{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_54992/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_54992","id":"gutenberg_54992","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54992","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831","Logic"],"text":"PROLEGOMENA\n\nTO THE STUDY OF\n\nHEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY\n\nAND\n\n_ESPECIALLY OF HIS LOGIC_\n\nBY\n\nWILLIAM WALLACE, M.A., LL.D.\n\nFELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE\n\nAND WHYTE'S PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD\n\nSECOND EDITION, REVISED AND AUGMENTED\n\nOXFORD\n\nAT THE CLARENDON PRESS\n\n1894\n\n\n\n\nIN REMEMBRANCE OF\n\nB. JOWETT\n\nLATE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK\n\nAND\n\nMASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE\n\nOXFORD\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThe present volume of Prolegomena completes the second edition of my\nLOGIC OF HEGEL which originally appeared in 1874. The translation,\nwhich was issued as a separate volume in the autumn of 1892, had been\nsubjected to revision throughout: such faults as I could detect had\nbeen amended, and many changes made in the form of expression with the\nhope of rendering the interpretation clearer and more adequate. But,\nwith a subject so abstruse and complicated as Hegel's Logic, and a\nstyle so abrupt and condensed as that adopted in his _Encyclopaedia_,\na satisfactory translation can hardly fall within the range of\npossibilities. Only the enthusiasm of youth could have thrown itself\nupon such an enterprise; and later years have but to do what they may\nto fulfil the obligations of a task whose difficulties have come to\nseem nearly insuperable. The translation volume was introduced by a\nsketch of the growth of the _Encyclopaedia_ through the three editions\npublished in its author's lifetime: and an appendix of notes supplied\nsome literary and historical elucidations of the text, with quotations\nbearing on the philosophical development between Kant and Hegel.\n\nThe Prolegomena, which have grown to more than twice their original\nextent, are two-thirds of them new matter. The lapse of twenty years\ncould not but involve a change in the writer's attitude, at least in\ndetails, towards both facts and problems. The general purpose of the\nwork, however, still remains the same, to supply an introduction to the\nstudy of Hegel, especially his _Logic,_ and to philosophy in general.\nBut, in the work of altering and inserting, I can hardly imagine that\nI have succeeded in adjusting the additions to the older work with\nthat artful juncture which would simulate the continuity of organic\ngrowth. To perform that feat would require a master who surveyed from\nan imperial outlook the whole system of Hegelianism in its history\nand meaning; and I at least do not profess such a mastery. Probably\ntherefore a critical review will discern inequalities in the ground,\nand even discrepancies in the statement, of the several chapters. To\nremove these strains of inconsistency would in any case have been a\nwork of time and trouble: and, after all, mere differences in depth\nor breadth of view may have their uses. The writer cannot always\ncompel the reader to understand him, as he himself has not always\nthe same faculty to penetrate and comprehend the problems he deals\nwith. In these arduous paths of research it may well happen that the\nclearest and truest perceptions are not always those which communicate\nthemselves with fullest persuasion and gift of insight. Schopenhauer\nhas somewhere compared the structure of his philosophical work to the\nhundred-gated Thebes: so many, he says, are the points of access it\noffers for the pilgrims after truth to reach its central dogma. So--if\none may parallel little things with his adventurous quest--even the\nless speculative chapters, and the less consecutive discourse, of\nthese Prolegomena may prove helpful to some individual mood or phase\nof mind. If--as I suspect--the Second Book should elicit the complaint\nthat the reader has been kept wandering too long and too deviously in\nthe _Porches of Philosophy_, I will hope that sometimes in the course\nof these rovings he may come across a wicket-gate where he can enter,\nand--which is the main thing--gather truth fresh and fruitful for\nhimself.\n\nFourteen chapters, viz. II, XXIV, and the group from VII to XVIII\ninclusive, are in this edition almost entirely new. Three chapters of\nthe first edition, numbered XIX, XXII, XXIII, have been dropped. For\nthe rest, Chaps. III-VI in the present correspond to Chaps. II-V in\nthe first edition: Chap. XIX to parts of VII, VIII: Chaps. XX-XXIII to\nChaps. IX-XII: Chaps. XXV-XXX to Chaps. XIII-XVIII: and Chaps. XXXI,\nXXXII to Chaps. XX, XXI. But some of those nominally retained have been\nlargely rewritten.\n\nThe new chapters present, amongst other things, a synopsis of the\nprogress of thought in Germany during the half-century which is\nbisected by the year 1800, with some indication of the general\nconditions of the intellectual world, and with some reference to the\ninterconnexion of speculation and actuality. Jacobi and Herder, Kant,\nFichte, and Schelling have been especially brought under succinct\nreview. In the first edition I did Kant less than justice. I have now,\nso far as my limits allowed, tried to rectify the impression; and even\nmore perhaps, by a clear palinode, to tender my apology for the meagre\nand somewhat inappreciative notice I gave to the great names of Fichte\nand Schelling. For like reasons, and from a growing perception how\nmuch post-Kantian thought owed to the pre-Kantian thinkers, Spinoza\nand Leibniz have been partly brought within my range. If, furthermore,\nI may seem to have transgressed the due amount of allusions and\ncomparisons drawn from Plato and Aristotle, Bacon and Mill, the excuse\nmust be sought in that fixture of philosophical horizon which can\nhardly but creep on after a quarter of a century spent in teaching\nphilosophy under the customs and ordinances of the Oxford School of\nClassical Philology.\n\nIt would be to mistake the scope of this survey to seek in it a\nhistory of the philosophers of the period I have named. They have\nbeen presented, not in and for themselves, but as _momenta_ or\nconstituent! factors in producing Hegel's conception of the aim and\nmethod of philosophy. To do this it was necessary to lay stress on\ntheir inner purport and implications: to treat the individual thinker\nin subordination to the general movement of ideas: to give, as far as\nwas possible, a constructive conception of them rather than an analysis\nand chronicle. Yet as the picture had to be done, so to say, with a few\nvigorous touches, and made characteristic rather than descriptive, it\ncannot have that fairness and completeness which only patient study of\nevery feature and untiring experiment in reconstruction can enable even\nthe artist to produce. I may have seemed to confine the environment\ntoo exclusively to continental thinkers: but this is not, I think,\ndue to any anti-patriotic bias. English (by which term, I may explain\nto my countrymen, I mean English-writing) thought, if it has its own\nintrinsic value, has after all been only an occasional influence,\nof suggestion and modification, in Germany. It is not therefore an\nintegral portion of my theme. Even in Kant's case, too much may be made\nof the stimulus he received from Hume.\n\nEven twenty years ago, my translation could hardly be described\nliterally as a voice crying in the wilderness. But since that time\nthere has been a considerable out-put of history, translation, and\ncriticism referring to the great age of German philosophy, and a\ncomparatively numerous group of writers, more or less familiar with\nthe aims and principles of that period, have treated various parts\nof philosophy with notable independence and originality. To these\nwriters it has sometimes been found convenient to give the title\nof Neo-Kantians, or Neo-Hegelians. The prefix suggests that they\ndo not in all points reproduce the ideal or the caricature which\nvulgar tradition fancied, and perhaps still fancies, to be implied\nin German 'transcendentalism.' And that for the good reason that the\nsprings of the movement lie in the natural and national revulsion of\nEnglish habits of mind. Slowly, but at length, the storms of the great\nEuropean revolution found their way to our intellectual world, and\nshook church and state, society and literature. The homeless spirit\nof the age had to reconsider the task of rebuilding its house of\nlife. It may have been that some of the seekers, in the fervour of a\nfirst impression, spoke unadvisedly, as if salvation could and would\ncome to English philosophy only by Kant and Hegel. Yet, there was a\nreal foundation for the belief that the insularity--however necessary\nin its season, and however admirable in some of its results--which\nhad secluded and narrowed the British mind since the middle of the\neighteenth century, needed something deeper and stronger than French\n'ideology' to bring it abreast of the requirements of the age. Whatever\nmay be the drawbacks of transcendentalism, they are virtues when set\nbeside the vulgar ideals of enlightenment by superficialisation. Mill\nhas well pointed out how the spirit of Coleridge was for the higher\nintellectual life a needful complement to the spirit of Bentham. Yet\nthe spirit of Coleridge had but caught some of the side-lights and\nromantic illuminations: it had not dared to face the central sun either\nin literature or philosophy. The scholar who has given us excellent\nversions of Fichte's lighter works, those who have translated and\nexpounded Kant, and the great author who opened German literature\nto the British public, have brought us nearer the higher teaching\nof Germany. In Germany itself it has always been the possession\nonly of the few. Even at the height of the classical period there\nwere litterateurs who vended thousands of their books for Goethe's\nhundreds, and the great philosophers had ten opponents to one follower\neven amongst the teachers of their day. Yet Goethe and not Kotzebue\ngave the permanent law to literature; Hegel, and not Krug or Fries,\nhas influenced philosophy. To have had the resolution to learn in\nthis school is the merit of 'Neo-Hegelianism.' It has probably not\nfound Kant free from puzzles and contradictions, or Hegel always\nintelligible. But the example of the Germans has served to widen and\ndeepen our ideas of philosophy: to make us think more highly of its\nfunction, and to realise that it is essentially science, and the\nscience of supreme reality. And it has at least familiarised many with\nthe heresy that dilettantism and occasional fits of speculativeness are\nworth as little in philosophy as elsewhere. To have striven for dignity\nin its scope, and scientific security in its method, is something. If\nthe Neo-Hegelian has not given philosophy a settled language, it may\nbe urged that a philosophical language cannot be created by the easy\ndevice of inventing a few Hellenistic-seeming vocables.\n\nI could have wished to make these volumes a worthier contribution\nto the work whereby these and other writers have recently enriched\nour island philosophy. Not least because of the honoured name I have\nventured to write on the dedication-page. If, as Epicurus said, we\nshould above all be grateful to the past, the first meed is from the\nscholar due to the teachers of earlier years, and not least those who\nhave now entered into their rest. I do not forget what I, and others,\nowed to T. H. Green, my predecessor in the Chair of Moral Philosophy;\nthat example of high-souled devotion to truth, and of earnest and\nintrepid thinking on the deep things of eternity. But at this season\nthe memory of my Oxford tutor and friend is naturally most prominent.\nThe late Master of Balliol College was more than a mere scholar or\na mere philosopher. He seemed so idealist and yet so practical: so\nrealist and yet so full of high ideals: so delicately kind and yet\nso severely reasonable. You felt he saw life more steadily and saw\nit more whole than others: as one reality in which religion and\nphilosophy, art and business, the sciences and theology, were severally\nbut elements and aspects. To the amateurs of novelty, to the slaves\nof specialisation, to the devotees of any narrow way, such largeness\nmight, with the impatience natural to limited minds, have seemed\nindifference. So must appear those who on higher planes hear all the\nparts in the harmony of humanity, and with the justice of a wise love\nmaintain an intellectual _S\u00f4prosyn\u00e9_. On his pupils this secret power\nof an other-world serenity laid an irresistible spell, and bore in upon\nthem the conviction that beyond scholarship and logic there was the\nfuller truth of life and the all-embracing duty of doing their best to\nfulfil the amplest requirements of their place.\n\nIn earlier days Jowett had been keenly interested in German philosophy,\nand had made a version (most of which was still extant in 1868) of the\nLogic I have translated. But Greek literature, and above all Plato,\ndrew him to more congenial fields. It was on his suggestion,--or shall\nI say injunction--at that date, that the work I had casually begun was\nsome years later prosecuted to completion. It was his words, again, two\nyears ago, that bade me spare no labour in the work of revision.\n\nOXFORD,\n\n_December_, 1893.\n\n\n\n\nFROM THE PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION\n\n\nThe 'Logic of Hegel' is a name which may be given to two separate\nbooks. One of these is the 'Science of Logic' (Wissenschaft der Logik),\nfirst published in three volumes (1812-1816), while its author was\nschoolmaster at N\u00fcremberg. A second edition was on its way, when Hegel\nwas suddenly cut off, after revising the first volume only. In the\n'Secret of Hegel,' the earlier part of this Logic has been translated\nby Dr. Hutchison Stirling, with whose name German philosophy is chiefly\nassociated in this country.\n\nThe other Logic, of which the present work is a translation, forms the\nFirst Part in the 'Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences.' The\nfirst edition of the Encyclopaedia appeared at Heidelberg in 1817; the\nsecond in 1827; and the third in 1830. It is well to bear in mind that\nthese dates take us back forty or fifty years, to a time when modern\nscience and Inductive Logic had yet to win their laurels, and when the\nworld was in many ways different from what it is now. The earliest\nedition of the Encyclopaedia contained the pith of the system. The\nsubsequent editions brought some new materials, mainly intended to\nsmooth over and explain the transitions between the various sections,\nand to answer the objections of critics. The work contained a synopsis\nof philosophy in the form of paragraphs, and was to be supplemented by\nthe _viva voce_ remarks of the lecturer.\n\nThe present volume is translated from the edition of 1843, forming the\nSixth Volume in Hegel's Collected Works. It consists of two nearly\nequal portions. One halt here printed in more open type, contains\nHegel's Encyclopaedia, with all the author's own additions. The first\nparagraph under each number marks the earliest and simplest statement\nof the first edition. The other half, here printed in closer type, is\nmade up of the notes taken in lecture by the editor (Henning) and by\nProfessors Hotho and Michelet. These notes for the most part connect\nthe several sections, rather than explain their statements. Their\ngenuineness is vouched for by their being almost verbally the same with\nother parts of Hegel's own writings.\n\nThe translation has tried to keep as closely as possible to the\nmeaning, without always adhering very rigorously to the words of the\noriginal. It is, however, much more literal in the later and systematic\npart, than in the earlier chapters.\n\nThe Prolegomena which precede the translation have not been given in\nthe hope or with the intention of expounding the Hegelian system. They\nmerely seek to remove certain obstacles, and to render Hegel less\ntantalizingly hard to those who approach him for the first time. How\nfar they will accomplish this, remains to be seen.\n\nOXFORD, _September,_ 1873.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nBOOK I.\n\nOUTLOOKS AND APPROACHES TO HEGEL.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nWHY HEGEL IS HARD TO UNDERSTAND 3\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nWHY TRANSLATE HEGEL? 14\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nENGLISH PHILOSOPHY AND HEGEL 21\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nHEGEL AND THEOLOGY 30\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nPSEUDO-IDEALISM: JACOBI 37\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE SCIENCES AND PHILOSOPHY 57\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nANTICIPATORY SKETCH OF THE SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY 72\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE SCEPTICAL DOUBT: HUME 88\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE ATTEMPT AT A CRITICAL SOLUTION: KANT 98\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE CRITICAL SOLUTION (_continued_): KANT 112\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nSYNTHESIS AND RECONSTRUCTION: FICHTE 124\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF SCHELLING 136\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE AND IDEALISM 147\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nTRANSITION TO HEGEL 163\n\nBOOK II.\n\nIN THE PORCHES OF PHILOSOPHY.\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nTHE TWO AGES OF REASON 175\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nTHE NEW IDEALISM 189\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nMETHODS, ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL 202\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nTHE RANGE OF PERSONALITY 230\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nGENESIS IN MENTAL LIFE 261\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nGENERAL LAW OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 277\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nABSTRACT AND CONCRETE: AND THE ORDINARY LOGIC 292\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nFROM SENSE TO THOUGHT 307\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nFIGURATE OR REPRESENTATIVE THOUGHT 323\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\nFROM SUBSTANCE TO SUBJECT 335\n\nCHAPTER XXV.\n\nREASON AND THE DIALECTIC OF UNDERSTANDING 348\n\nBOOK III.\n\nLOGICAL OUTLINES.\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\nTHOUGHT PURE AND ENTIRE 365\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\nABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE: OR THE CATEGORIES 383\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.\n\nTHE THREE PARTS OF LOGIC 394\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\nTHE SEARCH FOR A FIRST PRINCIPLE 404\n\nCHAPTER XXX.\n\nTHE LOGIC OF DESCRIPTION: NATURAL REALISM: BEING 415\n\nCHAPTER XXXI.\n\nTHE LOGIC OF EXPLANATION AND REALISTIC METAPHYSICS:\n\nESSENCE 440\n\nCHAPTER XXXII.\n\nTHE LOGIC OF COMPREHENSION AND IDEALISM: THE NOTION 459\n\n\n\n\nPROLEGOMENA\n\nBook I\n\n_OUTLOOKS AND APPROACHES TO HEGEL_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n\nWHY HEGEL IS HARD TO UNDERSTAND.\n\n\n'The condemnation,' says Hegel, 'which a great man lays upon the\nworld, is to force it to explain him[1].' The greatness of Hegel, if\nit be measured by this standard, must be something far above common.\nInterpreters of his system have contradicted each other, almost as\nvariously as the several commentators on the Bible. He is claimed\nas their head by widely different schools of thought, all of which\nappeal to him as the original source of their line of argument. The\nRight wing, and the Left, as well as the Centre, profess to be the\ngenuine descendants of the prophet, and to inherit the mantle of his\ninspiration. If we believe one side, Hegel is only to be rightly\nappreciated when we divest his teaching of every shred of religion and\northodoxy which it retains. If we believe another class of expositors,\nhe was the champion of Christianity.\n\nThese contradictory views may be safely left to abolish each other. But\ndiversity of opinion on such topics is neither unnatural, nor unusual.\nThe meaning and the bearings of a great event, or a great character,\nor a great work of reasoned thought, will be estimated and explained\nin different ways, according to the effect they produce on different\nminds and different levels of life and society. Those effects, perhaps,\nwill not present themselves in their true character, until long after\nthe original excitement has passed away. To some minds, the chief value\nof the Hegelian system will lie in its vindication of the truths of\nnatural and revealed religion, and in the agreement of the elaborate\nreasonings of the philosopher with the simple aspirations of mankind\ntowards higher things. To others that system will have most interest\nas a philosophical history of thought,--an exposition of that organic\ndevelopment of reason, which underlies and constitutes all the varied\nand complex movement of the world. To a third class, again, it may seem\nat best an instrument or method of investigation, stating the true\nlaw by which knowledge proceeds in its endeavour to comprehend and\nassimilate existing nature.\n\nWhile these various meanings may be given to the Hegelian scheme\nof thought, the majority of the world either pronounce Hegel to be\naltogether unintelligible, or banish him to the limbo of _a priori_\nthinkers,--that bourne from which no philosopher returns. To argue with\nthose who start from the latter conviction would be an ungrateful,\nand probably a superfluous task. Wisdom is justified, we may be sure,\nof all her children. But it may be possible to admit the existence of\ndifficulties, and agree to some extent with those who complain that\nHegel is impenetrable and hard as adamant. There can be no doubt of\nthe forbidding aspect of the most prominent features in his system.\nHe is hard in himself, and his readers find him hard. His style is\nnot of the best, and to foreign eyes seems unequal. At times he is\neloquent, stirring, and striking: again his turns are harsh, and his\nclauses tiresome to disentangle: and we are always coming upon that\nchildlikeness of literary manner, which English taste fancies it can\ndetect in some of the greatest works of German genius; There are faults\nin Hegel, which obscure his meaning: but more obstacles are due to the\nnature of the work, and the pre-occupations of our minds. There is\nsomething in him which fascinates __ the thinker, and which inspires\na sympathetic student with the vigour and the hopefulness of the\nspring-time.\n\nPerhaps the main hindrance in the way of a clear vision is the contrast\nwhich Hegelian philosophy offers to our ordinary habits of mind.\nGenerally speaking, we rest contented if we can get tolerably near our\nobject, and form a general picture of it to set before ourselves.\n\nIt might almost be said that we have never thought of such a thing as\nbeing in earnest either with our words or with our thoughts. We get\ninto a way of speaking with an uncertain latitude of meaning, and leave\na good deal to the fellow-feeling of our hearers, who are expected to\nmend what is defective in our utterances. For most of us the place of\nexact thought is supplied by metaphors and pictures, by mental images,\nand figures generalised from the senses. And thus it happens that, when\nwe come upon a single precise and definite statement, neither exceeding\nnor falling short in its meaning, we are thrown out of our reckoning.\nOur fancy and memory have nothing left for them to do: and, as fancy\nand memory make up the greater part of what we loosely call thinking,\nour powers of thought seem to be brought to a standstill. Those who\ncrave for fluent reading, or prefer easy writing, something within\nthe pale of our usual mental lines, are more likely to find what they\nseek in the ten partially correct and approximate ways commonly used\nto give expression to a truth, than in the one simple and accurate\nstatement of the thought. We prefer a familiar name, and an accustomed\nimage, on which our faculties may work. But in the atmosphere of\nHegelian thought, we feel very much as if we had been lifted into a\nvacuum, where we cannot breathe, and which is a fit habitation for\nunrecognisable ghosts only.\n\nNor is this all. The traveller, as his train climbs the heights of\nAlps or Apennines, occasionally, after circling in grand curve upon\nthe mountain-side, and perhaps after having been dragged mysterious\ndistances through the gloom of a tunnel, finds himself as it would seem\nback at the same place as he looked forth from some minutes before; and\nit is only after a brief comparison that he realises he now commands a\nwider view from a point some hundreds of feet higher. So the student\nof Hegel--(and it might be the case with Fichte also) as the machinery\nof the dialectical method, with its thesis, antithesis, and synthesis,\ncarries him round and round from term to term of thought--like the\n_Logos_ and the Spirit, which blow us whithersoever they list--begins\nto suffer from dizziness at the apprehension that he has been the\nvictim of phantasmagoria and has not really moved at all. It is only\nlater--if ever--that he recognises that the scene, though similar,\nis yet not altogether the same. It is only later--if ever--that he\nunderstands that the path of philosophy is no wandering from land to\nland more remote in search of a lost Absolute, a vanished God; no\nsetting forth of new and strange facts, of new Gods, but the revelation\nin fuller and fuller truth of the immanent reality in whom we live, and\nmove, and have our being,--the manifestation in more closely-knit unity\nand more amply-detailed significance of that Infinite and Eternal,\nwhich was always present among us, though we saw but few, perhaps even\nno, traces of its power and glory.\n\nTo read Hegel often reminds us of the process we have to go through\nin trying to answer a riddle. The terms of the problem to be solved\nare all given to us: the features of the object are, it may be, fully\ndescribed: and yet somehow we cannot at once tell what it is all about,\nor add up the sum of which we have the several items. We are waiting\nto learn the subject of the proposition, of which all these statements\nmay be regarded as the predicates. Something, we feel, has undoubtedly\nbeen said: but we are at a loss to see what it has been said about.\nOur mind wanders round from one familiar object to another, and tries\nthem in succession to see whether any one satisfies the several points\nin the statement and includes them all. We grope here and there for\nsomething we are acquainted with, in which the bits of the description\nmay cohere, and get a unity which they cannot give themselves. When\nonce we have hit upon the right object, our troubles are at an end: and\nthe empty medium is now peopled with a creature of our imagination. We\nhave reached a fixed point in the range of our conception, around which\nthe given features may cluster.\n\nAll this trouble caused by the Hegelian theory of what philosophy\ninvolves--viz. really beginning at the beginning, is saved by a device\nwell known to the several branches of Science. It is the way with them\nto assume that the student has a rough general image of the objects\nwhich they examine; and under the guidance, or with the help of this\ngeneralised image, they go on to explain and describe its outlines more\ncompletely. They start with an approximate conception, such as anybody\nmay be supposed to have; and this they seek to render more definite.\nThe geologist, for example, could scarcely teach geology', unless he\ncould pre-suppose or produce some acquaintance on the part of his\npupils with what Hume would have called an 'impression' or an 'idea' of\nthe rocks and formations of which he has to treat. The geometer gives\na short, and, as it were, popular explanation of the sense in which\nangles, circles, triangles, &c. are to be understood : and then by\nthe aid of these provisional definitions we come to a more scientific\nnotion of the same terms. The third book of Euclid, for example, brings\nbefore us a clearer notion of what a circle is, than the nominal\nexplanation in the list of definitions. By means of these temporary\naids, or, as we may call them, leading-strings for the intellect, the\nprogress of the ordinary scientific student is made tolerably easy.\nBut v in philosophy, as it is found in Hegel, there is quite another\nway of working. The helps in question are absent: and until it be seen\nthat they are not even needed, the Hegelian theory will remain a sealed\nmystery. For that which the first glance seemed to show as an enigma,\nis only the plain and unambiguous statement of thought. Instead of\ncasting around for images and accustomed names, we have only to accept\nthe several terms and articles in the development of thought as they\npresent themselves. These terms merely require to be apprehended. They\nstand in no immediate need of illustration from our experience. What we\nhave to bring to the work, is patience, self-restraint, the sacrifice\nof our cherished habits of mind, the surrender of the natural wish to\nsee at once what it all comes to, what it is good for, how it squares\nwith other convictions. As Bacon reminded his age, Into the kingdom\nof philosophy, as into the kingdom of heaven, none can enter, _nisi\nsub persona infantis_: i. e. unless he at least steadfastly resolve to\nrenounce that world which lieth in the Evil.\n\nOrdinary knowledge consists in referring a new object to a class of\nobjects, that is to say, to a generalised image with which we are\nalready acquainted. It is not so much cognition as re-cognition.\n'\"What is the truth?\"' asked Lady Chettam of Mrs. Cadwallader in\n_Middle-march_. \"The truth\" he is as bad as the wrong physic--nasty to\ntake, and sure to disagree.\" \"There could not be anything worse than\nthat,\" said Lady Chettam, with so vivid a conception of the physic\nthat she seemed to have learned something exact about Mr. Casaubon's\n'disadvantages.' Once we have referred the new individual to a familiar\ncategory or a convenient metaphor, once we have given it a name, and\nintroduced it into the society of our mental drawing-room, we are\nsatisfied. We have put a fresh object in its appropriate drawer in\nthe cabinet of our ideas: and hence, with the pride of a collector,\nwe can calmly call it our own. But such acquaintance, proceeding from\na mingling of memory and naming, is not the same thing as knowledge\nin the strict sense of the term.[2] 'What is he?' 'Do you know him?'\nThese are our questions: and we are satisfied when we learn his name\nand his calling. We may never have penetrated into the inner nature of\nthose objects, with whose _tout ensemble,_ or rough outlines, we are\nso much at home, that we fancy ourselves thoroughly cognisant of them.\nClassifications are only the first steps in science: and we do not\nunderstand a thought because we can view it under the guise of some of\nits illustrations.\n\nIn the case of the English reader of Hegel some peculiar hindrances\nspring from the foreign language. In strong contrast to most of the\nwell-known German philosophers, he may be said to write in the popular\nand national dialect of his country. Of course there are tones and\nshades of meaning given to his words by the general context of his\nsystem. But upon the whole he did what he promised to J. H. Voss--the\ntranslator of Homer, and the poet of the _Luise,_ in a letter written\nfrom Jena in 1805. He there says of his projects: 'Luther has made the\nBible, and you have made Homer speak German. No greater gift than this\ncould be given to the nation. So long as a nation is not acquainted\nwith a noble work in its own language, it is still barbarian, and does\nnot regard the work as its own. Forget these two examples, and I may\ndescribe my own efforts as an attempt to teach philosophy to speak in\nGerman.[3]\n\nYet, in this matter of nationalising or Germanising philosophy, he only\ncarried a step further what Wolff and even Kant had begun; just as, on\nthe other hand, he falls a long way short of what K. C. F. Krause, his\ncontemporary, attempted in the same direction. Such an attempt, by its\nvery nature, could never command a popular success. It runs directly\ncounter to that tendency already noted, to escape the requirement to\nthink and think for ourselves, by taking refuge under the shadow of\na familiar term, which conceals in its apparent simplicity a great\ncomplex of ill-apprehended elements. The ordinary mind--and the more\nreadily perhaps the more vulgar it is--flees for ease and safety to a\ncosmopolitan term, to the denationalised vocable of learned origin, to\nthe language of general European culture. To such an ordinary mind--and\nup at least to a certain extent we all at times come under that\nheading--the effort to remain in the pellucid air of our unadulterated\nmother-tongue is too embarrassing to be long continued. Nor, after all,\nis it more than partially practicable. The well of German undefiled\nis apt to run dry. Hegel himself never shrinks when it is needful to\nappropriate non-Teutonic words, and is in the habit of employing the\nsynonymous terms of native and of classical origin with a systematic\ndifference of meaning [4]\n\nHegel is unquestionably par _excellence the_ philosopher of\nGermany,--German through and through. For philosophy, though the\ncommon birthright of full-grown reason in all ages and countries,\nmust like other universal and cosmopolitan interests, such as the\nState, the Arts, or the Church, submit to the limits and peculiarities\nimposed upon it by the natural divisions of race and language. The\nsubtler _nuances_, as well as the coarser differences of national\nspeech, make themselves vividly felt in the systems of philosophy,\nand defy translation. If Greek philosophy cannot, no more can German\nphilosophy be turned into a body of English thought by a stroke of the\ntranslator's pen. There is a difference in this matter, a difference\nat least in degree, between the special sciences and philosophy. The\nseveral sciences have a de-nationalised and cosmopolitan character,\nlike the trades and industries of various nations; they are pretty much\nthe same in one country and another, especially when we consider the\ndetails, and neglect the general subdivisions. But in the political\nbody, in the works of high art, and in the systems of philosophy, the\nwhole of the character and temperament of the several peoples finds\nits expression, and stands distinctly marked, in a shape of its own.\nIf the form of German polity be not transferable to this side of the\nChannel, no more will German philosophy. Direct utilisation for English\npurposes is out of the question: the circumstances are too different.\nBut the study of the great works of foreign thought is not on that\naccount useless, any more than the study of the great works of foreign\nstatesmanship.\n\nHegel did good service, at least, by freeing philosophy from that\naspect of an imported luxury, which it usually had,--as if it were an\nexotic plant removed from the bright air of Greece into the melancholy\nmists of Western Europe. 'We have still,' he says, 'to break down the\npartition between the language of philosophy, and that of ordinary\nconsciousness: we have to overcome the reluctance against thinking what\nwe are familiar with[5].' Philosophy must be brought face to face with\nordinary life, so as to draw its strength from the actual and living\npresent, and not from the memories or traditions of the past. It has\nto become the organised and completed thinking of what is contained\nblindly and vaguely in the various levels of popular intelligence, as\nthese are more or less educated and ordered. It must grow naturally, as\nin ancient Greece, from the necessities of the social situation, and\nnot be a product of artificial introduction and nurture: the revelation\nby the mind's own energy of an implicit truth, not the communication\nof a mystery sacramentally received. To suppose that a mere change of\nwords can give this grace, would be absurd. Yet where the national life\npulses strong, as that of Germany in those days did at first in letters\nand then in social reform, the dominant note will make itself felt\neven in the neutral regions of speculation. It was a step on the right\nroad to banish a pompous and aristocratic dialect from philosophy, and\nto lead it back to those words and forms of speech, which are at least\nin silent harmony with the national feeling.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Hegel's _Leben_ (Rosenkranz), p. 555.]\n\n[Footnote 2: 'Das Bekannte \u00fcberhaupt ist darum, weil es bekannt ist,\nnicht erkannt.' _Phenomenologie des Geistes,_ p. 24.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Vermischte Schriften,_ vol. ii. p. 474.]\n\n[Footnote 4: e. g. _Dasein_ and _Existenz: Wirklichkeit_ and\n_Realit\u00e4t_: _Wesen_ and _Substanz._ It is the same habit of curiously\npondering over the tones and shades of language which leads him to\nsomething very like playing on words, and to etymologising, as one may\ncall it, on unetymological principles: e. g. the play on _Mein_ and\n_Meinung_ (vol. ii. 32: cf. _Werke_, ii. 75): the literal rendering of\n_Erinnerung_ (_Encycl._ \u00a7\u00a7 234 and 450); and the abrupt transitions,\nas it would seem, from literal to figurative use of such a term as\n_Grund._ At the same time it is well not to be prosaically certain\nthat a free play of thought does not follow the apparently fortuitous\nassonance of words.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Hegel's _Leben_ (Rosenkranz), p. 553.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n\nWHY TRANSLATE HEGEL?\n\n\n'But,' it is urged, 'though it be well to let the stream of foreign\nthought irrigate some of our philosophical pastures, though we should\nnot for ever entrench ourselves in our insularity--why try to introduce\nHegel, of all philosophers confessedly the most obscure? Why not be\ncontent with the study and the \"exploitation\" of Kant, whom Germans\nthemselves still think so important as to expound him with endless\ncomment and criticism, and who has at length found, after some\nskirmishes, a recognised place in the English philosophical curriculum?\nWhy seek for more Teutonic thinking that can be found in Schopenhauer,\nand found there in a clear and noble style, luminous in the highest\ndegree, and touching with no merely academic abstruseness the problems\nof life and death? Or--as that song is sweetest to men which is the\nnewest to ring in their ears--why not render accessible to English\nreaders the numerous and suggestive works of Eduard von Hartmann,\nand of Friedrich Nietzsche--not to mention Robert Hamerling[1]? Or,\nfinally, why not give us more and ever more translations of the works\nin logic, ethics, psychology, or metaphysics, of those many admirable\nteachers in the German universities, whom it would be invidious to\ntry to single out by name? As for Hegel, his system, in the native\nland of the philosopher, is utterly discredited; its influence is\nextinct; it is dead as a door-nail. It is a pity to waste labour and\ndistract attention, and that in English lands, where there are plenty\nof problems of our own to solve, by an attempt, which must perforce be\nfutile, to resuscitate these defunctitudes?'\n\nThat Hegelianism has been utterly discredited, in certain quarters, is\nno discovery reserved for these later days. But on this matter perhaps\nwe may borrow an analogy. If the reader will be at the trouble to take\nup two English newspapers of opposite partisanship and compare the\nreports from their foreign correspondents on some question of home\npolitics, he may, if a novice, be surprised to learn that according\nto one, the opinion e. g. of Vienna is wholly adverse to the measure,\nwhile, according to the other, that opinion entirely approves.\n\nIt is no new thing to find Hegelianism in general obloquy. Even in 1830\nthe Catholic philosopher and theologian G\u00fcnther[2]--an admirer, but by\nno means a follower of Hegel--wrote that, 'for some years it had been\nthe fashion in learned Germany to look upon philosophy, and above all\nHegelian philosophy, as a door-mat on which everybody cleaned his muddy\nboots before entering the sanctuary of politics and religion.' What\nis true as regards the alleged surcease of Hegelianism is that in the\nreaction which from various causes turned itself against philosophy in\nthe two decennia after 1848, that system, as the most deeply committed\npart of the 'metaphysical' host, suffered most severely. History and\nscience seemed to triumph along the whole line. But it may be perhaps\npermissible to remark that Hegelianism had predicted for itself the\nfate that it proved had fallen on all other philosophies. After the\nage of Idealism comes the turn of Realism. The Idea had to die--had to\nsink as a germ in the fields of nature and history before it could bear\nits fruit. Above all it is not to be expected that such a system, so\nambitious in aim and concentrated in expression, could find immediate\nresponse and at once disclose all its meaning. His first disciples\nare not the--truest interpreters of any great teacher. What he saw\nin the one comprehensive glance of genius, his successors must often\nbe content to gather by the slow accumulation of years, and perhaps\ncenturies, of experience. It is not to Theophrastus that we go for\nthe truest and fullest conception of Aristotelianism; nor is Plato to\nbe measured by what his immediate successors in the Academy managed\nto make out of him. It is now more than a century since Kant gave his\nlesson to the public, and we are still trying to get him focussed in a\nsingle view: it may be even longer till Hegel comes fully within the\nrange of our historians of thought. Aristotelianism too had to wait\ncenturies till it fully entered the consciousness even of the thinking\nworld.\n\nIt is to be said too that without Hegel it would be difficult to\nimagine what even teachers, like Lotze, who were very unlike him, would\nhave had to say. It does not need a very wide soul, nor need one be a\nmere dilettantist eclectic, to find much of Schopenhauer's work far\nfrom incompatible with his great, and as some have said, complementary\nopposite. It is not indeed prudent as yet for a writer in Germany who\nwishes to catch the general ear to affix too openly a profession of\nHegelian principles, and he will do well to ward off suspicion by some\ndisparaging remarks on the fantastic methods, the overfondness for\nsystem, the contempt for common sense and scientific results which,\nas he declares, vitiate all the speculations of the period from 1794\nto 1830. But under the names of Spinoza and of Leibniz the leaven of\nHegelian principles has been at work: and if the Philistines solve the\nriddle of the intellectual Samson, it is because they have ploughed\nwith his heifer,--because his ideas are part of the modern stock of\nthought,--not from what they literally read in the great thinkers at\nthe close of the seventeenth century. Last year saw appear in Germany\ntwo excellent treatises describable as popular introductions to\nphilosophy[3], one by a thinker who has never disguised his obligations\nto Hegel, the other by a teacher in the University of Berlin who may in\nmany ways be considered as essentially kindred with our general English\nstyle of thought. But both treatises are more allied in character to\nthe spirit of the Hegelian attempts to comprehend man and God than to\nthe formalistic and philological disquisitions which have for some\nyears formed the staple of German professorial activity. And, lastly,\nthe vigorous thinker, who a quarter of a century ago startled the\nreading public by the portent of a new metaphysic which should be the\nsynthesis of Schelling and Schopenhauer, has lately informed us[4] that\nhis affinity to Hegel is, taken all in all, greater than his affinity\nto any other philosopher'; and that that affinity extends to all that\nin Hegel has essential and permanent value.\n\nBut it is not on Eduard von Hartmann's commendation that we need rest\nour estimate of Hegelianism. We shall rather say that, till more of\nHegel has been assimilated, he must still block the way. Things have\naltered greatly in the last twenty years, it is true; and ideas of\nmore or less Hegelian origin have taken their place in the common\nstock of philosophic commodities. But it will probably be admitted by\nthose best qualified to speak on the subject, that the shower has not\nas yet penetrated very deeply into the case-hardened soil, still less\nsaturated it in the measure most likely to cause fruitful shoots to\ngrow forth. We have to go back to Hegel in the same spirit as we go to\nKant, and, for that matter, to Plato or Descartes: or, as the moderns\nmay go back--to borrow from another sphere--to Dante or Shakespeare.\nWe do not want the modern poet to resuscitate the style and matter of\n_King Lear_ or of the _Inferno._ Yet as the Greek tragedian steeped his\nsoul in the language and the legend of Homeric epic, as Dante nurtured\nhis spirit on the noble melodies of Mantua's poet; so philosophy, if it\nis to go forth strong and effective, must mould into its own substance\nthe living thought of former times. It would be as absurd, and as\nimpossible to be literally and simply a Hegelian,--if that means one\nfor whom Hegel sums up all philosophy and all truth--as it is to be at\nthe present day in the literal sense a Platonist or an Aristotelian.\nThe world may be slow, the world of opinion and thought may linger: _e\npur si muove._ We too have our own problems--the same, no doubt, in a\nsense, from age to age, and yet infinitely varying and never in two\nages alike. New stars have appeared on the spiritual sky; and whether\nthey have in them the eternal light or only the flash and glare of a\npassing meteor, they alter the aspects of the night in which we are\nstill waiting for the dawn.\n\nA new language, born of new relations of ideas, or of new ideas, is\nperforce for our generation the vehicle of all utterances, and we\ncannot again speak the dialect, however imposing or however quaint, of\na vanished day.\n\nAnd for that reason there must always be a new philosophy, couched\nin the language of the age, sympathetic with its hopes and fears,\nconscious of its beliefs, more or less sensible of its problems--as\nindeed we may be confident there always will be. But, perhaps, the\nwarrior in that battle against illusion and prejudice, against the\nsloth which takes things as they are and the poorness of spirit\nwhich is satisfied with first appearances, will not do wisely to\ndisdain the past. He will not indeed equip himself with rusty swords\nand clumsy artillery from the old arsenals. But he will not disdain\nthe lessons of the past,--its methods and principles of tactics and\nstrategy. Recognising perhaps some defects and inequalities in the\nmethods and aims of thought most familiar to him and current in his\nvicinity, he may go abroad for other samples, even though they be not\nin all respects worth his adoption. And so without taking Hegel as\nomniscient, or pledging himself to every word of the master, he may\nthink from his own experience that there is much in the system that\nwill be helpful, when duly estimated and assimilated, to others. There\nis--and few can be so bigoted__ or so positive-minded as to regret\nit--there is unquestionably a growing interest in English-speaking\ncountries in what may be roughly called philosophy--the attempt,\nunprejudiced by political, scientific, or ecclesiastical dogma, to\nsolve the questions as to what the world really is, and what man's\nplace and function is. 'The burthen of the mystery, the heavy and the\nweary weight of all this unintelligible world' is felt--felt widely\nand sometimes felt deeply. To the direct lightening of that burthen\nand that mystery it is the privilege of our profoundest thinkers and\nour far-seeing poets and artists to contribute. To the translator of\nHegel there falls the humbler task of making accessible, if it may be,\nsomething of one of the later attempts at a solution of the enigma of\nlife and existence,--an attempt which for a time dazzled some of the\nkeenest intellects of its age, and which has at least impressed many\nothers with the conviction, born of momentary flashes from it of vast\nilluminant power, that--_si sic omnia_--there was here concealed a key\nto many puzzles, and a guard against many illusions likely to beset the\ninquirer after truth.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: A book by V. Knauer published last year (_Hauptprobleme\nder Philosophie_), a series of popular lectures, gives one-sixth of its\nspace to the 'Atomistic of Will' by the Austrian poet Hamerling.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Hegel's _Briefe_, ii. 349.]\n\n[Footnote 3: J. Volkelt, _Vortr\u00e4ge zur Einf\u00fchrung in die Philosophie\nder Gegenwart_ (M\u00fcnchen 1892): F. Paulsen, _Einleitung in die\nPhilosophie_ (Berlin 1892).]\n\n[Footnote 4: E. v. Hartmann, _Kritische Wanderungen_, p. 74.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n\nENGLISH PHILOSOPHY AND HEGEL.\n\n\nAlthough we need not take too seriously Hegel's remark (vol. ii. p.\n13) on the English conception of philosophy, it may be admitted that,\nby the dominant school of English thought, philosophy, taken in the\nwide sense it has predominantly born abroad, was, not so very long\nago, all but entirely ignored. Causes of various kinds had turned the\nenergy of the English mind into other directions, not less essential to\nthe common welfare. Practical needs and an established social system\nhelped--to bind down studies to definite and particular objects, and to\nexclude what seemed vague and general investigations with no immediate\nbearing on the business of life. Hence philosophy in England could\nhardly exist except when it was reduced to the level of a special\nbranch of science, or when it could be used as a receptacle for the\nprinciples and methods common to all the sciences. The general term\nwas often used to denote the wisdom of this world, or the practical\nexhibition of self-control in life and action. For those researches,\nwhich are directed to the objects once considered proper to philosophy,\nthe more definite and characteristic term came to be Mental and Moral\nScience.\n\nThe old name was in certain circles restricted to denote the vague and\nirregular speculations of those thinkers, who either lived before the\nrise of exact science, or who acted in defiance of its precepts and its\nexample. One large and influential class of English thinkers inclined\nto sweep philosophy altogether away, as equivalent to metaphysics and\nobsolete forms of error; and upon the empty site thus obtained they\nsought to construct a psychological theory of mind, or they tried to\narrange and codify those general remarks upon the general procedure\nof the sciences which are known under the name of Inductive Logic. A\nsmaller, but not less vigorous, school of philosophy looked upon their\nbusiness as an extension and rounding off of science into a complete\nunification of knowledge. The first is illustrated by the names of J.\nS. Mill and Mr. Bain: the second is the doctrine of Mr. Herbert Spencer.\n\nThe encyclopaedic aggregate of biological, psychological, ethical\nand social investigation which Mr. Spencer pursues, under the\ngeneral guidance of the formula of evolution by differentiation\nand integration, still proceeds on its course: but though its\npopularity--as such popularity goes--is vast and more than national,\nit does not and probably cannot find many imitators. Very differently\nstand matters with the movement in psychology and logic. Here\nthe initiative has led to divergent and unexpected developments.\nPsychology, which at first was partly an ampler and a more progressive\nlogic, a theory of the origin and nature of knowledge, partly a\npropaedeutic to the more technical logic and ethics, and pursued in\na loosely introspective way, has gravitated more and more towards\nits experimental and physiological side, with occasional velleities\nto assume the abstractly-mathematical character of a psycho-physical\nscience. Logic, on the other hand, has also changed its scope. Not\ncontent to be a mere tool of the sciences or a mere criterion for the\nestimation of evidence, it has in one direction grown into a systematic\neffort to become an epistemology--a system of the first principles of\nknowledge and reality--a metaphysic of science; and in another it has\nsought to realise the meaning of those old forms of inference which\nthe logicians of half a century ago were inclined to pooh-pooh as\nobsolete. Most remarkable--and most novel of all--is the vast increase\nof interest and research in the problems of ethics and v of what is\ncalled the philosophy of religion--subjects which at that date were\nliterally burning questions, apt to scorch the fingers of those who\ntouched them. In all of this, but especially marked in some leading\nthinkers, the ruling feature is the critical--the sceptical, i. e. the\neager, watchful, but self-restrained--attitude towards its themes. Ever\ndriving on to find a deeper unity than shows on the surface, and to get\nat principles, the modern thinker--and in this we see the permanent\nand almost overwhelming influence of Kant upon him--recoils from the\ndogmatism of system, at the very moment it seems to be within his grasp.\n\nThus the recent products of English thought have been, as Mr. Spencer\nhas taught us to say, partly in the line of differentiation, partly\nof integration. At one moment it seems as if the ancient queen of the\nsciences sat like Hecuba, _exul, inops,_ while her younger daughters\nenjoyed the freedom and progress of specialisation. The wood seems lost\nbehind the trees. And at another, again, the centripetal force seems to\npreponderate: every department, logic, ethics, psychology, sociology,\nrapidly carries its students on and up to fundamental questions, if\nnot to fundamental principles. Philosophy--the one and undivided\ntruth and quest of truths--emerges fresh, vigorous, and as yet rather\nindeterminate, from the mass of detailed investigations. That the\nposition is now altered from what it was in times when knowledge had\nfewer departments, is obvious. The task of the 'synoptic' mind--which\nPlato claims for the philosopher--grows increasingly difficult: but\nthat is hardly a reason for performing it in a more perfunctory way.\nIt seems rather as if in such a crisis one of the great reconstructive\nsystems of a preceding age might be in some measure helpful.\n\nIf we consult history, it is at once clear that philosophy, or the\npursuit of ultimate reality and permanent truth, went hand in hand with\nscientific researches into facts and their particular explanations.\n\nIn their earlier stages the two tendencies of thought were scarcely\ndistinguishable. The philosophers of Ionia and Magna Graecia were also\nthe scientific pioneers of their time. Their fragmentary remains remind\nus at times of the modern theories of geology and biology,--at other\ntimes of the teachings of idealism. The same thing is comparatively\ntrue of the earlier philosophers of Modern Europe. The seventeenth\nand eighteenth centuries, in spite of Bacon and Newton, endeavoured\nto study the mental and moral life by a method which was a strange\nmixture of empiricism and metaphysics. In words, indeed, the thinkers\nfrom Descartes to Wolff duly emphasise, perhaps over-emphasise, the\nantithesis between the extended and the intellectual. But in practice\ntheir course is not so clear. Their mental philosophy is often only a\npreliminary _medicina mentis_ to set the individual mind in good order\nfor undertaking the various tasks awaiting a special research. They are\nreally eager to get on to business, and only, as it were, with regret\nspend time in this clearance of mental faculty. And when they do deal\nwith objects, the material and extended tends to become the dominant\nconception, the basis of reality. The human mind, that _nobilissima\nsubstantia_, is treated only as an aggregate, or a receptacle, of\nideas, and the _mens_,--with them all nearly as with Spinoza,--is only\nan _idea corporis,_ and that phrase not taken so highly as Spinoza's\nperhaps should be taken. In the works of these thinkers, as of the\npre-Socratics, there is one element which may be styled philosophical,\nand another element which maybe styled scientific,--if we use both\nwords vaguely. But with Socrates in the ancient, and with Kant in the\nmodern epoch of philosophy, an attempt was made to get the boundary\nbetween the two regions definitively drawn. The distinction was in the\nfirst place accompanied by something like turning the back upon science\nand popular conceptions. Socrates withdrew thought from disquisitions\nconcerning the nature of all things, and fixed it upon man and\nthe state of man. Kant left the broad fields of actually-attained\nknowledge, and inquired into the central principle on which the\nacquisition of science, the laws of human life, and the ideals of art\nand religion, were founded.\n\nThe change thus begun was not unlike that which Copernicus effected in\nthe theory of Astronomy. Human personality, either in the actualised\nforms of the State, or in the abstract shape of the Reason,--that\nintellectual liberty, which is a man's true world,--was, at least by\nimplication, made the pivot around which the system of the sciences\nmight turn. In the contest, which according to Reid prevails between\nCommon Sense and Philosophy, the presumptions of the former have\nbeen distinctly reversed, and Kant, like Socrates, has shown that it\nis not the several items of fact, but the humanity, the moral law,\nthe thought, which underlies these doctrines, which give the real\nresting-point and true centre of movement. But this negative attitude\nof philosophy to the sciences is only the beginning, needed to secure\na standing-ground. In the ancient world Aristotle, and in the modern\nHegel (as the inheritor of the labours of Fichte and Schelling),\nexhibit the movement outwards to reconquer the universe, proceeding\nfrom that principle which Socrates and Kant had emphasised in its\nfundamental worth.\n\nMr. Mill, in the closing chapter of his Logic, has briefly sketched\nthe ideal of a science to which he gives the name of Teleology,\ncorresponding in the ethical and practical sphere to a _Philosophia\nPrima_, or Metaphysics, in the theoretical. This ideal and ultimate\ncourt of appeal is to be valid in Morality, and also in Prudence,\nPolicy and Taste. But the conception, although a desirable one, falls\nshort of the work which Hegel assigns to philosophy. What he intended\nto accomplish with detail and regular evolution was not a system of\nprinciples in these departments of action only, but a theory which\nwould give its proper place in our total Idea of reality to Art,\nScience, and Religion, to all the consciousness of ordinary life, and\nto the evolution of the physical universe. Philosophy ranges over\nthe--whole field of actuality, or existing fact. Abstract principles\nare all very well in their way; but they are not philosophy. If the\nworld in its historical and its present life develops into endless\ndetail in regular lines, philosophy must equally develop the narrowness\nof its first principles into the plenitude of a System,--into what\nHegel calls, the Idea. His point of view may be gathered from the\nfollowing remarks in a review of Hamann, an erratic friend and\nfellow-citizen of Kant's.\n\nHamann would not put himself to the trouble, which in an higher sense\nGod undertook. The ancient philosophers have described God under the\nimage of a round ball. But if that be His nature, God has unfolded it;\nand in the actual world He has opened the closed shell of truth into a\nsystem of Nature, into a State-system, a system of Law and Morality,\ninto the system of the world's History. The shut fist has become\nan open hand, the fingers of which reach out to lay hold of man's\nmind, and draw it to Himself. Nor is the human mind a self-involved\nintelligence, blindly moving within its own secret recesses. It is no\nmere feeling and groping about in a vacuum, but an intelligent system\nof rational organisation. Of that system Thought is the summit in point\nof form: and Thought maybe described as the capability of going beyond\nthe mere surface of God's self-expansion,--or rather as the capability,\nby means of reflection upon it, of entering into it, and then when the\nentrance has been secured, of retracing in thought God's expansion of\nHimself. To take this trouble is the express duty and end of ends set\nbefore the thinking mind, ever since God laid aside His rolled-up form,\nand revealed Himself[1].'\n\nEnthusiastic admirers have often spoken as if the salvation of the time\ncould only come from the Hegelian philosophy. 'Grasp the secret of\nHegel,' they say, 'and you will find a cure for the delusions of your\nown mind, and the remedy which will set right the wrongs of the world.'\nThese high claims to be a panacea were never made by Hegel himself.\nAccording to him, as according to Aristotle, philosophy _as such_ can\nproduce nothing new. Practical statesmen, and theoretical reformers,\nmay do their best to correct the inequalities of their time. But the\nvery terms in which Bacon scornfully depreciated one great concept of\nphilosophy are to be accepted in their literal truth. Like a virgin\nconsecrated to God, she bears no fruit[2]. She represents the spirit\nof the world, resting, as it were, when one step in the progress has\nbeen accomplished, and surveying the advance which has been made.\nPhilosophy is not,' says Fichte, 'even a means to _shape_ life: for\nit lies in a totally different world, and what is to have an influence\nupon life must itself have sprung from life. Philosophy is only a means\nto the _knowledge_ of life.' Nor has it the vocation to edify men, and\ntake the place of religion on the higher levels of intellect. 'The\nphilosopher,' Fichte boldly continues, 'has no God at all and can have\nno God: he has only a concept of the concept or of the Idea of God. It\nis only in life that there is God and religion: but the philosopher as\nsuch is not the whole complete man, and it is impossible for any one\nto be _only_ a philosopher[3].' Philosophy does not profess to bring\ninto being what ought to be, but is not yet. It sets up no mere ideals,\nwhich must wait for some future day in order to be realised. Enough\nfor it if it show what the world _is,_ if it were what it professes\nto be, and what in a way it must be, otherwise it could not be even\nwhat it is. The subject-matter of philosophy is that which is always\nrealising and always realised--the world in its wholeness as it is and\nhas been. It seeks to put before us, and embody in permanent outlines,\nthe universal law of spiritual life and growth, and not the local,\ntemporary, and individual acts of human will.\n\nThose who ask philosophy to construe, or to deduce _a priori_ a\nsingle blade of grass, or a single act of a man, must not be grieved\nif their request sounds absurd and meets with no answer. The sphere\nof philosophy is the Universal. We may say, if we like, that it is\nretrospective. It is the spectator of all time and all existence: it\nis its duty to view things _sub specie aeternitatis_. To comprehend\nthe universe of thought in all its formations and all its features, to\nreduce the solid structures, which mind has created, to fluidity and\ntransparency in the pure medium of thought, to set free the fossilised\nintelligence which the great magician who wields the destinies of the\nworld has hidden under the mask of Nature, of the Mind of man, of\nthe works of Art, of the institutions of the State and the orders of\nSociety, and of religious forms and creeds:--such is the complicated\nproblem of philosophy. Its special work is to comprehend the world,\nnot try to make it better. If it were the purpose of philosophy to\nreform and improve the existing state of things, it comes a little\ntoo late for such a task. 'As the thought of the world,' says Hegel,\n'it makes its first appearance at a time, when the actual fact has\nconsummated its process of formation, and is now fully matured. This is\nthe doctrine set forth by the notion of philosophy; but it is also the\nteaching of history. It is only when the actual world has reached its\nfull fruition that the ideal rises to confront the reality, and builds\nup, in the shape of an intellectual realm, that same world grasped in\nits substantial being. When philosophy paints its grey in grey, some\none shape of life has meanwhile grown old: and grey in grey, though\nit brings it into knowledge, cannot make it young again. The owl of\nMinerva does not start upon its flight, until the evening twilight has\nbegun to fall[4].'\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Vermischte Schriften_, vol. ii. p. 87.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _De Augm. Scient._ iii. 5.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The passages occur in some notes (written down by F. in\nreference to the charge of Atheism) published in his _Werke,_ v. pp.\n342, 348.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Philosophie des Rechts_, p. 20 (_Werke,_ viii).]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n\nHEGEL AND THEOLOGY.\n\n\nEven an incidental glance into Hegel's Logic cannot fail to discover\nthe frequent recurrence of the name of God, and the discussion of\nmatters not generally touched upon, unless in works bearing upon\nreligion. There were two questions which seem to have had a certain\nfascination for Hegel. One of them, a rather unpromising problem,\nreferred to the distances between the several planets in the solar\nsystem, and the law regulating these intervals[1]. The other and more\nintimate problem turned upon the value of the proofs usually offered\nin support of the being of God. That God is the supreme certitude of\nthe mind, the basis of all reality and knowledge, is what Hegel no more\nput in question, than did Descartes, Spinoza, or Locke. What he often\nrepeated was that the _matter_ in these proofs must be distinguished\nfrom the imperfect _manner_ in which the arguers presented it.\nAgain and again in his Logic, as well as in other discussions more\nespecially devoted to it, he examines this problem. His persistence\nin this direction might earn for him that title of 'Knight of the\nHoly Ghost,' by which Heine, in one of the delightful poems of his\n'Reisebilder,' describes himself to the maid of Klausthal in the Harz.\nThe poet of Love and of Freedom had undoubted rights to rank among the\nsacred band: but so also had the philosopher. Like the Socrates whom\nPlato describes to us, he seems to feel that he has been commissioned\nto reveal the truth of God, and quicken men by an insight into the\nright wisdom. Nowhere in the modern period of philosophy has higher\nspirit breathed in the utterances of a thinker. The same theme is\nclaimed as the common heritage of philosophy and religion. A letter\nto Duboc[2], the father of a modern German novelist, lets us see how\nimportant this aspect of his system was to Hegel himself. He had been\nasked to give a succinct explanation of his standing-ground: and his\nanswer begins by pointing out that philosophy seeks to apprehend in\nreasoned knowledge the same truth which the religious mind has in its\nfaith.\n\nWords like these may at first sight suggest the bold soaring of ancient\nspeculation in the times of Plato and Aristotle, or even the theories\nof the medieval Schoolmen. They sound as if he proposed to do for the\nmodern world, and in the full light of modern knowledge, what the\nSchoolmen tried to accomplish within the somewhat narrow conceptions\nof medieval Christianity and Greek logic. Still there is a difference\nbetween the two cases. While the Doctors of the Church, in appearance\nat least, derived the form of exposition, and the matter of their\nsystems, from two independent and apparently heterogeneous sources,\nthe modern Scholastic of Hegel claims to be a harmonious unity, body\nfinding soul, and soul giving itself body. And while the Hegelian\nsystem has the all-embracing and encyclopaedic character by which\nScholastic science threw its arms around heaven and earth, it has also\nthe untrammeled liberty of the Greek thinkers. Hegel, in short, shows\nthe union of these two modes of speculation: free as the ancient, and\ncomprehensive as the modern. His theory is the explication of God;\nbut of God in the actuality and plenitude of the world, and not as a\ntranscendent Being, such as an over-reverent philosophy has sometimes\nsupposed him, in the solitude of a world beyond.\n\nThe greatness of a philosophy is its power of comprehending facts.\nThe most characteristic fact of modern times is Christianity. The\ngeneral thought and action of the civilised world has been alternately\nfascinated and repelled, but always influenced, and to a high degree\npermeated, by the Christian theory of life, and still more by the\nfaithful vision of that life displayed in the Son of Man. To pass that\ngreat cloud of witness and leave it on the other side, is to admit that\nyour system is no key to the secret of the world,--even if we add, as\nsome will prefer, of the world as it is and has been. And therefore\nthe Hegelian system, if it is to be a philosophy at all, must be in\nthis sense Christian. But it is neither a critic, nor an apologist of\nhistorical Christianity. The voice of philosophy is as that of the\nJewish doctor of the Law: 'If this council or this work be of men,\nit will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it,\nPhilosophy examines what is, and not what, according to some opinions,\nought to be. Such a point of view requires no discussion of the 'How'\nor the 'Why' of Christianity. It involves no inquiry into historical\ndocuments, or into the belief in miracles: for to it Christianity\nrests only incidentally on the evidence of history; and miracles, as\nvulgarly explained, can find no reception in a philosophical system.\nFor it Christianity is 'absolute religion': religion i. e. which has\nfully become and realised all that religion meant to be. That religion\nhas, of course, its historical side: it appeared at a definite epoch\nin the annals of our race: it revealed itself in a unique personality\nin a remarkable nation. And at an early period of his life Hegel had\ntried to gather up in one conception the traits of that august figure,\nin his life and speech and death. But, in the light of philosophy,\nthis historical side shrivels up as comparatively unimportant. Not the\npersonality, but the 'revelation of reason' through man's spirit: not\nthe annals of a life once spent in serving God and men, but the words\nof the 'Eternal Gospel are henceforth the essence of Christianity.\n\nThus the controlling and central conception of life and actuality,\nwhich is the final explanation of all that man thinks and does, has\na twofold aspect. There is, as it were, a double Absolute--for under\nthis name philosophy has what in religion corresponds to God. It is\ntrue that in the final form of his system the Absolute Spirit has three\nphases--each as it were passing on into and incorporated with the\nnext--Art working out its implications till it appears as Religion,\nand Religion calling for its perfection in Philosophy. But in the\n_Phenomenology_, his first work, the religion of Art only intervenes\nas a grade from 'natural' religion to religion manifest or revealed;\nand in the first edition of the _Encyclopaedia_ what is subsequently\ncalled Art is entitled the Religion of Art. It is in entire accordance\nwith these indications when in the Lectures on Aesthetics[3] it is\nsaid 'the true and original position of Art is to be the first-come\nimmediate self-satisfaction of Absolute Spirit'; though in our days (it\nis added) 'its form has ceased to be the highest need of the spirit.'\nIt is hardly too much then to say that, for Hegel, the Absolute has two\nphases, Religion and Philosophy.\n\nThe Hegelian view presents itself most decisively, though perhaps\nwith a little lecture-like over-insistance, in the Philosophy of\nReligion[4]. 'The object of religion as of philosophy is the eternal\ntruth in its very objectivity,--God and nothing but God,--and the\n\"explication\" of God. Philosophy is not a wisdom of the world, but\ncognition of the non-worldly: not a cognition of the external mass of\nempirical existence and life, but cognition of what is eternal, what\nis God, and what flows from His nature. For this nature must reveal\nand develop itself. Hence philosophy \"explicates\" itself only when\nit \"explicates\" religion; and in explicating itself it explicates\nreligion.... Thus religion and philosophy coincide: in fact, philosophy\nis itself a divine service, is a religion: for it is the same\nrenunciation of subjective fancies and opinions, and is engaged with\nGod alone.'\n\nAgain, it may be asked in what sense philosophy has to deal with God\nand with Truth. These two terms are often synonyms in Hegel. All the\nobjects of science, all the terms of thought, all the forms of reality,\nlead out of themselves, and seek for a centre and resting-point. They\nare severally inadequate and partial, and they crave adequacy and\ncompleteness. They tend to organise themselves; to call out more and\nmore distinctly the fuller reality which they presuppose,--which must\nhave been, otherwise they could not have been: they reduce their first\nappearance of completeness to its due grade of inadequacy and bring out\ntheir complementary side, so as to constitute a system or universe; and\nin this tendency to a self-correcting unity consists their progress\nto truth. Their untruth lies in isolation and pretended independence\nor finality. This completed unity, in which all things receive their\nentireness and become adequate, is their Truth: and that Truth, as\nknown in religious language, is God. Rightly or wrongly, God is thus\ninterpreted in the Logic of Hegel.\n\nSuch a position must seem very strange to one who is familiar only\nwith the sober studies of English philosophy. In whatever else the\nleaders of the several schools in this country disagree, they are\nnearly all at one in banishing God and religion to a world beyond\nthe present sublunary sphere, to an inscrutable region beyond the\nscope of scientific inquiry, where statements may be made at will,\nbut where we have no power of verifying any statement whatever.\nThis is the common doctrine of Spencer and Mansel, of Hamilton and\nMill. Even those English thinkers, who show some anxiety to support\nwhat is at present called Theism, generally rest content with\nvindicating for the mind the vague perception of a Being beyond us,\nand differing from us incommensurably. God is to them a residual\nphenomenon, a marginal existence. Outside the realm of experience\nand knowledge there is not-nothing--a something--beyond definite\ncircumscription: incalculable, and therefore an object, possibly of\nfear, possibly of hope: the reflection in the utter darkness of a great\nWhat-may-it-not-be? He is the Unknown Power, felt by what some of\nthese writers call intuition, and others call experience. They do not\nhowever allow to knowledge any capacity of apprehending in detail the\ntruths which belong to the kingdom of God. Now the whole teaching of\nHegel is the overthrow of the limits thus set to religious thought. To\nhim all thought, and all actuality when it is grasped by knowledge, is\nfrom man's side, an exaltation of the mind towards God: while, when\nregarded from the divine standing-point, it is the manifestation by God\nof His own nature in its infinite variety.\n\nIt is only when we fix our eyes clearly on these general features in\nhis speculation, that we can understand why _he_ places the maturity\nof ancient philosophy in the time of Plotinus and Proclus. Not that\nthese Neo-Platonists are, as thinkers, of power equal to their master\nof Athens. But, in the realm of the blind the one-eyed may be king. The\nlater thinkers set their vision more distinctly and persistently on the\nland that is eternal--'on the further side of being,' to quote Plato's\nphrase. It is for the same reason Hegel gives so much attention to the\nreligious or semi-religious theories of Jacob B\u00f6hme and of Jacobi,\nthough these men were in many ways so unlike himself.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Hegel's _Leben_, p. 155. It was in his dissertation\n_de Orbitis Planetarum,_ that the notorious contretemps occurred,\nwhereby, whilst the philosopher, leaning to a Pythagorean proportion,\nhinted--in a line--that it was unnecessary to expect a planet between\nMars and Jupiter, astronomers in the same year discovered Ceres, the\nfirst-detected of the Planetoids. A good deal has been made out of\nthis trifle; but it has not yet been shown that the corroboration was\nanything but the _luck_ of the other hypothesis.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Vermischte Schriften_, vol. ii. p. 520. Duboc was a\nretired hatter, of French origin, who had settled at Hamburg (Hegel's\n_Briefe_, ii. 76 seqq.).]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Werke_, x. I, p. 131.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Werke,_ xi. p. 21.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n\nPSEUDO-IDEALISM: JACOBI.\n\n\nIt is hazardous to try to sum up the net result of a philosophy in\na few paragraphs. Since Aristotle separated the pure 'energy' of\nphilosophy from the activities which leave works made and deeds\ndone behind them, it need scarcely be repeated that the result of a\nphilosophical system is nothing palpable or tangible,--nothing on which\nyou can put your finger, and say definitely: Here it is. The spirit of\na philosophy always refuses to be incarcerated in a formula, however\ndeftly you may try to charm it there. The statement of the principle\nor tendency of a philosophical system tells not what that system is,\nbut what it is not. It marks off the position from contiguous points\nof view; and on that account never gets beyond the borderland, which\nseparates that system from something else. The method and process of\nreasoning is as essential in knowledge, as the result to which it\nleads: and the method in this case is thoroughly bound up with the\nsubject-matter. A mere analysis of the method, therefore, or a mere\nrecord of the purpose and outcome of the system, would be, the one as\nwell as the other, a fruitless labour, and come to nothing but words.\nThus any attempt to convey a glimpse of the truth in a few sentences\nand in large outlines seems foreclosed. The theory of Hegel has an\nabhorrence of mere generalities, of abstractions with no life in them,\nand no growth out of them. His principle has to prove and verify itself\nto be true and adequate: and that verification fills up the whole\ncircle of circles, of which philosophy is said to consist.\n\nIt seems as if there were in Hegel two distinct habits of mind which\nthe world--the outside observer--rarely sees except in separation.\nOn one hand there is a sympathy with mystical and intuitional minds,\nwith the upholders of immediate knowledge and of innate ideas, with\nthose who find that science and demonstration rather tend to distract\nfrom the one thing needful--who would 'lie in Abraham's bosom all the\nyear,'--those who would fain lay their grasp upon the whole before they\nhave gone through the drudgery of details. On the other hand, there\nis within him a strongly 'rationalising' and non-visionary intellect,\nwith a practical and realistic bent, and the full scientific spirit.\nSchelling, in an angry mood, could describe him as 'the quintessence\nof all that is prosaic, both outside and in[1].' Yet, seen from other\npoints of view, Hegel has been accused of dreaminess, pietism, and\nmystical theology. His merging of the ordinary contrasts of thought\nin a completer truth, and what would popularly be described as his\nmixing up of religious with logical questions, and the general\nunfathomableness of his doctrine,--all seem to support such a charge.\nYet all this is not inconsistent with a rough and incisive vigour\nof understanding, a plainness of reason, and a certain hardness of\ntemperament. This philosopher is in many ways not distinguishable from\nthe ordinary citizen, and there are not unfrequent moments when his\nwife hears him groan over the providence that condemned him to be a\nphilosopher[2]. He is contemptuous towards all weakly sentimentalism,\nand almost brutal in his emphasis on the reasonableness of the actual\nand on the folly of dreaming the might-have-been; and keeps his\nhousehold accounts as carefully as the average head of a family. And,\nperhaps, this convergence of two tendencies of thought may be noticed\nin the gradual maturing of his ideas. In the period of his 'Lehrjahre,'\nor apprenticeship, from 1793 to 1800, we can see the study of religion\nin the earlier part of that time at Bern succeeded by the study of\npolitics and philosophy at Frankfort-on-the-Main.\n\nHis purpose on the whole may be termed an attempt to combine breadth\nwith depth, the intensity of the mystic who craves for union with\nTruth, with the extended range and explicitness of those who multiply\nknowledge. 'The depth of the mind is only so deep as its courage\nto expand and lose itself in its explication[3]. It must prove its\nprofundity by the ordered fullness of the knowledge which it has\nrealised. The position and the work of Hegel will not be intelligible\nunless we keep in view both of these antagonistic points.\n\nThe purpose of philosophy--as has been pointed out--is, for Hegel--to\nknow God, which is to know things in their Truth--to see all things in\nGod--to comprehend the world in its eternal significance. Supposing\nthe purpose capable of being achieved, what method is open to its\nattainment? There is on one hand the method of ordinary science\nin dealing with its objects. These are _things,_ found as it were\nprojected into space before the observer, lying outside one another in\n_prima facie_ independence, though connected (by a further finding)\nwith each other by certain 'accidents' called qualities and relations.\nAmong the objects of knowledge, there are included, by the somewhat\nna\u00efve intellect that accepts tradition like a physical fact, certain\n'things' of a rather peculiar character. One of these is God: the\nothers, which a historical criticism has subjoined, are the Soul and\nthe World. And whatever may be said of the thinghood, reality, or\nexistence of the World, there is no doubt that God and the Soul figure,\nand figure largely, in the consciousness of the human race as entities,\ndiffering probably in many respects from other things, but still\npossessed of certain fundamental features in common, and thus playing a\npart as distinct realities amongst other realities.\n\nGiven such objects, it is natural for a reflecting mind to attempt\nto make out a science of God and a science of the Soul, just as of\nother 'things.' And to these, a system-loving philosopher might add a\nscience of the world (Cosmology)[4]. It was felt, indeed, that these\nobjects were peculiar and unique. Thus, for example, as regards God,\nit was held necessary by the logician who saw tradition in its true\nlight to prove His existence': and various arguments to that end were\nat different times devised. With regard to the human Soul, similarly,\nit was considered essential to establish its independent reality as a\nthing really separate from the bodily organism with which its phenomena\nwere obviously connected,--to prove, in short, its substantial\nexistence, and its emancipation from the bodily fate of dissolution and\ndecay. With reference to the World, the problem was rather different:\nit was felt that the name suggested problems for thought rather than\ndenoted reality. How can we predicate of the whole what is predicable\nof its parts? This or that may have a beginning and a cause, may have\na limit and an end: but can the totality be presented under these\naspects, without leading to self-contradiction? And the result of\nthese questions in the case of 'Cosmology' was to shed in the long run\nsimilar doubts on 'Rational' Theology and 'Rational' Psychology.\n\nPractically this metaphysical science--which is so called as dealing\nwith a province or provinces of being _beyond_ the ordinary or natural\n_(physical)_ realities--treated God and the Soul by the same terms\n(or _categories_) as it used in dealing with 'material' objects. God\ne. g. was a force, a cause, a being; so, too, was the Soul. The main\nbutt of Kant's destructive _Criticism of pare Reason_ is to challenge\nthe justice of including God and the Soul among the objects of\nscience,--among the things we can know as we may know plants or stars.\nTo make an object of knowledge (in the strict sense), to make a thing,\nthe prerequisite, Kant urges, is perception in space and time. Without\na sensation--and that sensation, as it were, laid out in place and\nduration--an object of science is impossible. No mere demonstration\nwill conjure it into existence. And with that requirement the old\ntheology and psychology, which professed to expound the object-God and\nthe object-soul, were ruled out-of-order in the list of sciences, and\nreduced to mere dialectical exercises. The circle of the sciences,\ntherefore, does not lead beyond the conditioned,' beyond the regions\nof space and time. It has nothing to say of a 'first cause' or of an\nultimate end.\n\nSuch was the result that might fairly be read from Kant's _Criticism of\npare Reason_,--especially if read without its supplementary sequels,\nand, above all, if read by those in whom feeling was stronger than\nthought, or who were by nature more endowed with the craving for faith\nthan with the mind of philosophy. Such a personality appeared in J.\nH. Jacobi, the younger brother of a poet not undistinguished in his\nday. Amid the duties of public office and the cares of business, he\nfound time to study Spinoza, the English and Scotch moralists, and\nabove all to follow with interest the development of Kant from the year\n1763 onwards. His house at D\u00fcsseldorf was the scene of many literary\nreunions, and Jacobi himself maintained familiar intercourse with\nthe leaders of the literary and intellectual world, such as Lessing,\nHamann, Goethe. His first considerable works were two novels, in\nletters,--Allwill, begun in a serial magazine in 1775, and Woldemar,\nbegun in another magazine in 1777; both being issued as complete works\nin 1781. Both turn on a moral antithesis, and both leave the antithesis\nas they found it. _Here_ pleads the advocate of the heart: 'it is the\nheart which alone and directly tells man what is good': 'virtue is a\nfundamental instinct of human nature': the true basis of morals is an\nimmediate certainty; and the supreme standard is an 'ethical genius'\nwhich as it were discovered virtue and which still is a paramount\nauthority in those exceptional situations in life when the 'grammar\nof virtue' fails to supply adequate rules, and where, therefore, the\nimmediate voice of conscience must in a 'licence of sublime poesy[5]'\ndare, as Burke says, to 'suspend its own rules in favour of its own\nprinciples.' _There_, on the other hand, is the champion of reason,\nwho declares all this sentimentalism 'a veritable mysticism of\nantinomianism and a quietism of immorality[6]': 'To humanity,' he says,\n'and to every man (every complete man) principles, and some system\nof principles, are indispensable.' Woldemar concludes with the pair\nof mottoes: 'Whosoever trusts to his own heart is a fool,' and 'Trust\nlove: it takes everything, but it gives everything.'\n\nIn 1780 Jacobi had his historic conversation with Lessing at\nWolfenb\u00fcttel[7]. The talk turned on Spinoza. For many years the\nphilosophy of Spinoza had seemed to vanish from the world. His name\nwas only heard in a reference of obloquy, as if it were dangerous to\nbe even suspected of infection with the taint of Atheism. But both\nLessing and Jacobi had found him out. The former saw in him an ally in\nthat struggle for higher light and wider views which he undertook in\na spirit and with a scope hardly surmised by those he usually wrought\nwith. Jacobi, on the contrary, saw in him personified the conjunction\nof all those irreligious tendencies which all philosophy in some degree\nexhibited: the tendency to veil or set aside God and personality. 'I\nbelieve,' says Jacobi, as he began the conversation 'in an intelligent\npersonal cause of the world.' 'Then I am going,' replied Lessing, 'to\nhear something quite new': and he dryly put aside the other's rhapsody\non the 'personal extra-mundane deity with the remark 'Words, my dear\nJacobi, words.' Jacobi's work _Letters on the doctrine of Spinoza_\n(it appeared in 1785) was the beginning of a controversy in which\nMendelssohn and Herder took part, and in which Goethe took an interest\nunder Herders tutorship. To the exact philological study of Spinoza\nit did not contribute much: for the Spinoza whom Herder and Goethe\nsaw as their spiritual forefather was transfigured in their thought\nto a figure to which Leibniz had almost an equal right to give his\nname. He upheld to them the symbol of the immanence of the divine in\nnature: he was the leader in the battle against 'philistine' deism and\nutilitarianism.\n\nWith the Kantian criticism of the pseudo-science of theology Jacobi had\nin one way no fault to find. That reasoning by its demonstration cannot\nfind out God, was to him an axiomatic belief. But the 'man of feeling'\nfelt uneasy at the trenchant methods of the K\u00f6nigsberg man of logic.\nHe seemed to see the world of men and things passing under Kant's\nmanipulation into a mere collection of phenomena and ideas of the mind.\nStill more was he sensible to the loss of his God. That surrogate of an\nargument for theism which Kant seemed to offer in the implications of\nthe Moral Law did not give what Jacobi wanted. Mere morality is a cold\nand mechanical principle--he thinks--compared with that infinite life\nand love which we deem we have in God. The son of man, he felt, was, in\nvirtue of an indwelling genius of conscience, supreme over the moral\nlaw: how much more, then, the Absolute and Eternal on a higher grade of\nbeing than its mechanical regularities!\n\nIf the way of reasoning will not carry us to the Absolute, still\nless (and that is whither Jacobi wishes to reach) to God, there must\nbe another way: for something in him, which may be called Faith\nor Feeling, Spiritual Sense or Reason, proclaims itself certain\nof the reality both of God and Nature. There _is_ an objective\nreality--outside and beyond him--yet somehow to be reached by a daring\nleap,--whereby, out of sheer force of will, he, shutting his eyes\nto the temporal and the mechanical, finds himself carried over the\ndividing gulf into the land of eternal life and love.\n\n'I appeal' he says in his latest utterances[8] 'to an imperative, an\ninvincible feeling as the first and underived ground of all philosophy\nand all religion,--to a feeling which lets man become aware of and\nalive to the fact that he has a sense for the supersensuous.' 'As it\nis religion which makes man man,' he continues, 'and which alone lifts\nhim above the animals, so it also makes him a philosopher.' Such an\norgan for the supersensuous is what in his later writings he calls\n_Vernunft_ (Reason) and distinguishes from _Verstand_ (Understanding).\n'This reason,' says Coleridge (to whom we owe this use of the terms in\nEnglish) in the _Friend,_ 'is an organ bearing the same relation to\nspiritual objects as the eye bears to material phenomena,' It is 'that\nintuition of things which arises when we possess ourselves as one with\nthe whole and is opposed to that 'science of the mere understanding'\nin which 'transferring reality to the negations of reality (to the\never-varying framework of the uniform life) we think of ourselves\nas separated beings, and place nature in antithesis to the mind, as\nobject to subject, thing to thought, death to life.' But this Reason\nis even more than this. It is the direct contact with reality, which\nit affirms and even _is._ It apprehends the _me_ and the _thee,_ it\napprehends above all the great _Thee,_ God: apprehends, and we may even\nsay appropriates[9]. And it apprehends them at one bound--in one _salto\nmortale_--because it is really in implicit possession of them. Call the\nstep a miracle, if you will: you must admit, he adds, that 'some time\nor other every philosophy must have recourse to a miracle[10].'\n\nAnd yet the asseveration rings false--it shows a womanish wilfulness\nand weakness in its reiteration. He has the reality; yet he has it\nnot. 'Were a God known,' he says in one place, 'He would not be God.'\nHe yearns with passionate longing to find the living and true: he\nfeels himself and the Eternal clasped in one: his faith effects the\nreality of things hoped for. But, he adds, 'We never see the Absolute':\nthe primal light of reason is but faint. It is but a presage--a\npre-supposition--of the Everlasting. This reason, in short, needs\ndiscipline and development, it needs the ethical life to raise it:\n'without morality no religiosity,' he says. 'Light,' he complains,\n'is in my heart,' but at the moment I want to bring it into the\nunderstanding, the light goes out.' And yet he knows--and Coleridge\nrepeats--'the consciousness of reason and of its revelations is only\npossible in an understanding.'\n\n'There seem to be one or two motives acting upon Jacobi. The 'plain\nman,' especially if he be of high character and of 'noble' religiosity,\nhas a feeling that the lust of philosophising disturbs the security of\nlife, and endangers things which are deservedly dear to him. In such\nan one the 'enthusiasm of logic'--the calm pursuit of truth at all\ncosts, so characteristic of Lessing--is inferior to the 'enthusiasm\nof life,'--a passion in which the terrestrial and the celestial are\ninextricably blended, where one clings to God as the stronghold of\nself, and sets personality--our human personality--in the throne of\nthe Eternal. He will be all that is noble and good, if only he be not\nasked utterly to surrender self. So, too, Jacobi's God--or Absolute\n(for he leaves his 'non-philosophy' so far as to use both names), is\nrather the final aim of a grand, overpowering yearning, than a calm,\nself-centred, self-expanding life which carries man along with it.\nIt would be, he feels, so very terrible, if at the last there were\nno God to meet us--to find the throne of the universe vacant. Avaunt\nphilosophy, therefore! Let us cling to the faith of our nature and our\nchildhood, and refuse her treacherous consolations! With the central\nproposition of Jacobi, Hegel, for one, is not inclined to quarrel. He\ntoo, as he asks and answers the question as to the issues of this and\nof the better life, might say\n\n                                      'Question, answer presuppose\n    Two points: that the thing itself which questions, answers,--_is,_ it\n        knows;\n    As it also knows the thing perceived outside itself--a force\n    Actual ere its own beginning, operative through its course,\n    Unaffected by its end,--that this thing likewise needs must be;\n    Call this--God, then, call that--Soul, and both the only facts for me.\n    Prove them facts? that they o'erpass my power of proving proves\n        them such:\n    Fact it is, I know, I know not something which is fact as much.'\n\nBut when Jacobi goes on to say that it is the supreme and final duty\nof the true sage 'to unveil reality,'--meaning thereby that, given the\nfeeling, he has only to\n\n                    'Define it well\n    For fear divine Philosophy\n    Should push beyond her mark and be\n    Procuress to the Lords of Hell,'\n\nHegel withdraws. It is the duty of philosophy to labour to make the\nperception--the fleeting, uncertain, trembling perception--of faith,\na clear, sure, inwardly consistent knowledge: to show, and not merely\nto assert, that 'the path of (this world's) duty is the way to (that\nworld's) glory.' There is, Hegel himself has said more than once,\nsomething opposed to ordinary ways of thinking in the procedure of the\nphilosopher. To the outsider, it seems like standing on your head.\nIt involves something like what, in religious language, is termed\nconversion--a new birth--becoming a new man. But though such a change\nalways seems to culminate in a moment of sudden transformation,--as if\nthe continuity of old and new were disrupted, the process has a history\nand a preparation. Of that pilgrim's progress of the world-distracted\nsoul to its discovery of its true being in God, philosophy is the\nrecord: a record which Hegel has written both in the _Phenomenology of\nMind_, and, more methodically, in his _Encyclopaedia._ The passage from\nnature to God--or from man's limitations to the divine fullness--must\nbe made, he urged, in the open day and not in the secret vision when\nsleep falls upon men. When the aged Jacobi read these requirements of\nHegel, he wrote to a friend: 'He may be right, and I should like once\nagain to experiment with him all that the power of thinking can do\nalone, were not the old man's head too weak for it[11].'\n\n'For a philosophy like this,' says Hegel[12], 'individual man\nand humanity are the ultimate standpoint:--as a fixed invincible\nfinitude of reason, not as a reflection of the eternal beauty, or as\na spiritual focus of the universe, but as an ultimate sense-nature,\nwhich however with the power of faith can daub itself over here and\nthere with an alien supersensible. Let us suppose an artist restricted\nto portrait-painting; he might so far idealise as to introduce in the\neye of a commonplace countenance a yearning look, and on its lips a\nmelancholy smile, but he would be utterly debarred from depicting the\nGods, sublime over yearning and melancholy--as if the delineation of\neternal pictures were only possible at the cost of humanity. So too\nPhilosophy--on this view--must not portray the Idea of man, but the\nabstraction of a humanity empirical and mingled with short-comings, and\nmust bear a body impaled on the stake of the absolute antithesis; and\nwhen it clearly feels its limitation to the sensible, it must at the\nsame time bedeck itself with the surface colour of a supersensible,\nand point the finger of faith to a something Higher.\n\n'But the truth cannot be defrauded by such a consecration if finitude\nbe still left subsisting; the true consecration must annihilate it.\nThe artist, who fails to give actuality the true truth by letting\nfall upon it the ethereal illumination and taking it completely in\nthat light, and who can only depict actuality in its bare ordinary\nreality and truth (a reality however which is neither true nor real)\nmay apply the pathetic remedy to actuality, the remedy of tenderness\nand sentimentality, everywhere putting tears on the cheeks of the\ncommonplace, and an O God! in their mouth. No doubt his figures in\nthis way direct their look over the actual heavenwards, but like\nbats they belong neither to the race of birds nor beasts, neither to\nearth nor heaven. Their beauty is not free from ugliness, nor their\nmorals without weakness and meanness: the intelligence they haply may\nshow is not without banality: the success which enters into it is\nnot without vulgarity, and the misfortune not without cowardice and\nterror; and both success and misfortune have something contemptible.\nSo too philosophy, if it takes the finite and subjectivity as absolute\ntruth in the logical form habitual to her, cannot purify them by\nbringing them into relation with an infinite: for that infinite is not\nitself the true, because it is unable to consume finitude. But where\na philosophy consumes the temporal as such and burns up reality, its\naction is pronounced a cruel dissection, which does not leave man\ncomplete, and a forcible abstraction which has no truth, above all\nno truth for life. And such an abstraction is treated as a painful\namputation of an essential piece from the completeness of the whole:\nthat essential piece, and absolute substantiality being believed to\nconsist in the temporal and empirical, and in privation. It is as if\na person, who sees only the feet of a work of art, were to complain,\nshould the whole work be unveiled to his eyes, that he was deprived of\nthe privation, that the incomplete was decompleted.'\n\nJacobi has been spoken of as the leader of this 'Un-philosophy' of\nfaith. As such his allies lie on one side among philosophers who hold\nby the deliverances of 'common sense,' by the consciousness of the\nunsophisticated man shrinking from the waywardness of an idealism that\ndeprives him of his solidest realities. The type of such a philosopher\nhas been drawn by Hegel[13] in Krug. But, on the other side, Jacobi\ntouched hands--though not in a sympathetic spirit--with a somewhat\nmotley band which also had set its face to go to the everlasting gates,\nbut had turned aside to aimless wandering on the Hill Difficulty, or\nsought too soon the repose of the Delectable Mountains, without due\nsojourn in the valley of Humiliation or descent under the Shadow of\nDeath. Like Wordsworth, they felt that the world is too much with\nus: that our true self is frittered away into fragments and passing\nstages, in which we are not ourselves,--whereby we also lose the true\nperception of the essential life of nature. Gradually we have sunk\ninto the deadening arms of habit, reduced ourselves to professional\nand conventional types, and lost the freer and larger mobility of\nspiritual being. We have grown into _verst\u00e4ndige Leute_--people of\npractical sense and worldly wisdom. To such, philosophy would come--if\nit could come--as the great breath of life--of 'reason' (_Vernunft_)\nwhich transcends the separations inevitable in practical will and\nknowledge. But to this band--which has been styled the Romantic School\nof Germany--the liberation came in ways more analogous to that craved\nfor by Jacobi. Their way was the way of Romance and Imagination. The\nprinciple of Romance is the protest against confining man and nature\nto the dull round of uniformities which custom and experience have\nimprisoned them in. Boundless life, infinite spontaneity is surging\nwithin us and the world, ready to break down the dams convention\nand inertia have established. That inner power is an ever-fresh,\never-restless Irony, which sets up and overthrows, which refuses to be\nbound or stereotyped, which is never weary, never exhausted,--free in\nthe absolute sense. It is the mystic force of Nature, which they seemed\nto see ever on the spring to work its magic transformations, and burst\nthe bulwarks of empirical law. It is the princely _jus aggratiandi,_\nthe sportive sovereignty of the true artist, who is able at any moment\nto enter into direct communion with the heart of things.\n\nThe beginning of the nineteenth century in Germany, as well as in\nEngland, was a period of effervescence:--there was a good deal of fire,\nand naturally there was also a good deal of smoke. Genius was exultant\nin its aspirations after Freedom, Truth, and Wisdom. The Romantic\nSchool, which had grown up under the stimulus of Fichte's resolve to\nenact thought, and had for a time been closely allied with Schelling,\ncounted amongst its literary chiefs the names of the Schlegels, of\nTieck, Novalis, and perhaps Richter. The world, as that generation\ndreamed, was to be made young again,--first by drinking, where\nWordsworth led, from the fresh springs of nature,--afterwards when, as\noften has happened, doubts arose as to where Nature was really to be\nfound, by an elixir distilled from the withered flowers of medieval\nCatholicism and chivalry,\n\n    'Since the Mid-Age was the Heroic Time'\n\nand even from the old roots of primeval wisdom. The good old times of\nfaith and harmonious beauty were to be brought back again by the joint\nlabours of ideas and poetry.--\n\n    'So, all that the old Dukes had been, without knowing it,\n    This Duke would fain know he was without being it.'\n\nTo that period of incipient and darkling energy Hegel stands in\nvery much the same position as Luther did to the pre-Reformation\nmystics, to Meister Eckhart, and the unknown author of the 'German\nTheology.' It was from this side, from the school of Genius and Romance\nin philosophy, that Hegel was proximately driven, not into sheer\nre-action, but into system, development, and science.\n\nTo elevate philosophy from a love of wisdom into the possession of real\nwisdom, into a system and a science, is the aim which he distinctly\nset before himself from the beginning. In almost every work, and every\ncourse of lectures, whatever be their subject, he cannot let slip the\nchance of an attack upon the mode of philosophising which substituted\nthe strength of belief or conviction for the intervention of reasoning\nand argument. There may have been a strong sympathy in him with the\nend which these German contemporaries and, in some ways, analogues\nto Coleridge, Shelley, Wordsworth, and Byron had in view. No one who\nreads his criticism of Kant can miss perceiving his bent towards the\nInfinite. But he utterly rejects the vision of feeling, whether as\nlonging faith or devout enjoyment, as an adequate exposition of the\nmeans to this end. Whereas these fantastic seers and sentimentalists\neither disparage science as a limitation to the spirit, in the calm\ntrust of their life in God, or yearn throughout life for a peace\nwhich they never quite reach, Hegel is bent upon showing men that the\nInfinite is not unknowable, as Kant would have it, and yet that man can\nnot, as Jacobi would have it, naturally and without an effort enjoy\nthe things of God[14]. He will prove that the way of Truth is open, and\nprove it by describing in detail every step of the road. Philosophy for\nhim must be reasoned truth. She does not visit favoured ones in visions\nof the night, but comes to all who win her by patient study.\n\n'For those,' he says, 'who ask for a royal road to science, no more\nconvenient directions can be given than to trust to their own sound\ncommon sense, and, if they wish to keep up with the age and with\nphilosophy, to read the reviews criticising philosophical works, and\nperhaps even the prefaces and the first paragraphs in these works\nthemselves. The introductory remarks state the general and fundamental\nprinciples; and the reviews, besides their historical information,\ncontain a critical estimate, which, from the very fact that it is\nsuch, is beyond and above what it criticises. This is the road of\nordinary men: and it may be traversed in a dressing-gown. The other\nway is the way of intuition. It requires you to don the vestments of\nthe high-priest. Along that road stalks the ennobling sentiment of the\nEternal, the True, the Infinite. But it is wrong to call \"this a road.\nThese grand sentiments find themselves, naturally and without taking\na single step, centred in the very sanctuary of truth. So mighty is\ngenius, with its deep original ideas and its high flashes of wit. But\na depth like this is not enough to lay bare the sources of true being,\nand these rockets are not the empyrean. True thoughts and scientific\ninsights are only to be gained by the labour which comprehends and\ngrasps its object. And that thorough grasp alone can produce the\nuniversality of science. Contrasted with the vulgar vagueness and\nscantiness of common sense, that universality is a fully-formed and\nrounded intellect; and, contrasted with the un-vulgar generality of\nthe natural gift of reason when it has been spoilt by the laziness and\nself-conceit of genius, it is truth put in possession of its native\nform, and thus rendered the possible property of every self-conscious\nreason[15].'\n\nThese words which were taken to heart (unnecessarily, perhaps) by the\npatron of the _Intellectual Intuition_ rung the knell to the friendship\nof Hegel with his great contemporary Schelling. Yet this hard saying\nis also the keynote to the subsequent work of the philosopher. In\nHegel we need expect no brilliant _apergus_ of genius, no intellectual\nlegerdemain, but only the patient unraveling of the clue of thought\nthrough all knots and intricacies: a deliberate tracing and working-out\nof the contradictions and mysteries in thought, until the contradiction\nand the mystery disappear. Perseverance is the secret of Hegel.\n\nThis characteristic of patient work is seen, for example, in the\nincessant prosecution of hints and glimpses, until they grew into\nsystematic and rounded outline. Instead of vague anticipations and\nguesses at truth, fragments of insight, his years of philosophic study\nare occupied with writing and re-writing, in the _V_ endeavour to clear\nup and arrange the masses of his ideas. Essay after essay, and sketch\nafter sketch of a system, succeed each other amongst his papers. His\nfirst great work was not published before his 37th year, after six\nyears spent in university work at Jena, following as many spent in\npreliminary lucubration. The notes which he used to dictate some years\nafterwards to the boys in the Gymnasium at N\u00fcrnberg bear evidence\nof constant remodelling, and the same is true of his professorial\nlectures.\n\nSuch insistance in tracing every suggestion of truth to its place\nin the universe of thought is the peculiar character and difficulty\nof Hegelian argument. Other observers have now and again noticed,\naccentuated, and, it may be, popularised some one point or some one\nlaw in the evolution of reason. Here and there, as we reflect, we\nare forced to recognise what Hegel termed the dialectical nature in\nthought,--the tendency, by which a principle, when made to be all that\nit implied, when, as the phrase is, it is carried to extremes, recoils\nand leaves us confronted by its antithesis. We cannot, for example,\nstudy the history of ancient thought without noting this phenomenon.\nThus, the persistence with which Plato and Aristotle taught and\nenforced the doctrine that the community was the guide and safeguard\nof the several citizens, very soon issued in the schools of Zeno and\nEpicurus, teaching the rights of self-seeking and of the independent\nself-realisation of the individual. But the passing glimpse of an\nindwelling discord in the terms, by which we argue, is soon forgotten,\nand is set aside under the head of accidents, instead of being referred\nto a general law. Most of us take only a single step to avoid what has\nturned out wrong, and when we have overcome the seeming absoluteness of\none idea, we are content and even eager to throw ourselves under the\nyoke of another, not less one-sided than its predecessor. Sometimes\none feels tempted to say that the course of human thought as a whole,\nas well as that branch of it termed science, exhibits nothing but a\nsuccession of illusions, which enclose us in the belief that some idea\nis all-embracing as the universe,--illusions, from which the mind is\ntime after time liberated, only in a little while to sink under the\nsway of some partial correction, as if it and it only were the complete\ntruth.\n\nOr, again, the Positive Philosophy exhibits as one of its features an\nemphatic and popular statement of a fallacy much discussed in Hegel.\nOne of the best deeds of that school has been to protest against a\ndelusive belief in certain words and notions; particularly by pointing\nout the insufficiency of what it calls metaphysical terms, i. e. those\nabstract entities formed by reflective thought, which are little else\nthan a double of the phenomenon they are intended to explain. To\naccount for the existence of insanity by an assumed basis for it in\nthe 'insane neurosis,' or to attribute the sleep which follows a dose\nof opium to the soporific virtues of the drug, are some exaggerated\nexamples of the metaphysical intellect which is so rampant in much\nof our popular, and even of our esoteric science. Positivism by its\nlogical precepts ought at least to have instilled general distrust of\nabstract talk about essences, laws, forces and causes, whenever they\nclaim an inherent and independent value, or profess to be more than\na reflex of sensation. But all this is only a desultory perception,\nthe reflection of an intelligent observer. When we come to Hegel, the\nComtian perception of the danger lying in the terms of metaphysics is\nreplaced by the Second Part of Logic, the Theory of Essential Being,\nwhere substances, causes, forces, essences, matters, are confronted\nwith what Mr. Bain has called their 'suppressed correlative[16].'\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Aus Schellings Leben (Plitt.), ii. 161.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Hegel's _Briefe_, ii. 377.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Phenomenologie des Geistes,_ p. 9.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Cf. Notes and Illustrations in vol. ii. 396, and chapter\niii. of the _Logic._]\n\n[Footnote 5: Jacobi's _Werke_, v. 79, III, 115, 417.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Ibid., i. 178.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Jacobi's _Werke,_ iv. i. Abth. p. 55 seqq.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Jacobi's _Werke_, iv. i, p. xxi.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Jacobi's _Briefwechsel,_ i. 330.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Jacobi's _Werke_, iii. 53.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Jacobi's _Briefwechsel_, ii. 468.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Hegel's _Werke,_ i. 15.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Hegel's _Vermischte Schriften,_ i. 50.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Compare pages 121-142 of the _Logic._]\n\n[Footnote 15: _Phenomenologie des Geistes_, p. 54 (_Werke_, ii).]\n\n[Footnote 16: _Practical Essays,_ p. 43.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\n\nTHE SCIENCES AND PHILOSOPHY.\n\n\nBy asserting the rights of philosophy against the dogmatism of\nself-inspired 'unphilosophy,' and by maintaining that we must not feel\nthe truth, with our eyes as it were closed, but must open them full\nupon it, Hegel does not reduce philosophy to the level of one of the\nfinite sciences. The name 'finite,' like the name 'empirical,' is not\na title of which the sciences have any cause to be ashamed. They are\ncalled empirical, because it is their glory and their strength to found\nupon experience. They are called finite, because they have a fixed\nobject, which they must expect and cannot alter; because they have an\nend and a beginning,--presupposing something where they begin, and\nleaving something for the sciences which come after. Botany rests upon\nthe researches of chemistry: and astronomy hands over the record of\ncosmical movements to geology. Science is interlinked with science; and\neach of them is a fragment. Nor can these fragments ever, in the strict\nsense of the word, make up a whole or total. They have broken off,\nsometimes by accident, and sometimes for convenience, from one another.\nThe sciences have budded forth here and there upon the tree of popular\nknowledge and ordinary consciousness, as the interest and needs of the\ntime drew attention closer to various points and objects in the world\nsurrounding us.\n\nProsecute the popular knowledge about any point far enough,\nsubstituting completeness and accuracy for vagueness, and especially\ngiving numerical definiteness in weight, size, and figure, until\nthe little drop of fact has grown into an ocean, and the mere germ\nhas expanded into a structure with complex interconnexion,--and\nyou will have a science. By its point of origin this luminous body\nof facts is united to the great circle of human knowledge and\nignorance. Each special science is a part, which presupposes a total\nof much lower organisation, but much wider range than itself: each\nbranch of scientific knowledge grows out of the already existent\ntree of acquaintance with things. But the part very soon assumes an\nindependence of its own, and adopts a hostile or negative attitude\ntowards the general level of unscientific opinion. This process of what\nwe may, from the vulgar point of view, call abnormal development, is\nrepeated irregularly at various points along the surface of ordinary\nconsciousness. At one time it is the celestial movements calling for\nthe science of astronomy: at another the problem of dividing the soil\ncalling for the geometrician. Each of these outgrowths naturally\nre-acts and modifies the whole range of human knowledge, or what we\nmay call popular science; and thus, while keeping up its own life, it\nquickens the parent stock with an infusion of new vigour, and raises\nthe general intelligence to a higher level and into a higher element.\n\nThe order of the outcome of the sciences in time, therefore, and their\nconnexions with one another, cannot be explained or understood, if we\nlook only to the sciences themselves. We must first of all descend\ninto the depths of natural thought, or of general culture, and trace\nthe lines which unite science with science in that general medium. The\nsystematic interdependence of the sciences must be chiefly sought for\nin the workings of thought as a whole in its popular phases, and in the\naction and reaction of that _general_ human thought with the sciences,\nthose definite organisations of knowledge which form sporadically round\nthe _nuclei_ here and there presented in what would superficially be\ndescribed as the inorganic mass and medium of popular knowledge. Thus,\nby means of the sciences in their aggregate action, the material of\ncommon consciousness is expanded and developed, at least in certain\nparts, though the expansion may be neither consistent nor systematic.\nBut so long as this work is incomplete, so long, that is to say, as\nevery point in the line of popular knowledge has not received its due\nelaboration and equal study, the sciences merely succeed each other in\na certain imperfect sequence, or exist in juxtaposition: they do not\nform a total. The whole of scientific knowledge will only be formed,\nwhen science shall be as completely rounded and unified, as in its\nlower sphere and more inadequate element the ordinary consciousness of\nthe world is now.\n\nUp to a certain point the method of science is but the method of\nordinary consciousness pursued knowingly and steadily. But ere long\nthe method acquires a distinctive character of its own. It shakes\noff the pressure of that immediate subservience in which ordinary\nknowledge stands to man's needs, wishes and interests. Knowledge\nis pursued--within a wide range--for its own sake, and by a class\nmore or less definitely set apart by humanity for its scientific\nservice,--which is thus performed more systematically and continuously.\nBut the great step which carries ordinary knowledge into its higher\nregion is the discovery, due to reflection and comparison, that\nthere is a double grade of reality-a permanent, essential, uniform,\nsubstantial being, which is contrasted with an evanescent, apparent,\nvarying and accidental. To know a thing is in all cases to _relate it_\nto something else: to know it in the higher sense_--vere scire_--is\nto relate it to its essence, its substantial or universal form, its\npermanent self. Ordinary knowledge, e. g., fixes a thing by referring\nto its antecedents: scientific knowledge refers it to its 'invariable,\n'unconditional' or 'essential' antecedent,--to something which\ncontains it implicitly, and necessarily, and is not merely by accident\nor juxtaposition associated with it. To discover this permanent,\nunderlying substance or reality comes to be the problem of science--a\nproblem which may be taken in the widest generality, or restricted\nto some one group of existences. What is asked for, e.g., may be\nthe uniformity and essence in the appearance of the diurnal journey\nof the sun, or it may be the underlying, invisible, nature which\ndisplays itself in all the variety of minerals, and in animal and plant\nlife. The one-and-the-same in a diversity of many; the type-form in\nindividuals: the cause which is the key to understanding an effect that\nalways and unconditionally follows it; the force which finds different\nexpression in actions--are what Science seeks.\n\nIn that search two points emerge as regards the method. The first is\nthe importance of quantitative statements or numerical appreciations,\nand the general law that variations in the qualitative are in some\nratio concomitant with variations in the quantitative. Mathematics,\nin a word, is found to be an invaluable instrument for recording\nwith accuracy the minutest as well as the most immense differences\nof quality. First, it is seen that qualitative differences within a\ngiven range, e.g. various colours or various musical notes, can be\naccurately expressed by a numerical ratio. But, secondly, it soon\nappears that even greater divergences of quality, e.g. those of colour\nand of chemical quality, may possibly be reduced to stages on one\nquantitative scale. It is not unnatural that such experiences should\ngive rise to a hope--and in sanguine minds, an assurance--that all the\nphenomena of nature are ultimately phases of some common nature--some\nelementary being--which runs through an infinite gamut of numerically\ndefined adjustments.\n\nBut the numerical prepossession--as we may call it--creates another\nassumption. Every number consists of units: every cube can be regarded\nas an aggregation of smaller cubes, and in measurement is (implicitly\nat least) so regarded. Transferring this to the physical world, every\nobject is regarded as a composite--a Large, made up by the addition\nand juxtaposition of many (relatively) Littles. The essentials of the\ncomposite are here the elements that compose it: these, by a natural\ntendency, we proceed to conceive as remaining always unchanged, and\ngiving rise by their peculiar juxtaposition to certain perceptions in\nthe human being. You whirl rapidly a blazing piece of wood, and instead\nof a discontinuous series of flashes you see one orbit of luminous\nmatter: or, let falling rain-drops take up a particular position in\nreference to your eyes and the sun, and a rainbow is visible. In both\ncases there is what may be called an illusion--the illusion, above\nall, of unity and continuity. Now what is in these cases obviously\nand demonstrably seen, is, as Leibniz in particular has reminded us,\nthe general law of all matter as such. In the extended and material\nworld there is nowhere a real unity discoverable. The small is made\nup of the smaller _ad infinitum_[1]. But the conclusion (which\nLeibniz drew)--that unity belongs only to v,' Monads and never by any\npossibility to a material substance, was not that commonly reached\nor accepted. There are--or there must be,--said the prevalent creed,\nultimates, indivisibles, indecomposables, simples, atoms. These are the\nfinal bricks of reality, out of which the apparent universe is built:\neach with a maximum,--a _ne plus ultra_--of resistibility, hardness,\nfullness, and unsqueezable bulk.\n\nInto further details of these ultimate irreducibles we need not enter.\nIt is sufficient to denote the general purport of the conception, and\nthe tendency it implies.\n\nIn these ultimates supreme reality is understood to lie; and on them\nat last, and indeed always, rests whatever reality truly exists in\nany object. All else is secondary--and, comparatively speaking,\nillusory,--unreal. Any phenomena that may be noted only affect the\nsurface or show of these reals: the inner reality continues one\nand unchanged. Outside them, around them, is the void--emptiness,\nnon-entity. Yet null and void as it may be, we may, in passing,\nreply,--this circumambient is the source of all that gives these\nmasses of atoms any distinctive reality--any character of true being.\nSpace may be empty enough,--a mere spectre-shell; and yet it is their\ndifferences in spatial circumstance that bring out and actualise what\nthey implicitly are. These '_individua_' these units of reality, these\natoms, are real and knowable only in their relations. So too Time may\nbe contemptuously treated as a passive receptacle: yet it is only by\nits connexions in the past and the future that the present moment has\nany actuality it may claim. And time and space are potent agencies--in\npopular mode of utterance--whatever the mechanical philosophy may say.\n\nBut all of these relations are in the realm of unreality. The atoms\nalone _are_: and yet the void, which ought _not_ to _be,_ in an\nunmistakable way _is_ also. To this mysterious vacuum which lies\noutside (and yet not outside) reality, to this not-being which _is,_\nthere can only be given a half-negative and baffling name. Let it\nbe called Chance--or let it be called Necessity; let it be called\ninexplicable Law of co-existence and sequence,--the Force which is the\nbeginning of motion. It is the ultimate key to the mystery--but it is\nat least a key which no human hand can use, or even lay hold of. It is\nenough for science if, leaving this ultimate inexplicability untouched,\nit trace in each separate instance the exact equation between the sum\nof the constituents and the total which they compose,--if it prove that\nthe several items when put together exactly give the sum proposed.\nIdentification--the establishment of quantitative equations--is the\nwork of science. Identity is its canon, working on the presumption\nor axiom that there can be nothing in the result which was not in\nthe antecedents or conditions. _Ex nihilo nihil fit._ The quantity\nof energy must always be the same, though its phases may vary, or\ntemporarily avoid detection. Matter, i.e. the ultimate reality, is\nindestructible. In short, the method of analysis and synthesis, as that\nof addition and subtraction, is a calculus which takes the form of an\nequation.\n\nSo far the inorganic, inanimate world has been mainly in view. If we\nnow turn to the organisms, we find the popular creed expressed in the\nadage _Omne vivum e vivo._ No eye has ever seen--though fanatical\nobservers have sometimes so deluded themselves as to think they saw--a\nliving being directly emerge from inorganic stuff. The saner student\nof physiology contents himself with leaving for the while the crux of\nthe genesis of Life, and examining only the building up of the living\ncreature out of its constituents. Here the atom is called the cell:\nevery organism is a synthesis of cells, and in the cell we have the\nprimary element of organic reality: _Omnis cellula e cellula,_ In the\natom we have the ultimate element; in the cell a relative element,--the\nabsolute beginning of a new order of things,--which we may, if we\nlike, choose to treat (though only for logical simplicity's sake) as a\ngradual development from the other and more primitive, but which, so\nfar as experience and history teach, is equally ultimate in its kind.\nBut be the final constituent (physical) atom, or (physiological) cell,\nthe relation of these constituents is at first conceived by science\nonly as composition, or mechanical synthesis. It is only gradually\nthat science begins to have doubts as to the inviolability and\nunalterableness of the elements. When the idea--not altogether new--of\na 'latent meta-schematism' and latent process within the constituents\nis entertained and carried out in earnest, science has passed on to a\nnew stage: from mechanical atomism to a dynamic and organic theory of\nexistence. And the governing ideas of scientific logic have then ceased\nto be co-existence, and sequence, correlation and composition: the new\ncategory is intus-susception, development, adaptation not only external\nbut internal.\n\n_Divide et impera_ is the motto of Science. To isolate one thing\nor one group of facts from its context,--to penetrate beneath the\napparent simplicity, which time and custom have taught ordinary eyes\nto see in the concrete object, to the multitude of underlying simple\nelements,--to leave everything extraneous out of sight,--to abolish the\nteleology which imposes upon Nature a permanent tribute (direct or\nindirect) towards the supply of human wants,--and to take, as it were,\none thing at a time and study it for itself disinterestedly; that is\nthe problem of the sciences. And to accomplish that end they do not\nhesitate to break the charmed links which in common vision hold the\nworld together,--to disregard the spiritual harmony which the sense of\nbeauty finds in the scene,--to strip off the relations of means and\nend, which reflection has thrown from thing to thing, and the sensuous\natmosphere of so-called 'secondary' qualities in which human sense has\nenveloped each; and finally to sever its connexion by which\n\n    'the whole round world is every way\n    Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.'\n\nIn those days when reflection had not set in,--when humanity had not\nyet found itself a stranger in the house of Nature, and had not yet\ndared to regard her as a mere automatic slave, men had no doubts as to\nthe meaning of things. They lived sympathetically her life.\n\n         'Man, once descried, imprints for ever\n    His presence on all lifeless things: the winds\n    Are henceforth voices, wailing or a shout,\n    A querulous mutter, or a quick gay laugh.'\n\nTo the extent of his abilities and his culture, indeed man has in all\nages read himself into the phenomena external to him. Such readings, in\ntimes when he feared and loved his kinsfolk of Nature, were fetichism\nand anthropomorphism. Gradually, however, forgetting his community, he\nclaimed to be the measure and master of all things: to decree their use\nand function. But in course of time, when the sciences had emancipated\nthemselves from the yoke of philosophy, they refused to borrow any such\nhelp in reading the riddle of the universe, and resolved to begin,\n_ab ovo_, from the atom or cell, and leave the elements to work out\ntheir own explanation. Modern science in so doing practises the lessons\nlearned from Spinoza and Hume. The former teaches that all conception\nof order, i. e. of adaptation and harmony in nature, and indeed all\nthe methods by which nature is popularly explained, are only modes of\nour emotional imagination, betraying how imperfect has been in most\nof us the emancipation of human intellect from the servitude to the\naffections[2]. The latter points out that all connexions between things\nare solely mental associations, ingrained habits of expectation, the\nwork of time and custom, accredited only by experience[3]. There must\nbe no pre-suppositions allowed in the studies of science, no help\nderived prematurely from the later terms in the process to elucidate\nthe earlier. Let man, it is said, be explained by those laws, and by\nthe action of those primary elements which build up every other part\nof nature: let molecules by mechanical union construct the thinking\norganism, and then construct society. The elements which we find by\nanalysis must be all that is required to make the synthesis. Thus in\nmodern times science carries out, fully and with the details of actual\nknowledge in several branches, the principles of the atom and the void,\nwhich Democritus suggested.\n\nThe scientific spirit, however, the spirit of analysis and abstraction\n(or of 'Mediation' and 'Reflection'), is not confined in its\noperations to the physical world. The criticism of ordinary beliefs\nand conventions has been applied--and applied at an earlier period--to\nwhat has been called the Spiritual world, to Art, Religion, Morality,\nand the institutions of human Society. Under these names the agency of\nages, acting by their individual minds, has created organic systems,\nunities which have claimed to be permanent, inviolable, and divine.\nSuch unities or organic structures are the Family, the State, the works\nof Art, the forms, doctrines, and systems of Religion, existing and\nrecognised in ordinary consciousness. But in these cases, as in Nature,\nthe reflective principle may come forward and ask what right these\nunities have to exist. This is the question which the 'Encyclopaedic,'\nthe 'Aufkl\u00e4rung,' the 'Rationalist' and 'Freethinking' theories,\nraise and have raised in the last century and the present. What is\nthe Family, it is said, but a fiction or convention, which is used to\ngive a decent, but somewhat transparent covering to a certain animal\nappetite, and its probable consequences? What is the State, and what\nis Society, but a fiction or compact, by which the weak try to make\nthemselves seem strong, and the unjust seek to shelter themselves from\nthe consequences of their own injustice? What is Religion, it is said,\nbut a delusion springing from the fears and weakness of the crowd, and\nthe cunning of the few, which men have fostered until it has wrapped\nhumanity in its snaky coils? And Poetry, we are assured, like its\nsister Arts, will perish and its illusions fade away, when Science,\nnow in the cradle, has become the full-grown Hercules. As for Morality\nand Law, and the like, the same condemnation has been prepared from\nof old. All of them, it is said, are but the inventions of power and\ncraft, or the phantoms of human imagination, which the strength of\npositive science and bare facts is destined in no long time to dispel.\n\nWhen they insisted upon a severance of the elements in the\nvulgarly-accepted unities of the world, Science and Freethinking, like\nEpicurus in an older day, have believed that they were liberating the\nworld from its various superstitions, from the bonds which instinct\nand custom had fastened upon things so as to combine them into systems\nmore or less arbitrary. They denied the supremacy and reality of those\nideas which insist on the essential unity and self-sameness in things\nthat visibly and tangibly have a separate existence of their own, and\nbranded these ideas comprehensively as mysticism and metaphysics.\nThey sought to disabuse us of spirits, vital forces, divine right of\ngovernments, final causes, _et hoc genus omne._ They were exceedingly\njealous for the independence of the individual, and for his right to\ndemand satisfaction for the questioning, ground-seeking faculty of\nhis nature. But while they did so they hardly realised how entirely\nthe spectator is the part, the product of what he surveys, and while\nsurveying treats as if it were but a spot or mark on the circumference\nof the circle that lies--some way off--around him. 'Phenomenalism,' as\nthis mode of looking at things has been called, is false to life, and\nwould cut away the ground from philosophy.[4]\n\nTo some extent philosophy returns to the position of the wider\nconsciousness, to the general belief in harmony and symmetry. It\nreverts to the unity or connexion, which the natural presumptions of\nmankind find in the picture of the world. The _nolo philosophari_\nof the intuitivist, in reaction from the supposed excesses of the\nsciences, simply reverted to the bare re-statement of the popular\ncreed. If science, e. g., had shown that the perception of an\nexternal world pre-supposed for its accomplishment an unsuspected\nseries of intermediate steps, the mere intuitivist simply denied\nthe intermediation by appealing to Common Sense, or to the natural\ninstincts and primary beliefs of mankind. Conviction and natural\ninstinct were declared to counterbalance the abstractions of science.\nBut philosophy which seeks to comprehend existence cannot take the\nsame ground as the intuitional school, or neglect the testimony of\nscience. If the spiritual unity of the world has been denied and lost\nto sight, mere assertion that we feel and own its pervading power will\nnot do much good. It is necessary to reconcile the contrast between\nthe wholeness of the natural vision, and the fragmentary, but in its\nfragments elaborated, result of science.\n\nThe sciences break up the rough generalisations or vulgar concepts of\neveryday use, and make their fixed distinctions yield to analysis.\nThey thus render continuous things which were looked at as only\nseparate. But they tend again to substitute the results of their\nanalysis as a new and permanent distinction and principle of things.\nThey are like revolutionists who upset and perturb an old order, and\nset up a new and minuter tyranny in its place. Gradually, the general\nculture, the average educated intelligence gathers up the fruit of\nscientific research into the total development of humanity: and uses\nthe work of science to fill up the _lacunae,_ the gaps, which make\npopular consciousness so irregular and disconnected. A sort of popular\nphilosophy comes to sum up and estimate what science has accomplished:\nand therein is as it were the spirit of the world taking into his own\nhand the acquisitions won by the more audacious and self-willed of\nhis sons, and investing them in the common store. They are set aside\nand preserved there, at first in an abstract and technical form, but\ndestined soon to pass into the possession of all, and form that mass of\nbelief and instinctive or implanted knowledge whence a new generation\nwill draw its mental supplies. Each great scientific discovery is in\nits turn reduced to a part of the common stock. It leaves the technical\nfield, and spreads into the common life of men, becoming embodied in\ntheir daily beliefs,--a seed of thought, from which, by the agency of\nintelligent experience, new increments of science will one day spring.\n\nPhilosophy properly so called is also the unification of science,\nbut in a new sphere, a higher medium not recognised by the sciences\nthemselves. The reconciliation which the philosopher believes himself\nto accomplish between ordinary consciousness and science is identified\nby either side with a phase of its antagonist error. Science will\nterm philosophy a modified form of the old religious superstition.\nThe popular consciousness of truth, and especially religion, will\nsee in philosophy only a repetition or an aggravation of the evils\nof science. The attempt at unity will not approve itself to either,\nuntil they enter upon the ground which philosophy occupies, and move\nin that element. And that elevation into the philosophic ether calls\nfor a tension of thought which is the sternest labour imposed upon\nman: so that the continuous action of philosophising has been often\nstyled superhuman. If anywhere, it is in pure philosophy that proof\nbecomes impossible, unless for those who are willing to think for\nthemselves[5]. The philosophic lesson cannot be handed on to a mere\nrecipient: the result, when cut off from the process which produced\nit, vanishes like the palace in the fairy tale.\n\n'The whole of philosophy is nothing but the study of the specific\nforms or types of unity.[6] There are many species and grades of this\nunity. They are not merely to be enumerated and asserted in a vague\nway, as they here and there force themselves upon the notice of the\npopular mind. Philosophy sees in that unity neither an ultimate and\nunanalysable fact, nor a deception, but a growth (which is also a\nstruggle), a revealing or unfolding, which issues in an organism or\nsystem, constructing itself more and more completely by a force of its\nown. This system formed by these types of the fundamental unity is\ncalled the 'Idea,' of which the highest law is development. Philosophy\nessays to do for this connective and unifying nature, i. e. for the\nthought in things, something like what the sciences have done or\nwould like to do for the facts of sense and matter,--to do for the\nspiritual binding-element in its integrity, what is being done for\nthe several facts which are more or less combined. It retraces the\nuniverse of thought from its germinal form, where it seems, as it were,\nan indecomposable point, to the fully matured system or organism, and\nshows not merely that one phase of pure thought passes into another,\nbut how it does so, and yet is not lost, but subsists suspended and\ndeprived of its narrowness in the maturer phase.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Leibniz, ed. Gerhardt, iii. 507: 'Les atomes sont l'effet\nde la foiblesse de nostre imagination, qui aime \u00e0 se reposer et \u00e0 se\nhater \u00e0 venir \u00e0 une fin dans les sous-divisions et analyses: il n'en\nest pas ainsi dans la nature qui vient de l'infini et va \u00e0 l'infini.']\n\n[Footnote 2: Spinoza, _Ethica,_ i. 36, App. '_Quoniam ea nobis prae\nceteris grata sunt quae facile imaginari possumus, ideo homines ordinem\nconfusioni praeferunt; quasi ordo aliquid in natura praeter respectum\nad nostram imaginationem esset... Videmus itaque omnes rationes quibus\nvulgus solet naturam explicare modos esse tantummodo imaginandi._' Cf.\n_Eth._ iv. praef.: Epist. xxxii.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'This transition of thought from the Cause to the Effect\nproceeds not from Reason. It derives its origin altogether from\nCustom and Experience.' Hume, Essay V. (Enquiry concerning Human\nUnderstanding.) 'All inferences from Experience therefore are effects\nof Custom.' (Ibid.)]\n\n[Footnote 4: J. Grote, _Exploratio Philosophica._]\n\n[Footnote 5: Cf. vol. ii. p. 4.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Philosophie der Religion,_ i. p. 97: 'Die ganze\nPhilosophie ist nichts Anderes als das Studium der Bestimmungen der\nEinheit.' See especially _Encycl._ \u00a7 573 (Philosophy of Mind, pp. 192\nseqq.).]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\n\nANTICIPATORY SKETCH OF THE SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY.\n\n\nThe psychology of the Greeks has to all appearance given the mere\nintellect an undue pre-eminence, if it has not even treated it as man's\nessential self. Whether the appearance is altogether sound might be\na profitable inquiry for those who most criticise it. At any rate, a\nlater psychology has taught us to regard man as at once a cognitive, an\nemotional, and a volitional being. It has arrived at this conclusion as\nit looked at the division that parted off the systems of science from\nthe sphere of conduct and social life, and both from the inner life of\nsentiment, of love, admiration and reverence. And the inference was\njustifiable, in the same way as Plato's when, as he surveyed the triple\nsphere into which the outward world of his contemporary society was\ndivided, he concluded a triplicity of the soul. If it was justifiable,\nit was also, as in his case, somewhat misleading. In the outward\nmanifestation, where the letters are posted up on a gigantic scale,\none tends to forget that they only spell one word. Their difference\nand distance seem increased, and we fail to note that, though there\nare three aspects, yet there is only one power or soul, which exhibits\nitself under one or other of the three tones or modes. In the actual\nhuman being, cognition is always of some emotional interest and always\nleads up to some practical result. From different points of view one or\nother is occasionally declared to be primary and original; the others\nderivative and secondary. At any rate we may say that in the ordinary\nhuman being who is still in the garden of preparation and has not yet\nstepped forth on one of the separate routes of life, his knowledge, his\nemotional and his active life are in a tolerable harmony, and that each\nin its little development is constantly followed by the other.\n\nBut with the outward differentiation an inward went hand in hand. In\nsome cases the intellectual or scientific, in others the emotional, in\nothers the active faculties became predominant. Human nature in order\nto attain all its completeness had first of all, as it were, to lose\nits life in order to gain it. The individual had to sacrifice part of\nhis all-sided development in order that he might gain it again, and\nin a larger measure, through the medium of society. This process is\nthe process of civilisation: the long and, as it often seems, weary\nroad by which man can only realise himself by self-sacrifice: can only\nreach unity through the way of diversity, and must die to live. It is a\nprocess in which it is but too easy to notice only one stage and speak\nof it as if it were the whole. It is possible sometimes to identify\ncivilisation with the material increase in the means of producing\nenjoyment, or with the progress of scientific teaching as to the laws\nof those material phenomena on which material civilisation is largely\ndependent. It is possible sometimes to take as its test the stores of\nartistic works, and the extension of a lively and delicate love of all\nthat is beautiful and tasteful. One may identify it with a high-toned\nmoral life, and with an orderly social system. Or one may maintain that\nthe real civilisation of a country presupposes a lofty conception and\nreverent attitude to the supreme source of all that is good, and true,\nand beautiful.\n\nThe question is important as bearing on the relation of philosophy to\nthe special sciences. Philosophy is sometimes identified with the sum\nof sciences: sometimes with their complete unification. Philosophy,\nsays a modern, is knowledge completely unified. It is of course to some\nextent a question of words in what sense a term is to be defined. And\nno one will dispute that the scientific element is in point of form the\nmost conspicuous aspect of philosophy. Yet if we look at the historical\nuse of the term, one or two considerations suggest themselves.\nPhilosophy, said an ancient, is the knowledge of things human and\ndivine. Again and again, it has claimed for its task to be a guide and\nchart of human life--to reveal the form of good and of beauty. But to\ndo this, it must be more than a mere science, or than a mere system\nof the sciences. Again, it has been urged by modern critics that Kant\nat last discovered for philosophy her true province--the study of the\nconditions and principles of human knowledge. But though epistemology\nis all-important, the science of knowledge is not identical with\nphilosophy: nor did Kant himself think it was. Rather his view is on\nthe whole in accord with what he has called the 'world's (as opposed\nto the scholar's) conception of philosophy[1],' as the science of the\nbearing of all ascertainable truths on the essential aims of human\nreason--_teleologia humanae rationis_,--in accord, too, with the\nworld's conception of the philosopher as no mere logician, but the\nlegislator of human reason.\n\nThis, it need hardly be added, is the conception of philosophy which\nis implicitly the basis of Hegel's use. Let us hear Schelling. 'A\nphilosophy which in its principle is not already religion is no true\nphilosophy[2].'\n\nOr again, as to the place of Ethics: 'Morality is Godlike disposition,\nan uplifting above the influence of the concrete into the realm of the\nutterly universal. Philosophy is a like elevation, and for that reason\nintimately one with morality, not through subordination, but through\nessential and inner likeness[3].' But, again, it has more than once\nbeen felt that philosophy is kindred with Art. It has been said--not\nas a compliment--that philosophy is only a form of gratifying the\naesthetic instincts. Schopenhauer has suggested--as a novelty--that\nthe true way to philosophy was not by science, but through Art. And\nSchelling before him had--while asserting the inner identity of the\ntwo--even gone so far as to assert[4] that 'Art is the sole, true and\neternal organon as well as the ostensible evidence of philosophy.'\n\nPhilosophy, therefore, is one of a triad in which the human spirit has\ntried to raise itself above its limitations and to become god-like. And\nphilosophy is the climax; Art the lowest; Religion in the mean. But\nthis does not mean that Religion supersedes Art, and that Philosophy\nsupersedes religion; or, if we retain the term 'supersede,' we must add\nthat the superseded is not left behind and passed aside: it is rather\nan integral constituent of what takes its place. Philosophy is true and\nadequate only as it has given expression to all that religion had or\naimed at. So, too, Religion is not the destruction of Art: though here\nthe attitude may often seem to be more obviously negative. A religion\nwhich has no place for art is, again, no true religion. And thus again,\nPhilosophy becomes a reconciler of Art and Religion: of the visible\nideal and the invisible God. Art, on the other hand, is a foretaste\nand a prophecy of religion and philosophy.\n\nBut Art, Religion, and Philosophy, again, rest upon, grow out of, and\nare the fulfilment of an ethical society-a state of human life where an\nordered commonwealth in outward visibility is animated and sustained by\nthe spirit of freedom and self-realisation. And that public objective\nexistence of social humanity in its turn reposes on the will and\nintelligence of human beings, of souls which in various relations\nof discipline and interaction with their environment have become\nfree-agents, and have risen to be more than portions of the physical\nworld, sympathetic with its changes, and become awake to themselves and\ntheir surroundings. Such is the mental or spiritual life as it rises to\nfull sense of its power, recognises its kindred with the general life,\ncarries out that kindred in its social organisation, and at length\nthrough the strength social union gives floats boldly in the empyrean\nof spiritual life, in art, religion, and philosophy.\n\nBut, what about the special relationship of philosophy to the sciences?\nUndoubtedly the philosophers of the early years of the century\nhave used lordly language in reference to the sciences. They have\nasserted--from Fichte downwards--that the philosophical construction,\nof the universe must justify itself to itself--must be consistent,\ncontinuous, and coherent--and that it had not to wait for experience\nto give it confirmation. Even the cautious Kant[5] had gone so far\nas to assert that the 'understanding gives us nature'--i. e. as he\nexplains, _natura formaliter spectata_, viz., the order and regularity\nin the phenomena--that it is the source of the laws of nature and\nof its formal unity. The so-called proofs of natural laws are only\ninstances and exemplifications, which no more _prove_ them, than we\nprove that 6 x 4 = 24, because 6 yards of cloth at 4s. must be paid\nfor by 24 shillings. To assert that this instance is no proof, is\nnot to reject experience--still less to refuse respect to the new\ndiscoveries of science. But it is unquestionably to assert that there\nis something prior to the sciences--prior, i. e. in the sense that Kant\nspeaks of the _a priori,_ something which is fundamental to them, and\nconstitutes them what they are--something which is assumed as real if\ntheir syntheses (and every scientific truth is a synthesis) are to be\npossible. The analysis and exhibition in its organic completeness of\nthis Kantian _a priori_ is the theme of the Hegelian Logic.\n\nThe Philosophy of Nature stands in the Hegelian system between Logic\nand Mental or Spiritual Philosophy. Man--intelligent, moral, religious\nand artistic man--rests upon the basis of natural existence: he\nis the child of the earth, the offspring of natural organisation.\nBut Nature itself--such is the hypothesis of the system--is only\nintelligible as the reflex of that _a priori_ which has been\nexhibited in Logic. The whole scheme by which the natural world is\nscientifically held together, apprehended by ordinary consciousness\nand elaborated by mathematical analysis, presupposes the organism\nof the categories--these fundamental habits of thought or form of\nconception which are the framework of the existence we know. Yet\nNature never shows this intelligible world--the Idea--in its purity\nand entirety. In the half-literal, half-figurative phrases of Hegel,\nNature shows the Idea beside itself, out of its mind, alienated, _non\ncompos mentis._ 'It is a mad world, my masters,' 'The impotence of\nnature_--Ohnmacht der Natur_[6]--is a frequent phrase, by which he\nindicates the a-logical, if not illogical, character of the physical\nworld. Here we come across the negation of mind: chance plays its part:\ncontingency is everywhere. If you expect that the physical universe\nwill _display_ unquestioning obedience to the laws of reason and of the\nhigher logic, you will be disappointed. What you _see_ is fragmentary,\nchaotic, irregular. To the bodily sense--even when that sense has been\nrendered more penetrating by all the many material and methodical\naids of advanced civilisation--the Idea is in the natural world\npresented only in traces, indications, portions, which it requires a\nwell-prepared mind to descry, still more to unite. Yet at the same\ntime the indications of that unity are everywhere, and the hypothesis\nof the logical scheme or organisation of the Idea is the only theory\nwhich seems fully to correspond with the data. Nature[7], says Hegel,\nis the Idea as it shows itself in sense-perception, not as it shows\nitself in thought. In thought a clear all-comprehending total; in sense\na baffling fragment. The Idea--the unity of life and knowledge--is\neverywhere in nature, but nowhere clearly, or whole, or otherwise\nthan a glimpse; not a logical scheme or compact theory. Nature is the\nsensible in which the intelligible is bound--the reality which is the\nvehicle of the ideal. But the ideal treasure is held in rough and\nfragile receptacles which half disclose and half conceal the light\nwithin. Nature in short contains, but disguised, the idea, in fainter\nand clearer evidences: it is the function of man, by his scientific\nintelligence and ethical work, building up a social organisation,\nto provide the ground on which the ultimate significance and true\nfoundation of the world may be deciphered, guessed, or believed, or\nimaginatively presented. The verification of the guess or deciphering,\nof course, lies in its adequacy to explain and colligate the facts.\nThe true method and true conception is that which needs no subsequent\nadjustments--no epicycles to make it work--which is no mere hypothesis\nuseful for subjective arrangement, but issues with uncontrollable force\nand self-evidence from the facts.\n\nWhat Hegel has called the 'impotence of nature,' Schopenhauer has\nstyled the irrational Will, and it is from that end, so to speak, that\nSchopenhauer's philosophy begins. Nature--the basis of all things--the\nfundamental prius--is an irresistible and irregular appetite or craving\nto be, to do, to live,--but an _appetitus_ or _nisus_ which ascends\nfrom grade to grade--from mere mechanical forces acting in movement up\nto the highest form of animal activity. But as this 'Will' or blind\nlust of being and instinct of life gets above the inorganic world, and\nmanifests itself in the animal organism, there emerges a new order of\nexistence--the intellect, or the ideal world. Seen from the underside,\nindeed, all that has appeared now in the animal is a brain and a\nnerve-system--a new species of matter. But there is another side to the\nMind which has thus awakened out of the sleep of natural forces. This\nintellect is unaware and can never be made aware that it is a child of\nnature: it acknowledges no superior, and no beginning or end in time.\nIts natal day is infinitely beyond the age when the cosmic process\nbegan its race; before stars gathered their masses of luminosity, and\nthe earth received the first germs of life. As the genius of Art, it\narrests the toiling struggle of existence to produce new forms and\ndestroy old ones; it sets free in typical forms of eternal beauty\nthe great ideas that nature vainly seeks to embody, and as moral and\nreligious life its aim is to annihilate the craving and the lust for\nmore and ever more being and to enter in passionless and calm union\nwith the One-and-All.\n\nThus it is, if not absurd, at least misleading, to speak of Hegel's\nsystem as Panlogism. Strictly speaking, it is only of the Logic\nthat this is the proper name: there, unquestionably, reason is all\nand in all. Yet to hold that reason is the very life and centre of\nthings is for philosophy the cardinal article--the postulate which\nmust inspire her first and last steps and guide her throughout. But\nthe Logical Idea, if put at the beginning, is at first only put as a\npresupposition, which it is the task of human intelligence to work\nout and organise. If it be the key which is to explain nature and\nrender it intelligible, it is a key which has only been gained in the\nprocess--the long process--by which man has risen from his natural\norigin--never however parting company with it--to survey and comprehend\nhimself and his setting. The faculty of 'pure thinking,' which is the\npre-condition of Logical study, is the result of a gradual development\nin which animal sense has grown, and metamorphosed, and worked itself\nup to be a free intelligence and a good will capable of discerning\nand fulfilling the universal and the eternal. Thus in the Logic the\nsystem constructs the pure Idea--the ideal timeless organisation of\nthoughts or \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03b9 on which all knowledge of reality rests--the diamond\nnet which suffers nothing to escape its meshes: in the Philosophy of\nNature it tries to put together in unity and continuity the phases\nand partial aspects which the physical universe presents in graduated\nexemplification of the central truth: and in the Philosophy of Mind it\ntraces the steps by which a merely natural being becomes the moral and\naesthetic idealist in whom man approaches deity.\n\nIt is indeed Hegel's fundamental axiom that actuality is reasonable.\nBut the actuality is not the appearance--the temporary phases--the\nsuccession of event: it is the appearance rooted in its essence--the\nsuccession concentrated (yet not lost) in its unity. There is room\nfor much so-called irrationality within these ranges. For, when\nhuman beings pronounce something irrational, they only mean that\ntheir practical intelligence would have adopted other methods to\narrive at certain conclusions. They judge, in fact, by their limited\nunderstandings and not _ex ordine universi._ Hegel's doctrine is after\nall only another way of stating the maintenance of the fittest; and\nit is liable to the v same misconception by those who employ their\npersonal aims as the standards of judgment.\n\nSo too there is reason--there is the Idea--in Nature. But it is\nthere only for the artist, the religious man, and the philosopher;\nand they see it respectively by the eye of genius, by the power of\nfaith, by the thought of reason. They see it from the standpoint\nof the absolute_--sub specie quadam aeternitatis._ It is therefore\na recalcitrant matter in which Nature presents the Idea: or, if\nrecalcitrant suggests a positive opposition, let us say rather a realm\nin which the Idea fails to come out whole and clear, where unity has to\nbe forced upon and read into the facts. Science, says one writer, is\nan ideal construction: it implies an abstraction from irregularities\nand inequalities: it smoothes and sublimates the rough and imperfect\nmaterial into a more rounded and perfect whole. Its object, which it\nterms a reality, is a non-sensible, imperceptible reality: what one\nmight as well call an ideality, were it not that here again the popular\nimagination twists the word into a subjective sense to mean the private\nand personal ideas of the student.\n\nBut the obvious individual reality never quite in its obviousness\nequals the 'golden mediocrity' of the ideal. Its myriad grapes must be\ncrushed to yield the wine of the spirit.\n\n    'It's a lifelong toil till our lump be leavened'\n\n--till the ore be transformed into the fine gold. But the gold is\nthere, and in the great laboratory of _natura_ _naturans_ is the\nprinciple and agent of its own purification. 'Nature is made better by\nno mean, but nature makes that mean'--for nature is spirit in disguise.\n\nIt is on this side that a certain analogy of Hegel's and Schelling's\nphilosophy of nature with the Romantic school comes out. Nature\nis felt, as it were, to be spirit-haunted, to give glimpses of a\nsolidarity, a design, a providentiality, which runs counter to that\ngeneral outward indifference in which part seems to have settled beside\npart, each utterly indifferent to the other. Romance is the unexpected\ncoincidence, the sudden jumping together of what seemed set worlds\napart and utterly alien. It was the sense of this Romance which wove\nits wild legends of nymph and cobold, of faun and river-god, of imp and\nfairy, wielding the powers of the elements and guiding the life of even\nthe so-called inanimate world. But it is no less the theme of the fairy\ntale of science. Even in the austere demonstrations of geometry, and\nthe constructions of mechanics, the un-looked-for slips upon us with\ngipsy tread. Who has not--in his early studies of mathematics--been\nfain to marvel at the almost unexpected consilience of property with\nproperty in a figure, suddenly placing in almost 'eery' relief the\nconjunction of what was apparently poles asunder? It is not a mere\nform of words to speak of beautiful properties of a conic section or\na curve. Custom perhaps has blunted our sense for the symmetries of\ncelestial dynamics, but they are none the less admirable, because we\nare otherwise engrossed. To the first generation of our century the\nphenomena of chemistry, magnetism and electricity appealed--as they\nhave never since done--with a tangible demonstration of that _appetitus\nad invicem,_ that instinct of union Bacon speaks of; and this time in\na higher form than in mere mechanism. Polarity--the bifurcation of\nreality into a pair of opposites which yet sought their complement\nin each other--eternally dividing only eternally to unite, and thus\nonly to exist--became a process pressed into general service. Lastly,\nwhat more admirable than that adaptation of the individual to the\nenvironment--and of the environment to the individual--of the organs in\nhim to his total, and of his total to his organs. One in all and All in\none: one life in perpetual transformation, animals, plants, and earth\nand air; one organism, developing in absolute coherence. This was the\nvision which the genius of Schelling and his contemporaries saw--the\nsame vision which, by accumulation of facts and pictorial history,\nDarwin and his disciples have impressed in some measure even on the\ndullest.\n\nBut there is a profound difference between the spirit of a Philosophy\nof Nature and the aggregate of the physical sciences. Each science\ntakes the particular quarry which accident or providence has assigned\nto it, and does its best to 'put out' every piece of rock it contains.\nBut it seldom goes, unless by constraint, and in these days of\nspecialisation it does so less and less, to examine the neighbouring\nexcavation, and see if there be any connexion between the strata. Even\nwithin its own domain it is ashamed to put forward too much parade of\nsystem. Its method is often like that of the showman in the travelling\nmenagerie: 'And now, please pass to the next carriage.' It respects\nthe compartmental arrangement into which it finds the world broken up,\nand often thinks it has deserved well if it has filled the compartment\nfuller than before, or succeeded in creating a few sub-compartments\nwithin the old bounds. Even the so-called mental and moral sciences\nwhen they lose their philosophical character tend to imitate these\nfeatures. Yet in every science there is an outlook and an outlet,\nfor whosoever has the will and the power, to emerge from his narrow\ndomain on the open fields and free prospect into the first fountains\nand last great ocean of being. Always, and not least in our own day,\nthe physicist, the chemist, the physiologist, the psychologist, the\nsociologist, and the economist, have made their special field a\nplatform where they might discourse _de omnibus rebus,_ and become\nfor the nonce philosophers and metaphysicians. It would be a silly\nintolerance and a misconception of the situation to exclaim _Ne sutor\nultra crepidam_. In the organic system of things 'each \"moment\" even\nindependent of the whole is the whole; and to see this is to penetrate\nto the heart of the thing.' We need hardly go to Hegel to be told that\nto know one thing thoroughly well is to know all things. The finite,\nwhich we inertly rest content with, would, if we were in full sympathy\nwith it, open up its heart and show us the infinite. And yet if the\nspecialist when he rises from his shoe-making, with a heart full of\nthe faith that 'there is nothing like leather,' should proclaim his\ndiscovery of it in regions where it was hitherto unsurmised, one may\nsmile incredulous and be no cynic.\n\nPhilosophy then keeps open eye and ear--as far as may be no doubt for\nthe finer shades and delicate details--but essentially for the music\nof humanity and the music of the spheres--for the general purpose and\ndrift of all sciences--from mathematics to sociology--as they help to\nmake clear the life of nature and further the emancipation of man. It\nwill seem occasionally to over-emphasise the continuity of science\nand to make light of its distinctions: it will seem occasionally more\nanxious as to the order than as to the contents of the sciences: it\nwill remind the sciences of the hypothetical and formal character of\nmuch of their method and some of their principles: and sometimes will\ntreat as unimportant, results on which the mere scholar or dogmatist\nof science lays great weight. From his habit of dealing with the\nlimitations and mutual implication of principles and conceptions,\nthe philosopher will often be able--and perhaps only too willing--to\npoint out cases where the mere specialist has allowed himself to\nattribute reality to his abstraction. He will tell the analyst of\nthe astronomical motions that he must not take the distinction of\ncentrifugal and centripetal force, into which mechanics disintegrate\nthe planetary orbit, as if it really meant that the planet was pulled\ninward by one force and sent on spinning forward by another[8]. And\nthe scientist, proud of his mathematics, will resent and laugh at\nthe philosopher who lets fall a word about the planets moving in\ngrand independence like 'blessed gods.' The philosopher will hint to\nthe chemist that his formulae of composition and decomposition of\nbodies are, as he uses them, somewhat mythological, picturing water\nas atom of oxygen locked up with atom of hydrogen; and the chemist\nwill go away muttering something about a fool who does not believe\nin the well-ascertained chemical truth that water is composed of\nthese two gases. If the philosopher further hints that it is not the\nhighest ideal of a chemical science to be content with enumerating\nfifty or sixty elements, and detecting their several properties\nand affinities[9]; that it would be well to find some principle of\ngradation, some unity or law which brought meaning into meaningless\njuxtaposition, the mere dogmatist, whose chemistry is his living and\nwho shrinks from disendowment, will scent a propensity towards the\nheresy which sinks all elements in one. And yet, even among chemists,\nthe instinct for law and unity begins to demand satisfaction.\n\nA still richer store of amazing paradox and perplexing analogies awaits\nanyone who will turn over the volume in Hegel's _Werke_ (vii. i) and\nselect the plums which lie thick in the lecture-notes. He will find\na great deal--and probably more, the less he really knows of any of\nthe subjects under discussion--that he cannot make head or tail of:\nlanguage where he cannot guess whether it should be taken literally or\nfiguratively. For Hegel seriously insists on the essential unity and\nidentity of all the compartments of the physical universe; he will not\nkeep time and space on one level, matter and motion on another, and\nsenses, suns, plants, passions, all in their proper province. Going\nfar beyond the theory which supposes that all the complex difference\nof organisation has grown up in endless, endless ages from a primitive\nindistinctness, so that the gap of time acts as a wall to keep early\nand late apart, Hegel insists upon their essential unity to-day. And\nthat sounds hard--the herald of anarchy, of the collapse of the ordered\npolity of the scientific state. It is no doubt probable that Hegel,\nlike other men, made mistakes; that he over-estimated the supposed\ndiscoveries of the day: that he indulged in false analogies, and that\nhe was attracted by a daring paradox. All this has nothing to do with\nhis main thesis: which is, that the natural realm is as it stands an\na-logical realm where reason has gone beside itself, and yet containing\nan instrument--man, and that is mind--by which its rationality may be\nrealised and restored. In that point at least he and Schopenhauer are\nat one.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Kant's _Kritik d. r. Vernunft_: Methodenl. Architektonik\nd. r. Vern.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Schelling's Werke, v. 116.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Ibid. v. 276.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Ibid. iii. 267.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Kant, _Kritik d. r. Vern.,_ Deduction of the Categories,\nSect. III.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Encyclopaedie_, \u00a7 250.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Encycl._ Sect. 244 (_Logic,_ p. 379).]\n\n[Footnote 8: _Encyclop._ \u00a7\u00a7 266, 269; cf. the lecture-note as given\nin _Werke_ vii i. p. 97. A large number of paradoxical analogies\nfrom Hegel's _Naturphilosophie_ has been collected by Riehl in his\n_Philosophisher Criticismus_, ii. 2, 120.]\n\n[Footnote 9: See notes and illustrations in vol. ii. 419.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n\nTHE SCEPTICAL DOUBT: HUME.\n\n\nWe have seen that an innate tendency leads the human mind to connect\nand set in relation,--to connect, it may be erroneously, or without\nproper scrutiny, or under the influence of passions or prejudices,--but\nat any rate to connect. Criticism occasionally has impatiently banned\nthis tendency as a mere fountain of errors. The human mind, says\nFrancis Bacon, always assumes a greater uniformity in things than it\nfinds; it expects symmetry, is bold in neglecting exceptional cases,\nand would fain go beyond all limits in its everlasting cry, Why and To\nwhat end. It varies in individuals between a passion for discovering\nsimilarities and an intent acuteness to every shade of unlikeness. But\nnotwithstanding these warnings of the hen, the ugly duckling Reason\n_will_ go beyond what is given: it knows no insuperable limitation.\nIt may be guilty of what Bacon calls 'anticipation'--an induction\non evidence insufficient--or it may subdue itself to the duty of\n'interpretation' of nature by proper methods: in either case, it is\nan act of association, synthesis, unification. For Nous _is_ arch\u00e8,\nand knows that it is: it will not yield to clamour or mere rebuke: it,\ntoo, cannot be commanded, unless by first obeying it: and Bacon, having\nduly objurgated the 'mind left to itself,' is obliged to let it go to\ngather the grapes before they are quite ripe, and to indulge it with\na 'prerogative' of instances. As Mr. Herbert Spencer and many others\nare never weary of telling us: 'We think in relations. This is truly\nthe form of all thought: and if there are any other forms they must be\nderived from this[1].' Man used to be defined as a thinking or rational\nanimal: which means that man is a connecting and relation-giving\nanimal; and from this, Aristotle's definition, making him out to be\na 'political' animal, is only a corollary, most applicable in the\nregion of Ethics. Here is the ultimate point, from which the natural\nconsciousness, and the energies of science, art, and religion equally\nstart upon their special missions.\n\nIn ordinary life we attach but little importance to this machinery of\ncognition. We incline to let the fact of synthesis drop out of sight,\nas if it required no further study or notice, and we regard the things\nconnected as exclusively worth attending to. The interest centres\non the object--on the matter: the formal element--the connective\ntissue--is _only_ an instrument of no importance, except in view of\nthe end it helps us to. We use general and half-explained terms, such\nas development, evolution, continuity, as bridges from one thing to\nanother, without giving any regard to the means of locomotion on their\nown account. Some one thing is the product of something else: we let\nthe term 'product' slip out of the proposition as unimportant: and\nthen read the statement so as to explain the one thing by turning it\ninto the other. Things, according to this opinion, are all-important:\nthe rest is mere words. These relations between things are not open\nto further investigation or definition: they are each _sui generis,_\nor peculiar: and even if the logician in his analysis of inference\nfinds it advisable to deal with them, he will be content, if he can\nclassify them in some approximate way, as a basis for his subdivision\nof propositions. This is certainly one way of getting rid of\nMetaphysics--for the time.\n\nBut there are epochs in life, and epochs in universal history, when the\nmind withdraws from its immersion in active life, and reflects upon its\nown behaviour as on the proceedings of some strange creature, of which\nit is a mere spectator. At such seasons when we stop to reflect upon\nthe partial scene, and close our eyes to the totality, doubts begin to\narise, whether our procedure is justified when we unify and combine the\nisolated phenomena. Have we any right to throw our own subjectivity,\nthe laws of our imagination and thought, into the natural world? Would\nit not be more proper to refrain altogether from the use of such\nconceptions?\n\nPhilosophy, said one of the ancients[2], begins in wonder, and ends in\nwonder. It begins from the surprise that something could _be_ what it\npurports to be: it ends in the marvel of our having _thought_ anything\nelse possible. Such a phrase well becomes the naive age in which the\nsoul goes freely forth, wandering from one novelty to another, curious\nto find out all that can be known,--like the young wanderer on the\nsea-shore whom fresh pebbles and new shells tempt endlessly to fill his\nbasket. But as the ages roll on, and the accumulations of the past grow\nheavier in the receptacle, the need of a re-examination of the stores\nbecomes imperative. The bright colours have faded--and generally\nthey fade soon: there has been much picked up in the inexperience of\nyouthful enthusiasm which maturer reflection hardly can think worth\ncarrying further.\n\nThe duty of doubt and of re-examination of what tradition has\nbequeathed has been enforced by philosophy in all ages. For it is the\ncardinal principle of philosophy to be free--to possess its soul--never\nto be a mere machine or mere channel of tradition. But, in some ages,\nthis assertion of its freedom has had for the soul a pre-eminently\nnegative aspect. It has meant only freedom _from_--and not also freedom\n_in_ and _through_--its environing, or rather constituting, substance.\nSuch an epoch was seen in the ancient world when the _New Academy_,\nwith its sceptical abstention from all objective assertions, had to\nprotest against the dogmatism of the Stoic and Epicurean schoolmen.\nIn modern times the initial shudder before plunging in has been a\nrecurrent crisis. Each thinker--as he personally resolved to thread his\nway through the wilderness of current opinion to the realm of certified\ntruth--has had to remind himself (and his contemporaries) that in\nknowledge at least no possessions are secured property unless they have\nbeen earned by the sweat of their owner's brow. This is the common\ntheme of Bacon's aphorisms in the beginning of the _Novum Organum_, of\nDescartes' _Discourse of Method_, and of Spinoza's unfinished essay\non the _Emendation of the Intellect._ There is indeed a discrepancy\nin these utterances as to the measure in which they severally think\nit needful to insist as preliminary on a kind of moral and religious\nconsecration of life to the service of truth. But a more compelling\ndivision arises. The maxim may be understood to say, 'Divest thy mind\nof its ill-gotten gains, its evil habits, prejudices, and system,\nand in childlike simplicity prepare thine eye and ear to receive in\npure vessels the stores of truth which are ready to stream in from\nthe world.' Or it may rather be held to say, 'Remember that thou art\na conscious, waking mind, and that every idea thou hast is thine by\nthine own assent: insist upon thy right of free intelligence, and give\nno place to any belief which thou hast not raised into full light of\nconsciousness, and found to be completely consistent with the whole\npower and content of thy clearest thought.' And, we may add, if the\nmaxim be obeyed too exclusively in either way, it will be obeyed amiss.\n\nWith Locke the question comes into even greater prominence. On\nwhat conditions can I have knowledge? How can I be certified that\nmy ideas--the subjective images in _my_ mind--have a reference to\nsomething objective and real? Locke's answer is, not unnaturally\nperhaps, somewhat prolix, and wanting in fundamental precision of\nprinciples. After dismissing the view that, even before experience,\nthere are certain common ideas spontaneously and by original endowment\npresent in all human beings, he goes on to show how we can sufficiently\naccount for the ideas we actually find by supposing in us an almost\nunlimited power of joining and disjoining, of comparing, relating,\nand unifying the various elementary 'ideas' which make their way into\nthe empty chambers of our mind by the senses. As to the source, the\nchannel, and the nature of these sense-ideas, Locke is obscure and\napparently inconsistent: though clearly it should be all important\nto know how an idea can be caused by, or spring from, a material\nthing. When in his fourth book he comes to the question of what is the\nreality, or the _meaning_ of our ideas, he does not really get beyond a\nfew--rather dubiously reasoned-out--conclusions that, although strictly\nwe cannot go beyond 'the present testimony of our senses employed\nabout the particular objects that do affect them,' we may for practical\npurposes allow a good deal to the presumptions of general probability.\n\nBut Locke had also begun to criticise our ideas, in his account of\ntheir formation out of the 'simple ideas'-- (which neither Locke\nnor any other atomist of mind has succeeded in making clear)--which\nthe several senses give, and by observing or reflecting on what\ngoes on or is present in _our_ minds, _we_ 'form,' he says, various\nideas. In a style of discussion which is on the borderland between\nvulgar and philosophical analysis-- (never quite false, but nearly\nalways inadequate, because it almost invariably assumes what it\nostensibly proposes to explain,) Locke tells us how we get one idea by\n'enlarging,' another by 'repeating,' as we please, the bounteous data\nof the touch and sight. But amongst the compounds there are some of\nmore disputable origin. There are some--e.g. ideas of punishable acts\nor legalised states--which are 'voluntary collections of ideas put\ntogether in the mind independent from any original patterns in nature,'\nThese, though entirely subjective, are entirely real, because they only\nserve as patterns by which we may judge or designate things so and so.\nIt is worse with the idea of power, which we only 'collect' or 'infer,'\nand that not from matter, where it is invisible, but only in a clear\nlight when we consider God and spirits. Still worse, perhaps, is it\nwith the idea of substance, which is a 'collection' of simple ideas\nwith the 'supposition' of an 'incomprehensible' something in which the\ncollection 'subsists.'\n\nHump put all this rather more pointedly. We have 'impressions,' i.\ne. lively perceptions by sense. We have also 'ideas,' i. e. fainter\nimages of these, but otherwise identical. An idea _should_ be a copy\nof an impression. If you cannot point out any such impression, you\nmay be certain you are mistaken when you imagine you have any such\nidea. There is prevalent in the mental world a kind of association; a\n'gentle force' connects ideas in our imagination according to certain\nrelations they possess. This 'mind' or this 'imagination' is only a\nbundle or collection of impressions and ideas; but a collection which\nis continually and rapidly changing in its constituents, and in the\nscale of liveliness possessed by each constituent. When an idea is\nparticularly fresh and forcible, it is a _belief_ or it is believed in:\nwhen faint, not so. Or, otherwise put, the object of an idea is _said_\nto _exist_, when the idea itself is vividly _felt_[3]. Really there is\nno such thing as 'external existence' taken literally. 'Our universe is\nthe universe of the imagination': all existence is for a consciousness.\n\nImpressions arise in certain orders of sequence or co-existence. When\ntwo impressions frequently recur and always in the same order, the\ncustom binds them so closely together, that, should one of them only be\ngiven as impression, we cannot help having an idea of the other, which,\ngrowing more vivid by the contagion of the contiguous impression,\ncreates, or is, a belief in its reality. Between the perceptions\nas such, there is no connexion; they are distinct and independent\nexistences. They only get a connexion through _our feeling; we feel_\na 'determination' of our thought to pass from one to another. The\none impression has no power to produce the other; the one thing does\nnot cause the other. 'We never have any impression that contains any\npower or efficacy[4],' Hence the power and necessity we attribute to\nthe so-called causal agent and to the connexion are an illegitimate\ntransference from our feeling, and a mistranslation of _our_\nincapacity to resist the force of habitual association into a real\nbond between the two impressions _themselves,_ The necessity is in the\nmind--as a habit-caused compulsion--not in the objects.\n\nAs with the relation of cause and effect, so it is with others. The\nidentity of continued existence is only another name--an objective\ntranscript--of the feeling of smooth uninterrupted succession of\nimpressions in which our thought glides along from one in easy\ntransition to another. And here the coherence and continuity of\nperceptions need not be absolute. A vivid impression of unbroken\nconnexion in a part will, if predominant, by association fill up the\ngaps and weak points, and behind the admitted breaks in the line of\nour ideas will suppose--invent--or create an imperceptible but _real_\ncontinuity in the supposed things. And by this fiction of a continuous\nexistence of our perceptions, we easily lapse into the doctrine that\nour perceptions have an independent existence as objects or things in\nthemselves:--a doctrine which according to Hume is contrary to the\nplainest experience.\n\nBut if the world is always the world of imagination--of\n_Vorstellung_--of mental representation, Hume is aware that we must\nadmit two orders or grades of such representation. We must distinguish,\nhe remarks[5], 'in the imagination betwixt the principles which\nare permanent, irresistible and universal (such as the customary\ntransition from causes to effects and from effects to causes), and the\nprinciples which are changeable, weak and irregular. The former are\nthe foundation of all our thoughts and actions,' There are, in other\nwords, normal and general laws of association--such as the relation\nof cause and effect--which persuade us of real existence. By its own\nlaws, therefore, within the realm of _Vorstellung_ or Mental idea,\nthere grows up a permanent, objective world for all, contrasted with\nthe temporary, accidental perception of the individual and of the\nmoment; and this serves as the standard or the one common measure by\nwhich occasional perturbations are to be measured. Within the limits of\nthe subjective in general there arises a subjective of higher order,\nwhich is truly objective. This same change of front--as it may be\ncalled--Hume makes in morals. There the mind can modify and control\nits passions according as it can feel the objects of them near or far;\nand though each of us has his 'peculiar position,' we can--so creating\nthe ethical basis--'fix on some steady and general points of view, and\nalways in our thoughts place ourselves in them, whatever may be our\npresent situation[6]': we can 'choose some common point of view,' and\nfrom the vantage-ground of a permanent principle, however distant, we\nhave a chance of gaining the victory over our passion, however near.\n\nThus far Hume had gone in the development of idealism,' Whether his\ntheory is consistent from end to end, need not be here discussed. But\nit is evident that Hume was not lost in the quagmire of subjective\nidealism. The objective and the subjective are with him akin: the\nobjective is the subjective, which is universal, permanent, and normal.\nThe causal relation has, in the first instance, only a subjective\nnecessity; but through that subjective necessity or its irresistible\nbelief, it generates an objective world. But it has been and is the\nfortune of philosophers to be known in the philosophical world by some\nconspicuous red rag of their system which first caught the eye of the\nbull-like leaders of the human herd. It was so notably with Hobbes\nand Spinoza; and most of the thinkers whose names appear in the pages\nof Kant suffer from this curtailment. Descartes, Locke, Leibniz,\nBerkeley, Hume, are _there_ not the real philosophers, discoverable in\ntheir works, but the creatures of historic reputation and of popular\nsimplification who do duty for them.\n\nKant's Hume is therefore a somewhat imaginary being: the product,\npartly of imperfect knowledge of Hume's writings, partly of\nprepossessions derived from a long previous training in German\nrationalism. Such a Hume was--or would have been, had he existed--a\nphilosopher who 'took the objects of experience for things in\nthemselves,' who 'treated the conception of cause as a false and\ndeceptive illusion,' who did not indeed venture to assail the certainty\nof mathematics, but held--as regards all knowledge about the existence\nof things-- 'empiricism to be the sole source of principles,' founding\nhis conclusion mainly on an examination of the causal nexus[7]. This\n'note of warning' sounded against the claims of pure reason--as he\ncalls Hume's _Enquiry_ was what about 1762 broke Kant's dogmatic\nslumber and forced him to give his researches in speculative philosophy\na new direction. His first step was to generalise Hume's problem from\nan inquiry into the origin of the causal idea into a general study\nof the synthetic principles in knowledge. His next was to attempt to\nfix the number of these concepts and synthetic principles. And his\nthird was to 'deduce' them: i. e., to prove the reciprocal implication\nbetween experience or knowledge and the concepts or categories of\nintelligence.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _First Principles_, p. 162. It may be as well to remark\nthat Relation is scarcely an adequate description of the nature of\nthought as a whole. We shall see when we come to the theory of logic,\nthat the term is applicable--and then somewhat imperfectly--only to the\nsecond phase of thought, the categories of reflection, which are the\nfavourite categories of science and popular metaphysics.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Arist. _Metaph._ i. 2. 26.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Treatise of Human Nature_ (Understanding), iii. 7 and ii.\n6.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Ibid. iii. 14.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Treatise of Human Nature_ (Understanding iv. 4.)]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Treatise of Human Nature_ (Morals), iii. i.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Kant, _Prolegomena_ to Metaph. Introduction and _Crit. of\nPractical Reason_ (on the Claim of Pure Reason, _Werke,_ viii. 167).]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\n\nTHE ATTEMPT AT A CRITICAL SOLUTION: KANT.\n\n\nThe _Criticism of Pure Reason_ has been described by its author as a\ngeneralisation of Hume's problem. Hume, he thought, had treated his\nquestion on the 'relations of ideas' in their bearing upon 'matters of\nfact' mainly with reference to the isolated case of cause and effect.\nKant extended the inquiry so as to comprise all those connective and\nunifying ideas which form the subject-matter of metaphysics. In his own\ntechnical language--which has lost its meaning for the present day--he\nasked, 'Are Synthetic judgments _a priori_ possible?'--a question which\nin another place he has translated into the form, 'Is the metaphysical\nfaith of men sound, and is a metaphysical science possible?' By a\nmetaphysics he meant in the first instance the belief in a more than\nempirical reality, and secondly the science which should give real\nknowledge of God, Freedom and Immortality,--a science whose objects\nwould be God, the World, and the Soul. From a comparatively early date\n(1762-4) Kant had been inclined to suspect and distrust the claims\nof metaphysics to replace faith, and to give knowledge of spiritual\nreality; and he had tried to vindicate for the moral and religious life\nan independence of the conclusions and methods of the metaphysical\ntheology and psychology of the day. But it was not till some years\nlater--in 1770--that he formulated any very definite views as to the\nessential conditions of scientific knowledge: and it was not till 1781\nthat his theory on the subject was put together in a provisionally\ncomplete shape.\n\nWhat then are the criteria of a science? When is our thought knowledge,\nand of objective reality? In the first place, there must be a given\nsomething--a sens_-datum_--an 'impression' as Hume might have said. If\nthere be no impression, therefore, there can be no scientific idea,\nno real knowledge. There must be the primary touch--the feeling--the\naffection--the _je ne sais quoi_ of contact with reality. Secondly,\nwhat is given can only be received if taken up by the recipient, and\nin such measure as he is able to appropriate it. The given is received\nin a certain mode. In the present case, the sensation is apprehended\nand perceived under the forms of space and time. Perception, in other\nwords, whatever may be its special quality or its sensuous material,\nis always an act of dating and localisation. The distinction between\nthe mere lump of feeling or sensibility and the perception is that\nthe latter implies a field of extended and mutually excluding parts\nof space, and a series of points of time, both field and series being\ncontinuous, and, so far as inexhaustibility goes, infinite. Thirdly,\neven in the reception of the given there is a piece of action and\nspontaneity. If the more passive recipiency be called Sense, this\nactive element in the adaptation may be termed Intellect. Intellect is\na power or process of choice, selection, comparison, distinguishing and\ndividing, analysis and synthesis, affirmation and negation, numeration,\nof judgment and doubt, of connexion and disjunction, differentiation\nand integration. Its general aspect is by Kant sometimes described\nas Judgment--the act of thought which correlates by distinguishing;\nsometimes as Apperception, and the unity of apperception. It is, i.\ne., an active unity and a synthetic energy; it unifies, and always\nunifies. It links perception to perception, correlating one with\nanother--interpreting one by another; estimating the knowledge-value of\none by the rest. It thus 'apperceives.' It is a faculty of association\nand consociation of ideas. But the association is inward and 'ideal'\nunion: the one idea interpenetrates and fuses with the other, even\nwhile it remains distinct.\n\nKant's work may be described--in its first stage--as an analysis and a\ncriticism of experience. The term Experience is an ambiguous one. It\nsometimes means what has been called the 'raw material' of experience:\nthe crude, indigested mass of poured-in _matter_-of-knowledge. If\nthere be such a shapeless lump anywhere,--which has to be considered\npresently--it, at any rate, is not on Kant's view properly entitled to\nthe name of Experience. The Given must be felt and apprehended: and--to\nput the point paradoxically--to be felt it must be more than felt,--it\nmust be perceived. It must, in other words, be projected--set in space\nand time: let out of the mere dull inner subjectivity of feeling into\nthe clear and distinct outer subjectivity of perception. But, again,\nto be perceived, it must be apperceived: to be set in time and space,\nit must first of all be in the hands of the unifying consciousness,\nwhich is the lord of time and space. For in so far as space and time\nmean a place and an order--in so far as they mean more than an empty\ninconceivable receptacle for bulks of sensation, in the same degree\ndo they presuppose an intellectual, synthetic genius, which is in all\nits perceptions one and the same,--the fundamental, original unity of\nconsciousness. And this analysis of experience is transcendental.'\nBeginning with the assumed datum--the object of or in experience--it\nshows that this object which is supposed to be _there_--to exist by\nitself and wait for perception--is created by and in the very act which\napprehends it. Climbing up and rising above its habitual absorption\n_in_ the _thing_, consciousness (that of the philosophic observer and\nanalyst) sees the thing in the act of making, and watches its growth.\n\nWe have seen that Kant made free use of the metaphor of giving and\nreceiving. But it is hardly possible to use such metaphors and retain\nindependence of judgment. The associations customarily attached to the\nfigurative language carry one away easily, and often for a long way, on\nthe familiar paths of imagination. The analogy is used even where--if\nall were looked into--its terms become meaningless. No reader of Locke\ncan have failed, e. g., to notice how he is misled by his own images of\nthe dark room and the empty cabinet:--images, useful and perhaps even\nnecessary, but requiring constant restraint in him who would ply them\nwisely and to his reader's good. From what has been said above it will\nbe clear that the acquisition of experience, the growth of knowledge,\nis a unique species of gift and acceptance. The consciousness which\nKant describes may be the consciousness of John Doe or Richard Roe:\nbut as Kant describes it, the limitations of their personality,\ni.e. of their individual body and soul, have been neglected. It is\nconsciousness in general which is Kant's theme, just as it is granite\nin general--and not the block in yonder field,--which is the theme\nof the geologist. Once get that clear, and you will also see clearly\nthat consciousness is at once giver and recipient--neither or both:\nat once receptivity and spontaneity. But--you may reply--does not the\nmaterial object _act_ (chemically, optically, mechanically, &c.) on\nthe sense-organ on the periphery of my body, does not the nerve-string\n_convey_ the impression to the brain; and is not perception the\n_effect_ of that process, in which the material object is the initial\n_cause_?\n\nIn this exposition--which is not unknown in vulgar philosophy--there\nis a monstrous, almost inextricable, complication of fact with\ninference, of truth with error. So long as there is an uncertainty--and\nmetaphysicians themselves, we may be reminded, are not agreed upon the\nmatter--as to what we are to understand by cause, effect, and act,\nwhat an impression is, and how brain and intelligence mutually stand\nto each other, it is hardly possible to pronounce judgment upon this\nmode of statement. Yet perhaps we may go so far as to say that while\nthe terms quoted bear an intelligible meaning when applied within the\nphysiological process they are vain when used of relations of mind to\nbody. There is a sense in which we may speak of the action of mind\non body, and of body on mind: but what we mean would perhaps be more\nunmistakably expressed by saying that the higher intellectual and\nvolitional energies are never in our experience entirely independent\nof the influences of the lower sensitive and emotional nature. In\nthe metaphysical sense which the terms are here made to bear, they\nmislead. Action and re-action can only take place in the separateness\nof space, where one is here and another there: (though, be it added,\nthey cannot take place even on these terms, unless the here and the\nthere be somehow unified in a medium which embraces both). _Mens_, said\nSpinoza, is the _idea corporis_[1]: he would hardly have said _Corpus\nhabet ideam_. What he meant would scarcely have been well described by\ncalling it a _parallelism_ or mutual independence, yet with harmony or\nidentity, of body and mind. Apart from body, no doubt, mind is for him\na nullity: for body is what gives it reality. But, on the other hand,\nMind is the enveloping and including 'Attribute' of the two: idealism\noverlaps realism.\n\nThis was the fundamental proposition which Kant contended for; what he\nspoke of as his own Copernican discovery: though, in reality, for the\n_student_ of the history of philosophy it was only the re-statement,\nin some respects the clearer statement, of the idealism which even\nHume, not to mention Spinoza and Leibniz, had maintained. The world\nof experience--the empirical, objective, and real world--is a world\nof ideas, of representations which have place only in mind, of\nappearances. Space and time are subjective: the forms of thought are\nsubjective: and yet they constitute phenomenal or empirical or real\nobjectivity. Such language is--it would seem inevitably--misunderstood:\nand in his second edition, Kant--besides many other minor modifications\nof statement,--had to defend himself by inserting a 'confutation of\nidealism,' i.e. of the theory which holds that the existence of objects\noutside us in space is doubtful, if not even impossible. But no end\nof argument will ever confute the view that Kant's doctrine is such\nidealism: until people can be got to rise to a new view of what is\nsubjectivity--what is an idea--and what is existence outside us.\n\nBy 'subjective' the world is in the way of understanding what is due\nto personal prepossession, void of general acceptability, a product of\nindividual feeling, peculiar and inexplicable tastes. By subjective\nKant means what belongs to _the_ subject or knowing mind as such and\nin its generality: what is constitutive of intelligence in general,\nwhat sense and intellect are _semper et ubique_. Into the question\nhow the human being came to have such an intellectual endowment--the\nquestion which Nativist psychology is supposed to settle in one way;\nand Evolutionism in another--Kant does not enter; he merely says\nwhere there is knowledge, there is a knower,--a knowing subject _so_\nconstituted. It comes after all to the tautology that the reality we\nknow is a known reality: that knowledge is a growth in the knower,\nand not an accidental product due to things otherwise unknown. The\npredicate (or category) _'is'_ is contained, implicit, in the predicate\n'_is known,_' or what '_is_' puts implicitly, '_is known_' puts\nexplicitly and truly.\n\nBy 'appearance' the world understands a sham, or at least somewhat\nshort of reality. By appearance Kant understands a reality which has\nappeared: or, as that is going too far, a something which is real\nso far as it goes (a _prima facie_ fact), but only a candidate for\nadmission into the circle of reals. And such reality depends on nothing\nmore than its thorough-going coherence with other appearances, its\nexplaining the rest, and being in turn explained by them,--its absolute\nadaptation to its environment. And this environment all lies in the\ncommon field of consciousness, and in the one correlating and unifying\napperceptivity of the ego,--that Ego which is the inseparable comrade,\nvehicle, and judge, of all our perceptions. It is the appearance--but\nas yet not the appearance _of_ something,--but rather an appearance\n_to_ or _for_ something.\n\nBy an 'idea' the world in general understands what it is sometimes\nready to call a _mere_ idea. And by a mere idea is meant something\nwhich is _not_ reality, but a peculiarity of an individual mind, or\ngroup of minds-a fancy, without objective truth:--something, we may\neven add, which for many people is located in their own head or brain,\ncut off by blank bone-walls from the open air of real being. By idea\n(representation, _Vorstellung_) Kant meant that an object is always\nand essentially the object of a mind: always relative to a subject\nconsciousness, and implying it, just as a subject consciousness always\nimplies an object.\n\nAnd by 'existence outside us' the world probably means--for it is\nimprudent to define and refine too much in this hazy medium of words\nwhere we all drowse--existence of things on an independent footing\nbeyond the limits of our personal, i. e. bodily and sentient, self.\nAs regards _our own_ trunk and limbs, most of us, except in some most\nstrange insanity, are not likely ever to be in doubt, and are indeed\nmore likely, after Schopenhauer's model, to take the knowledge of these\n_personalia_ as the one thing immediately and intuitively certain. We\ntalk freely enough, it is true, about existence outside our own minds;\nbut it is only a drastic method of stating the difference between a\nfancy and a fact. And probably we labour under a half-unconscious\nhallucination that our minds are localised in some material 'seat,'\nsomewhere in our bodily limits, and more especially in the central\nnerve-organs.\n\nBut, as has been said elsewhere[2], the point of view under which Mind\nis regarded by Kant is that of Consciousness, and especially perceptive\nconsciousness. He describes, as we have put it above, the steps or\nconditions under which the single sense-observation is elevated into\nthe rank of an experience claiming universality and necessity. But\nthe whole machinery of consciousness--the form of sensibility and the\ncategory of intellect--is originally set in motion by an impetus\nfrom without: or at least the manipulating machinery requires a raw\nmaterial on which to operate. Consciousness, or the observer who\ntakes this point of view, feels that it is being played upon by an\nunknown performer--or that it is attempting to apprehend something,\nwhich, because the act of apprehension is also to some extent (and to\nwhat extent, who can say?) a transmutation, it must for ever fail to\napprehend truly. It is haunted by the phantom of a real,--a thing in\nits own right, which can only appear in forms of sense and intellect,\nnever in its own essential being. It is only a short step further--and\nKant, if one may judge him by several isolated passages, has more than\nonce crossed the interval,--to treat, after the manner of uneducated\nconsciousness and of popular science, the thing in its independent\nbeing as the cause which produces the sensation, or as the original\nwhich the mental idea reproduces under the distortions or modifications\nrendered necessary by the sensuous-intellectual medium. For, if under\nthe terms of one analogy the perception is an _effect_ of the thing,\nunder those of another it is an _image_ or copy of external reality.\n\nIf this be Kantian philosophy--and it can quote chapter and verse in\nits favour--Kantian philosophy is one version of the great dogma of\nthe relativity of knowledge. That unhappy phrase seems to have many\nmeanings, but none of absolutely catholic acceptation. It may mean that\nknowledge of things states their relations--the way they behave in\nreference to this or that, in these or those circumstances; and that\nof an utterly unrelated and _absolutely_ isolated thing, our knowledge\nis and must be _nil._ Of a thing-in-itself we can know nothing; for\nthere is nothing to know. It may mean that knowledge is relative to the\nrecipient or the knower,--that it is not a product which can stand\nby itself, but needs a vehicle and an object in close relation. In\nthis way, too, knowledge is relative to age and circumstances: grows\nfrom period to period, and may even decay. And thirdly, the relativity\nof knowledge may be taken to mean that we (and all human beings) can\nnever know the reality; because we can only know the phenomenon, i.\ne. the modified, transmuted, reflected thing which has reconstituted\nan image of itself after passing the interfering medium. For, first\nof all, we must strip it--this 'image' so-called (the vulgar call\nit the 'thing')--of the secondary qualities (sound, colour, taste,\nresistance) which it has in the consciousness of a being dependent on\nhis sense-organs: and then, we must get rid also of those quantitative\nattributes (figure, number, size) which it has in the consciousness\nof a spatially and temporally perceptive being;--and then;--but the\nprospect is too horrible to continue further and face the Gorgon's head\nin the outer darkness, where man denudes appearance in the hope to meet\nreality.\n\nThe fact is, there are too many strands in the web which Kant is\nweaving, for him or perhaps for any man to keep them all well in hand\nand lose none of the symmetry of the pattern he designs. To be just, we\nmust, in dealing with him as with any other philosopher, try to keep\nin view the unity of that design instead of insisting too minutely and\ntoo definitely upon its occasional defects. It is easy to work the pun\nthat a 'critical' philosophy must itself expect to be criticised; it is\nmore important to remember that by a criticism Kant meant an attempt to\nsteer a course between the always enticing extremes of dogmatism and\nscepticism,--an attempt to be fair, i. e. just to both sides, and yet\nneither to sink into the systematised placidity of the former, nor to\nrove in a mere guerilla warfare with the latter. And it is the mere\nprivateer who in the popular sense of the word is the mere critic.\n\nOf Kant we must remember that he has the defects of his qualities.\nHe prides himself on his distinctions of sense and intellect, of\nimagination and understanding, of understanding and reason; and with\njustice: but his distinctions are sometimes so decisive that it is\nhard work both for him and for his reader to reconstitute their\nunity. He is fond of utilising old classifications to embody his new\ndoctrine: and occasionally the result is like what we have been taught\nto expect from pouring new wine into old bottles. He draws hard and\nfast lines, and then has to create, as it seems, supplementary links\nof connexion, which, if they operate, can only do so because they are\nthe very unity he began by ignoring. One gets perfectly lost in the\nmultitude of syntheses, in the labyrinth of categories, schemata, and\nprinciples, of paralogisms, antinomies, and ideals of pure reason. One\npart of this formalism _may_ be set down to the pedantry and pipeclay\nof the age of the Great Frederick--pedantry, from which, as we console\nourselves, our modern souls are freed. But it arises rather from the\nnecessity of pursuing the battle between truth and error through every\ncomplicated passage in that great fortress which ages of scholasticism\nhad--on various plans--gradually constructed. Kant is always a little\nof the martinet and the schoolmaster; but it is because he knows that\ntrue liberty cannot be secured without forms and must capture the old\nbefore it can plant the new. The forms as they stand in his grouping\nmay often appear stiff and lifeless: but a more careful study, more\nsympathetically intent, will find that there is latent life and\nundisplayed connexion in the terms. Unfortunately the classified\ncut-and-dried specimens are more welcome to the collector, and can\nmore easily be put in evidence in the examination-room.\n\nThus the original question, Are synthetic judgments _a priori_\npossible? is answered--somewhat piecemeal--in a way that leads the\nreader to suppose it is a question of psychology. He hears so much of\nsense, imagination, intellect, in the discussion, that he fancies it is\nan account of a process carried on by the faculties of an individual\nmind. And of course nobody need suppose these processes are ever\ncarried on otherwise than by individual thinkers, human beings with\nproper names. But scientific investigation is concerned only with\nthe essential and universal. For it, really, sense, imagination, &c.\nare not so many faculties in a thinking agent: they are grades and\naspects of consciousness,-- 'powers' in a process of gradual mental\ncomplication (involution). Kant is really dealing with a 'normal'\nthought with its distinguishable constituent aspects. Only--he fails\nto 'make this explicit and clear. The individualism--the un-historical\nprepossession--of his age is upon his phraseology, if not upon his\nthought: and one hardly realises that he is really engaged on human\nthought and knowledge as a substantial subject of itself apart from its\nindividual vehicles,--on that thought, which lives and grows in social\ninstitutions and products,--in language, science, literature, and moral\nusage,--the common stock which one age bequeathes to the next, but\nwhich the later-comer can only inherit if he works for and creates it\nafresh. If it be a psychology, therefore, it is a psychology which does\nnot assume a soul with qualities, but which expounds the steps in the\nconstitution of a normal intelligence.\n\nOne may note, without insisting on them too much, the defects of his\ntreatment of the forms of thought. It may be said that, in the _first_\nplace, the table of the categories was incomplete. It had been\nborrowed, as Kant himself tells us, from the old logical subdivision\nof judgments, derived more or less directly from Aristotle and the\nSchoolmen. Now many of the relations occurring in ordinary thought\ncould not be reduced to any of the twelve forms, without doing violence\nto them. But Kant expressly disclaims exhaustiveness in detail. He\ncould, if he would: but that is for another season. In the _second_\nplace, the classification did not expressly put forward any principle\nor reason, and gave ground for no development. That there should be\nfour fundamental categories, each with three divisions, making twelve\nin all, seems as inexplicable as that there should be four Athenian\ntribes in early times and twelve Phratriai. The twelve patriarchs of\nthought stand as if in equal authority, with little or no bearing upon\none another. We have here, in short, what seems an artificial and not\na natural classification of the types of thought. But Kant himself has\ngiven some explanation of the triad, and a sympathetic interpretation\nhas shown how the four main groups are steps in the solution of one\nproblem[3] In the _third_ place, the question as taken up seems largely\npsychological, or subjective, concerning the constitution of the human\nmind as a percipient and cognitive faculty. But this is necessary,\nperhaps, to the restricted nature of Kant's problem. He is dealing with\nthe elements that form our objective or scientific consciousness of\nthe physical world. The deeper question of the place and work of mind\nin life in general, in law and morality and religion, does not at this\nstage come before him. That problem in fact only gradually emerges\nwith the Criticism of the Moral Faculty and the Aesthetic Judgment.\nLogic--as the doctrine of the _Logos_ which is the principle of all\nthings, even of its own Other--had to wait for its preparation till it\ncould be matured.\n\nIn Hegel, the question assumes a wider scope, and receives a more\nthorough-going answer. In the _first_ place the question about the\nCategories is transferred from what we have called the epistemological\nor psychological, to what Hegel terms the logical, sphere. It is\ntransferred from the Reason subjectively considered as a mere\nreceptive and synthetic human consciousness to the Reason which is in\nthe world and in history,--a Reason, which our Reason, as it were,\ntouches, and so becomes possessed of knowledge. In the _second_ place,\nthe Categories become a vast multitude. The intellectual telescope\ndiscovers new stars behind the constellations named in ancient lore.\nThere is no longer, if there ever was, any mystic virtue supposed to\ninhere in the number twelve: while the triadic arrangement is made\nradical and everywhere recurs. The modern chemist of thought vastly\namplifies the number of its elementary types and factors, and proves\nthat many of the old Categories are neither simple nor indecomposable.\n_Thirdly_, there is a systematic development or process which links\nthe Categories together, and shows how the most simple, abstract, and\ninadequate, inevitably lead up to the most complex and adequate. Each\nterm or member in the organism of thought has its place conditioned by\nall the others: each of them is the germ, or the ripe fruit of another.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Spinoza, _Eth._ ii. 7-13.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Encyclopaedia_, \u00a7\u00a7 415, 420. Consciousness is only as it\nwere the surface of the ocean of mind; and reflects only the lights and\nshadows in the sky above it.]\n\n[Footnote 3: It is not the least of the merits of the exposition in\nCaird's _Critical Philosophy_ of Immanuel Kant, vol. i. to have brought\nout this.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\n\nTHE CRITICAL SOLUTION, CONTINUED: KANT.\n\n\nKant's answer to his question was briefly this. Intelligence is\nessentially synthetic, always supplementing the given by something\nbeyond, instituting relationships, unifying the many, and thus\nbuilding up concrete totalities. In pure mathematics this is obvious:\nthe process of numeration shows it creating number out of units, and\ngeometry shows elementary propositions leading on to complicated\ntheorems. In abstract physics it is hardly less obvious: there, e.g.,\nthe principle of reason and consequent or the persistence of substance\nare rational and legitimate steps beyond the mere datum. The more\nimportant question follows. How are these 'pure' syntheses applicable\nto real fact? To that Kant replies: They apply, because in all that\nwe call real or objective fact there is a subjective element or\nconstituent. What appears to be purely given, and independent of our\nperceptions, is a product of perceptual and conceptual conditions,--is\nconstituted by a synthesis in perception, imagination, conception. Our\nworld is a mental growth--not our individual product, but the work of\nthat common mind in which we live and think, and which lives and thinks\nin us. Anyhow it is not an isolated self-existing un-intelligent world\nfor ever materially outside us--an other world, eternally separate\nfrom us; but bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, the work realised\nby our great 'elder brother,'--the Idea of human collectivity--the\nReason or Spirit in which we are all one soul. It is therefore no\nunwarranted step on to a foreign property when we apply the categories\nof thought and forms of sense to determine objective reality: for\nobjective reality has been for ever made, and is now making, objective\nand reality by the conscious or unconscious syntheses of perception and\nimagination.\n\nThere remains the answer to the same question as regards the objects\nof Metaphysics. These objects are according to Kant inferences, and\nillegitimate inferences. They are not necessary elements or factors\nin the constitution of experience. In order that there should be\nexperience, knowledge, science, there must be an endless hold of\nspace and time in which to stow it clearly and distinctly away: and\nthere must also be ties and relations binding it part to part, links\nof reference and correlation, a sort of logical elastic band that\nwill stretch to include infinitely copious materials. But each real\nknowledge attaches to a definite assignable perception, in a single\nplace and time. From this point we can travel--by means of like\npoints--practically without limit in any direction. But though the old\nmargin fades forever and forever as we move, a new margin takes its\nplace: the limitation and finitude remain: and new acquisitions are\nalways balanced in part by the loss of the old. Yet the heart and the\nimagination are clamorous, and the intellect is ready to serve them.\nSuch an intellect Kant has called Reason, and its products (Platonic)\n'Ideas.' The (Platonic) Idea expresses not so much an object of\nknowledge as a postulate, a problem, an act of faith. The 'Vaulting\nambition' Intelligence 'o'erleaps itself and falls on t'other,'\nUnsatisfied with a bundle of sensations and ideas, it demands their\nabiding unity in a substantial Soul. To simplify the endlessness of\nphysical phenomena, it sums them up in a Universe. To gather all mental\nand physical diversities and divisions into one life, it creates the\nideal of God.\n\nEach single experience, and the collected aggregate of these\nexperiences, is felt to fall short of a complete total: and yet this\ncomplete total, the ultimate unity, is itself not an experience at\nall. But, if it be no object of experience, it is still an idea on\nwhich reason is inevitably driven: and the attempt to apprehend it, in\nthe absence of experience, gives rise to the theories of Metaphysics.\nEverything, however, which can be in the strict sense of the word\nknown, must be perceived in space and time, or, in other words, must\nlie open to experience. Where experience ends, human reason meets a\nbarrier which checks any efficient progress, but refuses to recognise\nthe check as due to a natural limit which it is really impossible to\npass. The idea of completeness, of a rounded system, or unconditional\nunity, is still left, after the categories of the understanding have\ndone their best: and is not destroyed although its realisation or\nexplication is declared to be impossible.\n\nThere is thus left unexplained a totality which encompasses all the\nsingle members of experience--a unity compared to which the several\ncategories are only a collection of fragments--an infinite which\ncommands and regulates the finite concepts of the experiential\nintellect. But in the region of rational thought there is no objective\nand independent standard by which we can verify the conclusions of\nReason. There are no definite objects, lying beyond the borders of\nexperience, towards which it might unerringly turn; and its sole\nauthentic use, accordingly, is to see that the understanding is\nthorough and exact, when it deals in the co-ordination of experiences.\nIn this want of definite objects, Reason, whenever it acts for itself,\ncan only fall into perpetual contradictions and sophistries. Pure\nReason, therefore, the faculty of ideas, the organ of Metaphysics, does\nnot of itself 'constitute' knowledge, but merely 'regulates' the action\nof the understanding.\n\nBy this rigour of demonstration Kant dealt a deadly blow, as it seemed,\nto the dogmatic Metaphysics, and the Deism of his time. Hume had\nshaken the certainty of Metaphysics and thrown doubt upon Theology:\nbut Kant apparently made an end of Metaphysics, and annihilated\nDeistic theology. The German philosopher, as Hegel has said and Heine\nhas repeated, did thoroughly and with systematic demonstration what\nVoltaire did with literary graces and not without the witticisms with\nwhich the French executioner gives the _coup de gr\u00e2ce._ When a great\nidea had been degraded into a vulgar doctrine and travestied in common\nreality, the Frenchman met its inadequacies with graceful satire, and\nshowed that these half-truths were not eternal verities. The German\nmade a theory and a system of what was only a sally of criticism; and\nrendered the criticism wrong, by making it too consistent and too\nlogical[1].\n\nScience--such is Kant's conclusion--is of the definite and detailed,\nof the conditioned. It goes from point to point, within the\nenveloping unity of what we call experience, and which rests upon the\ntranscendental and original unity of consciousness. But a knowledge\nof the whole--of the enveloping unity--is a contradiction in terms.\nTo know is to synthetise: you cannot synthetise synthesis. Knowledge\nis of the relative: but an absolute and unconditional totality has no\nrelations. We may therefore, possibly, feel, believe in, presuppose\nthe absolute: but know it in the stricter sense, we cannot. It may be\nthe object of a rational faith. But as for knowledge, we can get on\nin psychology without the invisible and immortal soul: we can carry\nout sciences of the physical universe, without troubling ourselves\nabout the 'cosmological' questions of ultimate atoms or ultimate\nvoid, of first beginning and final end: and no proofs will ever prove\nthe _existence_ of that 'ideal' of reason--briefly termed God--which\ntranscends and completes and creates all existence. Not that such Ideas\nare useless even in science. They represent--if not without risks--the\nfaith and the presupposition which underlie the spirit of scientific\nprogress, and set before it an ideal perfection which it will do well\nto strive after, though it can never get beyond approximations. What\nis perhaps more important: this faith of reason science is as little\ncompetent to disprove, as it is incompetent to prove it. Science is not\nall in all: we are more than mere theoretical and cognitive beings.\nThe logic of science is not the sole code of our spiritual or higher\nintellectual life;\n\n    'We live by admiration, hope, and love.'\n\nThe sequel and development of the first Criticism are found in Kant's\nworks on ethics, aesthetics, teleology and religion. Only in one\nsupplementary chapter, and in casual indications as need arises, has\nKant made any pronouncement on his view of Philosophy as a whole and as\na system. That it is and can only be a system, when it really engages\non reconstruction in theory, was of course his fundamental insight.\nBut in his stage of _Zetesis_[2], of testing and sifting the sound\nfrom the professed, he has confined himself to breaking up the mass\npiecemeal, and leaving each result in its turn to corroborate and\ncorrect the other. Sense and intellect may spring from a common stem;\nbut let us, he says, deal with them in their apparent separateness.\nReason practical must no doubt be identical at bottom with reason\ntheoretical: all the more convincing will be the undesigned coincidence\nbetween the results of an inquiry into the principles of science, and\none into the principles of morals. We have seen that science ultimately\nrests--though it does not discuss it and would indeed be incompetent\nto do so--on a faith, a hope, a postulate of the ultimate supremacy of\nintelligence,--the faith of reason in its own power (not verifiable\nindeed by an exhaustive list of actual results)--or in the rationality\nof the world. For science--though a kind of action and a part of\nconduct--is a sort of inactive action: an _enclave_ in the busy world,\na period of preparation for the battle of life. In the field of conduct\nthe ultimate presupposition, which was for the luxury of science called\na reasonable faith or faith of reason, makes itself felt in the more\nforcible form of a categorical imperative.\n\nOr, at least, so it seems on first acquaintance. The command of duty,\naddressed to the sensuously-conditioned nature, brooks no opposition\nand condescends to no reasons in explanation or promises by way of\nattraction. The moral law claims unconditional authority: towards its\nsublime aspect reverence and sheer obeisance is due, utter loyalty to\nduty for duty's sake. Nothing short of this absolute identification\nwith the Ought and a willingly willed self-surrender of the whole self\nto it can entitle an agent to the full rank of moral goodness. Such is\nthe form--the synthetic link which joins the sensuous will indissolubly\nwith the will reasonable of moral law. Now for its explanation.\nHumanity, though in the world of appearance and experience always\nsubject to sensuous conditions, is also a power of transcending these\nconditions. Man is more than he can ever show in visibly single act.\nHe has in him the hope, the faith, the vision of absolute perfection\nand completeness: but has it not as positive attained vision, but as\nthe perpetual unrest of unsatisfied endeavour, as the feeling and\nthe anticipation of an unachieved idea. And that perfection, that\ncompleteness he believes himself to be; he even in some sense is.\nLapses and ill-success cannot quench the faith: for so long as there is\nlife, there is hope.\n\nAs he pictures out this invisible self, it may assume various forms\nmore or less imaginative. At times it may seem a far away, and yet\nintimately near, being of beings,--the common father of all souls, the\neternal self-existent centre of life and love, the omnipresent bond\nof nature, the omniscient heart of hearts,--on whom he can lean in\nclosest communion; though he is only too well aware how often he lives\nas if God were not, and human beings were roaming specks in chaos. At\nother times, he looks up to it as to an inner and better self, his\nconscience, the true and permanent being, which controls his choices\nand avoidances, which approves and disapproves, commands and condemns:\nhis soul of soul, genius, and guardian spirit. In such a mood to be\ntrue to his own self--to follow the very voice of his nature--is to\nrealise his law of life. His Ego is the absolute ego--the reason which\nis all things. And lastly, there are times when he conceives this\nbetter self and true essence as the community of the faithful, as the\ncongregation of reasonable beings, of all perfected humanity.\n\nIn Kantian phraseology, man under one visible form is the union of\nan intelligence and a sensibility, of a no\u00fcmenal with a phenomenal\nbeing. He is, indeed, says Kant, the former only in idea: it is only\na standpoint which he assumes. But it is a standpoint he always does\nassume, if he is to be practical, i. e. if he is to move and modify\nthe world he finds around him. And what standpoint is that? What is\nthe law that has to govern his action, the law of the spiritual world?\nIts supreme law is the law of liberty; and that law is autonomy.\nAction--always under law--but that law a self-imposed one. So act\nthat thy will may be thy law, and with thy will the law of all others\nwhatsoever; so act that no other human being may by thy act be deprived\nof full freedom and treated merely as a thing: so act as to respect the\ndignity of every human being as implicitly a sovereign legislative.\nIn other words, Morality is a stage of struggle and of progress\nwhich bears witness to something beyond. The 'I ought' represents a\ntransition stage towards the 'I will,' or rather it is the translation\nof it into the language of the phenomenal world.[3] Morality, in a\nsense-being, always presents itself as a contest between the good\nand the evil principle: but in the transcendent and no\u00fcmenal being\nwhich such a being essentially is,--in the reasonable or good will,\nthe victory is already won by the good. Good is the law which governs\nthe world, and which is the strength of the individual life. To the\nsensuous imagination, indeed, which here is apt to usurp the place of\nreason, things appear under a somewhat different aspect. There the\ncertainty of self-conquest is forced by the difficulties of apparent\nfailure to veil itself under the picture of a perpetual approximation\nthrough endless ages towards the standard of perfect goodness:\nthe confidence that the world is reasonable is presented under the\nconception of a God who makes all things work together for good to the\nrighteous: and the autonomy of reason presents itself as the postulate\nof freedom to begin afresh, absolutely untrammeled by all that has\ngone before. Thus the kingdom of reason is represented as having its\ntimes and seasons; as making determinate starts, and working up to a\nconsummation in the end of ages. But implicitly Kant's idea of reason's\nautonomy,--of the 'I ought' as in its supreme truth an 'I will,'--is\nan eternal truth. The 'standpoint,' so to call it after Kant, is the\nstandpoint which explains life and conduct and which makes conduct\npossible. It is the assertion that the completeness _is,_ and is my\ninmost being, the source of my action, my chief good, and that chief\ngood not a gratification or satisfaction to be looked forward to as\nreward, but essential life and self-realisation. And this joy is what\nis hidden under the austere gravity of the categorical imperative.\n\nThe Criticism of the Judgment-faculty is Kant's next step towards\nproviding a completer philosophy. Ostensibly it owes its origin to\nthe need of supplementing the treatment of Understanding and Reason\nby a discussion of Judgment, and of considering our emotional as well\nas our cognitive and volitional appreciations. What it really does\nis to minimise still further the gulf left between the intellect\nand nature--between the natural and the spiritual world. The\nintellect, said the first criticism, makes nature: it makes possible\nthe general outlines of our conception of the world around us as\na causally-connected system, in which a permanent being undergoes\nperpetual alteration, and manifests phenomena subject to mathematical\nconditions. Intellect, in short, has staked out the world which is\nthe object of the practical man, and of his adviser the scientist.\nBut there is another world--the world of beauty and sublimity--the\nworld which art imitates and realises. The interpretation Kant gives\nto the aesthetic world is as follows. The fact of beauty is a witness\nto the presence in the mere copiousness of sensible existence of a\nsub-conscious symmetry or spirit of harmony which realises without\ncompulsion and as if by free grace all the proportion and coherence\nwhich intellect requires. Nature itself has something which does the\nwork that intellect was charged with, and does it with a subtle secret\nhand which does not suggest the artificer. The fact of sublimity, on\nthe other hand, indicates the presence of an even greater spirit.\nFor beauty may seem--from what has been said--to be only an unbought\naccrement to the commodities of life--facilitating the task of the\npractical intellect. But the sublime in nature speaks of something\nwhich is greater than human utilities and practical conveniences. It\nreveals a something which is in sympathy with our essential and higher\nself, and therefore stirs within us the keen rapture of the traveller\nwho sees from afar his home in 'rocky Ithaca,' but a something which\nis cold to daily wants and vulgar satisfactions, and therefore strikes\nupon us a gelid awe.\n\nAnother world yet remains, which appeals neither to our utilitarian\nscience, nor to our higher sentiments of artistic perfection. This is\nthe world as the home of organic life, and perhaps itself an organism.\nThe organism is apt to be a poser for the ordinary categories of\nmechanical science. Here the part contains the whole, not less than the\nwhole contains the part: the cause is an effect, as well as cause, of\nits effect. One thing is in another, and the other in it: 'the present\nis charged with the past, and pregnant of the future,'--as the great\nfounder of modern teleology often said. In the plant and the animal\nthe natural world has to a certain degree reached an ideal unity which\nis also real. Reason--the syllogism--is here not merely introduced\nfrom without, as when man manipulates, but is the immanent law of a\nnatural life,--the end working out itself by its own means and act.\nThe fact admitted in these creatures suggests extending the conception\nof organism (or teleology) to nature as a whole. From this point of\nview Nature may almost be said to have a history--because it is almost\nconceived as having one abiding self which in apparent unconsciousness\nwonderfully simulates the purposive adaptation of conscious life.\nThe older vulgar teleology was somewhat mechanical: it regarded the\nnatural world outside of--or as it said, below--man as having no end\nof its own, but in its series subserving man's commodities. In the\nteleology of Kant the supreme end is still in a way man, and still\nthere is a little of the mechanical about it: but it is not to promote\nman's happiness, understood as that probably _must_ be in a selfish\nsense, but to produce in him the worthiest agent to carry on to its\nhighest the rational process of development. The struggles and pains\nof natural existence, the laws of life, the competition of rivals, are\nall means in the hands of nature to produce an autonomous being. Kant\nsays, a moral agent. But a moral agent has been already explained as\nan intelligence certified unto truth and a self-centred will whose law\nis the law of the cosmos,--whose plan of life, if we so put of it, is\nessentially a concentration in miniature and in individuality of the\nsystem ordained by the all-present God.\n\nIt is true that Kant, after all these soarings, checks enthusiasm by\nthe words 'not that we can know this, or that it is so: but our nature\nwith unmistakable tendency bids us act _as if_ it were so. Logic will\nhardly justify it--but life seems to demand it.' And some have replied:\n'let us trust the larger hope.'\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Hegel's _Werke_, vol. i. p. 140.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Kant from 1762 onwards continues to insist on the\nnecessity for philosophy taking up an analytic and critical attitude to\ncurrent conceptions: see especially _Werke,_ i. 95 and 292.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Foundation of Metaph. of Eth. (_Werke_, viii. 82, 89):\n'Dieses Sollen ist eigentlich ein Wollen.']\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\n\nSYNTHESIS AND RECONSTRUCTION: FICHTE.\n\n\nTo get the full effect of a new doctrine it must be brought into\ncontact with a mind unshackled by those traditional prepossessions\nwhich clung to its original author. Kant, essentially by training a\nman of the school, was by heart and character essentially a seeker\nafter the wider ends of the larger world. His lesson is on one hand\nthe scholar's disproof of pretended science, and on another an appeal\nand an example to the mere scholar to make his philosophy ample for\nthe whole life, and co-extensive with the whole field of reality. His\nfirst disciples who stand forward as teachers caught only the first\npart of his message, and sought to set theoretical philosophy on a\nsounder basis. Johann Gottlieb Fichte--perhaps the least professional\nof great philosophical professors--with a resolute will, a passion for\nlogical thoroughness, and great impulse to force mankind to be free\nand to realise liberty in an institution--was the first who really\ngrappled with the searching questions that arose out of Kant's message\nto his age. His was a Kantism, not certainly always of the letter, nor\nindeed always of the spirit: yet for all that, there was substantial\njustice in his claim that his system supplied the presupposition which\ngives meaning and interconnexion to Kant's utterances[1]. It is, says\nthe proverb, the first step that costs. And Fichte took that step.\nBefore his impetuosity the cautelous clauses which besmirched the great\npurpose of Criticism shrunk away, the central truth was disengaged from\nits old-fashioned swaddling clothes, and openly announced itself as a\nrenovating, almost a revolutionary principle.\n\nBut, as was to be expected, the unity and force are paid for by a\nconsiderable surrender of catholicity. If Kant's utterances are\nfused into comparative simplicity, the unification does not embrace\nthe whole of the Kantian gospels. What Fichte did in his earlier\nstage--the stage by which he counts in the history of philosophy--was\nto emphasise and exhibit in his systematic statement that priority or\nsupremacy of the 'practical' over the 'theoretical' reason which Kant\nhad enunciated, and to put in the very foreground that self or Ego\nwhich Kant had indicated, under the title of 'transcendental unity\nof apperception,' as the focus which gives coherence and objectivity\nto experience. But to put the final presupposition at the head and\nfront of all, as a principle originating and governing the whole line\nof procedure, is really to modify in a thorough-going way the whole\naspect of a doctrine and its inner constitution. Kant's way is quiet\nanalysis: from the given, or what is supposed given, up regressively\nto its final presuppositions, its latent _prius._ He shows you the\nthing is so, apparently without effort, by judicious application of\nthe proper re-agent, as it were. Fichte, on the contrary, pours forth\na strong current of deduction: Let it be assumed that so and so is,\nthen _must,_ or then shall, something else be; and so onwards. Instead\nof a glance at the secret substructure of the world, you see it, at a\nmagician's mandate, building itself up; stone calling to stone, and\nbeam to beam, to fill up the gaps and bind the walls together. And you\nmust not merely read or listen. You are summoned as a partner in the\nwork; a work the author feels, only half-consciously, he has not yet\nquite accomplished, and where therefore he complains of the bystander's\ndullness.\n\nThis, one may say, was a new conception, certainly a new practice,\nof philosophy. Kant had indeed hinted that the pupil in philosophy\nmust 'symphilosophise'; but practically, even his aim had been to\ndescribe or narrate a process of thought with such quasi-historical\nvividness and detail that the listener was sympathetically carried\nthrough the succession of ideas which were called up before him. What\nhad been generally given in philosophical literature was a sort of\nhistorical account of how thoughts happened: a succession of pictures\npresented with the interposition here and there of a little reasoning,\nexpository of connexions. You enlisted your reader's sympathy: you\nset his imagination to work by translating the logical process into a\nhistorical event--the _Logos_ into a _Mythos_--and blending with your\nnarrative a little explanation as to general drift and relations, you\nleft him to himself to enjoy the _Theoria._ The nearest approach Fichte\nmakes to this polite and easy method is in the 'Sun-clear Statement,'\nwhere he, as he says, attempts to '_force_ the reader to understand'\nhim. But probably these things cannot be forced. And for the rest\nFichte's characteristic attitude is to request, or command, his reader\n(or pupil) to think with him, to put himself in the posture required,\nto perform the act of thought described. He has not merely to be\npresent at the lecture, but personally to perform the experiment. It\nis not a mere story to be heard and admired and forgotten. _De te_ O\npupil! _fabula narratur._ If it be a play, you are the actor as well as\nthe onlooker: and the play is not a play, but the drama--the nameless\ndrama--of the soul transacted in the unseen sub-conscious depths which\nbear up its visible life.\n\nYou do not therefore begin by getting a fact put before you. Your\n_fact,_ in philosophy, must be your own _act_: not something done\nand dead, passive, a thing, but something doing, alive, active: your\nintrospection must be, let us say, an experiment in the growing,\nresponsive, quick life, not anatomy of the mere _cadaver._ Think,\ntherefore, and catch yourself in the act of thinking. Get something\nbefore your mind's eye, and see what it involves. It matters not what\nyou perceive or feel: only realise it fully and penetrate its meaning\nand implications. It is of course the perception of something here and\nnow. And you would be, in ordinary life, eager to get on to something\nelse--to associate the present fact to something perceived elsewhere,\nto draw conclusions about things yet to come. But if you philosophise,\nyou must check this practical-minded impatience and concede yourself\nleisure to ponder deeply all that the single perception involves. Be\ncontent to sit awhile with Mary, by the side of Rachel of old. Let\nMartha bustle about. Fichte tells you that your perception rests,--and\nyou, you _see_ that it rests, on the 'I am that I am,'--on the I = I,\ni. e. on the continuity, identity, and unity of the percipient self.\nMake the statement of what you perceive, believe it, that is, assert\nit: and you have--done what? You have pledged your whole self_--falsus\nin uno, falsus in omnibus_--to its truth: its background is your whole\nand one mental life. And is that all? You have also called the world to\nwitness: your statement--if, as it professes, it form an item however\nslight in the realm of knowledge--requests and expects every other 'I'\nto acknowledge your perception. Your certainty of the fact rests on\nthe certainty of your self: and your self is a self certified by its\never-postulated identity with other selves, so on _ad infinitum_. In\naffirming this (whatever be your statement) you affirm the Absolute\nInfinite Ego. Heaven and earth are at stake in every jot and tittle[2].\n\nAt which plain frankness there was much cachinnation and even\nmuttering among the baser sort. Even wiser heads forgot--if they\never knew--that Leibniz a century before had startled the world of\nhis day by a view that 'the Ego or something like it[3] was, under\nthe name of _monad_, the presupposition of each and every detail of\nexistence in any organic total. It was useless for Fichte to repeat[4]\nthat his philosophical Ego was not the empirical or individual ego\nwhich he in this every-day world had to provide clothes and company\nfor. It is hard to persuade the world that it does not know that 'I\nam I,' and what that means. Later, therefore, Fichte, going along\nwith the movement of contemporary speculation, and willing to avoid\none source of confusion, tended to keep off the name of Ego from\nthe absolute basis of all knowledge and experienced reality. But\nunquestionably the absolutising of the Ego is the characteristic note\nof his first period in philosophy: and it rings with the spirit of\nthe heaven-storming Titan. It means that the cardinal principle and\nfoundation of man's conscious moral and intellectual life is identical\nwith the principle of the Universe, even if the Universe seem not to\nknow it. It means that self-consciousness--the certainty that I am I\nand one in all my manifestations--is the highest word yet uttered. In,\nor under, the surface of human knowledge and belief in reality, there\nis a transcendental Ego--a self identical with all other selves,--\ninfinite, unlimited, unconditional, absolute. The certainty of human\nknowledge--and therefore of all reality in consciousness--is the\nAbsolute,--an absolute certainty and knowledge--but an absolute with\nwhich I identify myself,--which I am, and which is me. This is the\nabsolute _thesis_--the nerve and utter basis-laying--at the ground, or\nrather under the ground, of all I know, feel, and will.\n\nThis, then, is the thesis at the very foundation of all _Wissenschaft_:\nand therefore figures at the head of the _Wissenschaftslehre_,--the\nname Fichte gives his fundamental philosophy. But alone it is\npowerless. A foundation is only a foundation, by being built upon. The\nposition must be defined by counterposition: thesis by antithesis: ego\nby non-ego. Ego, in fact, is first made _such_, as set against _you._\nIn other words, the perception we assumed to start with does not merely\n_suppose_ and indeed pre-suppose the absolute Ego; but it sets in\nthe absolute Ego an ego and a non-ego,--sets against the lesser ego,\nsomething limiting and limited, something defining it in one particular\ndirection; or, if the original consciousness we started to examine was\nan act of will, then, it may be said, the non-ego appears as about to\nbe limited and defined by the Ego. Be our consciousness, therefore,\npractical or theoretical, of action or of knowledge, its fundamental\ncharacteristic is the conjunction (correlation with subjugation)\nof an ego and a non-ego. It is always a synthesis of an original\nantithesis[5]; of self and not-self. But every such synthesis which\nbrings together into one a self and a not-self, is possible only in the\noriginal thesis of a greater self--an absolute Ego--which includes the\nnot-self and the self it contrasts within its larger self. The unity\nof the first principle[6] (A = A, or I = I) parting or distinguishing\nitself into the opposition of A versus not-A, Ego set against non-ego,\nre-asserts itself again in consciousness (perception of objects, and\naction upon them by will) as synthesis, i. e. a conjunction (not a real\nunion). And this synthesis is either the limitation of the Ego by the\nnon-ego or the limitation of the non-ego by the Ego. The former gives\nthe formula of theoretical, the latter that of practical consciousness.\n\nWe begin with the absolute Ego. It is absolute activity, utter\nfreedom. It is the source of all action, all life. Yet if thus\nimplicitly everything, it is actually nothing. To be something, it\nmust restrict itself, set up in itself an antithesis:--by the setting\nup of a not-self, at once limit and realise itself: translate itself\nfrom ideal absoluteness and unconditionality into a reality which\nis also limited and partial. All consciousness and action exhibit\nthis antithesis of a limited self and an outside and adversative\nother-being; but the antithesis rests upon the medium of a larger life,\na thesis which transcends and includes the antithesis, and which leads\nto that alternating adaptation of the two sides to one another (their\nsynthesis) which actual experience presents as its recurring phase[7].\nThe _Wissenschaftslehre_ leaving the absolute Ego in the background\ndeals with the play that goes on in human experience between the\ncorrelatives to which it has reduced itself;--the antagonism, but the\nmoderated and overruled antagonism, of Ego and non-ego.\n\nObserve the contrast to the ordinary methods of expression. Popular\nlanguage--if the popular philosophers are to be trusted as its\nexponents--says 'an impression is produced by an external object on\nthe senses, and causes an idea in the mind.' The 'object' works a\nseries of marvellous effects on a mind, which--to begin with--is hardly\ndescribable as anything more than an imagined point of resistance,\ngetting reality by being repeatedly impinged upon.[8] Fichte's\nstatements are rather interpreters of the vulgar phrases, which say\n'I hear, I see';--as if, forsooth, the 'I' did it all. According to\nFichte, the 'I,'--the absolute 'I,' is the real (but secret) source\nof the position in which consciousness finds itself limited by a\nnon-ego. But within the finite ego and its consciousness there is\nno reminiscence or awareness of this its great co-partner's--the\nabsolute ego's--act. For the finite consciousness, the beginning of its\nactivity--i. e. of all empirical consciousness, lies in an impulse or\nstimulus from without--a mere somewhat of which we can predicate the\nvery minimum of attributes. It is only _felt_ as opposing: and this\nis the first stage or grade of theoretical consciousness: Sensation.\nBut in the perpetual antithesis--in the self-opposition which is the\nradical act of consciousness--the mere limitation of Ego by non-Ego is\nconfronted by the underlying activity of the Ego which re-asserts the\nlimitation as its own act. Thus while we are, as it were, impressed, we\nre-act against that impression--we set it forth before us, as ours, and\nfree ourselves from its immediate incumbency and oppression. Instead\nof mere sentiency or feeling, we have a perception (or intuition) of it.\n\nIt would be out of place, here, to try to write the interpretation\nof that marvellous and difficult piece of dialectic--the\n_Wissenschaftslehre_;--a theme to which Fichte returned again and\nagain up to his death, ever modifying details, selecting new modes of\nexposition, and gradually, perhaps, changing the centre of gravity\nof his system. It will be sufficient to note the two purposes which\nit keeps in view. On the one hand it is a systematic theory of the\ncategories. It begins, as we have seen, with the three co-ordinates of\nall reflection,--identity, difference, and reason why; it proceeds to\nthe co-relative principles of activity and passivity; to condition,\nquantity, &c. And its work is to show how these forms naturally emerge\nin the recurrent antithesis which arises in consciousness, and how\nagain they are brought together by the overmastering Absolute thesis\ninto a synthesis, from which the same process re-appears. How much this\ncorresponds in general conception to the Hegelian Logic is obvious, and\nFichte has the merit of the original suggestion. With this however he\nconjoins--what Hegel has relegated to his Psychology--an evolutional\nor developmental theory of the mental powers. We have already seen how\nsensation is forced by the latent intelligence to rise into perception\n(_Anschauung_): the line of psychological development is carried on by\nFichte through imagination to understanding and reason. Hegel's work is\nfar more complete, definite, and detailed: but that need not keep us\nfrom giving due homage to the suggestive sketch of the originator of\nthe conception[9].\n\nBut the theoretical consciousness is not all; and as we already know,\nthe practical Ego is supreme over it. In it lies the key to the mystery\nof the stimulus--the shock from the unknown--which awakened the\nactivity of the Ego. The non-ego is only a mass of resistance created\nby the Ego so that it may be active; only a stepping-stone on which\nit may walk; a spring-board from which it may bound. Only so much\nreality has the non-ego; the reality of something which may be shaped,\nmade, made use of. Call the something which the stimulus (_Anstoss_)\npre-supposes, the thing-in-itself (after Kant): and if you ask How are\nthings-in-themselves constituted, you get from the _Wissenschaftslehre_\nthe answer: 'They are as we should make them[10],' Or, as it is said\nin another place: 'My world is--object and sphere of my duties and\nabsolutely nothing else[11]:' if you ask whether there is really\nsuch a world, the only sound reply I can give is: 'I have certainly\nand truthfully these definite duties, which take the form of duties\n_towards_ such, and _in_ such, objects; and it is only in a world such\nas I there represent and not elsewhere that I can perform these duties\nwhich I cannot conceive otherwise,'\n\nThis is a grand word: and yet we feel that, in the intensity of\nintellectual consecutiveness and moral inflexibleness, we have lost\nsome elements to which Kant had given their place in the philosophy\nof life. The third of Kant's three Criticisms is conspicuous by its\nabsence from the Fichtean field of view, and has no recognition in\nthis scheme of the universe: and the great conception of the natural\nworld as an organism, in which natural man is only a part, and all\nis controlled by an autonomous principle of life, has been for the\nwhile allowed to drop. Even more than in Kant religion tends to be an\nepilogue or appendix to morality: and God is identified with the moral\norder of the world. It is customary to speak of Fichte's idealism as\nethical, or as subjective: and so long as these words are understood,\nno harm is done. But to call it subjective does not mean that Fichte\nwas so far beside himself as to believe the world was only a picture\nor a function of his individual brain. It means that he throws the\nweight too much on the side of subjectivity. The Absolute is, for him\nin his first stage, described as an Absolute Ego--and thereby the\nnatural world seems to be left without God: and subjective duty has too\nexclusively thrown on it the weight of certifying objective existence.\nThe world, as we shall see, and have indeed indirectly gathered from\nKant, is too good and worthy to be the mere block of stone out of\nwhich our duties are to be hewn. And similarly, to call Fichte an\nethical idealist is only to name him right, when we add that his were\nidealist ethics. The world is not here merely that social decorum may\nbe maintained, and that puritanical virtue may pronounce that all is so\nwell, that thenceforth there shall be no cakes and ale, nor ginger be\nhot in the mouth. The friend of the two brothers Schlegel, and their\nremarkable wives, Dorothea and Caroline, touched hands with a social\ngroup[12] which, for good and for ill, had emancipated itself from all\ncodes except that which bids\n\n                    'To thine own self be true:\n    Thou canst not then be false to any man.'\n\nTo him, as to Kant, morality presented itself as autonomy, as the\ndignity and grace of human nature in freest development; but to him,\nmore than to Kant, there commended itself the ideal of a city of\nreason, a thoroughly socialised community[13], in which the welfare of\neach would be an obligation on all, and the machinery of government\nwould be so marvellously self-corrective that all would do right and\nall fare well.\n\nFichte's place in the annals of philosophy depends on his academic\ntreatises of 1794-98, and on his more popular works from the first\ndate down to 1808. In a study of the philosopher as a whole it would\nbe necessary to go beyond these dates, and take account of the\ndisplacement which a development of thought, which there is no good\nreason to suppose other than gradual, made in the scale of his earlier\nviews. But for our purposes that is out of the question. In justice,\nhowever, it must be added that some things that seem inadequately\ntreated, some shortcomings in catholicity of mind, would appear in\nanother light if the later writings--not published till after Hegel's\ndeath--were duly taken into account. But even at the close of the\ncentury the advancing thought of Germany was seeking other leaders.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Cf. notes and illustrations in vol. ii. p. 399.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Cf. notes and illustrations in vol. ii. p. 387.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Leibniz, _Werke,_ ed. Gerhardt, iv. p. 392.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Cf. notes and illustrations in vol. ii. p. 393.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The _antithesis_ has two members: the partial ego, and the\nnon-ego, which confronts. The _synthesis_ is a putting together two\nseparate things, so as to correlate them; but it falls short of what\nwould be understood in some present usage by 'synthetic unity' which\nhas a certain mystical ring. It is important for a student of Schelling\nor Hegel to remember this distinction of synthesis from 'absolute unity\ne.g. Schelling, _Werke_, v. 43.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _A = A_ is the more purely logical formula: _I=I_ presents\nit as a personal and metaphysical identity. The _A_, which is _-A,_ is\nto be distinguished from the _A_ which is opposed to _not-A._ But it is\nFichte's standpoint to insist on their being one Ego.]\n\n[Footnote 7: To give this interpretation of the larger Ego as Life and\nBlessedness is to assume that the teaching, e. g. of the _Anweisung zum\nSeligen Leben,_ is the logical deepening of the earlier language about\nthe Ego.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Cf. the description of mind as 4 a bundle of impressions.']\n\n[Footnote 9: Especially given in the Grundriss des Eigenth\u00fcmlichen der\nWiss. (_Werke,_ i. 331). Of course Fichte goes through a corresponding\n'deduction' of the emotional or moral nature. Schelling (_System des\ntranscend. Idealismus_) works out the 'deduction' still more at length.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Fichte, _Werke_, i. 286.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Ibid. ii. 261.]\n\n[Footnote 12: It is perhaps hardly necessary to say that the state of\naffairs alluded to, which has its literary memorials in F. Schlegel's\n_Lucinde_, and in the warm defense of that book by Scheiermacher, was\nonly a passing experiment in which a high-strung idealism amid a lax\nsociety sought for truth at all costs and dared a noble lie.]\n\n[Footnote 13: In the _Geschlossener Handelstaat_ (of 1800), the\n'classical' document of characteristic German Socialism in its earlier\nand idealist phase.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\n\nTHE BEGINNINGS OF SCHELLING.\n\n\nSchelling and Hegel had been fellow-students at T\u00fcbingen, where,\nbesides the ostensible lessons of the class-room, they had drunk gladly\nof the springs of thought Lessing had set running, had felt the hopes\nand the fears of the struggle republican France waged against the\nGerman powers, and had seen that Kantian criticism contained within\nit a fire which would burn up the hay and stubble of old theology.\nHegel, five years the elder of the two, had passed through his college\ncareer in a very creditable but by no means brilliant way. Among his\nfellows he had gained the reputation of a quiet, and rather reflective\nmind, which, however, under an old-fashioned exterior, breathed a deep\nimpassioned zeal for that higher life of which the nobler spirits among\nthe young then, as now, longed to accelerate the advent. Schelling,\nsingularly gifted with speculative ability, literary art, and the\nreceptivity of genius to catch and string together the theories\nthat rose to the top in science and letters, had already made his\nmark as a philosophic writer, while his senior compatriot, leading\nthe inconspicuous life of a private tutor, was only working up and\nwidening his ideas. Schelling's first essays in metaphysics trod the\nsame lines as Fichte; but in 1797 (when he was aged 22) appeared his\n_Ideas towards a Philosophy of Nature._ A year later he was lecturing\nat Jena, in friendly association with the Schlegels, and with Fichte,\nwho, however, soon quitted the place. In 1800 appeared the _System of\nTranscendental Idealism_, and in 1801 the _Exposition of my System_;\nfollowed in 1802 by _Bruno_, and in 1803 by the _Lectures on University\nStudies._ Brief periods of academic teaching at W\u00fcrzburg, Erlangen, and\nMunich, and after 1841 at Berlin, broke the silence which set in after\nhis _Inquiries into the nature of human liberty_ in 1809; but little\ncertain was known to the outside public of the final standpoint till\nthe publication of his collected works (1856-61).\n\nAn involuntary touch of sadness falls upon they historian as he surveys\nSchelling's career. Seldom had a thinker's life begun with better\npromise, and more distinguished performance; seldom had a nobler\ninspiration, a more liberal catholicity of mood, guided and propelled\nthe intellectual interest; seldom had expectation of greater things\nyet to come followed a writer's traces than was the lot of Schelling.\nOn one hand, a lively and active appropriation of the results of\nscientific discovery, at least in its more suggestive advances: on the\nother, a mastery of words and style which fitted him to hold his own\namongst the literary leaders; and, again, a sympathy, that seemed to\nbe religious, with the movement which sought _lucem ex Oriente_, and\nwisdom from the treasures of the world's purer youth. And yet--in the\nmain--the net result, oblivion more complete than has ever befallen a\ngreat thinker. At first, one is inclined to pass on with the remark\nthat even books and thinkers have their fates, and that some momentary\nforgetfulness let the tide slip unused. But it is possible to be less\noracularly-obscure: and without detracting from the splendid faculty\nand great achievement of Schelling to note some of the causes of his\nlapse into a mere episode.\n\nIn the first place, though his conception is of a system, his\nperformance is only a succession of fragments. The nearest approach\nto an encyclopaedic exposition of his ideas is found in his popular\n_Lectures on the Studies of University._ More than once he starts\non the task of exposition, but lets it break off about the middle.\nAgain, at each new occasion, the features of his scheme of thought\nhave slightly altered, and not merely does his philosophy profess\nat first to present two distinct sides, but these two sides of the\nshield vary. Thirdly, the interest in scientific novelties, always\ndisposed to seek the curious, the far-reaching and suggestive, more\nthan the sounder generalisations, tends as time goes on to fasten too\ngreedily on the miraculous and mysterious night-side of nature, on\nmagic powers and mystic discernments--a path which descends to the\nabyss of a 'positive,' i.e. a quasi-materialistic, theosophy. The\nmatter-of-fact rationalists (both the Catholics in Bavaria, and the\nProtestant theologian Paulus, once a friend, but latterly his bitterest\nfoe) regard him as a crypto-catholic, the advocate of medieval\nobscurantism so hateful to true enlightenment. Even his literary art\nrenders him suspected: for there is an old quarrel between philosophy\nand fiction; and grave-eyed wisdom is jealous of her gipsy rival.\nIll-advised indications of a sense of lofty superiority to the average\nteacher increased the numbers and the venom of his opponents. Nor is\nit perhaps beneath the dignity of history to suggest that his first\nwife, Caroline, with all her wonderful attractions of intellect and\ncharacter, and notwithstanding all that she had been to Schelling in\nencouragement and counsel, was too clever and too critical not to sow\nmany jealousies, and to add through the female line to the ranks of\nthose with whom he stood suspect.\n\nBut perhaps the real reason of Schelling's failure was a certain\nexcess of objectivity. Fichte had drawn attacks down by an abnormal\nsubjectivity which would fain reform the surroundings wherever he\nwent. Schelling stood more apart--animated by an immense curiosity,\na boundless interest in all the expanse of objective existence; but\nwithal he seemed not to have his heart, deeply set and pledged to\na distinctively human interest. His first love is the Romance in\nnature; and when he turns to history it is by preference to ages far\nremote. His ideal of philosophy is to see it achieve its work by\nthe instrumentality of Art. Religion seems to culminate for him in\na mythology. Reflection and speculation are to him always somewhat\nof a disease--whence philosophy is to carry us--almost magically if\npossible--to rest again in the primeval unity of life. It is only an\ninstrument towards a great end--and that end a godlike, even if you\nlike a religious, Epicurean life. From such a standpoint it would be\neasy, in youth, to relapse into naturalism; it would be equally easy,\nin later life, to fall into supernaturalism. Philosophy--at least as\nHegel understood it--is merely neither: but the life, which never\ncan quite cease to be an effort, of idealism. And so Schelling could\nnot earn the confidence which only goes to those who are felt to be\nfellow-fighters with those they lead.\n\nWith Schelling occurs the confluence, into the main current of\nphilosophy, of streams of idea and research which had already\nexercised a stimulative effect on the tone and products of the higher\nliterature of Germany. As early as 1763 (at the very date Kant let the\nEnglish and Scotch 'empiricists' shake him out of his 'rationalist'\ndogmatism) Lessing--in a couple of pages _On the reality of things\noutside God_--threw doubts on the tenability of the ordinary deistic\narrangement of his day, which set God _there_ and man and his\nsurroundings _here,_ each side, for the time at least, undisturbedly\nenjoying his own. Lessing read Leibniz by the light of Spinoza, and\nSpinoza by the light of Leibniz: and, if he emphasised the absolute\nright to the completest individual self-development on one hand, he no\nless declared on the other that 'nothing in the world is insulated,\nnothing without consequences, nothing without eternal consequences.'\n'I thank the Creator that I must,--must the best,' he adds (1774). Of\nhis conversations on these high topics with Jacobi, we have already\nspoken. While Spinoza and Leibniz were either decried, or--what is\nworse--misunderstood, by the established masters of instruction, they\nwere welcomed by a more sympathetic and, with all its drawbacks, more\nappreciative study from the non-academic leaders of thought.\n\nAmongst these one of the most interesting and influential was Herder.\nHerder, who had been amongst Kant's students in 1763, and who has\nexpressed his admiration of his then teacher, came as years passed-by\nto consider himself the appointed antagonist of the Kantian system.\nThe two men were mentally and morally of different types: and in\nHerder's case, a sense of injury, in the end, positively blinded\nhim to the meaning no less than to the merits of a doctrine he had\ndecreed to be pernicious. In Herder's opinion, the Kantian system\nlaboured throughout from the fault of a dead logical formalism and\nabstractness: it inhabited a sort of limbo, cut off alike from the\nfresh breath of nature and the growing life of history, and from the\neternal spirit of divine truth: it undermined (so his experience at\nWeimar[1] indicated) the traditional faith, and inspired its 'adepts'\nwith a revolutionary superciliousness to all dogma. Its cut-and-dried\nlogicality, its trenchant divisions and analyses were obnoxious to his\npoetically-fervid, largely-enthusiastic, and essentially-historical\nsoul. Man--in his concrete completeness, in his physical surroundings\nand his corporeal structure, in his social organisation, in his\nliterary and artistic life, above all in his poetry and traditions of\nreligion--was the theme of his studies; and he looked with distrust on\nevery attempt to analyse and disintegrate the total unity of humanity\nby a criticism first of this, and then a criticism of that side of\nit, carried on separately. Ossian had been an early favourite of his;\nand the twilight that hovers with the haze of pensive myth around the\nfigures of that visionary world hangs with a charm and a confusion\naround the ultimate horizon of Herder's ideas.\n\nIn 1774 and 1775 Herder wrote and wrote again an essay (published 1778)\nfor a prize offered by the Berlin Academy on the subject of 'Sensation\nand Cognition in the human Soul.' Its fundamental points are that\n'no psychology is possible, which is not at every step a distinct\nphysiology': that 'cognition and volition are only _one_ energy of the\nsoul': that 'all our thought has arisen out of and through sensation,\nand in spite of all distillation still contains copious traces of\nit': that there are not separate faculties of thought, but one divine\npower, which unifies all the broad stream of inflowing sensation,--'one\nenergy, and elasticity of the soul, which reaches its height through\nthe medium of language.' 'What is material, what non-material in\nman, I know not,' he says; 'but I am in the faith that nature has not\nfastened iron plates between them,' 'Man is a slave of mechanism (but\na mechanism disguised in the garb of a lucid celestial reason) and\nfancies himself free,' 'Self-feeling and fellow-feeling (a new phase of\nexpansion and contraction) are the two expressions of the elasticity of\nour will': they vary directly with each other: and 'love therefore is\nthe highest reason'--a proposition, adds Herder, for which 'if we will\nnot trust St. John, we may trust the undoubtedly more divine Spinoza,\nwhose philosophy and ethics turn wholly upon this axis.'\n\nHerder's great work, however,--which, side by side with Lessing's\n_Education of the Human Race,_ and with Kant's _Idea for a Universal\nHistory_, helped to constitute that conception of history, as\nphilosophy in concrete form, which appears in Schelling, Schlegel, and\nHegel,--was the _Ideas for a Philosophy of History._ It is the pendant\nand contrast to Kant's three Criticisms, with which it is nearly\ncontemporaneous (1784-91). Even in history Kant emphasises the work of\nintelligence, of reason: and puts the intelligently-organised state--if\npossible, the world-commonwealth, when war shall be transformed into\nmerely stimulating competition,--as the final triumph of the reason.\nTo Herder, while on the one hand the nature-basis is all-essential,\nand must form the foundation of any genetic explanation of spiritual\nphenomena, the ideal of humanity presents itself rather as a free\ndevelopment of the many-sided individual--a development tempered by\nthe association of the family and the claims of friendship. In Kant's\nview of civilisation, natural reason by its indwelling presuppositions\nworks out the end of culture: Herder, on the contrary, allows himself\nto introduce--but only in and from the dim background--a supernatural\naid to actualise the germs of rationality latent in man's nature.\nYet, though at the first step into history the Godhead appears, and\na deified humanity looms ahead as the consummation of the process\nof evolution, the development between these two extreme poles is\nhomogeneous and indeed one. The same law governs it throughout:\n\n'Ethics is only a higher physics of the mind.' Man is from the\nfirst endowed with tendencies which, through the medium of society\nand tradition, carry him on to the double end, so hard to combine,\nof 'humanity and happiness,' 'humanity and religion.' But, for\nthis training of the spirit he is prepared by a special natural\nendowment of the body: and Herder can go so far as to say that 'in\norder to delineate the duties of man, we need only delineate his\nform.' Developing under the influence of cosmic and geographical\nconditions, and formed of the same protoplasm and on the same type\nas other animals, man possesses an unique organisation, a definitely\nproportioned mechanism, which is his distinctive and permanent specific\ncharacter. General identity of plan and condition prevails for man\nand animals; but Herder keeps back from the Darwinian inference which\ninterprets the graduated diversity of type as indicating that man is\nthe phase reached _pro tempore_ in the gradual slide along which the\ncontinuous change of environment carries the unstable types which\nearlier environments have helped to form. For Herder's conception of\nnature there are fixed differences beyond which research cannot go; and\nwe shall see that both Schelling and Hegel accept this reservation.\n\nHerder, finally, struck a blow in the war that was waged after\nLessing's death between the friends and foes of Spinozism. His little\nbook _God_ (1787) is a vindication v of Spinoza against Jacobi's\nattack. Antiquarian accuracy it can lay no claim to: the picture\nof Spinozism, one-sided at the best, is further vitiated by an\ninterpretation of the doctrine which leavens it to indistinctness with\nthe ideas of Leibniz and Shaftesbury. It was a grand--but it was also\nan audacious--vision of Spinozism which found it not inconsistent with\na fundamental theism on one side and with the poetry of nature on the\nother. Yet Herder had the merit of being perhaps the first to pierce\nthe hard logical shell of rationalism under which Spinoza had lain\nhidden, and to reveal the mystic passion for God which so quaintly\ncalled itself _amor erga rem infinitam et aeternam._ 'Spinoza,' says\nHerder, 'was an enthusiast for the being of God,' Even where he\ntranslates Spinoza's terms into ample equivalents, he does service by\nteaching men that the vapid inanities they associate with terms like\n_substance_, _mode, cause_, are inadequate to interpret the intensity\nof meaning they had for the philosopher. To remove the seals which\nrendered both Leibniz and Spinoza a mystery for the world was to\nprepare the way for Schelling and Hegel[2].\n\nIt is under the aegis of Spinoza and Leibniz that Schelling begins\nhis first characteristic work,--the _Ideas towards a philosophy of\nNature._ In these thinkers he found first proclaimed as the fundamental\nstandpoint of philosophy the unity of the finite and the infinite, of\nthe real and the ideal, of the absolutely active and the absolutely\npassive. They differed indeed in this, that whereas this unity is\npre-supposed by Spinoza as infinite and absolute substance, of which\nall separate existence, body or mind, is only a _modus_, it is taken\nby Leibniz as the universal characteristic of every individual being.\nEvery monad--and the human soul is the typical monad--is at once finite\nand infinite, real and ideal, active and passive. But--whether as\nunderlying substance, or as unity of reality--both hold the cardinal\ndoctrine that the absolute (the 'Object' of philosophy) is the unity\nand unification--the identity--of what outside it appears as two\nsides or orders of being, the real and the ideal. To philosophise,\ntherefore--or to see things in the absolute--is (not as Hegel's\nmalicious joke puts it[3], to look at them 'in the night when all cows\nare dark,'--but) to see them in the intense light that proceeds from\nthe identity of the _Spirit_ within us with the _Nature_ without us.\n\nFichte had caught hold of this standpoint. He had seen that the\noriginal antithesis which confronts us, and the conjunction (synthesis)\nof its members, presupposed a still more fundamental and indeed\nabsolute thesis,--an aboriginal and active unity. That antithesis is\nthe opposition of ego and not-ego; that synthesis is every act of\nknowledge and will, by which each of these powers is in turn limited\nby the other. Such a synthesis (volition or cognition) would be\nimpossible unless on the fundamental thesis (or hypothesis) of a unity,\nor identity, which gives rise to the antithesis and has the power of\novercoming it. Such an original unity is what he calls the absolute\nEgo. I am what I know and will, and what I know and will is Me. Such\nis the equation (briefly written, I = I) which identifies subject\nand object (of knowledge and will). But the associations clinging to\nthe terms Fichte used gave this thought a one-sided direction. The\n'_I_' is opposed to the _'Thee,'_ and the '_Them,_' and the 'It.' The\n'thing'--or non-ego--is depreciated as compared with the thinker and\nwiller. It is postulated _ad majorem gloriam_ of the Ego: in order that\nI may work out the full fruition of my being. It is what I ought to\nmake out of it. It _is_ nothing but what it _will be_--or will be if\nI do what I ought to do. The identity of the two sides therefore is\nleft as 'the object of an endless task, an absolute imperative.' The\nAbsolute is not yet:--it is only the forecast of a postulated result.\n\n'If this be what Fichte teaches, and be called subjective idealism,\nthen for Schelling the first thing is to quit the house of bondage. Let\nus leave out of view the Ego, with its misleading associations, and\nbegin with the two fields which are known to us, the fields of Nature\nand Spirit. Nature--not Matter--is the one side: Mind or Spirit the\nother. Each of them furnishes the object of one branch of philosophy--a\nphilosophy of Nature, on one hand, and a transcendental idealism on the\nother. The former is new, and more especially Schelling's own proper\ncontinuation of Kant: the other partly a continuation of Fichte's work.\nBut as they are both philosophy, they must coincide or meet. The whole\nphilosophy may therefore call itself a philosophy of Identity; but, for\nthe while, it will present itself under the two aspects of a philosophy\nof Nature, conceived as the blind and unconscious, a philosophy of Mind\nand history, as the free and conscious product of intelligence.[4]\n\n\n[Footnote 1: He held posts of large general superintendence over church\nand school affairs at Weimar.]\n\n[Footnote 2: See notes and illustrations in vol. ii. p. 420.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Hegel, _Werke_, ii. 13.]\n\n[Footnote 4: See notes and illustrations in vol. ii. p. 392.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\n\nTHE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE AND IDEALISM.\n\n\nWhat is meant by a 'philosophy of Nature'? 'To philosophise on Nature,'\nsays Schelling, 'means to lift it up out of the dead mechanism in\nwhich it appears immersed,--to inspire it, so to speak, with liberty,\nand to set it in free process of evolution: it means, in other words,\nto tear ourselves away from the vulgar view which sees in Nature only\noccurrences, or at the best sees the action _as a fact, not the action\nitself_ in the action[1].' There is in short a process in nature\nparallel in character to what Fichte had exhibited for consciousness.\nThe natural world is no longer subordinated, but to appearance\nco-ordinate: and evolution or development, exhibited under the logical\ntitle of a 'deduction,' is the common law of both. The real order and\nthe ideal order of the world are equally the work of an infinite and\nunconditioned activity, 'which never quite exhausts itself in any\nfinite product, and of which everything individual is only as it were a\nparticular expression.' The nature which we see broken up in groups and\nmasses, and individual objects, is to be explained as a series of steps\nin a process of development: the steps in a single continuous product\nwhich has been arrested at several stages,--which presents distinct\nepochs, but nevertheless all approximations, with divergences, to a\nsingle original ideal.\n\nIn Nature, as in Mind, the most typical phenomenon is an original\nheterogeneity, duplicity, or difference, which, however, points\nback to a still more fundamental homogeneity, unity, or identity.\nThis primary unity or ground of unification does not indeed appear\nto sight; the 'soul of Nature,' the _anima mundi,_ nowhere presents\nitself as such in its undivided simplicity; but only as the perpetually\nrecurring re-union of what has been divided. But though unapparent,\nthe absolute identity is the necessary presupposition of all life\nand existence, as of all knowledge and action. It is the link or\n'copula' which perpetually reduces the antithesis to unity, and the\nheterogeneity to homogeneity, and the different to redintegration. To\nthis fact of antithesis, presupposing and continually reverting to an\noriginal unity, Schelling gives the name 'Polarity,' 'It is impossible\nto construe the main physical phenomena without such a conflict of\nopposite principles. But this conflict only exists at the instant\nof the phenomenon itself. Each natural force _awakes_ its opposite.\nBut that force has no independent existence: it only exists in this\ncontest, and it is only this contest which gives it for the moment a\nseparate existence. As soon as this contest ceases, the force vanishes,\nby retreating into the sphere of homogeneous forces[2].' Polarity,\ntherefore, is a general law of the cosmos.\n\nA ceaseless, limitless activity, therefore, as the basis or groundwork\nof all, for ever crossing, arresting, and limiting itself: an eternal\nwar, which, however, is always being led back to peace,--a process\nof differentiation which rests upon, is the product of, and is for\never forced back to integration, is the perpetual rhythm of the\nnatural universe. It is a process in which can be traced three grades,\nstages, or 'powers' (first, second, and third, &c.). By its more\ngenerally descriptive name it is called Organisation. 'Organism,'\nsays Schelling, 'is the principle of things. It is not a property\nof single natural objects; but, on the contrary, single natural\nobjects are so many limitations, or single modes of apprehending the\nuniversal organism[3].' 'The world is an organisation; and a universal\norganism itself is the condition (and to that extent the positive)\nof mechanism[4].' 'Mechanism is to be explained from organism: not\norganism from mechanism.' 'The _essential_ of all things is _life_: the\n_accidental_ is only the _kind_ of their life: and even the dead in\nNature is not utterly dead,--it is only extinct life.'\n\nBut if the conception of an organism be thus the adequate or\ncomplete idea of Nature as a whole, that idea is only realised as\na third 'power' supervening on, and by means of two subordinate or\ninferior ranges or 'powers.' The first stage is that occupied by the\nmathematical and mechanical conception of the world,--the bare skeleton\nor framework which has to be clothed upon and informed with life and\ngrowth. This first 'power' in the world-process of antithetical forces,\nunder the control of, and on the basis supplied by, the original\nthetic unity which synthetises them, is Matter. In Matter we have the\nequilibrium and statical indifference of two opposing forces--one\ncentrifugal, accelerating, repulsive, the other contripetal, retarding,\nattractive--which, working under the synthetising unity supplied by the\nforce of universal gravitation, build up in their momentary arrests\nor epochs the various material forms. In this first 'power' we have\nas it were the scheme or machinery through which organisation will\nwork: the outward and 'abstract, organism. And the essential feature\nof this 'construction' or 'deduction' of matter is that it does not\ntake material atoms and build them into a world, but 'deduces' the\nproperties of matter as issuing from the play of opposing forces, and\nas due to the temporary syntheses resulting from the presence of unity\nmaking itself felt in the opposites.\n\nA second and higher 'power' is seen in the physical universe as it\npresents, itself to the sciences of electricity, magnetism, and\nchemistry. If the former briefly be denominated the mechanical,\nthis is the chemical world. The law of polarity is here especially\nprominent: the neutrality or indifference of parts is replaced by an\nintenser antithesis and affinity: and the return from heterogeneity\nto homogeneity takes place with more striking and even sudden effect.\nHere, matter, even as inorganised, has a certain _simulacrum_ of life\nand sensibility: there is in it the trace of a spirit which emerges\nabove the mere contiguity and juxtaposition of mechanical atoms. The\natomic theory shows itself less and less adequate as an attempt to\nrepresent the whole phenomena of inanimate matter, and the material\nuniverse is already charged with sympathies and antipathies which are\nfull of the promise and the potency of the organic world.\n\nThe mechanical theory of the universe, in the ordinary sense, which\ndeals with the mathematical formulation of the laws of planetary\nmovement, had been the work of the seventeenth century. The eighteenth\ncentury had seen attempts to explain the _status quo_ of the\nplanetary system as a resultant from the evolution of an elementary\nmolecular state of the cosmic mass. With the close of the eighteenth\ncentury there appeared a group of new sciences dealing with subtler\nenergies of matter,--with electricity, galvanism, and above all with\nthe connexions of chemical, electric, and magnetic science. The\nideas thus suggested--embraced with some generality under the title\nPolarity--threw light backward upon the old mechanical conceptions,\nand gave them a decidedly dynamic character. Even the tranquil rest\nof geometrical figures came to be explained as a meeting point and\ntransition moment of opposite forces. But these ideas produced an even\ngreater effect on biology. Here, too, the need of a special 'vital\nforce' to explain life and organisation disappeared: organism was\nbut a higher stage, a completer truth of mechanism: and both found\ntheir explanation in the antithesis and synthesis of forces, or in\ndifferentiation and integration of what has recently been termed an\n'id\u00e9e-force.' In this direction, so far as Schelling was concerned,\nthe obvious stimulus came from the programme sketched by Kielmeyer at\nStuttgart in 1793, in a lecture 'on the proportions of organic forces,'\nAccording to Kielmeyer there are three types of force in the animal\norganisation, sensibility, irritability and reproduction[5]. The last\nof these is the basic force which builds up and propagates the animal\nsystem. With irritability, or contraction in response to external\nstimuli--material adaptation to environment--a higher level of animal\nlife is reached. But the highest of all forces in the living being is\nsensibility. In this same order may we reasonably conceive that the\n'plan of nature' proceeds. Her first products show little beyond that\nreproductive power which makes broad and high the pyramid of life. But\nas the creature acquires increasing heterogeneity and a comparatively\nindependent position, it plays the part of a re-agent against stimuli,\nand a source of movements. Lastly, it not merely responds to, but\nassimilates and appropriates the impression into a sensation: it\ninternalises the external, and carries within itself by means of the\nsensibility an ever-increasing picture of the world around it.\n\nThe idea of Evolution or Development, thus introduced by Schelling into\nphilosophy as a governing principle in the study of matter and of mind,\nis not to be confused either with the older use of these terms or with\ntheir current applications to-day[6]. By evolution (or development)\nand involution (or envelopment) the earlier speculation on biology had\ndenoted the view that the organic germ contained _in parvo_ all that\nthe matured organism showed in large. As the mature bulb of the healthy\nhyacinth shows, when cut open, to the naked eye, the stem and flowers\nthat will issue from it next spring; so in general the seed can be\ntreated as a miniature organism needing only an increase of bulk to\nmake it fully visible in details. Growth is thus not accretion, but\nexplication and enlargement of a microscopic organism subsisting in the\ngerm.\n\nEvolution, in the present time, and especially since Darwin, means\nsomething more than this. It implies a theory of descent of the variety\nof existing organisms from other organisms of a previous age, less\nindividualised in forms and functions. From comparatively simple and\nhomogeneous creatures there have issued in the course of ages creatures\nof more complex, more highly differentiated structure; and this process\nof gradual differentiation may be conceived as going on through an all\nbut infinite period. At one end we may conceive matter, just endowed\nwith the faculties of life and organisation, but in a minimal degree;\nat the other end of the developmental process, creatures which have\norganised within themselves powers, maximal both in range and variety.\nThe result (so far as we at present go) is a genealogy of organism\nwhich, to quote Darwin, pictures before us a 'great tree of life which\nfills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth and\ncovers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications.'\n\nEven Bugon, seeing how naturally he could regard 'the wolf, the fox,\nand the jackal' as 'degenerate species of a single family,' concluded\nwe could not go wrong in supposing that 'nature could have with\ntime drawn from a single being all other organised beings.' Erasmus\nDarwin (1794) had insisted on the power of 'appetency' in the organs\nof a living creature to create and acquire new structures which it\nhanded down to its posterity. G. R. Treviranus[7] in his _Biology_\n(1802-5) had noted the influence of environment, and Jean Lamarck in\nhis _Philosophie Zoologique_ (1809) had--after assuming that 'nature\ncreated none but the lowest organisms'--maintained that need and use\n(or disuse) can so effectively modify a creature that it may even\nproduce new organs, and give rise by imperceptible degrees to a variety\nof creatures as widely divergent as they now appear. E. g. 'The giraffe\nowes its long neck to its continued habit of browsing upon trees.' And\ngradually it had become recognised by speculators on this subject that,\nas Mr. H. Spencer wrote in 1852, 'by small increments of modification\nany amount of modification may in time be generated.' Finally, in 1859,\nDarwin, with an ample resource of illustrative examples, enforced the\ndoctrine that the existing fauna and flora of the earth represent the\nresult of a struggle for existence, protracted during vast ages, in\nwhich those creature's have been preserved (selected to live) which,\namong all the variously-endowed offspring of any kind, were best fitted\nto appropriate the means of subsistence in the circumstances in which\nthey for the time found themselves placed. The circumstances of life\non the globe are perpetually varying from place to place and time to\ntime: progeny never exactly reproduce their parents, and diverge widely\nfrom each other: hence each form of life is perpetually sliding on from\nphase to phase, and only those survive which are best adapted to the\nnew conditions of life.\n\nSo far as Darwinism is an attempt to show that the classes of plants\nand animals are not a mere juxtaposition and aggregation, but are to be\nexplained by reference to a single genetic principle, it is in harmony\nwith the Evolution taught by Schelling and Hegel. Both alike overthrow\nthe hard and fast lines of division which semi-popular science insists\nupon, and restore the continuity of existence. Both regard Nature as\nan organic realm, developing by action and re-action within itself,\nliving a common life in thorough sympathy and solidarity, and not a\nmere machine in which the several parts retain without change the\nfeatures and functions impressed upon them at creation by some supernal\narchitect. But they differ in other points. Ordinary Darwinism,\nat least, talks as if circumstances and organism were independent\noriginally, and only brought as it were, incidentally, in contact\nand correlation. It fails to keep hold of the fact--of which it is\nabstractly aware--that the two act upon and modify each other because\nthey are members of a larger organism. It forgets, in short, what\nSchelling so thoroughly realised, that the organic and inorganic,\nordinarily so called, are both in a wider sense organic. It wants the\ncourage of recognising its own tacit presuppositions.\n\nBut the characteristic difference between the evolution theory of\nto-day and that meant by the philosophers is different from this,\nthough connected with it. 'The assertion,' says Schelling, 'that\nthe various organisms have formed themselves by gradual development\nfrom one another, is a misconception of an Idea which really lies in\nreason[8].' And Hegel no less decidedly asserts that 'Metamorphosis'\n(as the term was then applied, e. g. by Goethe, to what we now call\nEvolution) really _exists_ as a fact only in the case of the living\nindividual,--not in the supposed or theoretical continuity of the\nspecies. 'It is an awkward way both ancient and modern speculative\nbiology have had of presenting the development and transition of one\nphysical form and sphere into a higher one as an outwardly-actual\nproduction,--which, however, in order to make it clearer, has been\nthrown back into the darkness of the past.'[9] Yet notwithstanding\nthese and even later protests, there is a great charm for many minds in\nthe evolutionist picture, e. g., of the horse of to-day as the literal\ndescendant through nearly fifty great stages (called species) from\nsome creature of the eocene age, which gradually transformed itself in\nconsequence of innate instability or variability of construction and in\nobedience to changes in its environment. But whatever value there may\nbe in these as yet hypothetical aids to the imagination in grasping and\nunifying the variety of organic life, they run on another line from the\nphilosophical evolution. That evolution is in the _Idea_, the _Notion._\nIt is the 'fluidity' of terms of thought that is here sought, not\nof the kinds of things,--except in a secondary way. And above all,\nphilosophy does not deal with a problem in time, with a mere sequence;\nif it deals with a history of nature, the agents of that history are\npowers and forces--and powers which are ideal no less than real.\n\nA nearer approach to the philosophic conception is to be found in the\nviews which modern physiology takes of the nature of organic structure\nand function[10]. In the simplest phases of protoplasm, the apparently\nhomogeneous mass is really undergoing a series of changes, and indeed\nonly exists as such, because it is the ever-renewed resultant of\ntwo correlated processes,--a movement up (anabolic change) by which\ndead matter is assimilated and built into it, and a movement down\n(katabolic changes) by which its composing elements are disintegrated\nand left behind, with accompanying liberation of energy. Protoplasm or\n'living matter' is the incessantly formed and re-formed thin line on\nwhich these two currents for the moment converge,-a temporary crest\nof white foam, as it were, raising itself on the Heraclitean wave of\nvicissitude, where all things flow on and nothing abides. But wherever\nprotoplasm arises and maintains itself on this borderline of ascending\nand descending states, it exhibits the three well-known properties of\nassimilation, contractility, and sensitiveness. Protoplasm, placed\nas it were in the mean between these two processes, is or has the\nsynthetic power which governs them and keeps them in one. It is no\nmere chemical substance, undergoing composition and decomposition,\nbut rather, if looked at from the somewhat speculative standpoint of\nmolecular physics, a kind of intricate movement or dance of particles,\na shape or 'form' instinct with the power of producing and reproducing\nitself, and, ultimately, in some highly differentiated phases\n(nerve-system), with a power of producing and reproducing a world of\nimagination.\n\nA philosophy of Nature is only half a philosophy. Its purport is\nto set free the spirit in nature, to release intelligence from its\nimprisonment in material encasements which hide it from the ordinary\nview, and to gather together the _disjecta membra_ of the divine into\nthe outlines of one continuous organisation. It seeks to spiritualise\nnature, i. e. to present the inner idea, unity, and genetic\ninterdependence of all its phenomena: to delineate _natura formaliter\nspectata_ not as a logical skeleton of abstract categories, but in its\norganisation and continuous life. There remains the problem of what\nSchelling calls 'Transcendental Idealism':--called 'transcendental'\nto avoid confusion with the vulgar idealism which supposes the world\nto be what it calls a mere 'idea' or phantom of the mind. Schelling's\nis on the contrary an 'Ideal-Realism': it 'materialises the laws of\nintelligence to laws of nature[11].'\n\nWe need not in details consider the genesis of Reality from the action\nof the Ego. Substantially it is the same as that given by Fichte.\nAn activity, which is at once self-limiting and superior to all\nlimit, rises through stage to stage, from sensation and intuition,\nto reflection and intelligence, till it becomes the consciousness of\na world of ob; ective reality. 'Give me,' says the transcendental\nphilosopher, 'a nature with opposing activities, of which the one\ngoes to infinity, and the other endeavours to behold itself in this\ninfinity,--and from that I will show you intelligence arising with the\nwhole system of its ideas[12].' In the first phase the 'ideal-real'\nworld arises by the synthetic action of the 'productive intuition,'\nIdeas, as it were, live and move: they grow and build up: causality\nis neither a category nor a schema, but an intelligent 'form' which\nis also a force--an 'id\u00e9e-force,' They are (in the Hegelian sense)\n'Ideas,' i.e. neither merely objective nor merely subjective, but both\nat once. But such an ideal world is outside and beyond consciousness:\nit belongs to the same region as that higher Ego where there is no\ndistinction between the Ego I am and the Ego I know. To follow the\nmovement in this region needs a combination of mental vision and visual\nintellect, which Schelling has called the 'Intellectual Intuition.'\nIt is a power which rising above the materialism of sense yet retains\nits realism; which, while intellectual, is free from abstractness.\nIt is synthetic, and widely different from mere logical analysis.\nIt is, in short, analogous to the artistic genius: it creates a\nquasi-objectivity, an ideal-reality, without which the mere words of\nthe speculator are meaningless. By means of this 'organ,' philosophy\ncan 'freely imitate and repeat the original series of actions in which\nthe one \"act\" of self-consciousness is evolved[13].\n\nBut the 'productive intuition' is, as Kant would say, blind: it is\nunconscious in its operation: and it is only after an arrest, a Sabbath\nwhen it surveys and judges its work, that it begins to realise itself\nthrough a process of analysis and reflection which elicits and fixes\nthe categories that have been operative in it. By this abstraction\nintelligence rises out of mere production to intelligent and conscious\nproduction, i.e. to volition, where it has an ideal and realises it.\nWith volition and voluntary action, objectivity is to appearance\nfurther certified and fortified. It is as active, i. e. as free, and\neven moral, agents, that we set forward categorically the reality of\nthe world. So, too, Fichte had declared. But, as Schelling reminds\nus, with this intensified assertion of a law and an ideal to which\nthe real must and shall correspond,--with the declaration that the\nrealm of absolute consistency and ideal truth of reason is the true\nand real for ever and ever--we come across the fundamental antithesis\nof the 'Is' and the 'Ought,5 of the objective and subjective, of\nunconscious necessity and self-conscious freedom. With an attempt to\nget a philosophy of history,--i. e. of man and mind as the culminating\ntruth of things, we see ourselves confronted with the opposition of\nfatalism and chance. On one hand history is only possible for beings\nwho have an ideal in view,--one persistent aim and principle which\ntheir work and will is the means of realising. And yet it is an ideal\nwhich only the series of generations, only the whole race, can realise.\nMan's license to do or to refrain rests upon a larger, latent, divine\nnecessity which constrains it. What human agents by their free choice\ndetermine and carry out, is carried out, in the long run, by the force\nof an everlasting and unchanging order, to which their wills seem but\na mere plaything. But that man's free agency should thus harmonise\nwith the constrained uniformities of nature is only possible on the\nassumption that both are phenomena of a common ground, or basis of\nidentity, of an 'absolute identity, in which there is no duplication,\nand which for that reason, because the condition of all consciousness\nis duplication, can never reach consciousness. This ever-Unconscious,\nwhich, as it were the everlasting Sun in the spirit-kingdom, is hidden\nin its own undimmed light, and which, though it is never an object,\nstill impresses its identity on all free objects, is simultaneously\nthe same for all intelligences, the invisible \"root\" of which all\nintelligences are only the \"powers,\" and the everlasting mediator\nbetween the self-determining subjective in us and the objective or\npercipient,--simultaneously the ground of the uniformity in freedom,\nand of the freedom in uniformity of the objective[14].' To rise to the\nsense of this Absolute Identity, as common basis of harmony between the\n'Ought' and the 'Is,' is to recognise Providence: it is Religion.\n\nBut this 'Absolute' is never in history completely revealed--we cannot\n_see_ free action coincide with predetermination. Thus if History as\na whole be> conceived as a 'continuous and gradual self-revelation;\nof the Absolute,' 'God never _is,_ if _is_ means exhibition; in the\nobjective world: _if God were, we_ should not be[15].' Nor is the\nAbsolute so revealed in Nature. Yet, even as the apparent contingency\nof human action throws us back on an everlasting necessity which is\nyet freedom, so the apparent uniformity of natural order shows us in\norganic life the traces of a free self-regulating development. To\napprehend the truth at which both seem to point we want an organ of\nintelligence which shall unite in itself the conscious activity of\nfree production with the unconscious instinct of natural creation.\nSuch an organ is found in they aesthetic power of genius, in the\nArtist. The artistic product is the work of two intimately-conjoined\nprinciples:--of the art (in the narrower sense) which can be taught\nand learned, and is exercised consciously and with reflection, and of\nthat 'poesy in Art,' the unconscious grace of genius which can neither\nbe handed down nor acquired, but can only be inborn by free gift of\nnature. In the work thus brought to birth there is something definite,\nprecise, and capable of exposition in finite formulae: there is also\nsomething which no 'prose' can ever explicate, something which tells us\nof the infinite and eternal, which ever reveals and yet conceals the\nAbsolute and Perfect. Art, thus springing from 'imagination, the one\nsole power by which we can think and conjoin even the contradictory,'\ngives objectivity and outward shape to that 'intellectual intuition' by\nwhich the philosopher subjectively (in his own consciousness) sought to\nrealise to himself the unity of thought and existence.\n\n'To the philosopher,' Schelling concludes, 'Art is supreme, because it\nas it were opens to him the Holy of Holies, where in everlasting and\noriginal unity there burns, as it were in one flame, what is parted\nasunder in nature and history, and what in life and conduct, no less\nthan in thinking, must for ever flee apart. The view the philosopher\nartificially makes for himself of nature is for Art the original and\nnatural. What we call nature is a poem which is locked up in strange\nand secret characters. Yet could the riddle be disclosed, we should\nrecognise in it the Odyssey of the mind, which, strangely deceived, in\nseeking itself, flees from itself: for through the sense-world there\nis a glimpse, only as through words of the meaning, only as through\nhalf-transparent mist of the land %of imagination, after which we\nyearn. That splendid picture emerges, as it were, by the removal of the\ninvisible partition-wall which sunders the actual and the ideal world,\nand is only the opening by which those figures and regions of the world\nof imagination, that but imperfectly glimmer through the actual, come\nforward in all their fulness. Nature is to the artist no more than\nit is to the philosopher, viz. the ideal world as it appears under\nconstant limitations, or only the imperfect reflex of a world which\ndoes not exist outside him, but within him.'\n\n'If it is Art alone, then, which can succeed in making objective\nand universally accepted what the philosopher can only exhibit\nsubjectively, it may also be expected that philosophy, as it was in\nthe infancy of science born and nourished by poetry, and with it\nall those sciences which were by it carried on towards perfection,\nwill after their completion flow back as so many single streams into\nthe universal ocean of poetry from which they issued. Nor is it in\ngeneral hard to say what will be the means for the return of science\nto poetry: for such a means has existed in mythology before this, as\nit now seems, irrevocable separation took place. But as to how a new\nmythology,--which cannot be the invention of the single poet, but of\na new generation, as it were representing only a single poet,--can\nitself arise, is a problem, the solution of which is to be expected\nonly from the future destinies of the world and the further course of\nhistory[16].'\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Schelling, _Werke_, iii. 13. (References always to the\nfirst series.)]\n\n[Footnote 2: Schelling, _Werke,_ ii. 409.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Schelling, _Werke_, ii. 500.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Ibid. ii. 350.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Compare vol. ii. 360 and 429.]\n\n[Footnote 6: See notes and illustrations in vol. ii. p. 424.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'Every inquiry into the influence of general nature on\nliving beings,' says Treviranus, 'must start from the principle that\nall living forms are products of physical influences which still go on\nat the present time and are altered only in degree and direction.']\n\n[Footnote 8: Schelling, _Werke_, iii. 63.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Hegel, _Encyclopaedie,_ \u00a7 249.]\n\n[Footnote 10: See e. g. Professor Michael Fosters article on Physiology\nin the _Encyclopaedia Britannica._]\n\n[Footnote 11: Schelling, iii. 352, 386.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Ibid. iii. 427.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Schelling, iii. 397.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Schelling, iii. 600.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Ibid. iii. 603.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Schelling, iii. 628.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\n\nTRANSITION TO HEGEL.\n\n\nThus far Schelling (aetat. 25) had gone in 1800. Two sides of\nphilosophy had been alternately presented as complementary to each\nother; and now the task lay before him to publish the System itself\nwhich formed the basis of those complementary views. To that task\nSchelling set himself in 1801 (in his Journal for Speculative Physics):\nbut the _Darstellung meines Systems_ remained a torso. The Absolute\nwas abruptly 'shot from the pistol': but little followed save a\nrestatement in new terms of the Philosophy of Nature. Meanwhile Hegel,\nwho had inherited some little means by his father's death, began to\nthink that the hour had struck for his entrance into the literary and\nphilosophical arena, and wrote in the end of 1800 to Schelling asking\nhis aid in finding a suitable place and desirable surroundings from\nwhich to launch himself into action. What answer or advice he received\nis unknown: at any rate in the early days of 1801 he took up his\nquarters at Jena, and in the autumn he gave his first lectures at the\nUniversity. Gossip suggested that Schelling, left alone (since Fichte's\ndeparture) to sustain the onset of respectability and orthodoxy upon\nthe extravagances of the new Transcendentalism, had summoned his\ncountryman and old friend to bear a part in the fray. And the rumour\nseemed to receive corroboration. The two friends issued conjointly\na _Critical Journal of Philosophy,_ which ran through two years. So\nclosely were the two editors associated that in one article it seems as\nif the younger had supplied his more fluent pen to expound the ideas of\nhis senior.\n\nThe influence of Hegel is to be seen in the _Bruno_, _or on the Divine\nand Natural Principle of Things_, published in 1802. It is a dialogue,\nin form closely modelled after the _Timaeus_ of Plato, dealing with the\nold theme of the relation of art (poesy) and philosophy, and with the\neternal creation of the universe. It presents philosophy as a higher\nthan Art; for while Art achieves only an individual truth and beauty,\nphilosophy cognises truth and beauty in its essence and actuality\n(_an und f\u00fcr sich_). Philosophy itself Bruno (the chief speaker of\nthe dialogue) does not profess to set forth, but 'only the ground and\nsoil on which it must be built up and carried out': and that soil\nis 'the Idea of something in which all antitheses are not so much\ncombined, as rather one, and not so much superseded, as rather not at\nall parted,'--'a unity, in which unity and antithesis, the self-similar\nwith the dissimilar, are one[1].' From such a standpoint it is not\nwonderful that 'in the finite understanding (_Verstand,_) compared with\nthe supreme Idea and the way in which all things are in it, everything\nseems reversed, and as if standing on its head, exactly like the things\nwe see mirrored on the surface of water[2].'\n\nThis supreme Unity is essentially a trinity: an Eternal, embracing\ninfinite and finite; an eternal and invisible father of all things,\nwho, never issuing forth from his eternity, comprehends infinite and\nfinite in one and the same act of divine knowledge. The infinite,\nagain, is the Spirit, who is the unity of all things; while the finite,\nthough potentially equal to the infinite[3], is by its own will a God\nsuffering and made subject to the conditions of time[4]. This trinity\nin unity (which is the Absolute) is by logic--a mere science of\nunderstanding--rent asunder: and the one Subject-object of philosophy\nbecomes for reflection and understanding the three independent objects\nwhich such a 'logical' philosophy calls respectively the Soul (erewhile\nthe infinite), the world (once the finite), and God (the eternal\nunity). 'Opposing and separating the world of intelligence from the\nworld of nature, men have learned to see nature outside God, and God\noutside nature, and withdrawing nature from the holy necessity, have\nsubordinated it to the unholy which they name mechanical, while by the\nsame act they have made the ideal world the scene of a lawless liberty.\nAt the same time as they defined nature as a merely passive entity,\nthey supposed they had gained the right of defining God, whom they\nelevated above nature, as pure activity, utter \"actuosity,\" as if the\none of these concepts did not stand and fall with the other, and none\nhad truth by itself[5].'\n\nThe problem therefore of philosophy is on one hand to 'find the\nexpression for an activity which is as reposeful as the deepest repose,\nfor a rest which is as active as the highest activity[6].' On the\nother hand; 'to find the point of unity is not the greatest thing, but\nfrom it also to develop its opposite, this is the proper and deepest\nsecret of art[7].' The world as it first presents itself labours under\na radical antithesis: it offers a double face, body and soul, finite\nand infinite. But to an absolute philosophy, or that high idealism\nwhich sees all things in the light of the Eternal, the two sides are\nnot so separate as they first appeared. Each is also the whole and\none, but under a phase, a '_Differenz_' a preponderating aspect which\ndisguises the essential identity of both. Behind mind, as it were,\nlooms body: through body shines mind. The ideal is but a co-aspect with\nthe real. The difference of nature and spirit presupposes and leads\nback to the indifference of the Absolute One. 'Wherever in a thing soul\nand body are equated, in that thing is an imprint of the Idea, and as\nthe Idea in the Absolute is also itself being and essence, so in that\nthing, its copy, the form is also the substance and the substance the\nform[8].'\n\n'Thus,' so Bruno concludes, 'we shall, first in the absolute equality\nof essence and form, know how both finite and infinite stream forth\nfrom its heart, and how the one is necessarily and for ever with the\nother, and comprehend how that simple ray, which issues from the\nAbsolute and is the very Absolute, appears parted into difference and\nindifference, finite and infinite. We shall precisely define the mode\nof parting and of unity for each point of the universe, and prosecute\nthe universe to that place where that absolute point of unity appears\nparted into two relative unities. We shall recognise in the one the\nsource whence springs the real and naturals world; in the other, of\nthe ideal and divine world. With the former we shall celebrate the\nincarnation of God from all eternity; with the latter the necessary\ndeification of man. And while we move freely and without resistance up\nand down on this spiritual ladder, we shall, now, as we descend, see\nthe unity of the divine and natural principle parted, now, as we ascend\nand again dissolve everything into one, see nature in God and God in\nnature[9].' Such was the programme which Schelling offered. Hegel\naccepting it,--or perhaps helping to frame it--made two not unimportant\nchanges. He attempted in his _Phenomenology_ to lead up step by step\nto, and so warrant, that strange position of idealism u which claims to\nbe the image of the Absolute. He tried in his _Logic_ to give for this\npoint of view a systematic basis and a filling out of the bare Idea of\na Unity, neither objective nor subjective, neither form nor substance,\nneither real nor ideal, but including and absorbing these. He tried, in\nshort, to trace in the Absolute itself the inherent difference which\nissued in two different worlds, and to show its unity and identity\nthere.\n\nA _System_ of philosophy, and a philosophy of the _Absolute!_ The\nproject to the sober judgment of common sense stands self-condemned,\npalpably beyond the tether of humanity. For if there be anything agreed\nupon, it is that the knowledge of finite beings like us can never be\nmore than a--comparatively poor--collection of fragments, and can\nnever reach to that which--and such is the supposed character of the\nAbsolute--is utterly un-related, rank non-relativity. But in the first\nplace, let us not be the slaves of words, and let us not be terrified\nby unfamiliar terms. After all, a System is only our old friend the\nunity of knowledge, and the Absolute is not something let quite loose,\nbut the consummation and inter-connexion of all ties. It is no doubt\nan audacious enterprise to set forth on the quest of the unity of\nknowledge, and the completion of all definition and characterisation.\nBut, on the other hand, it may perhaps claim to be more truly modest\nthan the self-complacent modesty of its critics. For ordinary belief\nand knowledge rest upon presuppositions which they dare not or will\nnot subject to revision. They too are sure that things on the whole,\nor that the system of things, or that nature and history, are a realm\nof uniformity, subject to unvarying law, in thorough interdependence.\nThey are good enough, occasionally, to urge that they hold these\nbeliefs on the warranty of experience, and not as, what they are\npleased to call, intuitions, _a priori_ ideas, and what not. But to\nbase a truth on experience is a loose manner of talking: not one whit\nbetter than the alleged Indian foundation of the earth on the elephant,\nand the elephant erected on the tortoise. For by Experience it means\nexperiences; and these rest one upon another, one upon another, till\nat length, if this be all that holds them together, the last hangs\nunsupported, (and with its superincumbent load), ready to drop in the\nabyss of Nought.\n\nThis 'transcendental,' 'absolutist,' '_a priori_' philosophy, which\nstands so strange and menacing on the threshold of the nineteenth\ncentury, is after all only, as Kant sometimes called it, an essay\nto comprehend and see the true measures and dimensions of this\nmuch-quoted Experience. All knowledge rests _in_ (not _on_) the unity\nof Experience. All the several experiences rest in the totality\nof one experience,--ultimate, all-embracing, absolute, infinite,\nunconditioned; universal and yet individual, necessary and yet\nfree,--eternal, and yet filling all the nooks of time,--ideal, and yet\nthe mother of all reality,--unextended, and yet spread through the\nspaces of the universe. Call it, if you like, the experience of the\nrace, but remember that that apparently more realistic and scientific\nphrase connotes neither more nor less (if rightly understood) than\nnormal, ideal, universal, infinite, absolute experience. This is the\nUnconditioned, which is the basis and the builder of all conditions:\nthe Absolute, which is the home and the parent of all relations.\nExperience is no doubt yours and mine, but it is also much more than\neither yours or mine. He who builds on and in Experience, builds on\nand in the Absolute, in _the_ System--a system which is not merely\n_his._ In his every utterance he claims to speak as the mouth-piece of\nthe Absolute, the Unconditioned; his words expect and require assent,\nbelief, acceptance;--they are candidates (not necessarily, or always\nsuccessful) for the rank of universal and necessary truth: they are\ndogmatic assertions, and even in their humblest tones, none the less\ninfected with the fervour of certainty. For, indeed, otherwise, it\nwould be a shame and an insult to let them cross the lips.\n\nIt is the aim of the Absolute _a priori_ philosophy to raise this\ncertainty to truth: or, as one may rather say, to reduce this certainty\nto its kernel of truth. It seeks to determine the limits--not _of_ this\nabsolute and basic experience (for it has no external limits)--but\n_in_ this experience: the anatomy and physiology of the Absolute,--the\ncorrelations and inclusions, the distinctions and syntheses in the\nunconditioned field. It examines the _foundation_ of all knowledge.\nBut--if this be the phrase--we must be on our guard against a\nmisapprehension of its terms. The foundations are also knowledge:\nthey are _in_ all knowledge and experience, its synthetic link and\nits analytic distinctions. We must not shrink from paradoxes in\nexpression. The house of knowledge, the world of experience, is as\nself-centred and self-sustaining, and even more so, than the planetary\nsystem. It is a totality in which each part hangs upon and helps to\nhold up the others, but which needs no external help, resting and yet\nmoving, self-poised and free.\n\nWe may be spared, therefore, verbal criticism on the Absolute and\nUnconditioned. The Absolute, and Infinite, and Eternal is no mere\nnegation:--the only pure negation is NOT, and even that has a flaw in\nits claim. It is perfectly true--and it can only be babes and sucklings\nthat need to be reminded of the fact--that none of us realises and\nattains the _ne plus ultra_ of knowledge and that all our systems\nhave their day,--have their day and cease to be. 'The coasts of the\nHappy Isles of philosophy where we would fain arrive are covered only\nwith fragments of shattered ships, and we behold no intact vessel in\ntheir bays[10].' So too the whole earth is full of graves; and yet\nhumanity lives on, charged with the attainments of the past and full\nof the promise of the future. Let us by all means be critical and\nnot dogmatic: let us never entirely forget that each utterance, each\nscience, each system of ours falls short of what it wanted to be,\nand for a moment at least thought it was. But let us not carry our\ncritical abstinence into dogmatic non-intervention: or, if so, let us\nsilently accept the great renunciation of all utterance henceforth.\nSystem we all presuppose in our words and deeds, and should be much\nhurt if our defect in it were seriously alleged: the Absolute we all\nrest in, though amid so many self-imposed and other distractions we\nfeel and see it not. The philosopher proposes for his task--or rather\nthe philosopher is one on whom this task forces itself as for him the\none thing inevitable--to determine what is that system and what that\nAbsolute, or, if the phrase be preferred, the philosopher traces to its\nunity, and retraces into its differences that Experience--that felt,\nknown, and willed synthesis of Reality,--that realised ideal world--on\nwhich and in which we live and move. He does not make the system, nor\ndoes he set up the Absolute. He only tries to discover the system, and\nto construe the Absolute.\n\nIt may be said that the best of philosophers can do no more than\ngive us _a_ System and _an_ Absolute. Undoubtedly that is so. Each\nphilosophy is from one point of view a strictly individualist\nperformance. It is not, in one way, _the_ Absolute truth, which it\npromises or hopes to disclose. The truth is seen through one being's\neyes; and his 'measure,' as Protagoras might have said, is upon it. Yet\nit is still _the_ Absolute, as seen through those eyes; it is still\nin a marvellous measure that truth, that absolute truth, 'which the\nactual generations garble.' For both the artist and the philosopher,\nif they create, only re-create or imitate; if they are makers, they\nare still more seers: and their power of 'imitation' and of 'vision'\nrests on their capacity to de-individualise themselves of their\neccentricities and idiosyncrasies, and to bring out only that in them\nwhich is the common truth of all essential thought and vision. In\nproportion as they purge themselves of this _evil_ subjectivity are\nthey true artists and philosophers. They are both--and so, too, is\nthe religious genius--idealists: but the test of the value of their\nidealism is its power of including and synthetising reality. That is\ntheir verification: that, and not their concord with this or that\nopinion, this or that theory of individuals or of groups. Not that the\nviews either of groups or individuals are unimportant. But often they\nare but frozen lumps in the stream, temporary islands which have lost\ntheir fluidity, and which imagine themselves continental and permanent.\n\nTruth, then, reasoned truth, harmonious experience, absolute system,\nis the theme of philosophy. Or, in Hegelian language, its theme is\nthe Truth, and that Truth, God. Not alum, an aggregate, or even what\nis ordinarily styled a system, of truths: but the one and yet diverse\npulse of truth, which beats through all: the supreme point of view in\nwhich all the parts and differences, occasionally standing out as if\nindependent, sink into their due relation and are seen in their right\nproportion.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Schelling, iv. 231, 235, 236.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Ibid. 244.]\n\n[Footnote 3: 'In things thou seest nought but the misplaced images of\nthat absolute unity; and even in knowledge, so far as it is a relative\nunity, thou seest nought but an image--only drawn amiss in another\ndirection--of that absolute cognition, in which being is as little\ndetermined by thought as thought by being.']\n\n[Footnote 4: Schelling, iv. 252. See further, iv. 327: 'The pure\nsubject, that absolute knowledge, the absolute Ego, the form of all\nforms, is the only-begotten Son of the Absolute, equally eternal with\nhim, not diverse from his Essence, but one with it.']\n\n[Footnote 5: Schelling, iv. 306. Cp. for actuosity, notes in vol. ii.\n396. Spinoza, Cogit. Met. ii. 11, speaks of the actuosa essentia of\nGod.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Schelling, iv. 305.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Ibid. iv. 328.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Ibid. iv. 306.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Schelling, iv. 328.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Hegel, Werke, i. 166.]\n\n\n\n\nPROLEGOMENA\n\nBOOK II\n\n_IN THE PORCHES OF PHILOSOPHY_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\n\nTHE TWO AGES OF REASON.\n\n\nThe eighteenth century--it has been often said--was a rationalising,\nunhistorical, age: and, in contrast, the nineteenth has been declared\nto be _par excellence_ the founder and the patron of the historical\nmethod. In the one, the tendency governing the main movement of\nEuropean civilisation was towards cosmopolitan and universal\nenlightenment. A common ideal, and, because common, necessarily rather\ngeneral and abstract, perhaps even somewhat vulgarly utilitarian,\npervaded Western Europe, and threw its influence for good and evil\non literature and art, on religion and polity. It grew out of a\nrevulsion, in many ways natural, from the religious extravagances\nof the century-and-a-half preceding, which had led prudent thinkers\nto reduce religion to a 'reasonable' minimum, and to reject all\nthings that savoured of or suggested enthusiasm, fanaticism, and\nsuperstition. In politics the same one type or system of government\nand laws was aimed at, more or less, in all advancing states. National\npeculiarities and patriotism were looked at askance, as unworthy of\nthe free 'humanity' which was set forward as the end of all training.\nTo simplify, to level, to render intelligible, and self-consistent was\nthe task of enlightenment in dealing with all institutions. To remove\nall anomalies and inequalities, to give security for liberty and to\nfacilitate the right to pursue happiness[1], was the chief watchword\nof this movement. Its questions were--Is religion, Is art and science,\nIs political organisation, a source of happiness? Are poetry, and a\nbelief in divine things, and abstruse knowledge, upon the whole for\nhuman advantage and benefit? Only such civilisation can be justified\nas, taken all in all, is a blessing; if not (cried some) we may as well\ncling to the happiness of the barbarian.\n\nThat these are important questions, and that the purposes\nabove-mentioned are in many ways good, is clear. But before we can\nanswer the questions, or decide as to the feasibility of the aims,\nthere are some things to be brought and to be kept in view. And these\nthings were not as a rule brought and kept in view. It was assumed that\nthe standard of adjudication was found in the averagely educated and\ngenerally cultured individual among the class of more or less 'advanced\nthinkers' who asked the questions and set up the aims. That class,\nalready denationalised by function, forming a commonwealth or rather a\nfriendly fraternity throughout the capitals of Europe, had cut itself\noff from the narrower and the deeper sympathies of the national life.\nForming a sort of mean or middle stratum in the social organisation,\nthey tended to ignore or despise equally the depths below them and\nthe heights above. They took themselves as the types of humanity, and\nwhat _their_ understandings found acceptable they dubbed rational: all\nelse was a survival from the ages of darkness. They forgot utterly\nthat they were only a part, a class, a member in the social body:\nand that they could only be and do what they were and did, because\nwhat they were not and did not do was otherwise supplied. It takes\nall sorts of people to make a world: but each class--and the order of\nliterature and intelligence is no exception--tends to set itself up as\nthe corner-stone (if not something more) of the social edifice. What is\nmore: in such a loose aggregate as the intelligent upper-middle class,\nthe individual tends more and more to count as something, detached and\nby himself, to be an equal and free unit of judgment and choice, to be\nemancipated from all the bonds which hold in close affinity members\nof a group whose functions are unlike each other's, and yet decidedly\ncomplementary. Such a class, again--though there are of course\nconspicuous exceptions--is, by the stress of special interests, removed\nfrom direct contact with nature and reality, and lives what in the main\nmay be styled an artificial life.\n\nWhen such a class asked what were the benefits of art or religion,\nit thought first of itself; and it looked upon art and religion--and\nthe same would be true of philosophy and science, or of political\nsanctions--as _merely_ objective and outward entities, foreign to the\nindividual, yet by some mechanical influences brought into connexion\nwith him,--as one might apply to him a drug or a viand. But clearly\nto a person of practical aims, bent on conveying information and\nenlightenment, bent on making all men as like each other as possible\nin the medium range of cultivation which he thinks desirable, the\nutility of some of these things is questionable and limited. It is\nonly a little modicum of religion, of art and of science, which can be\njustified by its obvious pleasure-giving power; and it is easy to point\nthe thesis against enthusiasm in these regions, by reference to the\ndisastrous wars fanned by religion, to the license that has followed\nthe steps of art, and to the lives wasted in the zeal for increasing\nknowledge. In his ideal of human life such a practical reformer\nwill tend to suppress all that bears too clear a trace of natural,\ninfra-rational, non-intelligent kindred,--all that ties us too closely\nto mother earth and universal nature.\n\nBut if this was the dominant tone of the literary teachers who had\nchief audience from the public ear, there was no lack of dissentient\nvoices who appealed to nature, who loved the past, who set sentiment\nand imagination above intellect, and who never bowed the knee to\nthe great idols of enlightened middle-class utilitarianism. Even\nin the leaders of the enlightening host--amongst the chiefs of the\n_Aufkl\u00e4rung_--there is a breadth and a depth of human interest which\nsets them far above their average followers, and which should prevent\nus from joining without discrimination in the depreciatory judgments\nso often passed on the eighteenth century. The pioneers in the great\nemancipatory movement of modern times should not be allowed to suffer\nfrom the exaggerations and haste of their more vulgar imitators--still\nless refused the meed of gratitude we owe them. But when their ideas\nwere violently translated into reality, when the levelling, unshackling\nprocess was set at work by vulgar hands, the shortcomings of their\ntheories were made to show even greater than they were: and inevitable\nreaction set in. Even the revolutionist himself has come to admit that\nfraternity at that time came badly off in comparison with liberty and\nequality[2]. But these drawbacks were accentuated when the cosmopolitan\nreform-movement, by its haste and intolerance, awakened the spirit\nof national jealousy. The deeper instincts of life rose in protest\nagainst the supposed superiority of intellect: the heart claimed its\nrights against the head: the man of nature and feeling was roused up to\nmeet the man of reasoning and criticism. The spirit of war evoked those\nenergies of human nature--some of them not its least valuable--which\nhad slumbered in times of easy-going peace. The days of adversity and\nhumiliation taught men that the march of literary culture is not the\nall-in-all of life and history.\n\nIt was made apparent, practically at least, that intelligence, with\nits hard and fast formulae, its logical principles, its keen analysis,\nwas not deep enough or wide enough to justify its claim to the august\ntitle of reason. To be reasonable implies a more comprehensive,\npatient, many-sided observation than is necessary to prove the claim\nto mere intelligence. To be intelligent is to seize the right means\nto execute a given or accepted end--it is to be quick and correct in\nthe practice of life, to carry out in detail what has been determined\non in general. Understanding plays upon the surface of life and deals\nwith the momentary case: and its greatest praise is to be fleet in\nthe application of principles, apt to detect the point on which to\ndirect action, correct in its estimate of means to ends. Clearsighted,\nprudent, and direct, it is the supreme virtue in a given sphere: but\nthe sphere must be given, and its end constituted in the measured round\nof practical life, its system complete: or, understanding is bewildered\nbefore a hopeless puzzle. Understanding is--the improvident cynic might\nsay--a certain animal-like sagacity--(such cynical philosophers were\nperhaps Hobbes and Schopenhauer[3])--a mere power of carrying out a\ngiven rule in a new but similar case, and of doing so, perhaps, through\na long chain of intermediate links and means.\n\nBut there are more things in heaven and earth than are heard of in\nthe philosophy of the logical intellect. The _subtilitas naturae_[4]\nfar surpasses the refinements of the practical intellect: and if the\nlatter is ever to overcome or be equal to the former, it must, so to\nspeak, wait patiently upon it, as a handmaiden upon the hands of her\nmistress. Such a trained and disciplined intellect which has conquered\nnature by obedience is what the philosophers at the beginning of this\ncentury called _reason_[5]. It is in life as much as in our mind. It\ncomes not by self-assertion, by the attempt to force our ends and\nviews on nature, but by feeling and thinking ourselves in and along\nwith nature. Or, briefly, it breaks down the middle wall of partition\nby which man had treated nature as a mere world of _objects_--things\nto be used and to minister to his pleasure--but always alien to him,\nalways mere matter to be manipulated _ab extra._ Yet even to get full\nuse and enjoyment out of a thing it is well to be in closer community\nwith it, and on terms of friendly acquaintance. The function of this\nfuller reason cannot be performed without something analogous to\nsympathy and imagination. Sympathy, which realises the inner unity\nof the so-called 'thing' with ourselves: imagination, which sets it\nin the full circumstances of those relationships which the practical\nintelligence is inclined to abstract from and to neglect. Yet only\nsomething _analogous_ to sympathy and imagination: if, as may well be\nthe case, we attach to these terms any association of irregular or mere\nemotional operation. The imagination in question is the 'scientific'\nimagination--the power of wide large vision which sets the object fully\nin reality, and is not content with a mere name or abstract face of a\nfact--a name which represents a fact no doubt, but represents it, as\nmany such 'agents' or deputies do, in a hard and wooden spirit. The\nsympathy in question is the transcending of the antithesis between\nsubjective and objective; not a fantastic or fortuitous choice of one\nor a few out of many on whom to lavish locked-up stores of affection,\nbut the full recognition of unity as pervading differences, and\nreducing them to no more than aspects in correlation.\n\nWhat has been said of sympathy and imagination, as the allies and\nministers of reason, might be extended and applied to humour,\nto wit, to irony. These also it may be said--and with the same\nqualifications--are essential to a philosopher in the highest\nsense. The humour, viz., which strides over the barriers set up by\ninstitution and convention between the high and the humble, and\nsees man's superficial distinctions overpowered by a half-grim,\nhalf-jubilant _Ananke_,--which notes how human proposal is overcome,\nnot without grace, by divine and natural disposal, how the deep inner\nidentity in all estates breaks triumphantly through the fences of\ncustom and deliberate intention. The wit, which upsets the hardened\nfixity of classes and groups, flits from one to another, shows\nglimpses of affinity between remote provinces of idea, and all this,\nwithout laboured and artificial search for analogies, though to the\nslower-following practical mind, hampered by its solid limits, these\nleaps from province to province seem paradoxical and whimsical.\nThe irony, which notes the tragicomedy of life under its apparent\nregularity of prose,--which detects the vanity of all efforts to check\nthe flux of vitality and make the volatile permanent; which contrasts\nthe apparent with the real, the obviously and officiously meant with\nthe truly desired and willed, and shows how diplomatically-close design\nis dissipated in a jest, or the soul bent on many years of enjoyment\nis plunged into torment. Thus, in a way, imagination, sympathy, wit,\nhumour, irony and paradox are elements that go to the making of a\nphilosopher: but in the serenity of reasoned wisdom they lose their\nfrolicsome and fantastic mood, and fill their minor place with sober\ncheer. Wedded to the lord of wisdom, the Muse of poesy and wit loses\nher sprightly laugh and her dancing step, becoming a subdued, yet\ngracious matron, who, with her offspring, sheds gleams of brightness\nand warmth and colour in the somewhat austere household. Yet still the\nfree maiden of poesy, in the open fields where the shadow of reflective\nthought has not yet fallen, has the greater charm; and a certain\njealousy not unfrequently reigns between the married sister and the\nvirgin yet untamed.\n\nBut though poetry and the allied arts of words were very helpful to\nphilosophy--witness the services which, though in widely different\nways, Goethe and Schiller rendered to the higher thinking of\nGermany--even more stimulative and fruitful was the research into\nnature and history. Nature _and_ history: but they lie closer together\nthan the conjunction suggests. It is true that in recent times we have\nbeen forcibly taught to separate civil from natural history, if we have\nnot even been further taught that the latter is an improper application\nof the term. But when Aristotle said that 'Poetry is more philosophical\nthan History' he was probably not restricting his remark to the story\nof nations and states; even as when Bacon set history as the field\nof memory beside the fields of imagination and reasoning, he was not\nsolely referring to the records of the human past. The distinction\nbetween natural and civil history is no doubt for practical education\na distinction of supreme importance. But it is so, because in this\nscholastic phase the conception of both, under these comprehensive\nnames, was superficial and abstract. Natural history meant only the\nclassificatory description of animals, plants, and minerals: civil\nhistory the tale composed to string together the succession of human\nactions on the public and national field of life.\n\nWe have seen in an earlier chapter the advances which Lessing, Kant,\nand above all Herder, made in this direction[6]. Emphasising in their\nseveral ways the great dictum of Spinoza that human passions, and the\nwhole scheme of human life, are _res naturales, quae communes naturae\nleges sequuntur_, they gave to history a higher, more philosophical,\nmore scientific scope than what the name used to connote. Neither in\nSpinoza himself, nor in these his followers, did this insistence on\nthe unity of nature at all lead them to neglect the difference--almost\nequivalent, it may be said, in the end to an _Imperium in imperio_--by\nwhich rational man marks himself off to a special kindred with the\ndivine[7]. We have seen too what Schelling did to show that history, if\nin one aspect it be the product of free human volitions, is, in another\nand as he thought a superior aspect, the realm subject to a divine or\nnatural necessity. The whole tendency of this epoch of thought--the\ntendency which entitles it above all to the name of speculative--is its\nimpulse to over-ride this distinction between Nature and History; to\nover-ride it, however, not in the sense of simply ignoring or denying\nit, but of carrying it up into a unity which would do justice to both,\nwithout exclusively favouring either, and hardly without clipping\nboth of any extravagant claims. The distinction remains,--no longer\nan abrupt division, but now tempered and mellowed by the presence of\na paramount unity. Nature now has a real history: no longer a mere\nfactitious aggregate of classified facts, it is the phenomenon of\na 'latent process,' due to a 'latent schematism,' and a 'form' or\nprinciple of organisation. Classification does not cease: but it ceases\nto be an end in itself, and becomes only subordinate or auxiliary to a\nhigher scientific end. The main theme is to construe the complete cycle\nof life-change and the complete organisation of life-state from the\nevidence pieced out and put together from the various orders, classes,\nand species of living creatures. And on the other side the mere tale\nor narrative of history, with its gossip of personalities, and its\naccidents of war and intrigue, tends to become insignificant in the\npresence of the great popular life, in its deep and subtle connexion\nwith agencies of nature hitherto unsurmised, in its dependence upon\nnecessities and uniformities which envelope or rather permeate and\nconstitute the human will. It is not indeed that the force of great\npersonalities has come to be treated as a quantity we may neglect. The\nforce of the great leader, of the genius, of the hero, is not less\nadmirable to the wise philosophical historian to-day than it ever was\nto his story-telling predecessor. But he flatters himself that he\nunderstands better, and can better take account of, the conditions\nwhich make the genius and the hero possible. Achilles still counts for\nmore than a thousand common soldiers, and Homer himself is not merely\nthe composite image by which a long tradition has fused into a dim\npictorial unity the countless bards who sang for ages on the isles of\nGreece and the coasts of Ionia. Yet we feel sure that Achilles did\nwhat he did, because of the race he sprang from, the inspiration he\nfelt around him, the companionship in body and spirit of his peers. We\nfeel that the hero derives his strength from earth and air, from the\nspiritual and material substance in which he draws his breath. True,\nwe cannot explain him, as if he and his heroisms were a mere product\nof mathematical and mechanical forces. But where we once recognise\nthat behind the single visible deed and agent there is a spiritual\nnature--an underlying agency--which, unperceived, keeps the hearth-fire\nof public life burning in the celestial temple of Vesta, we can at\nleast see that though genius is a marvel and a mystery, yet it is\naccording to law, and no mere will-o'-the-wisp.\n\nBut when we say that the actions and sayings even of the foremost\nindividuals are to be comprehended only in the light of universal\nforces and laws, there is an error which is only too ready to\nsubstitute itself for the truth. It soon appears for example that,\namong the general causes which control the development of civilisation\nand the acts of individuals, the economical condition is of great and\nprominent effect. And, above all, it is easily measurable, and subject\nto palpable standards (such as statistics of exports and imports,\n&c.). It was natural therefore that a school of historico-social\nphilosophers should arise who maintained that the economical state of\na given society was the fundamental principle or form of its life,\nof which all other phases of its civilisation, religious, aesthetic,\n&c., were only variable dependent functions. This view, which comes\nout in the socialist theory of Marx, is clearly the exaggeration or\nabstract statement of a partial truth into a pseudo-complete theory.\nThe truth is one which found expression as early as Plato. It is this:\nthat in the economical system of a society we find the first and\nsomewhat external or mechanical suggestion of the organism to which\nthe state is yet to grow. In the economic law of reciprocity there is\na 'certain faint image' of the principle of social organisation or\npolitical life. But when we go beyond, and interpret this first phase\nto mean the original foundation, we are stating a figment which has a\nplausibility only when by the economic state we mean a great deal more\nthan abstractly economic facts include. And this again arises because\nit is really impossible to carry out thoroughly the abstraction of one\naspect of social life from the others. There are no purely economic\nfacts which are independent of other social influences,--of ideals, e.\ng. moral or aesthetic,--ideals which nobody would call economic, though\nthey never quite part company from economical conditions.\n\nSo again there is occasionally a tendency to magnify the influence of\nwhat in the narrowest sense may be termed political systems. Forms\nof government, and titles of sovereignty are regarded as forces to\nwhich individuals--even the highest--must bow. But here again the\nexaggeration of a principle need not tempt us to rush with Tom Paine\ninto the opposite extravagance that government and state-power are\nsuperfluities, or quasi-ornamental additions to a social fabric, which\ncan do without them and, like other beasts of low organisation, can,\nwhen shorn of them, reproduce them with ease. And thus though we may\ndissent from the view that laws and constitutions are omnipotent, we\nmay admit that in them the central unity and controlling principle of\nsocial life finds its dominant expression in great outlines. We shall\nnot agree with him who said 'Let who will make the laws of a nation\nif I may make its ballads': because we know that the nation will in\nthe end have the chief voice in determining what are to be its ballads\nno less than its laws. We shall not quite accept the dictum that the\nintellectual class which formulates ideas and sets up programmes of\nideals gives the real lead to the process of civilisation; for we shall\nremember that real ideas are not formed by individuals, but are the\nslow work of concrete experience in the so-called inorganic masses,\nfinding at length utterance through the lips of those appointed to that\nend by the natural and divine order. Yet we shall, on the other hand,\nsee that the high things of the world are dependent on the lowly: that\na song-maker is sometimes not less potent than a legislature: that\npecuniary conditions are effective in the sanctuaries of religion and\nthe high places of art: and that the noblest ideas of great thinkers\ndraw their strength and life through roots that run unseen through very\nhumble ground.\n\n_La Raison_, says Leibniz, _est l'enchainement des v\u00e9rit\u00e9s._[8] Truth\nlinked into truth, and so made truer: truth, with which all things\nharmonise and nothing cries dissent: truth, which is neither the\nprerogative of the mere _demos_, nor of the intellectual aristocracy,\nbut of that rarer unity which, when they can exercise several and\nmutually-tendered self-abnegation, is the real spirit of both: truth,\nthus conceived, is that king of life, that sun of Reason which lighteth\nevery man. Truth--to use again the language of Leibniz,--which is not\nmerely the aggregate of monads,--but the monad of monads, their mutual\npenetration and corrective completion, in that Idea-reality where they\nretain their individuality, but retain it in the fullness and fruition\nof the absolute which each essentially or implicitly is. This kingdom\nof suffering and yet triumphant truth is the true age of Reason--not\noutwardly-critical, individualistically-reforming, mere intellectual\nand abstract intelligence,--but intelligence, charged with emotion,\nfull of reverence, reverent above all to the majesty of that divinity\nwhich, much disguised, and weather-beaten, like Glaucus of the sea,\nresides in common and natural humanity. This is the Reason of German\nidealism at the commencement of the century. To the clear-cut dogmas of\nthe abstract intellect it savours of mysticism. If it is friendly to\ndistinctions and constantly makes them, it is the pronounced enemy of\nhard and fast separations. Begin where you like, the reason of things,\nif you allow it to work, carries you round till you also see identity\nwhere you only saw difference, or effects where you only looked for\ncauses. You begin, as the inductive logician, with the belief that\nthe process is from the known to the unknown. You start with your\nbasis of fact, as you called it. The nemesis of things forces you\nto admit that your facts were partly fictions which waited for the\nunknown to give them a truer and fuller reality. You talk at first of\ninduction, as if it were a single and simple process, which out of\nfacts builds up generalities and uniformities. You learn as you go on\nthat the only induction that operates, except in cases which have been\nartificially simplified by supposing half the task done before you\napply your experimental methods, is an induction of which the major\npart is deductive, and where your conclusion will be recurrently made\nyour premiss. Your induction only works on the basis of a hypothesis,\nand must itself be linked in the 'concatenation of truths,'--a\nconcatenation which is also a criticism and a correction.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: 'We hold,' says the American Declaration of Independence\n(1776), 'these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created\nequal: that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable\nrights: that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of\nhappiness,' &c.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Louis Blanc, _History of the Revolution_, vol. i.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Hobbes, _Leviathan_, Part I. chaps. 2 and 3; and\nelsewhere. Schopenhauer, _Welt als Wille_, Book I. \u00a7 6.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Bacon, _Novum Organum_, i. 10.]\n\n[Footnote 5: See notes and illustrations in vol. ii. p. 400.]\n\n[Footnote 6: See Chapter XII.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Cf. _Ethica,_ iv. 37, Schol. I. contrasting _rerum\nexternarum communis constitutio_ with _ipsa hominis natura, in se sola\nconsiderata._]\n\n[Footnote 8: See the _Discours pr\u00e9liminaire_ to the _Theodicee_.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\n\nTHE NEW IDEALISM.\n\n\nThis new idealism which conjures by the name of Reason is a different\nthing from the pseudo-idealism of Jacobi, as it is from the\n'rationalism,' so-called, of the mere intellectualist. Its ideal is not\na desperate refuge from the hard and bitter reality, only to be reached\nby the plunge of faith,--which seems rather the leap of despair: not\na _mere_ other-world,--always _other_, longed for, presaged, beheld\nin dreamy vision, but unperceived by the clear light of intelligence:\nclutched at, but elusive of every effort. It is not won by turning\nthe back on reality and flying on the wings of morning faith to the\nbetter land and the presence of the divine: but by persistence in\nunfolding, expanding, adjusting, re-combining, and fortifying those\npartial glimpses of the unseen which occur in every vision of the seen.\nIt is true the ideal is, in a way, always an other world: but not a\n_mere_ other world; it is another, and yet not another, but the same,\nseen, if you like to say, transfigured, idealised. But idealisation,\nif so applied, means not an addition here and a subtraction there\nmade in reality, from some source outside--from some indeterminable\nWhence (Whence indeed should such additions come?). It does not mean\na correction of faults and failures in the real, at the will of an\nartist who is dissatisfied with his subject-model and would mend it\nout of other faces and forms stored up in memory or sketch-book.\nThis idealism does not in that sense idealise (so as to falsify). It\nmeans complete reality; absolute, systematic, unconditioned reality:\nnowhere fragmentary, nowhere referring outside, but completing itself\nin all its members. It means--to quote the Hegelian term--seeing all\nthings in the Idea--their notion (or ideality), i. e. their unifying\n'grip,' reflecting itself in their objectivity, and their reality\ncompleting itself in art, religion, and philosophy to that ideal which\nto the non-artistic, non-religious, non-philosophic mood is only dimly\nsuggested and partially supposed. Still less is it an idealism which,\nas popularly understood, turns reality and historic fact into _mere_\nideas.\n\nBut, as perhaps may have been apparent, to call this way of thought\nidealism need not keep us from acknowledging that the same philosophy\nis also realism. If it insists, so to say, on the idealism of--what\nwe sometimes call material--nature, it no less insists on the realism\nof--what is supposed immaterial--mind. The mental or spiritual world\nloses its unsubstantial intangibleness, its mere supposedness, its\n'ideal' or _merely_-ideal character. To the older, and we may say\nvulgar, view the mind or soul was a mere 'thought,' something of\nwhich all that could be seen were certain acts or phenomena. It was\na _mere idea_, which one could pretty well get on without--so long\nas he kept, as the phrase was, to the phenomena--phenomena without\nreality. How vague and aery again was the subject-matter of morals! A\nfew virtues and vices, confessedly general descriptive titles, a talk\nabout will and conscience,--all of them merely several predicates of an\nunknown, spoken of, postulated, but unproducible. Compared with this\nmere supposedness the spiritual world in Schelling and Hegel acquires\nthe reality of a quasi-organism (really supra-organic), growing\nand constituting itself, and making room in it for a host of human\nrelationships. The abstract faculties of mind get reality (not indeed\nsensible): the intangible notions of morals become almost palpable: the\nkingdom of mind becomes a real pendant to the kingdom of nature. And,\non the other hand, the kingdom of nature gets its ideality recognised:\nits unity and continuity made effective in an Idea which embraces,\nco-ordinated and systematised, its disparate and unconnected portions.\n\nThis new Idealism, if it led men back from the historical world to\nnature, was yet hardly in all respects a pupil of Rousseau. Not 'Back\nfrom civilisation and artificiality to nature and the freedom of the\nwoodland,' was its cry: but rather 'Remember that man always rests\non and grows out of nature, always has his ideals made directly or\nindirectly visible in physical (sensible) structures; and that, when\nculture turns away from sense and nature to some supposed higher, it is\nreally entering on a path which leads to abysses,' Its voice, in fact,\nwas much like the longing expressed in Schiller's _Gods of Greece;_\nit wished man more godlike and the divine more human. But instead of\nbackward,--its motto was forward: or back to nature, only to resume the\ntrue starting-point, and retreat from a path of civilisation whose end\nis perdition. Man also was nature[1]--if he is never _mere_ nature, i.\ne. the nature unexalted to its truth--but he brought to expression,\nand might bring to ever clearer and fuller expression, a something\nwhich was in infra-human nature, but which nature elsewhere had\nfailed adequately to present. Thus the relation of Man to Nature was\napparently twofold. On one hand, the physical world was essentially a\nworld of reason and intelligence--though of intelligence petrified[2].\nSo far Hegel agreed with Schelling. But, on the other hand (and here\nHegel took up the great paradox of Fichte), man's place in the universe\nis to fulfil the promise and implication of Nature to the full reality\nof Spirit, to fulfil it by law and morality; but (here he completes\nFichte by the help of Schelling) also in higher measure, by art,\nreligion, and science. The world of intelligence and reason which man\nconstructs as an ethical, artistic, and religious being, is the full\ntruth of the natural world,--the higher meaning, and fuller, more\nconsistent, and complete reality of the sensible: and it is so, because\nthe lord of Nature is one with the lord of the human soul. The new way\nof philosophy therefore, if it could be ever charged with saying that\nthe so-called real things of ordinary life were only ideas, or mental\nimages, meant that, as taken by the unthinking or imperfectly thinking\nperception, they were something of which all that could be said was to\ndescribe their relations to something else, of which in turn the same\nremark might be made; so that--as far as they went--reality was never\nwith us, but only an assurance (soon to be proved vain) that it was\nnext door[3]. On the contrary--in _its_ use of the term Idea--what this\nidealism asserted rather was that the objects of Nature in their _prima\nfacie_ apprehension were not yet an Idea: if, i.e., an Idea is a mental\nor spiritual reality which explains and completes itself, instead of\nsending us on endless fool's errands elsewhere--, is a concept which\nis exactly adequate to reality, and has gathered in it the power of\nreality.\n\nThe new idealism is not subversive of realism, but includes it and\nmakes it the reality it professed to be. It may therefore, as Schelling\nproposed[4], be called an ideal-realism, or a real-idealism. If any\nbody likes, he may even, if he is no Greek scholar, call it Monism;\nbut in that case he had better begin by admitting to himself that any\nMonism, which can stand its ground and serve for an explanation of the\nuniverse, will not exclude Dualism. All is indeed one life, one being,\none thought; but a life, a being, a thought, which only exists as it\nopposes itself within itself, sets itself apart from itself, projects\nits meaning and relations outwards and upwards, and yet retains and\ncarries out the power of reuniting itself. The Absolute may be called\nOne: but it is also the All; it is a One which makes and overcomes\ndifference: it is, and it essentially is, in the antithesis of Nature\nand Spirit, Object and Subject, Matter and Mind; but under and over the\nantithesis it is fundamental and completed unity. Monism, literally\nunderstood, is absurd--for it ignores, what cannot be ignored, the\nmany: and Dualism, which is offered sometimes as a competitive scheme,\nis not much better; unless we understand the Dualism to be no fixed\nbisection, but an ever-appearing and ever-superseded antithesis which\nis the witness to the power and the freedom of the One,--which is not\nalone, but One and All, One in All, and All in One.\n\nThe central or cardinal point of Idealism is its refusal to be kept\nstanding at a fixed disruption between Subject and Object, between\nSpirit and Nature. Its _Idea_ is the identity or unity (not without the\ndifference) of both. In its purely logical or epistemological aspect\none can easily see that, as Schopenhauer was so fond of repeating,\nThere is no Object without a Subject and no Subject without an\nObject[5]. The difficulty arises in remembering these excellent truisms\nwhen one of the correlatives is out of sight, and the other seems\nto be independent and to come before us with a title to recognition\napparently all its own. When the Subject figures as the individual\nconsciousness, encased, it may perhaps be added, in an individual body,\nand the Object as a thing apparently out there in a world beyond all\nby itself, then the lapse from this rudimentary idealism becomes easy.\nIn the practice of life and business, each of us, self-conscious and\nautonomous _subject_ as he may be, comes to rank in the estimate of\nothers, and ere long to some extent in his own, as also a part of the\naggregate of objects. All reality and substance seem as it were to\nslide over into the object-side. The conscious subject counts as a mere\nonlooker or the passive spectator of a performance that goes on in an\noutside field of event,--yet that outside is his own object-mind; his\nmind counts as a mere idea, or rather as a succession of ideas, i. e.\nof mental pictures with a certain meaning in them. A little step more\nand the very subject-mind itself is turned into an object. There stands\nindeed--according to the ordinary introspective psychology--as it\nwere in one corner, or at one loop-hole of vision, a mind looking on,\nobserving and criticising another thing which is also called a mind;\nbut the mind observing can only reflect or register, and the mind which\nis observed is very much thing-like, apparently acted upon by other\nthings, and acting upon them in turn. This object-mind, a real among\nother reals, in relations of cause and effect with them, does not,\nif we can trust the _words_ of those who tell about it, see itself,\nbut lies open to the inspection of this other mind, represented by the\npsychological observer, who is good enough to report to us something\nof its blind and dark estate. Its re-actions, he informs us, exhibit a\nremarkable peculiarity. They are equivalent to states of consciousness:\nand even to acts of will and knowledge. As when a violin is touched in\ncertain ways by the bow, you get a musical note, so when certain agents\ncome in contact with this peculiar real, they elicit a re-action,\ntermed sense or idea.\n\nTo distinguish in this manner between mental passivity and activity is\nnatural and right. The basis of all consciousness and mental activity\nis an original division, a 'judgment' or dijudication of self from\nself. But, once the dijudication made for such ends, it is a mistake\nto forget its initiation and lose sight entirely of the fact that\nthe observing mind is also the active, and that the object-self is\nnot merely in relation to the subject-self, but in a higher unity is\nidentifiable therewith. Still the thing is done, habitually done. We\nall profess this faith of ordinary realism in our first reflections\nupon ourselves. And the effect of the oblivion is that we seek\nelsewhere for the initial activity, which we have abstracted from and\nlost sight of. The receptive passive mind,--called subject still, but\nnow become a subject in the sense of the anatomist,--has to be set in\nmotion, to be impinged upon or impressed. The psychical event which you\n_call_ knowledge, and which no doubt _means_ knowledge,--the mental\n'state' which you observe--or, it may even, if your authority is a\nparticularly obstinate and _intransigcant_ realist, be the molecular\nchange in brain cells,--requires an antecedent event to account for\nit. The origin of the movement which issued in the given psychical\nor molecular change is sought in a self-subsistent thing which _out\nthere_ gives rise to a series of movements which _in here_ result\nin a sensation. Or, a thing somehow produces an attenuated image of\nitself in the brain, or in the mind; for, in this mythological tale\nof psychical occurrence, accuracy is unattainable, and one must not\nseek to be too precise. In any case the relationship between thing\nand idea is conceived after the analogy of the nexus of cause and\neffect, or original and copy; and the verbal imagination of the\nanalogical reasoner is satisfied. What Hegel, after Schelling, teaches,\non the other side, is that the process of sense-impression and the\nmanipulations to which it is subjected by intellect presuppose, for\ntheir existence and their objective truth, a Reason which is the unity\nof subject and object, an original identity uniting knowledge to being.\n\nBut the same defect of unphilosophic consciousness has another\nphase which philosophy has to remember. Popular language speaks of\n_things_,--of things here and things there, which act upon each other\nand upon the so-called mind: i. e. on this imagined and supposed\npassive mind. For things, a more 'scientific' conception has been\nsubstituted--that of _forces_; which, whether attached to atoms or not,\nare asserted to be the real sources of the change and event which fill\nthe world of our experience. And as, according to some psychologists,\nthe mind is only a vacant ground or space with more or less narrow\nlimits of room, on which the entities called ideas are for that reason\nforced into more or less close relationships, without any nearer or\nmore essential tie; so, too, the mind is apt to be treated by others\nonly as a battle-field or wrestling-ground of opposing forces. Here\nthe atom-forces, as in the other case the atom-ideas, are, it is\nassumed, merely and purely independent: and yet such is the force of\na limited environment--shall we say, in more popular language, the\nforce of space and time?--that they must meet with one another, must,\nas it were, form associations, connexions, relationships. Great,\nverily, is the force of juxtaposition. Space and time, because they are\nessentially limiting, correlating, defining, weld links which the great\nprophet of this empirical school has not scrupled to call insoluble,\nineradicable, inseparable. Space and time, says his great successor,\nare infinite. But they are infinite only in the sense that they can\nnever be exhausted: they are everywhere, and for ever: but as real they\nare only here and now. Time can precede time, and space fade away into\nremoter space: but every space and every time is finite, defining,\nlimiting, relative, and synthetic. And, if we look closer, space and\ntime may come to seem the visible, ghostly, abstract outline--on one\nhand stiffening and bodying-out the ideal synthesis of thought and\nintelligence, on the other, faintly reproducing or fore-casting the\nreal synthesis of organisation and living nature.\n\nIn saying this we give the reasonable interpretation of\n'association':--so far at least as association is supposed to be\nbrought about by juxtaposition in time and space. Time and space, as\nKant might say, give the schema--the sensible and visible reflex of the\neternal and universal thought-relation: they are _a priori_ because\nthey are in the physical world the _primitive_, the first phase and the\nlowest manifestation of that unity which as we know it in nature and\nmind always blends with sense, or displays itself in sensible forms.\nThey are the first stamp of reality, of real Nature: with them we are\nin Nature, but it is an abstract shadowy nature. They mark the ascent\n(which only from the mere logician's standpoint shall we call the\ndescent) of the abstract (pure) idea into the element of multiplicity,\nof opposition, of life and consciousness. In the psychical and\nintellectual world, again, as it rises to more perfect ideality (as it\nelicits more _meaning_ from crude _fact_) they lose their prominence;\nthey sink into the powers of memory and imagination, which build up\npast and future into the unity of the ever present, until in their\nconsummation they leave as their residual product the abstract element\nof pure thought: a thought which claims the attributes of universality\nand eternity, which claims, i. e., to merge or submerge in it all space\nand all time[6].\n\nIt is evident therefore that if an associationist theory, like that of\nHume, proposes to explain the actual field of mental life by elements\ngiven in it, and by no other, it can only do so on certain assumptions,\nwhich may be summed up in the proposition that the mind--the real\nmental space and time even (and not its supposed 'image')--is at once\nsubjective and objective, at once real and ideal, at once the field\nof operation, the force which directs operations, and the mind which\nis aware of itself and its acts. To say, as Hume appears to do, that\nan unintermittent long-established custom breeds _in us_ certain\nirresistible and essential habits of thought, can only refer to an\nunexplained and unnoticed duplication of the self. There is here, one\nself, which is only a bundle of fragments, of ideas intrinsically\nseparate and only incidentally connected by outside pressure, which\nenter into ties, peradventure necessary or indissoluble, though not\ndue to inner affinity. And there is another self which is a self-same\nunity, dividing and growing, or assimilating, acted upon but only\nbecause it solicits action, and in a way controlling the process going\non within it. The difficulty for the investigator is to realise that\nthese two selves are one. No amount of ingenuity will ever succeed in\nhonestly showing unity to be the mere resultant--even should it be\na fictitious or phenomenal unity--of the collisions and fortuitous\nattachments or detachments of different and independent reals. The\nreals which behave in such a way as to engender unities, to cause\nsyntheses, are reals in a mind; and the mind must not merely, as it\nwere, flow around them, but have them fluid members of itself. If they\nare reals, they are ideal-reals. You must begin with an ideal-unity\nwhich is also a real-unity, in which variety can play and by which it\nis controlled.\n\n'Forces,' no less than 'things,' are terms of thought, names of reality\nindeed, but inadequate because due to an abstraction and leaving\ntheir correlatives out of sight--names of momentary elements seized\nin the flux, and made with more or less success to indicate 'moments'\nand 'factors' or 'aspects' in the total sum and power of reality.\nExplanation by permanent and separate forces labours under the same\ndisadvantages as that by things. Science, grown more self-critical,\nbegins to see that in forces, &c., it has names and formulae which\nare not the full reality, but only useful (_if_ useful) abstractions.\nNeither things nor forces, though called real, are so in the full\nsense. Hume said,--and said not untruly, though with some relish of\nparadox,--that we never had any real impression or idea of power\nand force. The statement should be taken along with another that\nwhat we mistake for power in things is only our own want of power to\novercome a suggested association, or to break a customary train of\nideas. Lotze, again, has remarked that the supposed consciousness of\npower exerted in voluntary movement is confused with a feeling of\nwork done, or inertia overcome. Whatever may be the truth about the\npsychological experience, there can be no doubt for the epistemologist\nthat the so-called perception of force is an interpretation of one\naspect of experience which, with a certain amount of arbitrary arrest\nand simplification, renders it intelligible and real by means of an\nantithesis and correlation. Force in fact only exists, or arises, in\nrelation or opposition to a counter-force: action and re-action are\nalways equal and opposite, says the mathematical formula. Two forces\nare as little independent as an up and a down, or as a west and a\nnorth; force solicits force, and force only _is_ in so far as it is\nsolicited. The soliciting can only solicit because it is solicited.\nIn other words, it is not enough to say that the forces which thus\nconfront each other are correlatives. The relationship must be carried\nup a stage higher: the forces themselves get their pseudo-real\ncharacter, only so long as they are kept apart forcibly or by inertia.\nCarry out their implications: and they re-unite (not however to the\nloss of all distinction) in a higher idea, an intelligible unity which,\nby its division and return to unity, makes possible and real their\ncontention. It is this carrying-out of implications to their explicit\ntruth which is at the root of Schopenhauer's playing fast and loose\nwith the distinction between force and will. But with him the two terms\nare taken up vague and indefinite, in the haze of popular conception or\nwant of conception, and are without effort or justification identified:\nwhereas in Hegel, there is, on the lowest estimate, an _attempt_ made\nto trace the somewhat intricate steps which mediate the metamorphosis.\n\nThe new idealism thus maintains the organic and even supra-organic\nnature of thought and being. The world of experience, when taken in its\nreality and fullness, is an organism which lives and knows and wills,\nand which is life, action, knowledge; its own means and its own end.\nThe subject acting, living, knowing is action, knowledge, life. In the\nordinary organism there is a subject of functions, a being in relation\nto an inorganic world. In the world-organism (if the inadequate name\nis still to be retained) there is no outside world, no inorganic\nor extra-organic thing. In the world-organism the organ and its\nenvironment is combined in one, re-united: the plant or animal is not\nwithout its place, and its place is not without plant or animal. They\nare not merely in correlation, but essentially and actually one. _Quid\nprosunt leges sine moribus?_ asks the moralist: but in the Absolute or\nthe supra-organic Idea, law and morality are not apart: the necessity\nis also freedom: the law is not severed from its phenomenon. Such an\norganism which is life, thinking, will, is what Hegel calls the Idea:\nan organism which is completely organic, with no mere matter: and that\nIdea is the foundation of his Idealism. Conceived under its conditions,\nthe forces which are sometimes represented as struggling with each\nother on the field of man's life, are no longer independent; still less\ncompletely separable forces. They are the inner division by which the\nspirit re-establishes and makes secure its unity: their antagonisms\nare the breath of life. And they have their relations in their common\nservice, building up one life. They form a certain hierarchy of\norganisation; in which however the higher or more developed does not\nmerely supervene upon the cruder, but in a way supersedes it, and yet\ncontrives to retain its worth and its real truth.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Cf. Spinoza's remark on Body, _Eth._ III. pr. 2 Schol.:\n'Etenim quod corpus possit, nemo hucusque determinavit; hoc est neminem\nhucusque experientia docuit quid corpus ex solis legibus naturae\nquatenus corporea tantum consideratur possit agere,' &c.]\n\n[Footnote 2: See vol. ii, notes and illustrations, p. 392.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Schopenhauers well-known description of this recurrent\nthrowing back of the responsibility of reality on something else is\nhere suggested ('World as Will and Idea,' \u00a7 17).]\n\n[Footnote 4: See p. 157 (chap. xiii).]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Satz vom Grunde,_ \u00a7 16: _Welt als Wille und Vorstellung:\nErg\u00e4nzungen._ Cap. i.]\n\n[Footnote 6: See later, chapter xxvi.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\n\nMETHODS, ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL.\n\n\nWhen modern philosophy took its first steps, it was disdainful and\ndepreciatory to the past, both Medieval and Old-Greek. Bacon and\nHobbes, Descartes and Spinoza,--be their other differences what they\nmay--all echo the same disparagement. Like Wordsworth's _Rob Roy_, they\ncry--\n\n                    'What need of books?\n    Burn all the statutes and their shelves.\n\n    We'll show that we can help to frame\n           A world of other stuff.'\n\nOn this iconoclastic age supervenes the attempt of Leibniz to combine\nin one all that was good in the new corpuscular philosophy with\nall that was precious in the old Platonic idealism as expanded by\nAristotle. So, at the later philosophic crisis towards the close of\nthe eighteenth century, the somewhat destructive and revolutionary\ntendencies of Kant and Fichte lead up by a natural revulsion and\ncomplement to the reconstructive systems of Schelling and Hegel. In\nthem the conservative instinct comes to supplement the defects of\nthe radical go-ahead. Instead of tossing the past away to the winds,\nand crying out _\u00c9crasez l'inf\u00e2me_,--instead of throwing medievalism\nbehind, breaking all the restrictions on individual liberty which\nfeudal Europe had created to secure and safeguard the communities that\nhoused its early freedom, the new spirit of the time saw that the\nproblems of modern life were not solved by merely throwing overboard\nas encumbrances and refuse all checks and forms. On the contrary, the\nreflective mind saw that forms and checks so-called there must be, and\nthat the art of statesmanship, though it could not entirely consist in\ncopying the old, had still to work in some way after the analogy of the\nold methods: i. e. to do under new circumstances what would solve the\nsame requisites, as the old constitution had done for its time. The\nchange is well illustrated by the attitude towards state organisation\nshown by William von Humboldt at different epochs of his life.\n\nPeople talk glibly of the Historical Method, and what it has done for\nus. To hear what is sometimes said it might be supposed that this was\nthe method that had been always habitual in history, but which in\nthese latter days had been applied to other topics, and had proved its\nvalue on the new ground by achieving results that had hitherto been\nmere desiderata. This however is pretty nearly to reverse the true\nstate of the case. It was long till history came to have any method\nworthy of the name. In most of those who figure as great historians\nthe object had been to tell a good tale, to keep the thread of events\ndistinct, to subordinate incidents to the main issue, to portray\npersonal and public character and its influence on events. History was\npractised--we may even say--more as an art than as a science. If it\ndealt with causes, it dealt with individual, concrete, living causes,\nnot with cold, dead abstractions of forces, laws, or tendencies. If it\ndid not altogether ignore the suggestions of a quest for principles to\nbe found in Thucydides and Polybius, it was much more enamoured of the\nart of Livy and Tacitus, or even of the na\u00efvet\u00e9 of Herodotus. Of such\nhistory who has not felt the power; who has not admired the genius that\nreconstructs the men and circumstances of the past, and makes them\nlive over again their deeds, and again in the end yield the palm to\ninevitable fate! But it was not from such history that the historical\nmethod arose.\n\nThe historical method was the product of the new conception of nature\nand mind in their mutual relations which has been already noted. To\nestimate the labours of thinkers towards this view of history would\nbe an interesting but complex inquiry. Leibniz in particular by\nhis principles of development, of continuity, of general analogy,\nshould have made two things for ever clear. And these two results\nthat might have been supposed secure were, first, that the present\nexistence (which at first seems to be alone real) is only a narrow\ntransition line between a past and a future,--a line of points\nintersecting a complex movement or development; and secondly, that\nall development is of something which is essentially infinite, which\nrequires nothing external, no fillip from circumstances or from an\nexternal providence, to set it going, but is in itself a synthesis of\nactive and passive force in a something at least analogous to an Ego.\nThe first principle is embalmed in Leibniz's maxim: 'The present is\nladen with the past, and full of the future': and the second, in the\nmaxim 'the Monads have no doors or windows.' In virtue of the first,\nthe existent (of this instant) is only a stage or grade, rooted in\nwhat has been, and insignificant unless in reference to what is to\ncome. In virtue of the second, all development is from within, and\npresupposes therefore that the developing individual includes within\nit a great deal which a cursory view would at first sight assume to\nbe without it, and only accidentally in contact with it. It might\nindeed be well to add a third principle--what Leibniz has sometimes\ncalled the Law of Continuity--the law that, as he says, distinct and\nnoticeable perceptions are the resultants of an infinite number of\ninsensible or little perceptions. But continuity proper is not this:\ncontinuity proper or identity is a pure idea. The visible or sensible\ndiscontinuity reposes on, and is to be explained by, an invisible or\nideal continuity. Each body, for instance, in nature, appearing to have\na separate existence of its own, is only a stage isolated or insulated\nin a continuing process: and that process, binding, as it does, past\nto future, is the process of a Mind. _Omne Corpus_, wrote Leibniz in\n1671, _est mens momentanea seu carens recordatione._ Every physical\nand material object is an intelligence, but an intelligence which\nneither looks before nor after, but is limited _for itself_ to the mere\ninstant: an intelligence which has no history. Yet to the intelligent\nobserver it has a past,--it has a memory, it bears in it the traces\nof its antecedent. Yet to read that book of memory, to decipher the\n'insensible perceptions' which are buried beneath the momentary\npresent, beneath its unspiritual reality, and to knit present with past\nand future, is the work of an intelligence, in and to whom the material\ndiscloses its store of meaning, or in whom it is re-spiritualised. In\nother words, the presupposition of this historical method is the ideal\ncontinuity of being, transcending and absorbing the differences of time.\n\nBut the teaching of Leibniz--even more perhaps than that of\nSpinoza--fell on an evil age: if it was not actually choked with\nthorns, it found a soil with little depth, and its brief verdure was\nsoon followed by a fearful withering. Anxious as Leibniz was to commend\nhis theories to all men,--and not least perhaps to win the suffrages\nof some illustrious and intelligent women--he was led to present them\nunder forms and phrases which were to each correspondent specially\nfamiliar. And the natural consequence was not absent. The forms of\naccommodation were what told: they stuck, and the truth they were\nmeant to convey slipped away: the Leibnitian theory was re-interpreted\ninto the doctrines it had been meant to supersede. As with Spinoza,\nso with Leibniz, a keen apprehension of his meaning came first to the\nthinkers on the borderland of literature and philosophy, to Lessing and\nHerder, and found an appreciative welcome in the more academic systems\nfirst from Schelling and Hegel. Above all, this theory of 'petites\nperceptions' so closely bound up (as was to be expected) with his\nmathematical discoveries in the Calculus, is what marks him as having a\nfiner ear for the secret harmonies and principles of existence than the\ncoarser organs of popular philosophy could catch up or appreciate.\n\n'In order,' says Leibniz, 'to get a clearer idea of the little\nperceptions which we cannot distinguish in the crowd, I am accustomed\nto employ the example of the roar or noise of the sea which strikes\nus upon the shore. To hear this sound, as we do hear it, we must hear\nthe parts which compose this total, i. e. the sounds of each wave,\nthough each of these little sounds only makes itself perceptible in the\nconfused assemblage of all the others together, (that is to say, in\nthat same roar,) and would not be noticed if this wave which causes it\nwere alone. For we must be a little affected by the movement of that\nwave, and we must have some perception of each of these sounds, however\nsmall they may be; otherwise we should never have the perception of\na hundred thousand waves, since a hundred thousand zeros would never\nmake anything.... These little perceptions are of greater efficiency by\ntheir consequences than we suppose. It is they which form that _Je ne\nsais quoi_, those tastes, those images of sensible qualities, clear in\nthe assemblage, but confused in the parts; those impressions made upon\nus by surrounding bodies which envelop the infinite, that _nexus_ which\neach being has with all the rest of the universe. It may even be said\nthat in virtue of these little perceptions the present is big with the\nfuture and laden with the past, that everything conspires together: and\nthat in the least of substances, eyes as piercing as those of God could\nread the whole sequel of the things of the universe.\n\n'These insensible perceptions, further, mark and constitute the\nsame individual, who is characterised by the traces or expressions\nwhich they preserve of the preceding states of that individual, thus\nforming the connexion with his present state. These may be known by\na superior spirit, though that individual himself should not feel\nthem, i. e. though express memory should no longer be there. But these\nperceptions also supply the means of rediscovering that memory, at\nneed, by periodic developments, which may one day happen.... It is\nalso by these insensible perceptions that I explain that admirable\npre-established harmony of mind and body, and even of all monads or\nsimple substances,--which takes the place of the impossible influence\nof one upon another.... After this, I should add but little if I\nsaid that it is these small perceptions which _determine_ us in many\nconjunctures without our thinking of it, and which deceive the vulgar\nby the appearance of an _indifference of equilibrium_, as if we were\nentirely indifferent whether we turned, e. g., to right or to left.\n\n'I have remarked also that in virtue of insensible variations two\nindividual things could never be perfectly alike, and that they ought\nalways to differ more than _numero._ And with this we have done once\nfor all with the empty tablets of the mind, a soul without thought,\na substance without action, the void of space, the atoms, and even\nparcels not actually divided in matter; we have done with pure repose,\nentire uniformity in a portion of time, of place or of matter,...\nand a thousand other fictions of philosophers which come from their\nincomplete notions, fictions which the nature of things does not\nsuffer, and which our ignorance and the little attention we have for\nthe insensible lets pass, but which could never be rendered tolerable,\nunless we confine them to abstractions of the mind which protests that\nit does not deny what it puts aside and considers out of place in any\npresent consideration. Otherwise, if we took it quite in earnest, to\nmean that things which we do not perceive do not exist in the soul or\nbody, we should fail in philosophy as in politics by neglecting \u03c4\u1f40\n\u03bc\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd, insensible steps of progress:--whereas an abstraction is not an\nerror provided we know that what we put out of sight is still there.'\n\nThis was the conception which Bacon had shadowed out, which Leibniz\nhad presented under many names and with many applications, as the\nolive-branch between Plato and Democritus; it now became through\nphilosophical and extra-philosophic acceptance a current maxim in the\ngeneral field of knowledge. Nature assimilated to history, and history\nassimilated to nature: freedom built upon necessity, and efficient\ncauses rounded off, though not entirely merged, in final. It is the\nrecognition of law, order, causality in the psychical world, yet not\nof _mere_ so-called natural law; and therefore without reducing it to\na merely physical and material world. It is in fact the new method\nwhich is inevitable and necessary, as soon as it is manifest that\nlife, organisation, development is the underlying truth and central\nnotion of things. You look at the world at first, let us say, as a mere\ncollection of separate things in varying degrees of juxtaposition:\nand all that you think of doing to them, either by way of theory or\npractice, is to put them together, to link them closer, or separate\nthem more widely. You do so from outside by an arranging force; for\nthey are assumed to be purely passive, waiting to be touched, each set\nin its place--from which it can only be moved by a push or a pull.\nThis is the method of mathematics or mechanics. It shows the dexterity\nof the agent or of the expositor: but you feel that it is artificial,\nand arbitrary. It is analytic or synthetic--but not auto-analysis\nor auto-synthesis. The director of the movement (we may call it\n'construction') may no doubt have the real secret: he may work the\nthings well and fairly, and unite or divide them according to inner\naffinities; but we cannot, as matters stand, be sure of this. The\nthings, in fact, he deals with have been already emptied of all life\nand peculiarity of their own: they are alike in quality, only differing\nby a more or less,--a difference which at any moment may be altered by\nan act of subtraction or addition. No doubt you can build up what are\n_called_ systems--compounds of a kind--in this way: but they do not\nreally hang and grow together; they are only prevented from breaking\nup by the absence of any empty place to which the parts may withdraw.\nBit holds up bit; but how all the bits have found themselves so caged\nup without exit is a mystery. Absolute neutrality or indifference of\neach part to others, and yet absolute equilibrium[1] in the total\ncomposite,--such is the situation.\n\nThe chemical method (taking chemistry as a type of the sciences\nlike optics, electricity, &c.) is a revelation of a different state\nof affairs. The elements of things are here seen to be unique and\nincomparable; yet in each there is a latent sympathy ready to break out\nwhen the proper occasion arrives. Bring two things together, and their\naffinity suddenly, in the proper circumstances, leads to their complete\nfusion: a product arises which, when formed, hardly betrays its origin\nand composition. In a way this is the converse of the mechanical or\nmathematical method. In it was no fusion, no inner mixture: each part\nafter composition lay beside the other, and their union was only in the\nideas of the onlooker. It was mere juxtaposition still,--though now\ncloser: an abnormally keen eye would still have been able to descry the\ndividing lines and measure the gaps. At least mere mechanical physics\ntends so to conceive it. Here, on the contrary, there is union--but\nonly at the moment of fusion: once that is accomplished, the result is\napparently simple, and bears no suggestion of being a compound. In the\nmechanical union the result is exactly equal to the sum of the elements\nwhich go to make it: in the chemical there is something positively new,\nsomething, i. e., of which the premises gave no indication and made no\npromise.\n\nEither of these methods,--of these conceptions of existence--works\nwell in a certain region. But both of them only do their work on a\ncertain hypothesis, or with a certain abstraction. The mechanical\nmethod supposes that objects are all qualitatively alike, differing\nonly in quantity or weight: all therefore entirely comparable with\neach other, and capable of being substituted for each other in an\nequation. Where this assumption holds good, the method of addition and\ndivision, the method of the calculus does its work[2]. The chemical\nmethod works on another assumption,--the assumption of a number of\nqualitatively-differenced elements, of elements which also are, so to\nspeak, set on edge against some, and ready to leap into the arms of\nothers. If the observer in the first case had the game entirely in his\nown hand,--could build up and separate at his pleasure, could determine\nresults _a priori_: he is here baffled by the unexpected, and can only\nwait and watch to learn _a posteriori_ the behaviour of the bodies\npossessed of this occult and non-predictable affinity. At the best he\ncan only formulate what he observes, try to classify it, ascertain\nany common principles running through it, any serial recurrences,\nor the like: and that is all that chemical philosophy can achieve.\nChemical affinity--the fact that certain elements combine in certain\nways, and refuse to enter into certain alliances--is a great fact:\nbut to _a priori_ reasoning or abstract syllogising it is an entire\ninexplicability, one of the accidents in the universe which must be\nreckoned with, but cannot be understood.\n\nIt is probably evident that, if we want to get a comprehension of\nthe life and concrete reality of things, neither of these methods\nwill quite answer the purpose. With the first alone, if it could be\nuniversally carried out, the universe would be thoroughly explained:\neverything would be exactly equivalent to some sum or multiple of\nevery other: there would be no mystery, nothing unique, and strictly\nindividual. Given time, we could find a formula for every reality,\nand a predicate exactly fitted to any subject. Yet even mathematics\nhas to confess the existence of irrationals, surds, infinite series,\nand the like. For our unities and standards are always arbitrary,\nartificial, and one-sided, and fall short of the subtlety of nature.\nEven our simpler types of surfaces--the circle and the square--remain\nirreducible to each other: and we only avoid the collision by the\nremark that practically and with any required amount of exactness\nthe discrepancy between the two can be adjusted. If we turn to the\nchemical method, again, there is a nearer approach to actuality in the\nrecognition of the presence of something more than mere composition\nand juxtaposition. It is not that there is something which is _not_\njuxtaposition: but rather it is much _more than mere_ juxtaposition.\nThere may be degrees of this something more: but it is only to a gross\nor abstract view that it is not present at all. Mere cohesion even\nshows a unity in things juxta-posed. Mere contact is contagious: it\ninfects. 'When a violin has been played on frequently by a tyro,' says\nG. H. Lewes, 'its tone deteriorates, its molecules become re-arranged,\nso that one mode of vibration is more ready than another[3].' 'Toute\nimpression,' he quotes from Delboeuf, 'laisse une certaine trace\nineffa\u00e7able.' So-called chemical composition is only a conspicuous\ninstance, with peculiarities, of this alteration in state produced\nby what, from the mechanical standpoint, are called inner molecular\ndisplacements. But to recognise a fact is one thing: to give its\nexplanation is another. Yet, on the other hand, to recognise the fact\nis to note an important point which had been omitted by the mechanical\nconstruction of things. There the result could hardly be called new:\nit was exactly equal to its constituent elements: and the equation was\ntransparent. And it was transparent because the whole process, analysis\nand synthesis, was not a work or process of the observed thing, but\nthe work of the observing mind: it makes the (artificial) unities,\nnumbers them, and adds them or subtracts. But with the chemical result,\nthough it also is equal to its elements, there is something new.\nWater, no doubt, is oxygen and hydrogen, but here, at least, there\nis no doubt that the _plus_ sign unduly simplifies the relationship,\nand rather indicates or represents a nexus than accurately defines\nit. And yet, there is nothing in water which was not, in some--shall\nwe say mysterious?--way, in the oxygen and the hydrogen. Chemical\nphysics, therefore, brings out clearly, or comparatively clearly,\nsomething which the ordinary and coarser simplicity-loving theory is\nobliged and is able to neglect: it realises the virtue that lies in\njuxtaposition, and shows that the mere outer change of quantity goes\nwith a deeper inward and qualitative one. The result does more than\nsum up and condense what was spread out in extension and dispersed\nin parts before: it brings out or reveals something which previously\nwas unsurmised. Always, in a liberal interpretation of the maxim, it\nis true that _Ex nihilo nihil fit:_ but here, especially, the effect\nactually discloses what was--but was latent or unperceived--in the\npremises. The maxim, to be fairly treated, must be read backwards as\nwell as forwards.\n\nBut we must go a step further if we wish the full explanation. If the\npremises are to be adequate to support the conclusion, they must be\nrestated in terms which hint at the conclusion--which in a way contain\nit, but contain it in potentiality and promise, not in act. This is\nthe method of development, which is the method that is applicable to\nfull concrete reality, not like the others to parts abstracted from\nor insulated in reality. So long as you deal with these selected\nbits of fact--abstracted from their surroundings, subject to strict\nobservation or strict experiment, you can apply a comparatively simple\nand straightforward method. You are dealing with abstracted, mutilated,\nprepared fact. You are guided in these cases by the canons of identity\nand difference: you add and subtract, or subtract and add; and that\nis all. You use what are called the rules of experimental method. But\nthese canons do not directly apply--except by happy accident--to the\nreal world, where antecedent and consequents are not separate and\ntabulated, as the logical canons, the rules of formal logic, require.\nIn dealing with this concrete reality, a much more complex method is\nneeded, a method which has to blend induction with deduction, and\nto start from both ends in the series of causation at once. You can\napply observation or experiment, only when the issues have already\nbeen extremely simplified and narrowed down: when the question has\nbeen rendered so definite that it is next-door to the answer, and the\nremoval of a slight partition-wall will as it were make the two one\nclear space. Where observation and experiment are available, indeed, is\nwhere the general outlines and principles of the subject are settled,\nwhere the scheme of reality is defined in large, but a variety of minor\nissues still remains to be settled. Unless this general framework is\nfixed, neither observation nor experiment, with their canon of identity\nand difference, are of any avail. These methods, therefore, only apply\nin sciences which are in principle or substantially complete, though\nadmitting of possibly infinite extension in details and particulars.\nWhere the science is yet to constitute, i. e. in dealing with the\nkinds of real things in their completeness, and not as viewed in\nsome definite aspect, induction and deduction must go hand in hand\nand help each other at every step: and if they, as they must, have\nrecourse to experiment and observation, it will be at first in a very\nunsatisfactory and tentative way.\n\nSuch is the way the contrast between the simplicity belonging to an\nartificial method dealing with picked instances, and the complexity\nthat real concrete organic nature demands, presented itself to J. S.\nMill as he advanced in his inquiry. The only complete method for the\ninvestigation of unsophisticated nature, not yet mapped out and defined\nin general departments, is the deductive-inductive method in which\ninduction and deduction separately have a subordinate place,--using\ninduction in the narrow sense the term has been hitherto allowed to\nbear. And that sense, it may be added, is, as in some passages of\nAristotle, little else than a reverse of syllogism, or to speak more\naccurately, it is a syllogism which goes up to generals instead of\ndescending from them. It is like the syllogistic deduction formal and\nabstract in character. The (deductive) syllogism assumes the existence\nof major premises--of general propositions which in the last resort,\nif they are real bases, must be primary and true, or self-evident\nfacts. But a critic, like Mill, had little difficulty in showing\nthat a general truth rests upon and presupposes the very particular\nconclusions which it is used to establish. Unless every singular is\ntrue, the universal which embraces or unifies them cannot really be\ntrue. Therefore the conclusion is really implied and presupposed in\nthe principles of its premises. But, unfortunately for the application\nand supposed sequel of this not unjust remark, a similar remark may\nbe made on the ordinary exposition of the inductive method. Induction,\nit is said, infers from or on a basis of single facts. But if a single\ntruth is really, i. e. unconditionally true, it is indistinguishable\nfrom the universal. If it is really true once, it is true for ever.\nThe assertion of the individual proposition as true, if it can be\nsupported--(and unless it be true, what basis can it afford for\nthe general conclusion?)--implies the truth of the universal it is\nsometimes used to establish. The inductive logician tells us to build\non singular and definite facts, on truths of definite and individual\nexperience: but a definite or determinate truth rests upon universality\n(indeed is a universal), and cannot be found unless we have already\nfound the special total or organism of truth in which it forms a part.\nIndividuals and universals presuppose each other, and do not, as the\nfirst impression leads us to think, stand apart as two unconnected\ntermini, from either of which, if we happen to be so located, we can\nwithout road or railway make a legitimate passage to the other.\n\nIf it be urged, as it may naturally be, that on this showing there is\nno solid or 'absolute' starting-point at all, the contention may be\nconceded. The only fixed and steady points in knowledge are points\nhypothetically fixed,--certified, that is, for the time and in the\ncircumstances we employ them. But in the open field--or rather in\nthe wilderness--of knowledge, where the ground of fact is not staked\noff, and the unexpected may always turn up, the only test of truth is\nthe corroboration given by the consilience of paths initiated from\ndifferent points: it is only by an undesigned coincidence in the\nresults of independent operations that you can succeed in orienting\nyourself. You begin your road at two ends, and you meet: you locate\nor fix your point by drawing its co-ordinates to two direction-lines\ntaken anyhow at first, and only in formed science diverging at a fixed\nangle. And in the absolute your direction-lines cannot be supposed\nfixed: you can only gradually adjust them to each other as you\nproceed. Intelligence, says Aristotle, is a principle, a beginning;\nand intelligence, he says again, supplies beginnings[4]. Science, in\nthe technical sense, only comes into operation,--or, in other words,\ndeduction and (in the narrower sense used by Mill, and proceeding by\n_pure_ observation and experiment) induction only find a way,--where\nbeginnings and principles have been set up, where an approximate order\nor provisional system has been established. And if logic, in its\nstricter sense, is the method of sciences already made and in their\nessentials constituted, then logic can be asked to do no more than\nto provide a theory of such formal processes. If it traces the path\nwhich leads 'from the known to the unknown,' if it always proceeds on\nthe hypothesis of a given knowledge, then such induction or deduction\n(from certain and approved singular facts, or from certain and approved\ngeneral truths) fully satisfies the practical need of the scientific\nreasoner. But if Logic be, as it sometimes is, and may very reasonably\nbe, taken in the wider sense of an epistemology,--a theory of the\nnature and origin of knowledge as a whole, and not of mere inference\nor syllogism;--if it does not merely ask how we can satisfactorily\nget from one piece of knowledge (we are supposed to have) to another\n(not yet supposed to be), but how we come to have knowledge at all;\nthen its problem must go behind the rudiments of vulgar induction and\ndeduction. It must ask--what, so far as one can see, Mill and his\nmere followers have never seriously asked at all--what induction\nis, what are its relations with deduction, and what is the place of\neither in the process of knowledge. And as the process of knowledge\nis the path to reality, it must also ask about the nature of this\ngoal,--reality and truth. It is all very well for the narrower Logic\nto formulate in terms the methods actually employed in sciences: to\nstate in abstract canons what is there seen in life and action. But\na _Science of Logic_--an epistemology--(and a genuine epistemology\ncannot claim to be anything short of an ontology) must face the fact of\nscience itself--must ask how the ideas of the knower must--or otherwise\nthey are not knowledge--embrace and contain the reality of the known.\nThe other and narrower Logic is and will remain a theory of forms of\nreasoning-a transcript in fainter terms of the procedure of science in\nany given step it takes upward to generals or downward to particulars:\nbut the logic which deals with knowledge as such, in its systematic\nentirety,--the transcendental Logic, in short, must have a real value,\nan invincible relation to reality. The formal Logic--the logic of Mill\nand Hamilton--must be carried back to its principles, to its first\nstep: and that first step which will also be the last step, and the\ninspiring principle of every intermediate step, is that of Intelligence\n(Aristotle's \u039d\u03bf\u1fe1\u03c2), of which the products or manifestations are \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03b9,\ni. e. definite conceptions, categories, formulations of rules and\nprinciples of definite range,--determinations or special types of unity.\n\nMill really faced the problem of method to better effect when he came\nto deal with a class of questions in which he was really interested,\nand which moreover have for epistemological purposes the advantage of\nbeing as yet unreduced into the rank and file of disciplined science.\nThese questions are those dealing with man, his mental and moral\nnature, and history. Even its advocates or patrons occasionally admit\nthat there is no accepted idea of what Sociology is or does. Its name\nat least expresses a longing towards a unity, or a presentiment that\nthere is some underlying unity and common method in the group of what\nare loosely called the moral, or the historical, or the social and\npolitical sciences. But sociology is, as most people will allow, the\nname of a science unrealised--the felt and consciously-apprehended\nneed of a science, and the dissatisfaction with the existing state of\nknowledge in certain departments. And undoubtedly it was with problems\nof social science,--problems of politico-economic and socio-ethical or\nsocio-religious matters, that Mill's interests were mainly engaged.\nLike his master in this department, Auguste Comte, he wanted to carry\ninto the topics which he was chiefly bent upon that 'scientific'\nprecision which they by pretty general admission lacked, and which\nrevolutionary movements had shown they greatly needed. But he could\nnot help seeing that the 'induction' of dynamics and physics was not\nexactly the instrument he was in search of. Theory and hypothesis\nhere demanded a much larger share in the process than in the more\nmathematical sciences. Causes and effects in reality here rolled round\ninto each other, instead of remaining calmly fixed, one set here, and\nthe other there. Of course even here--i. e. in organic and concrete\nsciences--it is possible to introduce observation and experiment,--no\ndoubt, with greater effort and constraint, but still not altogether\nimpracticable. But the artificial and mutilative character of such\nexperimentation is felt here in a way different from its pressure in\nother cases. And what is more important, to institute an experiment or\nset on foot a scientific observation (and to observe means to _watch_\na definitely restricted natural process with a view to answer some\nquestion about it), presupposes--as we have already seen--a tolerably\ndefinite provisional theory as to the general lie of the country to be\ninvestigated. Only when the country has been reasonably well mapped out\nin provinces and provided with some system of roads, can these problems\nof detail--questions to be answered Yes or No--be profitably put. And\nit is--in some parts of the historical sciences at least--somewhat\npremature to put questions requiring a categorical reply. There is\nonly the vague _malaise_ of felt difficulty to guide us. We do not,\nin many cases, know what it is that we want to know; for, it demands\na good deal of wisdom and trained art to put the proper or reasonable\nquestion,--so much so, indeed, that to succeed in formulating your\nquestion fully is equivalent or nearly equivalent to being able to\nanswer it. The value of observations and experiments--which are ways of\nputting nature to the question and it may be to the torture--depends\nentirely upon the knowledge and the command of general ideas possessed\nby the observer and experimenter. And the same may be said of the\nreduced and tabulated conspectuses of the results of many observations\nand experiments which are called Statistics. Their value depends on\nthe truth and breadth of view which presided at their collection and\narrangement[5].\n\nThe historical or genetic method is the method of Science in general,\nbut considered and employed under a limited aspect. And under its\nmore comprehensive aspect it may be called--though no name is\nunimpeachable--the method of development. Now the essence of the idea\nof development--as was clearly shown by Leibniz--is the refusal to\nadmit external interference, and the resolve to let a thing explain\nitself by itself. It does not, like the mechanical method, manipulate\nthe thing from outside--try to add it up out of factors or items\nfashioned and fabricated after some external standard. Nor does it,\nlike the chemical, look at the result as an inexplicable alteration,\ndue apparently to a mere stroke of combination or disintegration--yet\nnot obviously reducible to a mere equivalent of its elements. On\nthe contrary, it recognises in the object a certain independence or\noriginality, yet also the presence of an immanent law which does not\nwait for the outsider to put it together, but constructs itself, as it\nwere, after a plan of its own. There is in the so-called object, though\nwe do not at first sight recognise it, the same originative principle\nboth analytic and synthetic, as we own in thought. The object is--in\na true logic--a process, a self-completing process, and not merely an\nobject, mechanical, or other object. It changes, grows or decays, while\nwe observe, unless for brief instants we cut it off from its connexions\nand arrest its development. And our observation, if truly scientific,\nmust be sympathetic with its process of change. It is neither a mere\nthing to be explained and construed _ab extra_: nor a mystery of sudden\ntransformation to be passively accepted; but a growth, a history, to be\nsympathetically watched and understood,--understood, because it follows\nthe same order as the movement of our own thought in the process of\nknowledge. _Similia similibus cognoscuntur_[6].\n\nOne sometimes hears it asked by paradoxical critics at which end\na history should begin. And to ordinary dogmatic recklessness,\nparadoxical the question may well seem. Begin at the beginning, no\ndoubt, is the vulgar reply; which in this case is understood to\nmean from the earliest point in date (that, of course, being easily\nascertained, and a thing known to all men). But,--so Plato long ago\nwell raised the difficulty which will always confront us,--are we to go\nfrom the beginnings, or towards the beginnings? And it does not quite\nsolve the question to say that we are to begin with what is known:\nfor under that word the same difficulty re-appears. Can you really\nknow one end without the other? To the vulgar partisan of historical\nmethod, its precept means Go to the earlier, if you wish to understand\nthe meaning, the value, and the elements constitutive of the later and\nsubsequent. Begin with origins, with the earliest elements, the phases\nthat first appear; and thus you will get light to see the later as they\nreally stand. That this is a common interpretation of the historical\nmethod is notorious. To explain _Homo sapiens_, one is told to study\nthe ape,--the nearest analogue of his lost or missing progenitor: to\nunderstand the contemporary horse, go to eohippus, or hipparion, or\nhowever his early prototype may be at present named and recognised.\nAnd in all this there is a truth--or least a half-truth. But let us\nequally recognise the other half of the truth. If past throws light on\npresent, present throws not less light on past. You propose, let us\nsay, to write a history of Greece. A wordy philosophy, wise in its own\nconceit and in fine phrases, will advise you to approach the subject\nwithout prepossession or prejudice. So far, good. But what is meant\nby the absence of prepossession or prejudice? Not a blank openness\nto impression, not a mere passivity; but if passivity at all, a wise\npassivity: if openness, the openness of the trained judge.\n\nThe advice, so often associated with Francis Bacon, to get rid of all\nfalse pre-conceptions, of all _idola,_ is one which it is easy to\nmistake in an over-zeal to follow it. That mere negation of prejudices\nwhich we call childish innocence is no match for the craft by which\nNature seeks to keep or disguise her secrets. The free consciousness,\nthe unbiassed mind, is not the easy result of one great act of\nrenunciation, but the work of continued self-discipline, self-conquest,\nself-realisation. If you are not to impose upon the thing a\npre-conception alien to it, neither must you rashly give yourself away\nto the thing, or to the first whims which accident puts upon you as the\nthing. What seems a fact or thing is only a candidate for the post of\nthing or fact: and its credentials need to be examined, and compared\nwith other evidences. To detect a fact, therefore, is only possible for\na tried and tested consciousness which by patience and self-mastery has\nwon the key of interpretation. What Bacon apparently meant--though,\nas often happens, in his eagerness to combat a prevailing folly, he\nsometimes overshot himself in statement--was to insist on the eternal\nwedlock of the mind and things, of things and the mind, as the sole\nand sufficient condition for the reality of knowledge and truth. The\nmind may not presume to do without things, or things to domineer the\nmind;--or the result is a windy and frothy vanity. And the wedlock\nis eternal: in his own eloquent words, 'the mind itself is but an\naccident to knowledge[7],' and he might have added, so also are things:\nfor, as he says, 'the truth of being and the truth of knowing is all\none': only in the bond of knowledge are things true and real,--being\notherwise only 'permanent possibilities,' or possibilities barely even\npermanent--or not even possibilities. Yet he scarcely realised that\nhis 'due rejections and exclusions' and negations were a fundamental\n_constitutive_ element in those facts of which he habitually emphasises\nonly the positive side.\n\nHe therefore who would understand--or would write--the history of\nGreece must really in his studies begin at both ends--both at the\nGreece of to-day, and at the Greece of Solon, or what earlier period\nmay be taken as the start of Greek history. With perhaps the least\nqualified dogmatism, one may assert that he will begin with the\nGreece of to-day; or if he deals solely with Ancient Greece he will\nbegin with the full blaze of Hellenic civilisation which still has a\npale reflection in the modern world, and gradually work back to the\nbeginnings. It is no doubt customary to begin Greek history, say, with\nthe Homeric Age, and work downwards, as it is customary to begin a\nformal treatise on geography with the general features of the earth's\nshape and surface. But that beginning represents really the temporarily\naccredited and accepted result of a process which, starting from the\nother end, has worked backwards to commencements or origins. And the\nteacher, in particular, will do well not to imitate too slavishly the\nmethod of the formal treatise. A day may come--or may have come--for\nexample, for Greek history to start from periods long anterior to the\nsupposed or traditional date of the wars around the wall of Troy. But\nwhen it does so, it will have done so by more thoroughly ransacking\nthe Greece of to-day: and so disclosing the secrets of what is termed\npre-historic Greece. Then, conversely, when modern diggings on Greek\nsoil reveal the features of an earlier than what was erewhile to older\nhistorians its earliest past, the reconstruction of that early people's\nlife reflects a new light on the directions and the limitations of\nits subsequent civilisation. We see better into the reality of Homer,\nand even of Demosthenes--into their ideal glory and their historical\nlimitations, when we explore the cradle in which their race's life was\nerst fostered, and the rock out of which they and nature hewed them.\nAnd this is no peculiarity of Greece. The deepest research into the\nsocial institutions which control the England of to-day is the best\npropaedeutic for the study of Anglo-Saxon times; and the same is true\n_vice versa_.\n\nNor, again, is the truth of the proposition confined to what we\nordinarily mean by history. The Greek poet has said 'Art had to wait on\nand welcome chance, and chance to wait on Art': or as we may paraphrase\nit, if every invention and discovery is in a measure a lucky chance,\nit is a luck that only falls to the wisely prepared head and hand. The\ncasual event falls as a germ of new construction or theory only on an\nintelligence ready to welcome it,--prepared with its complement in the\nspirit of an idea, eager to take shape. The means again, in the arts\nand crafts, is not only a means to something else; it is also a means\nto its own end, to realise or perfect itself. The rude tool of the\nsavage, for instance, is not merely a means to supply his wants: it\nis also a means towards completing and improving itself, and towards\nperfecting itself by constructing an ampler tool, which supersedes it,\nbecause it can do all and more than all the work of the earlier, or\ncan do it more economically. All progress that deserves the name is\nan incessant and continuous revision of a first step: a re-adaptation\nof an old instrument: a repeated and unending self-correction. It\nis only a partially-true symbol of human advance to speak of it as\na line: unless we add, by another piece of symbolism, that the line\nis only the protracted or extended phase in which the form of time\ndrags out for us the magnified and organised point-nucleus. It is a\ntruth--which we are only too ready to forget or discount--that the\nsavage (and he bears with justice both epithets, 'the noble savage,'\nand 'the brute barbarian') is not something left happily behind us, in\nthe onward march of civilisation; but that he is, however much we may\nfancy him suppressed and superseded, still present, at least 'ideally'\nin the finest products of humanity, and may hap only too likely--as\nthe Russian is said, when scratched, to betray his original Tartar\nbreed--to burst put on provocation into a grim reality. The Pullman\ncar of to-day retains within it for the archaeologically-trained eye\nthe rudiments of the primitive wain of the primitive nomade: and\nthe careful study of either end of the scale will not merely throw\na marvellous light on the excellencies or the defects of the other,\nbut will probably also tend in the impartial observer to moderate the\nself-gratulations of modern advance. For it is only those whose view\nranges within narrow limits that are over-impressed by the magnitude of\nthe advance made in the 'last new thing.'\n\nIf progress were but the addition of bit to bit, of new bits to what\nis already there, or if we could change _this,_ and leave _that_\nunchanged,--as the word perhaps verbally means, and as many people at\nany rate seem to understand it, progress might indeed seem an easy\nthing, and to be undertaken with a light heart. For, it would appear\nas if we could lose nothing, and might probably (indeed, as enthusiasm\nand forgetfulness of the merits of the past are in certain periods\nready to urge, must certainly) gain. But it is a more serious matter\nwhen we realise that we must move altogether, if we really are to move\nat all; i. e. really are to make progress, and not merely change, so\nto speak, from one foot to rest on another. For progress,--if it be\nwhat it is expected to be, and what it must be if it does what it is\nexpected to do--is an organic, and not merely a mechanical or chemical\nchange. A mechanical change is only a nominal or formal change: a\nchemical is more than change; but in organic change, that which changes\nalso abides, and the new is not merely other than the old, and not\nmerely a re-arrangement of the old, but the old transmuted,--the same\nyet not the _mere_ same[8]. Progress in short is always the unity of\ndifferentiation and integration. It must not be an externality, nor a\nmere dead product of a transformation scene, but a continuous growth,\ninwardly digested, made part and parcel of the collective life, which\nit has thereby rendered more full, real, and not merely made less\nintense at the cost of some extension. In true progress, which is only\nanother name for true growth, nothing is quite lost, but only changed,\nretained in a richer shape and a fuller reality. How far such progress\nis possible, except in limited and finite spheres: how far progress in\none involves necessarily deterioration in another and how, therefore,\nprogress is not attributable to the Absolute, are questions we need not\nhere discuss. But so far at least we may go as to say that a progress\nwhich does not follow the natural law of development and carry on into\nthe future the worth and substance of the past, is not a progress which\nany general enthusiasm ought to be spent upon.\n\nDevelopment then has two faces, one to the future and another\nto the past. And what is called the historical method is apt to\nemphasise only one of the two aspects, just as, it may be added,\npractical considerations are often likely to produce an opposite but\nequally partial bias in favour of the future. The historical method\nin incapable hands is liable to lead to unprofitable sighs,--not\nunaccompanied by a certain luxury of tears--over the lowly hole of\nthe pit--it may even be the filth and brutishness, out of which so\nmuch of noble humanity (for thither the interest of development\nalways reverts) has been dug; and in empty heads the practical,\nthe vulgarly-utilitarian satisfaction is liable to equally vain\nfits of self-applause on our magnificent progress. But both the\nself-depreciation of him who loiters regretfully round the beggarly\nrudiments, and the self-laudation of glorious 'improvements' looking\nderisively on less glorious days, are unworthy of the reasonable and\nscientific spirit. The philosophical method does not allow itself to\nbe imposed upon by the lapse of time, and insists that in a sense\nthe past contained the present--that, as the poet says, the child\nis father of the man. Not indeed contained in any grosser or more\ndelicate mechanical way. The coming development does not necessarily\nlie prefigured--if we had the proper microscope to see it--as a germ\nin the first and original state. That may be, or may not be. Yet\nprefigured it is by the law of its structure, or in the intelligible\nunity by which only can its existence be understood and construed.\n\nBut if this be the method of real development, in the growth of nature,\nand the progress of history, it is also the method of that supreme\nproduct of historical progress, the spirit and system of philosophy.\nThought, also, the culminating stage in which the spirit of man becomes\nconscious of itself and of its universe, will move or grow on the same\nlines as that of which it is the comprehension and theory. It will\nbegin at the two ends, and each beginning will complete and presuppose\nthe other. Nature will suppose and yet lead up to Spirit or Mind:\nSpirit or Mind will throw light on the mystery of Nature: Being will\npoint to knowledge or Idea; and Idea show itself the basis of Being.\nOr, if we consider the triple division of the philosophic system, as it\nruns in Hegel's _Encyclopaedia_, we can see how misleading it may be to\ntake that one order as absolute. To understand it thoroughly we must\nbegin with each of the three in turn: so as thus to realise that each\ndoes not except figuratively succeed the other, but that in each an\naspect of the whole truth is presented which had been put by the other\nparts somewhat in the background. In each part there is a definition\nand a revelation of the Absolute. But each is also, as it were, a\nprojection, a perspective view, a condensed or expanded image of the\nother. In each the Absolute is one and whole, in some more veiled,\nmore restricted, and more meagre than in others; but the veil, and the\nrestriction, and the emptying, are self-imposed: and for that reason\nthe veil is really transparent, the restriction is negatived, and the\nemptying is not only a self-humiliating but a self-ennobling irony--the\nirony of the Absolute.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Of course the term 'equilibrium' may be used loosely to\nmean a great deal more than this,--how much will depend on the context.\nThese quasi-mathematical analyses have great fascination: their\napparent simplicity imposes upon us.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The distinction, it will be observed, lies between the\nmethod of mathematical physics and that of physics which has learned\nsomething from the researches of electricity or chemistry. If the\nmethod or principles of chemistry are thus said to be reduced to those\nof physics, this is because the conceptions of physics have been\nrevolutionised from the side of chemistry, &c., and even of biology.\nThis tendency of modern science is precisely in the line indicated by\nSchelling and Hegel.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Problems of Life and Mind_, iii. p. 58.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Eth._ vii. 7 \u1f41 \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe1\u03c2 \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u03ae: 6. 6 \u03bd\u03bf\u1fe1\u03c2 \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u1ff6\u03bd.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Statistics only define--and primarily for the\nimagination--the general laws and principles on which they rest. The\nclear-cut mathematical form strikes and 'catches on,' where a more\nuniversal statement sounds vague and glides off. Hence, as one says,\nthey may prove _anything._ The fact is, they prove _nothing._ They only\nillustrate in diagrammatic form the theory which presided at their\ncollection. To emphasise the fundamental nature of ethics for human\ndevelopment you need only say that conduct is three-fourths or (as to\nsome minds the precision rises with the denominator of the fraction\n17/20) of human life.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The resolute misinterpretation--as it often seems--of\nthe maxim that like is known by like,--is a curious chapter in the\nhistory of Logic. All knowledge is based upon,--or, to speak more\nsimply, _is_--the identity of differents: of differents, which in\nknowledge are identified,--of identity which in knowledge is put under\ndifference. And yet the ordinary meaningless talk on this matter seems\nto assimilate knower and known to two separate things (or persons),\nwho casually and, we may add, inexplicably know each other: which is\nmythology, perhaps, but not epistemology.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Bacon: 'In Praise of Knowledge' (a mere leaflet of much\nsignificance towards estimating his true grandeur). On the _Conjugium_\nof _Mens_ and _Universus_ see _Novum Organum_, distrib. op.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The said _mere_ same is not really the same at all.\nNobody in his senses predicates sameness except where he also sees\ndifferences: or, the term always implies relation.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\n\nTHE RANGE OF PERSONALITY.\n\n\nThe difference between the conceptions of reality held by Aristotle and\nPlato respectively is that where Plato said Being, Essence or Substance\n(\u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1), Aristotle said Activity (\u1f10\u03bd\u03ad\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1). To be is to act, to be\nactive. To the outsider--the plain man of philosophic legend, it seems\nat first that a thing must _be_ before it can _do_: that you must have\nan agent before you get an action. And, in a way, Aristotle admits\nthis not quite satisfactory criticism. Every activity presupposes, he\nallows, a power to act, a potentiality: every actual presupposes an\nimplicit or a mere possibility. Existence seems, as it were, to be\ndoubled; or the mere surface-being is turned into a subject which has\na predicate. But if the existence is to be real, it has to include\nboth elements, and with the latter or the actuality, as its crown.\nNor is this all. The possibility which issues forth in action may be\nfairly called self-realisation. That is to say: A--the hypothetical\nagent--acts, does something: and in so doing, seems to go forth and\nbeyond itself, to externalise itself. Or, A is acted upon, and thus\nseems to be diminished. But what it externalises, or puts forth, is\nafter all what it _is_: it puts forth itself: and, on the other hand,\nif it be a patient, it is no less an agent and self-limitative. What a\nthing really is, is what it _makes_ itself be: what it allows itself to\nbe made, that it really is. Yet further, if the word self-realisation\nbe taken in its fullness of meaning,--if there be really a _self,_\nand it be realised, then this self-realisation, which is the truth\nor more developed conception of being, seems to imply or postulate\nin it a self-consciousness, an awareness of the process of completed\nbeing,--completed in its return from utterance of possibility to\nself-fruition or in its re-assumption of itself.\n\nTo us, of course, as beings aware of what we do and achieve, this\nis simple enough: but it is also true of _things,_ that we only\nunderstand them, in so far as we put them in, or invest them with, the\nsame activity and apperception of activity as we are familiar with\nin our own experience. The veriest materialist cannot help speaking\nof things as agents, as behaving, as having a function. He would, no\ndoubt, if he were to be cross-examined, refuse to identify himself\nwith the primitive anthropomorphism, or at least zo\u00f6morphism of the\nnatural man who sees the river run and the clouds sweep the sky; and\nhe would probably mutter something referring to people who cannot see\nwhen they ride a metaphor to death. Still less, perhaps, would he\nbe inclined to adopt the spiritualistic or animistic hypothesis of\nphilosophising physicists, like Fechner, who would accredit even the\nplants at our feet, and the stars in the sky, with souls, or soul-like\ncentres of their life. But, however he may shrink from what we may call\nthe ontological consequences of his language, there is no doubt that\nfor him the meaning of the world, its reality and truth, is obtained\nby an interpretation in terms which, rigidly employed, imply their\nenvironment by a self-consciousness to which they are relative. Take\nfrom him the tacit assumption (which he often finds it difficult to\nrealise just because it is the foundation of all his language) that\nreality is in the last resort a self-conscious reality, and his words\nbecome meaningless, or what he might think worse, metaphorical.\n\nTo Bacon, who, though not without a strong speculative impulse,\napproached philosophic dicta from the standpoint of an average\nintelligent Englishman (and it is on that account that his remarks are\noften so instructive), it seemed a grave fault of the Stagirite to\ndefine the soul, that 'most noble substance,' by words of the second\nintention. Without substance--a solid something as basis of act and\nevent--the reality of the soul seemed likely to fare badly. Behind\nconsciousness he, like many others, felt there must be a something of\nwhich consciousness is the state, act, or predicate and attribute. The\nthinking must come from a thinker. There must be a permanent subject of\nthought--a persistent substance which does not disappear when thinking\nfor the nonce stops. And thinking is according to common experience\nvery liable to stops and interruptions. Both Bacon and Locke felt that\nwithout this refuge to fall back upon, personal identity was in a bad\nway, or personality itself little better than a delusion. And therefore\nwhen Aristotle, and his modern followers, treated soul and mind as\nessentially definable by the terms activity, self-realisation, it has\nbeen freely urged against them that they are tampering with the pearl\nof great price which all our hopes and aspirations fondly guard.\n\nAnd this is a subject on which there is inevitably a good deal of\nmisunderstanding. And the misunderstanding will probably last so long\nas one set of writers flaunts over it that blessed word Personality\nas a holy, a sacrosanct thing, like the visionary cross with its\ninscription _In hoc signo vinces_: and as another set treats it as a\nmere fetish, under which is hidden nothing better than stock or stone,\nor a heap of old bones. Perhaps some concessions might well be made\non both sides. And the first of them would be to try to come to some\nclearer understanding what the term in question means. And, on that\npoint, if we follow the example of Aristotle and examine popular usage,\nto see if it can help us to any consistent use of the term, we shall\nfind that by personal as opposed to real we mean something peculiarly\nattached to the individual, of which he cannot divest himself as\nof other outward things, though it also is an outward thing[1] The\nperson in this narrowest sense means the body; and if the epithet\nis further extended it still expresses what is directly manipulated\nthrough the members of the living agent, and is more or less closely\nattached to it. Yet if it means the body, we must be careful to add\nthat it is the body, regarded not as such but as the representative,\nthe outward manifestation, the inseparable sign or symbol of a spirit,\nan intelligence and a will. The person is the visible or tangible\nphenomenon of something inward,--the phase or function by which\nan individual agent takes his place in the common world of human\nintercourse and interaction--his peculiar and definite part in the\ngeneral or universal world and field.\n\nPersonality thus mingles or unifies in it an universal and an\nindividual aspect or element: it hints that the universal work always\nhas in reality an individually-determinate tone,--that nothing in\nthe world, even if it be called the same, is really and actively\nthe same. _Si duo idem faciunt, non est idem quod faciunt._ Thus,\nwhat separates personality from individuality is simply that in the\nnarrower or abstracter use of the latter term there is an absence\nof the due subordination of all individuality to universality, and\nof all universality to individuality. Personality, in short, is an\nindividuality which is not a mere freak, not merely different from\nother things, but also in itself charged with a universal meaning\nor function. Yet even this is not enough to describe it. It is the\nindividuality of an intelligence: the flesh and blood, and, in a\nsecondary degree, the outward things, stamped with intelligence.\nEvery member of a kind, every natural existence, has this double\ncharacter; this convergence or union of universal and individual. In\nbeing this individual object, it is at the same time a universal, and\n_vice versa._ But in the attribution of personality there is involved\nsomething beyond what is common to all creatures. And that something,\nwe may first of all say, is this. Whereas in the case of other _things_\nthe individuality is distinctly subordinate, and each is reckoned\nprimarily by its kind, in the case of _persons_ we can almost declare\nthat the universality is subordinate to the individuality. This\nunion of individuality and universality in a single manifestation,\nwith the implication that the individuality is the essential and\npermanent element to which the universality is almost in the nature\nof an accident, is what forms the cardinal point in Personality. And\none can understand, when the distinction is thus put, the obvious and\npalpable antagonism in which the view stands to the central principles\nof Spinoza[2] We speak of a man as a Personality when we wish to note\nthe fact that he is no mere manufactured article, the representative\nof a common type, with nothing to choose between him and a thousand\nothers, but that he is, as it were, one of a thousand, one 'Whom\nnature printed and then broke the type,' that he has in the highest\nsense 'distinction,' the nobility of nature's own patent. Other things\nexist, so to speak, for the sake of their kind, and for the sake of\nother things; a person, in the strictest sense, is never a mere means\nto something beyond, but always at the same time an end in itself\nor himself. Other things are mere examples in illustration of a law\nthat rides superior to them and overrules them: the person is a law\nunto himself. He has the royal and divine right of creating law--of\nstarting by his exception a new law which shall henceforth be a canon\nand a standard. For in such a personality when he claims his full\nrights there is the visible immanence of the divine and universal--or\nthere is the visible unity of the eternal and the temporal. He rules\nas the natural king, the great ruler whose judgment and authority are\nbetter than the complex code of common laws: he guides as the artistic\ngenius who sees truth steadily in a single intuition and in that single\npicture sees it whole[3].\n\nBut when we ask if such a personality is found in the field of\nactual experience and history, there arises a divergence of\nopinions. It is at any rate matter of common experience that there\nis a good deal of unjustified identification of the self with the\nuniversal--identification in which the universal suffers violence and\nis taken by force. There are only too often cases where the personal\ninterest is allowed to disguise itself under a semblance of zeal for\nthe common good, and that even without conscious intent or act of\ndeception. No good and noble deed, Hegel has said, can ever be done\nwithout faith in its goodness, and zeal for its attainment: without a\nholy passion and fervour of devotion, which exceeds the cold service of\nduty rendered for duty's sake[4]. But it is equally true and equally\nto be remembered that this interference of personal passion and\ndisinterested interest has defaced the noblest causes and made flow\nendless torrents of fanaticism and persecution. A personality in which\nthe universal was perfectly incarnated in the individual would be in\ntruth a God amongst men. And it is probably a more likely occurrence\nthat where the individual as such arrogates to himself the privilege of\nthe universal, there should be seen not the deeds of the god, but the\nebullitions of the beast that is in man.\n\nA personality, then, in popular language, and perhaps also in popular\nphilosophy, is the living and conscious individual in whom general\nforces, truths, or ideas become real, active, efficient forces,\ntruths, and ideas. And the importance of the conception resides in the\nsafeguard thus supposed to arise, which will prevent the realities of\nthe world from being dissipated away into the endless and restless\nflux of the terms of thought,\n\n    'La bufera infernal che mai non resta.'\n\nTo such a common frame of mind ideas, truths, forces are vacant,\nghostly forms, devoid of true life and reality: to get such they need\nblood and flesh to clothe them, to give them substance and power. Now\nHegel, no less than those who offer this criticism, regards ideas\n(in the ordinary sense of that term), truths and forces, also as\nabstractions which need something to make them powers in the real\nworld of nature and the ideal world of mind. Hegel, like Schelling,\nhas a sublime contempt for mere universals. But as to the something\nelse, there is a divergence of view. Two well-known answers are given\nby the popular philosophy known as materialism or spiritualism: two\nsystems which are probably not so wide apart as the contrast of\ntheir names might imply. According to the former, thinking, ideas,\ntruths, goodness and beauty are special functions (the grosser\nmaterialists say secretions) of a special kind of matter--of something\nwhich is accessible to ordinary mechanical and chemical tests, but\nwhich exhibits also, in certain cases, the exceptional phenomena of\nconsciousness. Here the essential reality is a something, permanent\nand essentially indestructible,--something which no man has seen,\nnor indeed can see,--but which is called Matter. The spiritualistic\nphilosopher (as distinguished from the _idealist_) regards as the\nessential realities in the universe what he calls spirits. What these\nare, also, nobody has as yet (any more than in Kant's time[5]) given\nany very authoritative account, but so far as the quasi-scientific\nexpositions in regard to them throw any general light on the subject,\nwe may say that they suggest only a differently-constituted matter, a\nmatter e. g. of less or more dimensions than that we are most familiar\nwith.\n\nNow the advocate of spiritual reality, who protests most strongly\nagainst the injury done to personality by reducing it to something\nfluid and not fixed, something in process and not in persistent\nsubstance, seems mostly to lean to a quasi-spiritualistic hypothesis,\nor to the--so-called--higher materialism. He is an advocate of what we\nmay describe as the soul-thing, of a permanent, (he would even hold,\nan absolutely permanent) substance or substratum of psychical reality\nwhich, no doubt, exhibits certain properties, but is always more than\nany one, or any mere series of its phenomena. It has been said, indeed,\nby one who spoke with authority that he that will save his soul shall\nlose it, and he that will lose it shall find it. But this has always\nbeen a hard saying, which has been as far as possible explained away\nby exegesis. Yet its moral import is not so very far removed from its\nphilosophical equivalent. The true life is not that of self-seeking\npleasure, but the life spent in the service of truth and love, the\nlife dedicated to impersonal interests, and ideal good. So also the\nreality of the human soul as we first know it lies not in itself, but\nin its transfiguration, its purification, and liberation to higher\nforms of being. The Soul, in its first avatar in each of us, is after\nall of the earth, earthy, unless it continue on that path of growth\nand development on which it has entered. It is as Aristotle said, and\nsaid well, the first actualisation[6]--the proximate ideality of an\norganic body. In soul organic body carries out its promise: in soul we,\nthe observers, or untrained psychologists, note our first awareness of\nmental life in its organic environment. But there are other grades,\nother heights of achievement, yet set before the principle of life,\nwhich is more than mere life and mere soul: or soul contains a germ\nwhich must bear higher fruit. To be itself, or to become all that it in\npromise and potency contains, it must dispossess itself of what clings\nto it and possess itself of what is its own; and so transmute its first\nphase into one more adequate. The soul is, as Hegel has said, the\nawakening of mind from the sleep of nature[7]: it is nature gathering\nitself out of its absorption in its dispersion, the breath of life and\nfeeling striving through the scattered members of the material world,\nand finding itself at first half-asleep, a pervading, unifying current\nthat flows through and makes continuous the various portions of the\nuniverse. It is the earliest real, felt unity in which the logical or\nsynthetic pulse--as yet purely potential in Nature, and only surmised\nby science--re-appears in the actual concrete world. And as the\nearliest, it is, like first loves, what one clings to hardest as our\nprime and fundamental _differentia._ Here at least we are something--a\ncentre of being, and not a mere centreless expanse of extension:\nsomething emerging from the world of silence and of night--something in\nwhich each feels\n\n    'I am not what I see,\n    And other than the things I touch.'\n\nAnd that something we would not lose, at any cost.--But the only way\nnot to lose it, is to use it as a stepping-stone to higher things. The\nmetaphor, indeed, like metaphors in general, must not be pressed too\nfar. For it is more than a stepping-stone and it is never left behind\nas a mere dead self: there is\n\n    'Nothing of it that doth fade\n    But doth suffer a sea-change\n    Into something rich and strange.'\n\nAnd that richer result into which it is transformed is the\nconsciousness of a self, and the intelligence which wills and knows.\n\nIf it be asked in what respects the result is richer, the answer is\nas follows. The soul,--this 'first entelechy--is exclusive, and it\nis immersed in its natural limits of organic life. It has yet to go\nthrough the school of self-detachment, the process of 'erecting itself\nabove itself'; and of thus extending its view and its range of control\nover a wider field of objects. Gradually it attains to the rank of a\nconsciousness before which is unrolled the spectacle of a world of\nobjects set over against it, and even of a world within it; itself as\nan object deposed to the rank of something to be surveyed. As such,\nit seems almost to have left all immersion in corporeity completely\nbehind, and to have completely divested itself of any limitation. It\nfloats freely above the real psychical life out of which it emerged--a\ndetached but somewhat shadowy self, not burdened by any restrictions\nof nature or circumstance. As such a mere Ego, or logical self--as the\nmere theatre on which the play of ideas takes place, it surveys its\nreal psychical self far below; it finds itself as a strange sort of\nthing, and says _This was me_ (which however is not exactly the same\nas _I am I_, I = I). Yet it was a great step to have thus ceased to be\nabsorbed in its qualities, to be the mere breath of life and feeling,\nstirring in its several affections and modifications. In order to\nget forward, it was necessary to recoil a little: to save itself--and\nthat must mean to get itself in fuller and richer being--the mind had,\nas it were, to measure and realise the full depth of its nonentity,\nand to surrender all that it had hitherto clung to as its own. In an\nattitude of reflection upon itself it fancies that it is the empty\nroom, the _tabula rasa_, on which experience is to write itself: but\nin its secret heart it retains the faith and acts upon it, that it is\nthe power of intelligent and intelligible unity which makes the writing\nintelligible, if it does not even itself play the writer. What it now\nseems to find--what fills up its consciousness, presumed empty and\nmerely receptive,--it gradually recognises to be its very and original\nown. Through labour and experiment it fills up the vacant form (the\npassive half of itself to which it deposed itself) of consciousness;\nand thus, as an intelligent self, a true mind, it has for itself and\nrealises as in itself all the life and reality which in its earlier\nstage of soul it only was and felt itself naturally to be. But on this\nstage of free intelligence it is no longer bound up with its natural\nbeing in such a way as to feel itself a fixed and restricted centre,\nsunk in the living environment so as to see no further, and to deem\nitself in its seclusion the permanent reality, the exclusive fact.\nIt is no longer exclusive and self-concentrated, but inclusive and\nall-embracing. It is no longer a mere consciousness--a mere receptive\nand synthetic unity of apperception--but a reason and a mind. And a\nreason and a mind already refuse to be narrowed and confined by the\nsame limits as seem appropriate to the soul. In the province of free\nself-realised intelligence we at least seem to occupy a ground on\nwhich others can equally come,--to have nothing peculiar or merely\nindividual. In Knowledge, which is reasoned perception, and in Will,\nwhich is reasoned impulse, there is a king's highway, a public forum,\nwhere souls meet and converse and perform a collective work;--and\nin both _mere_, i. e. essentially restricted, individuality is at a\ndiscount[8].\n\nSuch would be the course of development if we looked at it only in the\ninwardness or subjectivity of psychical, conscious, and intelligent\nlife. But an analogous or parallel development may be observed if we\nlook at man as an active, i. e. a practical and moral being, a being\nwho makes Nature his own, stamps it with his title of possession, and\nwho gives to his fellowship with other souls an objective, outward\nexistence in the forms and institutions of social life. Here too\nhis first achievement is the affirmation of his individuality, the\ndistinction in outward and tangible shape of the Mine from the Thine:\nthe creation of property, and the projection of himself in a world of\nmutually-recognised personalities. As the individual soul in the inner\nlife, so the personal being with its property is the solid, insoluble\nbasis of the life in public--the field of social ethics. The same\ninstinct, which in its dread of dissolution clings to the perpetuity\nof the inner nucleus of soul, upholds the other as containing the\nstable and eternal security of all social well-being. The immortality\nof soul in the inner world: the sacro-sanctity of property in the\nouter. But if these postulates are to be permitted, if individuality\nand personality are to abide, they must, in the one case as in the\nother, bow to the law of development, the law of history and of life.\nThey must correct themselves, re-adjust themselves,--include what they\nexcluded, and re-combine their elements, transmute themselves into\nwhat we have, after Hegel, called their _truth_: must redintegrate\nthemselves with suppressed correlatives, and carry out their\nimplications of larger unity. The soul, exclusive and fast-clad in\nits mere organic vestment, in which it is as yet only the name and\nform of intellectual life, has first of all to retract itself into\nthe bare abstract consciousness, or mere self, on which the masses\nof reality stream, to fill its vacant rooms and empty forms up with\nideas. So too the person--that close concretion or coalescence of mind\nwith material--that identification of self with its 'clothes,' its\nproperty and all it can vulgarly be said to _own,_ is only an aspect\nof truth which tends to be over-estimated when it is reflected upon,\nand must notwithstanding be over-ridden and merged. Withdrawing itself\nfrom its clothing of earth and water, and even perhaps from its inner\nmansion of flesh and bone, personality floats in the free air as the\nimpersonal personality of conscience,--the ethereal realm where pure\npractical reason rules. In that ether where morals reign absolutely is\nthe home of the categorical imperative, of the Stoical law of duty,\nof the conscience which, here at least, has might as it has right. It\ntoo, like its parallel, consciousness, in the inner mental life, has,\nor seems to have, all its fulfilment from without. As even Kant admits,\nit is itself a vacant form; yet a form of such influence as to impress\non whatever comes within its range an obligation to be universal and to\nbe uniform. Here too, as in the parallel stage, it was of inestimable\nimportance that mind should, in the socio-ethical sphere, see itself\nsupreme in its innermost dignity and personality,--the personality\nwhich lies within,--even though that supremacy were at first no better\nthan as a law, a form, a category, recognised as authoritative and\nimperative. For conscience, like the field of consciousness, is after\nall only a quasi-passive self--a remarkable property or endowment,\na sort of innate principle or idea by which the mind was seen to be\ndistinguished in a unique way from all things else. To realise once\nfor all the fact that consciousness and conscience form an absolute\ntribunal from which there can be no appeal: that the 'synthetic unity\nof apperception' in the theoretical, and the 'autonomy of the rational\nwill' in the practical sphere, are the ultimate and final _a priori_:\nthis is a great thing to do,--even though it only expands and defines\nthe Cartesian principle of clear and distinct ideas, and will remain as\nKant's title of honour in the history of philosophy. He thus fenced off\nor consecrated the sanctuary of the mental and moral life.\n\nBut it was not enough to set apart the sacred principle, the central\nhearth-fire of truth and goodness. If at an earlier stage,--earlier,\ni.e. in this logical analysis,--the formal was wholly sunk in the\nmaterial, if i. e. the mere series of legal formulae in their hard\nand brittle outlines were absolutely identified--without doubt or\nhesitation--with the morally and socially good; the formal side, or\nmere spirit and will of good, the abstract principle of morality,\nis now invested with an equally undue prominence. The actual or\nconcrete ethical community--be it family or state, or other social\norganisation--is animated and maintained by a spirit which transcends\nand includes alike the outward shell of civil law and the inward law\nof conscience. For, curiously enough, as it may seem at first, both\nconscience and civil legislation assume the form of imperative and\ndefinite commands--laws political or civil, and laws moral. Both fall\ntherefore into an inflexibility, a rigorous and mechanical hardness in\ntheir enouncements. Both worship the lord of what men call logic, i.\ne. of formal consistency and formal uniformity, to an excess which\nsometimes issues in fantastic irregularities. Their several maxims of\nlegal conformity and of duty for duty's sake are in first appearance\nexcellent: but a further reflection shows that the Law covers a good\nmany inconsistent or at least unrelated laws within its code, and Duty\nis often sadly to seek in presence of the collisions between what offer\nthemselves as _prima facie_ duties in any given case. The amplest code\nof laws that ever existed will always leave lots of loop-holes for\nnegligence and villainy, and would never work for an instant, were it\nnot for ever supplemented by the spirit of faith and love, by social\npiety and political loyalty, by the thousand ties of sentiment and\nfeeling which really vivify its dry bones. So too the abstractions\nof the conscientious imperative, of the law of duty, of the moral\ntribunal, of the man within the breast, and of the dignity and beauty\nof human nature, would effect nothing unless they could always tacitly\ncount on the support of recognised and authoritative social law and\nusage. Outward rests upon inward; and rules direct feelings.\n\nHere, again, as in the purely intellectual or cognitive sphere, it\nis evident that the spirit of man has its source of life neither in\nits abstract self-hood (in consciousness and conscience) nor in its\nmere natural environment and organic endowment (in sense-affections,\nand social law and usage), but in the unity of both,--a unity which\ntranscends either. Both individual and society live and grow, because\nthey are continuous and one: because they presuppose an ideal unity\nor a living Idea at the root of their being, as their inner and\nessential guiding-principle, at once constitutive and regulative of\ntheir action. The machinery of language supplies to the intellectual\nsphere a sort of sensible meeting-ground and common field in which\nthe development of knowledge becomes possible: and the same purpose\nis subserved in the social sphere by the machinery of ethical and\npolitical forms and institutions. These are the field, the home of\nfreedom, as the other are of knowledge. It is in these collective and\nobjective structures that we get the expression of the law of human\ndevelopment: the visible sign, viz. of the essentially universal nature\nof the individual. The individual in these attains his relative truth:\nfor they show the weakness of the individuality of the mere individual.\nThey show that his exclusiveness, his quasi-originality, is only an\nappearance:--confronted, no doubt, by an appearance of an opposite\ncharacter, as if the originality and the reality lay in the environment\nand the collective body. They point therefore beyond and behind both\nfoci to a common centre or inclusive unity of life.\n\nBut they do not destroy personality and individuality: they only\ntransform it and made it a more adequate and consistent representation\nof reality, by giving in it a place to factors or 'moments' which,\nthough always effective, were not recognised as constitutive elements,\nand treated only as externally interfering agencies. It may be a\nquestion, of course, how far it is wise to retain the term after\nits meaning has thus been altered by expansion and redistribution\nof elements. On the whole it seems impracticable--and it would be\nundesirable, perhaps, even if it were more feasible--to be too hard\nand fast in our use of denotations. It is hardly the province of\nphilosophy to coin new terms in which to deposit the results of her\nresearches. A term no doubt--particularly if, as the phrase runs, it be\nluckily discovered, or judiciously selected--may save the expenditure\nof thought. But it is hardly the business of philosophy to encourage\neconomy in this direction. Much more is it the perpetual task of\nphilosophy to counteract the ossification that sets in in terms,--to\nreinterpret the meaning which is absorbed in these 'counters of\nthought,' and make them once more sterling money for the market of\nlife. What, for instance, is the work of Aristotle's Ethics, but to\nset free the genii which the black magic of every-day intercourse has\nincarcerated in the non-significant Greek term \u0395\u1f50\u03b4\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03af\u03b1? Like our own\nHappiness, it flits from lip to lip, little better than a mere name,\nwhich is still prized, but--except for a few synonyms that are equally\nvague with itself--is attached to things which a little reflection\nshows it cannot truly denote. Aristotle seeks--we may say--to define\nit. But the phrase 'definition' seems barely applicable to the complex\nprocess thus implied,--a process of which definition, as ordinarily\nunderstood, is only one small portion. For to define happiness, is to\nreconstruct the conception. Or, to be more accurate, it is really to\nconstruct it or reproduce in consciousness its construction. As it\nstands, the thing to be defined is a name and a thing, of which certain\nrelations to other things soon begin to show themselves, which is more\nor less similar to one thing, and more or less to be distinguished from\nanother. To mark it off from these co-terminous things, and to show how\nthey are related to it on different sides,--this would be what we may\nperhaps call strict, or formal, or nominal, or _mere_ definition.\n\nNow whatever be the other uses of such definitions--and they are\nserviceable at the outgoing in any branch of enquiry,--they are\nnot precisely the work we expect a philosopher to do for us. And\nassuredly it is not Aristotle who would stop short at that sort of\ndefinitions. We find accordingly that for the purpose of realising\nwhat happiness--the common name for human good--means, he is obliged\nto bring into the field the whole system of his thought in its\ncardinal notions of Energy, Soul, &c. Aristotle here as elsewhere\nretraces the path of thought which carries us from mere, vulgar,\ninadequately-apprehended happiness (he follows the same process in his\ntreatment of pleasure, friendship &c.--to take only ethical examples)\nto true, essential and completely-apprehended happiness,--or, to use\nHegel's technical phrases, from happiness as it is _an-sich_ (in or\nat itself) or as it is _f\u00fcr-sich_ (for or to itself), to happiness as\nit is _an-und-f\u00fcr-sich._ In so 'defining' happiness Aristotle is thus\nobliged to bring in his conceptions of man and of society, of human\nlife and its powers, of natural and acquired faculty, of mind in its\nrelations to nature; and if not to expound, at least to employ, his\nfundamental categories of philosophical thought. Such a machinery can\nhardly be called less than a construction, i. e. a re-construction by\nconscious effort of the latent but actual concatenation of the elements\nin the fact.\n\nIn this case we traverse the distance which separates mere happiness\nfrom true happiness, from happiness imperfectly or abstractly conceived\nto happiness adequately and concretely conceived. Of course when we say\nreal or true happiness, we use these terms as they are used within the\nordinary range of human speech. An ultimate and absolute in truth and\nreality is for us at any given time only a comparatively or relatively\nultimate and absolute. It is that which, so far as we can see and\nthink (all philosophising presumably goes on under this stipulation,\ntacit or express), gives an expression, an interpretation, a meaning\nand a construction to reality which leaves no feature unrecognised, no\ncontradiction unsolved, no discord unreconciled, which leaves nothing\noutside and alien to it, and suppresses without acknowledgment nothing\nthat has ever been recognised within it. It is, if you like so to\ncall it, the completest, or (if you are really in earnest with your\nphilosophising and have carried it on to what for you is the end) the\ncomplete formula of the Absolute--of that which in a transcendent sense\n_is,_ is _all,_ is the infinite and eternal _one._ Yet, after all, it\nis a formula. But here that undying adversary of all thought steps\nin and says A _mere_ formula. And to that we must here as elsewhere\nrejoin: No, not a mere formula. A mere formula would be not even a\nformula,--a formula only in name--and with no reality which it served\nto formulate. It is a real and true formula, if it be a formula at all,\nand not something which merely swaggers about under that title. Nay\nmore, if it be a true and real formula, it is the truth and the reality\nin its day and generation, until at least a truer truth and a more real\nreality shall have been discovered. Let us by all means be modest: but\nthere is a false humility which becomes no man and is the guise of\nhypocrisy or insincere sincerity. Let us--in other words--never assume\nthat 'we are the men, and that wisdom will die with us': but equally\nlet us hold fast the faith of reason that what we know as true and\nreal can never be false, i. e. utterly false, however much it may turn\nout one day to be surmounted. And, on the other hand, let us equally\nremember that in the mere and abstract commencement--the unreal and\nthe untrue, as we must perforce style it by contrast with the (_pro\ntempore_) truth and reality--there is no utter and sheer error or\nunreality. It has always been felt to be one of the most loveable sides\nof Aristotelianism--this recognition of the reasonableness of all\nactual fact, or of the truth latent in the honest, though narrow and\nill-defined judgments of the mass.\n\nThus, coming back to personality, let us admit that the _mere_\npersonality which at first sight seemed only worth rejecting, is\nan element, at least, in true personality,--or is a part which,\nbecause an organic member and no mere mechanical part, is full of\ntraces and indications which involve and postulate the whole. The\ntrue personality and the true individuality of being is something\nwhich presupposes for its completeness the social state--the organic\ncommunity. It is no doubt familiar to us that, according to an old\nbut never quite dormant view, the collective community is but the\naggregate or congeries of individuals. But the individuals whose\naggregation makes the community are themselves products of the social\nunion. Complete, all-round, harmonious personality, it is sometimes\nsaid, is the highest fruit to be yielded by social development. Or,\nas the last century would have preferred to put it, the main or sole\naim of the State is furtherance towards Humanity--to the stature of\nthe perfect man. And these are true sayings,--but perhaps only half\ntrue. If all must grow so that one and each may grow, so and not less\nmust each one grow so that the all--the commonwealth of reason and\nthe kingdom of God--may be more and more present, 'may come.' And\nthat kingdom only comes when All is in Each, and Each is in All: and\nwhen, without loss or diminution, each is each and all is all. Then\nand not till then does personality become true and infinite, free and\nharmonious individuality, which is in the same instant universality.\nThe monad--to use the language of the great Idealist who did not find\nindividuality at all incompatible with universality--never ceases to\nbe a monad: it is eternal and indestructible, an absolute centre of\nbeing. The monad in its individual measure 'expresses' or 'envelops'\nthe Infinite or Absolute: it is, i. e. under a subjective limitation,\nidentical with the absolute, a concentration or condensation of it\ninto an impenetrable, i. e. literally an individual, point,--but a\npoint which is in the psychical or intellectual world never entirely\n_carens recordatione,_ or oblivious of its essential totality. But if\nthe monad 'expresses' the Absolute, it no less concords or sympathises\nin harmonious development with all its congeners, the other monads: so\nthat while it neither interferes with them, nor suffers violence from\nthem, it yet exists and acts in an ideal identity, that is, in a real\nfellowship, with them. Again, the monad has what may be called its\nside of passivity, but passivity here does not mean _mere_ passivity,\nbut rather the essential limitation due to its special and peculiar\nstand-point--a limitation which in the higher orders of being becomes\ntransparent or is transcended. How far Leibniz succeeds in reconciling\nthis apparent contradiction--how far even any one can reveal the mystic\nindwelling of universal and individual in each other, this is a serious\nquestion in its place: but it is only bare justice to Leibniz to say\nthat he at least never failed to emphasise both aspects of reality,\nand that if one 'moment' is predominant and fundamental in his work it\nis not the monad, but the Monad of Monads. If necessity be the right\nword to express the relation of the Universal Law to the individual\nbeing and to affirm that the individual is not a loose self-supporting\nunit (and Leibniz, far from thinking so, always uses in its stead the\nphrase _inclinat, non necessitat_[9], to emphasise the immanence of\nlaw, or the autonomy of every completed being), then Leibniz is not\nless, but more necessitarian than Spinoza. His difference from Spinoza,\nin fact, lies mainly, if not solely, in his clearer recognition of\nthe transcendence, no less than the immanence, of the Absolute, which\nSpinoza has somewhat veiled under the apparent insignificance of the\ndifference between _natura naturans_ and _natura naturata._ Yet the\nMonad of Monads is no supra-mundane, or _merely_ transcendent God.\n\nBut if we further ask whether such personality is attainable in the\nworld of experience and describable in terms of thought--whether there\nbe any actual and visible agent possessed of this true personality,\nas we have agreed to call it, we are in face with a higher stage of\nthe problem of personality. And that question in other words brings\nus back to where we began. A true and real personality, a complete\nindividuality is something which so transmutes all that we are most\naccustomed to call by that name that it is hardly any use clinging to\nit, unless to protest against the danger of mistaking such expansion\nand transmutation to be only a blank negation. Yet to cling to it too\nmuch involves a danger for the true recognition of that transcendent's\nuniversality. All human personality, all natural individuality is, as\nLotze has eloquently pointed out[10], something which falls far short\nof what it professes to be. But in the general failure to unite the\nuniversal with the particular, or the fact with the idea, there are\ndegrees; and we can at least affirm so much as this that the truest\nindividuality and the most real personality is not that which is least\npermeated by thought, but that in which thought has had the largest\nshare. Individuality is something more than a mere sum of general\nqualities;--that is certainly the fact; but it is not less the fact,\nthat for us an individuality and personality is more perfect and true\nin proportion as more general function and universal character coalesce\ninto harmony and power in it. Assert then the initial presence and\nvirtue of individuality and personality in the human soul: but remember\nthat it has this virtue, not for what it is, but for what it promises\nand may reasonably be expected to be, and that, to realise the promise,\nit has to behave inclusively, rather than exclusively, gather up into\nitself and make its own all content, rather than set itself up in\nreserve and isolation.\n\nWe have seen that the social organisation, animated as it is by the\nmoral idea, is rather the arena on which the true union of mind and\nmatter, of idea and nature, of thought and fact may be worked for, than\nitself the fruition of such an effort. All-important is the State;\nall-important the ethical idea which pervades it. But the world of\nfreedom--the ideal world so far made actual--is not what it promised\nto be. 'Is it not,' said Plato, 'the nature of things that the actual\nshould always lack the perfection of theory?' In the visible world the\nState, indeed, rules supreme: 'it is,' as Hegel might say in the words\nof his great predecessor in political theory, 'that Leviathan or mortal\nGod to whom under the immortal God we owe our welfare and safety.' But\nthere is something in the State which the State in its palpable reality\ncannot adequately express. If it is highest in the hierarchy of this\nworld, the lowest in the ideal kingdom of the Absolute is higher than\nit. Above the State as the embodiment and the guarantee of the moral\nlife, there is the realm of Art, Religion, and Philosophy. In them\nman's craving for individuality and personality finds a satisfaction it\ncould never hope for below them: they at least restore the truth and\nreality of man's life and of the universe in a measure far exceeding\nwhat even morality could do. If we ask then what Art, Religion, and\nScience have to show of Personality or true realised individuality,\nthe answer is briefly as follows. Had it not been that august names\nhave spoken of imitation as the essence of Art-work, we should hardly\nhave deemed it possible that men should speak of Realistic Art. Yet\nhere, as in Religion and in Science, the epithet is introduced to guard\nagainst a misconception of the province of Idealism. All Art, all\nReligion, all Science, are and must be idealistic: but they can never\nbe--as the familiar phrase puts it--merely idealistic, i. e. visionary,\nfantastic, unreal. All of them, in other words, may be said to show\nus 'the light that never was on sea or land'--the heavenly city--the\neternal truth of things. But they must, on their peril, show it here\nand now, and not in a pretended or other world. They must--no less than\nlaw and morality--work in terrestrial materials, and not with superfine\ncelestialities. _Mentem mortalia tangunt._ It is out of the oldest and\ncommonest realities of life and death that the poet and the painter\nmake the melodies of heaven sound in our ears, and gladden us with\nthe rays of the empyrean. It is out of the hard rock of the real that\nthe artist's rod must strike the well-spring of the ideal. So too, in\nlike manner, a religion must show the Divine, but show Him immanent:\nan immanence which, on one hand, shall not drag Godhead down to the\nlevel of casual reality, nor on the other set Him far off in lonely\ntranscendence.\n\nThe aesthetic faculty, awakened as it is by the natural response of\nman's perceptions to the harmonies of existence, to the spontaneous\ncoherency of its many parts in a united whole, and stimulated by the\ncreative work of human art, which moulds even the naturally discordant\nor unconnected into a concordant expression (sometimes it may be,\nas in handicraft, only to satisfy human needs), lifts us above the\nimperfections and fragmentariness of things, above our selfish interest\nin them, into a frame of mind where they are seen whole and perfect,\nand yet one and veritably individual. In its supreme or comprehensive\nphase it does not deal merely with the beautiful, nor merely with\nthe beautiful and sublime. All true art, whether it awakes awe or\nadmiration, laughter or tears, whether it melts the soul, or steels it\nto endurance, has a common characteristic; and that is to raise the\nsingle instance, the prosaic or commonplace fact, into its universal,\neternal, infinite significance. It frees the fact from the limitations\nwhich our distractions, our practicality, our temporary hopes and\nfears, have deeply stamped upon it. It is still, after art has dealt\nwith it, to all appearance a single fact: but it now has the universe\nbehind it and within it. It carries us away from the incompleteness,\nthe pressure of externals, the solicitude for the future and the\nregrets for the past, into a self-contained, self-satisfying totality,\ninto freedom and leisure, rest which is not stolid, and action which\ninvolves no toil. Such a result is partly, as was said, the gift\nof common nature, which speaks peace, comfort, joy, self-possessed\nfruition for all her children when their sense is open and free: partly\nit comes through those select ones among these children who have a\nlarger perception of the meaning and inner truth of her works, and who\ncan by a sensible reconstruction, which if it is fair and successful\nwill only bring out more clearly the unity and harmony which deeper\ninsight detects, help others to see and enjoy what they have felt and\nrejoiced over. Such are the poets--in the widest sense--the makers, the\nseers, who in verse, in music, in picture and sculpture--who, in human\nlives, it may be even in the conduct of their own, show us how divine a\nthing is nature and humanity: show us the secret and unheard harmonies\nthat to the full-opened ear absorb and transmute the lower discords of\nlife and vulgar reality. It is they who give immortality and divinity,\nwho make heroes and demigods[11]. Or, if they may not be said to make\nthem, they half-reveal and half-construct the ideal figures which stand\nhigh and beneficent in the history of the world. And by those who\nthus half-construct, and half-reveal, are meant not merely the single\nartists in whom the process culminates to final outline and publicity,\nbut the many-voiced poesy of the collective human heart which out of\nits myriad elemental springs constitutes the total figure, the august\nimage of the hero, and the saint, lending him from its plenitude all\nthat his abstract self seemed to want. It is on the tide of national\nand human enthusiasm that the individual artist is lifted up to realise\nthe full significance of his ideal figure, and his imaginative craft\ncan only be inspired by the vigour and warmth of the collective passion\nfor noble ends and high action.\n\nNowhere it would seem is the ideal of personality and many-sided\nindividuality more adequately realised. Here, at last, the whole truth\nof life, the indwelling of individual and universal in one body, seems\nto be realised. But it is realised in an ideal. It is--if we analyse\nit--a synthesis of three elements; partly in the material reality which\nserves as bodily vehicle; partly in the conception and technique of the\nartist; partly in the general mind which inspires both the material\nand the form with its own larger life. It is--as its name implies--an\nartificial product--a synthesis of elements which tend to fall apart.\nTechnique varies, conceptions lose their interest, the tone of general\nculture alters, and materials are dependent on locality. When that\nhappens, the work of art is left high and dry: no longer a living\nGod, but a dead idol, still wondrous, but speaking no more its human\nlanguage.\n\nSo it is with the heroic figures who rise into the purer air of\nuniversal history. They also--so far as they live with a personal\npower--are works of art: works of real-idealism. For all history which\ndeserves the name, and is not mere abstract dry-as-dust chronicle (as\nto the possibility of which utter aridity there may be legitimate\ndoubts), is a work of fiction or invention, of reconstruction. It\nseeks to understand its characters. But to understand them it is not\n(and as historical art cannot be) content with a mere reference to\nmotives acting on them from outside. It seeks to understand them with\nand in their times--to see in them the full measure of contemporary\nlife and thought which elsewhere has found so meagre expression. Such\nis the artistic completion of personality in the ideal,--whether in\nwhat is called history, or what is called art. It exaggerates a truth,\nbecause it loses sight of the background. And that background, which\nhelps to constitute such ideal personality, is no constant element.\nThe centuries and generations as they roll contribute their varying\nquota to set, as they say, the historical character in its true light,\nin its fulness and truth of reality. And thus this personality of\nthe great leaders of human life is only an image and a sign--a fruit\nof development, no bare fact which remains unchanged and always the\nsame. It is rather a personification than a personality. It incarnates\nthe living spirit who is universal and eternal in the limits of a\nsensuously-defined individual, and indeed incarnates there only so much\nas the generation it speaks to can see of complete truth. It is only\nafter all a vehicle of truth; though a nobler vehicle than social and\npersonal ethics can afford.\n\nAs it is felt that the treasure of the idea--that the full power of\nspiritual life--cannot be adequately stored in the earthen vessels\nof mortality, the consummation of personality is forced to recede\ninto the invisible if it would be still conceived as attainable.\n'True personality,' says Lotze, 'is with the Infinite,' What here is\nfragmentary, is there a rounded total, a perfect unity: He alone is\nabsolutely self-determining, self-explaining: is all that He means to\nbe, and means all that He is. In a sense, philosophy does not hesitate\nto countersign all this. But, in adopting it, philosophy must reserve\nthe right of noting the danger and the ambiguity of such language.\nReligion does well, philosophy may say, in thus insisting upon the\ndependence of all appearance on one Absolute reality; but it is well\nalso not to forget that all appearance is also the appearance of that\nreality or Absolute. And in so saying, be it added, philosophy assumes\nno essential superiority to religion. Religion in its fulness, and\napart from any theories that may grow up under its wing, is more than\ntheory, more than mere philosophy: it is the consummating unity of\nlife--the enthusiasm and supreme power of life, its consecration and\ndivinisation by its assured immanence in the eternal and universal.\nIt is, in short, as was long ago said of it, the true life, the light\nwhich is the light and life of men; and its inspiring principles are\nfaith, hope, and love. But when unassisted religion proceeds to set\nbefore itself the meaning and lesson of its life, when it proceeds to\nformulate a theory of the world and set out a scheme of world-history,\nit trespasses on the field of knowledge, and is amenable to the\ncriticisms of the reflective spirit--the spirit of philosophy. And\nthat criticism briefly is to the effect that the religious theory\nin its ordinary form is an imperfect interpretation of the religious\nexperience. Nor is this to derogate from the prerogative of the friends\nof God. It is only to criticise the formulae and phrases of dogmatic\ntheology--a theology, however, which is as old as religion itself,\nand which takes different forms from age to age, and from one level\nof thought to another, always in its measure translating religious\nreality, truth, or experience into the categories, naive or artificial,\nsimple or complex, of the science (it may be the pseudo-science) of\nthe time. Philosophy, therefore, is the criticism of the science of\nGod--that is of theology--as it is the criticism of other sciences.\nFor criticism philosophy always is: always the reflection upon fixed\ndogma, and the discussion of it till it becomes sensible of its\ndefects, and stands upon another and higher plane. And to some it may\nseem that this is the sole function which philosophy can legitimately\nundertake. 'Yet,' as Aristotle remarked, 'the good critic must know\nwhat he criticises.' He must not merely reflect upon it from outside,\nbut deal with it from the plenitude of experience, from the abundance\nof the heart. If he be a critic then, he cannot be a mere critic, but\nalso an agent in the work of reconstruction. Or, if we put the thing\notherwise; though, as Fichte said (p. 28), philosophy is a different\nthing from life, the true philosopher can never be a mere philosopher,\nbut must, if he is to reach the height of his vocation, have also\nentered into the full experience of reality, into the whole truth of\nlife. His philosophy will then not be outside of religion and aesthetic\nperception. In its comprehension of all grades and forms of reality and\ntruth, goodness, holiness, beauty, will have their place. He also will\nbe among the theologians.\n\nAnd when the philosopher deals with personality in this high, this\nsupreme sphere, he will submit that the truth of personality is\nsubordinate to the truth of spirituality. He will argue that by\nsticking too closely and fixedly to personality we are running a risk\nof bringing down the divine to the level of the human. If, with Dante,\nhe can say that in its very heart the Light Eternal\n\n    'Mi parve pinta della nostra effige;'\n\nhe will undoubtedly add with Dante\n\n    'Oh quanto \u00e8 corto 'l dire e come fioco\n         Al mio concetto;'\n\nor, with the first philosophical theologian who interpreted the\nexperience of Christian life, he will rise from the historical Jesus to\nthe inward witness of the Spirit.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: The legal use of the distinction between 'real' and\n'personal' is only partly 'logical,' and largely retains traces of\nthe larger logic of life and history. Yet, roughly speaking, personal\nproperty is what we can, so to speak, carry on our backs or in our\npockets.]\n\n\n[Footnote 2: See Spinoza, _Cogitata Metaph_., Pars II. cap. 8: 'Nec\nfugit nos vocabulum (_Personalitatis_ scilicet) quod theologi passim\nusurpant ad rem explicandam: verum quamvis vocabulum non ignoremus\neius tamen significationem ignoramus: quamvis constanter credamus, in\nvisione Dei beatissima Deum hoc suis revelaturum.' For Hegel, it may be\nnoted, Person, so far as he uses the term at all, bears its restricted\nlegal and juridical sense. A person is a free intelligence, which\nrealises that independence by appropriating an external thing as its\nsign and property. It probably belongs therefore to a world in which\npeople count rather by what they _have_ than by what they _are_; the\nworld of law where rights and duties tend to oppose each other. This is\nnot the highest kind of world for human beings.]\n\n[Footnote 3: This one may call the Platonic ideal of the State, where\nEquity rules supreme in the incarnate spirit of wisdom,--a guide\nadapting its measures to circumstances, not tied down to the inflexible\nletter of one law in an incoherent and imperfect code. See the\n_Politicus_, p. 294; _Phaedrus,_ p. 275; and compare Aristotle's Wise\nman whose conduct is not \u03ba\u03b1\u03c4\u1f70 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd but \u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u1f70 \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c5.]\n\n[Footnote 4: See e. g. _Encyclopaedia_, \u00a7 475.]\n\n[Footnote 5: See his 'Dreams of a Spirit-seer, illustrated by Dreams of\nMetaphysics.' (_Werke,_ ed. Ros. und Schub. Bd. VII. p. 38 sqq.)]\n\n[Footnote 6: It is perilous and misleading (said the ancient Graiae,\nwho dwell on the way to the Hesperides of philosophy) to interpret an\nold system by the language of modern (and especially German) idealism.\nIt is much worse, replied Perseus, not to interpret it at all, but to\nrepeat its magic _ipsissima verba_,--carefully Latinised, as if they\nbelonged to a cabinet of fossils.]\n\n[Footnote 7: _Encyclopaedia_, \u00a7\u00a7 387, 389.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The above is an attempt to give a very condensed synopsis\nof Hegel's Philosophy of Mind (_Encyclopaedia_).]\n\n[Footnote 9: See especially in the _Theodicee,_ part I. \u00a7 43 seqq. Cf.\nNouv. Ess. II. \u00a7 9, _incline sans necessiter:_ I. \u00a7 13, _La n\u00e9cessit\u00e9\nne doit pas \u00eatre confondue avec la d\u00e9termination._]\n\n[Footnote 10: _Microcosmus_, Book IX. chap. 4.]\n\n[Footnote 11: See the well-known passage in _Wilhelm Meisters\nLehrjahre__,_ Book II. chap. a.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\n\nGENESIS IN MENTAL LIFE.\n\n\nAristotle, who saw into the nature of abstract entities, remarked that\nthe mind was nothing before it exercised itself[1]. The mind,--and\nthe same will turn out true of many things else where it is at first\nunsurmised,--is not a fixed thing, a sort of exceedingly refined\nsubstance, which we can lay hold of without further trouble. It is what\nit has become, or what it makes itself to be. This point, that 'To be'\n= 'To have become,' or rather to have made itself, is an axiom never\nto be lost sight of in dealing with the mind. It is easy to talk of\nand about conscience and freewill, as if these were existing things\nin a sort of mental space, as hard to miss or mistake as a stone and\nan orange, or as if they were palpable organs of mind, as separately\nobservable as the eye or ear. One asks if the will is free or not, as\nglibly as one might ask whether an orange is sweet; and the answer can\nbe given with equal ease, affirmatively or negatively, in both cases.\nEverything in these cases depends on whether the will has made itself\nfree or not, whether indeed we are speaking of the will at all, and\non what we mean by freedom. To ask the question in an abstract way,\ntaking no account of circumstances, is one of those temptations which\nlead the intellect astray and produce only confusion and wordy war--as\na good deal of so-called popular metaphysics has done. The mind and\nits phenomena, as they are called, cannot be dissected with the same\ncalmness of analysis as other substances which adapt themselves to the\nscalpel: nor is dissection after all more than a part of the scientific\nprocess, subject to the control of the synthesis in physiology.\n\nThe ordinary metaphysician makes his own task easy and his thoughtful\nreader's a burden, by plunging too lightly _in medias res._ He wants\npatience--often, perhaps, because he thinks too much of his reader's\nimpatience at analysis--to unravel the tangled mass which human\nexperience, when first looked at, presents. He is apt to catch at any\nend which promises to effect a temporary clearance. True philosophy,\non the contrary, must show that it has got hold of what it means to\ndiscuss: it has to construct its subject-matter: and it constructs it\nby tracing every step and movement in its construction shown in actual\nhistory. The mind is what it has been made and has made itself; and\nto see what it is we must consider it not as an Alpha and Omega of\nresearch, as popular conception and language tend to represent it,\nbut in the stages constituting its process, in the fluidity of its\ndevelopment, in the elements out of which it results. We must penetrate\nthe apparent fixity and simplicity under which it comes forward,\nand see through it into the process which bears it into being. For,\notherwise, the object of our investigation is taken, as if it were\nthe most unmistakable thing of sense and fancy,--as if everybody were\nagreed that this and no other were the point in question.\n\nBut in this matter of stability and the reverse, there is a broad\ndistinction between the natural and the spiritual world. In Nature\nevery step in the organisation, by which the Cosmos is developed,\nhas an independent existence of its own: and the lowest formation\nconfronts the highest, each standing by itself beside the other.\nMatter and motion, for example, are not merely found as subordinate\nelements entering into the making of a plant or an animal. They have\na free existence of their own: and the free existence of matter in\nmotion is seen in the shape of the planetary system. So, too, chemical\nor electrical phenomena can be observed by themselves, operating in\nspheres where they are untrammeled by the influence of biological\nconditions. It seems, at least at first sight, to be different in\nthe case of mind. There the specific types or several stages in the\nintegrating process of mental development seem to have no substantive\nexistence in the earlier part of the range, and to appear only as\nstates or factors entering into, and merged in, the higher grades\nof development. This causes a peculiar difficulty in the study of\nmind. We cannot seize a formation in an independent shape of its\nown: we must trace it in the growth of the whole. Mental fusion and\ncoalescence of elements is peculiarly close, and hardly leaves any\ntraces of its constituent factors[2]. Sensation, for instance, in its\npurity, as mere sensation, is apparently something which we can never\nstudy in isolation. All the sensation which we can, in the strictly\npsychological (as opposed to the physiological) mode of study, examine,\ni. e. which we can reproduce in ourselves, is more than mere sensation:\nit includes elements of thought, and probably of desire and will.\nThis, of course, makes the difficulties of so-called introspection:\ndifficulties so great and real that they have provoked in natural\nreaction a set against introspection altogether, and the adoption of\nthe external observation (physiological or so-called psycho-physical)\nemployed in the 'objective' sciences. And hence when we accept the\nname, such as intellect, conscience, will, &c., as if it expressed\nsomething specially existent in a detached shape of its own, we make\nan assumption which it is impossible to justify. We are reckoning\nwith paper-money which belongs to no recognised currency, and may be\nstamped as the dealer wills. The consequence is that the thing with\nwhich we begin our examination is an opaque point,--a mere _terminus a\nquo_, from which we start on our journey of explication, leaving the\n_terminus_ itself behind us unexplained.\n\nThe constituents of mind do not lie side by side tranquilly\nco-existent, like the sheep beside the herbage on which it browses.\nTheir existence is maintained in an inward movement, by which, while\nthey differentiate themselves, they still keep up an identity. In\nour investigations we cannot begin with what is to be defined. The\nbotanist, if he is to give us a science of the plant, must begin with\nsomething whose indwelling aim it is to be itself and to realise its\nown possibility. He must begin with what is not the plant, and end\nwith what is; begin, let us say, with the germ which has the tendency\nto pass into the plant. The speculative science of biology begins with\na cell, and builds these cells up into the tissues and structures out\nof which vegetables and animals are constituted. The object of the\nscience appears as the result of the scientific process: or, _a science\nis the ideal construction of its object_. As in these cases, so in the\ncase of thought. We must see it grow up from its simplest element, from\nthe bare point of being, the mere speck of being which, if actually no\nbetter than nothing, is yet a germ which in the air of thought will\ngrow and spread; and see it appear as a result due to the ingrowing and\noutgrowing union of many elements, none of which satisfies by itself,\nbut leads onward from abstractions to the meeting of abstractions in\nwhat is more and more concrete. The will and conscience, understanding\nand reason, of man are not matter-of-fact units to be picked up and\nexamined. You must, first of all, make sure what you have in hand: and\nto be sure of that is to see that the mind is the necessary outcome\nof a course of development. The mind is not an immediate _datum,_\nwith nothing behind it, coming upon the field of mental vision with\na divinely-bestowed array of faculties; but a mediated unity, i. e.\na unity which has grown up through a complex interaction of forces,\nand which lives in differences through comprehending and reconciling\nantagonisms.\n\nIf the mind be not thus exhibited in its process, in the sum and\ncontext of its relations, we may mean what we like with each mental\nobject that comes under our observation: but with as much right another\nobserver may mean something else. We may, of course, define as we\nplease: we may build up successive definitions into a consistent total:\nbut such a successful arrangement is not a real science. Unless we\nshow how this special form of mind is constituted, we are dealing with\nabstractions, with names which we may analyse, but which remain as they\nwere when _our_ analysis is over, and which seem like unsubstantial\nghosts defying our coarse engines of dissection. They are not\ndestroyed: like immaterial and aery beings they elude the sword which\nsmites them, and part but to re-unite. The name, and the conception\nbodied forth in it, is indeed stagnant, and will to all appearance\nbecome the ready prey of analysis: but there is something behind\nthis materialised and solidified conception, this worn-out counter\nor sign, which mere analysis cannot even reach. And that underlying\nnature is a process or movement, a meeting of elements, which it is\nthe business of philosophy to unfold. The analyst in this case has\ndealt with ideas as if they were a finer sort of material product, a\nfixed and assailable point: and this is perhaps the character of the\ngeneralised images, which take the place of thoughts in our customary\nhabits of mind. But ideas, when they have real force and life, are\nnot hard and solid, but, as it were, fluid and transparent, and can\neasily escape the divisions and lines which the analytical intellect\nwould impose. Perhaps some may think that it is unwise to fight with\nghosts like these, and that the best plan would be to disregard this\nwar of words altogether. But, on the other hand, it may be urged that\nsuch unsubstantial forms have a decided reality in life: that men will\ntalk of them and conjure by their means, with or without intelligence;\nand that the best course is to understand them. It will then be seen\nthat it is our proper work as philosophers to watch the process, by\nwhich the spiritual unity divides and yet retains its divided members\nin unity. Even in the first steps we take to get a real hold of an\nobject we see this. To understand it, we must deprive it of its seeming\nindependence. Every individual object is declared by the logician to\nbe the meeting of two currents, the coincidence of two movements. It\nconcentrates into an undecompounded unit,--at least such it appears to\nrepresentative or material thought,--two elements, each of which it is\nin turn identifiable with. The one of these elements has been called\nthe self-same (or identity), the universal, the genus, the whole: while\nthe second is called the difference, the particular, the part. And by\nthese two points of reference it is fixed,--by two points which are\nfor the moment accepted as stationary. What has thus been stated in\nthe technical language of Logic is often repeated in the scientific\nparlance of the day, but with more materialised conceptions and in\nmore concrete cases. The dynamic theory of matter represents it as a\nunity of attraction and repulsion. A distinguished Darwinian remarks\nthat 'all the various forms of organisms are the necessary products\nof the unconscious action and reaction between the two properties of\nadaptability and heredity, reducible as these are to the functions of\nnutrition and reproduction[3]. The terms 'action and reaction' are\nhardly sufficient, it may be, to express the sort of unity which is\ncalled for: but the statement at least shows the reduction of an actual\nfact to the interaction of two forces, the meeting of two currents.\nThe one of these is the power of the kind, or universal, which tends\nto keep things always the same: the other the power of localised\ncircumstances and particular conditions, which tends to render things\nmore and more diversified. The one may be called a centripetal, the\nother a centrifugal force. If the one be synthetic, the other is\nanalytic. But such names are of little value, save for temporary\ndistinction, and must never be treated as permanent differences which\nexplain themselves. The centre is relative, and so is the totality.\n\nThus it is that the so-called Evolutionist explains the origin of\nnatural kinds. They are what they severally are by reason of a process,\na struggle, by alliances and divisions, by re-unions and selections.\nThey are not independent of the inorganic world around them: it has\nentered into their blood and structure, and made them what they are.\nTo understand them we must learn all we can of the simpler and earlier\nforms, which have left traces in their structure: traces which,\nwithout the existence of such more primitive forms, we might have\nmisunderstood, or have passed by unperceived. And, again, we learn\nthat our hard and fast distinctions are barely justified by Nature.\nThere, kind in its extreme examples seems to run into kind, and we do\nnot find the logically-exact type accurately embodied anywhere. Our\nclassifications into genera and species turn out to be in the first\ninstance prompted by a practical need to embrace the variety in a\nsimple shape. But though perfectly valid, so far as we use them for\nsuch ends, they tend to lead us false, if we press them too far.\n\nAnd when we have seen so much, we may learn the further lesson that\nthe variety of organisation, animal and vegetable, is only the\nexhibition in an endless detail by single pictures, more or less\ncomplementary, more or less inclusive of each other, of that one\nvital organisation in principle and construction which we could not\notherwise have had presented to us. In a million lessons from the vast\nranges of contemporary and of extinct life there is impressed upon\nthe biological observer the idea of that system of life-function and\nlife-structure which is the goal of biological science. The interest\nin the mere variety whether of modern or of primeval forms of life is\nas such merely historical; its truer use is to enable the scientific\nimagination to rise above local or temporary limitations. And thus in\nthe end the records and guesses of evolution in time and place serve\nto build up a theory of the timeless universal nature of life and\norganisation.\n\nAnd what is true of Nature is equally true of the Mind. For these\ntwo, as we have already seen, are not isolable from each other.\nNeither the mind nor the so-called external world are either of them\nself-subsistent existences, issuing at once and ready-made out of\nnothing. The mind does not come forth, either equipped or un-equipped,\nto conquer the world: the world is not a prey prepared for the spider,\nwaiting for the mind to comprehend and appropriate it. The mind and\nthe world, the so-called 'subject' and so-called 'object,' are equally\nthe results of a process: and it is only when we isolate the terminal\naspects of that process, and in the practical business of life forget\nthe higher theoretical point of view, that we lose sight of their\norigin, and have two worlds facing each other. As the one side or\naspect of the process gathers feature and form, so does the other. As\nthe depth and intensity of the intellect increases, the limits of the\nexternal world extend also. For the psychical life is just the power\nwhich maintains a continuing correlation between the body and its\nenvironment, and between the various elements in that environment. It\nis the unity in which that correlation lives and is aware of itself.\nIt is the subject-object, which sets one element against another, and\ngives it quasi-independence. The mind of the savage is exactly measured\nby the world he has around him. The dull, almost animal, sensation\nand feeling, which is what we may call his mental action, is just the\nobverse of the narrow circumference that girdles his external world.\nThe beauty and interest of the grander phenomena of terrestrial nature,\nand of the celestial movements, are ideally non-existent for a being,\nwhose whole soul is swallowed up in the craving for food, the fear of\nattack, and the lower enjoyments of sense. In the course of history we\ncan see the intellect growing deeper and broader, and the limits of the\nworld recede simultaneously with the advance of the mind. This process\nor movement of culture takes place in the sequence of generations, and\nin the variety of races and civilisations spread over the face of the\nworld. But here too, the higher science, not resting in the merely\nhistorical inquiry, takes no interest in the medium of time, and merely\nuses it to supply material for the rational sequence of ideas[4].\n\nThe objective world of knowledge is really at one with the subjective\nworld: they spring from a common source, what Kant called the 'original\nsynthetic unity of apperception.' The distinction between them flows\nfrom abstraction, from failure to keep in view the whole round of\nlife and experience. The subjective world--the mind of man--is really\nconstituted by the same force as the objective world of nature: the\nlatter has been translated from the world of extension, with its\nexternality of parts in time and space, into an inner world of thought\nwhere unity, the fusion or coalescence of all types and forms, is the\nleading feature. The difficulty of passing from the world of being to\nthe world of thoughts, from notion to thing, from subject to object,\nfrom Ego to Non-ego, is a difficulty which men have unduly allowed to\ngrow upon them. It grows by talking of and analysing _mere_ being,\n_mere_ thought, _mere_ notion, or _mere_ thing. And it will be\ndispelled when it is seen that there is no _mere_ being, and no _mere_\nthought: that these two halves of the unity of experience--the unity\nwe divide and the division we unify in every judgment we make--are\ncontinually leaning out of themselves, each towards the other. But\nmen, beginning as they must from themselves, and failing to revise and\ncorrect their stand-point till it became an _\u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u1f74 \u1f00\u03bd\u03c5\u03c0\u03cc\u03b8\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2,_ argued\nfrom a belief that the individual mind was a fixed and absolute centre,\nfrom which the universe had to be evaluated. In Hegel's words, they\nmade man and not God the object of their philosophy[5]. So that Kant\nreally showed the outcome of a system which acted on the hypothesis\nthat man in his individual capacity was all in all. Hegel, on his own\nshowing, came to prove that the real scope of philosophy was God;--that\nthe Absolute is the 'original synthetic unity' from which the external\nworld and the Ego have issued by differentiation, and in which they\nreturn to unity.\n\nIf this be so, then there is behind the external world and behind the\nmind an organism of pure types or forms of thought,--an organism which\npresents itself, in a long array of fragments, to the senses in the\nworld of nature, where all things lie outside of one another, and which\nthen is, as it were, reflected back into itself so as to constitute the\nmind, or spiritual world, where all parts tend to coalesce in a more\nthan organic unity. The deepest craving of thought, and the fundamental\nproblem of philosophy, will accordingly be to discover the nature and\nlaw of that totality or primeval unity,--the totality which we see\nappearing in the double aspect of nature and mind, and which we first\nbecome acquainted with as it is manifested in this state of dis-union.\nTo satisfy this want is what the Logic of Hegel seeks. It lays bare\nthe kingdom of those potent shades,--the phases of the Idea--which\nembodies itself more concretely in the external world of body, and the\ninward world of mind. The psychological or individualist conditions,\nwhich even in the Kantian criticism sometimes seem to set up mind as an\nentity parallel to the objects of nature, and antithetic to nature as\na whole, have fallen away. Reason has to be taken in the whole of its\nactualisation as a world of reason, not in its bare possibility, not in\nthe narrow ground of an individual's level of development, but in the\nrealised formations of reasonable knowledge and action, as shown in Art\nand Life, Science and Religion. In this way we come to a reason which\nmight be in us or in the world, but which, being to a certain extent\ndifferent from either, was the focus of two orders of manifestations.\n\nTo ascertain that ultimate basis of the world and mind was the chief\nthing philosophy had to see to. But in order to do this, a good deal\nof preliminary work was necessary. The work of Logic, as understood\nby Hegel, involves a stand-point which is not that of every-day life\nor reflection on experience. It presupposes the whole process from\nthe provisional starting-point which seems at first sight simplest\nand universally acceptable, upwards to the unhypothetical principle\nwhich--though at a long distance--it involves and leads up to, or\npresupposes. We all know Aristotle's dictum \u1fbd\u0395\u03bd \u03c4\u03bf\u1fd0\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f76\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u1fd0\u03c2 \u03c4\u1f70\n\u03bd\u03bf\u03b7\u03c4\u03ac \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9\u03bd: _Nihil in intellectu quod non prius in sensu._ The fact\nof sense and feeling _is_ the fact of experience: or rather the fact\nand reality of experience is the underlying truth which the expression\nof it in terms of sense and perception inadequately interprets. Even\nin the principles of sensation there is judgment, thought, reasoning:\nbut it needs eliciting, re-statement, opening up, and explanation.\nThe Phenomenology of Mind is, as Hegel himself has said, his voyage of\ndiscovery. It traces the path, and justifies the work of traversing\nit, from the ill-founded and imperfect certainties of sense and\ncommon-sense, up through various scientific, moral, and religious modes\nof interpreting experience and expressing its net sum of reality,\ntill it culminates in the stand-point of 'pure thought,' of supreme\nor 'absolute' consciousness. It is certainly not a history of the\nindividual mind: and equally little is it a history of the process of\nthe intellectual development of the race. In a way it mixes up both.\nFor its main interest is not on the purely historical side. It indulges\nin bold transitions, in sudden changes of scene from ancient Greece\nand Rome to modern Germany, from public facts and phases of national\nlife to works of fiction (compare its use of Goethe's _Faust_ and his\nversion of _Rameau's Nephew)._ It lingers--for historical accuracy and\nproportion unduly--over the period of Kant and Fichte, and reads Seneca\nby the light of the _Sorrows of Werther._ For its aim is to gather from\nthe inspection of all ways in which men have attempted to reach reality\nthe indication of their several content of truth, and of the several\ndefects from it, so as to show the one necessary path on which even all\ntheir errors converge and which they serve to set out in clearer light.\n\nHegel's philosophy is undoubtedly the outcome of a vast amount of\nhistorical experience, particularly in the ancient world, and implies\na somewhat exhaustive study of the products of art, science, politics,\nand religion. By experience he was led to his philosophy, not by\nwhat is called _a priori_ reasoning. It is curious indeed to observe\nthe prevalent delusion that German philosophy is the 'high _priori_\nroad,'--to hear its profundity admired, but its audacity and neglect of\nobvious facts deplored. The fact is that without experience neither\nHegel nor anybody else will come to anything. But, on the other hand,\nexperience is in one sense only the yet undeciphered mass of feeling\nand reality, the yet unexpounded psychical content of his life; or,\ntaken in another acceptation, it is only a form which in one man's case\nmeans a certain power of vision, and in another a different degree. One\nman sees the idea which explains and unifies experience as actuality:\nto the other man it is only a subjective notion. And even when it is\nseen, there are differences in the subsequent development. One man\nsees it, asserts it on all hands, and then closes. Another sees it,\nand asks if this is all, or if it is only part of a system. An appeal\nto 'my experience' is very much like an appeal to 'my sentiments' or\n'my feelings': it may prove as much or as little as can be imagined:\nin other words, it can prove nothing. The same is true of the appeal\nto consciousness, that oracle on whose dicta it has sometimes been\nproposed to found a system of philosophy. By that name seems meant the\ndeliverances of some primal and unerring nucleus of mind, some real\nand central self, whose voice can be clearly distinguished from the\nmere divergent cries of self-interest and casual opinion. That such\ndiscernment is possible no philosophy will seek to deny: but it is a\ndiscernment which involves comparison, examination, and reasoning.\nAnd in that case the appeal to consciousness is the exhortation to\nclear and deliberate thinking. While, on another side, it hints that\nphilosophy does not--in the end--deal with mere abstractions, but with\nthe real concrete life of mind. And if an appeal to other people's\nexperience is meant, that is only an argument from authority. What\nother people experience is their business, not mine. Experience\n_means_ a great deal for which it is not the right name: and to give\nan explanation of what it is, and what it does, would render a great\nservice to English methodologists.\n\nThere are, however, two modes in which these studies to discover the\ntruth may appear. In the one case they are reproduced in all their\nfragmentary and patch-work character. They are supposed to possess a\nvalue of their own, and are enunciated with all the detail of historic\nincident. The common-place books of a man are, as it were, published\nto instruct the world and give some hint of the extent of his reading.\nBut, in the other case, the scaffolding of incident and externality\nmay be removed. The single facts, which gave the persuasion of the\nidea, are dismissed, as interesting only for the individual student on\nhis way to truth: or, if the historical vehicle of truth be retained\nat all, it is translated into another and intellectual medium. Such a\nhistory, the quintessence of extensive and deep research, is presented\nin the Phenomenology. The names of persons and places have faded from\nthe record, as if they had been written in evanescent inks,--dates\nare wanting,--individualities and their biographies yield up their\nplace to universal and timeless principles. Such typical forms are\nthe concentrated essence of endless histories. They remind one of the\ndescriptions which Plato in his Republic gives of the several forms\nof temporal government. Or, to take a modern instance, the Hegelian\npanorama of thought which presents only the universal evolution of\nthought,--that evolution in which the whole mind of the world takes the\nplace of all his children, whether they belong to the common level,\nor stand amongst representative heroes,--may be paralleled to English\nreaders by Browning's poem of _Sordello._ There can be no question\nthat such a method is exposed to criticism, and likely to excite\nmisconception. If it tend to give artistic completeness to the work,\nit also tantalises the outsider who has a desire to reach his familiar\nstanding-ground. He wishes a background of time and space, where the\nforms of the abstract ideas may be embodied to his mind's eye. In most\nages, and with good ground, the world has been sceptical, when it\nperceived no reference to authorities, no foot-notes, no details of\nexperiments made: nor is it better disposed to accept provisorily, and\nfind, as the process goes on, that it verifies itself to intelligence.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _De Anima,_ iii. 4.]\n\n[Footnote 2: A philological parallel may make this clearer. 'The\nIndo-German,' says Misteli _(__Typen des Sprachbaues,_ p. 363),\n'embraces or condenses several categories in a single idea in a\nway which though less logical is more fruitful; for in this way he\nprocures graspable totals with which he can work further, and not\npatch-work which would crumble away in his hands. Our _He_ includes\nfour grammatical categories, which work not separately, but as a\nwhole:--third person, masculine gender, singular, nominative; whereas\nthe Magyar _\u00f6_ is the vehicle only of one category, the third person,\nwhich is either determined as singular by the context, or as plural\nby the addition of _k_: gender in these languages does not exist: and\nas subject again _\u00f6_ is specially interpreted from the context. The\nunification of the four categories makes _He_ an individual and a word;\nthe generality and isolation of one category makes _\u00f6_ an abstract and\na stem.']\n\n[Footnote 3: H\u00e4ckel, _Nat\u00fcrliche Sch\u00f6pfungs-Geschichte_, p. 157.]\n\n[Footnote 4: See above, pp. 155, 198.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Hegel's _Werke,_ vol. i. p. 15.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\n\nGENERAL LAW OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY.\n\n\n'The order and concatenation of ideas,' says Spinoza, 'is the same as\nthe order and concatenation of things[1].' The objective world at least\nof acts and institutions develops parallel with the growth and system\nof men's ideas. In the tangled skein which human life and reality\npresent to the observer, the only promising clue is to be found in the\nprocess by which in history the past throws light on the present and\ngets light in return. There in the stream of time and in the expanses\nof space the condensed results, the hard knots, which present life\noffers for explanation, are broken up into a vast number of problems,\neach presenting a different aspect, and one helping towards a fairer\nand clearer appreciation of another.\n\nThe present medium of general intelligence and theory in which we live\nembraces in a way the results of all that has preceded it, of all the\nsteps of culture through which the world has risen. But in this body of\nintellectual beliefs and ideas with which our single soul is clad,--in\nthis common soil of thought,--the several contributions of the past\nhave been half or even wholly obliterated, and are only the shadows of\ntheir old selves. What in a former day was a question of all-engrossing\ninterest has left but a trace: the complete and detailed formations\nof ancient thought have lost their distinctness of outline, and have\nshrunk into mere shadings in the contour of our intellectual world.\nQuestions, from which the ancient philosophers could never shake\nthemselves loose, are now only a barely perceptible _nuance_ in the\ncomplex questions of the present day. Discussions about the bearings of\nthe 'one' and the 'many,' puzzles like those of Zeno, and the casuistry\nof statesmanship such as is found in the Politics of Aristotle, have\nfor most people little else than an antiquarian interest. We scarcely\ndetect the faint traces they have left in the 'burning questions'\nof our own age. We are too ready to forget that the past is never\naltogether annihilated, and that every step, however slight it may\nseem, which has once been taken in the movement of intellect, must be\ntraversed again in order to understand the constitution of our present\nintellectual world. To outward appearance the life and work of past\ngenerations have so completely lost their organic nature, with its\nunified and vital variety, that in their present phase they have turned\ninto hard and opaque atoms of thought. The living forces of growth,\nas geologists tell us, which pulsed through the vegetables of one\nperiod are suspended and put in abeyance: and these vegetables turn\ninto what we call the inorganic and inanimate strata of the earth.\nSimilarly, when all vitality has been quenched or rendered torpid in\nthe structures of thought, they sink into the material from which\nindividuals draw their means of intellectual support. This inorganic\nmaterial of thought stands to the mind, almost in the same way as the\nearth and its products stand to the body of a man. If the one is our\nmaterial, the other is our spiritual _substance_. In the one our mind,\nas in the other our body, lives, moves, and has its being.\n\nBut in each case besides the practical need, which bids us consume the\nsubstance as dead matter, and apply it to use, there is the theoretical\nbent which seeks to reproduce ideally the past as a living and fully\ndeveloped organism. 'This past,' says Hegel, 'is traversed by the\nindividual, in the same way as one who begins to study a more advanced\nscience repeats the preliminary lessons with which he had long been\nacquainted, in order to bring their information once more before his\nmind. He recalls them: but his interest and study are devoted to other\nthings. In the same way the individual must go through all that is\ncontained in the several stages in the growth of the universal mind:\nbut all the while he feels that they are forms of which the mind has\ndivested itself,--that they are steps on a road which has been long\nago completed and levelled. Thus, points of learning, which in former\ntimes tasked the mature intellects of men, are now reduced to the level\nof exercises, lessons, and even games of boyhood: and in the progress\nof the schoolroom we may recognise the course of the education of the\nworld, drawn, as it were, in shadowy outline[2].'\n\nThe scope of historical investigation therefore is this. It shows\nhow every shading in the present world of thought, which makes our\nspiritual environment, has been once living and actual with an\nindependent being of its own. But it also reveals the presence of\nshades and elements in the present which if our eyes had looked on the\npresent alone we should scarcely have suspected: and it thus enables us\nto interpolate stages in development of which the result preserves only\nrudimentary traces. And, when carried out in a philosophical spirit,\nit shows further, that in those formations, which are produced in\neach period of the structural development of reason, the universe of\nthought, or the Idea, is always whole and complete, but characterised\nin some special mode which for that period seems absolute and final.\nEach form or 'dimension' of thought, in which the totality is grasped\nand unified, is therefore not so simple or elementary as it may seem\nto casual observers regarding only the simplicity of language: it is\na total, embracing more or less of simpler elements, each of which\nwas once an inferior total, though in this larger sphere they are\nreduced to unity. Thus each term or period in the process is really\nan individualised whole, with a complex interconnexion and contrast\nincluded in it: it is _concrete._ No single word or phrase explains it:\nyet it is one totality,--a rounded life, from which its several spheres\nof life must be explained. But when that period is passing away, the\nform of its idea is separated, and retained, apart from the life and\nmass of the elements which constituted it a real totality; and then the\nmere shading or shell, with only part of its context of thought, is\nleft _abstract._ When that time has come, a special form, a whole act\nin the drama, of humanity has been transformed into an empty husk, and\nis only a name.\n\nThe sensuous reality of life, as it is limited in space and time, and\nmade palpable in matter and motion, is however the earliest cradle\nof humanity. The environment of sense is prior in the order of time\nto the environment of thought. Who, it may be asked, first wrought\ntheir way out of that atmosphere of sense into an ether of pure\nthought? Who first saw that in sense there was yet present something\nmore than sensation,--that the deliverances of sense-perception rest\nupon and involve relations, ties, distinctions, which contradict its\nself-confidence and carry us beyond its simple indications?. Who laid\nthe first foundations of that world of reason in which the civilised\nnations of the modern period live and move? The answer is, the Greek\nphilosophers: and in the first place the philosophers of Elea. For\nHegel the history of thought begins with Greece. All that preceded the\nbeginnings of Greek speculation, and most that lies outside it, has\nonly a secondary interest for the culture of the West.\n\nBut 'many heroes lived before the days of Agamemnon,' The records of\nculture no longer begin with Greece. Even in Hegel's own day, voices,\nlike those of the poet R\u00fcckert (in his 'habilitation'-exercise), were\nheard declaring that the true fountain of European thought, the real\nphilosophy, was to be sought in the remoter East. Since the time of\nHegel, the study of primitive life, and of the rise of primitive ideas\nin morals and religion, has enabled us to some extent to trace the\nearly gropings of barbarian fancy and reason. The comparative study\nof languages has, on the other hand, partly revealed the contrivances\nby which human reason has risen from one grade of consciousness to\nanother. The sciences of language and of primitive culture have\nrevealed new depths in the development of thought, where thought is\nstill enveloped in nature and sense and symbols,--depths which were\nscarcely dreamed of in the earlier part of the present century. Here\nand there, investigators have even supposed that they had found the\ncradle of some elements in art, religion, and society, or, it may be,\nof humanity itself.\n\nThese researches have accomplished much, and they promise to accomplish\nmore. They help us perhaps to take a juster view of the early Greek\nthinkers, and show how much they still laboured under conditions\nof thought and speech from which their struggles have partly freed\nus. But for the present, and with certain explanations to be given\nlater, it may still be said that the birthday of our modern world\nis the moment when the Greek sages began to construe the facts of\nthe universe. Before their time the world lay, as it were, in a\ndream-life. Unconsciously in the womb of time the spirit of the world\nwas growing,--its faculties forming in secresy and silence,--until\nthe day of birth when the preparations were completed, and the young\nspirit drew its first breath in the air of thought. A new and to us\nall-important epoch in the history of thought begins with the Greeks:\nand the utterances of Parmenides mark the first hard, and still\nsomewhat material, outlines of the spiritual world in which we live.\nOther nations of an older day had gathered the materials: in their\nlanguages, customs, religions, &c., there was an unconscious deposit of\nreason. It was reserved for the Greeks to recognise that reason: and\nthus in them reason became conscious.\n\nFor us, then, it was the Greek philosophers who distinctly drew the\ndistinction between sense and thought, and who first translated the\nactual forms of our natural life into their abbreviated equivalents in\nterms of logic. The struggle to carry through this transition, this\nelevation into pure thought, is what gives the dramatic interest to\nthe Dialogues of Plato and keeps the sympathy of his readers always\nfresh. Socrates, we are told, first taught men to seek a general\ndefinition: not to be content with having--like Pythagoreans--their\nmeaning wrapped up inseparably in psychical images and quasi-material\nsymbols. He taught them to refer word to fellow word, to elicit the\nunderlying idea by the collision and comparison of instances, to get\nat the 'content' which was identical in all the multiplicity of forms.\nHe taught them, in--brief, to think: and Plato carried out widely and\ndeeply the lesson. The endeavour to create an ideal world, which, at\nits very creation, seems often to be transformed into a refined and\nattenuated copy of the sense-world, meets us in almost every page of\nhis Dialogues. In Aristotle this effort, with its concomitant tendency\nto give 'sensible' form to the ideal, is so far over and past; and\nsome sort of intellectual world, perhaps narrow and inadequate,\nis reached,--the logical scheme in which immediate experience was\nexpressed and codified. What these thinkers began, succeeding ages have\ninherited and promoted.\n\nIn the environment of reason, therefore, which encompasses the\nconsciousness of our age, are contained under a generalised form and\nwith elimination of all the particular circumstances, the results won\nin the development of mind and morals. These results now constitute\nthe familiar joints and supports in the framework of ordinary thought:\naround and upon them cluster our beliefs and imaginations. During each\nepoch of history, the consciousness of the world, at first by the mouth\nof its great men, its illustrious statesmen, artists, and philosophers,\nhas explicitly recognised, and translated into terms of thought,--into\nlogical language,--that synthesis of the world which the period had\npractically secured by the action of its children. That activity went\non, as is the way of natural activities, spontaneously, through the\npressure of need, by an immanent adaptation of means to ends, not in\nconscious straining after a result. For the conscious or reflective\neffort of large bodies of men is often in a direction contrary to\nthe Spirit of the Time. This Spirit of the Time, the absolute mind,\nwhich is neither religious nor irreligious, but infinite and absolute\nin its season, is the real motive principle of the world. But that\nSpirit of the Time is not always the voice that is most effective at\nthe poll, or rings loudest in public rhetoric. It is often a still\nsmall voice, which only the wise, the self-restrained, the unselfish\nhear. And he who hears it and obeys it, not he who follows the blatant\ncrowd, is the hero. It is only to a mistaken or an exaggerated\nhero-worship, therefore, that Hegel can be said to be a foe. Great\nmen are great: but the Spirit of the Time is greater: their greatness\nlies in understanding it and bringing it to consciousness. The man,\nwho would act independently of his time and in antagonism to it, is\nonly the exponent of its latent tendencies. Nor need the synthesis\nbe always formulated by a philosopher in order to leaven the minds\nof the next generation. The whole system of thought,--the theory of\nthe time,--its world, in short, influences minds, although it is not\nexplicitly formulated and stated: it becomes the nursery of future\nthought and speculation. Philosophy in its articulate utterances only\ngives expression to the silent and half-conscious grasp of reason over\nits objects. But when the adaptation is not merely reached but seen and\nfelt, when the synthesis or world of that time is made an object of\nself-consciousness, the exposition has made an advance upon the period\nwhich preceded. For that period started in its growth from the last\nexposition, the preceding system of philosophy, after it had become\nthe common property of the age, and taken its place in their mental\nequipment.\n\nEach exposition or perception of the synthesis by the philosopher\nrestores or re-affirms the unity which in the divided energies of\nthe period, in its progressive, reforming, and reactionary aspects,\nin its differentiating time, had to a great extent been lost. By the\nreforming, progressive, and scientific movement of which each period\nis full, the unity or totality with which it began is shown to be\ndefective. The value of the initial synthesis is impaired; its formula\nis found inadequate to comprehend the totality: and the differences\nwhich that unity involved, or which were implicitly in it, are now\nexplicitly affirmed. But the bent towards unity is a natural law\nmaking itself felt even in the period of differentiation. And it\nmakes itself felt in the pain of contradiction, of discord, of broken\nharmony. And that pain--which is the sign of an ever-present life that\nrefuses to succumb to the encroaching elements--is the stimulus to\nre-construction. Only so far as pain ceases to be pain, as it benumbs,\nand deadens, does it involve stagnation: as pain proper, felt as\nresistance to an inner implicitly victorious principle, it stimulates\nand quickens to efforts to make life whole again. The integrating\nprinciple is present and active. There is then an effort, a re-action;\nthe feeling has to do something to make itself outwardly felt: the\nimplicit has to be actually put in its place, forced as it were into\naction and set forth[3]: and the existing contrasts and differences\nwhich the re-forming agency has called into vigorous life are lifted\nfrom their isolation, and show of independence, and kept, as it were,\nsuspended in the unity[4]. The differences are not lost or annihilated:\nbut they come back to a centre, they find themselves, as it were,\nat home: they lose their unfair prominence and self-assertion, and\nsink into their places as constituents in the embracing organism[5].\nThe unity which comes is not however the same as the unity which\ndisappeared, however much it may seem so. The mere _notion_--the\ninner sense and inner unity--has put itself forward into the real\nworld: it is no longer a mere subjective principle, but as moulded\ninto actuality, into the objective world, it has become an Idea.\n(_Begriff_ is now _Idee._) For the Idea is always more than a notion:\nit is a notion translated into objectivity, and yet in objectivity\nnot sinking into a mere congeries of independent parts, but retaining\nthem 'ideally'--united by links of thought and service--in its larger\nideal-reality. It is all that the object ought to be (and which in a\nsense it must be, if it is at all), and all that the subject sought to\nbe and looked forward to.\n\nThe mind of the world moves, as it were, in cycles, but with each new\ncycle a difference supervenes, a new tone is perceptible. History,\nwhich reflects the changing aspects of reality, does and does not\nrepeat itself. The distinctions and the unity are neither of them the\nsame after each step as they were before it: they have both suffered a\nchange: it is a new scene that comes above the horizon, however like\nthe last it may seem to the casual observer. Thus when the process\nof differentiation is repeated anew, it is repeated in higher terms,\nmultiplied, and with a higher power or wider range of meaning[6]. Each\nunification however is a perfect world, a complete whole: it is the\nsame sum of being; but in each successive level of advance it receives\na fuller expression, and a more complexly-grouped type of features[7].\nSuch is the rhythmic movement,--the ebb and flow of the world, always\nrecurring with the same burden but, as we cannot but hope, with richer\nvariety of tones, and fuller sense of itself. The sum of actuality, the\nAbsolute, is neither increased nor diminished. The world, the ultimate\nreality of experience and life, was as much a rounded total to the\nHebrew Patriarchs as it is to us: without advancing, it has been, we\nmay say, in its expression deepened, developed, and organised. In one\npart of the sway of thought, however, there is a harder, narrower,\ninsistance (by practical and business minds) on the sufficiency of\na definite principle to satisfy all wants and to make all mysteries\nplain, and a disposition to ignore all other elements of life: at\nanother, there is a fuller recognition of the differences, gaps, and\ncontradictions, involved in the last synthesis,--which recognition\nit is the tendency of scientific inquiry, of reforming efforts, of\ninnovation, to produce: and in the last period of the sway, there is\na stronger and more extended grasp taken by the unity pervading these\ndifferences,--which is the work appointed to philosophy gathering up\nthe results of science and practical amendments.\n\nTo this rhythmical movement Hegel has appropriated the name of\nDialectic. The name came in the first instance from Kant, but\nultimately from Plato, where it denotes the process which brings the\n'many' under the 'one,' and divides the 'one' into the 'many.' But how,\nit may be asked, does difference spring up, if we begin with unity, and\nhow do the differences return into the unity? In other words, given a\nuniversal, how are we ever to get at particulars, and how will these\nparticulars ever give rise to a real individual? Such is the problem,\nin the technical language of the Logic of the 'Notion.' And we may\nanswer, that the unity or universal in question is either a true and\nadequate or an imperfect unity. In the latter case it is a mere unit,\namid other units, bound to them and serving to recall them by relations\nof contrast, complement, similarity. It is one of many,--a subordinate\nmember in a congeries, and not _the One_. If, on the contrary, it be\na true Unity, it is a concrete universal,--the parent of perpetual\nvariety. The unity, if it be its genuine shape which is formulated by\nphilosophers, is not mere monotony without differences. If it is a\nliving and real Idea, containing a complex inter-action of principles:\nit is not a single line of action, but the organic confluence of\nseveral. No one single principle by itself is enough to state a life,\na character, or a period. But as the unity comes before the eye of the\nsingle thinker, it is seldom or never grasped with all its fulness of\nlife and difference. The whole synthesis, although it is implicitly\npresent and underlies experience and life as its essential basis,\nis not consciously apprehended, but for the most part taken on one\nside only, one emphatic aspect into which it has concentrated itself.\nAnd even if the master could grasp the whole, could see the unity of\nactuality in all its differences, (and we may doubt whether any man\nor any philosopher can thus incarnate the prerogative of reason,) his\nfollowers and the popular mind would not imitate him. While his grasp\nof comprehension may possibly have been thorough, though he may have\nseen life whole through all its differences, inequalities, and schisms,\nand with all these reduced or idealised to their due proportions,\ninto the unity beyond, the crowd who follow him are soon compelled\nto lay exclusive stress on some one side of his theory. Some of them\nsee the totality from one aspect, some from another. It is indeed the\nwhole which in a certain sense they see: but it is the whole narrowed\ndown to a point. While _his_ theory was a comprehensive and concrete\ngrasp, including and harmonising many things which seem otherwise wide\napart, theirs is abstract and inadequate: it fixes on a single point,\nwhich is thus withdrawn from its living and meaning-giving context,\nand left as an empty name. Now it is the very nature of popular\nreasoning to tend to abstractions, in this sense of the word. Popular\nthought wants the time and perseverance necessary to retain a whole\ntruth, and so is contented with a partial image. It seeks for simple\nand sharp precision: it likes to have something distinctly before\nit, visible to the eye of imagination, and capable of being stated\nin a clear and unambiguous formula for the intellect. And popular\nthought--the dogmatic insistence on one-sided truth--is not confined\nto the so-called non-philosophic world: just as, on the other hand,\nthe inclusive and comprehensive unity of life and reality is seen and\nfelt and recognised by many--and felt by them first--who have no claim\nto the technical rank of philosophers. Popular thought is the thought\nwhich skims the surface of reality, which addresses itself to the level\nof opinion prevalent in all members of the mass as such, and does not\ngo beyond that into the ultimate and complex depths of experience.\n\nThus it comes about that the concrete or adequate synthesis which\nshould have appeared in the self-conscious thought of the period,\nwhen it reflected upon what it was, has been replaced by a narrow\nand one-sided formula, an abstract and formal universal, a universal\nwhich does not express all the particulars. One predominant side of\nthe synthesis steals the place of the total: what should have been\na comprehensive universal has lowered itself into a particular. Not\nindeed the same particular as existed before the union: because it has\nbeen influenced by the synthesis, so as to issue with a new colouring,\nas if it had been steeped in a fresh liquid. But still it is really\na particular: and as such, it evokes a new particular in antagonism\nto it and exhibiting an element latent in the synthesis. If the\nfirst side of the antithesis which claims unduly to be the total, or\nuniversal, be called Conservative, the second must be called Reforming\nor Progressive. If the first step is Dogmatic, the second is Sceptical.\nIf the one side assumes to be the whole, the other practically refutes\nthe assumption. If the one agency clings blindly to the unity,--as\nwhen pious men rally round the central idea of religion, the other as\ntenaciously and narrowly holds to the difference,--as when science\ndisplays the struggle for existence and the empire of chance among\nthe myriads of aimless organisms. They are two warring abstractions,\neach in a different direction. But as they are the offspring of one\nparent,--as they have each in their own way narrowed the whole down to\na point, it cannot but be that when they evolve or develop all that\nis in them, they will ultimately coincide, and complete each other.\nThe contradiction will not disappear until it has been persistently\nworked out,--when each opposing member which was potentially a total\nhas become what it was by its own nature destined to be. And this\ndisappearance of the antithesis is the reappearance of the unity in all\nits strength, reinforced with all the wealth of new distinctions.\n\nThus on a large scale we have seen the law of growth, of development,\nof life. It may be called growth by antagonism. But the antagonism\nhere is over-ruled, and subject to the guidance of an indwelling\nunity. _Mere_ antagonism--if there be such a thing--would lead to\nnothing. A mere positive or affirmative point of being would lead\nto no antithesis, were it not, so to speak, a point floating in an\nether of larger life and being, whence it draws an outside element\nwhich it overcomes, assimilates and absorbs. A bare national mind\nonly grows to richer culture, because it lives in a universal human\nlife, and can say _Nihil humani a me alienum puto._ So too the mere\nunit is always tainted with a dependence on outside: or it is always\nimplicitly more than a mere unit: and what seems to come upon it from\noutside, is really an enemy from within, and it falls because there is\ntreason within its walls. The revolution succeeds because the party\nof conservative order is not so hard and homogeneous as it appears.\nSo, too, it is the immanent presence of the complete thought, of the\nIdea, which is the heart and moving spring that sets going the pulse\nof the universal movement of thought, and which reappears in every one\nof these categories to which the actualised thought of an age has been\nreduced. In every term of thought there are three stages or elements:\nthe original narrow definiteness, claiming to be self-sufficient,--the\nantagonism and criticism to which this gives rise,--and the union which\nresults when the two supplement and modify each other. In the full life\nand organic unity of every notion there is a definite kernel, with\nrigid outlines as if it were immovable: there is a revulsion against\nsuch exclusiveness, a questioning and critical attitude: and there is\nthe complete notion, where the two first stages interpenetrate.\n\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Eth._ ii 7.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Phenomenologie__des Geistes_, p. 22.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Gesetzt.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Aufgehoben.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Idee: Ideeller Weise.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Potenz.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'Nicht nur die Einsicht in die Abh\u00e4ngigkeit des Einzelnen\nvom Ganzen ist allein das Wesentliche; ebenso dass jedes Moment selbst\nunabh\u00e4ngig vom Ganzen das Ganze ist, und dies ist das Vertiefen in die\nSache.' (Hegels _Leben_, p. 548.)]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\n\nABSTRACT AND CONCRETE I AND THE ORDINARY LOGIC.\n\n\nThe ordinary logic-books have made us all familiar with the popular\ndistinction between Abstract and Concrete. By a concrete term they mean\nthe name of an existence or reality which is obvious to the senses, and\nis found in time and place;--or they mean the name of an attribute when\nwe expressly or tacitly recognise its dependence upon such a thing of\nthe senses. When, on the contrary, the attribute is forcibly withdrawn\nfrom its context and made an independent entity in the mind, the term\nexpressing it becomes in the usual phraseology abstract. Any term\ntherefore which denotes a non-sensible or intelligible object would\nprobably be called abstract. And there is something to be said for the\ndistinction, which, though unsuccessful in its expression, has some\nfeeling of the radical antithesis between mere being and mere thought.\nIt is true, that in the totality of sense and feeling, in the full\nsense-experience, there is a concrete fulness, as it were, an infinite\nstore of features and phases waiting for subsequent analysis to detect.\nIn the real kind of actual nature there is an inexhaustible mine of\nproperties, which no artificial classification and description can\never come to the end of. Every quality which we state, every relation\nwhich we predicate, is a partial and incomplete element in this\npresupposed reality, this implicit concrete; and as such is abstract,\nand comparatively unreal. It is something forcibly torn out of and held\napart from its context. But on the other hand the concrete reality is\nnot at first real, but implicit: it becomes really concrete only as it\nre-embraces, and re-constitutes in its totality the elements detected\nby analysis. But the popular distinction forgets this, and gives the\ntitle and rank of concrete to what very poorly deserves the name, viz.\nto the yet undiscerned reality denoted by a substantive name. Yet\nthere can be little doubt that the popular use of these terms, or the\npopular apprehension of what constitutes reality,--for that is what it\ncomes to,--is sufficiently represented by the ordinary logic-books.\nSo that, if the whole business of the logician lies in formulating\nthe distinctions prevalent in popular thought, the ordinary logic is\ncorrect.\n\nNow the popular logic of the day,--the logic which has long been\ntaught in our schools and universities--has three sources.--In the\nfirst place, but in a slight degree, it trenches upon the province\nof psychology, and gives some account of the operation by which\nconcepts or general ideas are supposed to be formed, and of the errors\nor fallacies which naturally creep into the process of reasoning.\nThis is the more strictly modern, the descriptive part of our\nlogic-books.--But, secondly, the logic of our youth rests in a much\nhigher degree upon the venerable authority of Aristotle. That logic,\nwithin its own compass, was a masterpiece of analysis, and for many\ncenturies maintained an ascendency over the minds of men, which it\nwell deserved. But it was not an analysis of thought or knowledge as a\nwhole, and it treated its subject in fragments. It gave in one place\nan analysis of science and in another an analysis of certain methods,\nwhich could be observed in popular discussions and practical oratory.\nAs Lord Bacon remarked, it did little else than state and, it may be,\nexaggerate the _rationale_ of argumentation. A high level of popular\nthought it unquestionably was, which Aristotle had to investigate,--a\nlevel which many generations of less favoured races were unable to\nreach. But there were defects in this Logic which fatally marred its\ngeneral usefulness, when the limited scope of its original intention\nhad been lost sight of. The thoughts of Greece, it has been said, were\ngreatest and most active in the line of popular action for the city and\nthe public interest, in the discussions, the quibbles, the fallacies,\nand rhetorical arts of the barber's shop and the 'agora.' The aim\nof such exercises was to convince, to demonstrate, to persuade, to\novercome;--it might be for good and truth, but also it might not. And\naccordingly the Logic of Aristotle has been said to have for its end\nand canon the power to convince and to give demonstrative certainty.\nThere is some ground, it may be, for this charge. The ancient logician\nseems to luxuriate in a rank growth of forms of sophism, and in an\nalmost childlike fondness for variety of argumentative method. He\nseems resolved to trace the wayward tricks of thought and its phases\nthrough every nook and cranny, to exhaust all the permutations and\ncomplications of its elements. But let us be just, and remember that\nall this was in the main a speculative inquiry--for the sake of theory.\nIt developed the powers of judgment and inference, just as the modern\nresearch for new metals, new plants, or new planets, develops the\npowers of observation. Both have some value in the material results\nthey discover: but, after all, the mental culture they give is the main\nthing. And the talents quickened by deductive research are no whit\nless valuable than those owed to the other. Forms are essential, even\nif it be possible to make the terrible mistake of regarding them as\nall-important to the exclusion of matter.\n\nAnd then, this is not the whole truth. There is a perfectly serious\nGreek science--Mathematics--a science of many branches: a science\nwhich, from Plato downwards, always stood in alliance with the studies\nof philosophy. Now, it might be said, perhaps with ground, that the\nconception of mathematical method too much dominated all attempts to\nget at the rationale of science, and led to the supremacy of syllogism.\nIt would be fairer perhaps to put this objection in another shape.\nWe should then say that the logic of Aristotle,--the _Analytics_--is\ntoo much restricted to dealing with the most general and elementary\nprinciples of reasoning. But this is not in itself a fault. It\nbecomes a fault only where there is no growth in philosophy--when\nit is merely handed on from master to pupil; and where there is a\ntendency to put philosophic doctrine to immediate use. To expend the\nwhole energy of intellect in laying bare the general principles, the\nfundamental method, of knowledge and inference, is precisely what the\nfounder of a science has a duty to do. But the beginning thus made\nrequires development--and development which is fruitful must proceed\nby correction and antithesis, no less than by positive additions. It\nwas not given to Aristotle's logic to be so carried on. His logic,\nlike his system in general, had no real successor to carry it on in\nthe following generation: and when in the less original ages of early\nByzantine rule it again found students, it had become a quasi-sacred\ntext which could only be commented on, not modified and developed. From\nthe great _Exegetai_ of Greece it passed westward to Boethius and\neastward to the Syrian and Persian commentators in the early centuries\nof the Caliphate. From these, and from other intermediaries, it may be,\nit finally culminated in the work of the Latin Schoolmen of the later\nMiddle Ages. But the very reverence which all these expositors felt for\nthe text of _the_ Philosopher rendered true development impossible.\n\nThen, on the other hand, the lust of practical utility caused a\ngrave misconception of what logic can do. For Aristotle, logic\nis a scientific analysis of the modes of inference; its uses are\nthose which follow intrinsically from all noble activity freely and\nzealously prosecuted. But with the death of Aristotle the great days\nof knowledge for the sake of knowledge and divine wisdom were over.\nThe Stoics into whose hands the chief sceptre of philosophy, directly\nor indirectly, passed never rose above the conception of life as a\ntask and a duty, and of all other things, literature, science, and\nart, as subservient to the performance of that task. The conception is\nan ennobling one: but only with a relative or comparative nobility.\nIt ennobles, if it is set beside and against the view that life is a\nfrivolous play, a sport of caprice and selfishness. But it darkens and\nnarrows the outlook of humanity, when it loses sight of life as a joy,\na self-enlarging and self-realising freedom, of life as in its supreme\nphase _\u03b8\u03b5\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b1_--or the enjoyment of God. To the Stoic, therefore,--and\nto the dominant Christian theory which entered to some extent on the\nStoic inheritance--logic, like the rest of philosophy, was something\nonly valuable because ultimately it helped to save the soul.\n\nIt thus sunk into the position of an Organon or instrument. To the\nStoic,--for instance to Epictetus--its value was its use to establish\nthe doctrines of the Stoic faith, by confuting the ill-arranged and\nfutile inferences on which were founded the aims and approvals of\nordinary worldly life. To the Christian, again, it served as a method\nfor putting into systematic shape (under the guidance of certain\nsupreme categories or principles also borrowed from Greek thought) the\nvariety of fundamental and derivative aspects which successive minds,\npondering on the power and mystery of the Christian faith, had set\nforward as its essential dogmas. It thus helped to build up (out of\nthe leading ideas of Greek metaphysics, and the principles emerging in\nthe earliest attempts to formulate the law of Christ) that amalgam of\nthe power of a divine life with the reflective thought of the teachers\nof successive generations, which constitutes the dogmatic creed of\nChristendom. Such a reconstruction in thought of the reality which\nunderlies experience--(in this case the experience of the Christian\nlife), is inevitable if man is to be man, a free intelligence, and\nnot a mere animal-like feeling. But its success is largely, if not\nentirely, dependent on the value of the logic and metaphysics which it\nemploys: and it would be a bold thing to say that the subtle, abstract,\nand unreal system of Neo-Platonist and Neo-Aristotelian thought was an\norganon adequate to cope with the breadth and depth, latent if not very\nexplicit, in the fulness and reality of the religious life.\n\nYet even as an Organon, Logic had to sink to a lower rank. As\ntraditionalism grew supreme, and religion ossified into a stereotyped\nform of belief and practice, logic had less to do as an organiser\nof dogma. It sank, or seemed to sink (for it would be rash to speak\ntoo categorically of an epoch of thought so far removed from modern\nsympathy and understanding as the age of the Schoolmen), into a futile\n(and as it seems occasionally almost a viciously-despairing) play with\n_pro_ and _contra_,--into a lust of argumentation which in masters\nlike Ockam comes perilously close to scepticism or agnosticism. More\nand more, Scholastic thought, which, at one time, had been in the\ncentre of such intellectual life as there was, came to be stranded on\nthe shore, while the onward-flowing tide spread in other directions.\nThese were the great days of logical sway, when it seemed as if logic\ncould create new truth: as if forms could beget matter. So at least\nran an outside rumour, which was probably based on some amount of real\nfolly. But the more important point was that the old logic had lost\ntouch with reality. New problems were arising, which it was--without\na profound reconstruction--quite incapable of solving. Of these there\nwere obviously two--not unconnected perhaps, but arising in different\nspheres of life. There was the revival of religious experience, growing\nespecially since the thirteenth century with an ever-swelling stream\nin the souls of men and women, till it burst through all bounds of\noutward organisation in the catastrophe of the Reformation. Luther may\nhave been historically unjust (as Bacon afterwards was) to the 'blind\nheathen master,' as he called Aristotle: but he was governed by a true\ninstinct when (unlike the compromise-loving Melanchthon) he found the\ntraditional system of logic and metaphysics no proper organon for\nthe new phase of faith and theory. So, too, the new attempts at an\ninception and instauration of the sciences grew up outside the walls\nof old tradition, and were at first perhaps discouraged and persecuted\nas infidel and heretical, and were, even without that burden, pursued\nat much hap-hazard and with much ignorance both in aims and methods.\nIntelligent onlookers,--especially if inspired by an enthusiasm for\nthe signs of an age happier for human welfare--could not but sec how\nneedful it was to come to some understanding on the aims and methods of\nthe rising sciences.\n\nThis want, which he keenly felt, Francis Bacon tried to satisfy. He\npointed out, vaguely, but zealously and in a noble spirit, the end\nwhich that new logic had to accomplish. Bacon, however, could not do\nmore than state these bold suggestions: he had not the power to execute\nthem. He imagined indeed that he could display a method, by which\nscience would make incredible advances, and the kingdom of truth in a\nfew years come into the world. But this is a sort of thing which no\nman can do. Plato, if we take his _Republic_ for a political pamphlet,\nhad tried to do it for the social life of Athens. What Plato could\nnot do for the political world of Greece, Bacon could not do for the\nintellectual world in his time: for as the Athenian worked under the\nshadow of his own state, over-mastered even without his knowledge by\nthe ordinances of Athens, so the Englishman was evidently enthralled\nby the medieval conceptions and by the logic which he condemned. What\nAristotle had for ages been supposed to do, no philosopher could do for\nthe new spirit of inquiry which had risen in and before the days of\nBacon. That spirit, as exhibited in his great contemporaries, Bacon,\nas he has himself shown, could not rightly understand or appreciate.\nHe failed, above all, to recognise the self-corrective, tentative,\nand hypothetical nature, of all open inquiry. But one need not for\nthis disparage his work. It showed a new sense of the magnitude of the\nmodern problem: it set prominently forward the comprehensive aim of\nhuman welfare: and by its conception of the 'forma' it kept science\npledged to a high ideal. But Bacon could only play the part of the\nguide-post: he could not himself lay down the road. And negatively he\ncould warn against the belief that mathematics could _generate_ or do\nmore indeed than _define_ the sciences. The spirit of free science, of\ncritical investigation, of inductive inquiry, must and did constitute\nits forms, legislation, and methods for itself. For no philosopher can\nlay down laws or methods beforehand which the sciences must follow.\nThe logician only comes after, and, appreciating and discovering the\nnot always conspicuous methods of knowledge, endeavours to gather\nthem up and give them their proper place in the grand total of human\nthought, correcting its inadequacies by their aid, and completing their\ndivisions by its larger unities. Or rather this is a picture of what\nEnglish logic might have done. But it does not do so in the ordinary\nand accepted text-books on the subject. What it does do, is rather as\nfollows. To the second and fundamental part which it subjects to a few\nunimportant alterations,--i. e. to the doctrine of terms, propositions,\nand reasonings,--it subjoins an enumeration of the methods used in the\nsciences.\n\nTo the rude minds of the Teutonic peoples the logical system of\nAristotle had seemed almost a divine revelation. From the brilliant\nintellect of Greece a hand was stretched to help them in the\narrangement of their religious beliefs. The Church accepted the aid of\nlogic, foreign though logic was to its natural bent, as eagerly as the\nyoung society tried for a while to draw support from the ancient forms\nof the Roman Empire. So with the advance of the Sciences in modern\ntimes some hopeful spirits looked upon the Inductive Logic of Mill in\nthe light of a new revelation. The vigorous action of the sciences\nhailed a systematic account of its methods almost as eagerly as the\nstrong, but untaught intellect of the barbarian world welcomed the\nlessons of ancient philosophy. For the first time the sciences, which\nhad been working blindly or instinctively, but with excellent success,\nfound their procedure stated clearly and definitely, yet without\nany attempt to reduce their varied life to the Procrustean bed of\nmathematics, which had once been held to possess a monopoly of method.\nThe enormous influence of the physical sciences saw itself reflected\nin a distinct logical outline: and the new logic became the dominant\nphilosophy. Such for a while was the proud position of the Inductive\nLogic. Enthusiastic students of science in all countries, who were not\ninaccessible to wider culture, used quotations from Mill to adorn and\nauthorise their attempts at generalisation and theory. A period of\nspeculation in the scientific world succeeded the period of experiment,\nin which facts had been collected and registered. A chapter on Method\nbecame a necessary introduction to all higher scientific treatises. In\nour universities methodology was prodigally applied to the study of\nancient philosophy. And so long as the scientific epoch lasts in its\none-sided prominence, so long the theory of inductive and experimental\nmethods may dominate the intellectual world.\n\nBut the Inductive Logic hardly rose to the due sense of its situation.\nIt has not held to the same high ideal as Bacon set before it. It has\nplanted itself beside what it was good enough to call the Deductive\nLogic, and given the latter a certain toleration as a harmless lunatic,\nor an old pauper who had seen better days. Retaining the latter with\ncertain modifications, although it has now lost its meaning in the\nchanged outlines of the intellectual world, Inductive Logic adds a\nmethodology of the sciences, without however founding this methodology\nupon a comprehensive analysis of knowledge as a whole, when\nenlarged and enlightened by the work of the sciences. Hence the two\nportions,--the old logic, mutilated and severed from the Greek world it\ngrew out of, and the new Inductive or specially-scientific logic, not\ngoing beyond a mere classification of methods,--can never combine, any\nmore than oil and water. And the little psychology, which is sometimes\nadded, does not facilitate the harmony.\n\nBut Inductive Logic should have adopted a more thorough policy. There\ncan only be one Logic, which must be both inductive and deductive, but\nexclusively, and in parts, neither. To achieve that task however Logic\nmust not turn its back indifferently on what it calls metaphysics, and\nit must rise to a higher conception of the problems of what it calls\npsychology.\n\nIn these circumstances the ordinary logic, in its fundamental terms,\nis more on the level of popular thought, than in a strictly scientific\nregion, and does not attempt to unite the two regions, and examine the\nfundamental basis of thought on which scientific methods rest. The case\nof Concrete and Abstract will illustrate what has been said. To popular\nthought the sense-world is concrete: the intellectual world abstract.\nAnd so it is in the ordinary logic. To Hegel, on the contrary, the\nintellectual interpretation of the world of reality and experience\nis a truer and thus a more concrete description of it than that\ncontained in a series of sense-terms. Now the difference between the\ntwo uses of the term is not a mere arbitrary change of names. When the\nphilosopher denies the concreteness of the sense-world, and declares\nthat it, as merely sensible, is only a mass of excluding elements, a\n'manifold,' and in the second instance a series of abstractions, drawn\nout of this _congeries_ by perception, the change of language marks\nthe total change of position between the philosophic and the popular\nconsciousness. Reality and concreteness as estimated by the one line of\nthought are the very reverse of those of the other. A mere sense-world\nto the philosopher is a world which wants unity, which is made up of\nbits imperfectly adjusted to each other, and always leading us to look\nfor an explanation of them in sources outside them. The single things\nwe say we perceive,--the here and the now we perceive them in--are\nfound, upon reflection and analysis, to depend upon general laws, on\nrelations that go beyond the single,--on what is neither here nor\nnow, but everywhere and timeless. The reality of the thing is found\nto imply a general system of relations which make it what it is.\nSense-perception in short is the beginning of knowledge: and it begins\nby taking up its task piecemeal. It rests upon a felt totality: and to\nraise this to an intelligible totality, it must at first only isolate\none attribute at a time.\n\nThe apprehension of a thing from one side or aspect,--the apprehension\nof one thing apart from its connexions,--the retention of a term or\nformula apart from its context,--is what Hegel terms 'abstract.'\nOrdinary terms are essentially abstract. They spring from the\nanalysis of something which would, in the first stage of the process,\nin strictness be described not as concrete, but as chaos:--as the\nindefinite or 'manifold' of sensation. But the first conceptions, which\nspring from this group when it is analysed, are abstract: they are\neach severed from the continuity of their reality. To interpret our\nfeeling, our experience as felt, we must break it up. But the first\nface that presents itself is apt to impress us unduly, and seems more\nreal, because nearer feeling: on the other it is more unreal, because\nless adequate as a total expression of the felt unity. In the same\nsense we call Political Economy an abstract science, because it looks\nupon man as a money-making and money-distributing creature, and keeps\nout of sight his other qualities. Our notions in this way are more\nabstract or more concrete, according as our grasp of thought extends\nto less or more of the relations which are necessarily pre-supposed by\nthem. On the other hand, when a term of thought owns and emphasises\nits solidarity with others, when it is not circumscribed to a single\nrelation, but becomes a focus in which a variety of relations converge,\nwhen it is placed in its right post in the organism of thought,\nits limits and qualifications as it were recognised and its degree\nascertained,--then that thought is rendered 'concrete.' A concrete\nnotion is a notion in its totality, looking before and after, connected\nindissolubly with others: a unity of elements, a meeting-point of\nopposites. An abstract notion is one withdrawn from everything that\nnaturally goes along with it, and enters into its constitution. All\nthis is no disparagement of abstraction. To abstract is a necessary\nstage in the process of knowledge. But it is equally necessary to\ninsist on the danger of clinging, as to an ultimate truth, to the\npseudo-simplicity of abstraction, which forgets altogether what it is\nin certain situations desirable for a time to overlook.\n\nIn a short essay, with much grim humour and quaint illustrations,\nHegel tried to show what was meant by the name 'abstract,' which in\nhis use of it denotes the cardinal vice of the 'practical' habit of\nmind. From this essay, entitled 'Who is the Abstract Thinker[1]?'\nit may be interesting to quote a few lines. A murderer is, we may\nsuppose, led to the scaffold. In the eyes of the multitude he is a\nmurderer and nothing more. The ladies perhaps may make the remark that\nhe is a strong, handsome, and interesting man. At such a remark the\npopulace is horrified. \"What! a murderer handsome? Can anybody's mind\nbe so low as to call a murderer handsome? You must be little better\nyourselves.\" And perhaps a priest who sees into the heart, and knows\nthe reasons of things, will point to this remark, as evidence of the\ncorruption of morals prevailing among the upper classes. A student\nof character, again, inquires into the antecedents of the criminal's\nup-bringing: he finds that he owes his existence to ill-assorted\nparents; or he discovers that this man has suffered severely for some\ntrifling offence, and that under the bitter feelings thus produced\nhe has spurned the rules of society, and cannot support himself\notherwise than by crime. No doubt there will be people who when they\nhear this explanation will say \"Does this person then mean to excuse\nthe murderer?\" In my youth I remember hearing a city magistrate\ncomplain that book-writers were going too far, and trying to root out\nChristianity and good morals altogether. Some one, it appeared, had\nwritten a defence of suicide. It was horrible! too horrible! On further\ninquiry it turned out that the book in question was the _Sorrows of\nWerther._\n\n'By abstract thinking, then, is meant that in the murderer we see\nnothing but the simple fact that he is a murderer, and by this single\nquality annihilate all the human nature which is in him. The polished\nand sentimental world of Leipsic thought otherwise. They threw their\nbouquets, and twined their flowers round the wheel and the criminal\nwho was fastened to it.--But this also is the opposite pole of\nabstraction.--It was in a different strain that I once heard a poor\nold woman, an inmate of the workhouse, rise above the abstraction\nof the murderer. The sun shone, as the severed head was laid upon\nthe scaffold. \"How finely,\" said the woman, \"does God's gracious sun\nlighten up Binder's head!\" We often say of a poor creature who excites\nour anger that he is not worth the sun shining on him. That woman saw\nthat the murderer's head was in the sunlight, and that it had not\nbecome quite worthless. She raised him from the punishment of the\nscaffold into the sunlit grace of God. It was not by wreaths of violets\nor by sentimental fancies that she brought about the reconciliation:\nshe saw him in the sun above received into grace.'\n\n\n[Footnote 1: 'Wer denkt abstrakt!' (_Vermischte Schriften_, vol. ii. p.\n402.)]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\n\nFROM SENSE TO THOUGHT.\n\n\nInduction and Experience are names to which is often assigned the\nhonour of being the source of all our knowledge. But what induction\nand experience consist in, is what we are supposed to be already\naware of; and that is--it may be briefly said--the concentration\nof the felt and sense-given fragments into an intimate unity. The\naccidents and fortunes that have befallen us in lapses of time, the\nscenes that have been set before and around us in breadths of space,\nare condensed into a mood of mind, a habitual shading of judgment,\nor frame of thought. The details of fact re-arrange themselves into\na general concept; their essence gets distilled into a concentrated\nform. Their meaning disengages itself from its embodiment, and floats\nas a self-sustaining form in an ideal world. Thus if we look at the\nlarger process of history, we see every period trying to translate the\nsensuous fact of its life into a formula of thought, and to fix it in\ndefinite characters. The various parts of existence, and existence as\na whole, are stripped of their sensible or factual nature, in which we\noriginally feel and come into contact with them, and are reduced to\ntheir simple equivalents in terms of thought. From sense and immediate\nfeeling there is, in the first place, generated an image or idea which\nat least represents and stands for reality; and from that, in the\nsecond place, comes a thought or notion proper, which holds the facts\nin unity.\n\nThe phenomenon may, perhaps, be illustrated by the case of numbers. To\nthe adult European, numbers and numbering are an obvious and essential\npart of our scheme of things that seems to need no special explanation.\nBut the experience of children suggests its artificiality, and the\nevidence from the history of language corroborates that surmise. If\nnumber be in a way describable as part of the sense-experience, or\ntotal impression, it certainly does not come upon us with the same\npassivity on our part as the perception of taste or colour, or even\nof shape. It postulates a higher grade of activity. As Plato says, it\n'awakes the intelligence': it implies a question and looks forward\nto an answer: it is thus the first appearance of what in its later\nfullness will be called 'Dialectic,' To put it otherwise: Numbering\ncan only proceed where there is a unit, and an identity: it implies a\none, and it implies an infinite repetibility of that one[1] It thus\npostulates the double mental act, first of reducing the various to\nits basis of identity, and, secondly, of performing a synthesis of\nthe identical units thus created. In the highly artificial world in\nwhich we live all this seems simple enough. The products of machinery,\narticles of furniture, dress, &c., &c., are already uniform items: and\nthe strokes of a clock seem almost to invite summation. But in free\nnature this similarity is much less obviously stamped on things: and\nthe products of primitive art--of literal _manu_-facture--display an\nindividuality, an element of personal taste, even, which is necessarily\nlacking in things turned out by machinery. Thus it was necessary,\nbefore we could number, to reduce the qualitatively different to\na quantitative equality or comparability. There are indeed some\ninstances, in that nearest of things to us, the human body, which\nmight help. There is the obvious similarity of organs and limbs which\ngo in pairs, and which might easily suggest a dual, as, so to speak,\na sensuous fact amongst other facts. Again, there is the hand and its\nfive fingers, or the two hands and the ten fingers. The five or ten,\nas a whole naturally given, suggest a grouping of numbers in natural\naggregates. The fingers, again, (and here we may keep at first to the\nfingers proper, minus the thumb,) may be without much ingenuity said\nto give us a set of four, naturally distinct, yet naturally alike,\nand needing, so to speak, the minimum of intelligence to create the\nnumerical scale from one to four. It is by them, indeed, that Plato, it\nmay be unconsciously, illustrates the genesis of number. Here in short\nyou have the natural abacus of the nations, but one restricted, first,\nperhaps to the group 1-4, secondly to the group 1-10.\n\nWe have seen how the dual was, in certain instances, almost a natural\nperceptive fact. But when it is so envisaged, it is hardly recognised\nas number strictly so called. It is only a fresh and peculiar sensuous\nattribute of things: a thing which has the quality of duplication, not\na thought which is the synthesis of two identical units. It is a sort\nof accident, not part of a regular system or series. So again with\nthe plural, which may appear in several shapes before it is assigned\nto its proper place as a systematic function of the singular. If the\nMalay, in order to say 'the king of all apes' has to enumerate one\nafter another the several sub-species of ape, or if to express 'houses'\nhe has to reduplicate the singular, to insert a word meaning 'all'\nor 'many,' we can see that the conception of number is for him still\nin the bonds of sense. It is not a synthetic category, but only a\nmaterial multitude. But in other cases the plural proper is almost\nconfounded with the so-called 'collective.' It is not an unfamiliar\nfact in Greek and Latin that the plural has acquired a meaning of\nits own,--not the mere multiple of its singular; as also that the\ncollective term is occasionally used as an abstract, occasionally\nas the more or less indeterminate collection of the individuals.\nSuch plurals and such collectives represent a stage of language and\nconception when the aggregate of singulars form a uniquely-qualified\ncase of the object. And the peculiarity of them is seen in the way\nthe plurality is immersed in and restricted to the special class of\nobjects: as e. g. when in English the plurality of a number of ships\nis verbally stereotyped as against the plurality of a number of sheep,\nor of partridges (fleet, flock, covey). In such instances the category\nof number is completely pervaded and modified by the quality of the\nobjects it is applied to. So, in the Semitic languages, the so-called\n'broken plural' is a quasi-collective, which grammatically counts as\na feminine singular (like so many Latin and Greek collectives): and\nwhereas the more regular plural is generally shown by separable affix,\nthis quasi-collective plural enters the very body of the word by\nvowel-change, indicating as it were by this absorption the constitution\nof a specifically new view of things. On the other hand, it may be\nsaid, there is in this collective a trace of the emergence of the\nuniversal and identical element through the generalisation due to the\nconjunction of several similars all acting as one[2]\n\nIn a true plural, on the contrary, it is required that the sign of\nnumber be clearly eliminated from any peculiarities of its special\nobject, and be distinctly separated from the collective. And similarly\nthe true numeral has to be realised in its abstractness, as a category\n_per se._ And to do this requires some amount of abstraction. In\nGreek, for example, we meet the distinction between numbers in the\nabstract, pure numbers (such as four and six), and bodily or physical\nnumbers (such as four men, six trees)[3]. The geometrical aspect\nunder which numbers were regarded by the Greeks, e. g. as oblong or\nsquare numbers, bears in the same direction. But another phenomenon\nin language tells the tale more distinctly[4]. Abundantly in Sanscrit\nand Greek, more rarely in Zend and Teutonic, and here and there in\nthe Semitic languages, we meet with what is known as the dual number,\na special grammatical form intended to express a pair of objects.\nThe witty remark of Du Ponceau[5] concerning the Greek dual, that it\nhad apparently been invented only for lovers and married people, may\nillustrate its uses, but hardly suffices to explain its existence in\nlanguage. But a comparison of barbarian dialects serves to show that\nthe dual is, as it were, a prelude to the plural,--a first attempt to\ngrasp the notion of plurality in a definite way, which served its turn\nin primitive society, but afterwards disappeared, when the plural had\nbeen developed, and the numerals had attained a form of their own. If\nthis be so, the dual is what physiologists call a rudimentary organ,\nand tells the same story as these organs do of the processes of nature.\n\nThe language of the Melanesian island of Annatom, one of the New\nHebrides, may be taken as an instance of a state of speech in which\nthe dual is natural. That language possesses a fourfold distinction of\nnumber in its personal pronouns, a different form to mark the singular,\ndual, trial, and plural: and the pronoun of the first person plural\ndistinguishes in addition whether the person addressed is or is not\nincluded in the 'we-two,' 'we-three,' or 'we-many' of the speaker[6].\nThe same language however possesses only the first three numerals, and\nin the translation of the Bible into this dialect it was necessary\nto introduce the English words, four, five, &c. The two facts must\nbe taken together: the luxuriance of the personal pronouns and the\nscanty development of numerals in such languages are two phenomena\nof the same law. The numeral 'four' to these tribes is said to bear\nthe meaning of 'many' or 'several,' Another fact points in the same\ndirection. In many languages, such as those of China, Further India and\nMexico, it is customary in numbering to use what W. von Humboldt has\ncalled class-words. Here it is felt that an artificial unity has to\nbe created, a common denominator found, and all reduced to it, before\nany summation can be carried out. Scholars and officials, in Chinese,\ncan only be classed under the rubric of 'jewel' or dignity: and\nanimals or fish by 'tails,' as if thereby only could one get a handle\nto hold them and count them. (The idiom still lingers in western\nlanguages: as in English, heads of cabbage, or of cattle: or German,\n_sechs Mann Soldaten._) So in Malay, instead of 'five boys' the phrase\nused is 'boy five-man': in other words, the numerals are supposed to\ninhere as yet in objects of a special kind or common occurrence[7].\nAnd among the South Sea Islanders the consciousness of number is\ndecidedly personal: that is to say, the distinction between one and\ntwo is first conceived as a distinction between 'I' and 'we two.' Even\nthis amount of simplification surpasses what is found amongst some\nAustralian tribes. There we find four duals: one for brothers and\nsisters: one for parents and children: one for husbands and wives: and\none between brothers-in-law[8]. Each pair has a different form. We\nthus seem to see to what early language is applied: not to designate\nthe objects of nature, but the members of the primitive family and\ntheir interests. The consciousness of numbers was first awakened by the\nneed of distinguishing and combining the things that belonged to and\nspecially interested men and women in the narrow circle of barbarian\nlife[9]. It is not altogether imaginative in principle, though it may\nbe occasionally surmise in details, to connect the rise of grammatical\nforms with the temperament and character of the people, and therefore\nwith its social organisation. If the Bantoo or Caffir languages of\nSouthern Africa instead of a single third personal pronoun and third\npersonal termination to the verb use the separate forms corresponding\nto the ten class-prefixes of the nouns, it must be in accordance with\nthe general spirit and system of these tribes. The various plural\nforms, if they persist, will reflect contemporary modes of life.\n\nNumbers were at first immersed in the persons, and then, as things\ncame to be considered also, in the things numbered. The mind seems to\nhave proceeded slowly from the vague one to definite numbers. And the\nfirst decided step was taken towards an apprehension of numbers when\ntwo was distinguished from one, and the distinction was made part of\nthe personal terminations. The plural was a further step in the same\ndirection: the real value of which, however, did not become apparent\nuntil the numerals had been separately established in forms of their\nown. When that was accomplished, the special form of the dual became\nuseless: it had outlived its purpose, and henceforth it ceased to have,\nany but that poetical beauty of old association which often adorns the\nonce natural, but now obsolete growths of the past. When the numerals\nwere thus emancipated from their material and sensuous environment,\nquantity was translated from outward being in its embodiments into a\nform of thought. At first, indeed, it was placed in an ethereal or\nimaginative space, the counterpart as it were of the sensuous space\nin which it had been previously immersed. It became a denizen of the\nmental region, as it had been before a habitant of the sense-world.\n\nThe mind was informed with quantity in the shape of number: but it does\nnot follow from this, that the new product was comprehended, or the\nprocess of its production kept in view. Like all new inventions (and\nnumeration may fairly be classed under that head), it was laid hold\nof, and all its consequences, results, and uses estimated and realised\nby the practical and defining intellect. In one direction, it became,\nlike many new inventions in the early days of society, a magic charm,\nand was invested with mystery, sacredness, and marvellous powers. But\nthe intelligent mind,--the understanding,--resolved to make better use\nof the new instrument: and that in two ways, in practical work and in\ntheory. On the one hand it was applied practically in the dealings\nof life,--in commerce, contracts, legislation, and religion. On the\nother hand, the new conception of number, which common sense and the\ninstinctive action of men had evolved, was carried out in all its\ntheory: it was analysed in all directions, and its elements combined\nin all possible ways. The result was the science of arithmetic,\nand mathematics in general. Such consequences did the reflective\nunderstanding derive from the analysis of its datum,--the fact of\nquantity freed from its sensuous envelope.\n\nThe general action of understanding, and of practical thought, is of\nthis kind. It accepts the representative images which have emerged from\nsensation, as they occur: and tries to appreciate them, to give them\nprecision, to carry them into details, and to analyse them until their\nutmost limits of meaning are explored. Where they have come from, and\nwhere they lead to,--the process out of which they spring, and which\nfixes the extent of their validity,--are questions of no interest\nto the understanding[10]. It takes its objects, as given in popular\nconception, as fixed and ultimate entities to be expounded in detail.\n\nWe have taken number as one example of the transference of a sensible\nor sense-immersed fact into a form of thought: but a form which is\nstill placed in a superior or mental space. One advantage of taking\nnumber as illustration, is that numbered things are distinguished from\nnumbers in an emphatic and recognised way. Nobody will dispute that\nthe abstraction, as it is called, has an existence of its own, and\ncan be made a legitimate object of independent investigation. But if\nthe process be more obvious in the case of the numerals, there must\nhave been a similar course of development leading to the pronouns, the\nprepositions, and the auxiliary verbs--to what has been called the\n'formal' or 'pronominal' or 'demonstrative' element, the connective and\nconstructive tissue of language. Whether these pronominal 'roots' form\na special and originally-distinct class of their own, or are derived\nfrom a transmutation of more material or substantial elements, is a\nquestion on which linguistic research casts as yet no very certain\nlight. It is true that on the one hand etymology is mainly silent on\nthe origin of pronouns, numerals, and the more fundamental prepositions\n(i. e. cannot refer them to roots significant of qualitative being):\nand one need not lay much stress on remarks, like that of Gabelenz[11],\nthat in the Indo-Chinese languages the words for _I, five, fish_\nhave a like sound, as do those for _thou, two, ear_, or that _I am,_\noriginally means _I breathe_. In all languages--though with immense\ndiversities of degree, this formal element has attained a certain\nindependence. And in many instances we can more or less trace the\nprocess by which there grew up in language an independent world of\nthought: we can see the natural existence passing out of the range of\nthe senses into spiritual relations. Before our eyes a world of reason\nis slowly constituting itself in the history of culture: and we, who\nlive now, enter upon the inheritance which past ages have laid up for\nus.\n\nThere is, however, a difference between the way in which these\nresults look to us now, and the way in which they originally\norganised themselves. The child who begins to learn a language in the\nlesson-books and the grammars finds the members of it all, as it were,\nupon one level: adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and verbs confront\nhim with the same authority and rank. This appearance is deceptive:\nit may easily suggest that the words are not members in an organism,\nin and out of which they have developed. And this organism of thought\nhas its individual types, expressed in the great families of human\nspeech. Its generic form (as drawn out in a logical system) appears\nin different grades, with different degrees of fullness, in Altaic\nand Dravidian from what it does in Malay, or in Chinese, and these\nagain have their own predominant categories as compared with those\nused in the American or African languages, or in Indo-Germanic and\nSemitic. If the Altaic languages e. g. are wanting in the verb proper,\nand manage with possessive suffixes and nouns; if the Semitic tenses\ndisplay a poverty which contrasts with their wealth in Greek; and\nyet each group performs its function, we may infer that each speech\nhas a complete organism, though it does not bring all its parts to\nadequate expression. All this distinction of 'parts of speech,' of\nforms, prefixes and suffixes, &c., is part of the life of language,\nembodying in more or less distinct organs the organisation of thought\nin the individual form it reached in that speech-type. Thus in Chinese\nthere are strictly speaking no isolated words, nouns, or verbs: there\nare only abstract parts of a concrete sentence; and grammar in Chinese\ntherefore has no accidence (no declensions, conjugations, &c.) but\nonly syntax. Yet it is these abstract fragments which exist and seem\nto have independence and inherent meaning: whereas the unity in which\nthey cohere to form a concrete context is the fleeting sentence of\nthe moment. At the opposite extreme, again, the Mexican family of\nlanguages tend to incorporate relations to subject and object with\nthe verb, in such a degree that the word almost becomes a sentence.\nFacts like these suggest that a science of the forms of language, in\nproportion as it generalises, tends to approach logic; and that logic\nwill have a converse tendency to elevate to an unduly typical position\nthe grammatical form of the languages with which the logician is best\nacquainted.\n\nIf these points were remembered, there would be less absurd employment\nof the grammatical categories of one group of languages to systematise\nanother. Greek and Sanscrit grammar plays sad havoc with the organism\nof a Semitic tongue, and it is not less out of place as a schema\nfor delineating e. g. South African dialect. Isolated words even in\nan Indo-Germanic language--even, we may say, in such a language as\nEnglish--are still fractional, and do not get life and individuality\nexcept in their context. And it needs but a little experience to show\nhow various that individuality may be. It needs perhaps still more\nmeditation to realise that it is in this individuality that the real\nlife of language lies: in the words said and written to express the\nthought of a personality. But, first, because language has its material\nand mechanical side, and secondly, because in civilised countries it\nfurther acquires a more stereotyped mechanism in written and printed\nlanguage, its parts tend to gain a pseudo-independence. It is one aim\nof a philosophical dictionary to restore the organic interconnexion\nwhich in the mere sequence of vocables in juxtaposition is apt to be\nlost. What we call the meaning of a word is something which carries us\nbeyond that mere word,--which restores the connexions which have been\nbroken off and forgotten. In the form of a dictionary, of course, this\ncan only be done piece-meal: but if each piece is done thoroughly, it\ncan hardly fail to bring out certain comprehensive connexions. The mere\nword seems a simple thing; and one is at first disposed to get rid of\nits difficulty by substituting a so-called synonym. But a deeper study\nreveals the fact that an exact synonym is a thing one can no more find\nthan two peas which are absolutely indistinguishable. A synonym is only\na practical _pis aller_. But every word is really as it were a point\nin an infinitely complex organic life, with its essence or meaning\ndetermined by the currents to and fro which meet in it.\n\nWords as we see them _prima facie_ in a printed page do look separate\nentities. They stand, one here and another there, in a quasi-extension,\nwith marks of direction and connexion pointing from one to another,\nbut of connexion apparently extraneous to the more solid points which\nare represented by nouns and verbs, or names of substances, actions,\nand attributes. Results, as they are, of that practical analysis which\nthe need of writing down language has led to, they are treated as\ncomplete wholes, which by the speaker are forced into certain temporary\nconnexions. But this is an illusion which, because a thing changes\nits relationships, assumes that it can exist out of all relationships\nwhatever. Every word of Language is such an abstraction, isolated from\nits context. But amid these contexts there are certain similarities:\nidentical elements are detected: and these identical elements are the\ncommon names of language, the terms of general significance. In all\ncases, however, what an utterance of language describes or expresses\nis a definite individual event or scene, conceived as a concrete\nof several parts. Each separate vocable is a contribution to the\ntotal: a step towards the real redintegration of the whole out of its\nseveral parts. But the total itself--the content of fact in any single\nsentence--is only an abstraction,--a part of the universe which human\ninterest and need have isolated from the comprehensive scope of things.\nThus, in two degrees, we may say, the picture produced in the sentence\nfalls short of the truth of things. Each statement is an arbitrary or\naccidental cutting out of the totality: each element of the cutting is\ndependent on that abstraction, and relative to it. But--as in a given\ngroup of speech, the same sets of circumstances will naturally be\nselected, and tend to recur again and again,--the terms which describe\nthem will acquire a certain association with the objects, and will come\nto be called the common names of these agents, acts, and qualities.\nThey denote or 'represent' the things and acts, conceived however in\ncertain aspects and relations, and not in their entirety and totality\nof nature.\n\nIn this product of intellectual movement above the limits of sensation\nwe have the 'representation'[12] as Hegel calls it, on which the\nUnderstanding turns its forces. We have one product of the organic\nwhole of thought taken by itself as if it were independent, set\nforth as a settled nucleus for further acquaintance: and this one\npoint discussed fully and with precision, elaborated in all detail\nand consequence, to the neglect of its context, and the necessary\nlimitations involved in the notion. The process of name-giving may\nillustrate this tendency in human thought to touch its objects only in\none point. The names given to objects do not embrace the whole nature\nof these objects, but give expression only to one striking feature\nin them. Thus the name of the horse points it out as 'the strong' or\n'the swift': the moon is 'the measurer' or 'the shining one'; and so\nin all cases. The object as expressed in these names is viewed from\none aspect, or in one point: and the name, which originally at least\ncorresponds to the conception, meets the object, properly speaking,\non that side only, or in that relation. The object is not studied in\nits own nature, and in its total world, but as it specially enters the\nrange of human interest, and serves human utilities. One can at least\nguess why it should be so: why a name should, in logical language,\nexpress an 'accidens' and not the 'essentia' of the object. For the\ninvestigation of primitive language seems to show that words, as we\nknow them in separate existence, are a secondary formation: and that\nthe first significant speech was an utterance intended to describe a\nscene, an action, a phenomenon, or complex of event. In point of time,\nthe primary fact of language is an agglomeration or aggregate,--we\nmay call it either word or clause (\u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2 in short)--which describes\nin one breath a highly individualised action or phenomenon. The\nspirit or unifying principle in this group might be the accent. Such\na word-group denotes a highly specialised form of being: and if we\ncall it a word, we may say that the earliest words, and the words of\nbarbarous tribes, are ingeniously special.[13] But it would be more\ncorrect to say, that in such a group the elements of the scene enter\nonly from a single aspect or in a single relation. Accordingly when\ndisintegration begins, the result is as follows. The elements of the\ngroup, having now become independent words held together by the syntax\nof the sentence, are adopted to denote the several objects which\nentered into the total phenomenon. But these words, or fragments of the\nword-group, 'represent' the objects in question from a certain point\nof view, and not in their integrity. The names of things therefore\ntouch them only in one point, and express only one aspect. And thus,\nalthough different names will arise for the same thing, as it enters\ninto different groups, in each case the name will connote only a\ngeneral attribute and not the nature of the thing. These names are in\nthe Hegelian sense of the term 'abstract.' In popular phraseology, they\nare only 'signs' of things: i. e. not 'symbols' (though they may have\nbeen in some cases symbolic in origin), for in a symbol there is a\n_natural_ correspondence or sensible analogy to the thing symbolised,\nbut something 'instituted,' due to an 'understanding' or convention.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: See vol. ii. p. 190, (Logic, \u00a7 102).]\n\n[Footnote 2: See Max M\u00fcller in Mind, vol. i. 345.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Pure number is \u1f00\u03c1\u03b9\u03b8\u03bc\u1f78\u03c2 \u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1\u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2: applied number is\n\u1f00\u03c1\u03b9\u03b8\u03bc\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c6\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03ba\u1f78\u03c2 or \u03c3\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03c2. Aristotle, _Metaph_. N. 5, speaks of\n\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03b8\u03bc\u1f78\u03c2 \u03c0\u03cd\u03c1\u03b9\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f24 \u03b3\u03ae\u03ca\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2. But this is only Greek idiom: as we say\n'Greek history' instead of 'History of Greece:' or vice versa, when we\ntranslate _Populus Romanus_ by 'people of Rome.' Aristotle is speaking\nof 'proportions' or 'amounts' of fire or earth in the compounds of\nthese elements.]\n\n[Footnote 4: See L. Geiger, _Ursprung und Entwickelung der menschlichen\nSprache und Vernunft_ (vol. i. p. 380). And Gabelenz 'Die melanesischen\nSprachen' in the _Abhandlungen der S\u00e4chsischen Gesellschaft der\nWissenschaften_ (VIII), 1861, pp. 89-91.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _M\u00e9moire sur le Systeme grammatical_, &c. p. 155.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Cf. _nous_ and _nous autres_. The same distinction is\nfound in some American languages. There is a dual in the language of\nthe Greenlanders; but it is not, however, used when a natural duality\nseems to call for it, but in cases when, though there might have been\nseveral things, only two are actually found.]\n\n[Footnote 7: W. von Humboldt, _Verschiedenheit des menschlichen\nSprachbaues_, p. 423 (ed. 1841); Misteli, _Typen des Sprachbaues_\n(1893).]\n\n[Footnote 8: Capt. Grey, _Vocabulary of the dialects of S. W.\nAustralia_, pp. xxi and 104 (1840).]\n\n[Footnote 9: The sharp distinction between the first and second\npersonal pronouns and the third: the want of any apparent connexion\nin the Indo-Germanic languages between the first and second persons\nsingular and the plural form seems to point in the same direction.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Cf. vol. ii. _Notes and Illustrations_, p. 400.]\n\n[Footnote 11: _Die Sprachwissenschaft_, p. 168.]\n\n[Footnote 12: 'Vorstellung,' as distinguished from 'Begriff.']\n\n[Footnote 13: Thus in Malay, there are about twenty words for\nstrike, according as it is done with thick or thin wood, downwards,\nhorizontally, or upwards, with the hand, with the fist, with the\nflat hand, with a club, with the sharp edge, with a hammer, &c. (See\nMisteli, _Typen des Sprachbaues_, p. 265.)]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\n\nFIGURATE OR REPRESENTATIVE THOUGHT.\n\n\nThe compensating dialectic whereby reason, under the guise of\nimagination, overthrows the narrowness of popular estimates, makes\nitself observed even in the popular use of the terms abstract and\nconcrete. Terms like state, mind, wealth, may from one point of view\nbe called abstract, from another concrete. At a certain pitch these\nabstractions cease to be abstract, and become even to popular sense\nvery concrete realities. In the tendency to personification in language\nwe see the same change from abstract to concrete: as when Virtue is\ncalled a goddess, or Fashion surnamed the despot of womankind. In\nsuch instances, imagination, more or less in the service of art and\nreligion, upsets the narrow vulgar estimates of reality. But it upsets\nthem, so to speak, by giving to the abstraction (through its creative\npower) that sensuous concreteness which the mere abstract lacks and\nwhich the ordinary mind alone recognises as real. It 'stoops to\nconquer.' Such a representation is, as Hegel says[1], 'the synthetic\ncombination of the Universal and Individual': 'synthetic,' because not\ntheir free, spontaneous, and essential unity, but the supreme product\nof the artistic will and hand, which, rather than let the universal\nperish by neglect, build for it, the eternal and omnipresent, 'a\ntemple made with hands.' In mythology we can see the same process: by\nwhich, as it is phrased, an abstract term becomes concrete: by which,\nas we may more correctly say, a thought is transformed into, or rather\nstops short at, a representative picture. The many gods of polytheism\nare the fixed and solidified shapes in which the several degrees of\nreligious growth have taken 'a local habitation and a name': or they\nbear witness to the failure of the greater part of the world to grasp\nthe idea of Deity in its unity and totality apart from certain local\nand temporary conditions. So, too, terms like force, law, matter,--the\nabstractions of the mere popular mind--are by certain periods reduced\nto the level of sensuous things, and spoken of as real entities,\nsomewhere and somehow existent, apart from the thinking medium to\nwhich they belong. Such terms, again, as property, wealth, truth, are\npopularly identified with the objects in which they are for the time\nand place manifested or embodied.\n\nIn these ways the abstract, in the ordinary meaning, becomes in the\nordinary meaning concrete. The distinction between abstract and\nconcrete is turned into a distinction between understanding and sense,\ninstead of, as Hegel makes it, a distinction in the adequacy and\ncompleteness of thought itself. Thought (the Idea), as has been more\nthan once pointed out, is the principle of unification or unification\nitself: it is organisation plus the consciousness of organisation:\nit is the unifier, the unity, and the unified,--subject as well as\nobject, and eternal copula of both. An attempt is at first made in\ntwo degrees to represent the thought in terms of the senses as a sort\nof superior or higher-class sensible. When the impossibility of that\nattempt is seen, common sense ends by denying what it has learned to\ncall the super-sensible altogether. These three plans may be called\nrespectively the mythological, the metaphysical, and the positive or\nnominalist fallacies of thought. In the mythological, or strictly\nanthropomorphic fallacy, thought is conceived under the bodily shape\nand the physical qualities of humanity, as a separate unifying,\ncontrolling, synthetic agent, through whose interference the several\nthings, otherwise dead and motionless, acquire a semblance of life\nand action, though in reality but puppets or marionettes: that is to\nsay, it is identified with a subject of like passions with ourselves,\na repetition of the particular human personality, with its narrowness\nand weakness. The action of the Idea is here replaced by the agency\nof supposed living beings, invested with superhuman powers. In the\nmetaphysical or realist fallacy we have a feeble ghostly reproduction\nof the mythological. The living personal deity is replaced by a faint\nscare-crow of abstract deity. The cause of the changes that go on in\nnature is now attributed to indwelling sympathies and animosities,\nto the abhorrence of a vacuum, to selection, affinity, and the like:\nto essences and laws conceived of as somehow existent in a mystic\nspace and time. In the positive or nominalist fallacy, the failure of\nthese two theories begins to be felt: and the mind, which had only\nheard of unifying reason under these two phases and is meanwhile sure\nof its sense-perceptions, treats the objective synthesis as a dream\nand a delusion. Or, at best, it regards the synthesis as essentially\nsubjective--as a complementary idealising activity of ours which\nekes out the defects of reality, and brings continuity into the\ndiscontinuous. Our thought--(it is only _our_ thought)--is but an\ninstrument, distinct from us and from the reality: yet acting as a\nbridge to connect these two opposing shores--a bridge however which\ndoes not really reach the other side, but only an artificial image,\nwhich simulates to us, and will for ever simulate, the inaccessible\nreality. This last view is the utterance of the popular matter-of-fact\nreason, when in weariness and tedium it turns from the attempt to grasp\nthought pure and simple, and instead of reducing the metaphysical\nantitheses to the transparent unity of comprehension, relapses into\nmere acceptance of a given reality.\n\nIn some of these cases the full step into pure thought is never\nmade. The creations of mythology, for example, display an unfinished\nand baffled attempt to rise from the separation of sense to the\nunity and organisation of thought. The gods of heathenism are only\nindividuals--and individuals only _meant to be,_ and by the act of\nfaith and devotion set forth as reality before the worshipper: but they\nare individuals in which imagination embodies a unified and centralised\nsystem of forces or principles. They _mean_ the powers of nature and of\nmind, but the sceptre in their hands is only a sign of power attributed\nby the believer; and far away, encompassing alike them and him, is the\ngreat relentless necessity. In other cases there is a relapse: when\nthe higher stage of thought has been attained, it is instantaneously\nlost. Terms which are really thoughts are again reduced to the level of\nthe things of sense, individualised in some object, which, though it\nis only a representation or sign, is allowed to usurp the place of the\nthought which it but partially and by extraneous institution embodies.\nThe intuition of the sensuous imagination at every step throws its\nspells on the products of thought, and turns them into a representative\npicture, which in popular use and wont occupies the place of the\nnotion. Instead of being retained in their native timelessness, the\nterms of the Idea are brought under the laws of Sense-perception, under\nthe conditions of space and time.\n\nThe term 'representation,' which Hegel employs to name these\npicture-thoughts or figurate conceptions, corresponds to the facts\nof their nature. A 'representation' is one of two things: either a\nparticular thing sent out accredited with general functions, or a\nuniversal narrowed down into a particular thing. Thus, as it has been\nseen, a general name implies or connotes a universal relation or\nattribute, but confines it to denote a particular object or class.\n'Swift,' for example, was an epithet tied down to express the horse. In\nthe first instance we may suppose the name to be a sort of metaphor:\ndiffering only by its simplicity and frequency of suggestion from those\nendless epithets, which in Norse or Arabic poetry veil and adorn the\nobject which they are meant to designate. That is, we conceive the\nobject as an embodiment or representation of the quality, as an eagle\nis the emblem of strength: only in the latter case we distinguish\nbetween the object and its metaphorical signification. In the second\nplace, however, the object of experience is allowed completely to\ncoincide with the aspect discriminated by the selective epithet, and we\ncan no longer in ordinary thought separate the imaging object from the\ngeneral relation which it images forth. This is the level of thought to\nwhich Hegel appropriates the term 'representation.' It includes under\nit the three fallacies of thought already noted and saves the trouble\nof comprehending the reality. In the Hegelian sense, a representation\nis abstract; because it solidifies, hardens, and isolates the term of\nthought, makes it a particular, and never rises above the single case\nto the general notion embodied in it.\n\nThe world of representative thought is a world of independent points\nin juxtaposition, which we arrange as seems best to us. It lies in\nan undefinable borderland between us and things. It is a would-be,\nbut not an actual, reality. It is not like a true Idea--the unity of\nsubjective and objective: but only a make-believe. We have put it\nthere, and yet we credit it with an effective existence. When our mind\nmoves amongst these picture-thoughts, it can only institute external\nrelations between the terms. A judgment, in that case, is interpreted\nto mean the conjunction of two terms, which at once step into the rank\nof subject and predicate by means of the copula. A sentence is an\narrangement of words _ab extra_ in conscious or unconscious conformity\nwith the rules of grammar. The world of knowledge, or the Idea, as\na whole is turned into a plane surface with its typical terms,--the\nmembers of the organism of reason,--like dots put in co-ordination and\njuxtaposition, not spontaneously affected towards each other. Even if\nthey are not embodied and reduced to a sensuous level of existence,\nthey are held to be originally separate and unconnected. How they\nall came into being, and whether they do not all by gradations and\ndifferentiation-proceed from one root, are questions neither asked nor\nanswered.\n\nThe level of representative thinking--thinking i. e. which is not\nthe grasp (_Begriff_) of the reality, but only the apprehension of\nsomething which stands for and represents it--is the level on which we\nall come, more or less, to stand in our non-philosophic moments. It\nis, in essentials, the realm of what Plato called _\u03b4\u03cc\u03be\u03b1_,--the level\nof consciousness which fails to rise to see the unity of essence in\nthe many single goods and beauties, which holds its knowledge (such\nat is) at the mercy of accidents, not bound by the conclusions of\nreasoning,--the realm which is not without reality, but an immature\nand uncertain reality. It is, in essentials, the same as what, as\nopposed to _intellectus_, Spinoza styled _imaginatio._ Imagination,\nto Spinoza, is an understanding under the bondage of particular\npassions and temporary interests, which loses sight of the great\nbond of being or _Substantia_, and fixes its glance on the parts in\nsubordinate and infra-essential relationships: which is always finite,\ni. e. never really comprehensive and self-sustaining in its view, but\nalways limited by a tacit reference to something outside itself. The\n'Representation' is the idea, in the loose and inexact use of that\nword, which goes with the phrase _mere idea_,--i. e. a mere mental\nimage, which is not the reality, though it is believed to do duty for\nand to represent it[2]. Yet it is not a mere thought: rather its whole\naim and meaning is to refer to reality, to suggest it, to bring it\nnearer us. Its fault is that it is an imperfect, partial, one-sided,\nor even one-pointed idea. It is really an instance and phase of\nthe _ignava ratio_, to which a date or name serves as a \u03c0\u03bf\u1fe6 \u03c3\u03c4\u1ff6 of\nexplanation.\n\n    'At Kilne there was no weathercock,\n    And that's the reason why.'\n\nSuch 'representation,' according to Hegel, is, e. g., the mode of\nintelligence accessible to those who cling to the mere, or abstractly,\nreligious mood, and who cannot or will not rise to the comprehension\nof their creed. Its facts or dogmas present themselves to such a\nrestricted conception as the parts of a picture or the stages of a\nhistory, in visible or imaginatively-construable space, and in a\nsuccession of times. The essence of religion, of course, for Hegel as\nfor other exponents of its inmost nature, is a feeling of certitude\nor faith which transcends the gulfs and separations of the secular\nconsciousness, which sees with the believing soul the inner peace,\nthe absolute harmony of the true reality. _Pectus facit theologum._\nThe sense of utter dependence on God, in complete identity with the\nsense of absolute independence in God--that strength of faith is the\nvery life of religion. But when religion seeks to give an intelligent\nexpression of her faith, when she tries to give a reason acceptable to\nthe outside world, she is apt, unless specially trained in the high\nthings of the spirit, to base her creed not on the rock of ages, but\non the signs and miracles of the times. She has tried to theorise the\nfaith: but, although her faith may be sound and true, the religious\nspirit, unless it be also the spirit of wisdom and reasoned truth, runs\na risk of falling into the fallacy of _Post hoc_, _ergo propter hoc._\nShe descends therefore to the region of representation: she uses the\nlanguage of sense and analogy; she presents the spiritual under the\nguise of the natural. Yet in her heart of hearts these things are only\na parable,--they are but\n\n                    'Flesh and blood\n    To which she links a truth divine.'\n\nHegel--in the introduction to his lectures on the Philosophy of\nReligion--is reported to have given the following characteristics of\n'representation,' (_a_) It is still trammeled by the senses. Thought\nand sensation strive for the mastery in it. Thought is bound fast to\nan illustration: and of this illustration it cannot as representative\nthought divest itself:--the eternally living idea is chained to the\ntransient and perishable form of sense. It is metaphorical and material\nthinking, which is helpless without the metaphor and the matter. (_b_)\nRepresentative thought envisages what is timeless and infinite under\nthe conditions of time and space. It loses sight of the moral and\nspirit of historical development under the semblance of the names,\nincidents, and forms in which it is displayed. The historical and\nphilosophical sense is lost under the antiquarian. Representative\nthought keeps the shell, and throws away the kernel. (_c_) The terms\nby which such a materialised thought describes its objects are not\ninternally connected: each is independent of the other; and we\nonly bring them together for the occasion by an act of subjective\narrangement[3].\n\nThe thing--the so-called _subject_ of the properties, of which it is\nreally no more than the _substratum_--affords no sufficient ground\nfor the unity of the properties attached to it. The substratum or\nsubject of the proposition is given, and we then look around to see\nwhat other properties accompany the primary characteristic for which\nthe name was applied. But the term of popular language is not a real\nunity capable of supporting differences; it is only one aspect of a\nthing, a single point fixed and isolated in the process of language\nby the action of natural selection. And so, to ask how the properties\nare related to the thing, is to ask how one aspect, taken out of its\nsetting, is related to another isolated aspect: which is evidently an\nunanswerable question. Science is right in rejecting the 'thing' of\npopular conception. If _a_ is _a,_ and nothing more, as the law of\nIdentity informs us, then it is for ever impossible to get on to _b,\nc, d_, and the rest. The union between the thing divided or defined,\nand its divided or defining members, is what is termed extra-logical;\nin other words, it is not evident from what is given or stated in the\npopular conception. That union must be sought elsewhere, and deeper.\n\nAnd when _we_ step in to overcome the repugnance which the point of\nconception, or what is supposed the subject, shows against admitting\na diversity of predicates,--when _we_ force it into union with these\nproperties: or when we try to remove the separation which leaves\nthe cause and effect as two independent things to fall apart; our\naction, by which we effect a unification of differences, may, from\nanother and a universal point of view, be said to be the notion, or\ngrasp of thought, coming to the consciousness of itself. Thought,\nas it were, recognises itself and its image in those objects of\nrepresentative conception, which seem to be given and imposed upon\nthe intellect. The two worlds, which the understanding accepts\nas each solid and independent,--the world of external objects or\nconceptions, and the world of self,--meet and coincide in the free\nagency of thought, developing itself under a double aspect. It is\nthe 'original synthetical unity of apperception' (to quote Kant's\nwords), from which the Ego or thinking subject, and the 'manifold'\nor body and world, are simultaneously differentiated. Thus, on the\none hand, we ourselves no longer remain a rigid unity, existing in\nantithesis to the objects presupposed or referred to by representative\nthought: and on the other hand the so-called thing loses its hardness\nand fragmentary independence, as distinguished from our apprehension\nof it. _Our_ action, as we incline to call it, which mends the\ninadequacies of terms, is from a philosophic point of view, the notion\nitself coming to the front and claiming recognition. The process of\nthought is then seen to be a totality, of which our faculties, on\nthe one hand, and the existing thing, on the other, are isolated\nabstractions, supposed habitually to exist on their own account.\nTo view either of these systems, the mental, on the one hand, and\nthe objective world, on the other, as self-subsistent, has been the\nerror in much of our metaphysics, and in the popular conceptions of\nwhat constitutes reality. The idealism of metaphysicians has been\noften as narrow and insufficient as the realism of common sense. An\nadequate philosophy, on the contrary, recognises the presence of both\nelements, in a subordinate and formative position. Representations\nmay be compared to the little pools left here and there by the sea\namongst the rocks and sand: the notion, or grasp of thought, is the\ntidal wave, which left them there to stagnate, but comes back again to\nrestore their continuity with the great sea. In our thinking we are\nonly the ministers and interpreters of the Idea,--of the organic and\nself-developing system of thought.\n\nThe difference between a representative conception and a thought proper\nmay be illustrated by the case of the term 'Money.' Money may be\neither a materialised thought, i. e. a Representative Conception, or\na Notion Proper. In the former case, money is identified with a piece\nof money. It is probably, in the first instance, embodied in coins of\ngold, silver, and bronze. In the second place, a wide gulf is placed\nbetween it and the other articles for which it is given in exchange.\nIf other things are regarded as money, they are generally treated on\nthe assumption that they can in case of need be reduced to coinage. The\nconception of money by the unscientific vulgar considers it separately\nfrom other commodities: and the laws which forbade its exportation\ngave a vigorous expression to the belief that it was something _sui\ngeneris_, and subject to conditions of its own. The scientific notion\nof money modifies this belief in the peculiarity and fixity of money.\nScience does so historically, when it can point to a time and a race\nwhere money in our sense of the word does not exist, and where barter\ntakes the place of buying and selling. Science does so philosophically,\nwhen it expounds what may be called the _process_ of money,--the\ninter-action or meeting of conditions to which the existence of money\nis due. The notion of money, as given in the _Ethics_ of Aristotle,\nsays that it is the common measure of utility or demand. When we leave\nout of sight the specific quality of an object, and consider only its\ncapacity of satisfying human wants, we have what is called its worth\nor value. This value of the thing,--the psychological fact which is\nleft, when all the qualities marking the objective thing are reduced\nto their social efficiency--is the notion, of which the currency is\nthe representation, reducing thought to the level of the senses, and\nembodying the 'ideality' of value in a tangible and visible object.\nSo long as this 'idea' of value is kept in view, the currency is\ncomprehended: but when the perception of the notion disappears, money\nis left a mere piece of currency, the general notion being narrowed\ndown to the coinage. Thus the notion of money, like other notions in\ntheir ideal truth, is not in us, nor in the things merely: it is what\nfrom a minor point of view, when we and the things are regarded under\nthe head of want or need, may be called the _truth_ of both, the unity\nof the two sides. Thus considered, money falls into its proper place in\nthe order of things.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Werke,_ ii. 529, 555.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Hegel's _Werke_, ii. 431: '_Wobei das Selbst nur\nrepr\u00e4sentirt_ und vorgestellt ist, da ist es nicht wirklich: we es\nvertreten ist, ist es nicht.' Cf. _ib._ 416.]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Philosophie der Religion,_ i. p. 137 seqq.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\n\nFROM SUBSTANCE TO SUBJECT.\n\n\n'It is, in my view, all important,' says Hegel[1], 'to apprehend and\nexpress the True not as _Substance,_ but equally much as _Subject_.'\nSubstance, as Spinoza defines it, is that which is in itself and\nwhich is conceived through itself, something which does not need the\nconception of something else by which its concept may be formed[2].\nSubstance, in other words, is something which serves to explain\nitself, which is _causa sui._ The mind, looking out on the wide world\nof mutable and manifold objects, finds its rest in the great calm of\na something at their base, the eternal nature which, itself unmoved,\nis the one foundation, complete and sufficient, of all things,--a\n_res aeterna et infinita,_ which can feed the mind with joy alone[3].\nThese words suggest only an object--a transcendent object--the basis\nof an objective order. They seem to leave little for the contemplating\nsubject to do save to discern it and, so discerning, to rest in it\nand to love. They seem to leave substance a mere datum, a far-off\nall-embracing end in which the variety of human effort can find a\ncentral object and a final close. Yet, in the end it appears[4] that\nthis _Res aeterna_ loves himself with an intellectual love, and\nthis love is identified with the love of man to God, so far at least\nas man's mind, considered _sub specie aeternitatis_, can be said to\n'explicate' Deity. From this conclusion it might be said that Spinoza\nrises above the mere category of substance: God is no longer the mere\nfoundation of things--the absolute object of all objects. He rises in\nhuman spirit (regarded in its eternal significance) to the rank of\na true subject. He is not merely known as the True; but He himself,\nliving and moving in the essential spirit of man, knows himself and\nacquiesces in his infinite beatitude. But if this be the legitimate\ninference to be drawn from the closing sections of the _Ethics_, it is\nnot the view ordinarily suggested by the mention of Spinoza's doctrine.\nThat doctrine, on the contrary, seems, as it first confronts us, and\nas it has taken its place in history, to omit the subjectivity which\nhad found so decided a recognition in the commencement of Cartesianism.\nIn the _cogito ergo sum_ so much at least is clearly stated: true\nbeing--the true--is not merely known, but itself knows; not a mere\nobject, but a subject: a subject-object, or, an Idea. It is to be\nadmitted, indeed, that Descartes hardly remains at this altitude, but\nhe touches it for a moment. Even when he finds in the conception of God\na security for truth and reality, and thus seems to base these on a\none-sidedly objective standard, he regards God as, on the other hand,\nthe truth and reality postulated and presupposed by the structural\nsystem of our ideas. God--such seems the tendency of his so-called\n'proof'--is the inevitable prius and presupposition of our thought and\nbeing: He makes us know, as much as He is ultimately the object known:\nHe is the unity and the creator of subject and object.\n\nBut it is hardly possible to get in philosophy the full recognition of\nthe antithesis between subject and substance and the inclusion of both\nin the fuller Idea, till after the time of Kant. Kant himself is, in\nessentials, the antithesis of Spinoza, but it is not till Fichte that\nthe full force of that antithesis is expressly recognised. With Hegel,\nthe two opposite points of view are equally insisted on: the immanence\nand the transcendence of the True, the Real, the Absolute: or, in\nother words, the unity in it of subject and object, or of thought and\nexistence. Or, in the words of the religious spirit, though heaven and\nthe heaven of heavens cannot contain Him, He dwells in the spirit of\nthe righteous, and is not far from any one of us. The truth is not the\ncorrespondence or agreement of an idea with a further reality which it\nrepresents. Such an idea or 'representation' is a projection which has\nescaped from our hands, which has slipped from our grip, and which,\nwhile owning its mere vicarious character, at the same time beckons\nus on to seek a reality we can never find. The 'representation' is in\na way objective--it is set over against us: but yet it is not truly\nobjective, not self-subsistent and self-possessed. Its objectivity is\nthe objectivity of a name: a quasi-objectivity, which requires to be\ndipped in the living waters of intelligence before it can really exist\nand act. It seems, to the untrained observer, to point only outwards to\nthe real object which it copies or designates: to a deeper reflection,\nit is seen to point equally inward to the mind which informed it and\nprojected it. Thus the knowing subject, and the known object, with the\nrepresentation which acts as a perpetual mediator to connect and yet\nnot unify the one of these terms with the other,--all at last take\ntheir place, reduced and transfigured, in the unity of the Idea.\n\nAccording to the Spinozist point of view, thought, it might seem by\na sort of miracle, dispels the mists that envelop and bewilder it,\nsees through the multeity of modes, and the isolated pictures of\nimagination, to the true reality, one, infinite and eternal. Before\nthat august vision of absolute wholeness the only attitude of a finite\nmind would seem to be resignation, worship, reverence,--deeply shading\ninto the submission of absorption. For in it intellect and will are\ndeclared to have no place[5]. With such a statement, we get that first\naspect of religion which has found its most imposing representative\nin the faith of Islam. In every religion there must, however, be more\nthan this: or it would fail to do what all religion essentially does.\nSheer dependence_--Schlechthinnige Abh\u00e4ngigkeit_ (as Schleiermacher\nhas named it)--can never be the whole burden of a religious teacher's\nmessage. Always--at least in the background--there is a contradictory\nelement--in apparent discrepancy with the first--the deification of the\nworshipper. And as the Ethics of Spinoza--like every complete system\nof speculative truth--deals with a problem parallel to, if not even\nidentical with, that of religion, its initial definitions and main\nprogramme must never let us forget the tacit presuppositions worked out\nto explicitness, as they are partly, in its conclusion. When Intellect\nand Will are denied to the _Deus = Natura = Substantia,_ it is meant\nthat the Absolute is and has more than intellect and will can well\nname, and that in Him (or Her, or It, for the pronominal distinctions\nof gender matter nothing here), the separation of will from intellect\nis a fallacy which can have no place. What Spinoza casts out are the\nlower passions, the affections of weakness; these _as such,_ i. e. as\nelements of weakness, can have no place in Him. But in God, as in the\nfree man who most resembles God, and in whose love He loves himself,\nthere is--but that also in terms we cannot fathom--abundance of\njoy--the joy of infinite self-realisation.\n\nPartly by the complementary theory of Leibniz, partly by the antagonist\ntheories of Kant, the way had been prepared for setting forth, and\nin fuller outline, the implications so tardily admitted by Spinoza.\nIt was only by a misuse or mal-extension of a word that Herder's\nGod--a God who is Force--and the Force of Forces--could be supposed\nan advance upon Spinoza. There is in Force an analogue of Life; but\nit is life in dependence, life not self-centred, always going forth,\nand when it goes forth dissipated. It is as it were pushed from\nbehind, and is lost in what comes after it. If a Force of Forces means\nanything, it means something more than Force: it means a master of\nforce, a force-controller and force-adjuster, a unity and principle\nof forces. And Substance, as Spinoza understood it, is more than\nthis variability, this deification of instability. It is the unity\nin which the variety and disparity of existence, the multiplicity of\nvicissitude, is merged and lost, only again to issue from it, and yet\nnot leave it behind, in the infinitely-various modes of its two great\nand conspicuous attributes of consciousness and extensionality. If\nHegel then sought to go beyond Spinoza, he sought to find a formula\nwhich would lose nothing that Spinoza had reached, but would at the\nsame time bring out what Spinoza had left an implication, or noted in\na partial rectification. As in religion, besides the utter dependence\non God (so that, God failing, I perish), there must be also an absolute\nunion, complete reconciliation--complete as culminating in unity and\nidentity (so that God shall not be God, unless I am I): so it is in\nphilosophy. The Absolute cannot merely _be_, and be far away--the last\ngoal in which the variety of life is made one, and the turmoil of the\npassionate existences laid to rest. The Soul which is (as some of the\nmedieval Christians would say) still _in itinere_, a wayfarer, is such\nbecause its glance is turned on outward circumstances: but country is\nno accident: the soul even here carries with it that _patria_, 'which\nis the heavenly,' in its longings, and has it, even while yet on\npilgrimage, in that strong possession of all things by itself, which\nthe theologian styles Faith. This goal determines the pilgrimage, fixes\nits direction, gives progress to its steps.\n\nIn the myth-loving language of Plato (and of Wordsworth in his Platonic\node) the Soul has in other spheres of being dwelt with the gods and\nseen the secret of the world: it is itself one of the immortals, and\nas it is here and now, is in a land of exile. At the morning of birth,\nthe living sample of humanity has left his original glory behind; and\na deep forgetfulness--only short of absolute--cuts it off from his\nevery-day consciousness. In his present reality he finds himself in a\nland of darkness, fast bound in a hollow of the rock, looking out only\non the ghostly images that flit across his prison wall, cast there by\nthe objects that move between his back and the light of a mysterious\nfire behind him and them. Such is his natural estate, as it meets the\nbodily eye: the estate of the lowly savage, whom superstition and\nignorance seem to hold as their captive for ever. But, though his\nhigh home and his glory of other days have left no conscious memory\nin the soul, asleep and imbruted in its fleshly house, they have not\ndeparted without leaving a trace behind. For forgetfulness is not\nblank non-existence. The sample of humanity inherits the birthright\nof his fathers--he has hopes and fears, duties and rights, which are\nhis, if he can mature himself to take possession of them. He suffers\nfrom the pains of growth, from the sense of disparity between what\nhe is and what he may and should be--from the noble uneasiness and\ndissatisfaction of a being who feels--if he does not know--his infinite\npotentialities. For these potentialities--otherwise they have no title\neven to that name--are also actualities, yet actualities which protest\ntheir own incompleteness, and crave imperiously for what they lack.\nWhat he has is his right, but his right only in so far as it is also\nhis duty. It is as such, and only as such, that he still retains the\nsoul in all its prerogatives: as the right, which is the duty, of\nknowledge. Such a pre-figured and promised, but yet to be realised,\npossession is what Plato has called _Eros_, or Love. But it is a Love\nwhose wings are at first invisible, and who often seems rather to crawl\namong ignoble things than to soar in the free fresh air.\n\nThe process of experience has been by Plato called Anamnesis or\nRecollection. But Recollection is not always an easy, and never a\nmerely passive, process; and sometimes the forgetfulness seems so deep\nthat no extraneous stimulus can at all move it. We have seen already\none of these stimuli which rouse the sleeping sense--the mystery of\nnumbers: and there are many others. But, we have also learned, that\nin the psychical sphere items of memory are not, as reckless fancy\nputs it, stored up in compartments, sorted and arranged, ready to be\npulled out. The process of recollection is a complicated affair: an\naffair of give and take, of comparison and selection and rejection,\nof construction and reconstruction. You cannot haul up ready-made\nmemories from the mine. And this perhaps was sometimes forgotten by\nPlato; it certainly has been by more than one of his commentators.\nYou may, no doubt, call up ideas from the vasty deep: but they come\nby laws and principles of their own. Even when they come, which they\nsometimes do unexpectedly, they come as an echo of the calling mind.\nRecollection involves intellectual process: as Kant said, the synthesis\nof imagination reposes upon the synthesis in the concept. Yet--and this\nis the point which Plato's title of _Anamnesis_ accentuates--unless\n'the soul had been such as to be affected in this way' (the words are\nthose of Aristotle), unless the soul had been implicitly intellectual\nin tone and faculty, it would not have grasped the presented universe\nunder the categories which it uses. There is, says Aristotle, in the\nbarest act of sensation a congenital power of judgment; there is, says\nPlato, an eye of the soul--a natural virtue of intelligence, which can\nnever be put into it, and must always be presupposed in any theory of\nits processes.\n\nThere are, therefore, no innate ideas, says Cudworth in explanation of\nPlato, if these ideas mean formed and completed products of knowledge.\nAll ideas in this sense begin and grow within the range of experience,\nand the history of their growth or development in literature and art\ncan be at least approximately traced. We can trace, that is, the\nsuccessions and connexions of the various types of beauty, or goodness:\ncan show how the idea at one time dwelt in one of its aspects, at\nanother in a different one. We can observe the variation, and it may\nbe the progress, in men's conception of God. But it is another matter\nwhen we seek to explain these ideas themselves out of other elements,\nheterogeneous to them. When that question is asked, then with Plato we\nseem, in the absence of any theory of origins, obliged to own that it\nis by the Beautiful that beautiful things come to be beautiful. The\n\u03bc\u03b5\u03c4\u03ac\u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u03b5\u1f30\u03c2 \u1f04\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03bfs--the crossing of essential boundaries--which\nAristotle forbids to science, still raises its eternal barrier in\nthe logical, if it cease to hold good (as has been suggested) in the\nphysical sphere. In the totality which we call the world and experience\nof reality there are, so to say, ultimate and irreducible provinces.\nThe utmost that philosophy, i. e. science, can do with these is to\nco-ordinate them,--to show their mutual filiations, adaptations, and\nharmonies,--to note their inadequacies and discrepancies. They are\nnot all of equal rank, perhaps; they have to yield to each other, it\nmay be in turn: but none of them can be arbitrarily expunged from\nthe totality, and none of them shown to be a mere phase of others.\nTo do that is to strip the universe of its variety and--it may be\nadded--of its beauty and its interest. If it be a false philosophy\nthat does it, there is a good deal of false philosophy abroad. There\nis a lust of explanation which is never content till it has found an\nequation for everything, till it has expressed everything in terms of\nthe common-place, till it has emptied everything of all that made it\nindividual and real, and turned it into an abstract, identical (as\nonly abstracts can be) with some other abstract. Such abstractions\nare of course useful, and therefore need no excuse, when restricted\nto a special sphere. So long, that is, as we remember that it is an\nabstraction we are making, and that we are arbitrarily simplifying\nthe real natural problem, no harm is done by these artificial\nconstructions; and they are important steps in a larger process. But\nwhat is correct and useful within a range whose limits we can define,\nbecomes dangerous when carried beyond all bounds. Its approximate truth\nthen becomes misleading error.\n\nIt is these irreducible elements--these great provinces in human\nexperience, in reality, in the system of reason--that correspond to\nthe more important of what are known as Platonic ideas. As ultimate\nconstituents of the actual world they are in the narrower sense\ninexplicable. One does not amount to an exact sum of some others, nor\nis one got from another by the simple process of subtraction. But\nif they cannot be explained, by being reduced to multiples of some\none basis, they can be comprehended in the respective implication\nand explication they exhibit with their co-realities. They can be\ncorrelated, reduced, and unified: we may even say, they can be\nidentified; but if we use such a term, we must mean that there is\nsome totality beyond and above them in which they all find a place\nand all are harmonious; in which all when brought to their Truth are\nreally one and the same. This birthright of human nature in all ages\nand countries--this central essence of man's spirit--is the realm of\nPlatonic ideas. They are the great elements, or constituent members, of\nhumanity and of reality: the framework of his mind and of the world.\nHow in each case they may be wrought out in detail, to what degree\nthey may here be evolved, and there stunted, is a matter of historical\nresearch. And, in a sense, even it is not wrong to try to trace them\none to another: to explain them, as the phrase is, one by another. For\nthey are essentially connected: they are members of one system: they\nare unified and harmonised in a way for which even the word 'organism'\nis wholly insufficient. They are the poles and lines on which the tent\nof human life, of intelligent life, is stretched: but they are also the\ninvisible ties which bind together the earth and heavens, and all that\nis therein.\n\nThese ideas therefore are immanent in man: for they are the basis\nof human nature. But to name, to disentangle them, to measure out\ntheir bounds and describe their connexions--that is no easy work.\nAnd that is the work of Platonic recollection. That is the process\nof historical experience. But it is a small thing for Plato to say\nthat these ideas are innate in man. What he is more concerned to make\nclear is that in the possession or vision of these eternal forms, the\nhuman soul is a partner of the gods, a citizen of the heavens. In\nless mythical language, man, as an intelligent, artistic, moral, and\nreligious being, is not a mere accidental on-looker on the surface of\nthings, but near their central and abiding truth. The forms of his\nmind, to speak after the manner of Kant, are the objective essences of\nthe real world of experience. Degrees there may be in the reality which\nthey possess--less or larger measures of truth to full experience--but\ntrue and real they are: never mere falsity or emptiness. To estimate\nthe amounts of that reality is a problem Plato often tried. At one time\nit seems as if the Good were in his estimate the form of forms, the\nreal of reals: but when we look closely, we see that it is a goodness\nwhich is synonymous with real reality or perfect being. At another time\ntruth, i. e. reality, seems to be lord of all: at another, beauty:\nand again he seems to confess his inability to lay down the order\nof precedence in this hierarchy. Of one thing only he is perfectly\nclear: and that is the unreality, the non-entity of the sense-world\nas merely perceived, and the true being of the world of reason. But\nhe has no doubts as to the central truth that in the good, the true,\nand the beautiful, there is a higher reality--a more far-reaching and\ndeep-piercing influence than in all the mere variety of sensation, the\nmere multitude of sensible fact.\n\nWhat Plato has sometimes called the act of reminiscence, what he has\nsometimes called the instinct of Love, is also known to him as the\nprocess of Dialectic. For reminiscence has to watch and wrestle with\nthe inertia of oblivion, has to set the imagined beside the real, and\nto correct percepts by concepts, concepts by percepts, has to brace\nup its energies, and to advance not by mere pressing onward, but by\ntacking and zigzagging through contrary difficulties finally realise\nitself. And love too is a battle, where the craving for union has to\nmeasure its force with the instinct of independence, where selfishness\nand self-surrender seek a reconciliation, and where in the close, if\nthe close be love, each is self-retained only as self-abandoned, and\neach rises to a higher union in which lower selfhoods are absorbed.\nEven so in the course of Dialectic. It is the art which divides\nand conjoins, which unifies and distinguishes: the art of asking\nand answering. To Plato it appears in the main as an action of the\nintelligent subject: but an action which, as he hints, is almost a\nnatural instinct, which through discipline has become an art. In the\nhands of its typical artist, it proceeds, or seems to proceed, as if\nunconscious of its principle and end. Socrates has, as he professes,\nno overt conception of the result: he has no knowledge of the positive\nconclusion to be reached. It is the Logos--the logic of reality--which\nsustains the movement. Abandoning any subjective humour of carrying\nthe argument to a preconceived end, one is swept on by the current of\nreal logic--the reason in things. The dogma we have set up and seemed\nto see before us, will, if we are dispassionate, carry us on beyond\nitself, and suggest aspects calling for recognition and acceptance. If\nonly we refrain from arresting the movement of criticism,--a course\nto which prudence, ease, custom, and every form of the _ignava ratio_\ncounsel us,--truth will reveal itself in us, and by us. It is because\nother aims, personal and particular, are so ever-present with us, that\nspeculative free inquiry seems so hard. It is we who insist on closing\nup the door, not the truth that is reluctant to show itself.\n\nTruth, then, is self-revelation or development. Not a result which is\nto be accepted, bowed to, and reverenced: but the result issuing (and\nonly valuable as issuing) from a process in which we and objectivity\nare fellow-workers. The truth may no doubt be presented--as Spinoza\ndoes present it--in definitions, stating the net result as fundamental\nfact. Fundamental fact it is; but as so stated, as Substance, it comes\nas a stranger, almost as an enemy: the great vision, suddenly offered\nto untrained eyes, overwhelms and alarms the living sense of self, of\npersonality. Hegel wishes to show it as a friend, as our very own,--as\nSubject (but not merely subject). It is for this that philosophy runs\nthrough its cycle and returns into itself. Man points to nature and\nnature to man: universal to individual: thought to things: the self to\nGod, and God to the human soul.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Hegel, _Werke_, ii. 14.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Spinoza, _Eth._ Def. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Spin. _De inteil. Em._ i. 10.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Spin. _Eth._ v. 35.]\n\n[Footnote 5: _Eth._ i. 17 schol.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV.\n\n\nREASON AND THE DIALECTIC OF UNDERSTANDING.\n\n\nRepresentative conceptions, besides being the burden of our ordinary\nmaterialising consciousness, are also the data of science, accepted\nand developed in their consequences. Because they are so accepted,\nas given into our hand, scientific reasoning can only institute\nrelations between them. Its business as thus conceived is progressive\nunification, comparing objects with one another, demonstrating the\nsimilarities which exist between them, and combining them with each\nother. The exercise of thought which deals with such objects is limited\nby their existence: it is only formal. It is finite thought, because\nit is only subjective: it begins at a given point and stops somewhere,\nand never gets quite round its materials so as to call them truly its\nown. Each of the objects on which it is turned seems to be outside\nof it, and independent of it. Each point of fact, again, when it is\ncarried out to its utmost, meets with other thoughts which limit it,\nand claim to be equally self-centred. Such knowledge creeps on from\npoint to point. To this thinking German philosophy from the time of\nKant and Jacobi applied a name, which since the days of Coleridge has\nbeen translated by 'Understanding'[1]. This degree or mode of thinking\n--not a faculty of thought--is the systematised and thorough exercise\nof what in England is called 'Common Sense.' In the first place, it is\nsynonymous with practical intelligence. It takes what it calls facts,\nor things, as given, and aims only at arranging and combining them and\ndrawing from them counsels of prudence or rules of art. Seeing things\non a superficies, as it were so many unconnected points, here itself\nand there the various things of the world, it tries to bring them into\nconnexion. It accepts existing distinctions, and seeks to render them\nmore precise by pointing out and sifting the elements of sameness.\nIts greatest merit is an abhorrence of vagueness, inconsistency, and\nwhat it stigmatises as mysticism: it wishes to be clear, distinct, and\npractical. In its proper sphere,--and it has an indispensable function\nto perform even in philosophy: wherever, that is, it is unnecessary\nto go into the essential truth of things, and one has only to do good\nwork in a clearly defined sphere,--the understanding has an independent\nvalue of its own[2] Nor is this true merely of practical life, where\na man must accommodate himself to facts: it is equally applicable\nin the higher theoretic life,--in art, religion, and philosophy. If\nintelligent definiteness does not make itself apparent in these, there\nis something wrong about them.\n\nIt is only when this exercise of thought is regarded as a _ne plus\nultra,_ and its mandates to restrict investigation by the limits of\nforegone conclusions find obedience, that understanding deserves\nthe reproachful language which was lavished upon it by the German\nphilosophers at the close of the last century. The understanding is\nabstract: this sums up its offences in one word. Its objects, that\nis the things it deals with and believes utterly real, are only\npartly so, and when that incompleteness is unrecognised, are only\nabstractions. Both in its contracted forms, such as faith and common\nsense, and in its systematic form, the logical or narrowly-consistent\nintellect, it is partial and liable to be tenacious of half-truths.\nOnly that whereas in feeling and common-sense there is often a great\ndeal which they cannot express,--whereas the heart is often more\nliberal than its interpreting mind will allow--the reverse is true of\nthe logically-consistent intellect. The narrowness of the latter is,\nin its own opinion, exactly equal to the truth of things: and whatever\nit expresses is asserted without qualification to be the absolute\nfact. Its business is, given the initial point (which is assumed to be\ncertain and perspicuous), to see all which that point will necessarily\ninvolve or lead to. For example, Order may be supposed to be the chief\nend of the State. Let us consider, says the intelligent arguer (without\nwasting time on abstruse inquiries as to what Order is or means, and\nwhat sort of Order we want), to what consequences and institutions\nthis conception will lead us. Or, again, the chief end of the State\nis assumed to be Liberty. To what special forms of organisation will\nthis hypothesis (also assumed a self-evident conception) lead? Or we\nmay go a step further. It is evident, some will say, that in a State\nthere must be a certain admixture of Order and Liberty. How are we to\nproceed--what laws and ordinances will be necessary, to secure the\nproper equilibrium of these two principles? The two must be blended,\nand each have its legitimate influence.\n\nThese are examples of the operation of Understanding. It can only reach\na synthesis (or conjunction), never a real unity, because it believes\nin the omnipotence of the abstractions with which it began: but must\neither carry out one partial principle to its consequences, or allow\nan alternate and combined force to two opposite principles. Its canon\nis identity: given something, let us see what follows when we keep the\nsame point always in view, and compare other points with the one which\nwe are supposed to know. Its method is analytic: given a conception\nin which popular thought supposes itself at home, and let us see all\nthe elements of truth which can be deduced from it. Its statements are\nabstract and narrow: or, in the words of Anaxagoras, one thing is cut\noff from another with a hatchet[3]. In its excess it degenerates into\ndogmatism, whether that dogmatism be theological or naturalistic.\n\nThe fact is that the Understanding, as this analytic, abstract, and\nfinite action of mind is called,--the thought which holds objective\nideas distinct from one another, and from the subjective faculties of\nthought as a whole,--that this Understanding is, when it claims to be\nheard and obeyed in science, not sufficiently thorough-going. It begins\nat a point which is not so isolated as it seems, but is a member of a\nbody of thought: nor is it aware that the whole of this body of thought\nis in organic, and even more than organic, union. It errs in taking too\nmuch for granted: and in not seeing how this given point is the result\nof a process,--that in it, in any thought or idea, several tendencies\nor elements converge and are held in union, but with the possibility\nof working their way into a new independence. In other words, the\nUnderstanding requires, as the organon and method of philosophy, to\nbe replaced by the Reason[4],--by infinite thought, concrete, at\nonce analytic and synthetic. How then, it may be asked, can we make\nthe passage from the inadequate to the adequate? To that question the\nanswer may be given that it is our act of arbitrary arrest which halts\nat the inadequate: that in complete Reason, which is the constituent\nnature both of us and of things, the Understanding is only a grade\nwhich points beyond itself, and therefore presupposes and struggles up\nto the adequate thought. In other words, it is Reason which creates or\nlays down for behoof of its own organisation the aims, conditions, and\nfixed entities,--the objects, by which it is bound and limited in its\nanalytic exercise as understanding. Reason, therefore, is the implicit\ntendency to correct its own inadequacy: and we have only to check\nself-will and prejudice so far that the process may be accomplished.\n\nThe movement is not at one step: it has a middle term or mean which\noften seems as if it were a step backward. Progress in knowledge is\nusually described as produced by the mode of demonstration or the\nmode of experience. Formal Logic prefers the first mode of describing\nit: Applied Logic prefers the second. Either mode may serve, if we\nproperly comprehend what demonstration and experience mean. And that\nwill not be done unless we keep equally before us the affirmative and\nthe negative element in the process. The law of rational progress in\nknowledge, of the dialectical movement of consciousness, or in one\nword of experience, is not simple movement in a straight line, but\nmovement by negation and absorption of the premisses. The conclusion\nor the new object of knowledge is a product into which the preceding\nobject is reduced or absorbed. Thus the movement from faith (which\nis concentrated and wholly personal knowledge) to open and universal\nknowledge, which is capable of becoming the possession of a\ncommunity,--truth and not merely conviction, must pass through doubt.\nThe premisses from which we start, and the original object with which\nwe begin, are not left _in statu quo_: they are destroyed in their\nown shape, and become only materials to build up a new object and a\nconclusion. It is on the stepping-stones of discarded ideas that we\nrise to higher truth: and it is on the abrogation of the old objects\nof knowledge that the new objects are founded. Not merely does a new\nobject come in to supplement the old, and correct its inadequacies by\nthe new presence: not merely do _we_ add new ranges to _our_ powers of\nvision, retaining the old faculties and subjoining others. The whole\nworld--alike inward and outward,--the consciousness and its object--is\nsubjected to a thorough renovation: every feature is modified, and\nthe system re-created. The old perishes: but in perishing contributes\nto constitute the new. Thus the new is at once the affirmation and\nnegation of the old. And such is the invariable nature of intelligent\nprogress, of which the old and not a few modern logicians failed to\nrender a right account, because they missed the negative element, and\ndid not see that the immediate premisses must be abolished in order to\nsecure a conclusion,--even as the grapes must be crushed before the\nwine can be obtained.\n\nThis is the real meaning of Experience, when it is called the teacher\nof humanity: and it was for this reason that Bacon described it as\n'far the best demonstration.'[5] Experience is that absolute process,\nembracing both us and things, which displays the nullity of what is\nimmediately given, or baldly and nakedly accepted, and completes it\nby the rough remedy of contradiction. The change comes over both\nus and the things: neither the one side nor the other is left as it\nwas before. And it is here that the advantage of Experience over\ndemonstration consists. Demonstration tends to be looked upon as\nsubjective only (_constringit assensum, non res_): whereas Experience\nis also objective. But Experience is more than merely objective: it\nis the absolute process of thought pure and entire; and as such it\nis described by Hegel as Dialectic, or Dialectical movement. This\nDialectic covers the ground of demonstration,--a fragment of it\nespecially described and emphasised in the Formal Logic,--and of\nExperience,--under which name it is better known in actual life, and in\nthe philosophy of the sciences[6].\n\nDialectic is the negative or destructive aspect of reason, as\npreparatory to its affirmative or constructive aspect. It is the spirit\nof dissent and criticism: the outgoing as opposed to the indwelling:\nthe restless as distinguished from the quiet: the reproductive as\nopposed to the nutritive instinct: the centrifugal as opposed to the\ncentripetal force: the radical and progressive tendency as opposed\nto the conservative. But no one of these examples sufficiently or\naccurately describes it. For it is the utterance of an implicit\ncontradiction,--the recognition of an existing and felt, but hitherto\nunrecognised and unformulated want. Dialectic does not supervene from\nwithout upon the fixed ideas of understanding: it is the evidence of\nthe higher nature which lies behind them, of the dependence on a larger\nunity which understanding implicitly or explicitly denies. That higher\nnature, the notion or grasp of reasonable thought, comes forward, and\nhas at first, in opposition to the one-sided products of understanding,\nthe look of a destructive agent. If we regard the understanding and\nits object, as ultimate and final,--and they are so regarded in the\nordinary estimation of the world,--then this negative action of reason\nseems utterly pernicious, and tends to end in the subversion of all\nfixity whatever, of everything definite. In this light Dialectic\nis what is commonly known as Scepticism; just as the understanding\nin its excess is known as Dogmatism. But in the total grasp of the\nrational or speculative notion, Dialectic ceases to be Scepticism, and\nUnderstanding ceases to be Dogmatism.\n\nStill there can be no doubt that the Dialectic of reason is dangerous,\nif taken abstractly and as if it were a whole truth. For the thoughts\nof ordinary men tend to be more abstract than their materials warrant.\nMen seek to formulate their feelings, faith, and conduct: but the\n_rationale_ of their inmost belief,--their creed,--is generally\nnarrower than it might be. Out of the undecomposed and massive\n'substance,' on which their life and conduct is founded, they extract\none or two ingredients: they emphasise with undue stress one or two\nfeatures in their world, and attach to these partial formulae a value\nwhich would be deserved only if they really represented the whole\nfacts. Hence when the narrow outlines of their creed are submitted\nto dialectic,--when the inlying contradictions are exposed, men feel\nas if the system of the world had sunk beneath them. But it is not\nthe massive structure of their world, the organic unity in which they\nlive, that is struck by dialectic: it is only those luminous points,\nthe representative terms of material thought, which float before their\nconsciousness, and which have been formulated in hard and fast outlines\nby the understanding. These points, as so defined and exaggerated, are\nwhat dialectic shakes. Not an alien force, but the inherent power of\nthought, destroys the temporary constructions of the understanding. The\ninfinite comes to show the inadequacy of the finite which it has made.\n\nIn philosophy this second stage is as essential as the first.\nThe one-sidedness of the first abstraction is corrected by the\none-sidedness of the other. In the Philosophy of Plato, as has been\nnoted, the dialectical energy of thought is sometimes spoken of\nunder the analogy of sexual passion--the Love which, in the words of\nSophocles, 'falls upon possessions' and makes all fixed ordinance of\nno account, and finds no obstacles insuperable to its strong desire.\nBut Love, as the speaker explains, is a child of Wealth and Want:\nhe is never poor, and never rich: he is in a mean between ignorance\nand knowledge[7]. Thus is described the active unrest of growth, the\n'_inquietude poussante_,' as Leibniz called it,--the quickening force\nof the negative and of contradiction.\n\nAt the word 'contradiction' there is heard a murmur of objection,\npartly on technical, partly on material grounds. There are, it is said,\nother ways of getting from one idea to another than by contradiction:\nand it is not right to give the title to mere cases of contrast and\ncorrelation. Now it may be the case that the relations of ideas are\nmany and various. In particular there is to many people a decided\npleasure in the mere accumulation of bits of knowledge. In their mental\nstock there are only aggregates,--conjunctions due to accidents of\ntime and place,--associations and fusions which do not reach organised\nunity. In all of us, perhaps, there are more or less miscellaneous\ncollections of beliefs, perceptions, hopes, and wishes, in no very\nobvious connexion with one another. An united self, one, harmonious,\nand complete, is probably rather an ideal of development than a fact\nrealised. There are in each two or three discordant selves,--among\nwhich it might sometimes be difficult to select the right and true\none (for that will depend on the momentary point of view). The deeper\nconsciousness may go on entirely independent of the train of the more\nsuperficial ideas: the world of reality may glide past without touching\nthe world of dream or of fiction: our business part may live in a\nregion parted off from our religion by gulfs inscrutable. In all these\ncases there cannot be said to be any contradiction.\n\nBut Hegel speaks of the essential progress of knowledge, and of that\ntrue self or real mind which has attained complete harmony--the self\nand mind that is implicitly or explicitly Absolute. In such a mind\nwhere the finite has passed or is passing into the infinite, in a mind\nthat is really becoming one and total, its parts must meet and modify\neach other. At each phase, if that phase is earnest, self-certain, and\nreal, it claims to be complete, and can brook no rival. The bringer\nof new things must appear as an enemy: for the old system, however\nimperfect as a mere form, has behind it the strength of an infinite\nand perfect content: it is more than it has explicated: but as it\n(from its imperfection and honesty) identifies itself with its form,\nit is resolved to resist change. Progress then must be by antagonism:\nit cannot be real progress otherwise, but only the mere shifting of\ndilettante doubt and dilettante toleration. Both new and old are worth\nsomething, and they must prove their value by neither being lost, but\nboth recognised, in a completer scheme of things.\n\nYet there is a difference in the measure of contradiction at different\nstages of thought. It is always greatest when there is least to be\nopposed about. The more meagre an idea, a creed, a term of thought,\nthe more violent the antitheses to it. The more abstractly we hold a\ndoctrine, the more readily are we disposed to sniff opposition. And as\nin more concrete belief, so in the more abstract terms of thought. They\nseem so wide apart--like 'Is' and 'Is not'--and yet, taken alone, they\nare really so ready to recoil into one another. As thought deepens,\ncontradiction takes a more modified form. The relativity of things\nbecomes apparent: and what were erewhile opposed as contradictory,\nturn out as pairs of correlatives, neither of which is fully what it\nprofessed to be, unless it also is all that seemed reserved for the\nother. Lastly, and in the full truth of development, progress is seen\nto be not merely a sudden recoil from one abstraction to another,\nnor merely a continual reference to an underlying correlative, but\nthe movement of one totality which advances by self-opposition,\nself-reconciliation, and self-reconstruction. In this stage, the\nweight and bulk of unity keeps the contradiction in its place of due\nsubordination. But both elements are equally essential, and if the\nunity is less palpable in the abstract beginnings, and the divergence\nless wide at the close, at neither beginning nor close can either be\nabsent.\n\nBut if we merely look at the differentiation or negation involved\nin the action of reason, we miss the half of its meaning: and the\nnew statement is as one-sided as the old. We have not grasped the\nfull meaning until we see that what, as understanding, affirmed a\nfinite, denies, as dialectic, the absoluteness or adequacy of that\nfinite. Both the partial views have a right to exist, because each\ngives its contribution to the science of truth.[8] If we penetrate\nbehind the surface,--if we do not look at the two steps in the process\nabstractly and in separation,--it will be seen that these two elements\ncoincide and unite. But we must be careful here. This coincidence or\nidentification of opposites has not annihilated their opposition or\ndifference. That difference subsists, but in abeyance, reduced to an\nelement or 'moment' in the unity. Each of the two elements has been\nmodified by the union: and thus when each issues from the unity it\nhas a richer significance than it had before. This unity, in which\ndifference is lost and found, is the rational notion,--the speculative\ngrasp of thought. It is the product of experience,--the ampler\naffirmative which is founded upon an inclusion of negatives.\n\nWe began with the bare unit, or simple and unanalysed point,\nwhich satisfied popular language and popular imagination as its\n_nucleus_:--the representation which had caught and half-idealised a\npoint, moment, or aspect in the range of feeling and sensation. In this\nstage the notion or thought proper is yet latent. In the first place,\nthe _nucleus_ of imagination was analysed, defined, and, as we may\nsurmise, narrowed in the Intellect. And this grade of thought is known\nas the Understanding. In the second place, the definite and precise\nterm, as understanding supposes it, was subjected to criticism: its\ncontradictions displayed; and the very opposite of the first definition\nestablished in its place. This is the action of Dialectic. In the third\nplace, by means of this second stage, the real nature or truth was seen\nto lie in a union where the opposites interpenetrate and mould each\nother. Thus we have as a conscious unity,--conscious because it, as\nunity, yet embraces a difference as difference--what we started with\nas an unconscious unity, the truth of feeling, faith, and inspiration.\nThe first was an immediate unity:--that is to say, we were in the midst\nof the unity, sunk in it, and making a part of it: the second is a\nmediated unity, which has been reached by a process of reflection, and\nwhich as a conscious unity involves that process.\n\nReason, then, is infinite, as opposed to understanding, which is finite\nthinking. The limits which are found and accepted by the analytic\nintellect, are limits which reason has imposed, and which it can\ntake away: the limits are in it, and not over it. The larger reason\nhas been laying down those limits, which our little minds at first\ntend to suppose absolute. Let us put the same law in more concrete\nterms. It is reason,--the Idea,--or, to give it an inadequate and\nabstract name, Natural Selection--which has created the several forms\nof the animal and vegetable world: it is reason, again, which in\nthe struggle for existence contradicts the very inadequacies which\nit has brought into being: and it is reason, finally, which affirms\nboth these actions,--the hereditary descent, and the adaptation--in\nthe provisionally permanent and adequate forms which result from the\nstruggle.\n\nThe three stages thus enumerated are therefore not merely stages\nin our human reason as subjective. They state the law of rational\ndevelopment in pure thought, in Nature, and in the world of Mind,--the\nworld of Art, Morals, and Science. They represent the law of thought\nor reason in its most general or abstract terms. They state, mainly\nin reference to the method or form of thought, that Triplicity, which\nwill be seen in those real formations or phases to which thought\nmoulds itself,--the typical species of reason. They reappear hundreds\nof times, in different multiples, in the system of philosophy. The\nabstract point of the Notion which parts asunder in the Judgment, and\nreturns to a unity including difference in the Syllogism:--the mere\ngenerality of the Universal, which, by a disruption into Particulars\nand detail, gives rise to the real and actual Individual:--the Identity\nwhich has to be combined with Difference in order to furnish a possible\nGround for Existence:--the baldness and nakedness of an Immediate\nbelief, which comes to the full and direct certainty of itself, to\ntrue immediacy, only by gathering up the full sense of the antithesis\nwhich can separate conviction from truth, or by realising the Mediation\nconnecting them:--all these are illustrations of the same law really\napplied which has been formally stated as the necessity for a defining,\na dialectical, and a speculative element in thought. The three parts\nof Logic are an instance of the same thing: and when the Idea, or\norganism of thought, appears developed in the series of Natural forms,\nit is only to prepare the kingdom of reason actualised in the world of\nMind. The Understanding, on the field of the world, corresponds, says\nHegel[9], to the conception of Divine Goodness. The life of nature\ngoes on in the independence and self-possession of all its parts, each\nas fixed and proud of its own, as if its share of earth were for ever\nassured. The finite being then has his season of self-satisfied ease:\nwhile the gods live in quiet, away from the sight of man's doings.\nThe dialectical stage, again, corresponds to the conception of God as\nan omnipotent Lord: when the Power of the universe waxes terrific,\ndestroying the complacency of the creatures and making them feel their\ninsufficiency,--when the once beneficent appears jealous and cruel, and\nthe joyous equanimity of human life is oppressed by the terrors of the\ninscrutable hand of fate. The easy-minded Greek lived for the most part\nin the former world: the uneasy Hebrew to a great extent in the latter.\nBut the truth lay neither in the placid wisdom of Zeus, leaving the\nworld to its own devices, nor in the jealous Jehovah of Mount Sinai:\nthe true speculative union is found in the mystical unity of Godhead\nwith human nature. In this comprehensive spirit did Hegel treat Logic.\n\nThis Triplicity runs through Hegel's works. If you open one, the main\ndivisions are marked with the capitals A, B, C. One of these, it may\nbe, is broken up into chapters headed by the Roman numerals I, II, III.\nUnder one or more of these probably come severally the Arabic numerals\n1, 2, 3. Any one of these again may be subdivided, and gives rise to\nsections, headed by the small letters a, b, c. And, lastly, any one\nof these may be treated to a distribution under the three titles \u03b1,\n\u03b2, \u03b3. Of course the division is not in each case carried equally far:\nnor does the subject always permit it: nor is Hegel's knowledge alike\nvigorous, or his interest in all directions the same.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: 'Verstand,']\n\n[Footnote 2: 'Die Vernunft ohne Verstand ist Nichts; der Verstand doch\nEtwas ohne Vernunft.' Hegel's _Leben_, p. 546.]\n\n[Footnote 3: \u1f4b\u03c4\u03b9 \u03bf\u1f50 \u03ba\u03b5\u03c7\u03ce\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u1f00\u03bb\u03bb\u03ae\u03bb\u03c9\u03bd \u03c4\u1f70 \u1f10v \u03c4\u1ff7 \u1f11vi \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u1ff3 \u1f00\u1f50\u03b4\u1f72\n\u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03ba\u03ad\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b5\u03bb\u03ad\u03ba\u03b5\u03ca. Simplic. Phys. fol. 38 a (ed. Diels, p. 176).]\n\n[Footnote 4: 'Vernunft.']\n\n[Footnote 5: _Novum Organum_, Book I. 70.]\n\n[Footnote 6: _Phenomenologie des Geistes_, p. 67.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Plato, _Symposion,_ 203.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Cf. Dante, _Parad._ iv. 130.]\n\n[Footnote 9: See in the _Logic_ (vol. ii. p. 145).]\n\n\n\n\nPROLEGOMENA\n\nBOOK III\n\n_LOGICAL OUTLINES_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\n\nTHOUGHT PURE AND ENTIRE.\n\n\nThe English reader may probably be taken to be familiar with the\nconception of Logic as the Science of the _Form_ of Thought. He may\nalso have heard this explained as equivalent to the Science of Thought\nas Thought, or of Thought as Form, or of Formal Thought. But, probably,\nalso, he brings to the lesson no very high estimate of _form_ as\nsuch. In the old language of Greek philosophy, transmitted through\nthe Schoolmen of the West, and still lingering in the phraseology of\nBacon and Shakespeare[1], Forms and substantial forms were powers in\nthe world of reality. But a generation arose which knew them not: to\nwhich they were only belated survivals of the past. The forms had lost\nconnexion with matter and content, and had come to seem something\noccult, transcendent, and therefore, to a practical and realistic age,\nsomething fantastic and superfluous. Yet it may be well to recall\nthat the same author who has put on record his view that forms are\nonly mental figments, unless they be fully 'determinate in matter,'\nhas equally laid it down that the so-called 'causes' of vulgar\nphilosophy--the matter and the agent--are only 'vehicles of the form,'\nThus spontaneously did Bacon reconstruct the Aristotelian theory of the\ninterdependence of form and matter, that form is always form _of_ (or\n_in_) matter, and that matter is always _for_ form.\n\nThe relativity of form and matter, or of form and content, is indeed\nalmost a commonplace of popular discussion on logical subjects.\nBut like other uncritical applications of great truths, this is\nboth carried beyond its proper bounds, and is not carried out with\nsufficient thoroughness. There cannot--it is said--be a formal logic,\nbecause every exercise of thought is internally affected or modified by\nthe material--the subject-matter--with which it deals. It is implied\nin such an argument that the 'subject-matter' finds no difficulty\nin existing by itself, but that the 'thought' is a mere vacuity or\nun-characterised something which owes its every character to the\nsaid matter. But a subject-matter which has content and character\nhas therefore form: it is already known, already thought. And as to\nthis thought, which is said to approach its matter with a self so\nblank, so impartial, so neutral--what is it? It is a thought or a\nthinking which has never as yet thought,--which is only named 'thought'\nby right of expectation, but is itself nothing actual. Of such\n--fictitious--thought there can hardly be a science.\n\nOn the other hand, that may be easily called a formal logic, which is\nmuch more than formal: and that may be called material, which is only\na species of formal. Great indeed is the virtue of names, to suppress\nand to replace thought. When forms hang on as mysterious names after\ntheir day is passed--when they are retained in a certain honour, while\nthe real working methods have assumed other titles; then these forms\nbecome purely formal and antiquated. Thus the Logic of Aristotle seemed\nin its unfamiliar language to a later generation to be purely formal\nand superfluous. It was only another side of the same mistake when\nthe new forms--the forms efficient and active in matter,--were not\nrecognised as formal, but were boldly styled material: and the Logic\nwhich discussed such matter-marked forms was called a material Logic.\n\nThe phrase Matter of Thought, like its many congeners, is a fruitful\nmother of misconceptions. Caught up by the pictorial imagination, which\nis always at hand to anticipate thought, it suggests a matter, which is\nnot thought, but is _there,_ all the same, lying in expectation of it.\nIt suggests two things--(for are there not two words, and a preposition\nor term of relation between them?). But there are not two things.\nThis _matter_ is just as much a nonentity as the aforesaid _thought_:\na matter of thought is a thought matter,--matter, thought once, and\npossibly to be thought again.\n\nAll this talk about the Relativity of form and matter is insincere,\nand semi-conventional. It is (like the well-known antithesis between\nMatter and Mind, of which indeed it is only a variation) a halting\nbetween two views. That which it chiefly leans to, is that there can\nbe no form without matter, though there may well be matter which is\nnot yet formed. At the best it goes no further than to admit or assert\nthat _besides_ the one there is _also_ the other. It establishes a\nsee-saw, and is proud of it. This is Dualism. Its maxim is, Don't\nforget that there is an Other. You have explored the One: you have\nperhaps done well. But there is also and always the Other. The second\nview is not the mere negation of this dualism. That there is a\ndualism is a fact which it acknowledges.[2] All life and reality is\nmanifested in dualism--in antithesis: but the life and the reality\nis one. Mind--_Geist_--actualised and intelligent experience--is\nthe one ultimate and essential reality.[3] In the face of its unity,\nmere matter is only a half-truth, and mere thought is only another.\nThe reality, the unity, and the truth, is matter as formed, nature as\nreflected in mind. In the reality of experience there is always the\npresence of thought: and thought is only real when it is wedded with\nnature in the truth of man's mind. So far Bacon and Hegel coincide.\nMan--in so far as he is Mind--and of course Mind in its fullness is not\nmerely subjective nor merely objective, but absolute--is the measure of\nall things, the central and comprehensive reality. Such a man--and such\na mind--is, we need hardly add, not the man in the street, nor the man\nin the study: but the infinite, universal, eternal mind in whom these\nand all others essentially have their being. Such truth of Man--such\nMind--is the Absolute: it is sometimes named God: it is the ideal of\nall aspiration, and the fountain of all truth.\n\n'Logic,' says Hegel[4], 'is the science of the Idea in the medium of\nmere thought.' It exhibits the truth in one partial aspect, or shows\none appearance of the total unity of the world,--the aspect it would\nwear if we could for a moment suppose the reality of Nature to vanish\nout of sight, and the ideality of Mind reduced to a ghost. It dissects\nthe underlying organisation--the scheme of unification--which the world\nof mental or spiritual experience presents in all its concreteness.\nAnd it does so because it exhibits the last result of the ever clearer\nand clearer experience which Mind achieves as it comes to see and\nrealise itself. The logical skeleton is the sublimated product of\na rich concrete experience. It has been a curious delusion of some\nwho were probably satisfied by a casual glance at Hegel's _Logic_,\nespecially in its earlier chapters, to suppose that the Logic was\nmeant to be the absolute beginning: and that pure or mere thought was\nthe congenital endowment of the heaven-born philosopher[5]. To Hegel,\non the contrary, Logic was an abstraction from a fuller, more concrete\nreality. He did not indeed suppose that the symbolical conception of\nMovement--in its popular pictorialness--would be an adequate substitute\nor representative for thought; but he knew that the energy of mental\ndevelopment was the fact, and the truth, of which 'becoming' is a\nmeagre, abstract phase.\n\nLogic, then, is not the Science of mere or pure thought, but of the\nIdea (which is co-terminous with reality)--of the Mind's synthetic\nunity of experience--looked at, however, abstractly, in the medium\nof pure thought. Just so, Nature-philosophy is the same Idea, as it\nturns up bit after bit distracted, fragmentary, and more or less\nmutilated, in the multiplication, the time and space division, of\nphysical phenomena. But as science requires us to go from the simple\nto the more complex, as the truth has to prove itself true, by serving\nin its conclusion as the corroboration of all its premisses or\npresuppositions; so the system of philosophy begins with the Logic.\nYet it can only begin there, because it has already apprehended itself\nin its completeness: and it can only move onward because it is the\nconcentrated essence--the implicit being--of all that it actually and\nexplicitly is. It may appear to emerge from a point: but that point\nhas at its back the intellectual unity of a philosophy which embraces\nthe world. It presupposes the complete philosopher who shall be the\ncomplete organ of absolute intelligence, of universal and eternal\nSpirit.\n\nA satisfactory Logic then presupposes or implies a complete system of\nphilosophy. No doubt, for a logic which deals with the minor problems\nof ratiocination or formal induction, all that is needed is a certain\ngeneral acquaintance with popular conceptions, and with the results or\nmethods of physical science. But if logic takes its business seriously,\nit must go behind these presuppositions. It must trace back reasoning\nto its roots, fibres, and first principles. And to do that it is not\nenough to put at the front a psychological chapter. Far from helping,\npsychology in these matters is much more in need of being helped\nitself. Till it has learned a little of the puzzle of the one and the\nmany, the same and the diverse, being, quality, and essence, psychology\nwill be as little use to Logic as blind guides generally are. Nor need\nthis prevent us from saying that when psychology has thoroughly learned\nthese mysteries, it will give fresh life and reality to the logic which\nit touches upon. The principles of Logic lie in another field,[6] and\nare deeper in the ground, than obvious psychological gossip.\n\nIf Logic then deals with form, it deals with a form of forms--the\nform of the world, of life, and of reality. It is a form, which\nis a unity in diversity, an organism,--a form which is infinitely\nmanifold, and yet in all its multiplicity one. Logic is the morphology\nof thought,--of that thought which in Nature is concealed under\nthe variety and divisions of things, and which in the theory of\nmental and spiritual life is resumed into a complete biology of the\nworld-organism. The problem of Logic then demands an abstraction--an\neffort of self-concentration--an effort by which the whole machinery\nof the sensible universe shall be left behind, and the accustomed\nclothing of our thoughts be removed. To move in this ether of pure\nthought is clearly one of the hardest of problems.\n\nLike Plato, we may occasionally feel that we have caught a glimpse of\nthe super-sensible world unveiled; but it disappears as the senses\nregain their hold. We can probably fix a firm eye on one term of\nreason, and criticise its value: but it is less easy to survey the\nBacchic dance from term to term[7], and allow them to criticise\nthemselves. The distracting influence of our associations, or of\noutside things, is always leading us astray. Either we incline to treat\nthoughts as psychological products or species, the outcome of a mental\nprocess, which are (_a_) given to us from the beginning, and so _a\npriori_ or innate, or which (_b_) spring up in the course of experience\nby mutual friction between our mind and the outside world, and so are\n_a posteriori_ or derivative. Or disregarding the subjective side of\nthoughts, we act as if they were more correctly called things: we\nspeak of relations between phenomena: we suppose things, and causes,\nand quantities to form part of the so-called external universe, which\nscience explores. The one estimate of thought, like the other, keeps in\nview, though at some distance, and so as not to interfere with their\npractical discussions, the separate and equal existence of thoughts\nand things. The psychologists or subjectivists of logic scrutinise the\nworld within us first of all, and purpose to accomplish what can be\ndone for the mind as possessing a faculty of thought, before they turn\nto the world of things. The realists or objectivists of logic think it\nbetter for practical work to allow thought only the formal or outside\nlabour of surveying and analysing the laws of phenomena out of the\nphenomena which contain them. Neither of them examines thought--'the\noriginal synthetic unity'--in its own integrity as a movement in its\nown self, an inner organisation, of which subject and object, the\nmind and the things called external, are the vehicles, or, in logical\nlanguage, the accidents.\n\nIf it is possible to treat the history of the English Constitution as\nan object of inquiry in itself and for its own sake, without reference\nto the individuals who in course of time marred and mended it, or\nto the setting of events in which its advance is exhibited, why not\ntreat the thought, which is the universal element of all things, of\nEnglish Constitution, and Italian Art, and Greek Philosophy, in the\nsame way,--absolutely, i. e. in itself and for its own sake? When\nthat is done, distinctions rigidly sustained between _a priori_ and\n_a posteriori_ become meaningless because now seen to belong to a\ndistinction of earlier and later in the history of the individual\nconsciousness. There is at best only a modified justification for such\nmottoes and cries, as 'Art for Art's sake,' or 'Science must be left\nfree and unchecked,' or 'The rights of the religious conscience ought\nalways to be respected': but there can be no demur or limitation to the\ncry that Thought must be studied in Thought by Thought and for the sake\nof Thought. For Art, and Science, and Religion are specialised modes\nin which the totality or truth of things presents itself to mankind,\nand none of them can claim an unconditioned sway: their claims clash,\nand each must be admitted to be after all a partial interpretation, a\nmore or less one-sided interpretation of the true reality of the world.\nThought on the other hand is unlimited: for it exists not merely in\nits own abstract modes, but interpenetrates and rules all the other\nconcrete forms of experience, manifesting itself in Art and Religion,\nnot less than in Science. And thus when we study Thought, we study that\nwhich is in itself and for itself,--we study Absolute Being. On the\nother side it must be noted that in Logic it is Absolute Being, only\nwhen and as it is _thought,_ which we study. The two sides, Being and\nThought, must both come forward: and come in unity, although in some\nphases of the Idea the thought-element, in others the being-element is\nmore pronounced.\n\nThought, too, is Being. An old distinction of the Stoics, which not\ninaptly represents popular views on this matter, set on one side \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1,\nexistences (which were always corporeal, whether they were the things\nwe touch and feel, or the words and breathings by which we utter them),\nand on the other side the meanings or thoughts proper or \u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b1\n(which were incorporeal). These \u03bb\u03b5\u03ba\u03c4\u03ac, as they were otherwise called,\nwere to the Stoics the proper sphere of Logic. In the sense therefore\nwhich the Stoics and popular consciousness give to being, the object of\nlogic does not possess being. It is not corporeal. It cannot however\nbe said to be in the sphere of non-being. It is rather a part of\nreality--of concrete being--which can be considered apart, as if it\nstood alone. Alone it does not stand. And yet it holds a position so\nfundamental,--is the same theme again and again repeated under endless\nvariations,--is so obviously the universal of things--that it may\nproperly form the subject of independent study.\n\nIt is, moreover, a part of Reality, which may well claim to stand for\nthe whole. It is, so to say, the score of the musical composition,\nrolled up in its bare, silent, unadorned lineaments; the articulated\ntheme, besides, and not the mere germinal concept, of all the variety\nof melody. But it is only laid up there _in abstracto_, because in\nthe soul of the composer it had already taken concrete form, due to\nhis capacity and training, his mental force, his art and science. It\nis there that the score has its source. But secondly, the musical work\nexists in the performance of the orchestra: in the manipulations of the\nseveral instruments, in the notes of the singers, in all the diversity\nof parts which make up the mechanism for unfolding the meaning or\ntheme--that unreality, that mere thought, which to the stricter Stoic\nmight be said to have no \u1f54\u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03be\u03b9\u03c2, or bodily subsistence. And there are\nstill people who will be disposed to assert that it is only in the\nmultitude of notes of violin, trombone, flute, &c., that the music is\nreal:--though perhaps these hardy realists do not quite mean what they\nsay. For what they probably mean, and what is the fact, is that the\nmusic exists as a complete reality in those who have ears and minds\ncapable of comprehending and enjoying it: in those who can reunite\nmeaning and theme to execution and orchestration: and we may even add\nthat it is more and more real, in proportion to the greater power with\nwhich they can bring these two into one.\n\nWe shall rather say then that thought points to reality, and that mere\nnature seeks for interpretation: that mere thought and mere being both\nseek for reunion. Yet if in the complete reality we thus distinguish\ntwo elements, we may follow Hegel in setting the pure Idea first. It\nis no doubt in a way true that, as has been said, Hegel may be often\nread most easily if we first begin with his concluding paragraphs. In\npsychology and ethics the fundamental principles have assumed a more\nimposing, a larger, a more humanly-interesting shape, than they bear\nin the intangible outlines of Logic. There they are written in blacker\nink and broader lines than in the grey on grey. But after all, it is\nonly for those who have grasped the faint--yet fixed--outlines that the\nfull-contoured figure speaks its amplest truth. The true sculptor must\nbegin with a thorough study of anatomy. For those therefore who do not\ncare merely for results, it is indispensable to begin--or at least to\nturn back to the beginning--to the Logic. No doubt the full tones of\nthe heard and sounded harmony are the true and adequate presentation\nof the composer's purpose: but they will be best comprehended and\nappreciated by those who have thoroughly grasped the score.\n\nIn Logic, so regarded, thought is no longer merely our thought. It is\nthe constructive, relational, unifying element of reality. Without it\nreality would not articulately be anything for us: and such thoughts\nseem to be its net extract, its quintessence, its concentrated meaning.\nBut really they are only the potent _form_ of reality. Or, more\nexactly, in its limits, under its phases, must come all reality if it\nis to be part and parcel of our intelligent possession, our certified\nproperty. Such a thought is the frame-work, the shape-giver of our\nworld, of our communicable experience. It is the formative principle of\nour intelligent life, as it is the principle through which things have\nmeaning for us, and we have meaning for and fellowship with others.\nIt is not so rich as religion and art, perhaps it does not have the\nintensity of feeling and faith: but it is at the very basis of all of\nthese, or it is the concentrated essence of what in them is explicated\nand developed. Humanity in these its highest energies is more than mere\nthought--more than mere logic: but it is still at the root thought, and\nit is still governed by the laws and movement of this higher logic. For\nthis is a logic which is no mere instrument of technical reasoning,\nfor proof or disproof: no mere code of rules for the evaluation of\ntestimony. It is a logic which deals with a thought--or an Idea in\nthought-form--which is the principle of all life and reality: the way\nof self-criticism which leads to truth: a thought which is at home in\nall the phases and provinces of experience.\n\nUnder the same name, Logic, therefore, we find something quite\ndifferent from what the example of Aristotle and his ancient and modern\nfollowers had accustomed us to.[8] Under the auspices of Kant and his\n'Transcendental logic' there has emerged the need of something more\ncorresponding to the title. For the word itself was not used either by\nAristotle or the Stoics. Neither the Analytics and Topics of the one,\nnor the Dialectic of the other, exhaust the conception of the science,\nor, to put it more accurately, they are only inceptions of a science,\nthe fulfilment of which was reserved for a later time. Bacon and Locke,\nDescartes and Spinoza, all the thinkers of modern Europe call for a\ndeeper probing of the logical problem: for a grasp of it which shall\nbe more worthy of its conventional name, Logic, the theory of Reason.\nAnd we may even say that what is wanted is a unification of the problem\nof the Organon with that of the first philosophy, a unification of\nLogic with Metaphysics: a recognition that the problem of reason is\nnot merely the method of reasoning, but the whole theory as to the\ncorrelations of perception and conception, of thinking and reality.\n\nThis conception of Logic as the self-developing system of Thought\npure and entire, is the distinctive achievement of Hegel. 'I cannot\nimagine,' he says, 'that the method which I have followed in this\nsystem of Logic, or rather the method which this system follows in\nits own self, is otherwise than susceptible of much improvement, and\nmany completions of detail: but I know at the same time that it is the\nonly genuine method. This is evident from the circumstance that it is\nnothing distinct from its object and subject-matter: for it is the\nsubject-matter within itself, or its inherent dialectic, which moves it\nalong.'[9]\n\nBut how is this universe of thought to be discovered, and its law of\nmovement to be described? From times beyond the reach of history,\nfrom nations and tribes of which we know only by tradition and vague\nconjectures, in all levels of social life and action, the synthetic\nenergy of thought has been productive, and its evolution in the field\nof time has been going on. For thousands of years the intellectual city\nhas been rearing its walls: and much of the process of its formation\nlies beyond the scope of observation. But fortunately there is a help\nat hand, which will enable us to discover at least the main outlines in\nthe system of thought.\n\nThe key to the solution was found somewhat in the same way as led\nto the Darwinian theory concerning the Origin of Species. When the\nquestion touching the causes of variation and persistence in the\nnatural kinds of plants and animals seemed so complex as to baffle all\nattempts at an answer, Darwin found what seemed a clue likely to lead\nto a theory of descent. The methods adopted in order to keep up, or to\nvary, a species under domestication were open to anybody's inspection:\nand those principles, which were consciously pursued in artificial\nselection by the breeder, suggested a theory of similar selection\nin free nature. In studying the phenomena of thought, of which the\nspecies or types were no less numerous and interesting than those in\norganic nature, it was perhaps impossible to survey the whole history\nof humanity. But it was comparatively easy to observe the process of\nthought in those cases where its growth had been fostered consciously\nand distinctly. The history of philosophy records the steps in the\nconscious and artificial manipulation of what for the far greater part\nis transacted in the silent workshops of nature. Philosophy, in short,\nis to the general growth of intelligence what artificial breeding is to\nthe variation of species under natural conditions. In the successive\nsystems of philosophy, the order and concatenation of ideas was, as it\nwere, clarified out of the perturbed medium of real life, and expressed\nin its bare equivalents in terms of thought, and thus first really\nacquired. Half of his task was already performed for the logician,\nand there remained the work, certainly no slight one--of showing the\nunity and organic development which marked the conscious reasoning,\nand of connecting it with the general movement of human thought. The\nlogician had to break down the rigid lines which separated one system\nof philosophy from another,--to see what was really involved in the\ncontradiction of one system by its successor,--and to show that the\nnegation thus given to an antecedent principle was a definite negation,\nending not in mere zero or vacuity, but in a distinct result, and\nmaking an advance upon the previous height of intelligence.\n\nTo say this was to give a new value to the history of philosophy.\nFor it followed that each system was no _mere_ opinion or personal\nview, but was in the main a genuine attempt of the thinker to give\nexpression to the tacit or struggling consciousness of his age. Behind\nthe individual--who is often unduly regardless of his contemporaries\nand predecessors, and who writes or thinks with little knowledge or\nsympathy for them, there is the general bearing and interest of the\nage, its powerful solidarity of purpose and conception. The philosopher\nis the prophet, because he is in a large part the product of his age.\nHe is an organ of the mind of his age and nation; and both he and it\nplay a part in the general work of humanity.\n\nOn the other hand, it is dangerous to insist too forcibly on the\nrationality of the history of philosophy. For it may be taken to\nmean--probably only by blinded or wooden commentators--that each\nstep in the evolution and concatenation of the logical idea is to be\nidentified with some historical system, and that these systems must\nhave appeared in this precise order. And this would be to expect\ntoo much from the 'impotence of nature' which plays its part in the\nhistorical world also: as that on one side forms part of the Natural.\nThere is Reason in the world--and in the world of history; but not in\nthe pellucid brightness and distinct outlines proper to the Idea in\nthe abstract element of thought. It may take several philosophers to\nmake one step in thought; and sometimes one philosopher of genius may\ntake several steps at once. There may even be co-eval philosophies:\nand there may be philosophies which appear to run on in independent\nor parallel lines of development. It may well be that Hegel has\nunderestimated these divergencies, and that he has been too apt to see\nin all history the co-operation to one dominant purpose. But these\nerrors in the execution of a philosophy of history, and especially of\nthe history of philosophy, should not diminish our estimate of its\nprinciple.[10]\n\nAt first this process was seen in the medium of time. But the\nconditions of time are of practical and particular interest only. The\nday when the first leaves appear, and the season when the fruit ripens\non a tree, are questions of importance to practical arboriculture. But\nbotany deals only with the general theory of the plant's development,\nin which such considerations have to be generalised. So logic leaves\nout of account those points of time and chance which the interests of\nindividuals and nations find all-important. And when this element of\ntime has been removed, there is left a system of the types of thought\npure and entire,--embalming the life of generations in mere words. The\nsame self-identical thought is set forth from its initial narrowness\nand poverty on to its final amplitude and wealth of differences. At\neach stage it is the Absolute: outside of it there is nothing. It is\nthe whole, pure and entire: always the whole. But in its first totality\nit is all but a void: in its last a fully-formed and articulated\nworld,--because it holds all that it ever threw out of itself resumed\ninto its grasp.\n\nIn these circumstances nothing can sound higher and nobler than the\nTheory of Logic. It presents the Truth unveiled in its proper form and\nabsolute nature. If the philosopher may call this absolute totality\nof thought ever staying the same in its eternal development,--this\nadequacy of thought to its own requirements--by the name of God, then\nwe may say with Hegel that Logic exhibits God as He is in His eternal\nBeing before the creation of Nature and a finite Mind.[11] But the\nlogical Idea is only a phantom Deity--the bare possibility of a God\nor of absolute reality in all the development of its details.\n\nThe first acquaintance with the abstract theory is likely to dash\ncold water on the enthusiasm thus awakened, and may sober our views\nof the magic efficacy of Logic. 'The student on his first approach\nto the Science,' says Hegel, 'sees in Logic at first only one system\nof abstractions apart and limited to itself, not extending so as\nto include other facts and sciences. On the contrary, when it is\ncontrasted with the variety abounding in our generalised picture of\nthe world, and with the tangible realities embraced in the other\nsciences,--when it is compared with the promise of the Absolute Science\nto lay bare the essence of that variety, the inner nature of the mind\nand the world, or, in one word, the Truth,--this science of Logic\nin its abstract outline, in the colourless cold simplicity of its\nmere terms of thought, seems as if it would perform anything sooner\nthan this promise, and in the face of that variety seems very empty\nindeed. A first introduction to the study of Logic leads us to suppose\nthat its significance is restricted to itself. Its doctrines are not\nbelieved to be more than one separate branch of study engaged with the\nterms or dimensions of thought, besides which the other scientific\noccupations have a proper material and body of their own. Upon these\noccupations, it is assumed, Logic may exert a formal influence, but\nit is the influence of a natural and spontaneous logic for which the\nscientific form and its study may be in case of need dispensed with.\nThe other sciences have upon the whole rejected the regulation-method,\nwhich made them a series of definitions, axioms, and theorems, with the\ndemonstration of these theorems. What is called Natural Logic rules\nin the sciences with full sway, and gets along without any special\ninvestigation in the direction of thought itself. The entire materials\nand facts of these sciences have detached themselves completely\nfrom Logic. Besides they are more attractive for sense, feeling, or\nimagination, and for practical interests of every description.\n\nAnd so it comes about that Logic has to be learned at first, as\nsomething which is perhaps understood and seen into, but of which the\ncompass, the depth, and further import are in the earliest stages\nunperceived. It is only after a deeper study of the other sciences that\nlogical theory rises before the mind of the student into a universal,\nwhich is not merely abstract, but embraces within it the variety\nof particulars.--The same moral truth on the lips of a youth, who\nunderstands it quite correctly, does not possess the significance or\nthe burden of meaning which it has in the mind of the veteran, in whom\nthe experience of a lifetime has made it express the whole force of its\nimport. In the same way, Logic is not appreciated at its right value\nuntil it has grown to be the result of scientific experience. It is\nthen seen to be the universal truth,--not a special study beside other\nmatters and other realities, but the essence of all these other facts\ntogether.[12]\n\n\n[Footnote 1: E. g. 'formal' in _Hamlet_, iv. 5. 215; 'informal' in\n_Measure for Measure,_ v. 236.]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Encycl._ \u00a7 574 (_Philosophy of Mind,_ p. 196).]\n\n[Footnote 3: _Encycl._ \u00a7 377.]\n\n[Footnote 4: _Logic_, vol. ii. p. 30.]\n\n[Footnote 5: The criticisms of A. Trendelenburg, in his _Logische\nUntersuchungen,_ rest on such assumptions. 'Trendelenburg,' says\nHartmann, 'means low-water mark in German philosophy.']\n\n[Footnote 6: See above all Bradley's _Principles of Logic_, and\nBosanquet's _Logic_, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 7: 'Das Wahre ist der bacchantische Taumel, an dem kein Glied\nnicht trunken ist; und weil jedes, indem es sich absondert, ebenso\nunmittelbar sich aufl\u00f6st,--ist es ebenso die durchsichtige und einfache\nRuhe.' _Phenom. des Geistes,_ p 35.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Prantl, _Geschichte der Logik,_ i. 87.]\n\n[Footnote 9: _Wissenschaft der Logik_, i. p. 39.]\n\n[Footnote 10: See _Encyclop._ \u00a7 549 _(Philosophy of Mind_, pp. 148\nseqq.). It is, of course, quite another question--to be answered by\nintelligent research--how far in particular cases Hegel has accurately\nstudied a thinker, and faithfully interpreted him. Some of his critics\nin this line appear to mistake philology--which is a highly important\nauthority in its own field--for philosophy: and will no doubt go on\ndoing so.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Hegel's _Werke_, iii., 33.]\n\n[Footnote 12: _Wissenschaft der Logik_, i. p. 43.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\n\nABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE: OR THE CATEGORIES.\n\n\nAccording to the strict reasonings of Kant in his _Criticism of Pure\nReason_, and the somewhat looser discussions of Mr. Spencer in his\n_First Principles_ a science of Metaphysics or theory of the Infinite,\nAbsolute, or Unconditioned is impossible. As a result of the criticism\nby Kant, Jacobi claimed the Absolute for Faith: and Spencer banishes\nthe Absolute or Unknowable to the sphere of Religion to be worshipped\nor ignored, but in either case blindly. As we have already seen, Hegel\ndoes not accept this distribution of provinces between religion and\nphilosophy. There is only one world, one reality: but it is known more\nor less fully, more or less truly and adequately. It is presented in\none way to the sensuous imagination: in another to the scientific\nanalyst: in a third to the philosopher. To the first it is a mere\nsuccession or expanse of pictures, facts, appearances: and outside\nit--somewhere, but not here,--there is a land, a being of perfect\nwholeness and harmony. To the second it is an unending chain of causes\nand effects, of one thing simplified by being referred to another till\nat last a mighty all-explaining nullity, called an 'Ultimate Cause,'\nis presumed to linger, eternally unperceived at the infinitely-distant\nend of the series. To the third everything is seen in connexion, but\nnot a mere uni-linear connexion: each, when studied, more and more\ncompletes itself by including those relations which seemed to stand\noutside: each fully realised, or completely invested with its ideal\nimplications, is seen no longer to be an incident or isolated fact, but\nan implicit infinite, and a vice-gerent of the eternal. Philosophy thus\nreleases both ordinary and scientific knowledge from their limitations;\nit shows the finite passing into the infinite. And Hegel, accordingly,\npurposes to show that this unfathomable Absolute is very near us, and\nat our very door: in our hands, as it were, and especially present\nin our every-day language. If we are ever to gain the Absolute, we\nmust be careful not to lose one jot or tittle of the Relative[1]. The\nAbsolute--this term, which is to some so offensive and to others so\nprecious--always presents itself to us in Relatives: and when we have\npersistently traced the Proteus through all its manifestations,--when\nwe have, so to speak, seen the Absolute Relativity of Relation, there\nis very little more needed in order to apprehend the Absolute pure and\nentire. One may say of the Absolute what Goethe[2] says of Nature: 'She\nlives entirely in her children: and the mother, where is she?'\n\nIt is a great step, when we have detected the Relativity of what had\nhitherto seemed Absolute,--when a new aspect of the infinite fullness\nof the world, the truth of things, dawns upon us. But it is even a\ngreater step when we see that the Relativity which we have thus\ndiscovered is itself Relative. And this is one advantage of first\nstudying the value of the categories of ethics and physics on Logical\nground. On the concreter region of Nature and Mind, the several grades\nand species into which reality is divided have a portentous firmness\nand grandeur about them, and the intrinsic dialectic seems scarcely\nadequate to shaking the foundations of their stability. They severally\nstand as independent self-sustaining entities, separate from each\nother, and stereotyped in their several formations. But in the ether of\nabstract Idea, in the fluid and transparent form of mere thoughts, the\nseveral stages in the development of the Absolute, the various grades\nof category, clearly betray their Relativity, and by the negation of\nthis Relativity lead on to a higher Absolute.\n\nTo the practical man,--so long as his reflection does not go deep,--the\nconcepts on which his knowledge and faith are built seem eternal,\nunshifting rock, parts of the inmost fabric of things. He accepts them\nas ultimate validities. To him matter and force, cause and effect,\ndistinctions between form and content, whole and part, quantity and\nquality, belong to the final constitution of the world. (And so, in a\nsense, they do.) If he ever overcome the absoluteness which popular\nthought attributes to the individual things of sense and imagination,\nand show their relativity, he does so only to fall under the glamour\nof a new deception. Causes and matters, forces and atoms, become new\nultimates, new absolutes, of another order. Fictions or postulates of\nthe understanding take the place of the figments of imagination. The\nordinary scientific man labours especially under the 'metaphysical'\nfallacy: he realises abstractions in their abstractness. As against\nthis it is the business of the logician to show how such terms are to\nbe interpreted as steps in a process of interpretation--containing so\nmuch that others of simpler structure have handed on, and themselves\npresupposing by implication a great deal they fail properly to\nexplicate. Thus, the logician evinces at one blow the relativity of\neach term in its mereness, abstractness, or false absoluteness, and the\nideal absoluteness which always carries it beyond itself, and makes it\nmean more than it says.\n\nThe natural mind always hastens to substantiate the terms it employs.\nIt makes them a fixed, solid foundation, an hypostasis, on which\nfurther building may be raised. If such pseudo-absolutising of concepts\nis to be called metaphysics, then logic has to free us from the\nillusions of metaphysics, to de-absolutise them, to disabuse us of a\nfalse Absolute. The false Absolute is what Hegel calls the Abstract:\nit is the part which, because it succeeded in losing sight of its\ndependence, had believed itself to be a whole. Logic shows--in the\nphrase of Hegel--that each such term or concept is only an attempt\nto express, explicate, or define the Absolute[3]: a predicate of the\nAbsolute, but falling short of its subject, or only uttering part of\nthe whole truth of reality. But while Logic shows it only to be an\nattempt, and therefore in an aspect relative, it equally shows its\ningrained tendency to complete itself, to carry out to realisation\nits ideal implication,--shows, in short, that e. g. force is more\nthan _mere_ force, that thing-in-itself is not properly even a thing;\nthat a veritable notion (_Begriff_) or grasp of a thing is more than\na _mere_ (subjective) notion, &c. Thus the true Absolute is not the\nemptiest and most meagre of abstractions,--what is left as a residual\nafter the relative in all its breadth and length has been cut out\nof it; it is the concretest of all being, the whole which includes\nwithout destroying all partial aspects. Yet as it includes them, it\nshows itself their master and more than master: making each lose and\nwin in the other, till all are satisfied in unity, and no shade of\nindividuality is utterly lost in the totality of the Universal.\n\nAccordingly, Metaphysics and Logic tend to form one body. For the\ndistant and transcendent Absolute, which was the object of older\nMetaphysics, was substituted an Absolute, self-revealing in the terms\nof thought. Being is deposed from its absoluteness, and made the\nfirst postulate of thought. Former Metaphysics had dashed itself in\nvain against the reefs that girdle the island of the supersensible\nand no\u00fcmenal, the supposed world of true Being: and the struggle at\nlast grew so disastrous that Kant gave the signal to retreat, and to\nleave the world of true Being, the impregnable Thing-in-itself, to its\nrepose. His advice to metaphysicians[4] was that, while scientific\nresearch continued to concentrate the attack of analysis upon single\nexperiences conforming to certain conditions, they should investigate\nthese' conditions of possible experience or foundations of objectivity.\nIn other words, he turned observation to what he called Transcendental\nLogic. It was by means of this suggestion, understood in the widest\nsense, that Hegel was led to treat Logic as the science of ultimate\nreality. He had to show how these conditions when carried out in\nfull gave the Unconditioned. He attacked the Absolute, if we may say\nso, in detail. The Absolute, as the totality, universe or system of\nRelativity, lays itself open to observation by deposing itself to a\nRelative. It possesses the differentiating power of separating itself\nas an object in passivity, from itself as a subject in action,--of\ndeposing itself to appearance, of being _for_ itself, and also _in_\nand _for_ itself. And thus Thought is the active universal,--which\nactualises itself more and more out of abstraction into concreteness.\n\nHegel, then, solved the problem of Metaphysics by turning it into\nLogic. The same principle, Thought, appeared in both: in the former\nas a fixed and passive result, showing no traces of spontaneity,--in\nthe latter as an activity, with a mere power of passing from object\nto object, discovering and establishing connexions and relations. The\ntwo sciences were fragments, unintelligible and untenable, when taken\nin abstract isolation. This is the justification, if justification\nbe required, for Hegel's unification of Logic and Metaphysics. The\nHegelian Logic falls into three parts: the theory of Transitory Being:\nthe theory of Relative Being: and the theory of the Notion. The first\nand second of these in his Science of Logic are called Objective Logic;\nthey also might be described as Metaphysics. The third part is more\nstrictly on Logical ground. Or perhaps it is best to describe the whole\nas the Metaphysics of Logic.\n\nThe Logic of Hegel is the Science of Thought as an organic system of\nits characteristic forms, which in their entirety constitute the Idea.\nThese forms or types of thought, the moulds in which the Idea confines\nitself in its evolution, are not unlike what have been otherwise called\nthe Categories. (Of course the foreign word 'Categories' does not\ncommend itself to Hegel).[5] They are the modifications or definite\nforms, the articulated and distinct shapes, in which the process of\nThought ever and anon culminates in the course of its movement. The\nInfinite and Absolute at these points conditions itself, and as so\nconditioned or differentiated is apprehended and stamped with a name.\nThey specify the unspecified, and give utterance to the ineffable.\nThey are the names by which reason grasps the totality of things,--the\nnames by which the truth (or God) reveals itself, however inadequately.\nFrom one point of view they constitute a series, each evolved from\nthe other, a more completely detailed term or utterance of thought\nresulting by innate contradiction from a less detailed. From another\npoint of view the total remains perpetually the same; and the change\nseems only on the surface. The one aspect of the movement conceals the\nAbsolute: the other puts the Relative into the background.\n\nWhat then are the Categories? We may answer: They are the ways in\nwhich expression is given to the unifying influence of thought: and we\nhave to consider them as points or stations in the progress of this\nunification, and in the light of this influence. These Categories are\nthe typical structures marking the definite grades in the growth of\nthought,--the moulds or forms which thought assumes and places itself\nin,--those instants when the process of thought takes a determinate\nform, and admits of being grasped. The growth of thought, like\nother growths, is often imperceptible and impalpable. And then,\nunexpectedly, a condensation takes place, a form is precipitated out of\nthe transparent medium. A new concept, a new grasp of reality, emerges\nfrom the solution of elements: and a name is created to realise the\nnew shade of the Idea. These thought-terms are the world of Platonic\nforms, if we consider his 'form of Good' as corresponding to the 'Idea'\nof Hegel. For if we look carefully into this mystic word 'Good' which\nplays so brilliant a part in ancient philosophy, we shall see that it\nonly expresses in a more concrete and less analytic form, as ancient\nthought often does, the same thing as so many moderns love to speak\nof as Relativity, and which is also implied in Aristotle's conception\nof an End. To see things _sub specie boni_--which Plato describes\nas the supreme quality of the truth-seeker who is to guide men into\nuprightness, or into conformity with the true nature of things,--is\nto see them elevated above their partial self-subsistence into the\nharmony and totality of that which is always and unvaryingly its real\nself. The Good is the sun-light in which things lose their earlier\ncharacter (which they had in the days of our bondage and ignorance) of\nmysterious and perplexing spectres of the night. In the light of the\nGood, things are shorn of their false pretence of self-subsistence and\nsubstantiality, deposed by comparison with the perfect and unspotted,\nand as it were stung into seeking a higher form of being by struggle.\nAnd this is the abstract moral way of looking. But to see them in the\nform of Good means also that they are seen to be more and better than\nwe thought, that they are not condemned to inadequacy, but bear in them\nthe witness and revelation of infinity and absoluteness. And this is\nrather the faith of religion and the vision of art. And the 'form of\nGood' is only a brief and undeveloped vision of an Absolute, which is\nthe 'form of Relativity,'--Relativity elevated into an Absolute.\n\nA Category is often spoken of as if it were the highest extreme of\ngeneralisation, the most abstract and most widely applicable term\npossible. If we climb sufficiently far and high up the Porphyry's tree\nof thought, we may expect, thought the old logicians, to reach the\n'_summa genera_' or highest species of human thought. Nor have modern\nlogicians always refrained from this byway. But these quantitative\ndistinctions of greater and less, in which the Formal Logic revels,\nare not very suitable to any of the terms or processes of thought,\nand they certainly give an imperfect description of the Categories.\nThe essential function which the Categories perform in the fabric\nof thought and language is, in the first place, to combine, affirm,\ndemonstrate, relate, and unify,--and _not_ to generalise.[6] Their\naction may be better compared to that fulfilled by those symbols in\nan algebraical expression, which like _plus_ and _minus_ denote an\noperation to be performed in the way of combining or relating, than\nto the office of the symbols which in these expressions denote the\nmagnitudes themselves.\n\nTo the student of language the Categories sometimes present themselves\nas pronominal, or formal roots,--those roots which, as it is said, do\nnot denote things, but relations between things. He meets them in the\ninflections of nouns and verbs; in the signs of number, gender, case,\nand person: but, as thus presented, their influence is subordinate to\nthe things of which they are, as it were, the accidents. He meets them\nin a more independent and tangible shape in the articles, pronouns,\nprepositions, conjunctions, and numerals, and in what are called the\nauxiliary verbs. In these apparently trifling, and in some languages\nalmost non-existent words or parts of words, we have the symbols of\nrelations,--the means of connexion between single words,--the cement\nwhich binds significant speech together. There are languages, such as\nthe older and classical forms of Chinese, where these categorising\nterms are, as it were, in the air: where they are only felt in accent\nand position, and have no separate existence of their own. But in\nthe languages of the Indo-European family they gradually appear, at\nfirst in combination, perhaps, with the more material roots, and only\nin the course of time asserting an independent form. Originally they\nappear to denote the relations of space and time,--the generalised or\ntypical links between the parts of our sense-perceptions: but from\nthere they are afterwards, and in a little while, transferred into\nthe service of intellect. These little words are the very life-blood\nof a language,--its spirit and force. It is in these categories,\nas they show themselves in the different linguistic families, that\na nation betrays its mode and tone of thought. The language of the\nAltaic races, e. g., expresses activity only as a piece of property,\nan appropriation of a substance, and knows no true distinction of noun\nand verb: the Semitic Tongues in their tense-system perhaps betray the\nintense inwardness of the race: whereas the immense inflectionalism of\nthe Indo-European seems not unconnected with his greater versatility\nand energy. Complete mastery in the manipulation of these particles\nand forms is what makes an idiomatic knowledge of a language, as\ndistinct from a mere remembrance of the vocabulary. And philosophy\nis the recognition of their import and significance. Thus in Greek\nphilosophy the central questions turn upon such words as Being and\nnot-Being: Becoming: that out of which: that for the sake of which: the\nwhat-was-being: the what is: the other: the one: the great and small:\nthat which is upon the whole: what is according to each: this somewhat:\n&c.[7] And again in Modern Philosophy, how often has the battle raged\nabout the meaning of such words as I: will: can: must: because: same\nand different: self: &c.!\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Cf. Herbart's maxim, 'Wie viel Schein, so viel Hindeutung\nauf Sein.' (_Hauptpunkte der Metaphysik._)]\n\n[Footnote 2: _Die Natur_ (1780): 'Sie lebt in lauter Kindern: und die\nMutter, wo ist sie?.... Sie ist ganz und doch immer unvollendet.... Sie\nverbirgt sich in tausend Namen und Termen, und ist immer dieselbe.']\n\n[Footnote 3: _Logic (Encyclop.)_ \u00a7\u00a7 85, 87, 112, 194, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Metaphysic is, in Kant's usage, ambiguous. It means (_a_)\na supposed science of the supersensible or unconditioned reality;\n(_b_) a study of the conditions or presuppositions--the Kantian _a\npriori_--of some aspect of Experience, e. g. a Metaphysic of Moral\nrules.]\n\n[Footnote 5: His usual term is _Denkbestimmungen,_ the several\nexpressions or specific forms of the unification which thought is.\nThe term Categories has been identified by Kant with his list of\n_Stammbegriffe._ and by Mill with his classes of nameable things,--with\nsome critical remarks on Aristotle's use of the word. That use--to\ndenote the elements of predicable reality, what Grote called _ens_--is\nprobably not so 'rhapsodical' as Kant, with his new-born zeal for the\ncontrast of sensibility and intellect, was inclined to suppose. A real\nhistory of the Category-theory would be almost a history of philosophy.\nPerhaps the name might be more sparingly used.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Generalisation is only one small aspect of thought, with\nspecialisation as its, at least as important, pendant. To read certain\nlogics, one might think the all-comprehensive virtue of truths were to\nbe general,--not to be true.]\n\n[Footnote 7: \u1f45\u03bd and \u03bc\u1f74 \u1f45\u03bd: \u03c4\u1f78 \u03b3\u03b9\u03b3\u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd: \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f10\u03be \u03bf\u1f57: \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bf\u1f57 \u1f15\u03bd\u03b5\u03ba\u03b1: \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c4\u03af\n\u1f26\u03bd \u03b5\u1f36\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9: \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c4\u03af \u1f10\u03c3\u03c4\u03b9: \u03b8\u03ac\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd: \u1f15\u03bd: \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd: \u03c4\u1f78 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8' \u1f45\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5:\n\u03c4\u1f78 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b8' \u1f14\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd: \u03c4\u03cc\u03b4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03af.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.\n\n\nTHE THREE PARTS OF LOGIC.\n\n\nLogic, as it is understood in these pages, is the critical history\nof the terms of thought by which reality, the sum of experience, the\nworld, is described or expressed. It is the philosophical criticism\nof the concepts, or elements of conception, by which we define or\ndevelop the Totality, the Absolute. It describes the constitution\nof the intellectual realm, by and in which we give body, coherence,\nunity, and system to reality. It is the self-developing organisation\nof the thoughts by which we think things, and by which things are\nwhat they are. It is the ripe fruit of the experience of the ages of\nhumanity, and it therefore bears in itself a principle of growth. But\nif it be a fruit, it is a fruit which can watch its own growth, which\nreflects upon its own life. Its three parts show the main stages of its\ndevelopment, beginning with the least adequate and most abstract or\ngeneral description of reality.\n\nThe first part of Logic, the theory of Being[1], may be called the\ntheory of unsupported and freely-floating Being. We do not mean\nsomething which _is,_ but the mere 'is,' the bare fact of Being,\nwithout any substratum. The degree of condensation or development,\nwhere substantive and attribute, or noun and verb, co-exist, has not\nyet come. The terms or forms of Being float as it were freely in the\nair, and we go from one to another, or--to put it more correctly--one\npasses into another. The terms in question are Is and Not: Become:\nThere is: Some and Other: Each: One: Many: and so on through the\nterms of number to degree and numerical specificality. This Being is\nimmediate: i.e. it contains no reference binding it with anything\nbeyond itself, but stands forward baldly and nakedly, as if alone;\nand, if hard pressed, it turns over into something else. It includes\nthe three stages of Quality, Quantity, and Measure. The ether of\n'Is' presumes no substratum, or further connexion with anything: and\nwe only meet a series of points as we travel along the surface of\nthought. To _name,_ to _number_, to _measure_, are the three grades\nof our ordinary and natural thought: so simple, that one is scarcely\ndisposed to look upon them as grades of thought at all. And yet if\nthought is self-specification, what more obvious forms of specifying\nit are there than to name (so pointing it out, or qualifying it), to\nnumber (so quantifying it, or stating its dimensions), and to measure\nit? These are the three primary specificates by which we think,--the\nthree primary dimensions of thought. Thought, in so determining,\nplays upon the surface, and has no sense of the interdependence of\nits terms. And if we could imagine a natural state of consciousness\nin which sensations had not yet hardened into permanent things, and\ninto connexions between things, we should have something like the\nrange of Immediate Being. Colours and sounds, a series of floating\nqualities, pass before the eye and the ear: these colours and sounds\nare in course of time counted: and then, by applying the numbers to\nthese qualities, we get the proportions or limits ascertained. When\nthis process in actual life,--the advance from the vague feelings\nwhich tell us of sweet, cold, &c., by means of a definite enumeration\nof their phenomena, to the rules guiding their operation,--is reduced\nto its most abstract terms, we have the process of Being. It would\nbe the period when a distinction between things and their actions\nor properties has not arisen. The demonstrative pronouns and the\nnumerals are among the linguistic expressions of Being in its several\nstages. Perhaps too we may illustrate it by the so-called 'impersonal'\nverb--which has hardly reached the stage of verb proper, having no\nsubject: or by the name which still fluctuates between the stage of\nsubstantive or adjective.\n\nThe first sphere was that of Being directly confronting us, and using\nthe demonstrative pronouns first of all. The second is Relative or\nReflective Being: and in this we have to deal with the relative\npronouns. The surface of Being is now seen to exhibit a secondary\nformation, to involve a sort of permanent standard in itself, and to\nbe essentially relative. The mere quality, when reduced to number, is\nseen to be subjected to a certain measure, rule, sort, or standard:\nand this reflex of itself always haunts it, modifying and determining\nit. Thus instead of qualities, we begin to speak of the properties of\na thing: we have, as it were, two levels of Being, in intimate and\nnecessary connexion, where there was only one before. At first it was\nbut a mere surface-picture, one thing here and another there: a this\nand a that; one, _now,_ and another, _then. This,_ it might be, was\nround, and _that_ square: _now,_ it was bright, and _then,_ it was\ndull: _here_ was a head, and _there_ was a limb. But the comparison of\nquality with quantity, measuring one by the other, gave rise to the\nconception of something permanent, a true nucleus amid the changes. The\nfact, previously single, is now become double: the mere event is now a\nphenomenon, a temporary and outward manifestation of something inner.\nWe now see each that _is,_ in the halo of what it _has been,_ or will\nbe: the passing modification in the light of the permanent type. But as\nyet the permanent and the passing are separate, and only throw light\non each other: A explaining itself by B and B by A. We have apparently\ntwo facts; neither of which can however stand by itself and therefore\nrefers us to the other. But to get a real rest in this incessant round\nof mutual reference of one to another we must take a higher stand-point.\n\nIn this sphere of Relativity the terms expressive of things come in\npairs: such as Same and Different, Like and Unlike: True Being and Show\nor Semblance: Cause and Effect: Substance and Accident: Matter and\nForm: and the like. If we compare mere Being to the cell in its simple\nstate, we may say that in the second sphere of Logic a nucleus has been\nformed,--that a distinction has sprung up between two elements, which\nare still in closest interconnexion. We have penetrated behind the\nseeming simplicity of the surface: and in fact discovered it to be mere\nseeming in the light of the substratum, cause, or essence, upon which\nit is now reflected. In immediate Being one category, or specificate,\nor dimension of thought passes over into another, and then disappears:\nbut in mediated Being one category has a meaning only by its relation\nto another,--only by its reflection on another,--only by the light\nwhich another casts upon it. Thus a cause has no meaning except in\nconnexion with its effect: a force implies or postulates an exertion\nof that force: an essence is constituted by the existence which issues\nfrom it. Instead of 'is,' therefore, which denotes resting-upon-self,\nor connexion-with-self, the verb of the second sphere is 'has,'\ndenoting reference, or connexion-with-something-else: e.g. the cause\n_has_ an effect: the thing _has_ properties. Instead of numerals,\ncome the prepositions and pronouns of relation, such as which, same,\nlike, as, by, because. The only conjunction in the first stage or\nBeing was 'And,'--mere juxtaposition; and even that conjunction was\nperhaps premature, and due to reflective thought, going beyond what was\nimmediately before it, and tracing out connexions with other things.\nThe first stage, as we have seen, treated of the terms of natural\nthought present in the action of the senses: the second stage--that of\nEssential Being--deals with scientific, reflective, or mediate thought.\nWhat, why, are the questions: comparison and connexion the methods: the\nestablishment of relations of similarity, causation, and co-existence,\nthe purpose in this range of logical method. Its categories are those\nmost familiar to science in its reflective and comparative stage. It\nis the peculiar home of what are known as Metaphysical subtleties. The\nnatural but delusive tendency of reasoning is to throw the emphasis\non one side of the relation, and to regard the other as accessary and\nsecondary. Contrasts between _essentia_ and _existentia: substantia_\nand _modi_: cause and effect: real and apparent: constantly occur.\n\nIf the first branch of Logic was the sphere of simple Being in a point\nor series of points, the second is that of difference and discordant\nBeing, broken up in itself. The progress in this second sphere--of\n_Essentia_ or Relative being--consists in gradually overcoming the\nantithesis and discrepancy between the two sides in it--the Permanent\nand the Phenomenal. At first the stress rests upon the Permanent\nand true Being which lies behind the seeming--upon the essence or\nsubstratum in the background, on which the show of immediate Being has\nbeen proved by the process in the first sphere really to rest. Then,\nsecondly, Existence comes to the front, and Appearances or Phenomena\nare regarded as the only realities with which science can deal. And\nyet even in this case we cannot but distinguish between matter and\nform, between the phenomena and their laws, between force and its\nexercises: and thus repeat the relativity, though both terms in it are\nnow on the whole transferred into the range of the Phenomenal world.\nThe third range of Essential Being is known as Actuality, where the\ntwo elements in relation rise to the level of independent existences,\nessences in phenomenal guise--bound together, and deriving their very\ncharacteristics from that close union. Relativity or correlation is\nnow clearly apparent in actual form, and comprises the three heads of\nSubstantial Relation, Causal Relation, and Reciprocal Relation. In\nthis case while the two members of the relation are now indissolubly\nlinked together, they are no more submitted to each other than they\nare independent. According to Reciprocity everything actual is at once\ncause and effect: it is the meeting-point of relations: a whole with\nindependent elements in mutual interconnexion. Such a total is the\nNotion.\n\nThis brings us to the third branch of Logic,--the theory of the\nNotion, or Grasp of Thought.[2] The theory of Causality, with which\nthe second branch closed, continued to let the thought fall asunder\ninto two unequal halves--always however in relation or connexion with\neach other. But in the present part of the Logic the two halves are\nre-united, or in their difference their identity is also recognised.\nInstead of a cause of a thing (which is separate from it in order), we\nhave a concept which is its principle of unity, its universal in which\nit is individualised. Instead of incessant and endless Relativity,\nwe have Development. By development is meant self-specification, or\nself-actualisation: the thing is what it becomes, or while it changes\nit remains identical with itself. The Category or Development is the\ncategory or method of philosophic or speculative science: just as\nBeing corresponded to natural thought, and Relativity or Reflection to\nmetaphysical and realistic science. According to the law of Development\ndiversity and unity both receive their due. Mere unity or Being\nreappears now as Universality or Generality. Mere diversity, or the\nrelativity of essence, re-appears as Particularity, or the speciality\nof details. And the union of the two is seen in the Individualised\nnotion or real object. In other words, the true thought which really\ngrasps and gets all round its object, which is a real whole, is a\nTriplicity: it is first seen all as the ground or self-same, the\npossibility--secondly, all as the existence in details, and difference,\nthe actuality or contingency--and thirdly, all as the self-same in\ndifference, and the possible in actuality. Every object in its full\nreality is an innate movement; and to grasp it wholly we must apprehend\nit as such a self-evolving and self-involving unity of elements, in\neach of which however it is whole and entire. Thus the Notion embraces\nthe three elements or factors of universal, particular and individual.\nThese three elements first rise to independence and get their full\nsignificance or explication in the syllogism, with its three terms\nand judgments, exhibiting the various ways in which any two of these\nelements in thought are brought into unity by means of the third. This\nadequate form is a system or organic unity which contains in itself the\npremisses of its conclusion or the means to its realisation,--which is\na process within itself, and when complete and self-supporting perforce\ngives itself reality.\n\nThe Notion or _Begriff_ is where Hegel makes his special mark on\nLogic. Schelling, even, following on Kant, had (like Schopenhauer\nafter him) lauded the merit of the Intuition at the expense of the\nmere notion[3] and expressed himself surprised at Hegel's use of the\nword. But what Hegel wants first to insist upon is that the Intuition\nor Perception (_Anschauung_) is built upon the Notion--that it is\nonly because there is a universal principle in its details that the\nindividual reality of the percept is assured. That we can elicit a\nnotion from a perception is only possible because it is implicitly\ndominated by a universal. Secondly, Hegel wishes to note (as elsewhere)\nthat the full adequate notion, the notion as self-explaining and\nself-constituting, is all that is meant by the object. Thus the Notion\nor Subject_--Causa Sui_--when it is fully realised in the plenitude\nof its elements or differences,--when each element has scope of its\nown, is the Object--the actual and individualised total of thought, or\nsyllogism in reality. This objective world or Object appears in three\nforms. An Object is either a mechanical, a chemical, or a teleological\nobject. The terms mechanical and chemical are not to be understood in\nthe narrow sense of a machine or chemical compound. They are to be\ntaken in an analogical sense, just as J. S. Mill speaks of a chemical\nor geometrical method of treating social problems. The object or\nrealised notion is mechanical, when the unification of the members in\nthe totality comes or seems to come from without, so that the whole\nor universal they form is external and almost indifferent to the\nparticulars, and only arranges them. An object is chemical, when the\nconnexion or genesis of the compound from its factors is not evident:\nwhen the elements are as it were lost, and only give rise to a fresh\nparticular. An object is teleological, when the universal is, though\nnot distinctly conceived as realised, still always as tending to be\nrealised by the particulars. And in each of these grades the object\ncomes more and more to be seen to be a self-enacting, self-legislating\nbeing; more and more a due pendant to the subject-notion. Modern\nscience is a vehement opponent of teleology: and with justice, so\nfar as in teleology, means and end fall apart. But it is mistaken in\nsupposing itself to return to the mechanical point of view. On the\ncontrary its success is most generally secured by rising to the point\nof view given by the Idea of Life, and by looking upon the objective\nworld as an Organism, that is, as the notion in objectivity, soul\nindissolubly united with body. But even the Idea of Life, in which we\nenter the third stage of the notion, is defective as a representation\nof the truth of Objectivity: for body and soul must part. The\nconception of an Organism or living being is too crude. Reality is no\ndoubt well described as alive: the Absolute well defined as Life. But\nhere again Life is taken in a higher than its sense of _mere_ Life:\nit is life as intelligent and volitional energy. If the universe--the\nAbsolute--can be said to be living, it must be said also that it is\nmore than Living. Such a life--such existence--is what Aristotle has\ncalled _\u03b8\u03b5\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b1_ and \u1f10\u03bd\u03ad\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 of the highest in man. It is mental and\nspiritual life. In its consummation it is the Idea--the absolute\nIdea--the totality which is and is aware of itself,--the developed\nunity of the Notion with Objectivity. This unity thus presented is\nwhat lies implicit to our perception in Nature: and thus the Idea,\nas developed in Logic, forms the prologue and presupposition to the\nPhilosophy of Nature.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Being (_das Seyn_) probably conveys much more to an\nEnglish reader than is here meant or wanted. It is Being, where the\ndistinction between essence and appearance has not yet emerged or been\nthought of. If being = \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f44\u03bd, then essence (_Wesen_) = _\u03c4\u1f78 \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2_ \u1f44\u03bd,\nthe being which underlies and yet includes appearance. _Wesen_ has more\nright to the substantival vocable of Being: _Seyn_ is little better\nthan an 'Is' or 'Be.'\n\nIn writers of Locke's time, 'Being seems to mean a reality, an actually\nexisting object, e.g. Clarke: 'There has existed from eternity some one\nunchangeable and independent Being.' 'What the substance or _essence_\nof that Being is, we have no idea.' 'Essence,' says Locke, 'may be\ntaken for the very being of anything, whereby it is what it is.' Of\ncourse Aristotle long ago noted Being as one of the terms with variety\nof implication; and his own fluctuation about _\u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1_ is an obvious\nillustration of this.\n\nIn the translation of the _Logic_, _Wesen_ is occasionally rendered by\nBeing (e. g. Supreme Being); _Seyn,_ by existence. _Seyn_ here means\nso little that one can hardly find any word of sufficiently minimal\ncontent for it.]\n\n[Footnote 2: No doubt, as Dr. W. T. Harris remarks, _Notion_ (used\nby Dr. Stirling) is a quite insignificant rendering of Hegel's\n_Begriff_:--for which he proposes Self-activity. But, as he admits,\nthat is just Hegel's way: he coins brand-new the old terms, and forces\nus, if we will follow him, to think full meaning into them.]\n\n[Footnote 3: See vol. ii, Notes and Illustrations, p. 408.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\n\nTHE SEARCH FOR A FIRST PRINCIPLE.\n\n\nIf there be one thing which, more than another, distinguishes Modern\nPhilosophers from the Ancient Philosophy of Athens, it is the desire\nto discover a First Principle of certainty, a handle by which they\nmay get hold of and set in due order the perplexed mass of reality.\nThey find themselves born to an inheritance of tradition, a mass of\nbelief and lore which overwhelms where it does not support. The long\nwatches of the Middle Ages had been a time of preparation--even if\nthe 'cerebration' had been somewhat unconscious. The mind had been\nby discipline trained to freedom. As it worked amid the material and\ntried to order it and defend it, the intellect grew to recognise its\nlordship over the load of authority. Overt revolts indeed against\ncoercion by decrees and by canons of dogma had never been wanting even\nin the quietest of the so-called 'ages of faith.' But it is not in the\nloudest outcry or the most rampant dissent that progress shows its most\neffective course. The 'catholic' and 'orthodox' tradition equally bears\nwitness to a movement to emancipation, to self-centred intelligence.\nSuch an emancipation however cannot be complete and self-realised\nwithout a sharp and painful wrench at the moment of mental birth.\nThe great word of disruption, of self-assertion, of defiance to the\npast and to the dominant, must be said: and, as human beings are\nconstituted, it will be said in a tone of acerbity for which neither\nthe revolutionist nor the reactionary are severally alone responsible.\n\nThus to hear the brave words and the bold defiance hurled out by\nthe thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one might\nfancy they, like Archimedes, sought a supernal vantage-ground from\nwhich they could move the world. Yet, unlike the material earth,\nthe intellectual globe is a burden we each carry with us,--which we\nfind upon us when--if ever--we begin to shake ourselves out of the\nslothful unconsciousness of our merely vegetative life. For though\nwe all carry it, we do not all feel its weight. In some individuals\nand in some ages there is so accurate a proportion between the inner\npower and the outer pressure that the load of belief and custom is\nbut a well-fitting garb, almost a second nature. To others there\nis a felt disproportion, a sense of superincumbent clothes and\nuncongenial, unnatural trappings. Out of such struggles to be free,\ngrow, occasionally, philosophers, and reformers. To the former the\nburden is the burden of the unintelligible: to the latter the burden of\nthe unbearable and intolerable. To the philosopher the removal of the\nburden consists in such a re-adjustment of the intellectual world that\nit shall be no longer a foreign thing, but bone of his bone and flesh\nof his flesh. But, to re-adjust and to re-organise, one must stand\nback from the objective: one must cast it forth, and look about for a\nclue to an exit from the maze of confusion. The given and subsistent\nis put on probation: not rejected, but for the moment declined: not\ndenied, but asked to present its credentials.[1] This is the \u1f10\u03c0\u03bf\u03c7\u03ae\nof the sceptical schools of later Greece; the invitation to doubt\naddressed by Descartes to his own soul. It is the protest against that\nvulgar precipitancy which in primitive and modern credulity is ready to\ngive itself away to any doctrine which has the voice and the garb of\noutward authority. Or is it the assertion! of the royal and inalienable\nsovereignty of the Subjectivity to be _certain_ of whatever claims to\nbe objective and _true_: the assertion that what is true must be seen\nand experienced to be true. Or it is, in another way, the principle of\nSocrates: that the beginning of knowledge, the first step in the way\nof wisdom, is to know that you know nothing--to realise the absolute\nsupremacy of self-consciousness.\n\nIt is in short the same demand as Augustine's. There is indeed a wide\ngulf of temperament and circumstances dividing the bishop of Hippo from\nthe mathematician Descartes and the rationalist Spinoza. But in the cry\nfor the knowledge of 'God and my Soul' as the first, the indispensable,\nthe sole knowledge: as the _one_ knowledge which binds the finite and\nthe infinite together,--the knowledge on which turns the truth of\nscience, and the reality of experience, the great thinkers of these\ndiverse ages are at one.[2] They turn their backs upon the external\nthat they may find rest in the truly internal, on the inner certainty,\nwhich is not a mere subjective but a very objective also: not a mere\n_anima mea,_ but in close unity therewith _Deus meus._ This is perhaps\nmore explicit in Spinoza, in some points, than in Descartes, and in\nmany respects more decisively put by Augustine than by either. But this\nis what is really meant by the initial concentration of suspense: this\nis what is sought when a Principle is sought. Nothing short of this\nunity of subjective and objective in an Absolute--we may say--Ego, is a\nprinciple.\n\nBut 'principles' like other terms are sometimes lightly taken; and can\nbe in the plural--just as in lower levels of religion and society there\ncan be gods many and lords many. Nor in a way wrongly. For, as has been\nbefore pointed out, a principle is the unity of beginning and end: it\nis only caught hold of by approaching from different directions: it\nloses its life and power when cut off from the many organs by which it\ndistributes itself so as to grasp reality. If it be essentially one,\nit is not a bare unit: it cannot, without injury, be reduced to utter\nsimplicity, and accepted in the shape of a single term. And yet this is\nwhat almost inevitably happens to every so-called principle.\n\nLike a _deus ex machina_, or a trick of the trade, it is applied to\nunloose every knot, and to clear any difficulties that arise. But a\nprinciple of this stamp possesses no intimate connexion or organic\nsolidarity with the theory which it helps to prop. It is always at\nhand as a ready-made schema or heading, and can be attached to the\nmost incongruous orders of fact. Thus in the works of Aristotle, the\nprinciple of 'End' or 'Activity' has sometimes seemed to be applied\nto whatever subject comes forward, and like a hereditary official\nvestment to suit all its wearers equally well or equally ill. What is\ntrue 'on the whole' is not always true 'of each': the _\u03ba\u03b1\u03b8\u03cc\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd_ never\nquite equals the _\u03ba\u03b1\u03b8' \u1f14\u03ba\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd._ The modern principle of Utility is\nequally flexible in its application to the problems of moral and social\nlife. It costs no trouble to pronounce the magic word, and even 'such\nas are of weaker capacity' may make something out of such a formula.\nBut an abstract formula, which is equally applicable to everything,\nis not particularly applicable to anything. While it seems to save\ntrouble, and is so plain as to be almost tautological (as when the\nworth of a thing or act is explained to mean its utility), it really\nsuggests fresh questions in every case, and multiplies the difficulty.\nHaving an outward adaptability to every kind of fact, the principle\nhas no true sympathy with any: it becomes a mere form, which we use as\nwe do a measuring-rod, moving it along from one thing to another. We\nare always reverting to first principles as our last principles also.\nEven Aristotle, when he remarked that an object had to be criticised\nfrom its own principles and not from general formulae, saw through the\nfallacy of this style of argument.\n\nThis is like asking for bread and getting a stone. The philosopher,\nwho ought to take us through the shut chambers of the world, merely\nhands us a key at the gate, telling us that it will unlock every door,\nand then the insides will speak for themselves. But we would have our\nphilosopher do a little more than this. Not being ourselves omniscient,\nwe should be glad of a guide-book at the least, and perhaps even of\nthe services of an interpreter to explain some peculiarities, some\nstartling phenomena, and sights even more unpleasant than those which\nappalled the spouse of the notorious Bluebeard. Or, dropping metaphor,\nwe wish the formula to be applied systematically and thoroughly.\nWhen that is done the formula loses its abstractness; it gains those\nnecessary amplifications and qualifications, as we call them, without\nwhich no theory explains much or gives much information. And thus,\ninstead of fancying that our initial formula contains the truth in a\nnutshell, we shall find that it is only one step to be taken on the\nway to truth, and that its narrow statement sinks more and more into\ninsignificance, as its amplified theory gains in significance.\n\nBut an adequate principle must have other qualities.[3] What has been\nsaid up to this point, only amounts to a condition, that our principle\nmust cease to be abstract and formal, and must become concrete and\nreal. What we want, it may be said, is a Beginning. But a beginning is\nnot exactly the same thing as a principle: a beginning is to a large\nextent a matter of choice and convenience,--a matter depending on the\nstate and prospects of the beginner; and the main point is not where we\nshould begin, but that we should be thorough in our treatment. It is\notherwise, however, in the present case. For the skill of the expositor\nsimply lies in the exactitude with which he reproduces the spontaneous\nmovement of growth in his object. His art is _celare artem:_ to\nretire, as it were, into the background, and seem to leave the object\nto expound itself. In a dramatic work it is no doubt the hand of the\ndramatist that seems to set the whole of the characters in motion, that\nweaves destinies and snips the thread of life. And yet in a perfect\nwork of dramatic art everything must seem to flow on by a necessity of\ncharacter, a consecution of inner fate. The true artist dare not act or\nallow the _deus ex machina._ So every genuine work of science--which\nis more than a compilation, a school-book, a bundle of notes, and\ncontributions toward a subject--must be a self-determined unity--a\nself-justifying scheme in which the personality of the worker enters\ninto and is absorbed in the system of his work.\n\nIf this is generally true, it is above all a canon to rule the\nlogician. He at least must follow the Logos and the Logos alone. His\ntheme must be a law unto itself: all its movements must be freely\nand nobly objective. For his subject-matter is at least an organism,\nand develops according to an inward law. But it is even more than an\norganism: it must not merely develop, as organisms do,--not merely\nlive and grow--but _know_ that it develops and as it were _will_ its\nown development--and in that harmony of being, willing, and knowing,\nbe essentially one. In Hegelian language it must not merely be\nimplicit_--an sich_ or _f\u00fcr uns_--the subject of a change which it\nundergoes and feels, but without definitely realising,--the subject\nof a change which we (the historians) perceive. It must also be _f\u00fcr\nsich_: aware of its modifications, an agent in bringing them about:\nand yet withal in so looking forth and willing, be self-possessed, and\nself-enjoying.\n\nThe principle of Hegelianism is the principle of Development, the\nprinciple of the Notion--but a Notion which is objective as well as\nsubjective--the Idea. That principle then determines the beginning\nof Logic. We must know the whole course of growth and history before\nwe can say where is the true commencement. It must be that out of\nwhich the end can obviously and spontaneously issue. In a sense, it\nmust implicitly contain the end. It must show us the very beginning\nof thought, before it has yet come to the full consciousness of\nitself,--when the truth of what it is still lurks in the background and\nhas to be developed. We must see thought in its first and fundamental\ncalling. As the biologist, when he describes the structure of a plant,\nrests upon the assumption of a previous development of parts, in an\nexisting plant, which has resulted in a seed,--but begins with the seed\nfrom which the plant is derived: so the logician must begin with a\npoint which in a way presupposes the system to which it leads. But in\nits beginning this presupposition is not apparent: and in fact, the\npresupposition will only appear when the development of the system\nis complete. The first step in a process, just because it is a step,\nmay be said to presuppose the completed process. Thus the beginning\nof Logic presumes the fullest realisation of Mind, as the beginning\nof botany can only be told by one who knows the whole story of the\nplant. It is from this circumstance that Hegel describes philosophy as\na circle rounded in itself, where the end meets with the beginning, or\nsays that philosophy has to grasp its original grasp or conceive its\nconcept. In other words, it is not till we reach the conclusion that\nwe see, in the light thus shed upon the beginning, what that beginning\nreally was. From the general analogy of the sciences we should not\nexpect that the beginning of thought would be full-grown thought, or\nindeed seem to the undiscerning eye to be thought at all. In many\ncases, the embryonic organism shows but little similarity to the adult,\nand occasionally a violent abruptness seems, on cursory glance, to\nmark off one stage of a creation's growth from the next. Who that knew\nnot the result could in the seed prefigure to himself the tree? The\nbeginning is not usually identifiable with the final issue, except by\nsome effort to trace the process of connexion. The object of science\nonly appears in its truth when the science has done its work.\n\nThe beginning of philosophy must hold a germ of development, however\ndead and motionless it may seem. But it must also to some extent\nbe a result,--the result of the development or concentration of\nconsciousness;--of the other forms of which it is the hypothetical\nfoundation, or, of which it is (otherwise viewed) the first\nappearance. The variety of imaginative conception, and the chaos\nof sense, must vanish in a point, by an act of abstraction, which\nleaves out all the variety and the chaos,--or rather by an act\nof distillation, which draws out of them their real essence and\nconcentrated virtue. This variety, when thoroughly examined and tested,\nshrivels up into a point:--it only _is._ Everything definite as we call\nit, the endless repetitions of existence, have disappeared, and have\nleft only the energy of concentration, the unitary point of Being.\n\nWe may describe the process in two ways. We may say that we have left\nout of sight all existing differences,--that we have stripped off\nevery vestige of empirical conceptions, and left a residue of pure\nthought. The thought is pure, perhaps, but it is not entire. In this\nway of describing it, pure thought is the most abstract thought,--the\nlast outcome of those operations which have divested our conceptions\nof everything real and concrete about them. But thus to speak of the\nprocess as Abstraction would be to express half of the truth only:\nand would really leave us a mere zero, or gulf of vacuity. In the\nbeginning there would then be nothing--the mere annihilation of all\npossible and actual existence. And it is certainly true that in the\nbeginning there can be nothing.--On the other hand, and secondly, there\nis affirmation as well as negation involved in the ultimate action\nby which sense and imagination pass into thought. They are not left\nbehind, and the emptiness only retained: they are carried into their\nprimary consequence, or into their proximate truth. They are reduced\nto their simplest equivalent or their lowest term in the vocabulary\nof thought: which is Being. The process which creates the initial\npoint of pure thought is at once an abstraction from everything, and a\nconcentration upon itself in a point:-- which point, accordingly, is\na unity or inter-penetration of positive and negative. This absolute\nself-concentration into a point is the primary step by which Mind\ncomes to know itself,--the first step in the Absolute's process of\nself-cognition--that process which it is the purpose of Logic to trace,\nso far as it is conducted in the range of mere thought.\n\nThe bare point of Being and nothing more is the beginning in the\nprocess of the Absolute's self-cognition: it is, in other words, our\nfirst and rudimentary apprehension of reality,--the narrow edge by\nwhich we come in contact with the universe of Reason. For these are two\naspects of the same. The process of the self-cognition or manifestation\nof the Absolute Idea is the very process by which philosophers (not\nphilosophers only) have built up the edifice of thought. What the\none statement views from the universal side or the totality, the\nother views in connexion with the several achievements of individual\nthinkers. Of course the evolution of the system of thought, as it\nis brought about by individuals, leaves plenty of room for the play\nof what is known as Chance. The Natural History of Thought or the\nHistory of Philosophers has to regard the action of national character\nupon individual minds, and the reciprocal action of these minds upon\none another. The History of Organic Nature similarly presents the\ndependence of the species upon their surroundings, and of one species\nupon another in the medium of its conditions. Gradually Physical\nScience reduces these conditions to their universal forms, and may\ntry to exhibit the evolution of the animal through its species in all\ngrades of development. So in the Science of the development of this\nIdea the accidents, as we may call them, disappear: and the temporary\nand local questions, which once engrossed the deepest attention, fade\naway into generalised forms of universal application. Philosophy, as\nit historically presents itself in the world, is not an accidental\nproduction, or dependent on the arbitrary choice of men. The accident,\nif such there be, is that these particular men should have been the\nphilosophers, and not that such should have been their philosophy.\nThey were, according to their several capacity for utterance, only\nthe mouth-pieces of the Spirit of the Times,--of the absolute mind\nunder the superficial limitations of their period. They saw the\nIdea of their world more clearly and distinctly than other men; and\ntherein lies their title to fame: but really their words were only\na reflex,--an almost involuntary and necessary movement, due to the\npressure of the cosmical reason. The great philosophers are, like all\nmen in all estates, and according to their measure, the ministers of\nthe Truth,--apostles charged to bring about that consummation of the\ntimes in which reality is more fully apprehended and more adequately\nestimated. Necessity is laid upon them to consecrate themselves to the\nservice of the Idea, and to devote their lives to the noble but austere\nwork of speculation--the work which seeks _sine ira et studio_ to\nreconstruct that city of God which is the permanent, if it often be the\nhidden, foundation of human life.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: Cf. p. 90.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Augustin. _Soliloq._ i. 7. 'Deum et animam scire cupio.\nNihilne plus? Nihil omnino.']\n\n[Footnote 3: 'A Principle,' says Herbart (_Psychologie als\nWissenschaft,_ Einl.) 'should have the double property of having\noriginally a certainty of its own, and of generating other certainty.\nThe way and manner in which the second comes about is the Method.']\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX.\n\n\nTHE LOGIC OF DESCRIPTION: NATURAL REALISM: BEING.\n\n\nThe antithesis between thought and being, between idea and actuality,\nbetween notion and object, is almost a commonplace of criticism.\nBetween the ideas of the subject and objectivity a great gulf seems\nto yawn fixed and impassable. Thinkers, like Anselm and Descartes,\nhave (it is asserted) attempted by a trick which cheated themselves\nto get from the notion to the object. But--as Kant is supposed to\nhave for ever shown--these _decepti deceptores_ are now universally\ndiscredited.[1] Yet the same Kant had shown that the 'things' of\nordinary experience are only ideas or appearances in consciousness.\nThese latter ideas, however, were verified by the necessity of\ninterdependence in which they stood, as given by sense. From the\nnotions which Anselm and Descartes proposed to invest with objectivity,\nthere was absent the feature of sense-perception. They were not limited\nand real ideas, but synthetic laws, general and abstract aspects of\nreality, modes of conception. They were not definite and individualised\nthings, but terms or conditions for all concepts and realities. They\nwere forms,--forms essential to the explication of reality--and never\nmere parts of reality.\n\nWith such 'forms' or 'thought-terms,' such abstractions, Logic (_\u00e0\nla mode de Hegel_) has to deal. And in dealing with them it has to\ncounteract this popular distinction (which Kant inclines toward) which\nsets up an insuperable division between thought and being, between\nreality and syllogism, between is and is known. Certain of these\ndenominators which thinking employs to describe reality the popular\nmind wholly identifies with reality. That being is a thought, that\nforce and thing are only modes of conception, sounds to the untrained\nintellect only a verbal quibble. Things, beings, are there_--out\nthere_, it says: force is 'ultimate reality.' It is perhaps ready\nto allow that _substances_ are only mental figments: but it is more\ndoubtful about causes, and inclines to assume them to be in outside\nnature, and to generate a real necessity in things. On the other hand,\nit has little doubt that concepts and syllogism are only our ways of\nlooking at reality,--the reality of substances and phenomena, with\nquality and quantity: that 'final cause' is a mere subjective principle\nof explanation: and that ideas and knowledge are altogether additions\nsuperinduced on a real world.\n\nNow what the Logic shows is that, on one hand, all these terms are\nideal and regulative; and on the other that they are real, because\nconstitutive of reality. Showing--or shall we say, reminding us--that\nbeing is after all a form of thought, it shows us that knowledge, at\nthe other end, contains or implies reality. It is the business of logic\nas a fundamental philosophy to dispel the illusion that sensations are\nfixed reality: that causes and effects are an absolutely real order;\nwhereas concepts and sciences and still more aesthetic and moral\nprinciples are not. Its doctrine is that all Our thought-terms, the\nmost vulgar and the most delicate, are, as we may put it, symbolical of\nreality: explications and manifestations of it. Absolutely real--if\nthat means utterly unideal--none of them are. On the other hand,\nabsolutely ideal,--if that means utterly unreal--none of them are\neither. If you call them real, their reality is that of thought. If you\ncall them ideal, it is an ideality of a real. Being is not a fixed and\nsolid substratum, a hard rock of reality, on which we may build our\nrelations and further determinations. It also is a thought: it also\nlives in relation, and becomes more real by further determination.[2]\nBut the habit comes natural to the majority to attribute essential\nand independent reality (total reality) to the thought-modes it is\nfamiliar with in practice: whereas the modes familiar to more advanced\nintelligence are put aside as merely ideal.\n\nThus in proportion as Logic insists on the reality of idea, it insists\nalso on the ideality of being. Being is after all a thought: when\nseparate from the relations of experience, a very poor thought. A\n'supreme being' even is a thought. And the question of questions for\nLogic is what degree of reality, what amount of truth does each result\nof unification express. Is it self-consistent and complete, or does it\nimply further elements, and if so, in what direction does it suggest\nand receive completion? But at the best the reality of a logical\nterm is an abstract or formal reality, and consists in its power to\ninterpret, to expound, to define the Absolute. Its more concrete and\nmaterial reality it has in Nature and in Mind. There however Philosophy\nhas in a further measure to repeat its earlier lesson and show that\nNature is not without its ideal aspect, and that Mind is founded on\nphysical reality.\n\nAll science tends to carry us over the hard lines of separation which\npractical interests treat as if ultimate disruptions. The sciences of\nNature, for instance, in their completed circle must carry us from\nthe inorganic to the organic: must in some way make a path from the\nlifeless to the alive. The science of thought has a corresponding task.\nIt has to show that the incommensurability between thought and being,\nor between the idea and actuality, disappears on closer examination.\nWhen we trace the development of thought sufficiently far, we see that\nBeing is an imperfect or inadequate thought,--certainly not adequate\nto the Idea, but not for that reason generically differing from it.\nThe fixity of Being as more than, and superior to, mere Thought is a\nhabit of mind, due to the same worldly-minded immobility as leads us\nall to believe (and, within the limited practical range, to believe\nrightly) that the earth is solidly at rest, notwithstanding all the\ndemonstrations of the Copernicans. But Thought has not deposited all\nits burden, or uttered all its meaning in Being. Being is the veriest\nabstraction,--the very rudiment of thought--meagre as meagre can be.\nIt is on one side the bare position or affirmation of thought: on the\nother hand it is the very negation of thought,--if thought be only\npossible under difference. For a mere 'Is' is a mere indescribable\nwithout-difference. There is no such thing as mere Being: or mere Being\nis mere nothing: _mere_ Being is not.\n\nThe first category of Ontology is that of Being. It is the merest\nsimplicity and meagreness, with nothing definite in it at all: and\nfor that very reason constantly liable to be confused with categories\nof more concrete burden. It denotes all things, and connotes next\nto nothing. It does not however mean something which has being; it\ndoes not mean definite being: still less does it mean permanent and\nsubstantial being. Ordinary language certainly uses being in all these\nsenses. But if we are to be logical, we must not mix up categories with\none another: we must take terms at their precise value. Mere Being then\nis the mere 'Is,' which can give no explanation or analysis of itself:\nwhich indescribable in itself: which is an 'Is' and nothing more. The\nsimplest answer to those who invest Being with so much signification,\nis to ask them to consider the logical _copula_. 'Every school-boy\nknows' that the 'Is' of the copula disappears in several languages:\nthat it is far from indispensable in Latin: that in Greek e. g. the\ndemonstrative article serves the same purpose. In Hebrew too the\npronouns officiate for the so-called substantive verb: and the same\nverb probably does not exist in the Polynesian family of languages,\nwhere its place is supplied by what we call the demonstrative\npronoun.[3] In the copula, which according to M. Laromiguiere, as\nquoted by Mr. Mill, expresses only '_un rapport sp\u00e9cial entre le sujet\net l'attribut_,' we encounter the mere undeveloped and unexplained\nunifying of thought, the very abstraction of relativity[4].\n\nIn the beginning, then, there is nothing and yet that nothing is. Such\nis the fundamental antithesis of thought: or the discrepancy which\nmakes itself felt between each several term of thought and the whole\nIdea of which they are the expression. Being is the term emphasised\nas absolute by understanding: then the dialectical power, or the\nconsciousness of the whole, steps in to counteract the one-sided\nelement. In other words, thought, the total thought, asks what is\nBeing, mere and simple; and answers mere nothing.[5] The one aspect\nof the point is as justifiable as the other. In other words the two\naspects are indissoluble: they are in one. The term 'Unity,' applied to\nthe relation of Being and Not, may perhaps mislead: and it is therefore\nbetter to say that the two points of view are (as Mr. Spencer puts\nit) at once 'antithetical and inseparable,' An unrelated being, an\n'absolute' (i. e. separate and transcendent) reality is an Unknowable,\ni. e. an ineffable, an unspeakable of which we can legitimately\npredicate a not- , leaving imagination to fill up the blank after the\nhyphen. A mere Not, with no substratum which it negatives, is mere\nBeing: and a mere Being, which has no substratum, is a mere Not. The\nmovement upward and the movement downward are here illustrated: and\nit is evident that they are the same movement[6],--the same unrest,\nonly differentiated as up and down by some _termini_ not yet explicitly\nbrought into view. Each--Is and Not--as it seeks to differentiate\nitself, to make itself clear, passes into the other. In fact, the very\nvocation, calling, or notion of Being and Nothing, is not Being and\nNothing, but the tendency of each to pass into the other. Their truth,\nin short, is not in themselves, but in their process,--and that process\nby which the one passes into the other is 'To become.' Try to get at\nmere Being and you are left with Nought: of mere Nought you can only\nsay it is. The two abstractions have no truth except in the passage\ninto one another: and this passage or transition is 'To become.' Take\nreality apart from what it leads on to, and from what it has come from,\napart from its end or purpose and from its cause, take it as mere\nbeing: then this being in its supposed singleness and self-subsistence\nis really annihilated: _stat magni nominis umbra_: but it is the name\nof nothing. True being is always on the way to or from being: to stop\nis fatal.\n\nThis unity or inseparability of opposite elements in a truth or\nreal notion is the stumbling-block to the incipient Hegelian. The\nrespectable citizens of Germany were amazed, says Heine, at the\nshamelessness of J. G. Fichte, when he proclaimed that the Ego produced\nthe world, as if that had cast doubts on their reality; and the ladies\nwere curious to know whether Madame Fichte was included in the general\ndenial of substantial existence[7]. If easy-going critics treated\nFichte in this way, they had even better source for amusement in Hegel.\nThat Being and Nothing is the same was a perpetual fund for jokes,\ntoo tempting to be missed. Now, in the baldness, and occasionally\nparadoxical style, of Hegel's statements, there is some excuse for such\nexaggerations. Being and Nothing are not merely the same: they are also\ndifferent: they at least tend to pass into each other. In the technical\nlanguage of logicians, the question is not what being denotes, but what\nit connotes. The word 'is' had, it may be, originally a 'demonstrative'\nmeaning, a 'pronominal' force, which in course of time passed from\na local or sensuous meaning to express a thought. No doubt 'is' and\n'is not' are wide enough apart in our application of them as copula\nof a proposition: but if we subtract the two terms and leave only\nthe copula standing, the difference of the two becomes inexpressible\nand unanalysable. In both there is the same statement of immediacy\nor face-to-faceness: that two things are brought to confront each\nother,--united, as it were, without producing any real or specific sort\nof union. If Thought be unifying, Being is the minimum of unification:\nif Thought be relating, Being is the most abstract of relations. So\nabstract, indeed, that its relativity is completely lost sight of: so\nutterly one, that it vanishes in a point. And just because it _is_\n(as it seems) out of relations, it must be nothing. No doubt, between\nthe two terms Being and not-Being a difference is meant; when they\nare employed, a difference is thrown into them; and then they are not\nthe same: but if we keep out of sight what is meant, and stick to the\nultimate point which is said, we shall find that mere being and mere\nnothing are alike inapprehensible by themselves, and that to institute\na difference we must go out of and beyond them. Perhaps some approach\nto the right point of comprehension may be made, if we note that when\ntwo people quarrel and can give no reason or further development to\ntheir opposite assertions, the one person's 'is' is exactly equal\n(apart from subsequent explanations) to the other's 'is not.' The mere\n'Is' and 'Is not' have precisely the same amount of content: a mere\naffirmation or assertion, which is mere nothing,--because connecting,\nwhere there is nothing to connect.\n\nThe truth of 'is' then turns out 'become': nothing _is_: all things are\ncoming to be and passing out of being. This illustrates the meaning of\nthe word 'truth' in Hegel. It is partly synonymous with 'concrete,'\npartly with the 'notion.' With concrete: because to get at the truth,\nwe must take into account a new element, kept out of sight in the mere\naffirmation of being. With notion: because if we wish to comprehend\nbeing, we must grasp it as 'becoming.' For truth lies in transcending\nthe first or merely given. We have to go forward, and to go backward,\nas it were: forward from being, backward to being: we look before and\nafter. The attempt to isolate the mere point of being is impossible\nin thought: it would only lead to the 'representation' of being,--i.\ne. the notion of being would be arrested in its development, and\nidentified probably with a sensible thing, i. e. with _something_, and\nsome concrete thing said to be.\n\nIf being, however, is truly apprehended as a passage from the unknown\nto the known, or as emergence from bare vacuity, then it implies a\ndefiniteness, which we missed before. Somewhat has become: or the\nindeterminate being has been invested with definiteness and distinct\ncharacter. Mere being (mere _Is)_ is nothing: to be something is\nmust be not something else. The second step in the process to\nself-realisation therefore is reached: Being has become Somewhat; which\nis more, because it professes less. The fluid unity or movement from\n'is' to 'is not,' and _vice versa_, has crystallised: and 'There is'\nis the still imperfectly unified result precipitated. By this term we\nimply the _finitude_ of being,--imply that a portion has been cut off\nfrom the vague, and contrasted with something else. In the ordinary\napplication of the word, Being is especially employed to denote this\nstage of definite being[8]. Thus we speak of bringing something into\nbeing: by which we mean, not mere being, but a definite being, or,\nin short, reality. Reality is determinateness, as opposite to mere\nvagueness. To be real, it is necessary to be somewhat,--to limit and\ndefine. Whatever is anything or is real, is _eo facto_ finite. Even an\ninfinite therefore to be real must submit to self-limitation. This is\nthe necessity of finitude: in order to be anything more and higher,\nthere must come, first of all, a determinate being and reality. But\nreality, as we have seen, implies negation: it implies limiting,\ndistinction, and dependence. Everything finite, every 'somewhat,' has\nsomewhat else to counteract, narrow, and thwart it. To be somewhat\n_(esse aliquid)_ is an object of ambition, as Juvenal implies: but it\nis only an unsatisfactory goal after all. For somewhat always implies\nsomething else, by which it is limited: whereas mere being, just\nbecause it is nothing, is free from the check of an other.\n\nThis, then, is the price to be paid for rising into reality, and coming\nto be somewhat: there is always somewhat else to be minded. The very\npoint which makes a 'somewhat,' as above a mere 'nothing,' is its\ndeterminateness: and determinateness, as at first determinateness from\noutside, a given and passive determinateness, is also a negation and\nlimit. Now the limit of a thing is that point where it begins to be\nsomewhat else: where it passes out of itself and yields to another.\nAccordingly in the very act of being determined, somewhat is passing\nover into another: it is altering, and becoming somewhat else. Thus a\nsome-thing' implies for its being the being of somewhat else: its being\nis as it were only to be beside something else,--it is finite, and\nalterable, a _this_ with a _that_ always in the neighbourhood. Such is\nthe character of determinate being. It leads to an endless series from\nsome to an other, and so on _ad infinitum:_ everything as a somewhat,\nas a determinate being, in reality, presupposes a something else, and\nthat again has some third thing; and so the chain is extended with\nits everlasting _And,_ And, And, (as in the children's way of telling\na story). Somewhat-ness is always vexed by the fact that it is not\nsomewhat else: and for that very reason, ceasing to be the primary\nobject, it becomes somewhat else itself; and the other term becomes the\nsomewhat. And so the same story is repeated in endless progression,\ntill one gets wearied with the repetition of finitude which is held out\nas infinite.\n\nThus in determinate being as in mere being we see the apparent fixity\nresolved into a double movement--the alteration from some to somewhat\nelse, and _vice versa._ But a movement like this implies after all\nthat there is a something which alters: which is alterable, but which\nalters into somewhat. This somewhat which alters into somewhat, and\nthus retains itself, is a being which has risen above alteration, which\nis independent of it because including it: which is _for itself,_ and\nnot for somewhat else. Thus in order to advance a step further from\ndeterminate and alterable being, we have only to keep a firm grasp\non both sides of the process, and not suffer the one to slip away\nfrom the other. We must not merely _say,_ but energise the unity of\nthe two 'antithetical yet inseparable' elements we are naturally\ndisposed to take and leave only as One _and_ an Other. Something\nbecomes something else: in short, the one side passes on to the other\nside of the antithesis, and the limitation is absorbed. The new result\nis something _in_ something else: the limit is taken up within: and\nthis being which results is its own limit, i. e. no restrictive limit\nat all, but self-imposed characteristic and definiteness. It is\nBeing-for-self:--the third step in the process of thought under the\ngeneral category of Being. The range of Being which began in a vague\nnebula, and passed into a series of points, is now reduced to a single\npoint, self-complete and whole.\n\nThis Being-for-self is a kind of true infinite, which results by\nabsorption of the finite. The false infinite, which has already come\nbefore us, is the endless range of finitude, passing from one finite\nto another, from somewhat to somewhat else, until _satiety_ sets in\nwith weariness. The true infinite is _satisfaction_,--the inclusion\nof the other being into self, so that it is no longer a limit, but a\nconstituent part in the being. Such inclusion in the unity of an idea,\nof elements which are realistically separate, is termed 'ideality.' The\nantithesis is reduced to become an organic and dependent part. It still\nexists, but as no longer outside and independent. Thus in determinate\nbeing the determinateness is found in somewhat else: in being-for-self\nthe determinateness is self-realisation. Being-for-self may be shortly\nexpressed by 'one' or 'each': as determinate being a, or an, or by\n'some': and Being simple has no nominal equivalent. As 'some' is always\nfractional or partial, 'each' is always a whole or unit. Mere Being has\nnot the consistency of any noun or pronoun: it is the bare (impersonal)\nverb.\n\nBut 'each for self' expresses the sentiment of an armed neutrality\nwith implicit leanings to universal war,--the _bellum omnium contra\nomnes._ Each is self-centred, independent, resting upon self, and not\nminding anything else,--which is now thrown out as indifferent into the\nbackground. Each is centripetal; anything else is for it a matter of no\nmoment. If determinate being was something to be explained by something\nother, this is or professed to be self-explanatory, and rests upon\nitself. It seems purely affirmative, and promises to give a definite\nunity. But we cannot free thought from negation in this sphere, any\nmore than in the earlier. We may, if we like, assert the absolute\nself-sufficingness, primariness, and unalterability of each; but a\nvery little reflection shows the opposite to be true. The very notion\nof each is exclusiveness towards the rest: a negative and, as it were,\npolemical attitude towards others is the very basis of Being-for-self.\nOne after one, they each rise to confront each, each excluding each,\nuntil their self-importance is reduced to be a mere point in a\nseries of points, one amongst many. When that is clearly seen, their\nqualitative character has disappeared: and there is left only their\nquantity.[9] The negative attitude of each to each forms a sort of\nbond connecting them. If to the reference which connects we give the\nname of attraction, then we may say that the repulsion of each against\neach is exactly equal to their mutual attraction. And thus, in the\nlanguage of Hobbes, the universal quarrel is only the other side of the\ngeneral union in the great Leviathan: repulsion, in the shape of mutual\nfear, is the principle of attraction. Thus each for self is repeated\nendlessly: instead of the atom or unit we have a multitude, utterly\nindifferent to what each is for itself. The mere fact that it is,\nentitles it to count, and so constitutes quantity. Here we may shortly\nrecapitulate the categories of Quality or Being Proper. It forms three\nsteps or grades: those of indeterminate being: determinate being:\nself-determined being: or if we speak of them as processes, we have\nbecoming: alteration: attraction and repulsion[10]. From the extreme of\nabstraction and concentration thought, under the form of Being, passes\non to greater determinateness and development. The fixity of mere\nBeing is seen to imply a distinction of elements, and a dependence of\none upon the other: where the 'is' and 'is not' part from each other\nsufficiently to let us distinguish them. This is the stage of finitude:\nwhen we say that there is somewhat, but there are others, and imply\nthat any one has an end, a limit, a negation in its nature. These\nwords describe the finite scene,--a fragmentary being which makes an\nadvance upon indeterminateness, but loses its wholeness and is always\nand necessarily leading on to something else. It is the revulsion\nfrom the vague and yet unspecified universal to definite and limited\nparticulars. In the third stage the limit is uplifted and included in\nthe particular, which now contains its negation in itself,--is (by\naccepting its dependence) independent, is its own ground, and may be\ncalled an individual. But an individual, again, implies an aggregate\nof ones, or a multitude. This being-for-self is an individual or atom:\nit is the basis of those higher developments known as subjectivity and\npersonality. These are, as it were, higher multiples of it.\n\nThis first sphere of thought, apparently so abstruse and unreal in its\nabstractions, had to be thus narrowly discussed because it presents\nall the difficulties and peculiarities of Hegel in their elementary\nform. They are clearly the fundamental problems of ancient Greek\nphilosophy--of that first or fundamental philosophy which discusses\nBeing and its intrinsic attributes or accidents. Modern superficiality\nhas sometimes reproached these old thinkers (who, forsooth, 'knew no\nlanguage but their own') for their tiresome insistence on this problem\nof Is and Is not. Compared, indeed, with what are called topics of\ninterest, e. g. the Soul and the Hereafter, or the origins of the\nCosmic process, tiresome such inquiry is. But it is the bitter lesson\nof experience that till such fundamentals are at least critically\nsurveyed, the interesting topics will still (and in more than one\nsense) belong to the Unknowable. Herbart not less than Hegel sees it is\nthe prime business of philosophical criticism (i. e. of philosophy) to\nexamine thoroughly those primary notions on which the whole structure\nof thought rests. It is on the comprehension of the radical limitations\nlatent in the seemingly simplest terms of thought, that the profoundest\nproblems of human interest ultimately turn.\n\nThus, in the first place, the process of Being, as seen in the light\nof the whole system of Logic, shows that reality is truly known only\nas a trinity,--or perhaps rather as a duality in unity. This is the\n'Notion' or 'Grasp' of Being. First, reality seems an unspecialised\nand self-centred being,--and that by itself is mere nothing: a mere\n_universal._ Second, it appears a specialised and differentiated being\nof some and other: a mere _particular_, limited by other particulars,\nand so finite. Third, as a combination of the two earlier stages:\nas wholeness with determinateness, as unity; and so an _individual_\nwhich is the _true_ or complete and authentic character of all being.\nIn the _metaphysics_ of Being these three elements follow, one after\nanother: but in the _logic_ of the notion they interpenetrate, and\neach of them is the others and the total. The truth or the notion of\nbeing takes it in Being-for-self as a universalised particular or\nas an individual.--In the second place: the sphere of mere Being is\nthat of _mere_ identity: that of determinate being is the sphere of\notherness, difference: that of self-determined being is the sphere of\nwell-grounded existence.--Thirdly: the first sphere may be illustrated\nby the freedom of indeterminateness, expressed by the word 'may': the\nsecond by necessity or determinateness, expressed by the word 'must':\nand the third, by the freedom which even in its determinateness\nis self-determining, expressed by the word 'will.'--Fourthly:\nthese steps illustrate the meaning of the Hegelian technical terms\n_setzen_: _aufheben: an sich_: _f\u00fcr sich_: _Idealit\u00e4t: Realit\u00e4t._\nThus Determinate Being or somewhat is _an sich_ or implicitly (by\nimplication) somewhat else: and the process of determinate being\nis to lay it down or express (_setzen_) it as such. When this\nexplicitly-stated 'other' or limit is included in the Being, and\nreduced into a unity with somewhat in each Being-for-self, it is said\nto be '_aufgehoben_'--uplifted, as it were, so that it is no longer a\nseparate existent, but is still an efficient element. As being partly\n_this,_ and partly _that,_ now _one,_ and now an _other,_ which limits\nand is limited, determinate being is _Realit\u00e4t._ The characteristic\nof reality is externality of its parts, which are thus left side by\nside quasi-independent: that of ideality is unity and solidarity of\nfunction. When the mutual dependence of elements is tightened till\nit becomes equivalent to unity and totality, these elements are seen\nin their Ideality (_Idealit\u00e4t_). Such a total has the others in it\nas elements (_Momente_); they are there ideally (_ide\u00ebller Weise,_)\nas it were (in the loose analogical use of that term) organically:\nthat is, they are denied the privilege, which their total has, of\nbeing-for-themselves. They do not enjoy the benefit of their own being,\nthough their presence is felt.--Fifthly: Being-for-self is absolute\nnegativity; i.e. the negation of negation. Determinate being was a\nnegation of Being mere and simple: Being-for-self is the negation of\nthis, and so a return to true affirmation, as including the element of\nnegation.\n\nBeing seemed to describe a complete reality. But its latent limitation\nhas become explicit. It only retains itself by a self-assertion which\nleaves it a mere abstract unit, or atom,--a unit with nothing in it\nto be united,-and where it matters not whether it be somewhat or\nother. The quality of Being, in which all qualitative attributes are\nlost and sunk, is Quantity: the characteristic of which is to be a\nmatter of no importance to Being, as it originally presents itself.\nIn other words, whilst Quality is identical with Being,--while Being\nmeans qualitativeness, and the Being of a thing means its quality, or\nconstitution; Quantity is external to Being, and a thing is, while its\nquantity undergoes all sorts of variation. At least this is true within\ncertain limits: for quantity is not an ultimate category any more than\nquality. But for the present the truth of quality is quantity; or, in\nother words, if a thing is to be anything definite it must ultimately\nrest on a solid atom: must be a unit and amenable to measurement. First\ncome qualities, such as sweet, green, and the like: these seem to be\ntruth and reality to the senses and the natural mind: and in their\nuniversality are represented by the abstract terms of qualitative\nbeing. The first step in the progress of knowledge consists in seeing\nthat quality presupposes quantity. Number, in short, is the proximate\ntruth to which the vague qualitative distinction of _a, some,_ and\n_each_ is to be reduced. The qualitative differences of sounds are\nreduced to relations or ratios of number: and so are the other data of\nsensation. We see this truth recognised in the Atomic School, which\nmay be taken to represent the summing-up of that period of thought\nwhich begins with the 'Being' of Parmenides, and the 'Becoming' of\nHeraclitus. When Democritus says that, although bitter and sweet are\nconventional distinctions, yet in reality there is only atoms and\nvoid[11], he is introducing a distinction between real and apparent.\nBut again the irregular and sporadic appearances of species of quality\nare replaced by a gradual and regular series of quantities. With mere\nBeing you have a conception quite unfit for describing the manifold\nreality. But by breaking up the whole Being into a countless number of\natoms of being, you get the means of establishing an equation between\na given sensible and some multiple of the atomic unit. Thus Atomism,\nwith its many bits of being and its interfluent non-being in which they\ncan unite, replaces the total and complete universe of being and its\nattendant shadow of unreality, the world of opinion. Still the _Is not_\nclings to the _Is_: if each atom seems complete, they are subject to a\nnecessity which forces them by negation, i. e. by the void (as Atomism\nfiguratively calls the repulsion of the atoms) to meet each other and\nform apparent unities. Before a step could be made to higher problems,\nit was necessary to see that the proximate truth of the qualitative\nworld,--or world of sense proper (\u1f30\u03b4\u03af\u03b1 \u03b1\u1f34\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2) is in its simplest\nterms a quantitative world, or world of common sensibles (\u03ba\u03bf\u03b9\u03bd\u1f70\n\u03b1\u1f34\u03c3\u03b8\u03b7\u03c4\u03b1), universalised sensibles, number and quantity.\n\nThe sphere of quantity need only be briefly sketched. It has its three\nheads: (1) quantity in general,--the universal and vague notion of\nquantitativeness, the mere conception of reality as the Great and the\nLittle, or the More and Less[12]: (2) Quantum, or defined quantity,\nexpressed in the shape of a number: and (3) the quantitative ratio\nor degree, which is the individualisation or self-determination of\nnumbers, or their application to one another,--which gives the real\nmeaning and value of numbers. The fundamental antithesis, which\nwe found in quality, comes before us here more definitely as the\nopposition of many ones in one number. In every quantity there are the\ntwo elements: the 'one,' unity or solidarity, which renders a total\nnumber possible, and the 'many' or multiplicity, which gives it real\nbody and character. By this quantitative law, reality must always be\nboth Continuous and Discrete. Thus when I regard a line as consisting\nof a number of points I treat it as a discrete quantity: as many in\none. When, on the other hand, I regard the line as the unity of these\npoints, it becomes a continuous quantity. These distinctions are not\nso trivial as they may appear: they lie at the bases of paradoxes like\nthose by which Zeno disproved the ordinary representations of motion,\nand when a M.P. informs the House of Commons that it is impossible\nto divide 73l. 1s. 6d. by 1l. 2s. 6d., he is, like Zeno, and perhaps\nmore unconsciously, forgetting that these quantities are not merely\ncontinuous but discrete.\n\nThe Pythagoreans, according to the tradition of antiquity,\nphilosophised number. In it they found the reality, or the principle\nof things,--the characteristic feature which dominated existence, and\nby which the world in all its multiplicity could be made coherent\nand intelligible. They saw it composed of two elements: a limit or\nlimiting, and an unlimited: the latter as it were a dark ground,\nmeasureless and endless, on which definiteness was gradually marked\nout. Such a limiting principle would be e. g. the unit of number. But\nthe full definiteness of number only comes out when a numerical scale\nis fixed on, in which each number bears a definite ratio to what goes\nbefore and what comes after. Each number in such a scale is really a\nmultiple of its unit: a product of its unity into its multeity, of the\nmonad into the indefinite duad. It is this view of each number, as the\nproduct of its prime unit with the ratio, which comes explicitly to\nthe fore in Degree, or quantitative ratio. Each so-called quantitative\nstatement is thus a ratio between a given quantity in the object and an\nassumed standard or unit of number.\n\nThese implications latent in quantitative order or determination come\nout in mensuration. If quantitative or numerical precision is to have\na real basis, it presupposes the existence of a qualitative atom or\nunit which shall be the Measure. Measure is therefore the truth and the\nunity of quantity and quality: each refers forward and backward to the\nother, and both lead up to or imply a modulus, or standard unit. Such\na standard unit may seem, at first sight, to be a matter of arbitrary\nchoice and imposition. There seems to be no ultimate reason for taking\nthe foot or the cubit as unit of measurement: and if the original foot\nor cubit be the king's limb, it is easy to say that the whole thing is\nconventional and artificial. But it is evident on further reflection,\nfirst that the foot or the pace is the natural and primitive measurer\nof lengths of space for the human being, and secondly that the\nparticular foot which is imposed as the measure is taken as being\nnormal and typical. So too it is partly arbitrary choice which fixes\nupon the starting-point for the scale of temperatures: but here also\nthe range from freezing-point to boiling-point of the commonest of\nliquids affords a sufficient standard from which naturally to carry on\nthe scale above or below it.\n\nWhat happens is therefore that what is the rule, the standard,--we\nmay also say, the test of being, is the natural mean or average. The\nmeasure presents itself as the permanent and regular proportion of\nquantity and quality. It is the amount or quantity at which things\nsettle down in equilibrium and produce the quality or characteristic\nfeature of the object. To say that Measure is the supreme category\nor the truth of being--of that superficial being which merely is--of\nthe mere fact of perception--is to say that the prime or governing\nfeature of reality, its obviously dominant characteristic in this\nsphere, is a self-imposing harmony and proportion. It naturally\narranges itself--defines and describes itself in rhythmic series, in\nregular scales, in symmetrical schemes. All things are in geometrical\nproportion, self-defined and uniformly graded. Such a conception and\ncategory of reality may be said to be peculiarly Greek. The doctrine\nof the Mean is well known as a principle of their popular Ethics. But\nthe Mean is an average which is regarded as a Normal,--a regular and\npermanent mode of being which is equivalent to a standard. The rule is\ngiven by the logic of facts and of nature. There is in it an apparent\noptimism--a belief that what is predominant and fundamental is right:\na doctrine of immanent symmetry and order. The mere habitual custom\nis as such held to be the right and good. It is true, no doubt, that\nProtagoras came to point out that this Measure was not inherent in\nthings, but came from Man, the measure of all things: and that the\nlater philosophy had to show how the conception of reality should\nbe re-construed, if the objectivity of Measure and symmetry in the\nuniverse were still to be maintained. Still even with this correction\nthe belief remained down to the Stoic School that being is essentially\nself-ordering: that Nature is immanent proportion.\n\nThe Measure thus emerging as the Mean, which stands out as the\npermanent background or recurrent same amidst varying extremes, is\nset against these divergencies and used to measure them. It has to\nserve as a denominator for all of these: or each of these differences\nhas a definite ratio to it. For that purpose it must be so graded or\npresent such a scale that the smallest difference from it that exists\nmay be measured, estimated and defined in terms of it. It is here out\nof place to consider how this can be accomplished,--how mensuration in\nany case is solved as a problem of scientific determination. What is\nmore important is to note the fact that appearances everywhere start up\nto testify to the incompatibility of the two elements in measure,--to\ntheir tendency to fly away from each other. It is only within certain\nranges that quantity and quality change proportionately to each other.\nThe colour spectrum, the scale of musical notes, the series of chemical\ncombination, the order of the planets, all are found in experience up\nto some point to follow a symmetrical order, and exhibit a measure.\nBut after that point is reached, a sudden change or transition occurs.\nThere is a break in the continuity of being: without warning, a new\nseries of physical manifestation, having a new rule or measure, emerges\nby a sort of catastrophe. So also, it is only to a certain portion of\nthe process of physical order in the human body that psychical changes\nare found to correspond. Everywhere the correspondence or harmony or\nproportion of immediate fact has its breaks,--its sudden emergencies\ninto a new range of being.\n\nIt is on the repeated evidence of this fact--the discontinuity of\nimmediate being, the inexplicable gulfs which separate its ordered\nprovinces from one another, that we rise to the distinction of two\norders or grades of being: a double aspect of reality. The primitive\nconsciousness is, we may suppose, confined to one level of being, one\nworld. And so long as the facts remain within limits there is no need\nto go further. The measure is the rule. But the uniformity breaks\ndown abruptly[13]: the rule has its inevitable exceptions: it is no\nlaw or principle, but only the factual majority within a fixed range.\nThus the measure, to fulfil all that is expected of it, and be a full\nexpression or definition of reality, must go beyond a mere measure:\nmust become the essence, or rather give place to the essence. In order\nto explain the irregularity and want of measure which turns up if we\nexceed the narrow provinces of being, we are forced on the conception\nof a being, one permanent and the same, set in relation, antithetical\nbut inseparable, to an other being, manifold, changing, and different.\nThe undying rhythm, the ceaseless symmetry retreat into the further\nregion--the world beyond: while the older surface-being, as set against\nit, comes to be a mere phenomenon or appearance, a derivative and\ndependent something, which has its roots of being in the underlying\nlaw and essential reality. But the two planes are still in intimate\nconnexion, in a correlation which becomes more and more palpable as its\nimplications are disclosed and realised.\n\nThis change from Measure to Essential Being is one which Greek\nphilosophy seems to exhibit in the step from Pythagoreanism to\nPlatonism. Plato himself has noted the passage from what have been\ncalled the mathematical to the metaphysical categories, and insisted\non the essential and higher truth to which mathematics only point.\nMathematical terms give the supreme definiteness to the world of being;\nthey show it as in its several compartments a world immanently ordered\nand measured. As in Greek Art, all seems to be fully brought to the\nsurface: as the image suggests no further and deeper meaning, but\naffords an absolute identity of aspect and purport; so the natural and\nsemi-popular philosophy of Greece was satisfied for its ethics with the\nproportionate, the becoming, the beautiful. Plato however passes beyond\nthe surface, and reflects the apparent fact on a deeper permanent\nreality behind. That reality is still, in name, only the 'form' or\n'shape'-- only the regular and permanent type--only the measure. But\nit is called the really real, the _\u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f44\u03bd_,--the being of being. In\nit the truth is clear, transparent, one and systematic, which in the\nsensible or immediate world is obscure, confused, multiple. It is the\nkey to explain the difficulties and irregularities of the first and\nvisible scene. Yet even Plato never for a moment forgets the essential\ncorrespondence of the two realms, however he may insist upon their\nseparation, and however hard he may find it to explain how being can be\nduplicated, how the one can be many and yet not cease to be one, how\nappearance has part in reality.\n\nThis indeed is not a difficulty confined to Plato. It is, after all,\nthe same antithesis as we found in the beginning: the Is which lapses\ninto the Is not. It now becomes the play of positive and negative--of\nperpetual relativity: of a known dependent on an unknown, and an\nunknown interpreted by a known: an essence guaranteed by its show\nor seeming and a _Schein_ which supposes permanent _Sein._ How can a\nthing be, and yet not be true? How can pleasures seem and not be real?\nAristotle, taking up the Platonic antithesis of true and apparent\nbeing, carries it on into greater detail. Matter and form: possibility\nand actuality: are amongst his cardinal pairs of correlatives. But\nhe is anxious to maintain their essential relativity: to show that\nreality only is and maintains itself as the unity of the two poles of\nuniversal and particular, reason and sense, or as a syllogism and a\ndevelopment. So far as he succeeds in doing this, Aristotle rises above\nthe correlational view of reality into the comprehension of it as a\nunity, which carries itself through difference into self-realisation.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: What he did show was that these Ideas were not objects in\nthe vulgar sense of reality, or things.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Cf. the controversy between Schiller and Goethe as to idea\nand observation, quoted by Whewell, _Scientific Ideas_, i. 36.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The use of the substantival form _Being_ for the verbal\n(participle, infinitive, or indicative) suggests an idea of permanence\nand substance, or essence. So potentiality seems much more real than\n_may_ or _can._ And yet the phrase He knows \u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03ac\u03bc\u03b5\u03b9 is only equivalent\nto He can or may know (\u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 or \u1f10\u03bd\u03b4\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9).]\n\n[Footnote 4: When it is said that: 'It is strange that so profound a\nthinker as Hegel should not have seen that the conception of definite\nobjects, such as a _dog_ and _cat_, is prior no less in nature than in\nknowledge to the conception of abstract relations, such as _is_ and _is\nnot,'_ it is difficult to say what the writer meant. Had he ever heard\nof geometry? Both in nature and in knowledge (i. e. in the natural\nprocess from sense to thought) chairs and tables are prior to lines\nand surface. The mathematical point and line are abstractions, i. e.\nthoughts, and no image of sensuous reality. It is also true that the\nordinary conception of the sun's movements was 'prior no less in nature\nthan in knowledge' to the theory of the earth's rotation. And no doubt\nHegel, sedate though his boyhood was, had made the acquaintance of dog\nand cat in his pre-logical days: as of balls and windows before he was\nturned upon Euclid. See Mansel's _Letters_, _Lectures_, &c., p. 209.]\n\n[Footnote 5: As _Being_ to ordinary unthinkingness seems to mean a\ngreat deal it cannot expound, so the mind full of the mystic depths of\ntime and space is disgusted to find them turn so empty and shallow when\nit would set forth its wealth. See Augustin. _Confess._ xi. 14.]\n\n[Footnote 6: This may be illustrated by saying that to _affirm_ is the\nsame energy of thought as to _deny,_ and that the difference lies in\nthe terms related by the judgment. _In themselves,_ the one act is as\nempty or meaningless as the other.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Heine, _Ueber Deutschland (Werke),_ v. 213.]\n\n[Footnote 8: \u03c0\u1fb1\u03c3\u03b1 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1 \u03b4\u03bf\u03ba\u03b5\u1fd1 \u03c4\u03cc\u03b4\u03b5 \u03c4\u03b9 \u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd (Ar. _Cat._ 5).]\n\n[Footnote 9: Hence the disparaging sense in which the term 'individual'\nmay be used.]\n\n[Footnote 10: These latter terms being used in a metaphorical sense.]\n\n[Footnote 11: \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u1ff3 \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03ba\u1f7a \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03bd\u03cc\u03bc\u1ff3 \u03c0\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03cc\u03bd \u1f10\u03c4\u03b5\u1fc7 \u03b4\u1f72 \u1f03\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03ba\u03b5\u03bd\u03cc\u03bd.\nDemocritus ap. Sext. _Empir. adv. Math._ vii. 135.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Aristotle's \u03bc\u1fb1\u03bb\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u1f26\u03c4\u03c4\u03bf\u03bd: see _Metaph._ i. 6 \u03c4\u1f7a \u03bc\u03ad\u03b3\u03b1\n\u03baa\u1f76 \u03c4\u1f78 \u03bc\u03b9\u03ba\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Thus, the sharp break at death suggests the reference of\nvital phenomena to a substantial soul.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI.\n\n\nTHE LOGIC OF EXPLANATION AND REALISTIC METAPHYSICS: ESSENCE.\n\n\nThe coherence and consistency of being was, it appeared in the last\nchapter, only to be maintained by assuming it to fall into two planes,\nor orders, always however relative to each other. The need of a measure\nforced itself upon even the superficial student. In the ordinary\nbusiness of economical life one commodity of common use or of general\nacceptability steps into the place of a common measure. At first it is\nno more than one amongst many, a more suitable and convenient means of\ndischarging the task of mensuration. But gradually it draws away into\na world of its own, and acquires in common estimation a unique and\npeculiar dignity. It becomes a commodity of a higher order than the\ncommon, and is even treated as if it had intrinsic and inherent worth,\napart from all relations of exchange. In a further stage it rises to\nrank as an invariable and almost supersensible standard, which amid all\nthe fluctuations of currency tends to remain unchanged. One loses sight\nof the movement out of which it grew and in which it exists--the social\ngive and take, the interaction of individual needs and general opinion.\n\nThe characteristic feature of this sphere of thought is the perpetual\nantithesis of terms. And its tragedy is the result of the tendency to\nseparate the terms, and treat them as independently real. It matters\nnot how often this error may be detected. Each side of the antithesis\nno doubt reflects itself upon the other. But we as constantly fail to\nnote that reflection. Even the philosopher who most loudly preaches\nrelativity falls into the common trap, and speaks of relatives as\nultimate and absolute. He talks of an Unknowable, as if it could be\nwithout a Known (or Knowable): whereas no such term fully manifests\nitself. Each term owes its distinct existence to its correlative:\neach gives itself over to the other, and invests it with meaning\nand authority. Accordingly when even the ordinary mind, which takes\nthese categories as they are given, is asked what each means, it can\nonly reply by referring to the other. A cause is _that_ which has an\neffect. The dialectic in the nature of thought,--its self-revising\nself-conscious nature--which was concealed in the First Part of Logic,\nwhere one term, when carried to its extreme, passed over into another,\nis made obvious in the Second Part, where each term postulates and even\npoints to its correlative, and, however it may be contra-distinguished,\ncannot be thought without it. Thus, force is a meaningless abstraction\nwithout the correlative expression or utterance of force: and matter\nmeans nothing except in its distinction from, and yet reflection on,\nform. These, it may be said, are simple and tautological statements.\nThey are principles, however, which every day sees disregarded. Have\nthey, for example, been remembered by those theorists who tell us\nthat everything is ultimately reducible to matter, or who propose to\nimprove upon that theory by explaining that matter is after all only\nanother name for force? Forgetting how this reduction is made, they are\ndealing with abstractions or mental figments, and losing their way in\nan endless maze of metaphysics. Do those who speak so confidently of\nlaws of nature as something real and effective ever reflect that the\ntwo terms are more or less relative to each other, and that there is\nsome latent metaphor in the phrase? Or if they prefer to speak of laws\nof phenomena, on which word is the accent to be laid? Those who thus\nspeak of matter and force, really speak of a matter which is formed and\nform-possessed, capable of determining its own form, and of a force\nwhich can rule its own exertions: and for such conceptions the words in\nquestion are scarcely adequate representatives. They use the language\nof the Second, to express notions which properly belong to the Third\nbranch of Logic.\n\nThe whole range of Essence or Relativity exhibits a sort of see-saw:\nwhile one term goes up in importance, the other term goes down. The\nseveral antitheses, too, have their day of fashion, and give place to\nothers. Those inquirers who speak of the phenomena of nature shrug\ntheir shoulders at the very mention of essences: and the practical\nman, whose field is actuality, acquires a very pronounced contempt\nfor both abstractions. One class of investigators glories in the\nperpetual discovery of differences, and stigmatises the seekers after\nidentity and similarity as dreamers: while the latter retort, and\nname the specialisers empiricists. One intellect considers an action\nalmost solely by its grounds or motives: another almost solely by\nits consequences. Some console themselves for their degradation by\npiquing themselves on what they might have been: others despise these\n'would-be' minds for what they practically are. What a wealth there\nlies in each of us, which our nearest friends know nothing of, and\nwhich has never been made outward! But in this mode of thought, it is\nthe persistent delusion, misleading science no less than metaphysics\nand the reflective thinking of ordinary life, to suppose that either of\ntwo relative terms has an existence and value of its own. In Germany\npaper-money is sometimes known as 'Schein' or Show. That term marks its\nrelativity to the gold or silver currency of the realm: and it would\nbe as absurd to pay with Austrian paper-money in Persia, as to take\none term of Essence apart from its correlative. The disputes about\nessences, about matters and forces, about substance, about freedom and\nnecessity, or cause and effect, are generally aggravated by a forced\nabstraction of one term from another on which its meaning and existence\ndepend.\n\nThe essence may be roughly defined as that measure or standard which\ncorresponds to the variation of immediate being, and yet remains\nidentical in all variation. Or, if we like, we may say that this\nimmediate being, which, as derivative, may now be called existence[1],\nhas its ground in the essence. The essence is the ground of existence:\nand essence which exists is a 'thing,' Such an existing essence or\nthing subsists in its properties; and these properties are only found\nin the thing. Thus the essence, when it comes into existence as a\nthing, turns out to be a mere phenomenon or appearance.--Such briefly\nstated is the development of essence proper into appearance.\n\nWith the idea of essential being--a permanent which yet changes, there\nemerge the problems connected with the double aspect of relation as\nidentity and difference,--the favourite categories of reflection. These\nterms indeed the popular logician would fain avoid as savouring of\npedantic accuracy, and prefers the psychological titles of similarity\nand contrast. These, he tends to insinuate, are unique experiences,\ndirect feelings, beyond which it is impossible to go in analysis.\nThe logician, on the other hand, must insist on dealing with the\nmore radical phase of the terms. And he must note their essential\ninterdependence and their intrinsic contradictoriness. Abstract\nsameness, or sameness which does not presuppose a tinge of difference,\nis a fiction of weak thought, which wishes to simplify the subtlety\nof nature. Identity is a relative term, and for that very reason\npresupposes difference: and for the same reason difference presupposes\nidentity and is meaningless without it. The whole dispute about\n'Personal Identity,' as it descends from one English psychologist to\nanother, is enveloped in the obscurity which springs from failure to\ngrasp the logical antinomy on which the question turns. When I feel\nthat my friend whom I have not met for years is still the same, should\nI take the trouble to express myself in this manner, unless with\nreference to the difference betwixt Then and Now? If I remark that\ntwo men are different, would the remark be worth making or hearing\nunless there was some identity which made that difference all the\nmore striking? The essence is, in short, the unity of sameness and\ndifference: and when so apprehended, it is the ground by which we\nexplain existence. The essence, ground, or possibility, is at once\nitself and not itself: if it is self-identical, it is for the same\nreason self-distinguishing. If it is to be itself, it can only be so\nby negativing what in it is other than itself. The affirmation of self\nimplies the negation of the other of self,--the redintegration (though\nnot the blank absorption) of the other in it. This is the _crux_ which\nlies in _Ex nihilo nihil fit:_ what exists must not be other than\nthe essence (the effect not more than the cause), and yet unless it\nis other and different, there has been no passage from essence to\nexistence.\n\nThe tendency to identify, and the tendency to distinguish, alternate\nboth in scientific thought and in general culture. But whichever\nprevail for the moment, it is only as a re-action and a protest against\nthe one-sided predominance of the other. And thus both ultimately\nrest upon and presuppose a ground of existence which is neither mere\nsameness nor mere difference. It is only when the two tendencies meet\nand interpenetrate that science accomplishes its end, and discovers\nthe ground of existence. In the first instance the world presents to\nincipient science the aspect of mere identity and of mere difference.\nLikeness is confounded with sameness, and unlikeness with diversity.\nThe popular and the infant minds do not draw fine distinctions. Things\nto them are either the same or different: one point of sameness may\nin certain conditions obliterate whole breadths of difference; and\ntiny divergence may make as nothing all the many points of agreement,\npurely and simply, i. e. abstractly. But the process of comparison,\nsetting things beside each other, teaches us to refine a little, and\nspeak of things as Like or Unlike. One thing is like another when the\nelement of identity preponderates: it is unlike, when the difference\nis uppermost. Thus while we distinguish things from one another, we\nconnect them. From mere variety, and mere sameness, we have risen,\nsecondly, to distinctions of like and unlike. But, thirdly, this\ndistinction of same and different is in the thing itself. Everything\nincludes an antithesis or contradiction in it: it is at once positive\nand negative. One can only be virtuous, so long as one is not utterly\nvirtuous.[2] To be a philosopher, implies that you are not wholly or\nmerely a philosopher. The rational animal is so, because of an inherent\nirrationality, and is so, only as rising upon and superseding it. Every\nepithet, so to speak, by which you describe any reality, presupposes in\nit the negative of the quality. Not only does every negation presuppose\nan attempted or surmised affirmation, but an affirmation is always,\nit may be said, a re-affirmation against an incipient doubt. Every\nstage of reality involves the presence of antithetical but inseparable\nelements: every light implies a shadow to set it forth. The epithet\nof each real is only _a potiori._ While it retains itself, it must\nlose itself. Its positivity is only secured by its self-negation and\nits identity is based upon its self-distinction. Every proposition\nwhich conveys real knowledge is a statement that self-sameness is\ncombined with difference. Every such proposition is synthetical: it\nunites or identifies what is supposed to be implicitly different,\nor differentiates what seemed only identical. Here we have that\n_coincidentia oppositorum,_ which is the truth of essence. Thus, e. g.\nthe essence of the Self is the contradiction between its self-centred\nunity and its existence by self-differentiation into elements.\n\nEssence, thus comprehended as the unity of identity and difference,\nas that which is and is not the same, is the Ground, from which an\nExistence comes as the Consequent. Or, otherwise expressed, the ground\nis the source of the differences,--the point where they converge into\nunity, and whence they diverge into existence. Everything in existence\nhas such a ground: or, as it is somewhat tautologically stated in the\ncommon formula, a sufficient ground. On that account, it is no great\nmatter to give reasons or grounds for a thing, and no amount of them\ncan render a thing either right or wrong, unless in reference to some\ngiven and supposedly fixed point. For the ground only states the same\nthing over again in a mediate or reflected form. It carries back the\nactual fact to its antecedent: and thus deprives it of its abruptness\nor inexplicability, by showing you it was there implicitly; and\ntherefore as you accepted the ground you cannot complain of what but\nserves to continue it. To refer to the ground is to say there is really\nnothing new: and as you raised no objection before, you need raise none\nnow.\n\nThe Existent world--a world of existents, each conditioning and\nconditioned--is popularly described as a world of Things. These\nThings are the solid hinges on which turns our ordinary conception of\nchange and action. They act, and exhibit properties. Being is partly\nsubstantive, partly adjective. The Thing itself is the ground of\nits properties: i. e. each thing is looked upon as a unity in which\ndifferent relations converge, or an identity which subsists through its\nchanging states. This is the side emphasised in ordinary life, when\na thing is regarded as the permanent and enduring subject, which has\ncertain properties. But a little science or a little reflection soon\nturns the tables upon the thing, and shows that the properties are\nindependent matters, which, temporarily it may be, converge or combine\ninto a factitious unity which we term a thing. But these very matters\ncannot be independent or whole, just because they interpenetrate each\nother in the thing. The thing, which from one point of view seemed\npermanent, and the properties, which from another point of view seemed\nself-subsistent matters, are neither of them more than appearance. For\nthey must be at one, and at one they cannot be. And if we reduce the\nvarious matters to one, and speak of Matter in general, we have a mere\nabstraction--a something which only becomes real by being stamped with\na special form. _Mere_ Matter like _mere_ Thing (thing in itself) is a\nknowable Unknowable.\n\nIn this way we pass from the talk about essence, things, and matter\ninto an other range of the sphere of relativity. We no longer have\none order of being behind or in the depth, and another referring back\nto it. We now speak (as Mill does) of Phenomena:--not phenomena of\nan unknown, but, simply disregarding the background, we find all we\nwant upon the surface. For neither is thing more real than property,\nnor essence than existence. Each is exactly equal in reality to the\nother, and that reality is its relation to the other. The thing and\nthe essence with their claim to truth disappear. Nothing truly is:\nbut only appears to be. The semblance (_Schein_) may refer to an\nessential. But the appearance (_Erscheinung_) only refers to another\nappearance, and so on. The phenomenal world is all on one level:--as\nwas the world of immediate being. But, there, each term of being\npresented itself as independent: here, nothing is independent--nothing\never really _is,_ but only represents something else, which is in its\nturn representative. Yet even here there is a pretence of hierarchy\nin existence. In the phenomenon a certain superiority is attributed\nto its Law. But the conception of Law is hard to keep in its proper\nplace. Either it assumes a permanency--even were it but a permanent\npossibility--as contrasted with the coming and passing phenomenon:\nand then it is apt to be confounded with a real Essence. Or, on the\nother hand, it comes to be looked on as a mere way of colligating\nphenomena,--as a mere appearance in the variety of appearance (as it\nwere an iris in the rain-drops)--a phenomenon of a phenomenon. Such a\ndistinction between the phenomenon and its law; therefore, is and must\nbe illusory, or itself only an appearance. As such it is described as\nthe difference of Form and Content: two terms, which are incessantly\nopposed, but which more than most antitheses reveal when pressed the\nhollowness of their opposition. For true or developed Form is Content,\nand _vice versa._\n\nInstead however of this practical identification of the law of the\nphenomenon with the duly-formulated phenomenon itself, it is more\nnatural to emphasise the discordance of the two aspects of reality,\nand yet to acknowledge their essential relativity. This essential\nrelativity in the phenomenon has a threefold aspect: the relation of\nwhole and parts; of force and the exertion of force; of inward and\noutward. The relation of whole and parts tends to explain by statical\ncomposition: the relation of force and its exertion, by dynamical\nconstruction. According to the former the parts are constituted by\ntheir dependence upon and in the whole, and yet the whole is composed\nby the addition of the several parts together. Each extreme is what\nit is only through the other. Only those parts can make up a whole,\nwhich somehow have the whole in them: and to become the whole, they\nmust contrive to wholly obliterate their partitional character. A\nbetter exhibition of the inner unity and the difference between form\nand contents is seen in the relation of a force to its exertion. Here\nthe contents appear under a double form: first, under the form of mere\nidentity, as force,--secondly, under the form of mere distinction,\nas the manifestation of that force. Yet a force is only such in its\nutterance or manifestation, while in that utterance, if abstracted\nfrom the force it carries forth, all energy has been superseded.\nThis separation of content and form, or of content as developed in\ntwo forms, appears still more clearly in the third relation: that\nof outward and inward. This is a popular distinction of very wide\napplication in reference to phenomena. But neither outside nor inside\nis anything apart from its correlative. If the elements implied in the\nconception of phenomena are to have full justice done them, it must be\nexpanded so as to give expression to these two phases, to include the\noutward and the inward. But at first only by reverting to something\nlike the old distinction of essence and existence,--an essence however\nwhich is existent or phenomenal, and an existence which stands\nindependent, though in correlation. Such being is Actuality--being, i.\ne. which is what it must be, and must be what it is.\n\nActuality, though it comes under the general head of Essence, tends\nto pass away into another sphere. Here, as elsewhere, we see that\nthe general rubric of a sphere is only partially applicable to some\nof its subordinate sections. In essence proper there were, or were\nassumed to be, two grades of being--a real or essential, and an\nunessential or seeming: or being was regarded (contradictorily) both\nas ideal (as one thing) and real (as having several properties). In\nAppearance or Manifestation the aspects of being are supposed to lie\non a level; but they are always a pair of aspects, one side of which\nis entirely dependent for its explanation on a reflection from the\nother, e. g. whole and parts, the favourite category for explaining\nthe larger unities. But in the category of actuality there is nothing\nso merely potential, so unessential as mere essence recognised: and\neach actual is something firm and self-supporting which does not,\nlike a phenomenon, merely borrow its reality from its antithesis or\ncorrelative. Thus we have, in a way, got back to the characteristics\nof immediate being: only, as we find it, we have this affirmation of\nthe self-subsistence of reals contradictorily accompanied with the\nconviction of their necessary interdependence. It is a reflective (or\ncorrelated), not an immediate reality. There is no other world of being\nto have recourse to for explanation now: nor can we play back and\nforward from aspect to aspect of a reality which never comes forward\nitself, but only as a reflection on or from another. The world of\nreality is a self-contained world: its parts and phases are each hard\nrealities: and for that reason they bear hard upon each other in the\nbond of necessity.\n\nThe total actuality falls naturally in our conception into three\nelements. We separate first the central fact--the nucleus of the\nbusiness, the concentrated reality in reality: the fact in its\nmere identity and inner abstractness: the ultimate drift or inner\npossibility of things. Then we turn to the rest of the concrete\nfact--all without which the fact would not be itself--the detail\nand particularity: this we treat as a sort of materials or passive\nconditions from which the real fact is to be produced, on which it\nis dependent and which precede it in time. Lastly, in order to get\nback the unity of the fact from these two unconnected elements, we\nrefer to some agency which puts them together. The End--or thing to\nbe realised--(so to speak) has to be brought out by a motive agency\n(efficient cause) which imposes the form (or general character) on\nthe matter and makes these one. By this analysis, however, we have\nonly put asunder what is one experience and introduced a mechanical\n(external) unifier needlessly. The name of _conditions_ is given to the\nparticulars or details, considered apart from the rest of the fact,\nand hypothetically invested with an existence anterior to it, with\nthe implication, first, that they are self-subsistent, and secondly,\nthat they to some extent involve the rest of it. Again, the general\nfact, the fact in its mere nominal or abstract generality or essence,\nits mere possibility, does not exist separately: every fact when in\nthought completed has its so-called conditions not outside it, but as\nconstituent elements, aspects, or factors in it. Lastly, the so-called\nagency is the active element itself in the act, an aspect or factor\nin the totality: the aspect which keeps actuality together as a\nself-energising fact--a _Thathandlung_ and not a mere _Thatsache_ (to\nquote Fichte's phrase). Our practical and technical habits, where the\nagent is other than his materials and aims, lead us to draw the same\ndistinctions in the realm of total Nature: they are aspects useful _in\nordine ad hominem_ which we, without due modification, apply _in ordine\nad Universum._\n\nIt is originally in our practical operations that the distinctions\nof necessary and possible emerge,--with a view to the accomplishment\nof our desires and purposes. That is necessary which is required and\nneeded if some bare plan is projected and is to be actualised: it is\nthe condition or conditions without which the end cannot be attained.\nIt is an epithet of the means. Possible, on the contrary, is an\nepithet of the end or plan, and denotes that there are means for its\nattainment, without however always specifying that this is known of the\npresent or given instance. It is clear that everything as regards the\napplication of these terms will depend on the definiteness with which\nthe plan is conceived, both in itself so to speak and in its relations\nwith the rest of the circumstances. On the other hand, when a result\nemerges without being included in the purpose, and without any means\nhaving been employed for attaining it, it is said to be a chance,\naccident, or contingency.\n\nThese terms are applied by analogy to the uses of theoretical\nexplanation. Just as in will you have a general aim to begin with,\nwhich becomes more and more determinate as it moves forward in the\nvolitional process to execution; so in the attempt to understand the\nworld you suppose it first of all the mere shadow or phantom of itself,\na promise and potentiality of things to come: a next-to-nothing,\nwhich however you credit with a magic wealth of potential being. So\nmuch indeed may this possibility be emphasised that nothing more\nis needed: it is possible, and, without a thought of difficulties\nand counteractives, you could swear that it is actual[3]. Being\nremoved above this solid land of actuality, cut off from the ties\nand bonds of conditions, it fancies itself moving in its vacuum;\nand being free from all bonds of actuality fancies itself actually\nfree, or self-disposing, whereas it can only claim this _liberum\narbitrium indifferentiae,_ so long as it remains bare and powerless\npossibility--a mere may-be, which, apart from all conditions, would\nexist only by a mere contingency, or freak of chance. This mere\npotentiality--being only an ante-dated, presupposed, and hypothetical\nactuality--being only a substance or substratum--must be raised out\nof its supposititious existence into reality by means of appropriate\nconditions. These conditions are necessary to its resuming its place\nor reaching a place in actuality. Thus each object becomes actual or\nreal from a presupposed possibility by means of an external necessity.\nAs in the former case the possibility was identified with power,\nand conditions were left out of sight as comparatively unimportant:\nso here the possibility--taken to lie at the root of the thing--is\nmade a mere susceptibility, which would be nothing actual unless\nstimulated and necessitated from outside. This necessity in the very\nheart of actuality (which is its characteristic to the reflectional\nmode of mind) thus arises from the separation and hypostatisation\nof its elements into independent powers which are so far in stress\nand opposition. This is the climax of metaphysics--if metaphysics\nbe the investiture of the dynamic factors of the notion with the\npower and character of supposed agents or forces. It appears in\nthree phases, with the three categories of substance, cause, and\nreciprocity. To the first, reality is regarded as dominated by its\nmere underlying potentiality: the reality of the mere superficial\ncontingents is controlled by the necessity of its latent or substantial\nbeing. To explain event or incident, here, is merely to bind it\nto the generic nature or the intrinsic doom, which--unexplained\nand inexplicable--manifests itself in an extrinsically fluctuating\nappearance of facts: e. g. the single crime is explained as the product\nof social conditions. Under the conception of Causality, each thing is\na mere might-be which owes all its actuality to a definite antecedent\nor cause,--an antecedent termed for the moment unconditional, but anon\nreduced to dependence on further conditions. The effect is as a fact:\nbut would not have been so unless for an earlier fact--i. e. unless the\neffect in a supposed earlier stage of its growth had been helped on by\ncertain conditions or circumstances to acquire actual and full being in\nthe effect. And cause and conditions can change places, according to\nwhat we happen to regard as the central nucleus or inner possibility\nof the effect. Lastly, the conception of reciprocity recognises that\ncausality is rather an arbitrary simplification of reality into strands\nof rectilinear event; it remembers that Substance emphasises the\ndependence of each non-independent element on the supposed totality\nwhich they grow from, and doing so, it lays down the reversibility\nand essential elasticity of the causal relation. The cause in causing\nre-acts upon itself, and the effect is itself a cause of the effect,\nactive as well as passive. The dependence in short is all-environing:\nnowhere is there any loop-hole to escape from necessity. Motives act\non purpose, and purpose acts on motives: the stone hurls back the hand\nthat hurled it.\n\nExplanation is thus baffled and thus forced to recognise its own\nlimitations. The simplest fact is beyond all the powers of explanatory\nscience to do full justice to: for to know fully the 'flower in the\ncrannied wall' after this method of explanation would involve endless\nmultiples of action and re-action. The antinomy between necessity\nand contingency arose by following out the antithesis, so natural to\nus, between selfsame and different, essence and existence, substance\nand accidents, till they were invested with a right to independent\nplace and function. But the separation of the abstract receptacle\nof possibility, self-same and essential, from the equally abstract\nconditions which fill it up and make it actual, is only the great\nhuman instrumentality of comprehension, which however is not reached\nuntil each thing is realised and idealised as an individual, which\nhas universality and has particularity, but never either alone.\nIts universality is possibility--its particularity the aspect of\ncontingency: but these aspects are in submission to an inclusive unity.\nThe real when ill known seems contingent; when somewhat better known\nit seems necessary by external (physical) compulsion; in its truth\nto intelligence, the real is a self-active, a _causa sui,_ or it is\nnecessary by that self-determination which is the freedom of autonomy.\n\nThe view of the world under the category of actuality (Reality), and\nas dominated by the law of causality, is the culminating stand-point\nof scientific or reflective realism. It began with a mere descriptive\nscience, naming and qualifying the successive aspects of being,--with\ndescription which passed through numeration into the definiteness\nof measurement. But all such determination was found to imply the\nexistence of a permanent reality, or at least to involve the reference\nof one reality to another, outside of it, and yet not independent\nof relations to it, which had to make part of its nature. To the\nscientific realist the sum of fact presents itself independent of\nconsciousness, as a complicated mass of real elements governed by\nlaws and subject to necessities. Each thing or state of a thing is\nexplained by reference to something outside it, which is its cause, and\nmeasured by something inside it which is its unit or atomic standard.\nAlternately the reference, and the unit are designated arbitrary\n(contingent) and necessary (essential): i. e. they are sometimes\nconsidered as only a way of looking at reality[4]--and sometimes as\ninevitable implications and conditions of reality.\n\nAll this is Objective Logic: or, so far as it does not realise\nits implications, it is Metaphysics. Its terms of thought[5] are\nin practice treated as elements of a reality which is what it is,\napart from thought-conditions, apart from consciousness. As Hegel\nexhibits them in their interdependence, they hint their underlying\nthought-nature, which in their empirical applications is hardly\napparent. For to the realistic stand-point mind and subjectivity are\nleft out of account as only passive onlookers. The realist may no\ndoubt speak of a Subject: but he means a real, a corporeal self, an\nactual amongst other actuals. If he speaks of mind and will, such mind\nand will are parts and ingredients in a general scheme of causes and\neffects; they are points of transition through which passes the moving\nstream of event. They also are things and substances. They are agents\nand patients, always both, no doubt but the chief circumstance to note\nis that they are actuals, and that even knowledge and will are regarded\nas species of action and motion.\n\nWhen Protagoras laid down his maxim that _Man is the measure of all\nthings_, he stated, apparently in an ambiguous manner, that the fact\nof measure (and all that mensuration implies), and (we may add)\nthe existence of correlation in actuality, presupposed for their\nexplanation the assumption of Mind and subjectivity. Mind thus became\nthe basis of all actuality which claimed to be objective--claimed, in\nshort, to be actual. The truth and objectivity of the objective lies in\nthe subjective; Mind is its own measure, i. e. the absolute measure,\nand it is self-relation. So Kant had taught and Fichte enforced. The\nbasis of objectivity is the subjective; but a subjective different\nfrom that so-called by the plain man or by the naive psychologist. By\nthe subjective he does not, as the plain man, understand the compound\nof body and soul, the living and breathing organism amid outer\nobjects--nor, as the psychological idealist does, a psychical process,\na series or bundle of states of consciousness, always contrasted\nwith a reality, _the_ reality outside consciousness. It is true that\nhis language resembles the language of psychology: as Herbart and\nothers have said, that is to be expected, for he talks of mind and\nconsciousness. But the consciousness he speaks of is a unity that\nincludes all space and all time: it is one and all-embracing, infinite,\nbecause not as individual (psychological) consciousness set in\nantithesis to reality, as the other half of the duality of existence.\nIt is consciousness generalised_--Bewusstsein \u00fcberhaupt--_ an eternal,\ni. e. a timeless consciousness, an universal i. e. not a localised,\nmind:--a necessary Idea, but with an inward self-regulating necessity.\nSuch a consciousness Fichte called the Absolute Ego: but as we saw\nbefore, the adjective transforms the substantive. Such a consciousness,\nwhich is absolute self-consciousness, is the Idea:--no psychical event,\nbut the logical condition and explanation of reality whether physical\nor psychical. The Idea is the presupposition of epistemology, but\nof an epistemology which claims to occupy the place of old usurped\nby metaphysics. Metaphysics has no higher category than actuality:\ntranscendental logic shows that actuality rests in the Idea,--reality\nconceived and conception realised.\n\n\n[Footnote 1: _Existence,_ as opposed to _Dasein_, should thus imply\nthe emergence into efficient being from a state of quietude or passive\nlatency (_Wesen_).]\n\n[Footnote 2: As Aristotle says, The brave man stands his ground, yet\nfearing: (cf. Tolstoi: _Siege of Sevastopol_). If he does not fear,\nbrave is not the word for him.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Put into Greek, the mere \u1f10\u03bd\u03b4\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 (_licet,_ or\n_forsitan_) is taken as equivalent to \u03b4\u03cd\u03bd\u03b1\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 (_possum_).]\n\n[Footnote 4: Herbart's _Zuf\u00e4llige Ansicht_, or contingent aspect.]\n\n[Footnote 5: 'Denkbestimmungen.']\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII.\n\n\nLOGIC OF COMPREHENSION AND IDEALISM: THE NOTION.\n\n\nThe distinction between the psychical or psychological idea and the\nlogical concept has been more than once alluded to. The idea or\nrepresentation is under psychical form exactly equivalent to the\nundigested and passively accepted thing to which we give the title of\nphysical or external. It is the ideal, in the sense of the psychical,\npendant to the real: and hangs up in the mental view in the same way as\nthe real object to the physical perception. It is in brief the crude\nobject, considered not as existing, but as a state of consciousness--it\nis a reduplication in inner space of the thing in outer space. If we\ncannot say it is altogether mythological, we must however note that\nit is simply a psychical reflex, which has an existence only through\nabstraction, and is neither more or less than the object apprehended\nwithout comprehension.\n\nThe concept or notion is more than an image, and less than an image. An\nidea-image is symbolical of the unanalysed totality of the thing. But\nthe notion is in the first instance due to an analysis, and secondly,\na reconstruction of the thing. It takes up the thing in its relations:\nit thinks it, i. e. it abstracts and mutilates it, and artificially\nrecombines. It implies analysis and synthesis. It produces a sort of\nmanufactured thing: a mental construction. But the construction--as\ncontrasted with the passivity that says first A and then B and a\nconnexion of them--has the traces of subjective or mental violence\nabout it: for violence there is in the act of comprehension. We have\nhowever got together in unity what actuality in the process of history\nlet fall asunder, and could only, at the best, show as independent\nreals held against their will in ubiquitous relations of reciprocity.\nBut the unity in which the individual sets the universal and the\nparticular is an imported unity, which though it gives place and\nexplanation to the elements of reality, seems to impose its synthesis\nupon reality. So far the concept is subjective only. It is an ample\nexplanation including the facts, but not quite self-explanatory. _We_\nconceive, and judge, and reason: but all this is alien to the object.\n\nBut there is a counterpart almost in antagonism to this. There is\na concept, i. e. a grouping of existence into totals mediated by\nnecessary links, which presents itself as embodied in things: and\nthis embodied concept is the objective world. That world, apart from\nour interpretation and conception, offers itself as a synthesis of\nuniversal, particular and individual. It groups itself into systems,\nmechanical, chemical, and teleological. But in all of these there\nis lacking the evidence of the inward and subjective principle of\nunification. The unity is external, the members are held in a vice:\ntheir unity is given as a fact: it follows through certain laws and\ndoes not reveal itself. There is a want of perspicuity of connexion:\nlogic--the need of inner explanation--in short, is not satisfied by\nthis logic of facts. It is rather a realm of necessity than of freedom.\nIt wants life; wants true self-activity. As in the subjective notion,\nthe facts resented the hand of the logician (for here is the sphere\nof logic proper in the old Aristotelian sense), and refused to show\nthemselves in the simple and transparent transitions of his argument:\nso the objective synthesis of the members of a mechanical system, or\nof a kingdom of means and ends, lacks the freedom and lucidity of\ninner movement which logical insight demands. Objectivity--the logic\nof fact--is a syllogism of necessity, so hardened and fixed that the\nnecessity of the conclusion is more obvious than the self-determination\nby the syllogism.\n\nThe third stage of the Notion shows the union of the pellucidity and\nideality of the syllogistic progress with the necessity and reality\nof the objective order. Here actuality and the concept are at one. At\nfirst as a mere fact--or more fact than idea. Life, organic life, is\nno doubt development: a totality which is in all its parts, and where\nparts have their being in the total. But life as such, the so-called\nvital principle, does not emancipate itself to a true universal: it is\nimmersed in its particulars. Intellectual life, on the contrary,--the\nform of consciousness--rises independent and distinct from the\ntotality of life. Psychology follows Biology. But as such--under the\nform of intellect and will--it has an antithesis no less fatal to its\nabsoluteness than the opposite one-sidedness of life. There is--to\nput it in language more familiar to the present day--there is an\nanalogue of life in all nature; and all reality, even the rock and the\ncrystal, has its life-history. There is, properly speaking, no mere\ninorganic reality: organic life is universal. And then, going a step\nfurther, we attribute to all reality something analogous to a soul, or\na consciousness. We talk, in rash moods, of mind-stuff and feelings,\neven in molecules. But as Spinoza has reminded us, terms like Will\nand Intellect have about them something finite, because they imply\nan antagonism to an object: they are predominantly subjective. The\nreality in its final truth must be a subject-object: the adequacy of\nthought and being, the equation of real and ideal, the intellection\nwhich is life. And this is called Absolute Idea. It is natural to\ntranslate such an equation, when made a result, into a mere blank.\nAnd a blank it would be, if we suppose all that has gone before\nobliterated, and only the result left. Then, in the coincidence of\nopposites, we have only a zero of a gulf of negation. A life which _is_\nconsciousness may seem to fade away like a vague ideal with no reality.\nA consciousness which _is_ life can be no consciousness at all. The\n_is_ and the _is known_ dare not coincide or they perish both.\n\nA categorical proposition, says Hegel, can never express a speculative\ntruth. That is to say: the subject over-rides the predicate, or the\npredicate makes you ignore the subject. The affirmation keeps out\nof sight the negation. To say that life _is_ consciousness makes us\nforget that the very assertion would not and could not be made, unless\nalso life were other than consciousness. In its full proportion of\nmeaning, therefore, the proposition must imply a return to unity\nthrough difference, to identity through otherness. Affirmation,\nfully realised, is re-affirmation through negation. Cognition is but\nrecognition deepened by contrast. This law which governs--or rather\nwhich is--logic; the principle of identity through contradiction--must\nnot be lost sight of in the supreme struggle of thought. The Idea is\nthe unity of life and consciousness: but it is a unity in which they\nare (_aufgehoben_)--not a zero in which they utterly collapse.\n\nWe may illustrate in two ways. In the first we may compare the\n'\u0395\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 of Aristotle. That is his formula of reality. Nominally\nit only means activity and actuality: and sums up the metaphysical\nformula for what really is,--the hard fact of being. But through it\nthere glimmers the meaning of consciousness. It not merely is, but\nit means what it is. Energy of Soul is the end of life--the supreme\nfulfilling of desire, and consummation of tendency. As such it is, and\nfeels that it is. It is the virtuous deed, which is its own reward. But\nAristotle seems sometimes to fall from that identification of being and\nconsciousness. The world of _praxis_ parts from the world of _Theoria._\nIn that case the activity is a mere activity--the outward shell of\naction: and then, as a supplement or complement to the abstract result\nof the activity the consciousness of achievement gets a distinct\nposition as Pleasure: and the activity, now no consummation, but only\na means to an end, get its completion from this arbitrarily abstracted\nshadow of reality.[1]\n\nThe second illustration may come from Mr. Spencer.\n\n'We can think of Matter only in terms of Mind. We can think of Mind\nonly in terms of Matter. When we have pushed our explorations of the\nfirst to the uttermost limit we are referred to the second for a\nfinal answer: and when we have got the final answer of the second we\nare referred back to the first for an interpretation of it.' Beyond\nthis see-saw indeed we cannot go, so as to leave it behind: but in\nreality we transcend it. The Mind that is in terms of Matter is partly\nthe region of psychic event, partly the world of science, art and\nreligion. And psychic event is always antithetical to physical reality.\nBut the spiritual world already includes the antithesis of psychical\nand physical, and including it keeps it as a principle of life and\nconsciousness. The supreme or absolute mind does not indeed rise above\nPhysis and Psyche so as to have no antagonism: but it is the unity of\nantitheses.\n\nWhat those who crave for something higher than this rest in unrest,\nthis life in consciousness and consciousness in life, want, would\ndestroy the very condition of reality. Still philosophising, they would\nbe above philosophy. They want an objective reality in which they may\nstill their beating hearts,--a 'repose which ever is the same' and\nyet is not annihilation:--to sink into the great sea of being, and\nleave consciousness with its radical division behind. Such a craving\nphilosophy, in Hegers hands, has no power of satisfying. It cannot, in\nthe sense in which Jacobi and Schelling used the words, reveal Being.\nIt cannot get at the _That_ except by means of the _What,_ and is the\neternal antithesis and correlation of these two. It will always be\nrational and logical--for it is its function to think being: and it\nwill re-affirm that an unthought and a-logical being is a mere name,\nwhich in the language of humanity at least has no meaning, whatever\nit may stand for in the Volap\u00fck of imagined gods. To go beyond this\ncorrelation of Being and Thought is therefore no advance, but a relapse\ninto the _Natura Naturans_, which, in its abstract completeness, _is,_\nbut dare not be anything. Philosophy therefore in its supreme Idea is\nstill the '\u0395\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1 of \u03b8\u03b5\u03c9\u03c1\u03af\u03b1, and not bare \u039f\u1f50\u03c3\u03af\u03b1. For it mere Being\nis always Nothing. And to be actual it must live in antithesis and\nlive victorious over antithesis. It follows the law of humanity _(Und\ndas heisst ein K\u00e4mpfer sein_)--which can only exist in warfare as a\nchurch militant, but for continuous existence must also be a church\ntriumphant. Like religion and art, it sometimes craves for utter union\nin the fullness of Being. Such a fullness is the unspeakable and the\nvain,--which we may picture as the apathy of Nirvana; but which is the\nabsorption of Art, Religion and Philosophy,--the cease of consciousness\nand an abyss. We may call it--it matters not--Being.\n\nThese stages of the Notion must be examined in somewhat fuller detail.\nThe subjective notion is the effort at the comprehension (at first\nsubjective) of the two correlated elements into which actuality as\nsuch has been seen to fall--and to fall again and again without\nend. It brings out, or explicates (and with some opposition to the\ndivisions of reality) the unity which was presupposed by the antagonist\nand inseparable reals. Hitherto we have had two things or aspects\nin relation and move from one to the other by an act of reflection.\nBut to get two points in relation, they must belong to or exist in\na unity. The divided reality of cause and effect must, if it is to\nbe intelligible, submit to a unification of its elements. It is\ncomparatively easy to get on if we are always allowed to have one foot\non solid ground, and can move the other. Give us a standing-point, and\nexplanation is simplified. But to get a notion of things is, it may\nseem, to transcend them, or get beneath them, and take a stand-point\noutside actuality which shall unify them. If we added to immediate\nbeing a further element to explain it, it may be said we now superadd\na third to explain the two others. Over and above the different and\nrelated elements, there is assumed to be a unity. And at first it is\ncertainly such a superimposed element, added to the facts, and regarded\nas our way of looking at them, as a subjective notion or grasp, holding\ntogether what is in itself reluctant to be unified.\n\nThe three aspects or factors in a Concept are the Universal, the\nParticular, and the Individual. These are what Hegel calls the\n'moments' or 'vanishing factors' of the notion. They are 'vanishing,'\nbecause in their logical mobility they form a pellucid union: if they\nare distinct, yet they refuse to be independent of one another. Or, we\nmay say, each in its truth is the meeting-ground and unification of\nthe two others, thus forming a sort of cycle of perpetual movement.\nAnd in this way we may see that the addition of the third has really\nbeen a simplification: it has made two one. For the Unit which welds\ntogether is not a _tertium quid_, but simply the explicit statement\nand assertion of the truth implied in the antithesis, which was yet\ninseparability, of the two others. And for the same reason, neither\nmere universal nor mere particular nor mere individual are full\nreality, when taken apart. One can understand how Hegel could speak of\nthe 'Bacchantelike intoxication' of the concept. It may be illustrated\nby the following utterances in which a modern psychologist labours\nto express the complex unity of mental fact. First we are told that\na 'nervous shock,' e. g. the awakening caused by a sudden blow, or a\nsimple sensation (so-called), is the ultimate unit of consciousness.\nAnd if this were all, it would correspond to the qualities of immediate\nbeing, which we can suppose measurable: we should get a science of\npurely empirical psychology based on psychical atoms. But, immediately\nafter, it appears that the 'relational element' is never absent from\nthe lowest stage of consciousness. Accordingly, besides feelings, there\n_must be_ relations between feelings. And that means a good deal:\nespecially if we also note the proposition that, in truth, 'neither a\nfeeling nor a relation is an independent element of consciousness,'\nEvidently you cannot have either without both, and it seems difficult\nto have both when neither is independent. Nor does it mend matters to\nlearn that 'a relation is a momentary feeling': for that only seems\na way of implying that it is, and yet is not, a feeling. Such are\nthe difficulties that beset the sincere attempt to comprehend. The\nfixed points of explanation stagger under the burden of truth; and\ntheir unsteadiness shows that they lack the full foundation. Yet that\nfoundation--it must be repeated--is not something extra: it is the\nunderlying unity which gives life to the relativity of the separates.\n\nFor the peculiarity of the Notional stand-point is that it insists on\nthorough comprehension. The usual explanation refers us from a later to\nan earlier, from a strange to a familiar, from a complex to a simple,\nfrom compound to elements. It keeps analysis and synthesis, induction\nand deduction apart. To comprehend is, on the other hand, to light up\nearlier by later and later by earlier, and carry both into their unity.\nIt does not merely refer existence to its ground, phenomenon to law,\nor effect to cause; because beyond these it has still to reveal the\nunity of nature which carries on one of these into the other. Thus, the\nexplanatory method in Social Science may either refer us to the simple\nelements or parts out of which the total is composed, or to an earlier\nstage in the same institution's life. The analytical sociologist\ndoes the former: the historical the latter. Neither really faces the\nproblem. For if the whole is made up of parts, it is made up of parts\nwhich have been characterised by the whole. If the later has come\nfrom the earlier, that only shows that the nature of the earlier was\ninadequately ascertained. Development--which implies a permanent which\nchanges, an identity which is also different,--is thus more than mere\nreference to an antecedent; because the antecedent must also figure as\na simultaneous. _Cessante causa, cessat et effectus._ But here, in the\nconcept (or \u03bb\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03c2) or syllogism, the permanent exists as the--may we\ncall it--consciousness which binds together the elements of reality,\nas the life and the history, which is ideally continuous through real\nchanges, and is a real unity through the distinctions of appearance.\n\nSuch a comprehension e. g. of the State would show that though it\nmust have a universal aspect, a particular, and an individual, yet\nthese are not severally identifiable with the divisions of sovereign,\nexecutive, and people, but that in each of the latter the three\nmoments of the notion must appear, and that e. g. the people is not\nmere people, but also executive and sovereign, just as the sovereign\nis no mere sovereign, but also executive and of the people. The same\nmay be illustrated in the so-called individual. A man in his special\ndepartment and sphere of action may very likely lose the sense of his\nwholeness and his integrity,--perhaps in more senses than one! He\nmay reduce himself to the limits of his profession. But in so doing\nhe becomes untrue, or, in Hegelian parlance, abstract: he fails to\nrecognise the universality of his position. All work, however petty,\nwhich is done in the right spirit, is holy.\n\n    'One place performs, like any other place,\n    The proper service every place on earth\n    Was framed to furnish man with: serves alike\n    To give him note, that through the place he sees\n    A place is signified he never saw.'\n\nIt is a false patriotism, for example, which is inconsistent with the\nspirit of universal brotherhood: and there is something radically wrong\nwith the religion, on the other hand, which cannot be carried into act\namid the pettiness of ordinary practical interests. The universal,\nagain, is not a world beyond this world of sense and individuals: if it\nwere so, it would itself be a mere particular. It is rather the world\nof sense unified, organised, and, if we may say so, spiritualised.\nAnd an individual which is merely and simply individual is an utter\nabstraction, which is quite meaningless, and in the real world\nimpossible. Or, if we prefer to express the same thing in connexion\nwith the mind, sensation apart from thought is an inconceivable\nabstraction. Sensation is always alloyed with thought, and we can at\nthe most _suppose_ pure sensation to exist amongst the brutes. The mere\nindividual opens out and expands: and in that expansion we see the\nuniversal: (sensation is thought in embryo). But, on the other hand,\nthe developed universal concentrates itself into a point: (thought\nreturns into the centre of feeling).\n\nThe same process of particular, individual and universal, which thus\ngoes on under the apparent point of the notion, is more distinctly\nand explicitly seen, with due emphasis on the several members, in\nthe evolution of the notion into the Judgment and the Syllogism. The\njudgment is the statement of what each individual notion implicitly is,\nviz. a universal or inward nature in itself, or that it is a universal\nwhich individualises itself. The judgment may, therefore, in its\nsimplest terms be formulated as: The Individual is the Universal. The\nconnective link,--the copula 'is,' expresses however at first no more\nthan a mere point-like contact of the two terms, not their complete\nidentity. By a graduated series of judgments this identity between the\ntwo terms is drawn closer, until in the three terms and propositions of\na syllogism the unity of the three factors of the notion finds its most\nadequate expression in (subjective) thought.\n\nIt may be a question how far syllogisms as they are ordinarily found\nare calculated to impress this synthesis of the three elements upon the\nobserver. The three elements there tend to bid each other good-bye, and\nare only kept together by the awkward means of the middle term, and\nthe conjunction 'therefore.' In these circumstances it becomes easy\nto show, that the major premiss is a superfluity, not adding anything\nto the cogency of the argument. But under the prominence of this\ncriticism of form, we are apt to let slip the real question touching\nthe nature of the syllogism. And that nature is to give their due place\nto the three elements in the notion: which in the syllogism have each\na quasi-independence and difference as separate terms, while they are\nalso reduced to unity. The syllogism expresses in definite outlines\nthat everything which we think, or the comprehension which constitutes\nan object, is a particular which is individualised by means of its\nuniversal nature. As always, thought refers to reality; and a notion\nhas to be carried out into objectivity. But as Aristotle complained,\nmatter is recalcitrant to form. The objective appears at first only as\nan opposite, and instead of revealing, it rather obscures and condenses\nthe features of subjectivity.\n\nObjectivity, or the thought which has forgotten its origin and stands\nout as a world, may be taken in three aspects: Mechanical, Chemical,\nand Teleological. That is to say, the mode in which groups or systems\nnaturally present themselves in the objective world, is threefold. The\ncontradiction which stands in the way of comprehending objectivity\ncomes from the fact that it contains subjectivity absorbed in it. In\nother words, the object is at once active and passive; as thought and\nsubjectivity it should be its own synthetiser, as objectivity it is\nnecessitated to interdependence, and the subjectivity, at this stage,\nis in abeyance. Consequently, either the two attributes co-exist, or\nthey cancel each other, or they are in mutual connexion.\n\n(1) In the first case the objects are independent, and yet are\nconnected with one another. Such connexion is an external one, due\nto force, impulse, and outward authority. The principle of union is\nimplied: but the objects are mutually determined from without. The\nmore, for example, an object acts upon the imagination, the more\nvehement is the reaction of the mind towards it.--(2) But if the\nobject is independent, as has been allowed, then the determination\nfrom without must really come from within. Thus desire is a turning or\nbent towards the object which draws it. The desiring soul leans out of\nitself. It gravitates towards a centre: and it is its own nature to be\nthus centripetal. The lesser objects of themselves draw closer around\nthe more prominent object.--(3) But if this gravitation were absolute,\nthe objects would lose their independence altogether, and sink into\ntheir centre. Accordingly if the independence of these objects is\nto remain, there must be, as it were, a double centre, the relative\ncentre of each object, and the absolute centre of the system to which\nit belongs. In each of these three forms of mechanical combination,\nthe objects continue external and independent. A mechanical theory of\nthe state regards classes as independent, seeks to produce a balance\nbetween them, separates individuals and associations from the state,\nand, in short, conceives the state as one large centralising force with\na number of minor spheres depending upon it, but with a greater or less\namount of self-centred action in each of them.\n\nThe fact is that an object cannot really be thought as thus\nindependently subsistent. Its real nature is rather affinity,--a\ntendency to combine with another: it requires to receive its\ncomplement. Every object is naturally in a state of unstable\nequilibrium, with a tendency to quit its isolation and form a union.\nThis theory, which is called the Chemical theory of an object,\nregards it as the reverse of indifferent: as in a permanent state\nof susceptibility. When objects thus open and eager for foreign\ninfluences combine, there results a new product, in which both the\nconstituents are lost, so far as their qualities go. The qualities\nof the constituents are neutralised. A man's mind, for example,\nprepared by certain culture, meets a new stimulus in some strange\ndoctrine, and the result is a new form of intellectual life. But at\nthis point the process, which such a form of objectivity represents,\nis closed: all that remains is for the product to break up one day\ninto its constituent factors. There is no provision made for carrying\nit on further. Hence if we are to have a self-regulating system of\nobjectivity, we must rise above the Chemical theory of objects. And\nto do that, the first course is to look at the objective world as\n_regulated_ (though not immanently constituted) by the Notion.\n\nThe Notion as regulative of objectivity,--as independent and\nself-subsistent, but as in necessary connexion with Objectivity,--is\nthe End, Aim, or Final Cause. According to this, the Teleological\nand practical theory of the Universe[2], the object is considered as\nbound to reproduce and carry out the notion, and the notion is looked\nupon as meant to execute itself in reality. The two sides, subjective\nand objective, are, in other words, in necessary connexion with each\nother, but not identical. This is the contrast of the End and the\nMeans. By the 'Means' is meant an object _which is determined by an\nEnd_, and which operates upon other objects.--(1) The End is originally\nsubjective: an instinct or desire after something-- a feeling of\nwant and the wish to remedy it. It is confronted by an objective\nmass, which is indifferent to these wishes: and manifests itself as a\ntendency outwards,--an appetite towards action. It seizes and uses up\nthe objective world.--(2) But the End in the second place reduces this\nindifferent mass to be an instrument or Means: makes it the middle term\nbetween itself and the object.--(3) But the means is only valuable as\na preparation to the End regarded as Realised, which thus counts as\nthe truth of the thing. These are the three terms of the Syllogism of\nTeleology: the Subjective End, the Means, and the End Realised. It is\nthe process of adaptation by which each thing is conceived as the means\nto some end, and which actively transforms the thing into something\nby which that end is realised. In the last resort it presents us with\nan objective world in which utility or design is the principle of\nsystematisation: and in which therefore there is an endless series of\nends which become means to other and higher ends. After all is done,\nthe object remains foreign to the notion, and is only subsumed under\nit, and adapted to it. We want a notion which shall be identifiable\nwith objectivity--which shall permeate it through and through, as soul\ndoes body. Such a unity of Subjective and Objective--the Motion in (and\nnot merely in relation to) Objectivity--is what Hegel terms the Idea.\n\nThe first form of the Idea is Life, taking that as a logical category,\nor as equivalent to self-organisation. The living, as organisms, are\ncontrasted with mere mechanisms. The essential progress of modern\nscience lies in its emphasis on this aspect of the Idea: which includes\nall that the teleological period taught about adaptation, and only sets\naside the externality of means to ends there found. The savant of the\nlast century and the beginning of the present dealt with the object\nof his inquiries as a mechanical, chemical, or teleological object.\nThe modern theorist tends to see the world as one self-evolving Life.\nAccording to the naturalist of last century, kinds of animals and\nplants were viewed as convenient, and perhaps arbitrary arrangements:\naccording to the moderns, these kinds represent the grades or steps in\nthe life of the natural world.\n\nWhat, then, is the nature of the process which we call Life? Is it\nadequately or definitely defined as 'a continuous adjustment of\ninternal to external relations'? Or is it a good deal more than\nanything the word 'correspondence' implies? According to Hegel it is\nnothing so simple, but a syllogism with three terms, and a syllogism\nmoreover which permutates its terms and premisses. There is, in the\nfirst place, the term, which is also a process, of self-production. The\nliving must articulate itself, create for itself limbs and members, and\nkeep up a perpetual re-creation of morphological and structural system\nof parts. Secondly, there is the assimilation of what is external to\nthe living individual. If there is to be life, spiritual or bodily,\nthere must be a physiological intus-susception of foreign elements.\nWithout this the first term or process is impossible. Thirdly, there\nmust be a term or process of Reproduction or generation by which\nthe living being passes itself on as a new unit. All life, mental\nor bodily, involves Reproduction.--These are the three terms of the\nprocess of vitality.\n\nBut such a life, considered as merely organic, the life studied in\nBiology, is only a fragment. The truer life is in the genus, not in the\nindividual: the consciousness, the sensation which inwardly unifies the\ndiversity of organic processes. The universal has become the medium\nin which the Idea exists: it exists no longer in immediacy. The mere\nnatural life gives place to the life of the Spirit. The life of the\nSpirit has the double form of Cognition and Will:--the theoretical and\nthe practical action of the Idea: or Truth and Goodness. In short, the\nIdea divides into two halves, which yet remain the same at bottom:\nReason and the World: but yet there is reason in the world. The action\nof the Idea, or its process at this stage, is to bring these two terms\ninto connexion, and show their ideal unity. Beginning with Reason, it\ngoes on to discover reason in the World. Truth consists in the adequacy\nof object to notion. Such adequacy is the Idea: and an object which\nthus corresponds with its notion is an ideal object. The ideal man is\nthe True Man. Truth is the revelation of rationality from the objective\nworld: and Cognition is the name for that process. On the other hand,\nGoodness is the realisation of rationality in the objective world:\nand the Will is the name for that process. Truth proceeds from the\nObjectivity: Goodness from the Subjectivity. But truth can only proceed\n(analytically) from the objective world, in so far as it is produced\n(synthetically) by the subjectivity. And, on the other hand, when the\ngood is realised in objectivity, it is submitted to the process of\nCognition.\n\nWith the unity of Life and Consciousness, the Absolute Idea, we reach\nthe supreme effort of Logic. In Bacon's words, 'the truth of being and\nthe truth of knowing is all one' (cf. p. 224). That is the absolute\ncondition of comprehending reality: the principle of Absolute Idealism,\nso far apart from its psychological wraith, and yet compelled to\nemploy the same language. But after all it is Logic, i. e., only the\nsupreme logical condition of the reality of the physical and psychical\nworld. And it gains reality at the cost of the disruption of its\nelements: it lets the Is slip from the Is known-- the _est_ from the\n_cogitatur_--Being from consciousness. Or, in less mysterious language,\nfundamental philosophy, or Logic, gives place to the concreter system\nof Philosophy--the Philosophy of the Outward and of the Inward\nactuality,--of Nature and Mind.\n\nThe reader of the _Divina Commedia_ may hardly need to be reminded\nthat, at each of the grander changes of scene and grade in his\npilgrimage, Dante suddenly finds himself without obvious means\ntransported into a new region of experience. There are catastrophes\nin the process of development: not unprepared, but summing up, as in\na flash of insight, the gradual and unperceived process of growth.\nThere is birth and death in the spiritual world: and such are moments\nof sudden lapse, abrupt conversion, when the waters of Lethe close\naround, and thereafter all things are new. There are such moments of\naccumulated and abnormal intensity also in the Hegelian philosophy when\na new cycle of idea suddenly appears. Such are the epochs of change at\nthe great crises from Being to Essence, and from Essence to Notion.\nThere is a revulsion, a sharp turn of the path which dialectic can\nenforce but cannot smooth away,--on that path which dialectic indeed,\nas opposed to the old logic of identity, shows not to be a mere smooth\ncontinuity. All development is by breaks, and yet makes for continuity.\n\nThis is again exemplified in the passage from Logic to Physics. The\nreality which presents itself to the philosopher as Nature is a world\nof reason--but, as it stands, it only lives as some speechless work\nof art. It is, so to speak, the picture on the wall--the reflection\nthat is cast by the fuller reality of experience. Reason here is\nin the garb of sense-perception. Nature is the silent image--the\n_tableau vivant_--which becomes intelligent, speaking, and real, in\nthe observing and comprehending mind. It is the statue of Condillac,\nnot yet invested with the minimum of sensibility and consciousness.\nNature is or shows all that the Idea contained, but contained only\nin possibility, as a logical condition of reality. It shows it in\nreality--and that is a reality spread through endless times and spaces.\nIts unity, its meaning, its continuity are broken up into fragments.\nYet as Nature, i. e. in its structural unity, and not in the dispersion\nof things and elements, it is all a unity of development and has a\nlife-history written in its organism for intelligence to read and to\nreconstitute, on the assumption that all its accident and irregularity\nis but the inevitable imperfection of reality as given in parts and\nsuccessions.","title":"Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy, and Especially of His Logic","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":143833}