason to suppose that this limitation of pure thought
was ignored by Hegel. His attempts to apply his logical results
may have gone too far, but he never attempted to deduce the
necessity of all the facts he was attempting to rationalise. His
object was to point out that through every part of reality there
runs a thread of logical connection, so that the different parts
stand in intelligible relations to one another, and to Absolute
Reality. But he never tried to deduce the necessity of each
detail of reality from the nature of pure thought, or even to hold
out such a deduction as an ideal. This is evident, both from the
number of details which he mentions without even an attempt
to explain them, and also from his own direct statement1.
208. This then is one way in which we can apply the
conclusions of the Logic in the solution of more concrete
problems. We may trace the manifestations of the dialectic
process in the experience round us, and in so far as we do this
we shall have rationalised that experience. But, besides this,
we may gain some information from the dialectic concerning the
ultimate nature of Absolute Being. It will be convenient to
consider this latter point first.
No idea which is self-contradictory can be true until it is so
transformed that the contradictions have vanished. Now no
category in the Logic is free from contradictions except the
1 Cp. Chap. i. Section 27, and the passage from the Philosophy of Spirit there
quoted. Also Chap vi. Section 183.THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
235
Absolute Idea. Beality can therefore be fully apprehended
under no category but this. We shall find it to be true of all
reality, that in it is found “ der Begrifif der Idee, dem die Idee
als solche der Gegenstand, dem das Objekt sie istV From this
we can deduce several consequences. All reality must, on this
view, be Spirit, and be differentiated. Moreover, it must be
Spirit for which its differentiations are, in Hegel’s phrase,
“transparent,” that is, it must find in them nothing alien to
itself. It might also be maintained, though the point is too
large to be discussed here, that it must consist of finite self-
conscious spirits, united into a closely connected whole. And
it might not be impossible to determine whether the whole in
question was also a self-conscious being, or whether it is a unity
of persons without being itself a person. The questions dis-
cussed in the last chapter are also examples of the use that
may be made, in this connection, of the results of the dialectic.
209. The information thus attained would be enough to
justify us in saying that the results of Hegel’s philosophy, apart
from their theoretic interest, were of the greatest practical
importance. It is true that such results as these can but rarely
be available as guides to action. We learn by them what is the
nature of that ideal, which, sub specie aeternitatis, is present
in all reality, and which, sub specie temporis, is the goal towards
which all reality is moving. But such an ideal is, sub specie
aeternitatis, far too implicit, and, sub specie temporis, far too
distant, to allow us to use it in deciding on any definite course
of action in the present. Nor can it be taken to indicate even
the direction in which our present action should move. For
one of the great lessons of Hegel’s philosophy is that, in any
progress, we never move directly forwards, but oscillate from
side to side as we advance. And so a step which seems to be
almost directly away from our ideal may sometimes be the next
step on the only road by which that ideal can be attained.
But those who estimate the practical utility of a theory
only by its power of guiding our action, take too confined a
view. Action, after all, is always directed to some end. And,
whatever view we may take of the supreme end, it cannot be
denied that many of our actions are directed, and rightly
1 Enc. Section 236.236
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
directed, to the production of happiness for ourselves and others.
Surely, then, a philosophical theory which tended to the pro-
duction of happiness would have as much claim to be called
practically important, as if it had afforded guidance in action.
Now such conclusions as to the ultimate nature of things
as we have seen can be reached by Hegel’s philosophy have
obviously a very intimate connection with the problems which
may be classed as religious. Is the universe rational and
righteous ? Is spirit or matter the fundamental reality ? Have
our standards of perfection any objective validity ? Is our per-
sonality an ultimate fact or a transitory episode ? All experience
and all history show that for many men the answers to these
questions are the source of some of the most intense and per-
sistent joys and sorrows known in human life. Nor is there
any reason to think that the proportion of such people is
diminishing. Any system of philosophy which gives any
reasons for deciding such questions, in one way rather than
another, will have a practical interest, even if it should fail to
provide us with counsel as to the organisation of society, or
with explanations in detail of the phenomena of science.
210. We must now turn to the second way in which Hegel
endeavours to apply the dialectic to experience. It is to this
that he gives the greater prominence. His views on the nature
of absolute reality are to be found in the Philosophy of Spirit,
and also in the Philosophy of Religion, but they are not given
at any length. On many important points we have no further
guide than the development of the Absolute Idea in the Logic,
and we must judge for ourselves what consequences can be
drawn, from that development, as to the concrete whole of which
the Absolute Idea is one moment.
A much larger portion of his writings is occupied in tracing,
in the succession of events in time, the gradual development of
the Absolute Idea. To this purpose are devoted almost the
whole of the Philosophies of Nature, Spirit, Religion, Law and
History, as well as the History of Philosophy. He does not, as
has been already remarked, endeavour to deduce the facts, of
which he treats, from the Absolute Idea. Nor does he ever
attempt to deduce each stage from the one before it. We pass,
for example, from Moralitat to Sittlichkeit, from the PersianTHE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
237
religion to the Syrian, or from the Greek civilisation to the
Roman. But there are, in each case, many details in the second
which are not the consequence of anything in the first, and
which must be explained empirically by science, or else left
unexplained. His object is to show that the central ideas of
each stage are such that each follows from its predecessor—
either as a reaction from its one-sidedness, or as a reconciliation
of its contradictions—and that these ideas express, more and
more adequately as the process gets nearer to its end, the
Absolute Idea which had been expounded in the Logic.
It is sometimes said that Hegel endeavoured to show that
the stages of development, in the various spheres of activity
which he considered in his different treatises, corresponded to
the various categories of the Logic. This, however, seems an
exaggeration. His theories of Nature, Spirit, Religion, and Law
are each divided into three main sections, which doubtless
correspond, and are meant to correspond, to the three primary
divisions of the Logic—Being, Essence, and the Notion. But
to trace any definite correspondence between the secondary
divisions of these works (to say nothing of divisions still more
minute) and the secondary divisions of the Logic, appears im-
possible. At any rate no such correspondence is mentioned by
Hegel. The connection with the Logic seems rather to lie in
the similarity of development, by thesis, antithesis, and syn-
thesis, and in the gradually increasing adequacy of the mani-
festation of the Absolute Idea, as the process gradually develops
itself.
Of the Philosophy of History, indeed, we cannot say even
as much as this. For it is divided, not into three, but into
four main divisions, thus destroying the triadic form and the
analogy to the three divisions of the Logic. And although
Hegel would probably have found no difficulty, on his own
principles, in reducing the second and third divisions to one, it
is a fact of some significance that he did not think it worth
while to do so. It seems to indicate that he attached less
importance, than has sometimes been supposed, to the exact
resemblance of the scheme of the concrete processes to the
scheme of pure thought in the Logic. In the History of Philo-
sophy, again, many of the subordinate divisions are not triple.238
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
211.	The applications of the dialectic to various aspects of
reality have been the part of Hegel’s work which has received
of late years the most notice and approbation. This is, no
doubt, largely due to a reaction against Hegel’s general position.
To those who reject that position the whole of the dialectic of
pure thought must seem a stupendous blunder—magnificent or
ridiculous according to the taste of the critic. With the dia-
lectic of pure thought would fall also, of course, all general and
demonstrated validity of its applications. But the brilliance
and suggestiveness of many of the details of these applications
have often been acknowledged by those who reject the system
in which they were arranged, and the basis from which it is
sought to justify them.
Among the followers of Hegel a different cause has led to
the same effect. The attraction of Hegel’s philosophy to many
of them appears to lie in the explanations it can give of par-
ticular parts of experience rather than in its general theory of
the nature of reality. These explanations—attractive by their
aesthetic completeness, or because of the practical consequences
that follow from them—are adopted and defended by such
writers in an empirical way. It is maintained that we can see
that they do explain the facts, while others do not, and they
are believed for this reason, and not because they follow from
the dialectic of pure thought. Hegelian views of religion, of
morals, of history, of the state are common enough among us.
They appear to be gaining ground in many directions. Nor can
it be said that their advocates are neglectful of the source from
which they derive their theories. They often style themselves
Hegelians. But the dialectic of pure thought tends to fall into
the background. Hegel’s explanations of the rationality to be
found in particular spheres of existence are accepted by many
who ignore or reject his demonstrations that everything which
exists must be rational.
212.	I wish to put forward a different view—that the
really valid part of Hegel’s system is his Logic, and not his
applications of it. In the preceding chapters I have given
some reasons in support of the view that the general position
of the Logic is justifiable. With regard to its applications, on
the other hand, although they doubtless contain much that isTHE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
239
most valuable, their general and systematic validity seems
indefensible.
As we have already seen, there is nothing in the nature
of Hegel’s object here, which should render his success impos-
sible a priori. The difficulties which arise are due rather to
the greatness of the task, and to the imperfection of our present
knowledge. These difficulties we have now to consider.
213. The movement of the Idea, as we learned in the
Logic, is by thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, the first two being
opposed, and the third reconciling them. If we are able to trace
the progressive manifestations of the Idea in facts, these mani-
festations will arrange themselves in triads of this kind. And
Hegel has attempted to show that they do so.
But how are we to determine which stages are theses, which
are antitheses, and which again syntheses ? This can, I believe,
only be done safely, in the case of any one term, by observing
its relation to others, which have already been grasped in the
system. And, as these again will require determination by their
relation to others previously determined, we shall be able to
build up a dialectic system only if we have fixed points at one
or both ends of the chain to start from. We cannot safely begin
in the middle and work backwards and forwards.
There is nothing in the nature of any term which can tell
us, if we take it in isolation from others, whether it is a thesis
or an antithesis—that is, whether it will require, as the process
goes forward, the development of another term opposite and
complementary to itself, before a synthesis can be reached, or
whether it is itself opposed and complementary to some term
that came before it, so that a reconciliation will be the next
step to be expected in the process. Theses may be said to be
positive, antitheses negative. But no term is either positive or
negative per se. In a dialectic process we call those terms
positive which reaffirm, on a higher level, the position with
which the process started, the negative terms being the com-
plementary denials which are necessary as means to gain the
higher level. But to apply this test we should have to know
beforehand the term with which the process started. Or we
may say that the terms are positive which express the reality
to which the process is advancing, though they express it240	THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
inadequately, while the negative terms are those which, in
recognising the inadequacy, temporarily sacrifice the resem-
blance1. But this distinction, again, is useless until we know
what is the last term of the whole process.
Nor would it be possible to recognise any term, taken in
isolation, as a synthesis. Every term in a dialectic process,
except the two first, contains within itself some synthesis of
opposition, for all that is accomplished is transferred to all
succeeding terms. On the other hand, every synthesis in a
process, except the last, contains within itself a latent one-
sidedness, which will break out in the opposition of the next
thesis and antithesis, and require for its reconciliation another
synthesis. We can therefore only determine that a term is a
synthesis if we see that it does reconcile the two terms
immediately in front of it—in other words, if we see it in
relation to other terms. And the impossibility of recognising
a synthesis as such, if seen by itself, would be far greater in
the applications of the Logic than in the Logic itself. For
every fact or event has many sides or aspects, in some of which
it may appear to be a reconciliation of two opposites, and in
others to be one of two opposites which need a reconciliation.
(So Hegel, for example, appears to regard Protestantism as the
synthesis of the oppositions of Christianity, and as its highest
point, while Schelling opposes it as the “ religion of Paul ” to
the “ religion of Peter,” and looks forward to a “ religion of
John” which shall unite the two.) Now which of these aspects
is the significant one for our purpose at any time cannot be
known if the term is looked at in isolation. We can only know
that we must take it as a synthesis by seeing that it does unite
and reconcile the opposition of the two terms that go before it.
That is to say, we can only ascertain its place in the series
if we have previously ascertained the places of the adjacent
terms.
214. It would seem, then, that we can only hope to arrive
at a knowledge of any dialectic process, when we know, at least,
either the beginning or the end of the process as a fixed point.
For no other points can be fixed, unless those round them have
been fixed previously, and unless we get a starting-point in this
1 Cp. Enc. Section 85.THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
241
manner, we shall never be able to start at all. Now in the
Logic we do know the beginning and end. We know the
beginning before we start, and, although we do not know the
end before we start, yet, when we have reached it, we know
that it must be the last category of the Logic. We know that
the category of Being must be the beginning, because it is the
simplest of all the categories. And we should defend this
proposition, if it were doubted, by showing that all attempts to
analyse it into simpler categories fail, while in any other category
the idea of Being can be discovered by analysis. Again, we know
that the Absolute Idea is the last of the categories because it
does not develope any contradiction, which will require a recon-
ciliation in a higher category.
215.	We can determine in this way the highest and lowest
points of the Logic, because all the steps in the Logic are
categories of pure thought, and all those categories are implicit
in every act of thought. All we have to do, in order to construct
the Logic, is to analyse and make explicit what is thus pre-
sented. The subject-matter of the analysis can never be
wanting, since it is presented in every act of thought. But
when we are trying to discover, in a series of concrete facts,
the successive manifestations of the pure Idea, the case is
different. For these facts can only be known empirically,
and the further off they are in time the more difficult they
will be to remember or to predict. We are situated at neither
end of the process. Philosophy, religion, history—all the
activities whose course Hegel strives to demonstrate—stretch
backwards till they are lost in obscurity. Nor are we yet at
the end of any of them. Years go on, and new forms of reality
present themselves. And this is the first difficulty in the way
of our attempts to find the fixed points from which we may
start our dialectic. The beginnings of the series are too far
back to be remembered. The ends, so far as we can tell, are
too far forward to be foreseen.
216.	And, even if we did happen to know the stage which
was, as a matter of fact, the first or the last of a dialectic process,
should we be able to recognise it as such on inspection ? By
the hypothesis, its relation to the other terms of the process is
not yet known—for we are looking for an independent fixed
16
M. H.242
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
point in order that we may begin to relate the terms to one
another. And, since this is so, one term can, so far, only differ
from the others in expressing the Absolute Idea more or less
adequately. This is so far, therefore, only a quantitative differ-
ence, and thus, below the lowest stage that we know, and above
the highest stage that we know, we can imagine others yet, so
that our fixed points are still not found.
If, indeed, each stage in each of the applications of the
dialectic clearly corresponded to some one category of the Logic,
we might know that the stage which corresponded to the
category of Being was the lowest, and that the stage which
corresponded to the Absolute Idea was the highest. But this
is not the case. As has been mentioned above, the stages in
each of Hegel’s applications of the Logic are arranged, in some
cases, on the same principle as the categories of the Logic, but
without any suggestion of such definite correspondence. And
so, until the mutual relations of the stages are determined, they
can only be distinguished by quantitative differences which can
never define the beginning and end of their own series.
We cannot say of any stage, in any one of the applications
of the Logic, that it completely fails to embody the Absolute
Idea. For then, according to Hegel, it would have lost all
semblance of reality, and could not be given in experience.
And, if it does embody the Absolute Idea at all, we can always
imagine that something may exist which embodies that Idea
still less completely, still more abstractly. And so we can
never be sure that we have got to the right basis, from which
our dialectic process may start. Of course, such quantitative
estimates are succeeded by far deeper and more significant
relations when once the dialectic process is established. But
these will not help us here, where we are seeking the point on
which to establish the dialectic process.
217. In the Philosophy of Nature, indeed, the risk which
we run in taking space as our starting point is perhaps not
great. For, since the process of Nature includes all reality
below the level of Spirit, its lowest stage must be that at which
reality is on the point of vanishing altogether. And we may
take space as representing the absolute minimum of reality
without much danger of finding ourselves deceived. But itTHE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
243
will be different in dealing with religion, history, law, or
philosophy, where the lowest point of the particular process
is still relatively concrete, and leaves room for possible stages
below it.
And, except in the Philosophy of Spirit, the same may bo
said of the highest stage in any process. In none of the appli-
cations of the dialectic but this can we hope to meet with a
perfect embodiment of the Absolute Idea. For all the other
processes deal only with an aspect of reality, and their realisa-
tion of the Absolute Idea must be partial, and therefore
imperfect. In no religion, in no national spirit, or form of
government, in no system of metaphysics1, can we find a
complete realisation of the Absolute Idea. And so we are
always in uncertainty lest some new stage should arise in each
of these activities, which should embody the Absolute Idea a
little less imperfectly than any yet known.
218. Let us consider this in more detail. In the first
place, although the Philosophy of Spirit has a well-defined end,
and the Philosophy of Nature a fairly certain beginning, yet it
is impossible to find a point at which it is certain that the
Philosophy of Nature ends, and the Philosophy of Spirit begins.
What form can we take as the lowest in which Spirit is present?
The series of forms is continuous from those which certainly
belong to Spirit to those which certainly belong to Nature.
If we call everything Spirit, which has the germs of self-
consciousness in it, however latent, then we should have to
include the whole of Nature, since on Hegel’s principles, the
lower always has the higher implicit in it. On the other hand,
if we reserved the name of Spirit for the forms in which any-
thing like our own life was explicit, we should have to begin far
higher up than Hegel did, and we should have the same diffi-
culty as before in finding the exact place to draw the line.
In the Philosophy of Keligion, the points at each end of the
1 In the Philosophy of Spirit, Hegel says that Philosophy is the highest
stage of Spirit. But it is clear that Philosophy must here mean more than the
existence of a system of metaphysics held by professed metaphysicians as a
theory. It must be something which is universally accepted, and which
modifies all spiritual life. The highest point which could be reached in such
a History of Philosophy as Hegel’s would leave much to be done before Spirit
had reached its full development.
16—2244
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
process seem uncertain. Might not something be found, by
further historical investigation, which was lower even than
Magic, and which yet contained the germ of religion, and
ouo-ht to be treated as a form of it ? And at the other end
O
of the series a similar doubt occurs. It is clear, from the
Philosophy of Spirit, that Hegel regards Christianity, like all
other forms of “ revealed religion,” as in some degree an inade-
quate representation of the Absolute Idea. How can his system
guard against the possibility that a yet more perfect religion
may arise, or against the possibility that Christianity may
develope into higher forms ? Hegel would probably have
answered that the Philosophy of Religion has demonstrated
Christianity to be the synthesis of all other religions. But
if, as we have seen reason to think, the relations of the stages
cannot be accurately determined, until one end at least of the
series has been independently fixed, we cannot rely on the
relation of the stages to determine what stage is to be taken
as the highest, beyond which no other is possible1.
219. In the History of Philosophy we find the same diffi-
culty. Hegel begins his systematic exposition with Thales,
excluding all Oriental philosophy. This distinction can scarcely
be based on any qualitative difference. The reason that Hegel
assigns for it is that self-consciousness was not free in the
earlier systems2. But in what sense is this to be taken ? If
implicit freedom is to be taken into account, Hegel himself
points out, in the Philosophy of Religion, that the Oriental
religions had the germ of freedom in them. But if we are only
to consider freedom in so far as it is explicit, then we might find
it difficult to justify the inclusion of the earlier Greek philo-
sophies, in which the idea of freedom is still very rudimentary.
The end of the History of Philosophy, as expounded by
Hegel, is his own philosophy. Yet since his death several new
systems have already arisen. There is no ground to attribute to
Hegel any excessive degree of self-confidence. The system in
1	This criticism does not apply to Hegel’s demonstration of the nature of
Absolute Religion, which is really an attempt to determine the ultimate nature
of reality. (Cp. Section 208.) The difficulty arises when he tries to connect his
own idea of Absolute Religion with historical Christianity.
2	History of Philosophy, Vol. i. p. 117. (Vol. i. p. 99 of Haldane’s trans-
lation.)THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
245
which anyone believes fully and completely will always appear to
him the culminating point of the whole process of philosophy.
For it has solved for him all the contradictions which he has
perceived in former systems, and the fresh contradictions which
are latent in it cannot yet have revealed themselves to him, or
he would not have complete confidence in it. Thus it naturally
seems to him the one coherent system, and therefore the
ultimate system. But the appearance is deceptive, and we
cannot regard with confidence any theory of the growth of
philosophical systems which leaves no room for fresh systems
in the future.
The Philosophy of Law has not quite the same difficulties
to meet, since it is rather an analysis of the functions of a state,
and of the ethical notions which they involve, than an attempt
to describe a historical progression. But it is significant that
it ends by demonstrating that the ideal form of government
was very like the one under which Hegel was living. There
seems no reason to suspect that he was influenced by interested
motives. The more probable supposition is that he had come
to the conclusion that constitutional monarchy was the best
possible form of government for an European nation in 1820.
This is a legitimate opinion, but what is not legitimate is the
attempt to lay down & priori that it will always be the best
possible form. No form of government can completely embody
the Absolute Idea, since the idea of government, as we learn in
the Philosophy of Spirit, is itself but a subordinate one. And
it is very difficult to predict social changes which are still far
distant. So Hegel passed to the conclusion that the best
which had appeared was the best which could appear. He
thus imposed on empirical variety an a priori limit, which was
not critical but dogmatic, and liable to be upset at any moment
by the course of events.
220. In the Philosophy of History the contingency of the
starting point is still plainer. He begins with China, it is
clear, only because he did not happen to know anything older.
He had indeed a right, by his own definition of history, to
exclude tribes of mere savages. But he could have no reason
to assert—and he did not assert—that, before the rise of
Chinese civilization, there was no succession of nation to nation,246
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
each with its distinct character and distinct work, such as he
traces in later times. He did not know that there was such a
succession, and he could not take it into account. But this
leaves the beginning quite empirical.
And he admits in so many words that history will not stop
where his Philosophy of History stops. His scheme does not
include the Sclavonic races, nor the European inhabitants of
America. But he expressly says that the Sclavonic races may
have hereafter a place in the series of national developments,
and, still more positively, that the United States will have such
a place1. All attempt to fix the final point of history, or to put
limits to the development which takes place in it, is thus given
up.
In view of passages like these, it would seem that there is
not much truth in Lotze’s reproach, that modern Idealism
confined the spiritual develojiment of the Absolute to the
shores of the Mediterranean2. In the first place Hegel speaks
only of this planet, and leaves it quite open to us to suppose
that the Absolute Idea might be realised in other developments
elsewhere. It is scarcely fair, therefore, to charge such a
philosophy with ignoring the discoveries of Copernicus. And,
as to what does happen on the earth, Hegel devotes a large—
perhaps disproportionately large—part of the Philosophies of
Religion and History to China and India, which do not lie very
near the Mediterranean. We have seen also that he realised
that room must be left for the development of Russia and the
United States.
221. It appears, then, that of all the terminal points of the
different applications of the dialectic, only two can be indepen-
dently recognised, so as to give us the fixed points which we
find to be necessary in constructing the processes. These are
at the beginning of the Philosophy of Nature, and at the end
of the Philosophy of Spirit. Now Nature and Spirit, taken
together, form the chief and all-embracing process reaching
from the most superficial abstraction to the most absolute
reality, in which the evolution of society, of religion, and of
1	Philosophy of History, pp. 360, and 83. (pp. 363 and 90 of Sibree’s
translation.)
2	Metaphysic. Section 217.THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
247
philosophy are only episodes. And it may at first sight seem
improbable that we should be able to determine, with com-
parative certainty, the two points most remote from our
present experience—the one as the barest of abstractions, the
other as absolute and almost unimaginable perfection—while
points less remote are far more obscure. But further reflection
shows us that it is just because these points are the extremes
of all reality that they are comparatively determinable. Of the
first we know that it must be that aspect of reality which, of
all conceivable ways of looking at reality, is the least true, the
least significant, the least adequate to the Absolute Idea. Of
the second we know that it must be a conception of reality in
which the Absolute Idea is expressed with perfect adequacy.
We have thus the power, since the Logic tells us the nature of
the Absolute Idea, to anticipate to some degree the nature of
the first and last terms in the main process of reality. We
may be justified in recognising Space as the one, and in
predicting more or less what is to be expected in the other.
But in the subordinate processes of History, Law, Religion and
Philosophy, the highest and lowest points are not highest and
lowest absolutely, but only the highest and lowest degrees of
reality which can be expressed in a society, a creed, or a
metaphysical system. How low or how high these can be, we
.can only know empirically, since this depends on the nature of
societies, of creeds, and of systems, all of which contain em-
pirical elements1. And if it can only be known empirically, it
can never be known certainly. We can never be sure that the
boundaries we place are not due to casual limitations of our
actual knowledge, which may be broken down in the immediate
future.
And so there is nothing mysterious or suspicious in the fact
that many philosophers would be quite prepared to predict,
within certain limits, the nature of Heaven, while they would
1 The subject-matter of metaphysical systems is, no doubt, pure thought.
But the circumstances which determine that a particular view shall be held at a
particular time and in a particular shape are to a large extent contingent and
only to be known empirically. Nor can we determine by pure thought how
large an element in the complete perfection of Spirit consists in correct views
on general questions of metaphysics—or in other words, what is the relation of
the process given in the History of Philosophy to the main process of Spirit.248
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
own their philosophy quite incompetent to give any information
about the probable form of local government which will prevail
in London one hundred years hence. For on such a theory as
Hegel’s we should know that in Heaven the Absolute Idea was
completely and adequately manifested. But of the government
of London we should only know that, like all earthly things, it
would manifest the Absolute Idea to some extent, but not
completely. And to determine, by the aid of the dialectic, how
much and in what form it would manifest it, we should have to
begin by determining the position of the municipal organi-
sation of London in 1996 in a chain which stretches from the
barest possible abstraction to the fullest possible reality. This
we cannot do. Philosophers are in much the same position as
Mr Kipling’s muleteer—
“We know what heaven and hell may bring,
But no man knoweth the mind of the king1.”
For they are on firmer ground in theology than in sociology.
And perhaps there is not much to regret in this.
222. We must now pass on to a second defect in Hegel’s
application of his Logic to experience. The difficulty of fixing
the first and last points in the dialectic process is not the only
obstacle in our way. Much of Hegel’s work, as we have seen,
consisted in applying the dialectic process to various special
fields—to Religion, to History, to Law, and to Philosophy.
Now in doing this, he is in each case dealing with only one
aspect of reality, leaving out of account many others. Can we
expect such a fragment of reality, taken by itself, to be an
example of the dialectic process ? No side of reality can be
really isolated from all the others, and, unless we fall into quite
a false abstraction, we must allow for the interaction of every
aspect of reality upon every other aspect. This is a truth
which Hegel fully recognises, and on which, indeed, he em-
phatically insists. For example, he points out that the
constitution possible for a country at any time must depend
on its character, and both History and Philosophy are, in his
exposition, closely connected with Religion.
But these various dialectical processes are not, according to
1 The Ballad of the King's Jest.THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
249
Hegel, synchronous. Philosophy, for example, begins for him
in Greece, which in historical development is already in the
second stage. History, again, begins for him in China, whose
religion on the other hand represents an advance on primitive
simplicity. If, then, these three processes react on one another,
it follows that the spontaneous development of each according
to the dialectic will be complicated and obscured by an in-
definite number of side influences introduced from other aspects
of reality then in different stages. It is true that everything
which influences, like that which is influenced, is obeying the
same law of the dialectic. But still the result will not
exhibit that law. Suppose a hundred pianos were to play the
same piece of music, each beginning a few seconds after its
neighbour, while the length of these intervals was unequal and
regulated by no principle. The effect on the ear, when all the
hundred had started, would be one of mere confusion, in spite
of the fact that they were all playing the same piece.
223. The same difficulty will not occur in the process of
Nature and Spirit. For this relates, not to one side of reality
only, but to the whole of it, and there are therefore no influences
from outside to be considered. But there is an analogous diffi-
culty, and an equally serious one.
It is a fact, which may perhaps be explained, but which
cannot be disputed, that, if we consider the world as a dialectic
process, we shall find, when we look at it sub specie temporis,
that its different parts are, at any moment, very unequally
advanced in that process. One part of the world is explicitly
Spirit, another part is that implicit form of Spirit which we call
Matter. One creature is a jelly-fish, and another is a man.
One man is Shakespeare, and another is Blackmore. Now
these different parts of the world will react on one another,
and, since they are engaged in different parts of the process,
and we cannot trace any system in their juxtaposition, the
course of the dialectic will be altered in each case, as it was in
Religion, History, and Philosophy, by the influence of various
other forces, themselves obeying the same law of the dialectic,
but producing, by casual and contingent interactions, a result
in which it will be impossible to trace the dialectic scheme.
If, for example, we try to follow the working of the dialectic250
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
process in the lives of individual men, we find that one of the
most prominent facts in the life of each man is his death at a
certain time. Whatever importance death may have for his
spiritual development, it is obviously all-important to our
power of explaining his spiritual development, since with
death we lose sight of him. Now it is but seldom that death
comes as a consequence or even as a symbol of something
significant in a man’s spiritual history. It generally comes
from some purely material cause—an east wind, a falling tile,
or a weak heart. And this is only the most striking of the
innumerable cases in which our spiritual nature is conditioned
and constrained by outside facts, which may be developing
along their own paths, but which, as regards that spiritual
nature, must be looked on as purely arbitrary.
And if the dialectic cannot be observed in the individual,
owing to these external disturbances, we shall not be more
successful in tracing it accurately in the race as a whole. In
the first place, material causes—the Black Death, for example,—
often produce results on the spiritual development of nations, or
of the civilised world. And, secondly, the development of the
race must manifest itself in individuals, and if it is hampered
in each of them by material conditions, it will not exist at all,
free from those conditions. This could only be denied on the
supposition that, if we took a sufficient number of cases, the
results of the external influences would cancel one another,
leaving the inherent development of spirit unchecked. This
would, however, be a pure assumption, and not likely, as far as
we can judge at present, to be in accordance with the facts.
For the influence which material causes have on the develop-
ment of Spirit has a distinctive character, and its effects are
more probably cumulative than mutually destructive.
224. Of course anyone who accepts Hegel’s Logic must
believe that the nature of the Absolute, taken as a whole, is
entirely rational, and that, consequently, all the facts of experi-
ence are really manifestations of reason, however irrational and
contingent they may appear. But this takes us back to the
other practical use of Hegel’s philosophy, which we admitted as
valid, namely, that it will assure us, on general grounds, that
everything must be rational, without showing us how particularTHE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
251
things are rational. It will not alter the fact that if we are
trying to explain how the various facts of any particular kind
are rational, by tracing their dialectical connection with one
another, we shall fail in so far as they are influenced by the
facts which are not part of that chain, however sure we may be
on general grounds that they, like everything else, must be
rational.
The only way in which we could get a dialectic process,
dealing with actual facts, secure from extraneous influences,
would be to trace the connection of the state of the whole
universe, taken sab specie temporis, at one moment of time, with
the state of the whole universe at some subsequent moment.
This, of course, could not be done, unless we knew what the
state of the whole universe at one particular moment really was,
which is obviously impossible, since, to mention only one point,
our knowledge is almost entirely confined to this planet.
We have found so far, then, that the attempts to trace the
dialectic process, as it manifests itself in Religion, Law, History,
or Philosophy, suffered under two defects. In the first place, we
could not hope to find the fixed points which were necessary
before we could begin to construct the dialectic, and, in the
second place, the course of the dialectic process must be continu-
ally disturbed by external causes. With regard to the main
process of Nature and Spirit, we found that it might be free
from the first fault, but not from the second.
225. I need only touch on a third obstacle which presents
itself. This consists in the extent and intricacy of the subject-
matter which must be known, and unified by science, before we
can hope to interpret it by means of the dialectic. The hindrance
which this throws in the way of Hegel’s purpose has perhaps
been overestimated by his opponents. For they have repre-
sented him as trying to deduce, and not merely to explain, the
facts of experience. And they have exaggerated the extent to
which he believed himself to have succeeded in making his
system complete1. But after allowing for all this, it must be
admitted that the task which Hegel did undertake was one
which often required more knowledge of facts than he had, or
than, perhaps, can be obtained. This difficulty is least promi-
1 Cp. Section 220.252
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
nent in Religion and Philosophy, where the facts to be dealt
with are comparatively few and easy of access. It is most
prominent in the Philosophy of Nature, which, as we saw, was
comparatively fortunate in being able to fix its starting-point
with tolerable certainty. The abuse which has been heaped on
this work is probably excessive. But it cannot be denied that
it has a certain amount of justification.
226. We seem thus reduced to a state of almost complete
scepticism as to the value of Hegel’s applications of the dialectic,
taken as systems. We may continue to regard as true the idea
of the evolution, by inherent necessity, of the full meaning of
reality, siuce that follows from the Logic. But Hegel’s magnifi-
cent attempt to trace the working of that evolution through the
whole field of human knowledge must be given up.
Must we give up with it all attempts to apply the conclusions,
so hardly won in the Logic, to our present experience, and
content ourselves with the information that they can give us as
to Absolute Reality seen in its full completeness ? It seems to
me that we need not do so, and that experience, as we have it
now, may be interpreted by means of the dialectic in a manner
possibly not less useful, though less ambitious, than that which
Hegel himself attempted.
We saw that two of the difficulties in the way of Hegel’s
scheme were the multiplicity of the details, which are found in
any subject-matter as given in experience, and the fact that the
different chains of the dialectic process acted irregularly on one
another, so that none of them remained symmetrical examples
of the dialectic development. Now both these difficulties would
be avoided, if, instead of trying to trace the dialectic process
in actual events, which are always many-sided, and influenced
from outside, we tried to trace such a process in some of the
influences at work on these events, taken in abstraction from
other influences.
For example, it would probably be impossible to trace a
dialectic process in the moral history of any man or nation,
except in a few prominent features. For the causes which
determine moral development are indefinitely complex, and
many of them have themselves no moral significance. A man’s
moral nature is affected by his own intellectual development, byTHE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
253
his relations with other men, and by his relations with material
things. All these causes, no doubt, also move in dialectic
processes, but they are not processes in unison with the process
of his moral nature, and so they prevent it exhibiting an example
of the dialectic movement. A man may have committed a sin of
which, by the inner development of his own will, he would soon
come to repent. But if, through some disease, he loses his
memory shortly after committing the sin, his repentance may,
to say the least, be indefinitely postponed.
Difficulties like these arise whenever our subject-matter is
concrete moral acts, which have always other aspects besides
that of their moral quality, and which are affected by many cir-
cumstances that are not moral acts. Let us now consider what
would be the case if we took comparatively abstract moral
qualities—e.g. Innocence, Sin, Punishment, Repentance, Virtue.
Between these there would be a much greater chance of dis-
covering some dialectic connection. By considering abstract
qualities we save ourselves, in the first place, from the com-
plexity caused by the indefinite multiplicity of particulars
which are to be found in any given piece of experience. For
we deal only with those characteristics which we have ourselves
selected to deal with. And, in the second place, we escape from
the difficulties caused by the intrusion of outside influences.
For we are not considering what does happen in any actual
case, but what would happen if all but a given set of conditions
were excluded, or, to put it in another way, what influence on
actual facts a certain force tends to exert when taken by itself.
We abstract, in the case given above, from all aspects of actions
except their morality, and we abstract from all causes which
influence action, except the deliberate moral choice of the
agent. In the same way, every moving body is under the
influence of an indefinite number of forces. But it is possible
to isolate two of them, and to consider how the body would
move if only those two forces acted upon it. The result, in
its abstraction, will not apply exactly to any concrete case, but
it may render us important aid in explaining and influencing
concrete cases.
The third difficulty which met us in dealing with Hegel’s
own applications of the dialectic was the impossibility of deter-254
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
mining the relation of the various stages to one another, unless
we knew the beginning or the end of the process beforehand,
which we seldom did. This difficulty does not arise in our
proposed abstract applications of the dialectic, on account of
their comparatively humble aim. There is no attempt here, as
there was before, to construct even a part of the chain of stages
which reaches from beginning to end of the whole temporal
process. We only assert that, when a certain number of abstract
terms are taken in connection with one another, they stand in
certain relations which are an example of the dialectic movement.
Here we are sure of our starting-point, because we have made it
ourselves.
227. The best example of such an application of the
dialectic method, which is to be found in Hegel’s own work,
is his theory of Sin, referred to above. It is rather implied
than directly stated, but, if we compare his treatment of the
subject in the Philosophy of Spirit and in the Philosophy of
Religion, it appears that he regards Innocence (Unschuldigkeit)
and Virtue as the thesis and synthesis of a triad, whose anti-
thesis consists of a subordinate triad, of which the terms are
Sin, Punishment, and Repentance.
This process gains, of course, its simplicity, its independence
of external influences, and its fixed starting-point, merely by
abstraction—the only way in which definiteness can ever be
gained in our present state of imperfect knowledge. And
therefore, like every result gained by abstraction, it is more
or less untrue. Its value must depend on its being approxi-
mately true sufficiently often, and with sufficient exactitude, to
make it practically useful. This is the case with all abstrac-
tions. No one, for example, ever acted exclusively from purely
economic motives, but most people act from them enough to
make it worth while to work out what would happen if every-
one always did so. On the other hand it would not be worth
while to work out what would happen if everyone desired to
suffer as much bodily pain as possible, because few people are
greatly influenced by such a desire.
Now the conditions of Hegel’s dialectic of virtue do occur in
life sufficiently often and with sufficient exactitude to make the
knowledge we have gained by the abstraction practically valuable.THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
255
For whenever men are acting so that their acts have a moral
quality—and this is almost always the case—then the moral
aspect of a particular action will be one of the most important
of the factors which determine whether it shall, under given
circumstances, take place or not, and what its results will be,
if it does take place. And so the relation which exists between
the moral aspects of actions and mental states will afford us,
in many instances, materials for explaining those actions
and states with sufficient accuracy, although, resting on ab-
straction, it will never succeed in giving a complete explana-
tion of the facts in any actual case, and in some cases will give
us scarcely any help in explaining them.
228.	Another relation of abstract terms which can often
throw great light on experience is that which is sometimes
summed up in the maxim, Die to live. Here the thesis is the
possession or assertion of something good in itself, while the
antithesis is the abandonment or the denial of that good, on
account of some defect or narrowness in the statement of the
thesis. The synthesis, again, is the enjoyment of the original
good in a deeper and better way, when the defect has been
purged out by the discipline of the antithesis. As an abstrac-
tion, this relation can never express the whole nature of any
event. That which, from one point of view, is positive, may
from another be negative, and from a third be a reconciliation
of two extremes. But when, as often happens, we are looking
at things from one limited point of view, and temporarily
ignoring others, the arrangement of our subject-matter upon
such a scheme may be very valuable.
229.	But, after all, the main practical interest of Hegel’s
philosophy does not lie in such interpretations, useful and
suggestive as they are. It is rather to be found in the abstract
certainty which the Logic gives us that all reality is rational
and righteous, even when we cannot in the least see how it is
so, and also in the general determination of the nature of
true reality, which we saw above was a legitimate consequence
of the Logic1. In other words, when we ask of what value
philosophy is, apart from the value of truth for its own sake, we
1 Sections 208, 209.256
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
shall find that it lies more in the domains of religion than in
those of science or practice. Its importance is not that it shows
us how the facts around us are good, not that it shows us how
we can make them better, but that it proves, if it is successful,
that they, like all other reality, are, sub specie aeternitatis,
perfectly good, and, sub specie temporis, destined to become
perfectly good.
The practical value of the dialectic, then, lies in the demon-
stration of a general principle, which can be carried into particu-
lars or used as a guide to action, only in a very few cases, and
in those with great uncertainty. In saying this we shall seem
at first sight to deny that the dialectic has really any practical
use at all. But reflection may convince us that the effect of
philosophy on religion is quite as practical, and perhaps even
more important, than the effect which it might have exercised
on science and conduct, if Hegel’s applications of the dialectic
could have been sustained.
That the effect on religion is one which we are entitled to
consider of practical, and not merely of theoretical interest, was
pointed out above1. For, through religion, philosophy will in-
fluence the happiness of those who accept its theories, and
nothing can have more immediate practical interest than any
cause which increases or diminishes happiness.
230. We may go, I think, even further than this. It is
more important, for our general welfare, to be able to apply
philosophy to religion, than to science and conduct. We must
consider that the general conviction of the rationality and
righteousness of the universe must be reached by philosophy,
or else not reached at all—at least as a matter of reasoning.
Now the application of the dialectic to the particular facts is
not indispensable in the same way. It is true that it is essential
to life, and to all that makes life worth having, that we should
be able to some extent to understand what goes on round us,
and should have some rules by which we can guide our conduct.
And, no doubt, it would assist us in both these terms if we could
succeed in tracing the manifestations of the dialectic process in
the facts around us, and in anticipating the facts in which it
1 Section 209.THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
257
will be manifested in the future. But still, for these aims, the
aid of the dialectic is not essential. The finite sciences can
explain the facts of our life, incompletely, indeed, and im-
perfectly, but still to a great extent, and to an extent which is
continually increasing. And we shall find in common sense,
and in the general principles of ethics, the possibility of
pursuing a coherent and reasonable course of action, even if
we do not know the precise position at which we are in the
dialectic process towards the perfection which is the goal of our
efforts.
Here, then, philosophy would be, from the practical point of
view, useful, but not necessary. But its importance with regard
to religion is greater. We cannot observe that all reality is
rational and righteous as a fact of experience, nor can we make
it rational and righteous by any act of ours. If we do believe
that it is so, it must either be by some reasoning which falls
within the jurisdiction of philosophy, or by the acceptance of
some form of what Hegel calls Revealed Religion. Now, without
considering whether the acceptance of the latter is justifiable or
not, it cannot be denied that the number of people to whom it
does not seem justifiable is always considerable, and shows no
marked signs of diminishing. And many of those who do accept
some form of Revealed Religion, base their belief in large
measure on a conviction, reached by philosophical methods,
that the rationality and righteousness of the universe are
antecedently probable, or, at all events, not antecedently im-
probable1.
Our religious views then, if challenged,—and they do not
often pass now-a-days without being challenged—rest to a larger
and larger extent on philosophical arguments. The practical
importance of religious views—one way or the other—to the
world’s happiness, is likely to increase rather than to diminish.
For, as increasing wealth and civilisation set a greater proportion
of mankind free from the constant pressure of mere bodily wants,
the pressure of spiritual needs becomes more clearly felt, and is
increased by every advance which is made in intelligence and
culture. The more we succeed in removing such of the evils
1 Cp. Mr Balfour’s Foundations of Belief, Part u., Chap. 4, and Part iv.,
Chap. 5, Section v.
M. H.
17258
THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
and limitations of life as can be removed, the more clearly do
those which cannot be removed reveal themselves, and the more
imperative becomes the demand for some assurance that these
also are transitory, and that all things work together for good.
Nor does this tendency of our nature deserve to be called, as it
often is called, either selfish or abstract. If we care for virtue,
we can scarcely fail to be interested in the ultimate righteous-
ness or iniquity of the universe, as judged by our moral ideals.
If we care for the men and women we know, it seems not
unnatural that we should sometimes ask ourselves what—if any-
thing—will happen to them when their bodies have ceased to
exist.
I maintain, therefore, that we have reached a conclusion
which is not really sceptical, even as to the practical value of
Hegel’s philosophy, when we reject his attempts to trace the
manifestations of the dialectic process in the particular facts
of our experience. For the more important of the practical
effects of philosophy is left untouched—more important, be-
cause here philosophy is indispensable if the result is to be at-
tained at all.
231. It may be objected that such a view as this is more
than a partial difference from Hegel, and that its abstractness
violates the whole spirit of his system. To say that we know of
the existence of a rationality and righteousness, which we are
yet unable to trace in detail in experience, may appear at first
sight to mean a trust in some other-worldly reality. Such a
trust would doubtless be completely opposed to the most funda-
mental principles of Hegel’s philosophy. But this objection
misrepresents the position. It is not asserted that the rational
and righteous reality is something behind and separate from
experience. On the contrary, it is and must be perfectly mani-
fested in that experience, which is nothing but its manifestation.
But we do not see in detail how it is such a manifestation. Thus
it is not the reality which is abstract, but only our knowledge of
it. And this is not surprising, since all imperfect knowledge
must be abstract, and it is matter of common notoriety that our
knowledge is as yet imperfect.
Nor need we much regret such a limitation of the province
of philosophy. For if our present knowledge were completelyTHE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC.
259
adequate to reality, reality would be most inadequate to our
ideals. It is surely at least as satisfactory a belief, if we hold
that the highest object of philosophy is to indicate to us the
general nature of an ultimate harmony, the full content of which
it has not yet entered into our hearts to conceive. All true
philosophy must be mystical, not indeed in its methods, but in
its final conclusions.
CAMBRIDGE : PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.■