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Books of special value and gift books, when the giver wishes it, are not allowed to circulate. THE HEGELIAN SYSTEM. VOL. IL LONDON XEM'-STBEET SBDAKE THE SECRET OF HEGEL: THE HEGELIAN SYSTEM ORIGIN, PRINCIPLE, FORM, AND MATTER. JAMES HUTCHISON STIELING. OvTOt yhp /fArjTot ye ^pOTWV ^* aireipoua ya7av.^ * Tlie Hidden Secret of the Universe is powerless to resist the might of thought ; it must unclose itself before it, revealing to sight and bringing to enjoyment its riches and its depths,' Hbgel. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: LONGMAN, GKEEN, LONGMAN, EOBEETS, & GEEEN. 1865. ERRATA. Vol. II.— Pages 208, 216, in the plnrase after-process strike out the hyphen. ^yvA--^ CONTENTS THE SECOND VOLUME. III. THE SECTION, QUALITY, AS TRANSLATED IN H., HERE COMirENTED AND INTERPRETED. PAGE Definiteness (Quality) . ... 1 CHAPTER I. Being .... . . 9 A. Being . . ... — B. Nothing . . . . . . . — C. Becoming ..... — 1 . Unity of Being ancl Nothing . . — Remark 1. The Antithesis of Being and Nothing in Conception . . . 62 2. Defectiveness of the Expression — Unity, Identity of Being and Nothing . . 70 3. The isolating of these Abstractions . — 4. The Incomprehensibleness of the Beginning 72 2. Moments of Becoming . . . .74 8. Sublation of Becoming . . . . — Remark. The Expression — Sublation . . . — CHAPTER 11. There-being .... . . 86 A. There-being as such . ... — a. There-being in general . . . — VI CONTENTS OF THE PAGE b. Quality ... 89 Remark. Reality and Negation 90 c. Something ..*... 94 B. Finitude ... . . 103 a. Something and Another 106 b. Qualification, Talification, and Limit 110 c. Finitude ..... 129 (a) The Immediacy of Finitude 130 (/3) Limitation and To-be-to . — Remark. To-be-to .... 132 (y) Transition of Finitude into Infinitude 136 C. Infinitude ... 144 a. The Infinite in general 145 b. Alternation of Finite and Infinite 146 c. AflSrmative Infinitude 148 Remark 1. The Infinite Progress 153 2. Idealism .... 165 Transition ..... 191 CHAPTER III. Being-for-self A. Being-for-self as such a. There-being and Being-for-self b. Being-for-One Remark. The Expression — Was fur eines? c. One ..... B. One and Many .... a. The One in itself b. The One and the Void Remark. Atomistic c. Many Ones. Repulsion Remark. The Leibnitzian Monad C. Repulsion and Attraction a. Exclusion of the One . Remark. The Unity of the One and the Many b. The one One of Attraction c. The Reference of Repulsion and Attraction Remark. The Kantian Construction of Matter Forces of Attraction and Repulsion from 193 197 198 201 203 205 210 211 218 221 225 227 228 233 SECOND VOLUME. Vll IV. PAGE TRAT^iSlTIO^ JPUOM QUALITY TO QUANTITY . . 235 V. A SUMMARY OR TRANSLATION, COMMENTED AND INTERPRETED, OF THE SECOND SECTION OF THE COMPLETE L(3GIC, QUANTITY . . . .262 CHAPTER I. Quantity ....... 265 A. Pure Quantity . . . . . . — Remark 1. Conceptiou of Pure Quantity . . . 266 2. Kantian Antinomy of the Indivisibility and of the Infinite Divisibility of Time, of Space, of Matter . ... 268 B. Continuous and Discrete Magnitude . . . 272 Remark. The usual Separation of these Magnitudes . 276 C. Limitation of Qviantity ... . 277 CHAPTER II. Quantum ....... 284 A. Number . . . . . . .285 Remark 1. The Arithmetical Operations, &c. . . 292 2. Application of Numerical Distinctions in ex- pression of Philosophical Notions . .297 B. Extensive and Intensive Quantum . . 302 a. Difference of these . . . . . — b. Identity of Extensive and Intensive Magnitude . 306 Remark 1. Examples of this Identity . . . 309 2. Kant's Application oiDegree to the Being of the Soul . . . . .313 c. jUteration of Quantum . . . . — C. The Quantitative Infinite . . . . .315 a. Notion of the same . . . . . — Vm CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. PAGE b. The Quantitative Infinite Progress . . . 317 Remark 1. The high Repute of the Progressus in In- finitum . . . . .310 u. The Infinitude of Quantum .... 327 Remark 1 . The precise Nature of the Notion of the Mathematical Infinite . .338 Explanatory Remarks . . . .378 Quantity from the Encyclopaedia . . 391 VI. THE COMMENTATORS OF HEGEL : SCHWEGLEE, ROSENCRANZ, HAYM 398 YII. COTsOLUSlON: LAST WORD 0^' 'THE SECRET' &c. . 614 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. III. THE SECTION, QUALITY, AS TRANSLATED IN H., HERE COMMENTED AND INTEEPRETED. DEFINITElSrESS (QUALITY). The language just encountered must appear very strange to the uninitiated English reader, and, perhaps, he may be incHned to attribute the circumstance to imperfection of translation. Let him be assured, how- ever, that in German, and to the German student who approaches Hegel for the first time, the strangeness of the initiatory reception is hardly less repulsive than it has just proved to himself There is no valid reason for despair, then, as regards inteUigence here, because it is a translation that is before one, and not the original. To due endeavour, the Hegelian thought will gather round these English terms quite as per- fectly, or nearly so, as round their German equivalents. Comment nevertheless is wanted, and will facUitate progress. Bestiinmen and its immediate derivatives constitute much the largest portion of the speech of Hegel. The reader, indeed, feels for long that with Besiimmung and ' Bestimmung he is hestimmt into Unbestimmtheit ; and VOL. IL B 2 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. even finds himself, perhaps, actually cursing this said Bestimmung of Hegel as heartily as ever Aristotle cursed the Idea of Plato. Stimme means voice, and the action of Bestimmen is to supply voice to what pre- viously had none. As already said, then, Hegel's Bestimmung is a sort of naming of Adam : it is a process of Logical Determination — a process in which concrete determinateness, or determinate concretion, grows and grows in organised complexity up from absolute abstract indeterminateness or from absolutely indeterminate abstraction to a consummate Absolute. To Hegel what is, is Thought ; and the life of Thought can only be Logical Determination, or the distinguish- ing (differentiating) of indefinite abstraction (the begin- ning of Thought) into ultimate concrete definiteness (the end of Thought) by means of the operation of the faculties of Thought (Simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Eeason), to the resolution of the Begriff (the An sich, the indefinite Universal) through the Ur-theil (the Fiir sich, the separation into Particulai^s, into Many, as against One), and the production of the Schluss (the concrete Singular,) which is the All of Thought, Thought elevated into its ultimate and complete con- cretion as the absolute Subject (which again is the ultimate An und fiir sich). — This is a very complete expression for the industry of Hegel. — Bestimmen, then, is to develop in abstract Thought all its own constitu- tive, consecutive, and co-articulated members, or ele- ments, or principles. Bestimmen attaches or develops a Bestimmung, and produces Bestimmtheit. Bestimmen is to he-voice, to vocify, voculate, render articulate, to define, determine, or distinguish into the implied co?isti- tutive variety : even to accentuate will be seen to involve the same function ; or we may say modulate, then QUALITY INTEEPEETED, ETC. 3 modify — that is, dis-cern into modi — the native consti- tuent modi. Bestimmen is the reverse of generahsa- tion ; instead of evolving a summum genus, it involves a sjwcies injima, or rather an individuum — not indeed injimum, but summum. Generahsation throws out dif- ferentice, Bestimmung (specification, singularisation) adds them. The one abstracts from di^erence and holds by identity ; the other abstracts from identity and holds by difference. Bestimmen, then, is to produce, not Logical Extension, but Logical Comprehension [Inlialt), Logical Determination ; it adds differentiaB or significates ; it means to specify, to differentiate, to distinguish, to qualify, characterise, &c., or more gene- rally, just to define or determine-. Bestimmtheit has the sense in it of the past participle : it is a differentia- tum, specijicatum, qualificatum — just a Determinate, a Definite in general, or the quality of determinateness and definiteness ; hence the meanings attached by Hegel himself to it of Form, Product, &c., and of Element when that word signifies, not a constitutm^^, but a constitutec? element. Bestimmung may refer to the process as a whole, but it generally applies to a resultant member of this process : it is what corre- sponds to a predicate ; it is a significate, a specificate, a differentia, &c. ; it is a property, a peculiarity, a spe- ciality, a particularity, a quahty; it is a principle, a sign, an exponent, a constituent, and, in that sense, an element also. It may be translated character, charac- teristic, article, member, modus, determination, defini- tion, trait, feature, dodge — even wrinhle, if you hke. Then looking to the use of the trait, the senses vocation, destination, &ic. are brought in. Qualification is another very useful word for it, and so hkemse are function, factor, term, expression, value. Bestimmtheit, then, here B 2 4 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. (in the text before us), is just definiteness, tangibleness, recognisableness — and that is always due to Quahty. BeiJig, Seyn, — to understand this word, abstract from all particular Being, and think of Being in general, or of the absolute generahty of Being. There must be no sense of personality attached to it, as is so common in England ; nor, mdeed, any sense of anything. The comm.on element in the whole infinite chaos of all and everything that is, is Being. 8eyn, in Germany, often in Hegel himself, means the abstraction of sensuous Isness : but here it is more general than, that ; it is the quahty of Isness, pur et simple ; it brings with it a sense at once of comprehensive universahty and of ultimate principle. Carlyle (' Frederick the Great,' vol. iii. p. 408) says, ' " Without Being," as my friend Oliver was wont to say, " Well-being " is not possible." ' Cromwell had soldiers and other concrete materiel in his eye, when he said Being here ; stiU put as Being, these are abstractly put. In like manner, we have here just to put, not soldiers, &c. only, but all that is, abstractly as Being. It refers, in fact, to the absolutely abstract, to the absolutely generahsed thought of Being. In short, Being as Being must be seen to be a sohd simple without inside or outside, centre or sides : it is just to be taken an ihm selber, absolutely abstractly ; it is just the unit into which all variety, being reflected, has disappeared : it is the an sich of such variety. The meaning of Immediate, Unmittelhar, will be got by practice : it just means directly present Anything seen, felt, &c. is immediate. Being, then, is just what is indefinitely immediate to us. It (the term immediate) is derived from the Logical use of it as in Immediate Inferences, i.e. inferences without intermediate proposi- tion. Essentity or Essence, Wesen, is inner or true, or QUALITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 5 noumenal Being as opposed to outer, apparent, sensuous, or phenomenal Being. It is the principle of what is or shows. It may be translated also Inbeing, or Principial Being. By practice, however, the Hegehan Wesen will attach itself even to Essence, once the thought is seen. It is evident that, the thought of pure or abstract Seyn being reahsed, there is no call for any reference to the thought of Wesen. Absolutely abstract Being seems self-substantial, and awakens no question of a whence or what ; it is thus free from any determination which it might "receive by being related to Essence: in this absolute generalisation, indeed, Seyn and Wesen have coalesced and become indistinguishable. But it is as opposed to Wesen that Seyn acquires the sensuous shade already spoken of In that contraposition, Seyn is phenomenal show ; it is the Seyn of Wesen, and so outer, and very outer — a palpable crust, as it were, which very tangibly is. As yet, as we have said, our Seyn is the abstraction from all that is, and so the common element of aU that is. It is to be said and seen, also, that the two shades of Seyn tend to run together, for, after aU, each at last only implies imme- diacy to consciousness. In itself [An sich), italicised, means in itself as vir- tually, impliciter, or potentially in itself: it is the Suvafx-ig of Aristotle. At the end of the first paragraph, we have also an ' in its own self' which is not itaUcised : this is a translation of the peculiarly Hegelian German, an ihm selber, — an innovation on his own tongue to which Hegel was compelled in order to distinguish another and current shade of meaning which might confuse the sense he wished to attach to an sich. An ihm selber, in fact, imphes, not the mere latent poten- tiality of an sich, but a certain overt potentiality, a THE SECRET OF HEGEL. certain manifestation, a certain actuaKty, a certain assonance to the Aristotelian svreT^i^stix. Hegel inti- mates that an sich, with the accent not on sich, but on ara, may be viewed as equivalent to an ihm. But an sich, on the whole, in the passage referred to, has taken on a shade of meaning quite pecuhar to the place. In this latter case what is an ihm is to be regarded as Seyn-fiir-Anderes, and so outwardly an ihm {in it). Hegel iQustrates the meaning here by the common expressions, there is nofJiing in him or in it, or there is something in that, and seems to see implied in these a certain parallelism or identity between what is latent in itself, and what is overt in it. The addition of the selbst or selber introduces another shade, and renders the task of a translation still more diiScult ; for in English an ihm selber is in itself quite as much as an sich. To separate the words, as in the first German phrase, and say in it self, would be hardly allowable. Perhaps the plan actually adopted is as good as any : that is, to italicise in itself when it stands for an sich, and to leave it without such distinction, or write it, as here, ' in its own self ' (also without italics), when it represents an ihm selbst or selber. Wliat is intended to be conveyed by the text Seyn an ihm selber. Being in its own self, is not hard to make out : it just means Being as (when abstractly thought) it is there before us overtly in its own self, and without reference to another or any other. An sich, then, imphes potential latency ; An ihm selber, irrespective selfness, or irrespective, self- dependent overtness ; and An ihm, such overtness con- nected with and equivalent to such latency. Again, these terms will occur in Hegel, not always in their technical senses, but sometimes with various shades, and very much as they occur in other writers. It must QUALITY INTEEPEETED, ETC. 7 be confessed, indeed, that it is these little phrases which constitute the torment of everyone who , attempts to translate Hegel. An, for example, in the phrase an ihm, is often best rendered by the preposition by. An, in fact, is not always coincident with the English in. An denotes proximity, and is often best translated by at or by : nay, in all of the three phrases above, the substitution of at or by for in will help to illustrate the contained meaning. Consider the phrase 'Das Seyn scheint am Wesen,' which we may translate, the Phe- nomenon shows in the Noumenon ; would not the sense seem to be more accurately conveyed by, the Phe- nomenon shows by the Noumenon, or even by, the Phenomenon shows at the Noumenon ? When an refers to overtness or manifestation, then, we may translate it by. There-being or Here-being is the translation of Da- seyn, and is an unfortunate necessity. Existence might have answered here ; but Existence, being reserved by Hegel to name a much later finding, is taken out of om- hands. What a German means by Daseyn is, this mortal sojourn, this sublunary hfe, this being here below ; and what Hegel means by it, is the scientific abstract thought implied in such phrases. It is thus mortal state, or the quahty of sublunariness ; it is existential definiteness, or definite existentiality, and impHes reference thus to another or others. It is determinate Being, — Here-being, There-being, Now- being, or, best perhaps, /So-being or 7%a^being ; it is the quasi-permament moment of Being that mani- fests itself between Coming to be and Ceasing to be ; it is the to-be (Seyn). common to both phrases : and this constitutes the perfectly correct abstract description, or thought (the notion), of every single Daseyn or 8 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. Here-being, or So-being, and consequently of Daseyn, Here-being, So-being, as such. Being-for-self is the Hteral rendering of Fursichseyn ; which, indeed, cannot be translated otherwise. It means the reference of all the constituents of an individuahty, of a personality, of a self, to the punctual unity of that individuahty, or personahty, or self: it is the focus in the draught of the whole huge whirl- pool, — that whereby its Many are One. For, how- ever, does not completely render Fur. The German, when much intruded on, exclaims, ' One can never be Fiir sich here ! ' Vowels also are described as letters which fur sich sound, consonants not so. Fiir sich, then, is the Latin per se and a little more : it expresses not only independence of others, but occu- pation for oneself Were a Voter, when asked, ' Whom are you for ? ' to reply, ' For myself,' he would convey the German fiir mich. That is fUr sich which is on its own account. 3j Fiirsichseyn, Being- for-self, then, we are to understand a being hy one's own self and for one's own self Generally, in reading Hegel, let us bear both the current and the etymological meanings in mind. That finite is hteraUy ended or limited, infinite unended or unlimited, must not be lost sight of, for example. Finally, I will just add this, that almost all the technical terms of Hegel appear in Kant also, espe- cially in his ' Logic,' where much light is thrown upon them as used, not by the latter only, but by the former likewise. QUALITY INTERPEBTBD, ETC. CHAPTEE I. BEING, A. Pure Being. — B. Nothing. — C. Becoming : 1. Unity of Being and Nothing. The explanation of terms wliicli we have just given seems sufficient for the above sections also ; and we may now apply ourselves to some interpretation of the par- ticular matter, confining our attention for the present to what of text precedes Eemark 1. We shall rely upon the reader perusing and re-perusing, and making himself thoroughly familiar with all he finds written in the paragraphs indicated. All that they present has remained hitherto a universal stumbling-block, and a matter of hissing, we may say at once, to the whole world. Probably, in- deed, no student has ever entered here without finding himself spellbound and bewildered, spell-bound and bewildered at once, speU-bound and bewildered — if he has had the pertinacity to keep at them and hold by them — perhaps for years. When the bewilder- ment yields, however, he will find himself, it is most likely, we shall say, putting some such questions as the following : — 1. What has led Hegel to begin thus ? 2. What does he mean by these very strange, novel, and apparently senseless statements ? 3. What can be intended by these seemingly silly and absurd transitions of Being into Nothing, and again of both into Becoming ? 4, What does the whole thing amount 10 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. to ; or what is the value of the whole business ? These questions being satisfactorily answered, perhaps Hegel will at last be found accessible. 1. What has led Hegel to begin thus f — To this ques- tion, the answer is brief and certain : Hegel was led to begin as he did in consequence of a profound consideration of aU that was imphed in the Categories, and other relative portions of the philosophy, of Kant. But in order to awaken intelligence and carry conviction here, it is obviously incumbent upon us to do what we can to reproduce the probable course of Hegel's thinking when engaged in the consideration alluded to. No doubt, for a full explanation, there is necessary such preliminary exposition of the in- dustry of Kant as has been spoken of as hkely to follow the present work ; but, pending such exposi- tion, we hope still to be able to describe at present Hegel's operations, so far as Kant is concerned, not unintelhgibly. The speculations peculiar to Hume generally, and more especially those which bear on Causality, consti- tute the Grundlage, the fundamen, the mother-matter of the products of Kant. Now in this relation (of Causality) there are two terms or factors, the one antecedent and the other consequent; the former the cause, and the latter the effect. But if we take any cause by itself and examine it a priori, we shall not find any hint in it of its corresponding effect : let us consider it ever so long, it remains self-identical only, and any mean of transition to another — to aught else — is undiscoverable. But again, we are no wiser, should we investigate the matter a posteriori : that the effect follows the cause, we see ; but why it follows — the reason of the following — the precise mean of the QUALITY I^STTERPKETED, ETC. 11 nexus — the exact and single copula — this we see not at all. The source of the nexus being thus undis- coverable, then, whether a priori or a posteriori, it is evident that causality is on the same level as what are called Matters of Fact, and that it cannot pretend to the same authority as what again are called Relations of Ideas. Did it belong to these latter — examples of which are the axioms and other determinations of Mathematic — it would be both necessary and intelligibly necessary ; but as it belongs only to the former class, the weight of its testimony — its vahdity — can amount to probability only. That a straight line is the shortest possible from any here to any there, I see to be uni- versally and necessarily true — from Eelations of Ideas ; but that wood burns and ice melts, I see to be true only as — Matters of Fact, which are so, but might, so far as any reason for the state of the fact is con- cerned, be otherwise : they are, in truth, just matters of fact, and relations of ideas do not exist in them. Matters of Fact, then, are probable ; but Eelations of Ideas are apodictic, at once necessary and universal. Causahty now belonging to the former, it is evident that the nexus between the fire and the burning of wood (say) is but of a probable nature. The fire burns the wood, I perceive ; but it might not : the affair concerns contingent matter only, and no examination of the relation, either a priori or a posteriori, can detect any reason of necessity. Causality, then, as presenting itself always in matters of fact, and as^ exhibiting neither a priori nor a posteriori any relation of ideas, cannot claim any authority of necessity. Why, then, when I see a cause, do I always anticipate the ef- fect ; and why, when I see an effect, do I always refer to a cause ? Shut out, for an answer here, from 12 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. the relations of ideas, and restricted to matters of fact, I can find, after the longest and best consideration, no ground for my anticipation but custom, habit, or the association (on what is called the law of the Asso- ciation of Ideas) of things in expectation which I have found once or oftener associated in fact; for so habitual becomes the association, that even once may be found at times to suffice. — Thus far Hume. But now Kant — ^who has been much struck by the curious new truths so ingeniously signalised by Hume, and who wiU look into the matter and not shut his eyes, nor exclaim (as simply Eeid did, in the panic of an alarmed, though very worthy and intelligent, divine), ' God has just put all that in our souls, so be ofi" with your sceptical perplexings and perplexities ' — (Neither will he pragmatically assert, like Brown, Causahty is a relation of an invariable antecedent and an invariable consequent, and absurdly think that by the use and not the explanation of this term invariable (which is the whole problem) he has satisfactorily settled all !) — now Kant, who is neither a Eeid nor a Brown, but a man as able as Hu.me himself, steps in and says, this nexus suggested by you (Hume) between a cause and its efiect, is of a subjective nature only; that is, it is a nexus in me, and not in them (the cause and the efiect) ; but such nexus is inadequate to the facts. That this unsupported paper falls to the ground — the reason of that is not in me surely, but in the objects themselves ; and the reason of my expectation to find the same connexion of events (as between unsupported paper and the ground) is not due to something I find in my- self, but to something.I find in them. I cannot inter- calate any custom or habit of my own as the reason of that connexion. True, as you say, neither a priori QUALITY INTEHPEETED, ETC. 13 nor a posteriori can I detect the objective copula ; and true it is also that we have before us only contingent matter or Matters of Fact : nevertheless, the nexus is such that mere custom is inadequate to explain it. The nexus is such, indeed, that (as Brown might say, and did say as against Hume, though merely assertively and so that, for ultimate answer, he simply settled down at last in Eeid's answer, to which one would have thought from all his fighting he was diametrically opposed — ' the will of the Divine Being ') it introduces an element of invariability, and custom evidently can- not reach as far as that ; so that the question remains, why are the objects invariably connected in our ex- pectation — why, in short, is the relation of causahty as necessary and as universal in its validity as any axiom of Mathematic, as any one of those very Eelations of Ideas from which it has but this moment been ex- pressly excluded ? Every change (effect) has its cause : this is a truth of no probable nature ; we say, we see that cork floats, but it might not ; but we cannot say we see that change has its cause, but it might not : on the contrary, we feel, we know, that change must — and always — have its cause. Now, the source of this Necessity and Universahty — that is the question, and lie where it may, it very plainly cannot be an effect of any mere subjective condition of ourselves, of any mere anticipation through habit.* Hume certainly has shut us out — though very oddly he himself (in custom) had recourse to such — from all a posteriori sources ; for » It is sufficiently curious to per- Seinff,' fancied himself to be say- ceive that Brown, when he said' m- ing something against Eeid, or variable connexion is Causality, and something for or against Hume— we Icnoiv all the cases of such con- or just fancied himself to be philo- nexion by the will of the Divine sophising indeed ! 14 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. whatever is known a posteriori, or by experience, is but a Matter of Fact, and therefore probable only, or contingent only. But, if the source cannot be a posteriori, it must be a priori. Hume, to be sure, talks of an a priori consideration in this very reference (Causahty) ; but there must be another and truer a priori than the a priori of Hume. Now, first of all, what is it that we name the a posteriori ? That is a posteriori, the knowledge of which is due to experience alone ; and the organ of experience is perception, sensa- tion, inner or outer ; inner for affections from within, and outer for affections from without. But Locke traces all our knowledge to affection either of outer or of inner sense, therefore all our knowledge must be a posteriori. But this is manifestly erroneous ; for in that case, there could be no apodictic, no necessary and universal knowledge at aU : but there is such knowledge — ^univer- sally admitted, too — in what are called relations of ideas ; . and Causality seems itself — though with a difference — another instance of the same kind. This latter know- ledge, then, (the apodictic,) cannot be a posteriori, and, consequently, it must be a priori. But besides sensuous affection, we possess only intellectual function : if the former be the source and seat of the a posteriori, then, the latter may be the source and seat of the a priori. But that being so, the necessity of Causality must still have its seat in the mind, in us ; or, in other words, its source must be subjective — and we have just declared a subjective source impossible ! Again, we have just said also that Causahty concerns contingent matter : change itself is only known a posteriori or by experience ! Here seem great difficulties. How can what is only a posteriori obey what can only be a priori ? And how can an a priori or necessary truth have a sub- QUALITY INTEEPEBTED, ETC. 15 jective source, or belong to the mind only ? As has been seen already also and just said, this necessity of Causality is not the only truth that cannot be a posteriori ; we are led to enlarge the problem to the admission of the whole sphere named Relations of Ideas. Eelations of Ideas! The phrase belongs to Hume himself, and he admits the necessity involved : did Hume, then, never ask whence are they ? and did he unthinkingly fancy that, though Ideas themselves — as but derivative from Matters of Fact — were contin- gent and probable, the Eelations that subsisted among them might be apodictic and necessary ? Had Hume stumbled on such considerations as these, he would have been led into a new inquiry ; he would have been forced to abandon his theory of aU our knowledge being limited to Impressions of Sense and resultant Ideas of Eeflection; he would have been forced to see that, as there are apodictic truths, there must be a source of knowlege a priori as well as a posteriori, and that aU our Ideas are not necessarily copies of our Im- pressions. Stimiilated by the example of Causality, too, he might have been led to see that the element of necessity did not restrict itself to Eelations of Ideas only, but associated itself with contingent matter, with Matters of Fact as weU ; and might have asked, there- fore, are there not, besides Causahty, other such exam- ples of an apodictic force in a posteriori or contingent matter ? — what is the whole sphere of necessary know- ledge, as well pure as mixed ? — and what is the pecuHar source of aU such knowledge ? In this way, he might have been led to perceive that apodictic matter, im- possibly a posteriori, must be a priori, and an a priori which had attained new reaches. He had talked, for example, of examining a cause a priori in search of 16 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. its effect, as has been already remarked : but, after all, this a priori is a "priori only as regards the effect ; after all, any knowledge gained by the examination would be of an a posteriori nature. The true a priori, then, must be anterior, not to this and that experience, but to all experience ; it must concern a knowledge that is not empirical, that reaches us not from elsewhere through a channel of sense. Plainly, then, it must be an element confined to the mind itself; and plainly also, he where it may, it must he elsewhere than in sensation. Now, it is this elsewhere than in sensation that gives the cue and clue to the possibility of an element of necessity subjective as in us, but of an objective validity and of an objective role. Sensation being excluded, there remains for us the understandmg only ; and it is not so difficult to surmise that principles of the understanding — a faculty that concerns insight, discernment, evidence — may bring with them their own authority. The con- tributions of sensation, for example, are wholly sub- jective in this sense, that they are mine only, or yours only, or his only — that they are incapable of communi- cation, and, consequently, incapable likewise of com- parison. An odour, a savoiur, a touch, a sound, a colour, affects me, affects you, affects him ; but the affection of each is peculiar and proper to himself ; we cannot show each other our affections ; that is, they are incommunicable and incapable of comparison. But it is different with the contributions of understanding : these bring their own evidence ; this evidence is the same to all of us ; it can be universally communicated, and universally compared. Now, a validity of this nature may be correctly named objective, for it is in- dependent of every subject. An objective role, again, implies that the possessor of such r61e presents itself QUALITY INTEEPEETED, ETC. 17 with and in objects. A priori principles, then, will be principles peculiar to the understanding only ; sub- jective in that they have their source in the mind, in us, but objective in that they possess a universal and necessary validity independent of every subject; and . o5;'eciwe, perhaps, also in this, that though subjective in origin, they present themselves with and in objects , in every event of actual experience. In this manner, we can see the possibility of an apodictic element both pure and mixed. In fact, we see that the whole business was opened, when we opposed senuous affec- tion to intellectual function, and assigned the a pos- teriori to the one and the a priori to the other. This very sentence, indeed, is the key to German Philosophy; it is a single general expression for the operations as well of Hegel as of Kant. German Philosophy, as we all know, begins with the question: How are Synthetic Judgments a priori possible ? JSTow to this question, the answer of Kant — and the answer is his system — ■ is, Intellectual Function with the a priori sensuous forms, or sensuous species — Space and Time ; while the answer of Hegel — implying in his case a system also — is. Intellectual Function alone.* But to apply this to Causahty — how find in the mind a principle correspondent to something so very outward and a posteriori, and yet so apodictic and * Tke antitliesis of matters of validity of causality to wliat was in fact and relations of ideas is virtu- effect relations of ideas. Hegel, in ally identical witli that of sensuotis effect, has only cleared relations of affection and intellectual function, ideas into their system — that crystal Unnamed, it underlies the whole skeleton which, the whole truth of thing. Hume shut himself out the concrete, of sensuous affection, from relations of ideas hy errone- of matters of fact, underlies and ously seeing (in Causality, &c.) supports the same. Of this, so to matters of fact only. Kant was speak, invisible skeleton Causality driven by the evidence [oi peculiar is but one of the bones. VOL. II. C 18 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. necessary? Now the intellect, or tlie understanding, is just Judgment ; and Judgment has functions, of which functions the various classes of propositions (which are but decisions or judgments of Judgment) are the correspondent Acts. Now the hypothetical class of propositions points to a function of Judgment which we may name Eeason and Consequent. Evidently at once here is a function of Judgment, the sequence of the elements of which is exactly analogous to the sequence of the elements of Causahty. The state of the case is not yet free from great difficulty, however. Assuming the function of Eeason and Consequent to be the mental archetype of Causality, how are we to connect it with contingent matter, and reduce it into a relation which — within us as Eeason and Consequent — comes to us actually from without in the shape of innumerable real causes and innumerable real effects ? This very important portion — so suggestive as it proved to Hegel — of Kant's industry is wholly unknown in England, and seems to have been universally neglected (unless by Hegel) in Germany. If the reader will take the trouble to turn up the works of Sir William Hamilton, he will find Kant's theory relegated to that class which names Causality only a special and pe- culiar mental principle, and nothing more. Of the deduction of the principle — and in a System of such — from the very structure of the mind itself, and of the laborious succession of links whereby it is demonstrated to add itself to outward facts and come back to us with the same, there is not one word in Hamilton. He knows only that Kant opines Causahty to be a peculiar mental principle ! In short, no Ahnung, not even a boding of the true state of the case, seems ever to have dawned on this great German scholar, who knew the QUALITY INTEEPEBTED, ETC. 19 Germans just so well and intimately that he anni- hilated them all ! It is amusing to observe the self- assured Sir William fooling himself to the top of his bent with his sharp distinctions and well-poised divisions about Kant violating the law of parsimony, postulating a new and express principle, while he, for his own vast part, on the contrary, &c. &c. ! ! ! Hamilton, however, introduces into his own theory (!) a certain relativity of time ; and relativity of time — ^but with something of a claim to coherency and sense, the while — belongs to the theory of Kant also. — Now, one can beheve that Hamilton was at least an ardent manipulator of the leaves of books. Time it was that became in the hands of Kant the medium of effecting the reduction in question, or that connexion between the inner and the outer which was manifestly so necessary.^ It will not be required of us at present, however, to track the probable heuristic course of Kant any further in this direction. Suffice it to say, that the desire to incorporate an inner law with outer bodies — especially in such a reference as Causality — necessarily led Kant to a consideration of Space and Time. The result of this consideration was, that space and time, though perceptive objects and so far sensuous, were a priori and so far intellectual, so far appertinent to the mind itself. In this way, there was a priori or native to the mind, not only function, but affection : both being side by side in the mind, then, function had affection in its clutch, or Unity had a Many on which it might exercise its energy. A schema, an a priori schema was thus formed, into which matter from without — that is, empirical or a posteriori matter — had to fit itself — to the eventual production of c 2 20 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. the formed, of the rational, of the ruled and regulated — universal context of Experience. Indeed, thought Kant, how can it be otherwise ? The a posteriori is but affection : we are, of course, acted on from without, but we know only the resultant affections set up. These are within us : they have no system in themselves, they are wholly contingent : this system which they so much require, they can only obtain within us, and the understanding alone is what is adequate to the want. In the end, the affections of sense were found to be construed into the formed uni- verse, through the a priori perceptive spectra, Space and Time, and under the synthetic energy of the various fimctions of Apperception. Lastly, the various syntheses of these functions were named Categories. — Causality, then, is but a function of Apperception, exter- nalised into, and coming back to us from, or with, actual outer objects, through the media, sensuous but a priori, or a priori but sensuous, of Space and Time. Now, observe what the world has become ! It is now wholly in us ; but we to it are quite formal ; we are but the subjectivity that actualises it, as it were, into life ; it is function and affection — it is the matter within us : abstracting from ourselves then, that matter of function and affection remains, and the world is this : There are intellectual syntheses (categories), there are Space and Time, there are Empirical Affections. But, narrowly looked at — and this is a consequence of Kant's own industry, though it never occurred to Kant — empirical affections, as well as Space and Time, are but externalisa- tions of the categories, are but outwardly what the cate- gories are inwardly. The categories, then, are truly what is ; the categories are the true essence of the universe : in the categories we have to look for the ultimate prin- QUALITY INTERPEBTBD, ETC. 21 ciples, and the ultimate principle of everything that is. This is what occurred to Hegel ; and it is here that he receives the torch from the hands ,of Kant, and proceeds to carry it further. Intellectual Function is the secret, then : almost it would seem as if the work of Kant and Hegel were but a new analysis of the human mind, a new statement of its constituent elements, an identi- fication of this mind and these elements with, an en- largement of this mind and these elements to, the mind and elements of God — and all so that creation should be seen to be but the other of this mind and these elements — to be but the external counterpart of these, its internal archetype and archetypes. Now this is probably the shortest and clearest general view we have yet attained to ; but we cannot stop here — the uninitiated reader must be carried more deeply into the details stUl, before he can be dismissed as competently informed. Nevertheless, it wUl always be of use to bear in mind that the ultimate proposition of Hegel seems to be this : To know aU the Functions which ' Affections obey, and to demonstrate the presence of the former everywhere in the latter, would be at once to know the Absolute, and to complete Philosophy. Let us look weU at these categories, then, says Hegel, and consider them in their own absolute truth. First of all, then, there are the four capital Titles, as Kant names them, Quantity, Quality, Eelation, and Modality. Now, of these the first three are evidently objective and material, while the last is only subjective and formal : the first three concern the constitution and construction of objects themselves, the last only their relation to us. But to the development of the absolute world, we abstract from ourselves, and it would seem, therefore, as if we must abstract also from this modality 22 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. of Zant. Things exist in Quantity, Quality, and Eela- tion ; and this division seems complete in itself. As for Subjectivity — and it is subjectivity that modality involves — it is a sphere apart ; Subjectivity, in short, implies Things and something more. Things have their own laws ; but Subjectivity appears in an element which, while implying laws of its own, involves sub- jection to those of things also. Subjectivity, then, appears a higher stage, and it seems necessary to com- plete things or objectivity first. The first glance of Hegel, then, eliminates for the nonce modality, and we have to see him now employed on Quantity, Quality, and Eelation. Now, are these the most universal of all objective categories, and are they complete ? Again, this being so, are they dedu- cible the one from the other, and all from a common principle which is obviously the First and the Funda- ment'^ The categories being the Absolute, being truly What is, it is evident that their completion — and in a system — would constitute, at last, Philosophy. They cannot, then, be left standing as we receive them from Kant. Notwithstanding that Kant derives them from the functions of Judgment, actual analysis fails ; they have not in him the architectonic oneness and fulness which he himself desiderates, but rather that rhapsodic ap- pearance of mideducedness and incompleteness which he himself abhors. They look meagre, disconnected, arbitrary : we instinctively refuse to accept them as the inner and genetic archetypes of all that is. We must be better satisfied in their regard : they must be larger and fuller somehow : we must trace them both up to their necessary source, and down into all the ramifications of their completed system. In this way, we shall have the crystal of the universe, the diamond net into which QUALITY INTEEPEETED, ETC, 23 the whole is wrought, God and the thoughts of God before the birth of time or a single finite intelligence, or even entity. Ideahsm thus would be finished and complete. Thought would constitute the universe : the universe would simply be thought, thought in its two reciprocal sides, thought inner and thought outei\ The proper name for Philosophy in this case would be Logic ; for, indeed, the all of things would simply be reduced to Logic. Nay, Logic would be the Absolute ' — ^Logic would supplant and replace Theology itself. The chaos of this universe, in fact, that stands before ordinary intelligence, would shapingly collapse into the law and order and unity of a single life — a life which we should understand — a hfe which each of us should participate — modally. The Substance, Attribute, and Modus of Spinoza would thus be reahsed, would thus have flesh on their bones, and be alive and actual. These are grand thoughts, suggestive of a close at last to the inquest of man : we must complete them : we must take up the lead that Kant has given us : we must strike boldly through the gate which he — led up to it by Hume — has been- the first to open to us ! Let us look well to what he has done, then ; let us follow aU his steps ; above all, let us look again into all the materials he has collected as categories. What we have to do is to complete their Many, and to find their One : what we have to do is to demonstrate the AU, and in co-articulation with the Principium — ^with that which is first and one and inderivative ! As regards their One, that in Kant is Apperception, Judgment ; but Judgment is only a single moment of Logic : there remain two others — Simple Apprehension and Eeason. The last, certainly, Kant has drawn into consideration, but perhaps imperfectly; and, as regards 24 THE SECKET OF HEGEL. the second (the first in the rubric), he has not thought of it at all. But, if Logic is to be considered the principle of the whole — (and why should not Logic constitute the principle of the whole ? — what God has created must be but an emanation of his own thought, of his own nature ; and do we not know that man, so far as he is a Spirit, is created in the hkeness of God ? — why, then, should not Logic, which is the crystal of man's thought, be the crystal also of God's thought, and the crystal as well of God's universe — of that universe which, as God's universe, must be but the ■realisation, the other side, of God's thought ?) — if Logic, then, is to be the principle of the whole, we must be serious with Logic, and take it together in all its parts. Simple Apprehension, then, is a moment no more to be omitted tlian any of the rest. But, possessing the light of system and unity which Kant's demand for an architectonic principle has kindled in us, we cannot be content with Logic itself in these mere chapters and headings, in this mere side-by-side of Simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Eeason: they, too, must be organically fused into a concrete unit, which unit were evidently the ultimate or basal unit, the absolutely primordial cell — in other words, the Absolute itself. But is this possible? — can we view these as but elements of a single pulse, moments of a single movement ? Yet, agam, what we are contem- plating is a principle too subjective for our objects as yet, and we seem to be tending too much to the stand- point of Kant. Kant held by Apperception and a sub- jective idealism-: Kant postulated an elsewhere which, received into our organs, only so and so affected us, only so and so appeared to us in consequence of the consti- tution peculiar, not to it (the elsewhere, the thing-in- QUALITY INTEKPEETED, ETC. 25 itself), but to them (the organs). In this way, know- ledge could only be phenomenal and provisional. But it is not so that we would view the problem : Ave ehmi- nate subjectivity in the first instance ; we stretch out the threads of the categories as the primordial and essential filaments ; on these we lay the particularised universe of things ; — and then we say, Behold the world, Behold what is ! With such design before lis, then, we cannot begin with Simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Eeason : these, as named, concern sub- jectivity ; and even if they are the ultimate moments of the All, we must have them in another form before we can lay them down as objective categories of foun- dation and support. We can talk of Quantity, QuaHty, and Eelation, for these are objective, and all things submit to their forms. But the moments of Logic in the form of the moments of Logic are too subjective to serve a similar purpose : in such form, they seem alien to things. The moments of Logic in such form, then, will not answer as a beginning, however much they may constitute the true rhythm of all things. Li other words, the Logical movement is the ultimate principle — but we do not find it in the beginning in that form ; it has a prehminary path to describe before reaching the same. — But let us look again at the cate- gories as we find them in Kant. Well, we look at them — and it is to be seen, without difficulty, that they are but results of generahsation. The question occurs, then, has this process reached completion, or is it susceptible of being carried fur- ther? Again, in the latter event, might not, in ulti- mate generahsation, a category be anticipated which should be the category of categories, or the Notion of Notions ; for Kant himself calls the categories Notions, 26 THE SBCBET OF HEGEL. Stammbegri^e, root-notions. The notion of notions ! — well, but we have just seen that the logical movement must be the fundamental principle; if, in another way, therefore, a notion of notions is to emerge with a claim to the like authority and place, the two results must coincide and be identical. In other words, this ultimate generalisation, this last abstraction, which is the notion of notions, wUl constitute the first form of the logical pulse — and, in general, just the beginning that we want. This logical pulse, too, being coincident with the ultimate category or notion of notions, is capa- ble of being regarded as xolt' e^o^riv the Notion. But the categories are, so to speak, concrete abs- tractions : they possess a filling, contents, matter, an implement, a complement, an ingest, an intent, a tenor, a purport, an import (Inhalt) : Quantity possesses imi- versality, particularity, singularity; Quality, affirma- tion, negation, limit ; Eelation, substance, causality, reciprocity. The ultimate Category, or the Notion, then, being also a concrete abstraction like the rest, wlU possess a filling of its own ; and this filling or matter must be the universal of all these fillings or matters. Each of these matters, again, must be but a particular of it (the matter of the Notion), as universal. They, then, thus particulars of- the same universal, must be mutually related and affiliated as congruent differences of the same identity. — But in this last phrase Ave have a hint given us as to how we should regard the matter of the Notion. These words identity and difference can be used in description of the first two moments of the matter of all the Titles. Under Quantity, Universality, not only in its notion, but in its very name, points to unity or identity ; while Par- ticularity, again, is but difference — the particulars are QUALITY INTBEPEBTED, ETC. 27 but the differences of the universal, the species but the differences of the genus. Under QuaUty, Affirma- tion is plainly identity — but the identity, so to speak, of common concurrence ; and as plainly Negation is difference, for it implies a No to a Yes, or difference is at twain, and two contain difference. Under Eela- tion. Substance is but the supporting identity of the All of things, while Causality is but the difference in this identity — implying, as it does always, the first and the second, the one and the other. The fourth Title of Kant we have eliminated for the present as it refers to subjectivity : nevertheless, the fourth title is equally illustrative of the same facts — ^Nay, in the Titles themselves, let alone their moments, cannot a Hke re- lation be detected? Is not the Quality of anything just its own identity.? — and is not Quantity just any- thing's own difference ? Increase or decrease of Quantity (within limits) does not alter Quality (you and I would be much the same were we some pounds heavier : the cabbage is its own identity (and this lies in its quality), but its growth from day to day (Quantity) constitutes its difference). — And this is a lesson to us — Kant is wrong to place Quantity before Quality — now that attention is called to this, we seem to see, just in a general way indeed, that Quahty ought to precede Quantity : Quahty is indeed the inner reality or identity, while Quantity is but the the outer difference. — In identity and difference, then, we seem to have obtained wider universals for the two first moments of aU the Kantian triads. But they are triads ; what, then, of a third moment in this our own new triad ? — may we hope to find a similar Avider universal for it also ? Now this will not be difficult, if we observe in each triad the relation which the third term or moment 28 THE SKCEET OJ? HEGEL. bears to the first and second. The third moment, m fact, always seems to participate in both of those which precede; — we can see it, in a manner, to conjoin and sum these. The singular, for example, contains m it both the universal and the particular ; hmitation imphes both affirmation and negation ; while, in the last place, reciprocity or community seems to contain in its one virtue both that of substantiahty and that of causality. But these triads of Kant have been derived from certain Logical triads which also manifest the same property. To convince himself of this, let the reader but glance at the Table in Kant that sums the various judgments-: Disjunctive, for example, does it not involve a virtue at once Categoric and Hypothetic? Nay, does not the third Title, Eelation, (we have elimi- nated the fourth,) manifest itself as but, in a manner, a uniting medium of both Quantity and QuaHty — though, to be sure, it is a relation — proportion of quantity, with quality as a result — rather than Relation in general, which accurately accompHshes this ? (By the bye, let us not forget this exact new third just discovered for Quantity and Quality — Proportion, Measure, Maass !) But if the third moment is always related to the first and second, they, too, probably will be mutually ■ related ? — It really is so. This, indeed, we have al- ready said : in every case, it is the relation of identity and difference. On looking quite close, indeed, the second moment (difference) is seen to be just the opposite, the contrary, the negative of the first (iden- tity). Negation is the opposite of afiirmation ; par- ticularity is the opposite of universahty ; and the same relation does in fact obtain between substantiahty and causality, for the latter involves reference to depend- ence or derivation, and that is the opposite of substan- QUALITY INTEEPEBTED, ETC. 29 tiality. Nay, looking to the Titles themselves, there is virtually the same relation between Quahty and Quan- tity ; for if the one is inner, the other is outer. The three moments, then, are always interconnected, as Yes, No, and Both. This is sufficiently singular, and suggests very clearly the possibility of ranging all in a common system. The movement plainly is one of identity, opposition, and reconcUiation of both in a new identity. This movement, then, name it as we may (in the terms of Aristotle as formerly, if it is thought fit), is the Notion of Notions, or the Notion. This movement wiU be the Logical movement also, then ? Yes ; the same relation but repeats itself in the triad Simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Eeason (Begriff, Urtheil, Schluss) : Judgment always says no to the awards of Sense, and Eeason reconciles them in a new and higher truth. Such is but the history of the world! — What we see, then, everywhere is but the logical movement repeating itself in a variety of forms and under a variety of names. We have cer- tainly discovered the principle, then, and the proper pulse of this principle : but how are we to set it in action to the production of a system ? The Categories have presented themselves as triads, the moments of which coUapse, in the case of each triad, into a trinity (tri-unity). Now, let us but find the first trinity, and the sequence of trinities ought to flow of itself, ac- cording to the movement, up to the ultimate trinity, which is the consummation of the whole : in this way, the thing would be done — our aim accomphshed ! The course of Hegel's thoughts and the nature of his whole industry — Dialectic and all — can now have no difficulty to any reader. A glance at the contents of the ' Logic' or ' Encyclopaedia' will — from the mere 30 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. outside — amply suffice to confirm all. Consider this one point : it occurred to ourselves, a moment ago, that it was difficult to find and name a proper third to identity and difference as identity and- difierence ; and we were tempted to say, community or reciprocity itself. On turning to the contents of the works named (the ' Logic ' and the ' Encyclopaedia '), we found Hegel had experienced the same difficulty ; for in the one work, the third to identity and difference is the Contra- diction, while in the other it is the Ground. This last term approaches, it will be observed, the one which had occurred to ourselves, Community ; for the Ground is the Community of the Differences. Hegel now, then, has realised Logic. He has dis- covered the principle of the Categories, and of their concatenation as well — a principle which is true in fact, and which is capable of being made the prin- ciple of the universe. What he has to do now, then, is to complete the categorical trinities, and, at the same time, conduct them all up to, or derive them all down from, a similar simple multiple, or multiple simple, which were the First and inderivative. But to this he possesses a clue in perceiving that the process is one of Logical Determination, where, necessarily, the First is the absolute abstraction, and the last the ab- solute concretion. Again, both of these will be but forms of the absolute principle, which is the Notion ; and the Notion — quantitatively named, but with a qualitative force — is the reciprocal unity, or the tau- tological reciprocity of universality, particularity, and singularity. Here, in fact, is the type of the system itself : the absolute universal will be the first, while the absolute singular will be the Last, and the abso- lute particular — or the ultimate categories which QUALITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 31 represent all the ground-thoughts descriptive and con- structive of the universe —will be the Middle, or the matter comprehended between the first and last. For a First, then, Hegel sees that he must find the most abstract universal, or the most universal abstract ; or that he mvist find that trinity which shall exhibit the Notion in its most abstract or universal form. In a word, he must find the most abstract universal identity [the genus), the most abstract universal difference {the differentia), and the most abstract universal commu- nity of identity and difference {the species), or how- ever else we may name — and the names are Legion — the several constituent moments of the Notion. But Hegel has actually before him other categories and many remarks of Kant for his express guidance and direction in this whole industry. Some of these, as in relation to Something and Nothing, &c., we have seen already ; and here, from the ' Kritik of Pure Eeason,' are a few more, which the reader will now see must have con- tained much matter eminently suggestive to Hegel : — It is to be observed that the Categories, as the true Stamm- begriffe (root-notions) of pure understanding, possess their equally pure derivatives, which can by no means be omitted in a complete system of Transcendental Philosophy, but with whose mere mention I may be content in a mere critical preliminary inquest. Hegel, then, could see what he had to do for the construction of a system. Poor Kant, like a hen that had hatched ducks, was never done with cluck-clucks of consternation over the mad fashion in which his rash brood — Fichte and the rest — dashed into the bottomless water of speculation, — never done with cluck-clucks of consternation and of fervid warning to return to the solid land of kritical procedure, for '32 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. which he pathetically assured them their excellent ' Darstellungsgabe ' (say style) could do so much. It is questionable if he could have recognised in Hegel that return to his own results which he so ardently longed for and so unweariedly called for. It is quite certain now, however, that the whole work of Hegel was simply to furnish that 'complete system of the Transcendental Philosophy' indicated by Kant. Let me be permitted (the veteraa proceeds) to name these pure but derivative notions, the predicables of pure understanding (in contrast to the predicaments). If we have the original and primitive notions, the derivative and subaltern may be easily added, and the family-tree of pure under- standing completely delineated. As I have here to do, not with the completion of the system, but only with that of the principles towards it, I may be allowed to postpone the addition of such a complement to another work. This object, however, may be pretty correctly reached, if any one but take in hand the ordinary ontological text-books, and set, for example, under the category of Causality, the predicables of power, action, passion, &c. ; under Eeciprocity, those of the present, resistance, &c.; and under Modality, origin, decease, &c. &c. The categories combined with the modi of pure sense [Time and Space], or with one another, furnish a great number of derivative a priori notions, &c. Hegel was thus directly referred to the very manner in which he should set about his task ; and his task was comparatively easy, for, as Kant himself points out, The great compartments (Facher) are once for all there it is only necessary to fill them up; and a systematic Topik, like the present, does not readily permit us to miss the places to which each notion properly belongs, at the same time that it causes us readily to remark those which are still empty.* * The above quotations are from the K. of P. R. § lO; those that follow, from § 11, same work. QUALITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 33 ' Kant proceeds : — As regards the Table of the Categories, some curious remarks may be made which may have, perhaps, advantageous results as respects the scientific form of all rational truths. For that this Table, in the theoretic part of philosophy, is uncommonly serviceable, nay indispensable, in order com- pletely to project a plan towards the Whole of a Science, so far as this science is to rest on a prion notions, as well as mathematically to distribute the same according to definite principles, appears directly of itself from this, that said Table contains at full all the elementary notions of under- standing, and even the form of a system of the same in the human understanding, and consequently furnishes direction and guidance to all the moments of any contemplated specu- lative science, and even to their order, as indeed I have already given elsewhere an example in proof (s. ' Metaphys. Anfangsgr. der Naturwissensch '). Here now are some of these remarks. The first is : that this Table, which contains four classes of Categories, parts first of all into two Divisions, the first of which is directed to objects of Perception (pure as well as em- pirical); the second, again, to the Existence of these objects (whether as referred to one another or to the understanding) [Quantity ' pure,' Quality ' empirical,' Relation ' mutual refer- ence,' Modality ' reference to the understanding ']. The first class I would name that of the mathematical, the second that of the dynamical, Categories. The first class, as is evident, has no correlates, which are found only in the second. This difference must have its reason [as Hegel has well investigated] in the nature of the understanding. 2nd Eemark. — That in every case there is a like number three — of the categories of every class, which summons to reflection [and Hegel reflected and pondered this to some effect], as all a priori distribution elsewhere through notions is necessarily a Dichotomy [Black or not-Black, &c.]. Moreover, that the third category in every case [Hegel is all here] arises from the union of the second with the first of its class. VOL. IL D 34 THE SECRET OE HEGEL. Thus Allness (Totality) is nothing else than Plurality [a Many] considered as Unity ; Limitation is nothing -else than Eeality united to Negation ; Community is one Substance Causally determining another Eeciprocally ; lastly, Necessity is nothing else than Existence given by Possibility itself. Let it not be thought, however, that the third category is for this reason a merely derivative one, and not a root-notion of pure understanding. For the union of the first and second in order to produce the third notion demands a special act of understanding, which is not identical with that which is exerted in the case of the first and second. Thus the notion of a Number (which belongs to the category of Totality) is not always possible where there are the notions of Plurality and Unity (as, for example, in the conception of the Infinite) ; nor out of this, that I unite the notion of a cause and that of a substance, is Influence — that is, how one substance can be the cause of something in another substance — directly and without more ado to be understood. From this it is obvious that a special act of understanding is necessary to this ; and so as regards the rest. 3rd Eemark. — In the case of a single category, that, namely, of Community, which occurs under the third Title, is the agreement with the corresponding form in the Table of the Logical Functions (here the disjunctive judgment) not so self-evident as in that of the others. In order to assure oneself of this agreement, it is to be observed : that in all disjunctive judgments the sphere (the Many of all that is contained under the judgment) is con- ceived as a whole distributed into parts (the subordinate notions), and, as these parts cannot be contained the one under the other, they are thought as mutually co-ordinated, not subordinated, in such wise that they act on each other,' not one-sidely as in a series, but reciprocally as in an aggre- gate (if one member of the distribution is established, all the rest are excluded, and vice versa). Now what we have to think is a similar conjunction in a Whole of Things, where the one is not subordinated as effect to tEe other as cause, but co-ordinated as at the same time QUALITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 35 and reciprocally cause in reference to the other (for example, the case of a body, the parts of which at once reciprocally attract and resist each other), which is quite another sort of conjunction than that met with in the simple relation of the cause to the effect (of reason to consequent), in which the consequent does not reciprocally in its turn determine the antecedent, and does not therefore constitute a whole with it (like the Creator with the world). The same process which understanding observes when it represents to itself the sphere of a distributed notion, it observes also when it thinks a thing as capable of distribution ; and as the members of dis- tribution in the former mutually exclude each other, and nevertheless are united together in a single sphere, so it conceives the parts of the latter as such that existence at- taches to each of them as substances independently of the rest, and yet that they are united together in a single whole. In these remarks tlie reader will readily observe many germs which it was the business of Hegel only to mature. That, under each class, the third category, for example, should be a concrete of the two former — this an sich, virtually, is the dialectic of Hegel. Once, indeed, that Hegel had observed this peculiarity, and that he had also generahsed the categorfes into the csitegory, his system, we may say, and in all its possi- bihties, was fairly born. Kant observes,* ' that there are two stocks or stems of human knowledge, which arise perhaps from a single common root, as yet un- known to us, namely, Sense and Understanding, through the former of which objects are given, and through the latter thought' Now, to see that this bringing together of sensation and intellect amounted to the percipient Understanding (intuitus originarius, intellectuelle An- schauung, anschauender Verstand) of Kant — to see moreover that Kant's own industry had no other tendency * K. of P. E., Introduction, sub Jinem. D 2 36 THE SECKET OF HEGEL. than to realise such reduction and identification, — this also may be named the beginning of Hegel ; for, m a word, Hegel's system is a demonstration that Sensation and Understanding are virtually one, the former being but outwardly what the other is inwardly, and each the necessary reciprocal counterpart of the other. This, too, is evidently the effect of the speculations of Kant in reference to the Categories and the Schemata result- ant from the conjunction of these with Time and Space. To co-ordinate and reduce to one, Sense and Intellect, or Sensations and Ideas (Notions), this is another of those curt statements of the whole which may con- duce not only to the understanding, but to the judging, of the Hegelian system. Hegel himself has remarked, that to reproduce a system is the true way critically to judge it : he intimates even that he who faithfully reproduces a system is already beyond it. Now, no doubt, these curt statements are calculated to bring one's knowledge up to the very apex of insight ; but they only mislead, deceive, ruin, when they themselves are taken as knowledge, and when it escapes notice that their function is not to constitute knowledge, but only to give focus to knowledge. A general statement is but gas — and of a very dangerous kind — in the mouth of him who is empty of the particulars. In these curt words, tending though they do to carry us beyond what they concern, there is this danger, then, to all parties in humanity ; and there is yet in them another danger to a single party. To the Materialist, for example, such words as above are so glaringly absurd, and the enterprise they indicate so glaringly stupid, that he feels justified, from the mere outside, to neglect and reject all industries (as those of Kant and Hegel) which are capable of being characterised by them. It is the former danger QUALITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 37 whicli is the important one, however, and the latter we may neglect, for, as the ideahst views man as Spirit, the materialist views him only as Animal : however acute he (the materialist) may be, then, as regards mundane commodity, he is wholly opaque to what alone is human — EeHgion, Philosophy, and even Poetry — and is manifestly of no account to men who can interest themselves in such subjects as the present. To possess a curt formula for the whole of Hegel, does not dispense us from the labour of the particular, then ; and we have yet much of this to achieve. It is now to be seen, nevertheless, that a complete answer to our first question as to what led Hegel to begin as he did, is rapidly rising on us. We see what was the One of his system, and how he found it ; we see also what his Many are to be, and how he is' to find them. Of a clue to the First of his Many, we have also some perception now, though this First itself has not yet exactly announced itself. Suppose Hegel, in quest of this First, &c., to adopt the hint of Kant and take the text-books of Ontology in his hand, or sup- pose him to inspect the derivative categories — all the categories, indeed, — mentioned by Kant himself, — it will not be difiicult to discern how it was he was enabled to succeed. Kant expressly states as categories, Daseyn and Mchtseyn, or Being and Non-being ; and he also elsewhere suggestively speculates in regard to Some- thing and Nothing, an ultimate Abstract, &c. : it could not be difiicult, then, for Hegel — with his eyes opened as they now were to the general issue, by the realisa- tion of the Logical Movement itself — to see -that Seyn and Mchtseyn were categories to be ranked under Quality, — that Quality, as we have ourselves so very clearly seen, must precede Quantity, and that this very 38 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. sub-category Seyn was itself the most abstract quality conceivable. But Seyn being this abstractest notion of all, his beginning was found. Though the Notion con- stituted the principle, he could not make the Notion in the form of Notion the beginning. The Notion itself must have a beginning, and this beginning might be constituted by Seyn. The Notion itself in its own de- velopment must submit to the law of its own rhythm, and could not appear on the scene in any Minerva-hke completeness as at once the full-formed Notion. The Notion itself must begin, and must begin by appearing under the form of its own first moment — universality, identity, or an sich, &c. But appearing as the absolutely first universahty, or the absolutely first identity, it could only appear as the primal indefiniteness that is — ^^nd that is pure Being. What is — call it the world, call it God, call it the Notion — if it began, could only begin in absolute indefiniteness. In fact, it is not necessary that this indefiniteness should ever have hee7i — it is enough that, if we want what we call a beginning, we must begin with indefiniteness. — What is a beginning ? A begin- ning imphes that there at once is and is not — and hoAv can that be named otherwise than as pure Being, in- definite Being ? — that what is, is — but as yet absolutely indefinitely? This is the true Begriffof the Vorstellung primordial Chaos. K fimidamen, afomes, a u'Atj, a rudi- mentum., a Grundlage, a groundwork, a mother-matter, is always postulated by the Vorstellung ; but this postu- late translated into the language of thought proper, amounts to the indefiiteness that is, or pure Being. But if pure Being be the first, according to the law of the Notion, its own opposite, or Non-being, must be the second, and the third must be a new simple that concretely contains both ; or the third must be a species QUALITY INTEEPEETED, ETC. 39 of which the first is the genus, and the second the differentia: but this here is just Werden; every Becom- ing at once is and is not, or is at once Being and Non-being. Here, then, is the absolutely first triad, the absolutely first form of the always tri-une Notion ; or here is the absolutely germinal cell : it is impossible to go further back than to the absolute indefiniteness that at once is and is not, but becomes. It is an error on our part to have a difficulty here, and to stultify our- selves with the VorsteUunng of a Substrate, of a Some- thing that was this indefiniteness. In one sense that is not requisite, as it is here Logic that we have before us — as it is herewith thoughts only, and not with things, that we have to do. But if we want a Substrate, that we possess in Thought. Thought is and Thought is all that is (or the Notion), and the first form was inde- finiteness, but an indefiniteness that still was. Or take it otherwise, there actually is, there really is, there can be no doubt of that ; there really is this variegated universe — Jupiters, and belts of Saturn, and double stars, and the sun, and the earth ; Barclay's porter. Hook's patent coffee-roaster, and what not : well, the beginning of aU that — if ever there was a beginning — must have been in an indefinite One, the only name for which could be pure Being. Let anyone turn and twist it as he may, he will find no other issue. Hegel's beginning, then, is true, not only to the principles of Kant, not only to the requirements of Logic, or to those of this new logical Notion generahsed by Hegel out of Kant, but it is true also to the nature of facts such as we see and know them. Surely, this was an immense success for Hegel. Having realised Logic, and seen it to be the essential all having discovered the Notion itself — to have also 40 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. discovered the absolutely initial form, not only of that notion, but just of the facts around us as any peasant may see them ! Being, Non-being, Becoming ! Here is the trinity as it must have been — in its beginning ! Again, from the reaHsation of Logic, it followed that Logic vfould be the vital pulse in every sphere — that every sphere, in short, would be but a form, but a metaphor, but a Vorstellung of Logic : but, this being so, history itself would have to submit to the same truth, history itself would present in its process only a development of Logic. But limiting ourselves in history to the history of Logic itself, we should expect to find even this special history following the same laws. The first special logicians, then, would in this case be found historically to be engaged with Seyn, Nichtseyn, Werden, &c. On inquiry, Hegel found all this true to fact : all this is represented in the Greek thinkers that precede Socrates. Nay, ah. this is true up to the present instant : for the Notion itself only emerged an sich (the Moment of Simple Apprehension) in Kant, became fiir sich or agnised into its differences (the Moment of Ur-theil) in Fichte and Schelhng, and transformed itself to an unci fur sich (the Moment of Schluss) in Hegel. This is another reason why, though the Notion was the bottom truth, no beginning could be made with it in that form : to have attempted this, would have been to stultify history. It is in history that we have series which demand beginnings; and as regards Logic, it is in history that we must find its beginning also. Thus is it that Hegel was driven to a profound study of thought as it has historically appeared, and the result of this study was to confirm him in the sequence of the logical series which he contemplated. QUALITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 41 We may safely hold now, then, that the first ques- tion — How it was that Hegel was led to begin as he did — ^is fairly answered. We see at once the nature of his one — the nature of his many — the nature of his first — and where and how he got them. 2. What does Hegel mean hy these very strange, novel, and apparently senseless statements ? — This pre- sents now no difficulty. So much of the answer has passed into what precedes, however, or must be reserved for what follows, that very little is left us to say under the present head. The indefinite Immediate seems a strange phrase ; but what else can be said of pure Being, but that it is the indefinite Immediate ? There is an immediate to us — we are — there is something present to us : now, if we take no note of any particularity in this that is present to us, but generalise all particularities into their common one, — what we reach is indefinite, but it is stUl immediate. Being is not annihilated by the abstraction, there still is ; and what is, when we absolutely abstract from all particularity, is just the indefinite Immediate. The result of such abstraction is but the void self-identical faculty ; or it is just thought gone into its own indefinite blank where it will see none and have none of its own constituent distinctions. But anything like a personal reference — any thought of any individual's special faculty — destroys the abstrac- tion. Being is just what is when everything is abstracted from — the absolute universal of all particulars : and Being surely is just that one thing in which all par- ticulars concur. Whatever is, is, or is Being ; that is, Being is common to everything. In this abstraction, it is evident that we are quite freed from any question of an inner principle whence this Being might arise. 42 THE SECRET OF IIEGEL. Indefinite Being brings with it no such want ; or inde- finite Being, as the materia communis, is felt to be this principle itself. Being is just indefinitely What is ; and, as we know that there is a — definitely V/hat is, — we know that what indefinitely is, is just the fundamen and tout-ensemble of all that definitely is. AU that requires to be understood in the paragraph that regards Seyn will now be perfectly intelligible. Other terms not as yet noticed, have their places elsewhere. We may add only, that An sich is perhaps the best term for the initial identity, the initial indefinite poten- tiality, which, if a beginning is required at all, must be attached as beginmng to the Notion. The Notion as indefinite identity is in the moment of Simple Appre- hension ; though Simple Apprehension, as form, is itself much later in the series of developments ; and as inde- finite identity the Notion may be correctly described as simply an sich, simply in itself, simply virtual, or potential, or imphciter. But this is just pure Seyn : pure Being is nothing more and nothing less than simply the Notion an sich, or, if you Uke, the notion of an sich. But, in obedience to the laws of What is, identity must pass into difference. Simple Apprehen- sion must become Judgment, the BegrifF must sunder its be-griped-ness into the part-ing which is the Urtheil ; the An sich must awake into i^wr sich. Thus is it that we see how Fiir sich becomes apphcable to the second step : Fiir sich refers to a certain amount of conscious- ness ; recognition is implied ; and recognition is a result of distinction, of difference. — Against this appropriation of Fiir sich for the second moment of the universal pulse, we know that many objections may be urged from the usage of Hegel himself Even in the table of contents, for example, we see Fursichseyn placed as the QUALITY INTEEPEETBD, ETC. 43 resuming moment of Eeason. Nor is it an affair oi place only; for we know tlrat Fiirsichseyn denotes the col- lapse of all particularity into singularity. Neither is this the only example of a similar usage. Nevertheless, we beheve that we are right in the main, and that even the exceptions will give httle pause to the student who is anything instruit. The very chapter in Hegel which is specially entitled Fiirsichseyn is devoted to the evolu- tion of the One and the Many, with a view to the tran- sition of Quality into Quantity.* — The third step now is readily intelUgible as the stage of an and/wr sich. 3. What can he intended by these seeviingly silly and absurd transitions of Being into Nothing, and again of both into Becoming ? — Well now, there is, after all, no great difficulty here. Suppose we define Nothing, how otherwise can we define it than as the absence of all distinguishableness, that is, of every discrimen whatever? But the absence of every recognisable discrimen whatever is just the absence of all par- ticularity, and the absence of all particularity is but the abstraction from all particularity — pure Be- ing ! Pure Being and pure Nothing, then, are there- fore identical. Pure Seyn can be no otherwise defined than pure Nichts: Seyn hke Nichts, and Nichts like Seyn — each is the absence of all distinguishableness, or of every recognisable discrimen whatever. Did * Hegel says (Logic, vol. ii. dif-ference from itself.' This is, p. 5), ' it is Being-in-and-for-itself, beyond mistake, an identification that is to say, it dif-ferences tlie of the Moment of Unterschied with significates -wiiioli it contains in that of Fiir sich. Hegel in prac- itself; because it is Repulsion of tioe is not strict, however: Fiir- itself from itself, or indifference to sichseyn, even in this page, is itself, negative reference to itself, it spoken of as Totality, that is, as sets itself opposite itself, and is in- An-und-Fiirsichseyn. Plowever it finite Being-for-self only so far as may be, my proposition is allow- it is unity toith itself in this its able. 44 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. you take up anything, and call it pure Seyn, and yet point to a discrimen in it, you would only be deceiv- ing yourself, and speaking erroneously ; for in pure Seyn there can be no discrimen. Seyn must be uni- versal, and any discrimen would at once particu- larise it. Thus, then. Pure Being and Pure Nothing are absolutely identical — they are absolutely indis- tinguishable. It is useless to say Nothing is Nothing, • but Being is Something : Being is not more Something than Nothing is. "We admit Nothing to exist; Nothing is an intelligible distinction; we talk of thinking Nothing and of perceiving Nothing : in other words, Nothing is the abstraction from every discrimen or particularity. But an abstraction from every discrimen, does not involve the destruction of every or any dis- crimen : all discrimina still exist ; in Nothing we have simply withdrawn into indefiniteness. This Nothing,, then, of ours still implies the formed or definite world. Precisely this is the value of Pure Being : when we have reahsed the notion Pure Being, we have simply retired into the abstraction from all discrimina, but these — for ah our abstraction and retirement — still are. Pure Being and Pure Nothing, then, point each to the absolutely same abstraction, the absolutely same retire- ment. In both, in fact. Thought, for the nonce, has turned its back on all its own discrimina ; for Thought is aU that is, and aU discrimina are but its own. In fact, both Being and Nothing are abstractions, void abstractions, and the voidest of all abstractions, for they are just the ultimate abstractions. Neither is a concrete ; neither is, if we may say so, a reale. What, then, is — What actu is — in point of fact is — is neither the one nor the other ; but everything that is, is a (TuvoT^ov, a composite, of both. This is remarkable — QUALITY INTEEPEBXED, ETC. 45 that the formed world should hang between the hooks of two invisible abstractions, and, at the same time, that every item of the formed world should be but a (TuvoAov of these two invisible abstractions. We can- not handle Being here and Nothing there, as we might this stone or that wood ; yet both stone and wood are composites of Being and Nothing : they both are and are not—saxdi this in more senses than one. They are — that is, they participate in Being. They are distinguish- able, they involve difference ; difference implies negation : that is, they participate in Non-being. The stone is not the wood, the wood is not the stone : each, therefore, if it is, also is not. Again, neither the one nor the other is, any two consecutive moments, the same ; each is but a Werden, but a Becoming. A day will come when both the one and the other, both this wood and that stone, wiU have disappeared : their existence was a process, then — every instant of their existence was a change, and it took the sum of these changes to accomplish their disappearance. All here is mortal — nothing is twice the same — no man ever passed twice through the same street. This, then, is the truth of Being and Nothing : neither is ; what is, is only their union — and that is Becoming ; for Becoming is Nothing passing into Being, or Being passing into Nothing. This will probably suffice to guide the student who can and will think, in the proper direction to gain his own repose as regards these seemingly silly transitions. One word may still be added advantageously, however, in reference to the difference of Being and Nothing ; for, absolutely identical, they are still abso- lutely different: in them, indeed, the two sides which, obtain throughout the universe have reached their absolute and direct antithesis. In Being, Thought is. 46 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. willingly — in Nothing, Thought is, unwillingly— m. abstraction from all particularity. Being is the tub that sees itself just emptied ; Nothing is this same tub that would now see itself refilled. Thought is well pleased to find itself in Being ; but in indefinite- ness (Nothing) it is uneasy ; it has a want, it craves — craves, in short, to have definiteness, particularity, difference, — craves to know and to see itself — to know and to see its own distinctions, its own discrimina : and this evolution of Thought's own self to Thought's own self, what is it but the universe ? Thus is it that Thought is the pure Negativity, and sets its own Negative — which is the Object. Thus is it that Thought does not remain indefinite, but presses for- ward, according to its own rhythm, to the revelations of History and Existence. This is another curt formula for what Hegel would : it corresponds exactly to his phrase in regard to Reason making itself fur sich that which it is an sich. It is well worthy of observation, too, that the second moment of the one throb, the one pulse, that which corresponds to the Ur-theil, is one of pain. The Ur-theil, which is a breaking asunder into the differences, is but as 'a throe of labour : the evo- lution of Existence is but the Absolute in travail. Daseyn is but a continual birth — and birth is pain. So it is that he errs mightily who seeks in Hfe as life repose: life as life is monstration and probation — movement — difference; repose is reachable only in elevation over the finite particulars which emerge or rather only in the reference of these to that Affir- mation, of which they are but the Negative. That there should be pain in Nothing, then, and that this pain should be the fount of movement, we can now understand. The difference between Being and No- thing, in fact, is but that Being is the implication of QUALITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 47 all particularity, and Nothing the abstraction from all particularity. It is obvious, then, that though, so to speak, the middle is always the same (and the middle is the matter held, which here is in both cases indefiniteness, and precisely the same indefiniteness, for implication of all particularity is the same Inhalt as abstraction from all particularity), the extremes differ; or, that though Being and Nothing are statements of precisely the same thing, the one is an affirmative statement, while the other is a negative one. In fact, we can conceive both Being and ISTothing as possessing two sides. There is a side in Being in which it is Nothing ; and again there is a side — definite existence being always involved — where it is Being. So it is with Nothing : even as Nothing, definite existence is still involved ; and so it has precisely the same two sides as Being. In short, each constitutes the middle and the extremes of which we have just spoken ; and their difference hes in this — that in the one, the one extreme is accentuated, and in the other, the other. 4. What does the whole thing amount to — or what is the value of the whole business f — Under the three pre- vious questions, we have already had to deal with some considerations which tend to throw hght on this ques- tion also. It represents nevertheless, perhaps, the very greatest difficulty which every one feels on his first introduction to the system of Hegel. What is all this to do for me ? — what is it intended to explain ? — in what way is the general mystery rendered any less by it ? Such questions occur to everyone. All these abstract terms are mere formalities, one feels, and one is tempted to exclaim. What influence can be allowed any such formalities in questions that concern the origin of this so sohd, real, and substantial universe ? It is to be said at once, that the light of the whole can never 48 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. be seen at tlie first step : how can one link, and that the first one, give insight into the entire reach of that which issues as an immense organic whole ? Such vast consummation can never be expected to be intelligible in the beginning, in the same way as in the end. It is this consideration which seems to actuate Hegel ; who, in general, vouchsafes abundantly scornful, dry, abstract allusion, but never one word of plain, straight- forward, concrete explanation. Information in Hegel is, for the most part, but a disdainful abstruse riling of us. We, however — from what we know already of his, procedes hitherto, and of his aims generally, — can luckily help ourselves. We have seen, then, from accurate insight into the Categories of Kant, that the probability is, that aU that is, is but a form of the one movement of thought, of the one logical throb, which is the Notion. This is much. The substantiality of the outer world ought not to be allowed to come in, as it were, as a stum- bling-block here. The outer world is but outer, the inner but inner : they are equally ideal. Thought is the organic whole of its own discrimina : these are in spheres ; outer and inner are two such : outer and inner, in short, exist in mutual reciprocity, and the one is no less substantial than the other, or they are consubstantial. But what do we mean by substan- tiality as we ordinarily object it? It refers to matter, to solidity, to thingity ; substantiality means a basis of somewhat, &c. &c. If we wiU but look close, how- ever, we shall find that aU. this means only individual- isation or self-reference : to thought its own discrimina are ; this is self-reference — self-reference is Beino- to' If thought distinguishes its own discrimina from itself, and gives them self-reference, then they are : but QUALITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 49 when they also outwardly are, then the discrimination becomes more absolute, then the distinction becomes a chasm — then the self-reference has grown substantial, and one seems to have before one only isolated, self- complete, self-substantial immediates. Not a whit on that account are they more substantial than the inner, however. Nay, the inner is their truth, the inner is the genuine substantiahty ; and they themselves are but transitory forms, a prey to the contingency of the Notion in externality to its own self. The Notion, then, is the real substantiality of the 'Universe ; and its first forms, however formal they may seem, are the actual First, the actual beginning. You think of sand, and earth, and mud, and clay ; but you have no business to think of sand, and earth, and mud, and clay here. Where thought as thought is con- cerned, it is absurd to apply the category of natural causality ; and with a little patience you may find sand, and earth, and mud, and clay themselves actually reduced to the Notion, and held thereof Natural causality itself is but the Notion — the Notion, how- ever, in a peculiar sphere : instead of the Notion, then, being submiss to Causality, it is Causality that must submit to the Notion, from which, indeed, it derives all its own virtue. Once for aU, the triad. Being, Non-being, Becoming, is the tortoise of the universe, and the elephant of the same may rest secure on it : that triad is the abstractest form, and so the most rudimentary form, of the living concrete Notion, which is the soul and centre of the All. Thought is, and we can go no further back than to, we can begin no sooner than with, its own abso- lutely indefinite identity, which is pure Being. But thought that apprehends itself as Being, judges itself VOL. II. E 50 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. Nothing, and reasons itself into Becoming. (Eeason is the Ver-nunft, from ver-nehmen = transsumere.) The earliest Begriff (Seyn) parts into the earliest UrtheU (Nichts), and resumes itself in the new one of the earhest Schluss (Werden). This will be found to be even historically correct. There is nothing un- usually strange in this : consider that you yourself are, that existence is, and you will see a strangeness — just in this, that there should be such a state of the case at all — to be matter of fact, which is at least not in any respect less striking than that of the Hegehan procedure. To subjective thought. Being is an abso- lutely necessary idea ; and to objective thought it is equally necessary, for before our existence could be — and our existence is — Being must have been thought. But in either case, the further process of transition to Nothing and to Becoming is also necessary. A pri- mordial sHme in a primordial Time and Space is the very anility or infantility — extremes meet — of thought : it is but the crude VorsteUung of a crude babe. Thought is the prius of all ; and these. Being, Non-being, &c., are the absolutely necessary categories that underlie Existence. It will be seen now, then, that the error of the reader in regard to the simple paragraphs of our text, is that he thinks too much, rather than too httle. He comes to them with a mind that teems with prejudices, presuppositions, crude figurate conceptions (Vorstel- lungen), what are called formed opinions, and so forth; and he is not at all prepared to see the beginning taken in what seems to him so cavaHer a fashion Nothing, without more ado, set down as Being — and thus by the Jesuitical juggle of a logical presto, as it were, genesis asserted and the world begun. What is here QUALITY INTEEPRBTED, ETC. 51 however, is not genesis in that sense ; what is here is abstraction, generalisation; what is here is logical; there is no attempt to create a single dust-atom. The reader, moreover, has no business to speculate, to guess and guess, to conjecture and conjecture ; he has no business to sweat himself into a supposed meaning, by the earnest attempt to see through a mill-stone of his own devising : he has no business, in short, but simply to take up — what is there before him. There is a subjective Logic in which we learn about terms, propositions, syllogisms, &c. ; but there ought also to be an objective Logic in which we shall learn about the secret criteria which we apply to objects, the levers by which we grasp them, and characterise them, and make them familiar to us. For there are such criteria, there are such levers ; and the truth in their regard is, that we at present know them not ; that they are not the tools of us, but we rather are the tools of them. A complex or complement of some kind, for example, is brought for our examination. At first it is but an unin- telligible mass ; but at length we understand it. Now, to understand it, what have we done ? We have simply beset it, or transfixed it, or supphed it with categories. Eather, what it was, it is no longer ; what it was, has disappeared ; it is now a simple system — a simple con- geries of categories. The stuff has entirely vanished ; the whole mass and matter has been converted into thought. What then is valuable — what then is true in the object, is these levers and criteria — not of its judgment only, but actually of its conversion and trans- formation. There is nothing left in it which is not thought ; for the other, which appears, or which we opine in it, is nothing as against thought — against the thought, that is, into which it has been transformed. E 2 52 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. Cause, effect, relation, principle, essence, true nature, quality, action, reaction, force, influence, &c. &c. — such are the secret criteria, or tools, or levers we apply. Now, just to discover and explain all these, this is the business of the Logic of Hegel ; and it is thus very plain how that Logic, if a complete co-articulated system of these, must just be in simple truth the crystal of the universe. Being, Nothing, Becoming, then, are but three of these levers ; and is it not a truth that we characterise, and determine, and finish off whole columns of facts with such predicates as these ? But have we ever looked at these predicates themselves ? have we ever inquired into their own nature, or into their relative connexion ? have we ever satisfied ourselves of the conditions of their authority .^ The Materialist is a man that will have no nonsense, see you; he will look at facts only; even when he has stuck each fact, like a pincushion, so fidl of the needles and pins of his own brain that nothing but these any longer shows, he actually believes himself to be still contemplating the fact. The Materialist, in fact, is but the prey of a thousand httle imps within him, whom he sees not. Unknown to himself, in truth, the Logic of Hegel is all there within his skull. The difference between him and Hegel is this : from Hegel it issues pure, and in system, and as it is ; from the Materialist it issues in that miscellaneous mass or mess (Gebrau), named by Hegel raisonnement, bhndly, irregularly, rhap- sodically, not as it is, but as it is opined — about causes and conditions, and essential, and accidental, &c. &c. But the Materialist is, in this respect, no worse than the great body of mankind at present. We aU fancy Being, Nothing, One, Many, &c., so plain in their mean- ings, that there is no need of investigating them. Every- QUALITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 33 body, we say, knows perfectly what nothing is, per- fectly what it is to he, and perfectly what it is to become. Or again, we may conceive the most of us to say, if we did not know what they are, in what respect have the paragraphs of the text improved our knowledge ? Are we to swallow such statements for information seriously meant ? Do you really ask us to beheve that Being is Nothing ; or that because Being is Nothing, or Nothing Being, there is anything Become ? Why, the singing of the tea-kettle is something infinitely more substantial, something infinitely more instructive, than any such barren nonsense of empty verbiage, call it philosophy, metaphysic, logic, or by whatever other fine name you will! Nay, why should we accompany you further? With such a foundation, what are we to expect? If, indeed, we grant you that Being is Nothing, what can we expect? Can such demand on our credulity be aught else than a preparation for sophistry, legerde- main, imposture, falsehood ? Such objections, in fact, at first hand, cannot be taken amiss. Hegel receives them, in general, with his peculiar and terrible sneer, and, on the whole, simply allows the System itself to answer them. For our part, we trust that a sufiicient answer will be found in what pre- cedes. One turn more, however, and we have done with Being and Nothing, and this whole matter of a beginning. In dealing with objects, I certainly use sundry inner distinctions ; objects, in fact, obey these distinctions : it were well, then, if we knew these distinctions and the system of them, if there be a system of them. In regard to every object that presents itself, we say, for example, it is. The pen is, the paper is, the thought is, the feel- ing is : now the pen is the pen, the paper is the paper, 54 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. the thought is the thought, the feeling is the feehng ; but what is the is ? By this is, we determine them ; thei/ obey it It is a somewhat, therefore, and surely we may allowably spend a moment in looking at it for itself. In general, we look at it only for the others — the pen, the paper, &c. ; but suppose we look at it now for itself Is — whatever first was, that surely was the first of the first : whatever came first — fire, or earth, or water, or chaos, or thought — is was the first of it ; with it is, it began, and till there is, there can be no beginning. Everyone wiU admit that What is, is. Now, let him give any meaning he hkes to this what ; let him conceive it as mind, or as matter, or as space, or as time ; he will admit without difficulty that he can equally withdraw this meaning — mind, matter, space, time. Let him try, however, to withdraw the Is, and he will find it impossible. We withdraw mind ; still there is matter, there is space, there is time. We mth- draw matter; still there is space, still there is time. We withdraw space ; still there is time. We withdraw time, and still there is. This is not meant arithmetically — that if I begin with six words, and withdraw four of them, two remain. This withdrawal is meant to be performed by the mind in earnest thought, and earnestly occupied with its thought. It is very easy not to do this, it is very easy to refuse to do this, and it is very easy to sneer rather than do this ; but he who will do this there are some few, perhaps, who cannot do this — wiU be obliged to admit that, let him abstract and abstract what he may, he cannot get rid of the notion, Beino-. It is impossible to realise to thought that there can possibly be, or that there could possibly be, an absolute void, or rather the absolute void of a void ; for even a void itself would have to be withdrawn, did we desire QUALITY INTEEPKETED, ETC. 55 to effect an absolute non-is. There is, is, or Isness, is an absolutely necessary thought, then, — necessary and universal — a category — the first category. Kow, there is no wish here to go out of Logic. It is with Being, or Isness, as a thought only that we con- cern ourselves. And surely in signalising this abstractest of all possible thoughts — this, then, in that respect, first thought — we are not imtruly, not fraudulently em- ployed. Well, now, this is a beginning of objective Logic; this principle of determination, Is or Being, is a thought — an absolutely necessary, universal thought — and it forms a necessary ingredient in thought, and in all charac- terisation by thought. Of everything in this universe we must say that it is : yes, but of everything in this universe we must say also that it is not. This is a penny, it is not a ha'penny ; it is copper, it is not silver ; it is round, it is not square, &c. &c. That it is not is as essential a principle of determination in regard to everything in this universe, as that it is. In our appre- hension of an object, affirmation possesses not one whit more truth, not one whit more reahty, not one whit more necessity, than negation. An object, to be ap- prehended as an object, requires to be precisely apprehended ; and precision is the deed of negation. Non-is, then, and is are necessary correlatives, are necessary conjuncts, never separate, absolutely inse- parable in every act of determination of any kind ; and determination constitutes the nature of the opera- tion of every function we possess — sense, understanding, imagination, &c. Being and ISTothing, then, are thus inseparably pre- sent in every concrete ; and here in utter abstrac- tion they are inseparable also : rather, here in utter 56 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. abstraction they unite and are the same. View either separately, and before your very view — even as you view — it passes into the other. Nothing will not remain nothing, it will not fix itself as Nothing, it grows of itself into there is. Nothing involves Being, or Nothing cannot be thought without the thought of Being. Be- ing, again, absolutely abstract is an absolutely necessary- thought ; but it is characterless, it is nothing. Think abstract Nothing, it introduces Being ; think Being, it introduces Nothing. But Nothing passing into Being is origination ; Being passing into Nothing is decease ; and both are Becoming. Becoming, then, is that in which both Being and Nothing are contained in miity. Or such is the constitution of the absolutely general thought Becoming ; and there can be pointed out no single actual case of Becoming in which this constitu- tion does not accurately display itself. These three abstract thoughts, each equally necessary and universal, are also necessarily and universally bound together, therefore. There is no finite object whatever which has not received the determination of each of these three thoughts. Every finite object whatever truly is, every finite object whatever truly is not, every finite object whatever truly becomes, and becomes in one or other of the modes of its double form. Nor does any object receive such determination from us ; it possesses such determination in its own self; it has received such determination from God, it has been so thought by God, it has been created by God on and according to these thoughts, Being, Nothing, and Becoming. These thoughts are out there — without us — in the imiverse and in here — within us — in the universe : they are objective thoughts in obedience to which the whole is disposed. They are necessary pressures or compres- QUALITY INTERPKETED, ETC. 57 sures moulding the all of things. They are three of God's thoughts in the making of the universe. There is no necessity, then, to give these thoughts the peculiar dialectic look of the pecuhar abstraction of Hegel. They can be approached and examined in the same analytic way in which we approach and examine all the other denizens of the universe which may be submitted to us. Still, the more the reader thinks and the more he looks at them, the more will he find himself convinced that the brief paragraphs of the text actually contain the whole matter, and reaUy perfectly determine it : nor are we now without the means of explaining all the Hegehan peculiarities in or with which this whole matter appears. From the light we now abundantly possess, for example, we must ex- pect in what is named Being, just the elementary form of the BegriiF, or — the BegrifF an sich. What is an sich, just is — abstractly is — that and as yet no more. JSTow, what is it that most abstractly is, or what is it that is in the most eminent manner an sich ? Why, simply the first thought that can arise. But in its first natural form — and we know no other first — such thought arises on sensation. This is in every way the first. We have no business with any world but the world we know. What is, is thought. This is the Absolute. But it is no absolute vacuum. It is an Absolute — distinguished in itself. T}iis we know ; and, therefore also, that the indefinite implies the definite, as the latter the former. Our field, then, is this Here of thought ; in which Here Sensation is the phenomenal First — or Sensation is what is most eminently an sich. The ISTotion as in Sensation, then, is the first part of Logic, or — Simple Appre- hension — just as it has always been. But the first thought in sensation can abstract nothing D' 58 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. but the wholly indefinite sense (rather than thought) of Being, Is, Am. The reflexion on which abstraction can only be that it is — as there is simply no distinction in it — the simple Nothing. But this result is the conse- quence of a reflexion on the first thought, Being. But such second act is not an act of sensation, of simple apprehension. It is a doubling back on such act ; it is a thinking of the act of simple apprehension, a seeking to discriminate in it. But to discriminate is to dis- tinguish this as against that, — that is, to negate, to de- velop differences in what was previously self-identical. This new act — reflexion — is an act of understanding, an act of judgment. The Nothing, then, is a result of judgment. In other words, the BegrifF of Simple Apprehension, which was Being, has passed into the Ur-theil of Judgment, which is Nothing. And this is sufficiently curious and significant, for it is the universal formula : On the Being — the satisfaction, fullness, and faith — of Simple Apprehension, there follows always the Nothing — the dissatisfaction, the emptiness, the doubt — of Understanding (Judgment) : Under the Or-deal, the Ur-theil, the Begriff breaks up and sunders from its substantiahty — into the strife of the differences. In these two moments, we may recognise also the Kantian elements of a Perception, the objectivo-sub- jective of Sensation, and the subjectivo-objective of a Judgment — or Aflection receiving its meaning, its sense, its objectivity from Function. Only, in Hegel, the ques- tion is not of sensation as sensation, but of the thouo-ht involved. Again, Simple Apprehension is positive, while Judgment is negative. The former, too, seems passive, while the latter is active. The negative, lastly, has more relation to the subject, and has greater claim to be named the subjective moment : the first is only an QUALITY INTEEPRETED, ETC. 59 sich, the second is fiir sich. This, however, depends altogether on the point of view : function seems more subjective, since it is an act, though the result is ob- jective evidence ; but, again, affection is more subjective, as yielding only subjective evidence. There is a source of confusion indicated here, as regards the use of the word subjective, which should be borne in mind. But neither has Nothing any distinction in it. Thought before (in presence of) Nothing can abstract from it only Being. Thus Being and Nothing are the same. Being and Nothing are inseparable : wherever there is thought, there is distinction ; and wherever there is distinction, there is and there is not. And it is remarkable, that even in having recourse to Being as Being, it is only Nothing we encounter. Nothing is the fruitful womb in which all is : it is Nothing (the Negative round which we build, or on which we hang, our Positive) which is the important element, the very soul and hfe of what is. (Something of the necessary dialectic shows here, however.) But this third reflexion, that Nothing is returned to Being, implies, hke the former, also its own gain. Nothing gone into Being is Becoming. — It is not meant here to say that this is a theory of generation. What we have here are thoughts only. The consideration of material things does not belong to Logic as Logic. Matter as Matter is apart from Logic. What is here said is, that Being gone into Nothing, or Nothing gone into Being — a transition which here takes place — expresses in two or three words what we express also by the one word Becoming. — ^Again, what is the nature of this third reflexion ? As the former were Simple Apprehen- sion and Judgment, this is Eeason. What were sepa- rated are here brought together in a Schluss. Judgment 60 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. stated a difference ; but Eeason has here reconciled identity and difference into a new identity. Eeason, then, has ended in a new Begriff, in a renewed act of Simple Apprehension, on which Judgment again acting, develops the differences Origin and Decease, which Eeason again reconciles into the quasi-fixed moment (between both) of Daseyn. But we have outstripped our text, and must now return. We have now to see in the ' Eemarks ' what Hegel himself thinks proper to extend to us by way of explanation. Perhaps we ought to have translated, and included among these Eemarks, the dissertation on ' Wherewith must the beginmng, &c. be made,' which precedes the opening of the detailed Logic ; but much of the matter it contains has abeady oozed out in another form. Besides, Hegel's explanations are seldom of any use to the uninitiated, and are calculated as much to mislead as to guide. In the dissertation in question, for example, Hegel's beginning seems to have been conditioned by wholly absolute considera- tions — at which we — knowing the relativity of the beginning to Kant — can only shake our heads — not, however, as doubting their truth, but as intimating only that Hegel, had he liked, might have led us to the house by a much straighter and easier path. Wliat an incubus of labour might not Hegel have spared us, had he but let us see him starting from Kant had he but named his consequent realisation of Locric into its one vital tri-une pulse ! But this philosophical Wolsey could not stomach the confession of his debts. Instead of that, while the reader is constantly misled by the loudest and most unexceptive reprobation of the doctrines of Kant, the merits of the same are effectually concealed from him by the very manner in which they QUALITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 61 are expressly mentioned. It is only after long initiation that one conies to detect twinkles of a confession in Hegel, as in that allusion 'not unrevenged,' when speakmg of his predecessors (since Kant) neglecting Logic, &c. In his explanations, indeed, Hegel, is always indirect ; he seeks abstract points of connex- ion, and avoids the concrete truth : in fact, we are rather abstrusely sneered into light than kindlily and directly led. One feels, indeed, almost savagely in- dignant with Hegel, when one thinks of the world of labour, of the almost superhuman labour, which the pecuharity of his statement has involved. Had he but told us, one thinks to oneself, — I was simply serious with the general scope of Kant — with his endeavour to reduce the whole human concrete under the cognitive faculties, to demonstrate objectivity to be contained in the categories, and to exhibit the world of sense as but an externalisation and Vereinzelung of the same : serious with these thoughts, it was not difficult to systematise and complete the categories ; it was not difficult to place JSTature as that same system of cate- gories — in outward form ; it was not difficult, in obedience to the general pulse, to set Spirit as re- suming in itself both Nature and the Categories (the Logical Idea) ; and it was not difficult, whether by generalising the categories, or by fusing the cognitive faculties — Simple Apprehension (Sensation), Judgment, Eeason — into a concrete one vitahty, to find that general pulse which should be the basis and principle and motive power of the whole, and which Kant himself actually named when he said, a priori synthetic Judg- ment. Had Hegel but told us this — and why did he not tell us this ? — of what advantage has his reticence been to any man — even to himself ? But let us turn now to 62 THE SECKET OF HEGEL. Eemark 1. And let us, first of all, consider any technical terms that may seem in want of a word of explanation. Beent is a translation of Seyendes, and found unavoid- able. The reader will have remarked the quite Hegehan subtlety, that opposition imphes relation, reference, connexion, conjunction, even in that it is opposition. Wesenthch, essentially imphes always a reference to the Hegelian Wesen ; it may be translated — as concerns the essential constitutive principle. Sub- strate — the substrate here regards change ; it means the subject of the change, the something that undergoes the change. There now is, and again there is not : but there is a substrate conceived under this transition : it appears just two difierent states of the same something ; these states are merely held asunder in time. This concep- tion of a substrate completely subverts the abstrac- tion which Hegel would have us think. Synthetisch and Vorstellend, synthetically and conceptively — these words deserve particular notice. Conceptively relates to one of the most important points in Hegel, — to his use, that is, of the word Vorstellung, and its cognate forms. In Locke the word Idea is used just for a, or any state or fact of consciousness in general. In sensation, it is the feeling present in the mind which is the Idea ; in perception and imagination, the object outward in the one case, inward in the other is the idea ; then in memory, the idea is whatever is remem- bered, and in thought whatever is thought. Now VorsteUung, in current German, in Kant for one, is exactly this Lockeian Idea. Hegel, however, opposes Vorstellung as the crude, almost sensuous, pictorial image or conception of common thought, to BegrifF QUALITY INTEEPRETED, ETC. 63 as the Notion of rigorously logical, rigorously scientific thought. To Hegel the thoughts of most of us, when we say, Heaven, HeU, God, Justice, Morahty, Law — even perhaps Being and Here-being — are but crude figu.rate conceptions, Vorstellungen, and require to be purified into Notions, Begrifle, if we would think aright our own thoughts. The Vorstellungen are but 'Metaphors' (as Hegel says), — externalisations, as it were, of the Begriffe, and to be really understood and seen into, require to have what is metaphoric, pictorial, sensuous, external — we had almost said crustaceous — stripped off them. Conception, then, is to be understood in the translations here as representing Vorstellung, and Notion Begriff. This for many reasons. Conception deriva- tively is certainly the Begriff — a taking together, or a being taken together ; but then the Latin Notio has already been reserved by Kant (he uses conceptus, also, in his Logic), and the rest as the strict equivalent of Begriff and conception, perhaps, in general usage, is fully looser than notion. The custom of both Kant and Hegel is such that it was impossible to employ idea for Vorstellung. Eepresentation were certainly a very good meaning for this last word ; but it sounds as yet very uncouth when so used. In general, and where accuracy is necessary, Idea translates Idee, Notion Be- griff, and Conception Vorstellung. In translating Kant, it is better to substitute for Vorstellung, the precise mental state which is referred to at the moment. In translat- ing Hegel, we often convey Vorstellung by the phrase figurate conception, followed by representation in brackets, with a view to the gradual naturahsation of this last word. "We know now what is Hegel's Begriff, and so are in a condition to understand what is said of a false Begriff as opposed to a true one. Our mere 64 THE SECEET OP HEGEL. subjective thoughts, or mere products of ordinary generalisation, are not necessarily BegrifFe : these are always forms of the Begriff, are self-referent, and objectively true. Synthetically contains an allusion here to an expres- sion of Kant's (see page 327, vol. i., and, for additional illustration, pp. 340, 341, 343, of same volume) about existence adding itself synthetically to the notion of the hundred dollars ! It is not difficult to illustrate what Hegel means by these merely conceptive and synthetic elements, in the ordinary form in which creation stands before the mind. ' God might have thrown into Space a single germ-cell from which all that we see now might have developed itself Observe the synthesis here — the mere outward adding of one thing to another, as a mason puts stone to stone, a joiner wood to wood, or as a gardener drops an acorn into the earth, and a whole oak rises. God drops the Germ-cell into Space. Each is complete by itself, and each is just mechanically, synthetically annexed to the other : God is added on complete at once ; and so of the others, — the germ-cell, moreover, constituting but an outward synthesis to the notion in God's mind. But observe the Vorstellung, the conception, the scenic representation, the pictm'e ! Three units, out of each other, are here side by side, God, the Germ-cell, Space : each is entire, complete, and independent in itself ; there is no transition from the one to the other ; each— and this is true even of the Germ-cell — has the character of a First. In short all here is synthetic and conceptive : we see Space just an absolute universal void — we see an indefinite giant suddenly show therein, or come to the edge thereof, and drop into the vacancy down, down, a germ- cell ! Now this has seemed thinking to a writer who QUALITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 65 believes himself in advance, and who is in advance, of most of the literary interests of the day. Yet it is to thinking precisely what the writing of the Chinese is to that of Europeans, precisely what discourse by hieroglyphics is to discourse by alphabets. The exact truth of the matter is, that a thinker of the order indicated, however worthy otherwise, is to a Hegel but a little boy as yet in his picture-books. Thinking, to be thorough, must be thought out. This will illus- trate much. Hegel intimates, then, that creation, as usually thought, is the appearance of Something in Nothing at the wiU of another Something, and that this process is merely synthetic and the whole thing a picture, a Vorstellung. The point of union, he alludes to, where Being and Nothing coincide, may be named the Limit, or the Beginning, or the will in act, for each of these involves an is and a non-is. Negation and negative : it is subtle perception on the part of Hegel to have discerned that wherever there is question of one and dMother, there is negation, and that thus God's energy, even as affirmative, is negative. Gesetzt, posited : this brings up probably the greatest difficulty in Hegel, viz., what he means by ein Gesetztes ? — what by Geseiztseyn ? As usual, we shall find the Hegelian sense to have a very strict connexion with the ordinary one. Now, what is the ordinary one? The ordinary one is to be found in the discussion of hypothetical syllogisms as contained in the common text-books of Logic. Setzend, in fact, is the equivalent of the Latin participle ponens in the phrase modus ponens. ' If perfect justice exists, the hardened sinner wiU be punished : but perfect justice does exist ; there- fore the hardened sinner will be punished : ' this is a hypothetical syllogism in the modus ponens. Now, the VOL. II. F 66 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. two parts of which the Major consists here are called the antecedent and the consequent, and in the modus ponens the former ponit, setzt, sets, posits, or infers the latter. In the example before us, the existence of perfect justice is the antecedent, and it posits the punishment of the hardened sinner, which is the con- sequent. If the word posit were a vernacular Enghsh word parallel to the German setzen both in its logical and in its ordinary senses, we should have no difficulty in the respective translation ; but it is not so, and we are constantly in perplexity in consequence of being unable properly to render the various shades and secondary meanings which setzen and its derivatives acquire in the hands of Hegel. For instance, an antecedent may be considered as only in itself or po- tential, until the consequent is assigned, and then it is the antecedent which seems posited. Posited in this case seems to refer to statement or explication ; and this sense is very common in Hegel. Here, then, it is gesetzt means, it is developed into its proper expli- cation, statement, expression, enunciation, exhibition, &c. Again, a Gesetztes, as not self-referent, is but lunar, satelHtic, parasitic, secondary, derivative, depen- dent, reflexional, posititious, &c. Then on the part of that which posits, something of arbitrary attribution may enter. Altogether, Gesetztseyn alludes to reflexion, relativity, mutual illativity, &c. Setzen has the senses, to put in the place of, to depute, and also duly to set out the members of a whole or set ; and allusions to these senses also are to be found in Hegel. In short such senses as the following will sometimes be found in place in this connexion : vicarious, representative attributive, adjectitious, &c. &c. To eximply or ex- implicate often conveys the meaning of setzen as also the simple assign. See further Hegel himself on the QUALITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 67 word at pp. 376, 377, vol. i.; see also pp. 109, 110, vol. ii. In Kant and Fichte, setzen means, to lay- down as granted, to take for granted, to establish, to afSrm, to assert, to assume, &c. ; and this meaning is, at bottom, identical with the Hegelian. Inhalt means here. Logical comprehension, or the complement of significates which attach to a notion : Inhalt is to Hegel the Import of something, and the import is not always mere contained matter, but implies that matter as formed or assimilated. Opined, Gemeint. — Meinung is the 8o'|a of the Greeks ; it imphes crude, instinctive, uninvestigated, unreasoned, subjective, or personal opinion, — mein-ung, as if it were a mine-ing, or my-ing — something purely m,ine — something purely subjective and instinctive. The Eemark itself is sufficiently miscellaneous ; its general object, however, is to illustrate what has just been said, and repel the most usual objection. This objection concerns the identification of Being with Nothing, and probably requires now but small notice at our hands, seeing that so much has been already done to insure a correct understanding of what is meant by each of the terms, and of how they are to be identified. The whole error of the objection Hes in opposing to Nothing, not abstract, but concrete Being ; in which case, the Nothing itself ceases to be abstract. As Nothing and Being are the same, it seems to be inferred that we say it is the same thing whether we have food or not, whether we have clothes or not, whether we have money or not, &c. : but this reason- ing is very bad. Nothing when it is concreted into no-food is hunger ; in the same way, as no-clothes, it is cold, and as no-money, it is poverty. Now we have been speaking of Nothing as Nothing, and not of hunger, F 2 68 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. cold, and poverty. Again, we have been speaking of Being as Being, and not of corporeal or animal Being. When you oppose, then, these definite Nothings to this definite Being, it is absurd to suppose that the results wiU be identical with those which issue from the opposition of abstract Being and abstract Nothing. Nothing, when abstract Being is concerned, is the abstraction from everything definite and particular, and abstract Being itself is the same abstraction ; but the nothing of hght is darkness, and it cannot be said that the eye is indifferent whether it be the one or the other : definite Being is a complex of infinite rapports. But where is the use of your abstraction, then, may be urged in reply? Why, this ultimate generalisa- tion Being — we are bound to make it, and it has al- ways been considered a determination of the greatest consequence — surely, then, it is worthwhile pointing out that this Being is identical Avith the abstract No- thing, tliat they are both abstractions, and that their truth is Werden. These are great poles of thought, subjective and objective; and it is important to know them, as they are, and in their relations. The inci- dental references illustrate this : the philosophy of Parmenides, for example, was centred in the thought abstract Being, while that of Herachtus related simply to Becoming, and we see what vast effects may be produced by the contemplation of abstract Nothing m the case of Buddhism. Being is the first abstract thought, indeed, and, with the Eleatics, we find it as such in History ; for the material principles and the numbers which preceded it are not pure thoughts. The importance of our findings, too, is well shown in the impossibility of a creation and in the Pantheism which result from the absolute separation of Being QUALITY INTEEPEETED, ETC. 69 and Nothing exhibited in the common dictum Ex nihilo nihil fit. A creation is impossible without the community of Nothing and Being ; and if all that is, is just Being, or if all that is, is just Substance, then there results only the abstract Pantheism of Parmenides or of Spinoza. We may remark, however, that — as used — the dictum is safe from the attack of Hegel ; for it is nothing else but the law of causahty in another form ; what it means is simply the a priori synthetic judgment of Kant — there is no change without a cause. It is this sense which prevents the reader from agreeing with Hegel in his attack. What Hegel wishes to hold up, however, is the essential importance in this universe of the distinction, Nothing : in effect, nega- tivity, in the sense of distinctivity, is the creative power; and there is nowhere anything which does not confess its influence. The errors of Kant, too, in reference to the Onto- logical argument spring from bluntness to the distinc- tions we signahse, and thus demonstrate the value of the latter : Kant, in fact, exhibits a similar confusion of the finite and the infinite, as well as a very imper- fect perception of the nature and relations of Being, Non-being, and ^o-being (Daseyn). The objections to the relative teaching of Hegel, then, arise fi:om the untutored attitude of common sense, which means ever the blind instinctive employ- ment of stereotyped abstractions of one's own, whence or how derived one knows not, asks not, cares not : in the case before us, for example, common-sense insists that its abstraction, a differentiated Nothing, is our abstraction, reference-less Nothing. We may add, that the practical lesson is to perceive that it is our duty, in view of the infinite affirmation in which we participate, 70 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. to entertain complete tranquillity in the presence of any finite Particular that may emerge. Eemaek 2. There seems nothing very hard here ; the chief object is to point out the difficulty of giving a true expression to speculative propositions, which are always dialectic. The form of the judgment is shown to be inadequate. Identity, unity, mseparabihty, are all imperfect ex- pressions of the relation that subsists between Being and Nothing. The concluding illustration in regard to hght and darkness speaks for itself. Of terms, we may notice two — Abstract and Un- terschied. Abstract is one of the commonest words in Hegel, and is often used in such a manner as perplexes : it always implies that something is viewed in its absolute self-identity, and absolutely apart from all its concrete references. As regards Unterschied, it is worth while observing that it means inter-shed, or inter-part : the Unterschied of Seyn and Mchts may be profitably re- garded as just a sort of abstract water-shed. Eemaek 3. This is the most important of all the Eemarks in this place, and the reader ought to make a point of dwelhng by it long and studying it thoroughly. The rigour of thought in regard to a First, a Second, the transition between them, and the principles of proo-ress in general, ought to improve the powers of every faculty which has been privileged to experience it. What is said in regard to crude Eeflexion and the means of helping it, is also striking and suggestive. Then we are taught what a true synthesis is, and QUALITY INNERPEETED, ETC. 71 what a false one. Again, we learn that it is the abstractions which are unreal, while their concrete union is fact. In truth, the general gist of the remark is, it is absurd to remain in abstract self-identity, and say movement, progress, is impossible to you ; for syn- thesis must be possible, and is necessary just for this reason, that synthesis is — that is, there is this variegated empirical universe. — The observations in regard to determinate nothings are very important, as well as those that bear on the necessity of our keeping strictly to the precise stage we have reached, without ap- plying in its description or explanation characters which belong to later stages. The incidental notice of the Parmenides of Plato is exceedingly terse, full, and satisfactory. Hegel remarks of Plato's critique of the Eleatic One : ' It is obvious that this path (method) has a presup- position, and is an external reflexion.' A cooperative reader, and every reader should be cooperative, ought to ask himself, where is ' the presupposition ? ' and where is the ' external reflexion ? ' Again, in the first Eemark, the reader ought not to leave without under- standing : ' Metaphysic might tautologically maintain, that were a dust-atom destroyed, the whole universe would collapse.' Let the reader go back here, and study both for himself The presupposition is, that variety is incompatible with unity : the external re- flexion is, that the two forms are just externally counted : Hegel's universe is such, that the whole is not more each part than each part is the whole — to destroy a part and destroy the whole are thus tauto- logical. There is also expressed here such respect for the em- pirical world as helps us to see that the system of Hegel 72 THE SECEET OP HEGEL. is no chimera of abstraction, no cobweb of the brain, but that what it endeavours is just to think this universe, as it manifests itself around us, into its ultimate and wiiversal principles. As regards terms, we may just remark that Bezieh- ung imphes more than mere reference ; it implies, as it were, connective reference : it is used pretty much, in fact, in its strict etymological meaning. Synthesis, as alluded to in a previous note, will be found fully explained here : the unphilosophical synthesis thinks it enough just to put together full-formed individuals from elsewhere, as God, a germ-cell, and space (say) ; while philosophical synthesis is immanent, and points to a transition of necessity with concrete union of dif- ferents. The allusion to ' urspriingliche Urtheilen ' leads one to think of Kant as the source of all that Hegel seems pecuharly to teach as regards the Ur-theil; at all events — leaving Apperception and the Categories out of sight — Kant's transcendental doctrine of Ur- theilskraft is wholly employed on the commediation of the inner unities with the outer multiples, and contains a great variety of matter which must have proved eminently suggestive in regard to the main positions assumed by Hegel. Remaek 4. This remark is still occupied with the Unity of Being and Nothing ; but it is exceedingly terse, clear and illustrative. The dialectic against the Beginning or Ending of the World is very happily shown to rest wholly on the separation of Being and JSTotlring ; and the hit to ordinary understanding which believes against this dialectic — a Beginning and Ending of the World, and yet accepts — with this dialectic the QUALITY USTTERPEETED, ETC. 73 dividedness of Being and Nothing, is a very sore one. The mode in which incomprehensibility is explained to be produced is excellent, and genuinely Hegelian. The illustration afforded by Infinitesimals is also exceed- ingly satisfactory, as are also the definitions of Sophistry and Dialectic. — Something that is in its disappearance ■was eminently adapted to attract a Hegel, whose own object is always something very similar ; that is, it is, hke Infinitesimals, very much of a ratio — the one of a double. In fact, reciprocity very well answers to the bottom thought of Hegel, — the Notion itself is — - in one way of looking — but a form of reciprocity. So we have neither Being nor Nothing, but a sort of out- come of their reciprocal reflexions, where the one is very much the other — and in consequence of the other. Hegel seems to contemplate the intussusception of the infinite Universe into a geometrical punctum : the world is the oscillating coloration of a partridge's eye ; it is but a vibrating point — an ideal throb. The method is infinite referential inferentiality, or relative illativity of object and subject ; but the object is the subject's, and the subject itself is the veritable Abso- lute. There is a Chinese toy or puzzle which appears as a hollow sphere with innumerable contained suc- cessively smaller spheres, movable, and successively within one another : conceive this expanded into the infinitude of space, extended into the infinitude of time, and occupied by all the interests of the universe and man, sphere under sphere, but so that aU, per- fectly transparent, perfectly permeable, are mutually intussuscipient, and coUapse punctually into a single eye-glance ; — conceive this, and you have the Vorstel- lung, the Figure, the Metaphor of the System of Hegel. But is not this a mere intellectual jeu d' esprit ? Outside 74 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. effort and intentional production, in such a scheme, and with only human faculty to carry it out, must be expected ; but this must also be said, that, in the pro- gress of the work, there is no great interest of the world, which does not require to be touched ; and this touch we find always to be that of the very master of thought, in such wise that, on the whole, at once the most penetrative and the most comprehensive wis- dom is offered to us which has ever yet exhibited itself in time. Again, it is not only an objective system that is concerned ; it is also a subjective organon : he, in- deed, who has passed through such a Calender finds himself — always in the ratio of his original force, of course — a power of rare elasticity and vigour, and with a range of the most gratifying compass — a Hegel himself is keen to the last point, strong to the last weight, and wide as the universe. Lastly, if we bear in mind that Kant and Hegel have at length introduced objective principles into pMlosophy, and thus lifted it bodily to the platform of Science, e.g. the Categories, the Notion, &c. — one will see good reason to consider the system of Hegel (and the same may be said for that of Kant) an essential and indispensable element in the culture of all who would present themselves in the arena now-a-days, and work for the pubhc — whether in Science or in Art, in Statecraft or the Professions, in Literature, or the mere business of the Schoolmaster. 2. Moments of Becoming. — 3. Sublation of Becoming. Remark. We may spend a word, first of all, on the terms Zunachst, Unmittelbar, Daseyn, Moment, Ideel, and Grundlage. — Zunachst remains for long somethino- troublesome to the student of Hegel. It just means QUALITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 73 at nearest in the direction in which you are going. If you are generahsing, then it will mean the next step towards the genus summum ; and nearer (naher) will mean, nearer to universal extension. But if, hke Hegel's, your process is one of Determination, and towards ultimate Comprehension or Singularisation, then you must look on the opposite side of the line, and nearer and nearer must mean, greater and greater comprehen- sion, or more and more complex, more and more par- ticularised, more and more individuaUsed. Zunachst, then, maybe translated just in the first instance, in the first place, at first hand, primd, facie, ^c. ; and some- times also, at closest, or at strictest : — first of all is also a convenient phrase ; shortly, properly, &c., will some- times be found to render it. Das ndhere just means the particulars, the details, and this manifests the pro- cess to be one towards increased precision and defi- niteness : the nearness involved regards the particular object concerned, then. Unmittelbar : Direct will be found best to translate this word in paragraph 2 of No. 2 ; so also at end of No. 3 : as it is used in the Remark opposed to das Aufgehobene, one gets a vivid glance of the direct beingness which Immediacy amounts to. Daseyn : an English equivalent for this word is dif- ficult to find ; but this is no reason why we should make any difficulty of the Notion. Being, Seyn, is easUy understood to be Being in general, just the universal or general fact of existence, of Being at all : but Daseyn refers to a definitely-recognised Being ; it is that which constitutes the recognisableness of every and any member of this actual existence. Seyn applies to the whole ; it is the universal indistinguishable mush : but Daseyn has thrown the checker down, and 76 TI-IK SECEET OF HEGEL. Seyn has become a whole of distinguishable individuals. Distinguishableness, in fact, is the quality of Daseyn ; or, in truth, considering what we imply by the ter- mination ness, I know not but what we might say ness amounts to Seyn, ness declares the fact that there just is : but then nessness would denote the quality whereby a thing is, and distinguishably is. Daseyn is the ness- ness of anything that is ; that, as it were, that I can metaphorically rub and feel between the thumb and finger. Now this Daseyn, Nessness, is accurately com- posed of Being and Nothing, and the latter is not one whit less essential than the former. Grundlage is here the constitutive One of separable individuals ; it is the base, in the sense of a chemical base that goes accurately asunder into its constituents, and echpses these into its unity again ; a mother-liquor which we can figure as this moment disappearingly sundered into its dry elements, and the next reap- pearingly resolving these into its liquid unity again. Ideel and Moment we can take together, as they both refer to the one process of Aufhebung. Now that process is just what has been described as producing a Grundlage. Water is Hydrogen and Oxygen; in it they are aufgehoben, and become Ideel ; it is their Grundlage, they are its Moments. In this way, one can see how Hydrogen and Oxygen are in water with- drawn, each from its own Immediacy. The Moments of Spuit are Nature and the Logical Idea ; in it they are Ideel as in their Grundlage. "Tatj and iJ.op±ri are aufgehoben in the £VTg-ks-(^sia. I drop this Gold into that Aqua Regia, and it disappears ; it is aufo-ebohen but it is not destroyed — it still ideellement is, it is now a moment. In Hegel, however, the moments are more than synthetic Differents collapsing to a simple One • QUALITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 77 each is very much the other, and in consequence of the "other, or each, while itself reflected into the other, holds the other reflected into itself, and so is the other. The Moments in reference to the Lever are very illus- trative. AU through Hegel, indeed, this reciprocation or mutuation of the moments is the great fact : ' each sublates itself in itself, and is in itself the contrary of itself.' Sublation, resolution, elimination, &c. will be now intelligible as translations of Auf hebung. If it be considered that the one moment has the nature of Matter in it, and the other that of Form, (one , sees that the Aristotehan characterisation of the Mo- ments is about the most general of all,) it will be easily understood that the one, as in the case of the Lever, is always relatively Real, and the other relatively Ideal. As regards interpretation here, it is really- diflicult to see that any words can be used more light-giving than those of Hegel himself. Li fact, nothing can surpass the accuracy of eye with which he sees, or the distinctness of hp with which he names. No doubt, what is here must appear very strange to a beginner ; but, after all, it is employed on what is around us, and is an attempt to observe and (in a way) generahse ultimate facts. What we mean by Being, if we wiU but look closely enough, is only indefinite immediacy, as Nothing in the same way is immediate indejiniteness. Being and Nothing are thus the same ; or Being has gone into Nothing, and Nothing has gone into Being. But such movement is a process, and is named Be- coming. This process unites both distinctions, but so that they are alternately direct and indirect, and in such fashion that the one has concreted or thickened itself into Origin, and the other similarly into Decease : but these again, as but different directions of the same 78 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. process, arrest themselves and sist process into proceed or product ; or Being and Nothing, now Origin and Decease, as but opposing directions of Becoming, arrest themselves, and sist Becoming into Become — and that is Daseyn, Here-being, There-being, ySo-being. In the directest fashion, this is just the generahsa- tion of what is before our eyes and between our fin- gers : in other words, this is the thinking of the same ; these are the thoughts which the commonest things in- volve : this, then, is Logic ; why, then, should we not be content to take it thus? The generahsation of Aristotle, in regard to the abstract ultimates of ordinary reasoning, was not, we should say, one whit less strange, or one whit more satisfactory, when it emerged, than is now the generalisation of Hegel in 'regard to the ultimates of things. Things, in truth, have ultimate forms, as well as Thoughts, and it is good to know them all ; nor is it to be supposed that less good wiU result from the ultimate thinking of Things than from the ultimate thinking of Thoughts. Nay, observe, in both cases, it is ultimate thitiking ; and as Thoughts and Things are all, this ultimate Thinking will not consti- tute only all ultimate Thinking, but it may go together systematically as a whole, and so constitute the ultimate and essential truth of the universe, or — Philosophy at length ! Again, Hegel is no less qualified for this abstraction here, than Aristotle was for that abstrac- tion there ; and these laconic paragraphs in regard to Nothing, Being, Becoming, and their process, may at once be held up in proof thereof. In every par- ticular, the characterisation is consummate — the iden- tification of the distinction we use as Being with the distinction we use as Nothing, the exhibition of each as process, the pointing out that process as Be- QUALITY INTEKPEETED, ETC. 79 coming, tHe demonstrating Becoming to unite the dis- tinctions at once as identical and as different in the opposing forms of Origin and Decease, and lastly, the precipitation of Becoming — by its own contradiction — into Become, — all is masterly, and there is present a dialectic which, as mere process, must wonderfully sharpen our wits. But it is not for a moment to be thought that it is as subjective discipHne, and not as objective thinking, that this dialectic is valuable : on the contrary, the thoughts themselves must be seen to be the ultimate and essential thoughts that found, or ground, or beground the universe. Or so only can a beginning be thought ; and so only, therefore, can a beginning be constituted. A Beginning, in truth, or the Beginning, is what con- stitutes the bottom consideration here. To Hegel it is, no doubt, evident that it is utterly impossible to start vTith a single unit and conditions. Such a start were in its own crude presuppositions its own refutation. No material unit is competent to a material many ; while to presuppose conditions for the production of this many, is just to presuppose this many itself. Be- fore trying to find a beginning, we should have asked, what is a Beginning ? What is the Category ? this is the first question. It is absurd to talk of Conditions before we know what Conditions are. It is futile to explain the Beginning, unless we have first of all fairly seen into all that the Category, Beginning, implies. An Outward of any kind, for example, and a Beginning vdll be found absolutely incommensurable. In this way, as regards the object of our quest, we are shut in to the Inward — we are shut in to thought as thought, and the only possible conclusion is, that the thought of the beginning is just the beginning of thought. To 60 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. postulate a single substance exposed to a variety of conditions in a ready-made Time and Space, is just to take things as we see them — is just crudely to trip over crude figurate conceptions of the bottom categories, Identity and Difference, which should have been examined first. To talk of a primitive matter and conditions in explanation of transition, is to stultify oneself — is to begin with the very variety which re- quires to be explained. Again, it seems very difficult to think of a Beginning as only inward ; we cannot think an inward without an outward as substrate and basis. We cannot con- ceive of thought as in the first instance just in the air. This is perfectly just. Thought is not thought just like so much water, held somewhere in the bag of the iniiverse : Thought implies a thinldng Subject. It may be that this Subject is not at first in IvTi'Ke-^eia., or even in evspysfot or [j-of>(nrsp o\ yseofJiSTpai SscopotJUTsg ypd^aucriv' aA?v.' SjUou [xr] ■ypa.(poii(rrjg, &sa)pou(rr)g Ss, u(pi(rTavrai at rihv (rwjjia.- Tcov 7paja/A«<, axnrep sxTrlTrroucrai. Which translated, as if it were the Absolute spoke, might run thus : — And my speculating (seeing) creates what is speculated (seen), just as Greometricians speculating draw Hues (in thought) : but I not drawing lines, but speculating, there rise up the lineaments of the corporeal objects as if falling in projection out of me. The nature of the Neo-Platonic teaching, and its analogy to the Philosophy of Hegel, may be seen in almost every the usual expression of Thomas Taylor, who so perseveringly kept company with Plotinus, Proclus, and the rest. In the Introduction and Notes to his translation of the Metaphysics of Aristotle, we have the following : — Wisely, there;fore, (p. xv.) does Plato assert that the phi- losopher ought not to descend below species, and that he should be solely employed in the contemplation of wholes and universals. For he who descends below these, descends into Cimmerian realms, and Hades itself — wanders among spectres devoid of mind, and exposes himself to the danger of beholding the real Grorgon, or the dire face of Matter, and of thus becoming petrified by a satiety of stupid passions. Again (p. xvii.) — Objects of sense rather resemble the delusions of sleep than the realities of vigilant perception. Once more (p. 400) — I shall rejoice if I have been able to add anything of my own which may contribute to elucidate the conceptions of 18G THE SECKET OF HEGEL. these divine men, and induce the reader to abandon with generous ardour the grovelling contemplation of sensible objects, profoundly dark and incessantly flowing, for the exalted survey of the all-splendid and ever-permanent forms in the world of mind. Lastly (p. 428) _ Every Idea is not only the paradigm, but likewise the pro- ducing cause, of Sensibles : for something else would be re- quisite by which sensibles are generated and assimilated to ideas, if these divine forms remained sluggish and immove- able, and without any efScacious power, similar to impressions in wax : for it is absurd to admit that the reasons in nature possess a certain fabricative energy, but that intelligible forms should be deprived of productive power. Every divine form, therefore, is not only paradigmatic, but paternal, and is by its very essence the generative cause of the Many. Thomas Taylor lived probably in a thick element of confused splendour, and is not by any means (who is ?) an immaculate translator ; but the sufferings, the per- secutions, the patient poverty, the dauntless persever- ance, the uncheered but assiduous labour of the noble, ardent man, entitle him at least to om* respect ; and not this only, but the successful outcome of that enormous labour compels the gratitude of every earnest and true Student. Sir WiUiam Hamilton errs, as usual, then, in the interest of his own unscrupulous flippancy, when he turns his sharp naU on the good Taylor ; and (so far as my poor judgment may have any right to speak in the case) we are still much safer with this latter than with his critic, as a translator of Greek Philosophy. We will be thankful, then, for what Hamilton calls his ' mere rubbish.' It would be easy to adduce, both from Aristotle and from Plato, many passages (which we had marked for the purpose, indeed) breathing the same spirit as those QUALITY INTERPRETED, ETC.. 187 already cited from Prod us and Plotinus ; but we shall leave this to the reader's own activity. Towards the end of his article on Plato, in the ' History of Philo- sophy,' Hegel will be found translating from the former thus : — The empirical manner of thinking found in Greometry and the kindred sciences, thou seemest to me to name Eaisonne- ment ; and, consequently, reasoning (Schliessen, reflectirende Erkennen) finds itself between the vovs and what we name So^a. — Thou hast apprehended perfectly correctly. In ac- cordance with these four distinctions, I shall name the four relative bearings of the soul : a, v6r)cns (Begreifen), Compre- hension, a thinking of what is highest ; /3, hiavoia, the second ; 7, the third, is Belief or true opinio (Meinung) ; S, and the last, is the Vorstellung or figurate knowledge (das bildliche Wissen) : these are the degrees of Truth, of Clearness. Hegel, commenting on this, proceeds : — ■ Plato defines thus the Senses as the first mode ; as second mode he defines reflexion, so far as it introduces Thinking into a consciousness otherwise sensuous. And here, he says, is the place where Science makes its appearance; Science rests on Thought, the determination of general principles, first sources, hypotheses. These hypotheses are not manipu- lated by the Senses themselyes, are not sensuous in them- selves ; they certainly attach to Thought. But this still is not genuine Science which consists in considering the universal per 86, the spiritual universal. Plato has comprehended under the term Soja, sensuous consciousness, properly sensu- ous conception, opinio, immediate knowledge. In the middle between opinio and Science, as such, there lies ratiocinating cognition, inferential reflexion, reflecting cognition, that forms for itself general laws, definite genera, out of said immediate knowledge. The highest, however, is Thought in and for itself, which is directed to the highest. The reader will have no difficulty, then, in view of such utterances, — {Zmait-ig, Ivepysia, Jivn'Ae^Bta^ «.t.A.^ 188 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. will be fresh in his memory as "well) — in perceiving the analogy which Hegel bears to the most important Greek philosophers, both early and late. There is a passage in Eeid* which describes the Neo-Platonic philosophers in the usual conventional, vague terms, as mystically adoring and seeking union with the One ; still, nevertheless, the description is so couched, that to a student of Hegel there is involun- tarily suggested by it, that this mystic One is but the Logical Idea. We may suppose said student to be pleasantly surprised with this, and to be still more pleasantly surprised when he afterwards finds Hegel himself saying somewhere precisely the same thing.f On these grounds, however, should he, or any one else, infer the philosophy of Hegel to have derived from either new or old Platonics, or from either new or old Aristotelians, he will only fall into a very serious mis- take. The philosophy of Hegel derives directly only from the generahsed Categories of Kant in themselves and in their realisation or externahsation in the Things of Sense : Hegel's Philosophy, in short, in the Notion, coils itself in nucem, and the JSTotion, or this nut, came straight to him from Kant. We are to suppose, how- " * Eeid, p. 264, Hamilton's edi- even times of enthusiasm, wien the tion, says, in reference to the Alex- Aristotelian Philosophy is prized andrians, ' By a proper purification because of its speculative depth, and and abstraction from the ohjects of the Parmenides of Plato, certainly sense, we may be in some measure the gi'eatest art-work of the An- united to the Deity, and, in the cient Dialectic, is honoured as the eternal light, be enabled to dia- veritable unveiling and the positive cern the most sublime intellectual expression of the divine life and truths.' — The italics will strike the even, amid much impurity of that key of Hegel. which gave rise to it, the mis- f 'If at times the excellence of understood JEestasis is in reality the philosophy of Plato is placed nothing else than the Pure Notion.' in his — scientifically valueless — — Phaenom., ed. 2nd, p. 55, Myths, there are also times, named QUALITY mTBEPEETED, ETC. 189 ever, that — once his philosophy was formed — Hegel was nothing loath to make as prominent as might be every analogy whatever which tended to associate him with the great masters of the ancient world : the one longing is almost overt in him, indeed, that he should be placed now as Aristotle ■ was placed then. The reasons which prompted this desire were probably of a universal nature in the main, though concealment of the closeness of the derivation from Kant may not have been unconsidered. - It will tend to strengthen the view just expressed to point out that there are descriptions in existence intended to refer exclusively to the philosophy of Plato, which, nevertheless, can be applied almost line by hue to the philosophy of Kant — a philosophy which we know and see owed nothing to Plato, but which was the result of a very natural train of infer- ences — a train which we may say we also actually see — ffom certain main positions of David Hume. Descriptions of this nature will be found at pages 262 and 263 of Hamilton's Eeid, where the describer (Hamilten) has not the shghtest thought of Kant at that moment in his mind. The analogy Hes- very obvious in this, however, that mental forms, which awakened by, mingle with, the contributions of sense, are in reahty not one whit more Platonic than than they are Kantian. The verses of Boethius at p. 263 contain distinctive features which might have been copied quite as easily and correctly from Kant as from Plato.* * These verses are tte follow- Quam quse materise modo ing : — Impressas patitur notas. ' Mens est efficiens magis Preecedit tamen excitans Longe causa potentior, Ac vires animi movens 190 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. No doubt, Hegel, by his reference to the ancients, was enabled to bring the determinations he had arrived at in connexion with Kant into more magistral place, as dominant centres, as it were, in definitively vital, abso- lute, and infinite spheres ; no doubt, he was enabled thus to cover, as it were, the whole field : nevertheless, he owed not this to any direct action of either Plato or Aristotle, but rather to a reaction on these through the findings of Kant. Eather, we may express it thus : To Hegel, the light of Kant ht Aristotle ; and to the same Hegel, by such reciprocity as he loved, the re- lighting of Aristotle re-lit Kant. Thus, if the findings of modern Philosophy have been very much moved into place by the previous findings of the ancient, it must also be said that only through the former were these latter themselves re-found. Indirectly to Kant, directly to Hegel, then, is it that we owe at present that revival of the study of early philosophy which has expanded in Germany to such enormous dimensions, which has exhibited itself in no contemptible form in France, and which even in England has been adequate at least to — some impotent pawings. From Hegel specially is it that we derive the ability now to recog- nise in Aristotle, not the sensual materiahst that con- troverted, but the absolute ideaUst that completed Plato. This is much, and the proof of it is certain : to that the single chapter of the ' Metaphysic ' which closes the Encyclopaedia of Hegel would alone suffice ; Vivo in corpore passio, Introrsumque reconditis Cum vel lux oculos ferit Formis miscet imagines.' Vel vox auribus instrepit : Turn mentis vigor exeitua ^^"ff ^'^^ -witliout, Form from Quas intus species tenet, "witliin,— the wtole description may Ad motus similes vocans, ^^ predicated of the Kantian theory Notis applicat exteris, l^i^ as truly as of the Platonic. QUALITY INTBRPEETED, ETC. 191 but we know also from elsewhere that Aristotle, even as much as his mighty modern compeer, concluded — TauTov voug km varyrov — xai sa-riv i^' vorjcrig vo^;SIT10N. 235 ly. TRANSITION FROM QUALITY TO QUANTITY. Before passing to Quactity, it may be well to seek to perfect our general view of Quality by adding to the detailed exposition of the Complete Logic which the preceding has attempted to convey, the condensed summary of the subject which presents itself in the Encyclopaedia. But, in taking up this latter work, we cannot resist extracting certain prehminary passages (generally from the First Edition as the shortest state- ment) which seem calculated to assist the student. And first from the INTEODUCTION (under which I include the ' Vorbegriff ' that precedes the Logic and), on which we shall spend a very few words only, in order to give prominence to such emi- nently Hegelian characteristics as are useful or indis- pensable to what follows as regards the System itself. The commencement may be paraphrased thus : — ' The objects (subject-matter) of the Sciences in ■ general are granted as presupposed, — as there with- out more ado ; that is, they are already given in conception, or they are allowed to pass as admitted common possessions, awakening no question and de- manding no justification. It is thus, too, as regards the method of these sciences : this, too, is granted as 236 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. a matter of course ; and we are permitted to begin and prosecute our investigation according to a current and conventional manner which everyone accepts as right and natural — so right and natural, that any doubt of its legitimacy never occurs. What forms a striking • portion of this manner, too, is this — that the very terms and notions which are applied in characterisation of the objects discussed, are themselves just taken up — out of conception, as it were — in the same loose and urdnquiring fashion. As regards the facilities of a beginning, of a method, and — in a large sense as apply- to a general mediating element of decision and discus- sion — of a terminology, the Sciences in general, then, have a great advantage over the science of Philosophy, which, widely different from the rest, is seen at once to be under an obligation to demonstrate the necessity of its object, the necessity of its method, and the necessity of its characterising means or medium, or machinery of terms. In Geometry, Arithmetic, Juris- prudence, Medicine, Zoology, Botany, &c., for example, we have just to begin with the famiHar name of the respective objects. Magnitude, Space, Number, Justice, Disease, Animal, Plant, &c. ; and that suffices — without it every occurring to us to doubt of the existence of any such objects, or to demand — at the hands of thought as thought — a demonstration of the necessity of the same. But, beginning thus, it is evident that we begin with the mere crude instinctive conception or Vorstellung of that into which we inquire ; and, as regards progress, it is evident also that all considera- tions which we apply in description or characterisation of the same arise in Hke manner out of an element of current conception, and that the whole business is just an empirical appeal from the Vorstellung of the writer TRANSITION. 237 to the Vorstellung of the reader concerning a Vorstel- lung — not, however, without the frequent emergence of an inconvenience, which, indeed, were only to be expected — namely, that Vorstellung differs from Vor- stellung to the production, possibly, of a blind debate which protracts itself endlessly. The movement of cog- nition in the ordinary sciences, then, is one of mere conception ; there is no necessary First, and no necessary transition thence to another and another, and an end : the line of movement, too, lies across a field that is bhndly given, among much on both sides of it that is blindly granted, and which the movement itself con- stantly blindly uses up for its own progress and advance. ' With Philosophy it is otherwise : neither its method nor itis medium of characterisation and determination can refer themselves to conception (Vorstellung) ; and, for its object or objects, these belong as little to con- ception as to sense. Conceptions, certainly, in the order of time precede Notions ; but it is by turning on the former, and through and by means of these, that thought attains to the latter — attains, that is, to cog- nition and comprehension. Necessity is the element of Philosophy ; and object, method, and determining media are alike inadmissible, unless stamped by its ineffaceable impress. In such field. Proofs, Demon- strations, are the requirements, and Presuppositions and Assertions are idle and inapphcable. In short, it is within Philosophy itself that a beginning — which as such must be inderivative and incomposite, and which yet even so seems necessarily a presupposition — that the object, that the method, that the characterising terms must exhibit and demonstrate themselves ; and anything that is said now by way of what is named 238 . THE SECEET OF HEGEL. introduction can be only of the nature of an anticipa- tion. Eeligion, it is true, has the same objects as Phi- losophy : both regard the True, and that, too, in the highest sense — that God is the True, and alone the True. Agaia, both would understand the Finite, and Nature and Man ; as also the relation of these both to each other, and to God as their truth. Philosophy must really therefore, then, presuppose a certain ac- quaintance with its objects, as well as an ii^rest in them : but the element of Eehgion is sentim^t, feel- ing, while that of Philosophy is the Notion, Thought. But as regards the objects of Philosophy, we are not restricted to Eehgion for illustration ; but there justifies itself a preliminary appeal to common, crude, current conception itself : for it is matter of universal acknow- ledgment, that the man who commences wit^ the perceptions and the greeds of mere sense is speedily impelled beyond these to the presage and presentiment of an Lxfinite and Eternal, both as regards knowledge and will — a presage and presentiment which prompt the questions : What can I know — of God — ^Nature — my own soul ? What ought I to do ? What dare I hope? True; there are those who, unable to deny this natural human tendency, stUl utterly reject these the objects at which it aims. There are those, indeed, who suppose themselves to possess Philosophy, not- withstanding that they -profess to know only what immediate sense gives them to know : but for the refutation of these, while conception (common sense) can point at once to its own presage. Thought brings forward just Philosophy itself.' After these pregnant sentences, appears a paragraph (§ 5 in the First Edition) which we do not recollect to be represented anywhere in the subsequent editions, TRANSITION. 239 and which, for that reason and for its own importance, we translate pretty closely thus : — 'Philosophy, then, is the Science of Eeason, and of Eeason conscious of its own self as all that is. Engaged in any cognition but the philosophical, Eeason, as a subjective element on the one side, presupposes given to it on the other an object, in which, conse- quently, it recognises not its own self : such cognition, therefore, is but cognition of what is finite, or it is a finite cognition. Suppose the objects of such cognition to belong even to Self-consciousness, as Eight (Justice), Duty, &c.,they are still particular objects, beside and apart from which, as apart from, or without of. Self- consciousness itself, the remaining riches of the uni- verse are to be found. The object of Eehgion is, indeed, in itself the infinite object which is to com- prehend all others : but these conceptions of Eeligion remain not true to themselves, for, in spite of them, the world in the eyes of Eeligion still remains without — apart from — ^the Infinite, self-substantial by itself; and what it (Eeligion) proposes as the highest truth is still, for the consciousness that would discriminate and distinguish, inexphcable, incomprehensible, a secret, a something given, and just in the form of a something given and external. To Eehgion, truth is as feeling, vision, aspiration, figurate conception, devotion gene- rally, — not, it is true, uninterwoven with thoughts, but stiU truth not in the form of truth. Its mood, indeed, is all-embracing, but, compared with other forms of consciousness, Eehgion constitutes but a region apart, but a region of its own. Philosophy may be regarded also as the science of Freedom, because in it the foreignness, the otherness of the objects, the finitude of consciousness vanishes, while contingency, physical 2-fO THE SECBBT OF HEGEL. necessity, relation to an outward, dependency, longing, and fear perish ; only in Philosophy is Eeason perfectly at home, shut in to its own self. It is from the same grounds that in this science Eeason is freed from the onesidedness of a merely subjective Eeason, which were regarded as property of a peculiar talent, per- haps, or as gift — like art with the artist— of a special divine good — or it may be bad — fortune : here, on the contrary, Eeason being but Eeason in the consciousness of its own self, this science is capable in its own nature of constituting universal science. Neither is this science that Idealism in which the objects of cognition have only the value of a something set up by the Ego, of a subjective production confined witliin self-con- sciousness. Because Eeason is conscious of itself as that which is, subjectivity — the Ego that conceives itself as a separate individual beside the objects, and its own modi as in it and as diverse from those of everything else out of it or over it — this subjecti- vity is taken up and resolved into the rational uni- versahty.' In this paragraph the declarations of Hegel are both valuable and clear : in particular, the relation of the individual to the universe — a point always of great interest to the student of Hegel — is remarkably plainly characterised. The relative doctrine taught may seevi to be the absorption of the individual into the Absolute. It is fair to remark, however, that such inference, especially in the naked manner in which it is thus and generally stated, is not by any means necessary ; and that Hegel's orthodoxy were still safe, even had he not, by withdrawing the passage, involved the opinions it contains so far in doubt — But the One is Many, &c. TRANSITION. 241 From §§ 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (1st Edit.) we translate as follows : — ' Philosophy, in so far as it exhibits the entire range of the philosophical sciences, but at the same time with definite indication of the parts, is — Encyclopaedia ; and in so far as it exhibits at once the distinction and the connexion of the parts as due to the necessity of the Notion, it is — Philosophical Encyclopaedia. ' Philosophy being throughout rational cognition, each of its parts constitutes a philosophical whole, a self-inclusive sphere of the general Totality ; but in every such part the philosophical idea is, as it were, in a particular specijicatum or element. Each single sphere, just because it is a totality in itself, breaks through the hmitation of its element and founds a higher sphere. The whole presents itself, then, as a sphere of spheres, of which latter each is a necessary moment of the whole; and the system of its own proper elements constitutes the complete Idea, which again just appears (as a single manifestation) in each individual. ' Philosophy is also by very nature Encyclopaedia, inasmuch as the True can only exist as Totality, and through discrimination and assignment of its distinctive diflFerences, the necessity of these, and the freedom of the whole : that is. Philosophy is necessarily — System. ' A philosophising without system cannot be any- thing scientific; for such philosophising, besides that it expressly offers itself as rather a mere subjective manner of looking or thinking, is contingent in its matter (its objects), inasmuch as this matter can receive its authorisation only as a moment of the whole, and apart from this whole must remain an ungrounded pre- supposition or mere subjective certainty. ' By a system of Philosophy, there is erroneously VOL. II. K 242 THE SECEBT OF HEGEL. understood only a philosophy of a certain one principle that is contradistinguished from others : the principle of veritable Philosophy, on the contrary, is to include in itself all particular principles. Philosophy exhibits this in its own self^ while its history also manifests partly that the various philosophies but constituted a single Philosophy in various stages of development, and partly that the special principles of these — one underlying one system, another another — were but branches of one and the same whole. ' The Universal and the Particular [the Common and the Various] must be accurately distinguished, each in its special constitution. The Universal, formally taken, and placed heside the Particular, becomes itself particu- lar. Were such position imposed on objects of ordinary life, the impropriety and ineptitude would strike at once. Suppose, for example, that a person in want of fruit should decline cherries, pears, grapes, &c., on the plea that they were cherries, pears, grapes, &c., and not fruit! — In the case of philosophy, nevertheless, people think themselves free as well to justify their contempt of it by the objection that there are so many philosophies, and each is only a, not the philosophy, — as if the cherries were not also fruit, — as to set a philo- sophy whose principle is the universal side by side with those whose principle is a particular — nay, side by side with doctrines asserting that there is no philosophy or bestowing this name on a mere To and Pro of thoughts, which assumes the True as something given and directly there, and only apphes reflexions to the same. < As Encyclopaedia, nevertheless, the science will not be exhibited in the complete evolution of its particular details, but only as limited to the beginnings (principia) and rudimentary notions of the individual sciences. TEAKSITION. 243 The whole of philosophy, though capable of bemg re- garded as a whole of many particular sciences, consti- tutes truly but one science ; while each particular science is at once a moment of the whole and a whole in itself. ' Whatever is true in any science, is so through and by virtue of Philosophy, whose Encyclopaedia therefore comprehends within it every veritable science. ' Ordinary Encyclopaedias, unlike the Philosophical, are only aggregates of sciences empirically and contin- gently fallen on ; many of which, too, as mere bundles of facts, are but sciences in name. The unity to which, in any such aggregate, the sciences are reduced, is, as it was but externally that they themselves were fallen on or taken up, equally an external one, — an Order, an arrangement (a ranking). This order must always, for the same reason and because the materials are of contuigent nature, remain an Attempt, and exhibit in- congruent edges. Besides, then, that the philosophical Encyclopaedia excludes (1) such mere aggregates of facts as, for example, PhUology is, it excludes also (2) such sciences as are founded in mere arbitrariness, Hke Heraldry : sciences of this nature are out-and-out Posi- tive. (3) Other sciences are also caRedL positive, which possess, however, a rational foundation and principle : this latter element in them belongs to Philosophy ; the Positive side, again, remains special to them. This Positive element, too, is of various kinds. (1) In the ordinary non-philosophical sciences, their principle {he^ ginning), that which is the veritably True in them, has the contingent as its end, because they have to intro- duce and reduce the universal into the empirical unit and actual. In this field of mutability and contingency, not the Notion, but only Grounds or Eeasons can be E 2 244 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. made available. For example, Jurisprudence, the System of direct and indirect Taxation, &c., require final exact determinations which he without and apart from the determination proper of the Notion, and leave for decision, therefore, a certain latitude or margin which may be disposed in one manner on one reason and in another on another, and is insusceptible of any certain and definitive last. In the same manner, the Idea of Nature in its singularisation (or endless separa- tion iuto units) runs out into contingencies, and Natural History, Geography, and Medicine fall into distinctions of fact, into species and differences which are deter- mined by external accident or the sport of caprice, and not by Eeason. History, too, faUs to be included here, inasmuch as, though the Idea be its true nature and substance, its manifestation or appearancy is in con- tingency and the field of self-will. (2) Such sciences are also in so far positive, as they do not recognise their determinations as finite, nor demonstrate the transition of these and of their whole sphere iato a higher one, but assume them as valid simpliciter. With this finite- ness of the Form, as the first was the finiteness of the Matter, there connects itself (3) the finiteness of the cognitive ground, which is sometimes raisonnement, sometimes feeling, belief, the authority of others, in general the authority of inner or outer perception. That Philosophy also which seeks to found itself on Anthropology — ^facts of consciousness, inner perception, or outer experience — belongs to the same class. (4) It is stOl possible that it is merely the form of the scientific statement that is empirical and notion-less, while in other respects thoughtful observation arranges what are only outer appearances in a hke manner to the inner sequence of the Notion. There is added, perhaps, TBANSITION. 245 that through the antagonism and multiplicity of the appearances (phenomena) which are brought together, the external, contingent circumstances of the conditions are removed, and the Universal steps before us. A thoughtful Experimental Physic, History, &c., would in this manner present the rational science of nature and of human eventuahties and deeds in an external image which should mirror the Notion. ' The whole of science (scientia) is the exposition of the Idea ; the division (distribution) of the former, therefore, can be understood only by reference to the latter, and, like this preliminary conception of Philo- sophy itself, can be something only anticipated. The Idea, however, demonstrates itself 'as Eeason directly identical with its own self, and this at the same time as the capability to set itself — in order to be for itself — over-against itself, and in this other to be only by itself. Thus science falls divisively into three parts : — I. Logic, the Science of the Idea in and for itself. II. Philosophy of Nature, or the Science of the Idea in its Otherness. III. Philosophy of Spirit, as of the Idea which from its Otherness returns into itself. ' It has been already remarked, that the Differences of the various philosophical sciences are only charac- teristics of the Idea itself, which latter alone is what exhibits itself in these various elements. In Nature it is not an other than the Idea which is to be recog- nised, but it is in the form of externahsation, just as in Spirit it is the same Idea as beent for itself and in-and-for-itself becoment. Such a form in which the Idea appears is at the same time a fluent moment; therefore, any particular science is just as much this — to recognise its matter (object) as beent object, as also 246 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. this — to recognise immediately in the same its trans- ition into a higher sphere. The conception of the Division, therefore, is an external reflexion, an anti- cipation of what the Idea's own necessity produces, and shows this inaccuracy — that it sets up the various parts or sciences beside each other as if they were stable and substantial in their mutual contradistinction, hke species or sorts.' To a reader who has advanced this length, the above passages will be readily intelligible without comment ; and they will serve to strengthen any con- ception already formed of Hegehan penetrativeness, comprehensiveness, and systematic wholeness. We proceed now to make a few extracts from THE PEE-NOTION which precedes the Logic ; using specially for this pur- pose, §§ 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 35, 36, and 37 (First Edition). ' Logic is the science of the pure Idea, — that is, of the Idea in the abstract element of Thought. ' It may, without doubt, be said that Logic is the science of Thought, its forms and its laws; but Thought is at strictest the pure identity of cognition with itself, and constitutes, therefore, only the universal determi- natum, determinateness, or the element in which the Idea is as logical. Thought is truly the Idea, but not as thought formal ; on the contrary, as the Totality of its own forms which it itself gives to itself Looic is the hardest science, in so far as it has to do, not with perceptions — not even with abstract ones, as in Geo- metry — or other sensuous forms, but with pure abstrac- tions, and demands, on the part of its student, a power of retiring into pure thoughts, of holding such fast. TRANSITION. 247 and of moving in them. On the other side, again, it may be regarded as the easiest science, inasmuch as its import is nothing but one's proper thought and its current notions, and these are, at the same time, the simplest. The utihty of Logic concerns its relation to the particular subject or individual so far as he would give himself a certain training and formation for other ; objects. The training of Logic consists in this — ^that in it we are exercised in thinking, for this science is the thinking of thinking. So far, however, as the element of Logic is the absolute form of the True, and even more than this — the pure True itself, — it is something quite other than what is merely useful. ' In form. Logic has three sides : (a) that of under- standing, or the abstract side [the dianoetic] ; (/3) the negative-rational or the dialectic side ; and (7) the positive - rational or the speculative side [say the noetic]. 'These three sides do not make three parts of Logic, but are moments of every logical Eeal, — that is, of every Notion, or of every True in general. They may be set under the first or dianoetic moment, and thereby held asunder from each other ; but, so held, they are not considered in their truth. ' (a) Thought as Understanding holds fast the fixed individual and its difference from others ; and such limitated abstract has the value to it of what is mde- pendent and self-subsistent. ' (j3) The dialectic moment is the self-sublation of such individuals, and their transition into their oppo- sites. ' (1) Dialectic, isolated by understanding and taken by itself, constitutes, especially when manifesting itself in scientific notions, Scepticism, which views mere 248 THE SECRET OF HEG'EL. negation as the dialectic result. (2) Dialectic is usually regarded as an external art which arbitrarily produces confusion in accepted notions and a mere show of contradiction, the decisions of the understand- ing and the accepted notions being stiU supposed the True, while the show itself is to be considered but a nullity. Dialectic, however, is rather -to be regarded as the true and proper nature of the decernments of the understanding, of things, and of the Finite in general. Eeflexion is properly a going out over and beyond the isolated individual, and a referring, whereby the individual is placed in relation, but for the rest remains still in its isolated validity. Dialectic, on the contrary, is that immanent going-out which exhibits the onesidedness and Hmitation of the decernments of the understanding as that which it is, — the negation, namely, of this and these. Dialectic constitutes, there- fore, the motive soul of progress, and is the principle by which alone there comes immanent connexion and necessity into the matter of science, just as it is in it that the true, and not the external, elevation over the Fiaite lies. ' (7) The positive-rational or speculative side recog- nises the unity of the distinctions even in their anti- thesis, the positive element which is retained and preserved in their resolution and transition. (1) 'Dialectic has a positive result, because it has a determinate import or matter ; or because its result is really not the empty, abstract nothing, but the negation of certain distinctions which are retained and preserved in the result — because it is a result, and not a simple nothing. (2) This rational act is, therefore, though abstract and of thought, still at the same time a con- crete, because it is not simple formal unity, but unity TEANSITION. 249 of distinguished distinctions. Philosophy, therefore, has nothing whatever to do with mere abstractions and formal thoughts, but only with concrete notions. ' As regards matter, the Determinations of Thought are considered in Logic in and for themselves. In this way they pi'esent themselves as the concrete pure thoughts, that is, as the Notions, with the force and import of that which constitutes the absolute ground and foundation of all that is. Logic, therefore, is essentially Speculative Philosophy. ' Under the speculative moment, Form and Matter are not sundered and severed, and held apart, as under the two preceding. The forms of the Idea are its dis- tinctions [say its native inflexions or intonations], and it were impossible to say where it should get any other or truer Matter than these its own forms them- selves. The forms of the mere Logic of Understanding are, on the contrary, not only not something true per se, but they cannot be even only Forms of the True. Kather, since, as merely formal or formell, they are affected with the essential antithesis to the Matter, they are nothing more than Forms of the Finite, of the Untrue. — Because, however. Logic, as pure speculative Philosophy, is the Idea in the element or form of Thought, or the absolute still shut in to its eternity, it is the subjective or Jirst science, and there fails it still the side of the completed objectivity of the Idea. It not only remains, however, as the absolute ground of the Eeal, but, in manifesting itself this, it demonstrates itself as the real, universal, and objective science. In the first universahty of its notions, it appears per se, and as a subjective special activity, without and apart from which the entire wealth of the sensuous, as of the more concrete intellectual, world is still supposed to 1 250 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. live its own life. But when this wealth is taken up in the Philosophy of the real part of the science, and has there manifested itself as returning into the pure Idea, and possessing in it its ultimate ground and truth, — then the logical universahty takes stand no longer as a sepa- rate entity counter said wealth of the Eeal, but rather as comprehending this wealth, and as veritable universality. It acquires thus the force of speculative Theology. 'Logic, with the value of speculative philosophy, takes up the place of what was called Metaphysic, and treated separately. The nature of Logic and the stand-point of scientific cognition now receive their more particular prehminary elucidation in the nature of this Metaphysic, and of the Critical Philosophy which ended it. — Metaphysic, besides, is a thing of the past only in reference to the history of Philosophy ; in itself, as lately manifested especially, it is the mere Understanding's view of the objects of Eeason. ' In order to place oneself on the stand-point of science, it is requisite to renounce the presuppositions which are involved in the subjective and finite modes of philosophical cognition, viz. : (1) that of the fixed vahdity of limited and opposed distinctions of under- standing generally ; (2) that of a given substrate, con- ceived as already finished and ready there before us, which is to be taken as standard decisive of whether any of those distinctions are commensurate with it or not ; (3) that of cognition as a mere referring of such ready-formed and fixed predicates to some given sub- strate ; (4) that of the antithesis of a cognising subject and a cognised object, which latter is not to be iden- tified with the former ; and of this antithesis each side, as in the preceding, is to be equally taken per se as a something fixed and true. TEANSITIOK. 251 'To abandon these presuppositions cannot be de- manded so much for the reason that they are false — for science, in which these forms present themselves, has to show this in their own case — as for the reason that they are figurate conceptions and belong to immediate thought — thought imprisoned in the given, opinion (Meynung), — ^for this reason in general, indeed, that they are given and presuppositions, whereas science presupposes nothing, but that it would be pure thought. In effect, we have to begin in complete emancipation from every presupposition; and, in the resolution to will to think purely, that is accomphshed by the freedom which abstracts from everything, and holds steadily its pure abstraction, the simplicity (uni- phcity) of Thought. ' Pure science (scientia), or Logic, falls divisively into three parts : — I. The doctrine of Being. II. The doctrine of Essence (inner nature). m. The doctrine of the Notion and the Idea. Or into the doctrine of Thought, or the Thought : I. In its immediacy — the Notion m itself. n. In its Eeflexion and Be-mediation — the Being- for-self and the Shine of the Notion. III. In its return into itself, and in its developed Being-by-self — the Notion in and for itself.' All the above terms have been already commented on, with the exception of Shine (Schein) and Being- by-self (Bey-sich-seyn). Schein is just the Shine or show of a thing — not the thing 'in itself, but just its shining, showing, or seeming : it may thus be mere seeming, or it may be true seeming which amounts to manifestation. Could we give the Enghsh word seem the sense of shine, or shine the sense of seein, a trans- 252 THE SECKET OF HEGEL. lation would have no difficulty. To be by self is to be chez soi, at home, or contented in seclusion to, and identification with, oneself. We come now to ' The First Part of Logic, or The Doctrine of Being, and there to A. QUALITY, and a. Beinj. — b. There-being. — c. Being-for self. ' Under Quahty, then, we have a. Being. ' Pure Being constitutes the Beginning, because it is as well pure Thought as the indefinite simple Imme- diate, and the first beginning cannot be anything me- diated (a product of means) or further determined. ' But this pure Being is the pure Abstraction, conse- quently absolutely negative, and, taken also immediately, just Nothing. ' Nothing, as this self-equal Immediate, is conversely the same thing that Being is. The truth of Being as of Nothing is, therefore, the unity of both : this unity is Becoming. b. There-being. ' Being in Becoming as one with Nothing, and so Nothing as one Avith Being, are only disappearant ; Be- coming, through its contradiction in itself, falls together into the unity in which both are sublated : its result is, consequently, There-being. TRANSITION. 253 ' (a) There-being is Being with a Determinateness, ■which is, as immediate or beent determinateness — Quahty. There-being as in this its determinateness reflected into itself, is There-bemt-ity , Something. The categories that yield themselves iu There-being are now to be summarily stated. ' Quality, as heent determinateness counter the Nega- tion that is contained in it but distinguished from it, is Reality. The negation no longer the abstract Nothing, but as a There-being and Something, is only form in this latter — ^it is as Otherwise-being. Quahty, in that this Otherwise-being is its own determination, but firstly distinguished from it, is Being-for-Other, — a Breadth (Latitude) of the There-being, of the Something. The Being of Quality as Being, counter this reference to other, is the Being-in-itself (or just the In-itself).' (The distinguishableness of anything is evidently an otherwise-being, an otherwise-ness, in it, while as evidently its distinguishablenesses constitute a breadth.) ' [&) The Being, held fast as distinct from the Deter- minateness, or the Being-in-itself, were only the empty abstraction of Being. In There-being, the determinate- ness is one with the Being ; which determinateness, set as Negation, is at the same time Limit, Limitation (Bound). The otherwise-ness is, therefore, a moment, not indifferent out of There-being, but its own. Some- thing is through its Quality, firstly, finite (endlich), and secondly, alterable (veraniierlich) ; so that Einitude and Otherableness belong to its being (it is at once end-ed and end-able). 'Something becomes another; but the other is itself a something : it becomes, therefore, equally another, and so on .ad infinitum. ' This Infinite is the spurious, bastard, negative, false, 2a4 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. or Pseudo-Infinite, inasmuch as it is nothing but the negation of the finite, which, however, just so arises again, and consequently is just as much not sublated — or this Infinite expresses only the To-be-to (SoUen) of the sublation of the finite. The Progress into the In- finite keeps standing by the enunciation of the contra- diction which the finite involves ; namely, that it is as well something as its other, and is the perpetual continuation of the alternation of these mutually intro- ductive determinations. ' (7) What is here in fact is, that Something becomes another, and the Other another, just generally. Some- thing in relation to another is already another in its regard ; consequently, as that into which it passes is quite the same thing as that which passes — both have one and the same and no further determination than that each is another, — Something thus in its passing into Other goes together only with its own self; and this reference, in the passing and in the other to its own self, is the True Infinite. Or, looked at negatively : what is othered is the Other — it becomes the Other of the Other. Thus Being, but as negation of the nega- tion, is again restored, and is the Being-for-self." In translating the above paragraphs, certain supple- mentary passages have been omitted. Before proceed- ing to Being-for-self, however, it may be well to spend a word on any points in these omitted passages which may seem calculated to embarrass the student. With reference to § 84 (Encyclopaedia, Eosenkranz', or Hegel's 3rd, Edition), that ' Being is the Notion in itself is not difiicult ; for Being (Seyn) applies to everything of which we say is, or it is ; and everything of which we say is, is just the Logical Notion in itself, that is, materialiter, not formaliter. The Bestiminungen, the determinations TRANSITIOK. 255 (and the reference in this word is always to the logical moments of the logical notion, which, of course, vary with the sphere), the distinguishable forms in the sphere of Seyn (Being), are evidently hemt^ other to other, while their progressive determination (the dialectic movement in that field) is plainly a parsing into other. This, of course, is an attempt to express Being and its pecu- liarities in terms of the Notion ; and certainly Hegel win be at least allowed to have brought before us an ingenious analogy. That this progress is ' a setting out of the Notion as it is in itself,' is also plain : anything running through the circle of its quahties or powers sets out the Notion that ■ in itself it is, aiid this at the same time can be seen to be ' a going into its own self,' ' a deepening of Being into itself.' Hegel then asserts that his doctrine of Being is at once representa- tive and resolvative of the whole of the Seyn or Being ; and thus we are led to understand what his object is in this doctrine. The next paragraph declares the deterniinations of Logic to constitute the definitions of the Absolute, the metaphysical definitions of God ; but that this is more especially the case with spheres that are First and Third, while those that are Second refer to the Finite. To define God is to think God, or to express God in thoughts ; and Logic ought to comprehend all thoughts as such. It is a defect in the form of Definition in general, however, that in such operation there floats ever before the conception of the Definer a Substrate which is to be the receptacle of the defining predicates. For example, the Absolute, which we may suppose to stand for God as thought, is, in reference to its pre- dicates, quite void, and only supposititious — a substrate ; but the thought of the substrate — and that is the whole 256 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. thing — ^is in the predicate. The predicate, then, is alone substantial, and the substrate, or even the form of a proposition, appears superfluous. From § 86, we learn that all difficulties in regard to the commencement with pure Being may be removed by simply discerning what a beginning in general im- phes. We are told, too, that the Mchtian Ego-Ego and the Schellingian absolute Indifference or Identity are not so very discrepant from the Hegelian Seyn or pure Being. The former, however, are objectionable as involving process, that is, as being products of means : in fact, properly put as a beginning requires, both of them just become Seyn or Being, while Being again just implies them. Being is the first predicate, then ; and so the first definition is, the Absolute is Being. This is the Eleatic definition, and also the common one, that God is the sum of aU Eealities ; the Umitation that is in everything being abstracted from, there remains for God only the reality that is in aU reality. In § 88, there are several points of considerable interest. In the first place, we see that the whole Hegelian business is the Setzen of the An sich — the exposition, or simply the position, of the In-itself, the exphcation of the implication, that formaliter expressed which materialiter is (and that just amounts to the Aristotelian moments which we have already so often seen). We see also that the manner of philosophical cognition is different from that that is usually employed, that of common sense, or of figurate conception ; for, as Kant has already told us, the former is a knowing in abstracto, whUe the latter is a knovdng in concrete. Erom this we see how much Hegel has simply been in earnest with the relative teaching of Kant. We have TRANSITION. 257 also the Metaphysic of a Beginning alluded to : the thing (whatever may be put in question) is not yet in its beginning, but still its beginning is not just the nothing of the thing, but the being of this latter is certainly also in its beginning. This must be referred to, and collated with, what has been already said in regard to a Beginning, Being, Becoming, &c. Lastly, we are made to see very clearly how the proposition Ex nihilo nihil Jit is tantamount to a proposition of the eternity of matter, of Pantheism. ' The ancients have made the simple reflexion that the proposition. From something comes something, or From nothing comes nothing, just in effect annihilates a Becoming ; for that from which there comes, and that which comes, are one and the same thing; what we have before us is only the proposition of the abstract identity of the Under- standing. It must, however, strike us as surprising to see the propositions. From nothing comes nothing, or From something comes something, even in our days quite unsuspectingly maintained, without consciousness that they are the ground-principle of Pantheism, as with- out any knowledge of the fact that the ancients have exhausted the consideration of these propositions.' From § 89, we learn — and with conviction — that every one concrete consists of opposing not^ or signi- ficates ; that it is the province of the abstraction of Understanding, as Understanding, to see only one of these, to lighten this one up to the darkening out of the other, and the fallacious appearance of a part as a fixed, isolated, individual whole. Hence also it is manifest that the demonstration of antithesis is not necessarily productive of a simple negation, is not necessarily reductive of the subject of antithesis to a simple nothing. VOL. II. s 258 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. In § 95, the terminal remark in reference to the true relation of Finite and Infinite is a perfectly successful Hegelian statement, and a fuU compensation for the con- fusing tediousness and length which we have already animadverted on as the fault of the similar discussion in the detailed Logic. Our explanations in that refer- ence, however, shall be allowed to dispense us from translating this remark, however admirable, here. If in § 86 we found that the Absolute is Being, we see from § 87 that it is equally true that the Absolute is the Nothing. This not only because the Absolute is Difference as weU as Identity, but because, aU Difference being reflected into the one of this Identity, that one is as good as Nothing. This is illustrated by the nature of the Thing -in-itself, which is to be aU substance, all being, but just emerges as an absolute void — Nothing. Both considerations, in fact, are the same. It is curious, I may remark by way of conclusion here, that the ultimate generalisation of aU generali- sation should be Being, and quite as much Nothing. Of that there can be no doubt. This Nothmg, too, is the only Nothing possible — in effect it is the Nothing, just what we mean by Nothing. Thrown back from these generahsations as quite abstract, as quite untrue, as nothing, one looks once more at the concrete ; but what is it, again, in ultimate abstraction but a Becom- ing ? — it never is. These are reaUy the initial gene- rahsed abstractions : if we want to think purely of what is — of the laws, forms, or principles of all things in general, apart from each thing in particular— it is so we must begin. But, in spite of the Becoming, there is a Become, a Distinguishable, a Here-being, a There-being, — what we call mortal state. This has TEANSITION. 259 Reality ; this has also Negation ; it is so Something. As its Eeality against its Negation, it is Something in itself ; and, vice versd, it is Something for other. Its 8oxaeth.ing-for-other identified with what it is in itself, is its Qualijication. But its Qualification is its Talifi- cation, and both coalesce in Limit. In its Limit, Something is not only ended, but endable ; that is, it is Finite. But its end, the finis of the Finite, is the Infinite ; and that is the One into which all variety is reflected. But this reflexion of variety into the One is the negative reflexion of this one into its own self; and, again, this negativeness of the Reflexion implies other than the One — more ones — (or, it is allowable by anticipation to say more /' s, more Egos). — But thus we are fully in the field of Fiirsichseyn, or of C. BEING-FOR-SELP. ' (a) Being-for-Self, as Reference to itself, is Imme- diacy; and, as Reference of the Negative to itself, it is Being-for-self-ity, One, the One, — what is within itself distinction-less, and so excludent of the Other out of itself. ' (3) The Reference of the Negative to itself is negative reference, so distinguish-ment of the One from itself, the Repulsion of the One, — i.e., the setting of many or simply more Ones. By reason of the Immediacy of the Being-for-self-ity, these Many or More are Beent, and the Repulsion of the Beent Ones becomes so far their Repulsion the one of the other as of entities already to the fore, or Mutual Exclusion. ' (7) The Many, however, are, the one what the other is ; each is one, or one of the Many ; they are, there- fore, one and the same. Or the Repulsion regarded in it itself is, even as negative comportment of the Many s 2 260 THE SECBET OF HEGEL. Ones mutually, equally essentially their Reference mu- tually; and as those to which in its repulsion the One refers itself are One, it refers itself in them to itself. The Eepulsion is thus quite as essentially Attraction ; and the excludent One or the Being-for-Self sublates itseE QuaHtative Determinateness, which in the One has reached its absolute determinedness (ihr An-und- fiirsich-Bestimmtseyn), is with this gone over into De- terminateness that is as suhlated Determinateness, — i.e., into Being as Quantity.' These are translations of §§ 96, 97, 98 in the third edition of the Encyclopaedia, (for the future we shall chiejly foUow this edition,) and they constitute the entire Encyclopaedic summary of the whole subject of Being-for-Self. This alone, even independently of the similar summaries of Being and There-being, would suffice to demonstrate as well the inadequacy of the En- cyclopaedia to convey the System, as the fact that it is nothing but a handy leading-string, or useful synopsis to the student who has already penetrated, or is en- gaged penetrating, into the business itself — the complete Logic. — ^Further comment, after what has been so fully extended already, will be here unnecessary: 'the Eefer- ence of the Negative to itself,' the ' Excludent of the Other out of itself,' ' already to the fore,' ' in it itself,' ' comportment ' italicised for the equally-italicised Ver- halten,' &c., may now be trusted to the intelhgence of the reader. Perhaps it may be worth remarking that Hegel displays in what we have just read certain Gnostic analogies. Of the systems so named, we learn that it was a leading idea that ' God, the sum of all verit- able Being, reveals himself in this way, that he hypo- stasises his Quahties, or allows them to pass out of TRANSITIOK. 261 himself into existence as Substances ; but still directly from God there issues only one substance, the voOg, Eeason ; and it is from this latter that the rest follow, but always so that the one is successively out of the other, the divine substance being extenuated in pro- portion to the remotion from the centre.' Speculative Philosophy is not unrepresented in the definition of Gnosis as ' Higher Wisdom, a Eeligious Wisdom, that by aid of foreign Philosophemes would lay deeper the foundations of the Positive and Traditional.' We know, too, that in Alexandria, the seat of Gnosticism, there was a desire and an efibrt to reconcile and unite ' op- posing Philosophemes;' there, 'when the fair blossom of Greece, which the bland heaven had evoked, was faded and withered up. Art sought to replace what Nature no longer spontaneously offered.' These are certainly Anklange, assonances ; but it is not to be supposed that they were suggestive to Hegel ; rather they ought to be suggestive to us only — suggestive of the analogy of the Historical Occasions : and, for the rest, we have to be thankful that Hegel has probably effected, by tenacious dogging of the pure Notion, what the Gnostics, soaring into the figurate Conception, were only able to convert into the monstrosities of dream. We pass now from What sort to How much ; nor is it difficult to see that How much is indifferent to What sort, or that it is just the indifferent limit. 262 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. V. A SUMHIARY OR TRANSLATION, COMMENTED AND IN- TERPRETED, OF THE SECOND SECTION OF THE COMPLETE LOGIC, QUANTITY. We have seen the collapse of the entire round of the constituents of Quahty into a simple identity from the quaUtative indifference of which, its own opposite, a wholly new sphere, Quantity, emerges. This emer- gence, what Hegel names the C/hferschied, the se-cern- ment, the se-cession, the dif-ference, we have now more closely to consider. This section opens in a strain of singularly rich and beautiful reflexion, which is also always somehow of a double aspect. On one aspect, it is still Quahtative Being-for-Self which we have before us — the Voice, — thoroughly identified with, and indifferent to, its own Determinateness — the Notes ; and on the other aspect we suddenly find that this is Quantity. The Hfe of the Voice is now just indifierent continuity of one or ones; and what is that but Quantity ? This reference being kept steady, the expressions of Hegel, however coy and elusive, will become intelligible. Quality — a Note — will be readily granted to be '■the first, the immediate, or the direct Determinateness ; ' whereas Quantity is a Determinateness which is indifferent, so to speak, to what it is — indifferent to the Being it conveys : ' it is a Limit which is none ; it is Being-for-Self directly QUANTITY INTEKPKETED, ETC. 263 identical with the Being-for-Other ; — the Eepulsion of the many ones (the Notes), which is immediately their non-repulsion, their continuity ' — or the Voice which is in the Notes and through the Notes, at once Being- for-Self and Being-for-Other. The duplicity of this description is very evident : inwardly it applies to our latest quahtative values, but outwardly it just names Quantity, which is now then explicit. Again, the Notes appear no longer to have their affair in themselves, but in another, the Voice, while at the same time both they and it are reflected into themselves as indifferent limits : that is, ' the Deter- minateness in general is out of itself, a something directly external to itself and to the Something ; such a Limit, its indifference in its own self, and the indif- ference of the Something to it, constitutes the quan- titative Determinateness of a Something.' It must be regarded as a great triumph of the method of Hegel, that a mere dogging of the pure Notion as it trends away off in its own self before us, should lead to such an exhaustive statement of the idea of Quantity — a statement, too, as will be found in the end, no less exhaustive of the complete theory than of the mere initiatory idea. The general divisioji which follows now will be more intelligible after the Discussion ; and as for the Eemark, it contains some slight illustrative matter. A corn-field, for example, is still a corn-field, though its quantitative hmit be altered ; but by alteration of its qualitative hmit, it becomes meadow, wood, &c. A red, whether more or less intense, is still red ; but its quality being changed, it ceases to be red, and becomes blue, &c. Thus, from every example, we may see that Quantity always concerns a Beingness, which is 264 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. indifferent to the very determinateness which it now, or at any time, has. Quantity is usually defined ' any- thing that will admit of increase or decrease.' To increase is to make more — to decrease, less — in quantity. The definition is thus tautological and faulty. StiU, the true notion is implied : we see the distinction of Quan- tity to be its own indifference to becoming other ; which othering or alteration, too, is always external. QUANTITY INTEEPRETED, ETC. 265 CHAPTEE I. QUANTITY. A. PUKE QUANTITT. ' Quantity is sublated Being-for-Self ;' the Voice is identified away out into the Notes and on with them ; ' or, the repelling One has become the referring One, relates itself to its Other as in identity, and has gone over into Attraction. The absolute denyingness of the repelling One is melted out into this Unity ; but still this Unity as containing the One is influenced by the immanent repulsion — it is unity with itself as unity of the Being~out-of itself. Attraction is in this way the moment of Continuity in Quantity.' But this Unity is, so to speak, no dry unity ; it is the Unity of Somewhat, of the Many, of the Units. Continuity, then, implies Discretion. The one unit is what the other is ; and it is this sameness which the Eepulsion extends into the Continuity. Discretion for its part is confluent ; the discretes are the same thing, one then, — and so continuous. Quantity is the Unity of Continuity and Discretion, but firstly in the form of Continuity, inasmuch as it has just issued from the self-identically determinate Being-for-Self. Quantity is now the truth, the Wahr- heit, the wareness, the perceived factuality of the Ab- solute, which in the last value of the Being-for-Self was left as the self-sublating self-reference, the self-perpetu- 266 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. ating Coming-out- of-itself. ' But what is repelled is its own self ; the Eepulsion, therefore, is the genetic pro- fluence of its own self. Because of the self-sameness of what is repelled and driven off, this very dis-cerning is uninterrupted continuity ; and because of the Coming- out-of-itself, this Continuity, without being interrupted, is at the same time plurality, which just as much abides in its equality with itself.' These last sentences very tolerably convey Hegel's central conception of the Divine Life, which is always a perpetual One in a perpetual Many — a perpetual Self in a perpetual Other. What is, is the One flicker of a Two ; what is, is nictitation. — Again, one sees very clearly into the moments here : they are Con- tinuity and Discretion, Quantity, the same but dif- ferent. That Continuity will become extension. Dis- cretion intension, one can readily anticipate : one can see, indeed, that Continuity will become by-and-by the outer, and Discretion the inner. Nor is it to be for- gotten that Continuity and Discretion, Eepulsion and Attraction, One and Many, Being-for-Self and Being- for-One, Finite and Infinite, Something and Other, &c., were originally Being and Nothing — the first abstract truths, as Becoming was the first concrete one, though but in naked abstraction aU the same. Two very important Eemarks are here now inter- calated. In the first, the first point noticed is, that Quantity is everywhere the real Possibility of the One, the Unit ; but that, vice versd,- the One, the Unit, is no less directly continuous. The tendency of Conception to confound continuity with composition is then re- marked on — composition as a mere external putting together of the Units ; each of these — as we saw in atomism — being all the while self-identically inde- QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 267 pendent. This idea-less externality of view is to be exchanged for the living internality of the concrete notion. Even Mathematic rejects such composition of indifferent discretes — what at any time it regards as Sum is but for the occasion so, and even in its discre- tion is an infinite Many. — A quotation from Spinoza next occurs, which maintains two modes of conceiving Quantity, — one through imagination, and one through intellect; the former finite, divisible, composite, — the latter infinite, indivisible, single. It is interesting to see in Spinoza the Hegehan distinction between imagin- ation (Vorstellung) and intellect (Begriff), at the same time that it is not for a moment to be supposed that it was derived from him : as weU might we assert — inasmuch as it is quite capable of being regarded as potential germ in that direction — that to this passage in Spinoza Kant owes — what mainly constitutes him — his manifold of Sense and his unity of the Notion. There is here a further paraUehsm, indeed : Spinoza characterises the view of Imagination as abstract or superficial, and that of Intellect as substantial ; now this, again, concerns the Many of Sense and the One of Intellect ; — Imagination (Sense) sees abstract super- ficiahty. Intellect concrete substance. We may un- derstand from this how it is that Hegel regards the operation of the first moment. Simple Apprehension (identified with Verstand), as of an abstract nature. The object of this faculty, indeed, is always abstract identity, surface-sameness, Seyn ; it is another faculty that seeks substance, the "Wesen, the Notion.* It is * The Remark to the ' Relation development, this oifers itself, and of Outer and Inner ' (Log. ii. 180) this essentially is to be recognised — ■ explicitly states this. ' In every that the Firstj in that Something is natural, scientific, and spiritual only first of all inwardly or in its 2G8 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. not only interesting, but corroborative, to come thus on thoughts hi different great writers, which thoughts, though with very different lookings in each, involve at bottom the same truths : at the same time, it is not the competent student, but only the feverishly am- bitious and feverishly imbecile (and so exasperated) dipper, who wiU talk in such cases of plagiarism. — Time, Space, Matter, Light, the Ego, are then charac- terised as examples of pure Quantity, and in those penetrating terms pecuHar to Hegel : Space, an ab- solutely continuous Out-of-itself-ness, a self-identical Otherwise-ness and again Otherwiseness ; Time, an absolute Out-of-itself-coming-ness, a production of the One, the Instant, the Now, which is the immediate disappearance of the same, and always, again, the dis- appearance of this disappearance ; so that this self- production of Non-being is no less simple self-equaUty and self-identity. As for Matter, Leibnitz remarks, ' It is not at all improbable that Matter and Quantity are really the same thing ; ' and Hegel adds, ' in effect these notions differ only in this — that Quantity is the pure Notion, while Matter is the same thing in out- ward existence.' Lastly, the Ego is, as pure Quantity, an absolute Becoming-otherwise, an infinite removal or omni-lateral repulsion into the negative freedom of the Being-for-Self, which remains stiU, however, directly simple continuity — the continuity of Universality, or of Being-by-Self — which is uninterrupted by the in- finitely varied hmits, the matter of sensations, percep- tions, &c. The second Eemark is a Critique on Kant in regard to his Antinomies, and its consideration will have fitter Notion, is just on that account only particular identity as there-been t.' its immediate, passive, external, But see the whole Remark. QUANTITY INTBRPEETED, ETC. "269 place elsewhere. We cannot pass it, however, without observing that it is an analysis of such annihilative- penetration and resistless force as is without even the approach of a rival, whether before or since. It will assist the reader here to know that the difficulty con- cerning the infinite divisibility of matter rests simply on the opposing of Continuity to Discretion, at the same time that both are one and the same thing ; and that the solution, consequently, is effected by pointing out the onesidedness of the opposition, and the necessity of both moments coalescing in the identity of Quantity. The remark ends with some exceedingly interesting references to the Eleatics and to Heraclitus — to Dio- genes, who, by walking, supposed himself to refute the sophism (falsely so named) of Zeno in regard to motion — to Aristotle, to Bayle, &c. Hegel bestows great commendation on the Aristotelian solution of the contradictions of Zeno in regard to the Infinite Divi- sibihty, and is evidently convinced of its satisfactori- ness. This solution would seem, indeed, — though, of course, far from being accompanied by the ultimate definiteness of the Hegelian vision, — to have been at bottom the same as Hegel's, and to have consisted in the opposing of the concrete whole and real to the opposition of the abstract moments — in the opposing, that is, of the concrete real quantities Time, Space, Matter, Motion, &c., to the abstractions Continuity and Discretion. Hegel observes here — ' Bayle, who, in his Dictionary, art. Zenon, finds Aristotle's solution of Zeno's dialectic "pitoyable," understands not the meaning of, Matter is only in possibility infinitely divi- sible : he rephes. If matter is infinitely divisible, then it actually contains an infinite number of parts ; and so what we have is not an infinite en puissance, but an 270 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. infinite that really and actually exists. Bather, the Divisibility is itself only a possibihty, not an existing so of the parts, and multiplicity in general is set in the continuity only as moment, as what is sublated. — Sharp-sighted Understanding, — in which, too, Aristotle is very certainly unsurpassed, — is not adequate to com- prehend and decide on the speculative notions of this latter, just as httle so as the coarseness of sensuous conception already mentioned (Diogenes) is adequate to refute the argumentations of Zeno : said Under- standing errs in this, that it takes for something — for something true and actual — such mere thought-things, such mere abstractions as an infinite number of parts ; while said sensuous Conception, on its side, wiU not let itself be brought beyond what is empirical and up to thoughts.' — The conclusion here in reference to Diogenes is very clever, for it is made in perception of the possible objection that, after all, the reply of Diogenes to Zeno's argument against the possibility of motion was the same as that of Aristotle, — the opj^o- sition, that is, of the concrete fact to the abstract thought ; and that, if there were any difierence between the two, it was but one of expression, Aristotle's reply being couched in terms of the tongue (writing), and that of Diogenes in terms of the legs (walking). Hegel has certainly correctly enough prevented this objection. There is a light in the above passage from Hegel of a very trying quahty to the pretensions of such men as Coleridge, De Quincey, and Sir William Hamilton. At page 102 of his own edition of Eeid's Works, the last-named very distinguished writer will be found averring, in a note, that ' the fallacy of Zeno's expo- sition of the contradictions involved in our notion of ■ QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 271 motion has not yet been detected ' ! I suppose the ordinary reader will admit that he has been taught to believe, both by the voice of universal rumour and Hamilton's own, that Greek and German were the famihars of this latter, and that, accordingly, he had refuted Hegel and thoroughly mastered Aristotle — or even, perhaps, superseded him ! — Coleridge will be found saying somewhere that Zeno, in the matter of his contradiction in regard to Infinite Divisibility, had forgot to bring Time into account ; and De Quincey will be found somewhere, in commentary of Coleridge, firing up, as usual, into the figurate Conception with loud exclamation, that here at last was a voice across the ages solving the mystery ! Coleridge's explanation here is but a vague mention of Time, a schoolboy's guess, without sight of what it meant or of what was to be done with it ; — Coleridge, in fact, would in all pro- bUity have been quite powerless before the rejoinder — Why, Time itself is an example of the same Contradic- tion. Greek and German were the strong points of Coleridge and De Quincey also ! It is just possible that Coleridge's remark and De Quincey's Comment (though with less probability in the case of the latter) preceded 1812 and the Logic of Hegel; but what of Aristotle ? — and why should such Grecians not have directly consulted him, well known (Bayle) to have written on the point in question, when they had their attention expressly directed to the Zenonic problem ? — Take it as one may, the reality of Hegel, the substance of Hegel, becomes of even mountainous solidity in the comparison involuntarily suggested — or rather there is no comparison, one of the terms being, in relation to the rest, manifestly transcendent. 272 THE SBCEET OF HEGEL. B. CONTIMJOUS AND DISCRETE QUANTITY. ' 1. Quantity contains the two moments of Continuity and Discretion. It is to be set in both as its significates. It is immediate unity of these, already at first hand ; i. e.,- it is itself set at first hand only in one of its significates, Continuity, and is thus Continuous Quan- tity. 'Or Continuity is, indeed, one of the moments of Quantity, which (Quantity) is completed only with the other moment. Discretion. But Quantity is concrete unity only so far as it is unity of distinguished moments. These, therefore, are to be taken as distinct and dif- ferent, certainly — ^not, nevertheless, to be resolved again into Attraction and Eepidsion, but in their truth each as remaining in its unity with the other, i.e., as the whole. Continuity is only coherent, sohd unity as unity of the Discrete ; thus expressed it is no longer only moment, but entire Quantity — continuous Mag- nitude. ' 2. Immediate Quantity is continuous Magnitude. But Quantity, on the whole, is not an Immediate ; Immediacy is a Determinateness (a Quality) of which Quantity is the very sublation. It is, therefore, to be set or expressed in the determinateness which is imma- nent to it : this is the one or unit. Quantity is discrete Magnitude. ' Discretion is, hke Continuity, a moment of Quan- tity ; but it is itself also entire Quantity, just because it is a moment in it, in the whole, and, therefore, even as distinguished, steps not out of this whole, not out of its unity with the other moment. Quantity is Ausser- einanderseyn, asunderness, out-of-one-another-ness in QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 273 itself, and continuous Magnitude is this Asimder-ness as setting itself forward without negation, as a cohe- rence that is equal and alike within itself. But discrete Magnitude is this Asunder-ness as incontinuous, as inter- rupted. With this Many of Ones there are not again present, however, the Many of the Atom and the Void — Eepuleion in general. Because discrete Magnitude is Quantity, its Discretion is itself continuous. This Continuity of the Discrete consists in this, that the ones or units are alike, are equal to one another, or that they have the same unity, the same oneness (i.e., of being the Like of one another). Discrete Magnitude is therefore the Asunder-ness of the many or repeated One, as of the Like (as of this Like of one another, or of the Sameness), not the many One as such, but expressed as the Many or Much of one Unity.' The above is an exact translation ; and translation is necessitated here by the impossibility of accomplishing any closer summary than the text itself. This is a Constant Quantity in Hegel, who seldom offers any loose tissue of raisonnement to give a chance of dis- tillation or compression into summary. (The true state of the case, then, is, not the impossibility of extracting any sense from Hegel without distillation, but this impossibiHty with distillation, or rather the impossibility of distillation simply.) But little com- ment seems necessary. The immediacy of the Con- tinuity of Quantity at first hand depends, it will be remembered, on the quahtative indifference, the value, from which it issued. Indeed, this value, the indifferent For-itself-beent One, should never be left out of mind here, as it is precisely from this One that Quantity is, or that Quantity derives its peculiar character. The One is but the prototype of the Discrete, as the One- VOL. II. T 274 THK SECEET OF HEGEL. ness is but the prototype of the Continuous. The indifference of the For-itself-beent One, is just the continuance of this One ; there is nothing but One, One, One, onwards in infinitum : what is this but Quantity in both of its moments? The reader, in short, must never forget ever and anon to orient him- self by a reference to the — sub specie ceterni. — 'Imme- diacy is a Determinateness of which Quantity is the very Sublation :' we saw this to be the case when QuaHty passed into Quantity ; that transition was simply oneness, immediacy passing into indifference ; but stUl in the indifference there is the immanent One, which is the Discrete of Quantity : Quantity, then, may be expressed, may be set as explicit, as overt in this its moment of discretion, or it may be so stated. Again, this One that is the Discrete, is also the One, One, One, the One-ness that is the Continuous ; and either moment is Quantity and the same Quantity, the Discrete as the One at all, the Continuous as the one One of, or through, aU the Ones. This will suffice also to supply the necessary commentary to what follows as regards ' the Like of one another,' &c. The derivation of our asunder from the German auseinander vsdU also be obvious. The Eeader must be struck with the marvellous truth to the nature of Quantity contained in language that is meant in the first instance to apply only to the indifferent absolute One we had reached in Quality. This is the true nature, then, of the Hegelian progress, as it is of Thought, and just of the universe in general, — Setzen, Explicitation ; whatever at any time we have before us suddenly becomes explicit as another, a new. The phrase maiiy One has been neces- sitated by the corresponding phrase of the original ; it will be found not to shock if the reader read with his QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 275 mind thoroughly addressed to the self-equal, self-hke (discrete) One, that is also the many (continuous) One, of the one, but continued, For-ifcself-beent One. The indifference is the Many One, — the Continuum ; but the one One that is persistently immanent all this time in the indifference, in the continuance, is the like One, the One of the Oneness, — the Discretum. Both are the same, both are quantity ; or quantity is only at once through their sameness and their distinction : without immanent difference or distinction there is no such thing as recognition of an Inhalt, an object, a concrete, in any case ; and in every case the question is which moment is the set one, the express or explicit one, and which is the imphcit one that is for the time only in itself? — Bestimmung, it will be seen, has been translated signijicate ; it might have been translated function ; but, indeed, Bestimmung always refers to signification, denotation. As regards the immediacy, in which Quantity appears as continuous, it is to be remarked that the first moment of the Notion in all its forms is one of immediacy: it is always the mo- ment of identity, of understanding or simple appre- hension, and that is immediacy. The three moments may be respectively named, then. Immediacy, Mediacy, and mediated, or re-mediated. Immediacy : Apprehen- sion (understanding) takes up just what is before it ; Judgment refuses it as it is, and asks for it in another ; Eeason resumes. Ke-extrication of the moments from each new whole, and in the form, or with the peculiar nature, of this new whole, is the spring and the means of the movement, or just the movement: thus Being acting on Nothing, but in Becoming, arose as Origin, while Nothing acting on Being, but in Becoming, arose as Decease ; Being acting on Nothing, but in There- T 2 276 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. being, re-appeared as Eeality, and Nothing acting on Being, but in There-being, re-appeared as Negation; Being acting on Nothing, but in Something, manifested itself as Ansichseyn, in itself-ness, the Something's own being, and Nothing acting on Being, but in the Some- thing, manifested itself as the Being-for-other, the Being of the Something when under the negation of another, that is, relatively to another, and so on. Eemahk. ' The usual separation of these Quantities. ' In the ordinary figurate conceptions of continuous and discrete magnitude, it escapes notice that each of these magnitudes has in it both moments, as well con- tinuity as discretion, and that their difference depends only on which is the explicit determinateness, and which that that is only in itself. Time, Space, Matter, &c., are continuous magnitudes in that they are repul- sions from themselves, a fluent Coming-out-of-self, that is at the same time not a going over or a relation to a quahtative other. They possess an absolute possibility of One being set anywhere and everywhere in them ; this not as the empty possibility of a mere otherwise- ness (as if one should say, it were possible that in place of this stone there were a tree) ; but they possess the principle of the One in themselves, it is the One of the factors which compose them. ' Conversely in the case of discrete quantity the presence of continuity is not to be overlooked ; this moment, as has been shown, is One as oneness. ' Continuous and discrete magnitudes are capable of being regarded as species of Quantity, only if the magni- tude is not set under any external determinateness (as a certain So-much), but under the peculiar distinctions QUANTITY INTEEPEKTED, ETC. 277 or determinatenesses of its own moments ; the ordinary transition from genus to species is such as to render the former hable to the ascription of external distinctions dependent on some distributive principle external to it. Withal, continuous and discrete magnitudes are not quanta ; they are only Quantity itself in each of its two forms. They may be named magnitudes so far, perhaps, as they have this in common with the Quantum, that they are a pecuhar deter minateness in Quantity.' This Eemark is also an exact translation, and little comment seems necessary. The One as Oneness is con- tinuity ; Oneness as One is discretion. The distinctions will not remain in dry self-identity : the Geometrical point is potential space. Attraction is Eepulsion, Ee- pulsion is Motion, &c., and the question always is, which elementary distinction is overt, express, exphcit, osten- sive, and which latent, implicit, indicated, indirect, &c. ? Setzen contains the whole mystery : the Moon here is always either fuU or new. A concrete must have difference and identity ; mere diiference were dissolu- tion, and mere identity were equally extmction. Space has both principles ; so also Time ; and these, though both pure Quantities, are stiU different. The One and the Many of Space are at once and together. The One of Time never is and always is ; its One is its Many, its Many its One : Time is thus a symbol of the Absolute. C. LIMITATION OP QUANTITY. ' The discrete magnitude has firstly the One as its principle, and is secondly Multiplicity of the Ones ; thirdly, it is essentially continuous, it is the One at the same time as a sublated one, as oneness, self-continuation as such in the discretion of the Ones. It is set, therefore. 278 TPIE SECRET OF HEGEL. as a Magnitude, and the peculiar determinateness of such magnitude is the one which in this position and particular Being is exdudent one — limit in the unity. The discrete magnitude as such is supposed to be im- mediately not limited ; but as distinguished from the continuous magnitude it is as a There-being (a special Beingness) and a Something, the determinateness of which is the one which one as in a There-being is also first Negation and Limit. ' This limit, besides being referred to the unity, and besides being negation in this unity, is as one also referred to itself, and thus it is encompassing and con- taining limit. The limit distinguishes itself not in the first instance here from the Something of its There- being, but is as one immediately this negative point itself. But the Being that is here Umited is essentially as continuity, by virtue of which it is beyond the limit and this one, and is in that regard indifierent. The real discrete Quantity is thus a Quantity, or Quantum, — Quantity as a There-being and Something. ' In that the one which is Hmit, contains the many ones of the discrete quantity within itself, it sets these no less as sublated within it ; it is thus limit in the continuity as such, and so the difference between con- tinuous and discrete magnitude is here indifferent ; or more correctly, it is limit in the continuity of the one, as much as in that of the other ; in it both undergo transition into Quanta.' These three paragraphs (of C) are exactly translated, but sufiiciently difficult. InteUigence must be sought sub specie ceterni in the first instance — we must return to look again at the indifferent absolute One with which we entered Quantity. The One, the many Ones, the one One : all lies there ; these are the 1, 2, 3 with QUANTITY INTBRPRETED, ETC. 279 which Hegel starts. In the indiflFerent life of the absolute One now, the One, the Unit, is still as the principle, but it continues, or is the many Ones, and also when it refers back to these and the series of these, it is one One and a Quantity, or Quantum. In its in- difference it is certainly ' essentially continuous ;' ' it is the One as sublated One, as Unity ;' it is its own ' self- continuation in the discretion of the Ones.' It is thus a quantity, and the peculiar specificity of this quantity depends on the One that is its hmit. A Ten depends on the tenth. This One (the tenth) is seen also to be the excludent One. The quantity to which this One is limit is characterised as Daseyn, as Etwas, and as dieses Gesetztseyn. Etwas is, of course, translated only Something ; Daseyn now as There-being (special Beingness), and again as particular Being. As for Gesetztseyn, it will be found translated on this oc- casion, and not infelicitously, by 'in this position.' But why these words are used in this place requires a word of explanation. The key to the whole lies in what has taken place : the One is One, as continued it is many Ones, but as continued it is also one One. Kow this last step is as a reflexion from other or others into self; but that is precisely the constitution of Some- thing. Again, the continuance through the series of the Ones is a Werden, a Becoraing, while its suspension (by the reflexion alluded to) gives rise to a Daseyn, a There-being, a definite relative So-ness. Lastly, the reflexion is a Setzen, and the result is a Gesetztseyn ; the reflexion is only an explicitsAion of what was before implicit, and the result is a new explicitness., a new position, where this last word may be considered an equivoque of and between its ordinary and its logical senses. It will not be difficult to see now, then, that 280 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. discrete magnitude, passing through these reflexions, has become a Magnitude, the precise value or deter- minateness of which depends on the One from which the reflexion back was made ; this one is the limit or the excludent one in the new position, or special There- ness which has been just efiected through the reflexion. The tenth one in a ten will readily Ulustrate all this. The tenth one is the hmit, the excludent one, the barrier that stops entrance to all other ones ; but it is the re- flexion of this tenth one into the other ones that gives birth to the particular and peculiar and every way unique and special quantity Ten or a Ten ; the whole acquires the edge, the specificity of this one ; each of the other ones is as it — a tenth ; each of the other ones is it ; from it is the new explicitation, the new position, the new There-ness, the new Something — Ten. The Ten is at first as ten units — discrete — without any definite boundary line — but these ten as distinguished from the possible continuation or continuity onwards into and through other units, are a special definite There- ness and So-ness, a special definite Something of which the One (the tenth) is at once the specificity, and also — as iu a There-being (negated, suspended Becoming) — the first negation and limit. Thus far the first para- graph ; which being thoroughly understood, the two remaining ones will not be difiicult. The reader, how- ever, may object here — why the digression? — why leap from the very absolute of absolutes to a thing so very everyday and common as the number Ten ? We answer, there is no necessity for the digression; all must still be conceived as sub specie ceterni ; the num- ber ten is but an empirical illustration. The life, so to speak, of the qualitative One, now a quantitative One, is still to be pursued by the clue and the virtue of the QUANTITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 281 pure Notion. What is, is now pure Quantity, sublated Quality, Determinateness external to its own self, an in- definitely continuous ottering or uttering of itself of the One as One, One, One ; but it is the pure Notion that is so characterised, and whatever is implicit in this cha- racterisation, that notion shall duly set or make explicit for us. Now One, — and One, One, One, — and again One that, referring back, resumes these one-one-ones, is very fairly the movement of the notion in such an element. Not only is such movement characteristic of the element as element, but on the other side, it is the characteristic movement of the Notion itself ; — it is again Apprehen- sion, Judgment, and Eeason ; it is'again Identity, Differ- ence, and identified Difference, or differentiated Identity ; it is again Immediacy, Mediacy, and re-mediated Im- mediacy, or just Immediate Mediacy. This being seen, another deep glance into Hegel has been effected with realisation of the distinction that Hegel is not only true to the principle, the Notion, but true to the element also ; and so only is it that what he says is the exhaus- tive Metaphysic, even in an external sense, of whatever sphere he enters. A great deal has been written about Cause and Effect, for example, but it will be found that Hegel alone, with vigUant eye immovably fixed on the pure Notion, has been] enabled to speak the ultimate word, even as external explanation, on this subject also. The number Ten, then, illustrates, but it does not create the present phase of the Absolute or of the Notion ; that phase is one of pure Quantity, and is apphcable not to numbers only, but to extension as well. There are many readers to whom all this pro- secution of a one, one, one, &c., will appear but trifling — a trifling wholly unworthy of grown men : even so, to an external eye, a bearded Archimedes scratching 282 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. lines, triangles, squares, circles, &c., might seem but a great boy very unworthily employing himself. Archi- medes, however, through these scratches brought no less a power than that of Eome to bay ; through these scratches Archimedes and the like enabled us to move mountains and to change seas, enabled us to seize Space and Time themselves : these scratches, indeed, have been to us the express successive steps heavenwards. So Hegel, following these soap-bubbles of one, one, one, &c., has made us freemen of the Absolute itself. The tenth of the ten will be found to illustrate the first sentence of the second paragraph also ; it is ' referred to the unity ' — Ten ; it is ' negation in this unity ; ' it stops Ten there, and it stops others off from Ten ; it is also ' referred to itself,' — it is the tenth, and so each of the others is a tenth, and the ten itself has in it (the tenth) its own particular value or virtue ; and thus is it ' encompassing and containing limit.' The ten — to follow the next sentence — are thus in the tenth, the limit, ' this negative point itself ' ; the tenth, then, is thus not distinguished from the Something, the Ten. Still the Ten are a ' Being — essentially con- tinuity — a Ten — beyond this Hmit,' this single One, the tenth, and in that respect ' indifferent to it.' It is thus a Quantity, and a Something with a specific There- ness or peculiar nature. The last paragraph opens with renewed considera- tion of the tenth unit of the ten ; as it is it which gives the whole peculiar character of the number — a ten — it is the qualitative and quantitative hmit ; quantita- tively it limits the continuity ; qualitatively it absorbs into itself all the other units — each is a tenth, but only through it ; it is thus hmit in the continuity generally, limit to the continuity as such, and limit also, as it QUANTITY INTEEPEETED, ETC. 283 were, to the continuity of the discretes themselves (in that it sums and absorbs them). Thus is it that — (the tenth unit sublating, absorbing, or taking up into itself both) — ' continuous and discrete magnitude is here indifferent,' or that ' both undergo transition into Quanta,' the discretes becoming each a tenth and so in continuity Ten — through the limiting tenth. The reader wiR find the illustration here a very perfect key to a very blank door indeed of indefinite abstraction. Nevertheless, it is always to the Abso- lute that the reader must first address himself ; only so will he find himself at home also, if we may speak thus, with soap, soda, and pearl-ash. What is explicit now is Quantity as such — whether discrete or continuous — reduced to Limit, — let us well observe this. 284 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. CHAPTEE II. QUANTUM. ' The Quantum, first of all Quantity with a Determi- nateness or Limit in general, — is in its perfect Deter- minateness the Number (the Digit or Cipher). The Quantum distinguishes itself — ' secondly, in the first instance, into the extensive Quantum, in which the Limit is as Hmitation of the there-beent multiplex (or Many) ; in the second in- stance, (this There-being passing into Being-for-self) — ■ into intensive Quantum, Degree, which, as for-itself, and even so no less immediately out of itself, seeing that it is as indifferent Limit even when for-itself, — ^has its Determinateness in another. As this express contra- diction, to be thus simply determined within itself and at the same time to have its determinateness out of itself, and to point for this determinateness out of itself, the Quantum passes over — ' thirdly, as what is expressly in itself external to itself, into the Quantitative Infinite.' If not inteUigible now, this division will become intelligible by the end of the chapter. The Many, the Multiplex, the Ones, or Units of extensive Quanta, are evidently there-beent ; they are not ansich ; they are distinguishably there ; they are relative distinctivity there ; they are palpably there — sensibly there ; and they are what they are through negation of Becoming, Limit. QUANTITY INTJERPRETED, ETC^ 285 A, THE ISrUMBER OR DIGIT. ' Quantity is Quantum, or has a limit ; both as continuous and as discrete magnitude. The difference of these kinds has here at first hand no import.' This has just been seen : the hmit of the continuum is the limit also of, or affects with its own virtue, the discreta. ' As sublated Being-for-self, Quantity is already in and for itself indifferent to its limit. But withal the limit, or to be a Quantum, is just so not indifferent to it ; for it contains the One, absolute determinedness, within itself as its own moment, which One, therefore, as explicit in its continuity or unity, is its limit, which, however, remains as One, as which One it (the Quan- tity) now on the whole is.' This is intelligible when viewed sub specie ceterni, and also when illustrated as before by ten, &c. Sub- lated Being-for-self is, as it were, punctuahty gone over out of itself into its own opposite, and that is Quantity. ' This One is, therefore, the principle and principium of the Quantum, but as One of Quantity. So it is, firstly. Continuous, it is oneness or unity ; secondly, it is Discrete, imphcit (as in continuous) or (as in discrete magnitude) explicit Multiplicity of Ones, which have equality, likeness, sameness, continuity, the same one- ness or unity with one another; thirdly, this One is also the negation of the Many Ones as simple limit, an exclusion of its otherwiseness out of itself, a deter- mination of itself counter other Quanta. The One is so far, (a) limit referent of self to self, (3) self-compre- hensive limit, and (7) other-excluding limit.' ^8G THE SECRET OF HEGEL. All this is pretty much what we saw akeady under (C), ' Limitation of Quantity,' and it is quite suscep- tible of the same illustration : the tenth unit may be seen — or has been seen — to take up each of these three attitudes towards itself, towards the other units, and in sublation of these. This is so easy of applica- tion now, that no more need be said. ' An exclusion of its otherwiseness out of itself : ' in the ten there are 1, 2, 3, &c. ; now these, as 1, 2, 3, &c., are the other- wiseness, but they are excluded as otherwiseness by the tenth, and have become equally tenth, converted, that is, into the one identity. ' The Quantum in these forms completely exphcit is the Number (the Cipher, the Digit). The complete position or explicitation lies in the special nature of the Limit as MultipHcity, and so in its distinction as well froiigi the unity. The Number appears on this account as a discrete magnitude, but it has in the unity equally continuity. It is therefore, thus, the Quantum in per- fect determinateness (specificity) ; this, inasmuch as the limit in the Digit is as determinate Multiplicity, which has for principle the One, the directly Determinate. Continuity (as that in which the One is only in itself, or as sublated), expressed as Unity, is the Form of In- determinateness, Indefiniteness.' To return to the paragraph of the text immediately preceding the last, for a moment — we would observe that the division or distribution with which it ends is exceedingly instructive, inasmuch as the general prin- ciple of such movement comes very clearly to the surface. Number, meaning any number or digit, is a limit, firstly. Self-referent; secondly. Self-comprehen- sive ; thirdly, Excludent of other. The self-reference is identity, immediacy. Simple Apprehension, but in the QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 287 element before us — unity. The comprehendingness, embracingness, clipping or shutting about-ness (Um- schliessend) of the Second is difference, mediacy, refer- ence to other, Judgment, but, in the present element, Many. Under the third head we have what Hegel may be described as always specially bringing us, the Remedy, the Ee-mediacy, identity through difference, that is, differentiated identity or identified difference, reference to self through reference to other, an othered self, or a selfed other, a concrete determinate definite One, the moment of Eeason, but here, in this element, a numerical whole, a Number. That is (with special regard to the element), unity and amount (amount of constitutive unities, that is, — ^Einheit und Anzahl) are the Moments of the Number, the Cipher, the Digit. The concrete, then, is the Number, and the moments can be seen in its regard to be, the one. Identity, and the other, Difference, and both, so far, relatively abs- tract. Quantity, as a whole, might be more simply divided into the Universal — Quantity, the Particular — Tantity, and the Singular— Quantified Tantity or Tan- tified Quantity (which last is just Quantitative Ee- lation). In the same way, Quality might have been divided into Quahty, Tality, and Quahfied Tality, or Talified Quality (Being-for-self). The parallelism of the other triplets which we now know, wiU readily suggest itself. As regards the general division of the Whole, Logic, Nature, Spirit, it can be seen to be quite parallel with Quality, Quantity, and Measure, — with Universal, Particular, and Singular, &c. &c. As for the division of Logic into Seyn (Being), Wesen (Essence), and Be- griff (Notion), it is strikingly parallel with Kant's Cate- gories of Eelation, as if Hegel had said to himself, Logic is the Subject inquiring into the Object, that is. 288 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. into its own relations. Now Kant's Categories of Eelation are — Substance, Cause, and Eeciprocity. Seyn (Being) is analogous to Substance ; historically, it is the Logic or Philosophy of the Greeks, whose constant inquiry was, "What is this Seyn, this Being ? A question to which there were such answers as, Water, Air, Fire, the One, Becoming, JSTumber, the Atom, Intelligence, and lastly, that of Socrates, which, though in a particular element, was an sich, or in itself, the abstract generalised Notion afterwards perfected by Aristotle through Plato into Formal Logic. We may say, then, here that the Subject (among the Greeks, that is) had not as yet got beyond Simple Apprehension, Understanding ; at the same time, it is to be admitted that Aristotle names, and occupies himself to some extent with, the concrete generalised, or universal, Notion. Wesen, Essentity, is the platform of the modern world, which, up to Kant, had demanded, in regard to the Object, What is its cause ? or, what is the same thing. What is it in another? And what is this but Judgment declaring the Object nothing as per se ? Kant for his part inaugurated the reign of Eeason : his industry was Reason an sich, in itself; he declared the Wesen, the Essential Principle and Nature, to be the Notion — or Notional Eeci- procity. Into this final form at least, into the abso- lute or concrete Universal, the conception of Kant has been perfected by Hegel. Socrates reached the abstract Notion, then, and Aristotle completed it into the abstract Logic ; but Kant discovered the concrete Notion, and Hegel completed it into the concrete Logic. This single sentence tells the whole tale. The concrete Notion, as it manifests itself in Hegel, is per- haps, at shortest, this — The Absolute is relative. Suf- ficient reflection, indeed, will soon disclose the fact. QUANTITY INTEEPEETED, ETC.. 289 that an Absolute implies relativity, — that an Absolute is an Absolute just because of its relativity, or just because of the relativity it contains. The general method of Hegel, then, is, in accordance w^ith this con- stitution of the nature of things, always to extricate from any Absolute — any self-identical whole may be considered an absolute — its own necessary relativity, the opposition of which latter to the former, the abso- luteness, results in the collapse of both into a concrete and new identity. All this has been already said in a variety of forms : it is just the Being-in-itself-ness and the Being-for-other-ness, — in ultimate abstraction it is just Being and Nothing. The generaHsation of So- crates, then, which issued in abstract induction and abstract deduction, has, in the hands of Hegel, been, as it were, doubled, and doubled into a concrete : at any time that advance is made to a generalised identity, note must be made of the other side, also, of the generahsed difference or relativity, which will be found necessarily to constitute and give its peculiar filling to that identity. The perception of this double constitu- tion of the nature of thought, and consequently of things, it is, that has enabled Hegel to reverse the process of Socrates ; that is, instead of ascending from the immediate object to universal notions, to descend from these last according to their truth, and that is to say, by their own necessary self-genetic chain, which ends not but in the system of the whole — a system that comprises and gives meaning and place even to the contingency and isolated singleness of the external Immediate. Passing to the last paragraph translated, it is not difficult to see that the number qua number is the Quantum completely explicit in the forms mentioned, VOL. II. u 290 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. 'This Gom-plete position or explicitation lies, &c.,' — that is, the principle or reason of this process expressed by these forms Hes, &c. The definition that occurs at the end, of the 'Form of Indefiniteness,' is exceedingly- happy. ' The Quantum only as such has a hmit ; its limit is its abstract, simple determinateness. But the Quantum being a Number, this hmit is expressly as manifold within itself. It (the number) contains the many ones which constitute its distinctive being ; contains them, however, not in an indefinite manner, but the deter- minateness of the hmit falls into them; the limit ex- cludes other units, other distinctive being, and the units included by it are a determinate number, — the amount, to which, as the discretion in the way in which it is in the number, the other is the unity, the con- tinuity of the same number. Amount and unity con- stitute the moments of Number. ' As regards amount, we must see more closely how the many ones of which it consists are in the hmit ; the expression is correct that the amount consists of the many, for the ones are in it not as sublated, but they are in it, only expressed with the excluding limit, to which they, however, are indifferent. But it is not so to them. In the case of There-being (distinctive being), the relation of the limit to it had firstly expressed itself so, that the There-being remained standing as the affirma- tive on this side of its limit, and it (the limit), the nega- tion, found itself without by the border; in hke manner as regards the many ones, the breaking-off with them and the exclusion of any others appears as a circum- stance which falls outside of the included ones. But we saw there that the hmit pervades the There-being, reaches as far as it, and that the Something is thereby, QUANTITY IJSTTEEPEETED, ETC. 291 as regards its determination, limited, i.e. finite. Thus, in the quantitativity of Number, we conceive a hundred — say — so that the hundredth one, or unit, alone appears to limit the many in such wise that they are a hun- dred. This is right on one side ; but then, again, among the hundred ones no one has any preference, for they are only equal; each is equally the hundredth ; they belong all of them, therefore, to the Umit, by which limit the number is a hundred : this number cannot want any one of them for its special determinateness ; the others make up thus apart from the hundredth one no There-being (distinctivity) that were without the limit or within the limit, or in general different from it. The Amount is not therefore a Many as against the including, limiting one or unit, but constitutes itself this limitation, which is a determinate Quantum ; the many form a number, a Two, a Ten, a Hundred, &c. ' The hmiting one, now, is determinedness counter other, distinction of the Number from others. But this distinction is not qualitative determinateness, but re- mains quantitative, falls only into the external Eeflexion that compares ; a number remains as a one turned back into itself, and indifferent to others. This indifference of a Number to others is an essential characteristic of it ; this it is that constitutes the In-itself-ness (the inde- pendent self-subsistence) of its nature, but at the same time its peculiar externality. It is such numerical one, as the absolutely determined one that has at the same time the form of simple Immediacy, to which, therefore, any reference to other is perfectly external. The one that is a number has further its determinateness, so far as that determinateness is reference-to-other, as its mo- ments within itself, in its distinction oi unity and amount, and the amount is itself a many of ones, i.e., there is TI 2 292 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. -within itself this absolute externality. This contradic- tion of Number or of Quantum in general within itself is the quaUty of quantum, and this contradiction wiU develope itself as the characterisation of this quahty proceeds.' There-being, as used in this connexion, refers to the special values of the various numbers ; a Two, a Ten, a Hundred, &c., can be seen to have a Daseyn, a There- being of its own, a peculiar distinctivity which belongs to it and to nothing else. This throws light on Daseyn itself, which is always thus, as it were, the pecuhar and differentiating sensibleness or palpableness of anything whatever ; it is distinctive relativity. That it and its peculiarity arise, too, from a negated Werden — here a counting forward, one, two, three, &c., — is also well seen in this example. The irrespective independent apathy, neutrality, and externahty of number are well touched. Begtimmtheit, Determinateness, is also well seen here to convey absolute peculiarity, specificity, &c. — anything's express and constitutive point. The reader has, in regard to these passages, already sufficient illus- tration at command, and we may pass to Eemaek 1. The Arithmetical Operations. An important critique on Kant contained here also we shall reserve for notice elsewhere ; the remaining matter we shall endeavour to summarise — a process, as regards Hegel, possible only at rare intervals, and, for the most part, as here, only in the Remarks. ' Magnitude as in space (Geometrical) and Magni- tude as in number (Arithmetical), though bearing the one on continuity and the other on discretion, and so far different, are usually regarded as equally hinds of QUANTITY INTERPKETED, ETC. 293 the same thing, as equally Quanta, and as equally determinate. But what holds of continuity cannot have the same keenness of limit, determinateness, as what holds of discretion. Geometrical limitation is limita- tion quite generally; for precision of determinateness it requires number. Geometry measures not, is not mensuration, — it comparer, it likens together. Its dis- tinctions proceed by like and unlike. It is thus the circle ; its nature being absolute hkeness of distance on the part of every circumferential point as regards the single central one, has no need of number. Like and unlike are characters, then, veritably geometrical ; but they are insufficient, and number is called in, as we see in Triangle, Quadrangle, &c. Number has in its prin- ciple — the one — complete se//'-determinateness, and not determinateness, as in comparison, through another. There is the geometrical point, a one certainly, but, in the line, &c., the point is no longer the point, it is out of itself into continuity — another ; as essentially a one of Space, it becomes, when in reference (i.e. in con- nexion), a continuity, in which punctuality, self-deter- minateness, the one, is sublated. To maintain the self- determinateness of the one in the Out-of-self-ness of the continuity, the hne must be taken as a many or multiple of ones, and must receive within itself the hmit, the determinateness, the conjunct virtue, of the many or multiplicity ; i.e., the magnitude of the line — and so of the rest — must be taken as ISTumber. ' Arithmetic considers, rather operates with, Number, for Number is indifferent determinateness, inert, to be brought into action and reference only from without. The arithmetical rules concern the modes of reference or connexion. They are rehearsed in succession, and seem to depend on one another, but no principle of 294 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. mutual connexion is exhibited. From the nature of the notion of number, however, such principle of systematic co-reference may be deduced. ' From its principle, the One, Number is but an externally united compound, a purely analytic figure, without internal connexion. As thus externally gene- rated, aU. counting is a production of numbers, a numbering, or, more definitely, a numbering together. Difference in this external operation, which is always the same, can come only from the mutual difference of the numbers operated on, and must always depend on an external consideration. ' Numbers as Quanta are externally distinguished by external identity and external difference, or by Like- ness and Unhkeness, characters which fall to be con- sidered elsewhere. But the nature of Number depending on the qualitative distinction of unity and amount, it is from that distinction that all others will follow. ' Again, external composition plainly infers external decomposition ; so that a traffic with numbers in general must either, as composing, he positive, or, as decomposing, negative, and the particular species of this traffic, though following, will remain independent of, this antithesis. ' The^^ra^ production of Number is the composing of many ones just as many ones, — Numeration. Such externahty is only externally exhibited by help of the fingers, points, counters, &c. ; what Three is, or Four is, can only be pointed out. Cessation, the limit of the operation being so completely external, can only be contingent or at will. A system of Numbers, Dyadic, Decadic, &c., turns on the distinction of Unity and Amount, and more precisely on what Amount is to be considered as Unity. ' Numbers, produced by numeration, are again num- QUANTITY INTBEPEETED, ETC. 285 bered — Addition ; and here from their origin the numbers are evidently mutually independent, mutually indifferent to hkeness or unhkeness, mutually contin- gent — hence unlike in general. That 7 + 5=12 we learn from actual counting in the first instance, and know afterwards from memory. It is the same thing with 7x5 = 35. The ready-made tables of addition and multiplication save us the trouble of always re- peating such external counting • but there is no process of internal reasoning or special intuition in the whole matter. Subtraction is the negative complement of the same operation that obtains in Addition; — a decovi- position, equally analytic, of numbers equally charac- terised as unhke in general. ' The next step is that the numbers which enter into the numeration are equal or like, and no longer unequal or unlike. They form thus a Unity, and are subject to Amount. This is Multiplication — the counting up of an Amount of Unities, the unities being themselves pluralities or amounts. Of the two numbers, either may be indifferently viewed as Unity or as Amount : 4 times 3 is not different from 3 times 4. Immediate assignment, in such cases, has been already shown to result from previous process and the intervention of memory. Division is the negative side of the same operation, and rests on the same distinction. How often (the Amount) is a number (the Unity) contained in another number ? This is the same question as, A Number being divided into a given Amount of equal parts, what is the magnitude of this part (the Unity) ? Divisor and Quotient are thus indifferently Unity or Amount. ' The final step in the equalisation is, that the Unity and the Amount, which in the first instance (as opposed 296 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. to each other shuply as Numbers generally) are to be considered as on the whole unlike or unequal, become now like or equal. Numeration, the equality that lies in Number being thus completed, is now involution, the negative complement of which is evolution. Of this process, the Square is the perfect type, further invo- lution being but a, formal continuation, with repetition of equality as result, or with divergence into inequality. No other distinctions and no other equalisations of such are to be found in the notion of the Number or Cipher. So is the Notion constituted in this sphere ; and thus by a going back into itself is the going out of itself balanced. The imperfection of solution in the case of higher equations, or the necessary reduction of these to Quadratics, receives hght from the principles enunciated. The Square in Arithmetic, like the right-angled triangle, as explicated by the theorem of Pythagoras, in Geometry, is the pure self-complete determinateness of its sphere, and to the one as to the other the remaining particularities of the respective spheres reduce themselves. ' Number in relation is no longer immediate Quantum, and proportion finds its place in the following section on Maass or Measure. ' The externaHty of the matter of number leaves no room for Philosophy proper, or the exposition of the Notion as such, which depends ever on immanent development. Here, nevertheless, the moments of the Notion manifest themselves, as in external fashion, in equality and inequahty ; and the subject is exhibited in its true understanding. Distinction of sphere is in Philosophy a general necessity : what is External and Contingent is in its pecuharity not to be disturbed by Ideas, and these are not to be deformed or reduced to QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 297 mere formality by the incommensm-ableness of the matter.' It is easy to object to these HegeHan classifications, that there are really only two operations in Arithmetic, Addition and Subtraction, and that devotion to the Notion is here too obviously, too betrayingly external. It is to be said, however, that Multiphcation and Quad- ration really are these qualitative ascents. As regards the Square in especial, the quahtativeness which it seems to introduce will be found afterwards to have taken a strong hold of Hegel. Eemaek 2. Application of Numerical Distinctions in Expression of Philosophical Notions. This is a very admirable Note, both important and characteristic : without losing matter we shall endea- vour as much as possible to compress, however. ' Numbers, as is well known, have been applied by the Pythagoreans, and — especially in the form of powers — by certain moderns in indication or expres- sion of relations of thought ; and they have also appeared to possess such purity of form as to con- stitute them a most appropriate element in the interest of education — an element closest to the thinking spirit, and closest also to the fundamental relations of the universe. ' We have seen Number to be the absolute determi- nateness (as it were, point) of Quantity, determinateness in itself, and at the same time quite external ; its ele- ment is the difference become indifferent. Arithmetic is analytic; difference and connexion in its object are not internal to it, but come from without. It has no concrete object with latent inner relations to be made 298 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. explicit by express effort of thought. It holds not the Notion, nor does its problem concern compre- hending (notional) thought ; it is rather the opposite of that. What is connected is indifferent to the con- nexion, which itself is without necessity ; thought, then, in such an element finds the energy required an utter outering of itself — an energy in which it must do itself the violence to move without thoughts and connect what is incapable of necessity. The object is the abstract thought of Externality itself. ' As such thought of externality, Number is at the same time an abstraction from the sensuous multiplex ; of this it has retained nothing but the abstract form of externahty : sense thus in it is brought closest to thought ; it is the pure thought of the proper exter- nalisation of thought. ' The thinking spirit that would raise itself above the sensuous world and recognise its substance may, in the quest of an element for its pure conception, for the expression of its essential substance, and before it ap- prehends thought itself as this element, and wins for its exhibition a pure spiritual expression, stumble on the choice of number, this internal, abstract externality. So is it that early in the history of Philosophy we find Number applied in expression of philosophemes. It constitutes the latest stage in that imperfection which contemplates the Universal impurged from Sense. The ancients, and specially Plato, as reported by Aristotle, placed the concerns of mathematic between the Ideas and Sense ; as invisible and unmoved (eternal) different from the latter, and as a Many and a Like different from the Ideas which are such as are purely self- identical and one in themselves. Moderatus of Cadiz remarks that the Pythagoreans had recourse to num- QUANTITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 299 bers because they were not yet in a position to appre- hend distinctly in reason fundamental ideas and first principles, which are hard to think and hard to enunciate ; but numbers were to them as iigures to Geometers — signs merely, and it is superfluous to re- mark that these philosophers had reaUy advanced to the more express categories, as is recorded by Photius. These ancients, then, were, in fact, much in advance of those moderns who have returned to numbers and put a perverted mathematical formaUsm in the place of thought and thoughts — regarding, indeed, this retiu^n to an incapable infancy as something praiseworthy, and even fundamental and profound. 'Number has been characterised as between the Ideas and Sense, and as holding of the latter by this that it is in it a many, an asunder or out-of-one-another ; but it is to be said also that this Many itself, this remainder of Sense taken up into thought, is thought's own Category of the External as such. The further, concrete, true thoughts, what is quickest and most Uving, what is comprehended only in co-reference, con- nexion, — this transplanted to such element of outward- ness is converted into something motionless and dead. The richer thoughts become in determinateness, and consequently in reference, so much the more confused on one side and so much the more arbitrary and empty on the other side becomes their statement in such forms as numbers are. ' To designate the movement of the Notion by One, Two, Three, &c., this to thought is a task the hardest ; for it is to expect it to move in the element of its own contrary, of reference-lessness ; its employment is to be the work of sheer derangement. To com- prehend, e.g., that three are one and one three, this 300 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. is a hard imposition, because the One, the Unit, is what is reference-less, what shows not therefore in itself any character that might mediate transition, but rather, on the contrary, excludes and rejects any such reference. Conversely mere Understanding uses this as against Speculative truth (as, e.g., in the case of the doctrine of the Trinity), and counts the terms which are to constitute a single unity as if in demonstration of a self-evident absurdity, — i.e., it itself commits the absurdity of reducing that which is reference pure and simple into what is precisely reference-less. By the name Trinity, it is never expected that the Unit and the Digit are to be regarded by Understanding as the essential burthen of the object. This name expresses on the part of Eeason contempt of Understanding, which again, for its part, stubborns itself against Eeason, and fixes itself in its conceit of holding to the Unit and to Number as such. 'To employ mathematical characters as symbols is, so far as that goes, harmless ; but it is silly to sup- pose that in this way more is expressed than what thought itself is able to hold and express. If in such meagre symbols as those of mathematic, or in those richer ones of mythology and poetry, any deep sense is to be supposed, then it is for thought alone to sum- mon into day the vdsdom that lies only in them, and not only as in symbols, but as in Nature and the Hving Spirit. In symbols the truth is only troubled and enveloped by the sensuous element ; only in the form of thought is it thoroughly revealed to consciousness : the meaning, the import, is only the thought itself. ' To apply the forms of mathematic, in exphcation of Philosophy, has this of preposterous, that only in the latter can the ultimate import of the former be QUANTITY mTERPRETED, ETC. 301 expected to yield itself. It is to Logic, and not to Mathematic, that the other sciences must apply for that element of Logic in which they move and to which they reduce themselves ; that Philosophy should seek its Logic in the shapes (but omens or sophistications of it) it assumes in other sciences, is but an expedient of philosophical incapacity. The application of such bor- rowed forms is but external; inquiry into their worth and import must precede the apphcation ; such inquiry belongs to abstract thought, and cannot be superseded by any mathematical or other such au.thority. The result of such pure logical inquiry is to strip ofl' the particu- larity (mathematical or other) of the form, and to render it superfluous and unnecessary : in short, it is Logic that clears and rectifies aU such forms, and alone provides them with verification, sense, and worth. 'As for the value of Number in the element of education, that is contained in the preceding. Number is a non-sensuous object, and occupation with it and its combinations a non-sensuous employment ; thought is drawn in thus to reflexion within itself and an inward and abstract labour — a matter of great but one-sided import. For Number involving the difference as only external and thought-less, such employment is but a thoughl^less and mechanical one. The endeavour con- sists, for the most part, in holding fast the Notion-less and in notion-less-ly combining it. The object is the void Unit; the sohd burthen of the moral and spiritual universe, with which, as the noblest aliment. Education should fill full the young, is to be supplanted by the import-less Unit ; with no possible result, such exercise being what is main and chief, but to deaden and stupify the mind, emptying it, at the same time, both of form and substance. Numerical calculation being a business 302 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. SO very meclianical and external, it has been possible to construct machines capable of performing all the operations of Arithmetic, and that most perfectly. This alone were decisive of calculation as principal mean of education — and of the propriety of stretching the think- ing Spirit on the wheel in order to be perfected into a machine.' B. EXTENSIVE AND INTENSIVE QUANTUM, a. Their Difference. The paragraphs under this head are again ehgible for exact translation, the metaphysic being at once eminently characteristic and eminently intelligible. ' 1. The Quantum has, as the result showed, its determinateness as hmit in the Amount. It is dis- crete within itself, a Many which has not a Being that were different from its limit, or that might have this latter out of it. The Quantum thus constituted with its Hmit, which is a mtiltiple in itself, is extensive Magnitude.' ' Extensive is to be distinguished from Continuous Magnitude ; to the former there stands directly opposed, not Discrete, but Intensive Magnitude. Extensive and intensive magnitudes are peculiarities of the quantitative limit, but the Quantum is identical with its limit ; con- tinuous and discrete magnitudes, again, are forms of Quantity in itself, i.e., of quantity as such, so far as in regard to the Quantum the limit is abstracted from. Extensive magnitude has the moment of Continuity in itself and in its limit, in that its many in general is con- tinuous ; the limit as pegation appears so far in this QUANTITY INTERPKETED, ETC. 303 equality of the Many as limitation of the Unity. Con- tinuous magnitude is quantity setting itself forward without respect to a Umit ; and so far as it is already conceived with one, this is a limitation generally, without discretion being explicit in it. The Quantum, only as continuous magnitude, is not yet veritably de- termined per se, because it wants the One, the Unit, in which self-determinateness hes, and Number. In like manner discrete magnitude is immediately only distinguished plurality in general, which, so far as it as such is to have a limit, is only a multiplicity (eine Menge), that is to say, it is what is indefinitely limited. To be a definite Quantum, to that there is necessary the taking together of the Many into One, by which this many were set identical with the limit. Each of them, continuous and discrete magnitude, as Quantum in general, has only one of the two sides explicit in it, by which sides it is perfectly determined and as Number. This (the Number) is immediately extensive Quantum, — the simple determinateness which is essen- tially as Amount, but as Amount of one and the same Unity ; the extensive Quantum is distinguished from the Number only by this, that the determinateness is expressly set in the latter as multiphcity. ' 2. The determinateness, nevertheless, how much something is, by Number, is not in want of distinc- tion from any other magnitude, so that this magni- tude itself and some other magnitude should belong to the determinateness, inasmuch as the (numerical) determinateness of magnitude in general is self-de- termined, indifferent, and simply self-referred Hmit ; and in Number it (the hmit) is explicitly set as con- tained in the self-dependent One, and has its exter- nality, the reference to other, within itself. This many 304 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. of the limit itself, further, is as the many in general, not unequal within itself, but continuous : each of the many is what the other is ; as discrete many it con- stitutes not, therefore, the determinateness as such. This many, therefore, collapses per se into its continuity and becomes simple unity. Amount is only moment of Number ; but constitutes not as a multiplicity of numerical ones the determinateness of Number, but these ones as indifferent, external to themselves, are sublated in the returnedness of Number within itself; the externahty which constituted the ones of the mul- tiphcity, disappears in the One as reference of Number to itself. ' The Hmit of the Quantum, that as extensive had its there-beent determinateness as the self-external Amount, passes, therefore, into simple determinateness. In this simple determination of limit it is intensive magnitude, and the limit or determinateness, which is identical with the Quantum, is thus now also explicitly set as simple oneness, — Degree. ' The degree is, therefore, determinate magnitude, Quantum, but not, at the same time, multiphcity, or several within itself; it is only a sever ality (not a Mehreres, but a Mehrheit) ; the severality is the several taken together into the simple quahty. There-being gone together into Being-for-self. Its determinateness must, indeed, be expressed by a Number as for perfect determinateness of the Quantum, but is not as amount, but simple, only a degree. When 10, 20 degrees are spoken of, the Quantum that has so many degrees, is the 10th, the 20th degree, not the amount and sum of these ; in that case it were extensive ; but it is only one single one, the 10th, the 20th degree. It con- tains the determinateness which hes in the amount QUANTITY INTEKPEETED, ETC. 305 ten, twenty, but contains it not as a plurality, but is JSTumber as sublated Amount, as simple determi- nateness. ' 3. In Number the Quantum is explicit in its perfect determinateness ; as intensive Quantum, however, as in its Being-for-self, it is explicitly set as it is according to its Notion or in itself. The form, namely, of self- reference, which it has in degree, is, at the same time, the being in externality to itself of this same degree. Number is as extensive Quantum numerical multipli- city, and so has the externality within it. This exter- nahty, as multiplicity in general, collapses into the undistinguishedness, and sublates itself in the One, of the Number, of its self-reference. The Quantum has, however, its determinateness as amount; as before shown, it contains it, although it is no longer explicitly in it. The degree, therefore, as within itself simple, having no longer this external otherwiseness within it, has it out of it, and refers itself thereto as to its determinateness. A Many external to it constitutes the determinateness of the simple limit which it is per se. That the amount, so far as it was supposed to find itself within the Number in the extensive Quan- tum, sublated itself therein — in this it is determined, consequently, further, as set out of it (the Number). Number being explicitly set as a One, self-reflected self- reference, it excludes from itself the indifference and externaUty of the amount, and is reference to itself as reference through its own self to an External. 'In this. Quantum reaches the reality adequate to its notion. The indifference of the determinateness con- stitutes its quahty; i.e., the determinateness is the determinateness which is in itself self-external deter- minateness. Accordingly degree, or the degree, is VOL. II. X 306 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. simple quantitative determinateness under a severality of such intensities as are diverse, each only simple self-reference, but, at the same time, in essential refer- ence to one another in such wise that each has in this continuity with the others its own determinate- ness. This reference of degree through itself to its other renders ascent and descent in the scale of de- grees, a continuous process, a flux, that is an unin- terrupted indivisible alteration ; each of the severals, which are distinguished in it, is not divided from the others, but has its determinedness only in these. As self-referent quantitative determination, each of the degrees is indifferent to the others ; but it is no less in itself referred to this externality, it is only through this externahty what it is ; its reference to itself is at the same time the non-indifferent reference to the Ex- ternal, has in this (latter) reference its quahty.' The majority of readers will find all this very super- subtle and very superfluous. Eeflexion, however, will convince some that it is necessary to bring to account all these myriad distinctions which pass current daily without inquiry. The Hegehan exposition is not only an explanation in the ordinary sense ; but it Lifts into sunhght all the secret maggots of our very brains — those hidden powers whose we are, rather than that they are ours. b. Identity of Extensive and Intensive Magnitude. ' Degree, the degree, is not within itself a something external to itself. But it is not the indeterminate One, the principle of Number in general, which is no Amount, unless only the negative Amount to be no Amount. The intensive magnitude is, in the first place, a simple unit of the several ; there are several degrees ; deter- QUANTITY INTERPEBTED, ETC. 307 mined, however, they are not, neither as simple unit nor as several, but only in the co-reference of this self- externalness, or in the identity of the unit and the several. If, then, the several as such are indeed out of the simple degree, the determinateness of each sim- ple degree consists stUl, in its reference to them, the several ; the simple degree, therefore, imphes Amount. Just as twenty, as extensive magnitude, implies the twenty ones as discrete within itself, so such particular degree contains the ones as continuity, which con- tinuity this particular severahty simply is ; it is the 20th degree ; and is the 20th degree only by means of this amount, which as such is external to it. ' The determinateness of intensive magnitude is, therefore, to be considered on two sides. It is deter- mined through other intensive Quanta, and is in con- tinuity with its otherwiseness, so that in this reference to that (or them) consists its determinateness. So far now as it is, firstly, simple determinateness, it is deter- mined counter other degrees ; it excludes them out of itself, and has its determinateness in this exclusion. But, secondly, it is determined in itself; it is this in the amount as its amount, not in it as what is excluded, or as amount of other degrees. The twentieth degree contains the twenty in itself; it is not only deter- mined as distinguished from the nineteenth, the twenty- first, &c., but its determinateness is its amount. But so- far as the amount is its, and the determinateness is, at the same time, essentially as amount, degree has the nature of extensive Quantity, is extensive Quantity. ' Extensive and intensive magnitude are thus one and the same determinateness (chai'acterisedness, specificity) of the Quantum ; they are only distinguished by this, X 2 308 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. that the one has the amount as within it, the other as -without it. The extensive magnitude passes over into the intensive because its many in and for itself collapses into the unity, out of which the many stands. But conversely this unity has its determinateness only in the amount, and that too as its ; as indifferent to the other intensities, it has the externaUty of the amount in itself; intensive magnitude is thus equally essentially extensive magnitude. ' With this identity, qualitative Something re-appears ; for this identity is self — through the negation of its differences — to self-referent unity, and it is these differences that compose the there-beent quantitative determinateness ; this negative identity is, therefore. Something, indifferent, too, to its quantitative deter- minateness. Something is a Quantum, but now the qualitative There-being as it is in itself is explicit as indifferent to this consideration of Quantum. It was possible to speak of Quantum, of Number as such, &c., without a Something that were their substrate. But now there steps in Something opposite these its deter- minations, — through their negation be-mediated with itself, and as there-beent for itself — and, in that it has a Quantum, as that which has an extensive and inten- sive Quantum. Its one determinateness, which it as Quantum has, is explicit in the diverse moments of the Unity and the Amount; this determinateness is not only in itself one and the same, but its explicita- tion or expression in these differences, as extensive and intensive Quantum, is return into this unity, which unity as negative is the explicitly set Something in- different to them (the differences).' The interpretation of the above rests so evidently on principles which we have so often stated at full length QUAI^TITY INTBRPEETED, ETC. SOS already, that it may here be dispensed with, especially as something of resum^ will be necessary again. The supersubtlety will still appear to most readers the objectionable element ; and it is to be confessed that, in very weariness of the flesh, one is again and again tempted to turn away eyes of irritation from these quick and evanescent needle-points, this ceaseless to- and-fro of an all but invisible shuttle from identity into difference, and from difference into identity again, and throw one's exhausted body and vexed heart on the kindly breadth of the ready concrete : but again, and indubitably, this is subtlety, but not supersubtlety, what we are asked to look at is the veritable inner fibres of the very essence of things. Eemahk 1. Examples of this Identity. ' The distinction of extension and intension is gene- rally taken so, that it is supposed there are objects only extensive and others only intensive. Then we have in physics the new dynamical view which, to the con- trary mechanical one that would fill space, &c., by extension or a more, opposes an intension that would reach the same end through degree. The mechanical theory assumes independent parts subsistent out of each other, and only externally combined into a whole ; while opposed to this, the notion of Force is the core of the dynamical theory. What — as in the occupation of space— results under the former theory from a multi- pHcity of mutually external atoms, is produced under the latter by the manifestation of a single force. In the one instance, then,, we have the relation of Whole and Parts ; in the other, that of Force and its Eeahsation ; 310 THE SECRET Or HEGEL. and the consideration of botli finds special place furthei on. Force and Eealisation, it may be said here, how- ever, are certainly a nearer truth than Whole and Parts ; but still Force is no less one-sided than Intension it- self : its Eeahsation, Manifestation, Utterance, or outer- ance, is but as the outwardness of Extension, and is inseparable from the Force ; one and the same Intent is common to both forms, to that that is as Extensive, as to that that is as Intensive.' One gets a striking view here of the fundamental Hegelian truth ; element succeeds element in gradual ascent towards the ultimate unity, but in each element precisely the same moments reappear as constitutive : Continuity and Discretion, Extension and Intension, Whole and Parts, Force and its Eeahsation, Outer and Inner — running through the whole of these, we can see the same moments and the same idea. ' The extensive Quantum sublates itself into Degree, which in turn is wholly dependent on the former ; the one form is essential to the other, and the quantita- tive constitution of every existence is as well extensive as intensive. ' Take Number as the example : it is amount, and so extensive; but it is also One, a twenty, a hundred, &c., and the many gone into this unahty is of the nature of intension. One is extensive in itself, it can be conceived as any number of parts. The tenth, &c., is this one that has its virtue in an outward several different to it ; or the intension comes from the extension. Number is ten, twenty, &c. ; but it is at the same time the tenth the twentieth in the numerical system : both are the same determinateness, the same constitutedness. ' The unit of the circle is named degree, because any one part of the circle has its determinateness in the QUANTITY INTEEPEETED, ETC. 311 otliers out of it, is characterised as one only of a shut (definite) amount of such ones. The degree of the circle is as mere space-magnitude only a usual num- ber ; regarded as degree, it is an intensive magnitude which has a sense only as determined through the amount of degrees into which the circle is divided, as the number in general has its sense only in the nume- rical series. ' Concrete objects show the double side, extension and intension, in the externality and internahty of the manifestation of their magnitude. A mass as amount of pounds, hundredweights, &c., is extensive ; as exert- ing pressure, intensive. The Quantity of the pressure is a oneness, a degree, which has its determinateness in a scale of degrees of pressiu-e. As pressing, the mass appears as a Being- within-itself, as Subject, to which accrues intensive distinction. Conversely, what exer- cises this degree of pressure is able to move from the spot a certain amount of pounds, &c., and in this way measures its magnitude. ' Or warmth has a degree ; the degree of tempera- ture, the 10th, 20th, &c., is a simple sensation, a some- thing subjective. But this degree shows equally as extensive, — e. g. as the extension of a fluid, of the quicksilver in the thermometer, of air, of clay, &c. A higher degree of temperature expresses itself as a longer column of mercury, or as a smaller cyhnder of clay ; it warms a greater space, as a less degree only a less space. ' The higher tone is, as the intenser, at the same time a greater number of vibrations ; or a louder tone, that is, one to which a higher degree is ascribed, makes itself audible in a greater space. An intenser colour suffices a greater surface than a less intense ; or what 312 THE SECEET OF IIEGEL. is lighter, another sort of intensity, is further visible than what is less light, &c. ' In like manner in the spiritual world, high intensity of character, talent, genius, is of a correspondingly wide-gra.^]ymg There-being, extended influence, and many-sided contact. The deepest Notion has the most universal significance and application.' In illustration on the same side as these examples, we may observe that the death of the Eedeemer is not only the most intense event in history, but just what is intensest in an absolute point of view and in the very possibiHty of things ; hence it is, or wiU be, what is most extensive also both as regards time and space.* On the other side, it may be said that intension will not always supply the place of extension, or vice versd. The wooden mallet and the iron hammer, though absolutely of the same weight, are not always interchangeable. In the galvanic battery, breadth is not found exactly to replace number of plates. Lastly, we are apt to see in characters an excess of intensity that leads to vacillation and lubricity, to flightiness, and in general feebleness : we are accustomed to desire for such characters a mitigation of intensity by increase, as it were, of extension in the nervous system and the general frame. Nevertheless, it is quite possible that these seemingly intense characters are only formally so, and that the depth of their capability is no greater than the breadth of their performance. In galvanism, im- plements, &c., it is quite possible also to find such facts or considerations as would again reduce both sides to a balance and an identity. » There is a simUar remark in Rosenkranz : Wissenschaft der Logik p. 486. ' QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 313 Eemaek 2. This is a critique in relation to Kant, and is reserved for consideration elsewhere. I cannot help pointing out, however, that we have here a considerable light on Hegel's attitude to the doctrine of the Immortahty. In reference to the usual argument that the soul being one and simple, is mdestructible by dissolution of parts, Kant observes that the soul, though extensively simple, may still vanish by process of remission as regards its intensity. To this Hegel rejoins : the usual argument treats the soul as a Thing, and appHes in its characterisa- tion the category of extensive Quantum ; Kant, there- fore, has an equal right to apply that of intensive Quantum : the soul, however, is not Ding (thing) but Geist (Spirit), and ' to the Spirit,' these are Hegel's own words, ' there belongs certainly Being, but of a quite other intensity than that of intensive Quantum, rather of such an intensity that in it the form of immediate Being and every category of the same are as sublated ; not only, then, was remotion of the category of extensive Quantum to be conceded, but that of Quantum ia general was to be withdi'awn : it is something further yet, how- ever, to perceive how, in the eternal nature of the Spirit, there-being, consciousness, finitude, is, and arises therefrom, without this Spirit becoming thereby a thing.' c. The Alteration of the Quantum. ' The distinction of extensive and intensive Quantum is indifferent to the determinateness (specific nature) of Quantum as such. But in general Quantum is the determinateness wliich is expHcitly set as sublated, the indifferent hmit, the determinateness which is just as much the negation of itself (as always in another). This 314 THE SECKET OF HEGEL. distinction is developed in extensive magnitude, but intensive magnitude is the There-being (the actual ex- istent specialty) of this externality which Quantum is Avithin itself; (it is the appearance as it were, the real- isation in a kind of outward mortal state of the notion.) This distinction (of Quantum as negation of its own de- terminateness) is set as its (Quantum's) contradiction within itself — the contradiction to be simple self to self-referent determinateness which is the negation of itself — the contradiction to have its determinateness not in it, but in another Quantum. 'A Quantum, therefore, is explicitly set as, in its Quahty, in absolute continuity with its externality, with its otherwiseness. Every quantitative determinateness, therefore, not only can be exceeded, it not only can be altered, but it is explicitly, expressly this, that it must alter itself. Quantitative determinateness continues it- self so into its otherwiseness, that it has its Being only in this continuity with another ; it is not a heent, but a hecoment hmit. ' The One is infinite, or the self to self-referent nega- tion, therefore the repulsion of itself from itself. (This is very fine, and not hard to see.) The Quantum is equally infimte, exphcitly set as the self to self-referent negativity ; it repels itself from itself. But it is a deter- minate one, the one which has gone over into There- being and into the hmit ; therefore the repulsion of the determinateness from itself, not the production of its own Like, of what is hke and equal to its own self, as the repulsion of the One, but of its otherwiseness ; it is now explicit in itself to dispatch itself beyond itself and become another. It consists in this, to increase or decrease itself ; it is the externahty of determinateness in itself QUANTITY INTEKPEBTED, ETC. 313 ' The Quantum, therefore, dispatches itself beyond itself; this other which it becomes is firstly itself a Quantum ; but equally as a Hmit non-beent, that drives itself beyond itself. The Hmit which in this transition has again arisen is, therefore, directly only such a one as again sublates itself and passes into another, and so on into the infinite. C. QUANTITATIVE INFINITUDE, a. Its Notion. ' The Quantum alters itself and becomes another Quantum ; the further determination of this alteration, that it proceeds in infinitum, hes in this, that the Quantum is constituted as contradicting itself in itself. The Quantum becomes another ; it continues itself, however, into its otherwiseness : the other, therefore, is also a Quantum. But this is the other not only of a, but of the Quantum itself, the negative of it as of a hmited something; consequently, its unlimitedness, infinitude. The Quantum is a Sollen, a To-be-to ; it imphes to-he-determined-for-itself, and such self-deter- minedness is rather determinedness in another : and conversely it is sublated determinedness in another, it is indifferent self-subsistence. ' Finitude and Infinitude receive thus at once each in itself a double, and that an opposed import. The Quantum is finite, firstly, as limited in general ; se- condly, as self-dispatch beyond itself, as determined- ness in another. Its Infinitude, again, is, firstly, non- limitedness ; secondly, its return into itself, indifierent Being-for-self. If we directly compare these moments, there Jesuits, that the determination of the Finitude 31G THE SECRET OP HEGEL. of the Quantum, the self-dispatch into another, in which its determination is supposed to lie (and hes), is equally determination of the Infinite ; the negation of the hmit is the same Beyond over the determinate- ness, in such wise that the Quantum has in this ne- gation, the Infinite, its ultimate determinateness. The other moment of the Infinitude is the Being-for-self that is indifferent to the limit ; the Quantum itself, however, is just so limited, that it is what is for itself indifferent to its limit, and so to other Quanta and its Beyond. The Finite and the Infinite (that Infinite which is to be separated from the Finite, — the spu- rious Infinite) have, in Quantum, each already in it the moment of the other. ' The qualitative and the quantitative Infinites dis- tinguish themselves by this, that in the former the anti- thesis of Finite and Infinite is qualitative, and the transition of the Finite into the Infinite, or the reference of both to each other, has only in the notion, only in the In itself. The qualitative determinateness is as imme- diate, and refers itself to the otherwiseness essentially as to a something that is other to it ; it is not explicit as having in itself its negation, its other. Quantity, on the contrary, is, as such, suhlated determinateness ; it is explicit as being unequal with itself and indifferent to itself, and so as alterable. The qualitative Finite and Infinite stand, therefore, absolutely, i. e., abstractly opposed to each other ; their unity is the internal re- ference that is implied at bottom : the Finite continues itself, therefore, only in itself, and not in it, into its other. On the contrary, the quantitative Finite refers itself in itself into its infinite, in which it has its abso- lute determinateness. This their reference is set out at first hand in the Quantitative Infinite Progress. QUANTITY INTEEPKETED, ETC. 317 b. The Quantitative Infinite Progress. ' The Progress into the Infinite is in general the expression of contradiction, here of that contradiction which the quantitative Finite or Quantum in general implies. It is that alternation of Finite and Infinite which was considered in the quaHtative sphere, with the difierence that, as just remarked above, in the quantitative sphere, the hmit dispatches itself and con- tinues itself in itself into its Beyond ; consequently, con- versely also the quantitative Infinite is explicit as having the Quantum in itself, for the Quantum is in its Being- out-of-self at the same time itself ; its externahty belongs to its determination. ' The infinite Progress is indeed only the expression of 'this contradiction, not its solution; but because of the continuity of the one determinateness into its other, it brings forward an apparent solution in a union of both. As this progress is first expressed, it is the Aufgabe of the Infinite (i. e. at once the giving up and the problem proposed ; both sides of the Enghsh puzzle or riddle are, as it were, glanced at), not the attain- ment of the same, — its recurrent production, without getting beyond the Quantum itself, and without the Infinite becoming positive and present. The Quantum has it in its notion to have a Beyond of itself. This Beyond is, firstly, the abstract moment of the non- being of the Quantum ; this latter ehminates itself in itself; thus it refers itself to its Beyond as to its Infinitude, as in the qualitative moment of the anti- thesis. But, secondly, the Quantum stands in continuity with this Beyond; the Quantum consists just in this, to be the other of itself, to be external to its own self : this, that is external, therefore, is just so not another 318 THE SECBET OF HEGEL. than the Quantum ; the Beyond or the Infinite is there- fore itself a Quantum. The Beyond is in thi^ way recalled from its flight, and the Infinite reached. But because this — now become a here from a Beyond, a ds or dtra fi-om an ultra. — is again a Quantum, only a new limit has been made again exphcit ; this new limit, as Quantum, is again fled from by itself, is as Quantum beyond itself, and has repelled itself into its non-being, into its Beyond of or from its own self, which Beyond equally recurrently becomes Quantum, and as that repels itself from itself into the Beyond again. ' The continuity of the Quantum into its other occa- sions the union of both in the expression of an infinitely great or infinitely small. As both have the determina- tion of Quantum still in them, they remain alterable, and the absolute determinateness, which were a Being- for-self, is therefore not reached- This Being-out-of- itself of the determination is explicit in the double Infinite, which is self-opposed according to a more or a less, the infinitely great and the infinitely small. In each of them Quantum is maintained in constantlv- recurring antithesis to its Beyond. The great, how- ever much extended, vanishes together into inconsider- ableness ; in that it refers itself to the Infinite as to its non-being, the antithesis is qualitative : the extended Quantum has, therefore, won from the Infinite nothing ; the latter, after as before, is the non-being of the former. Or, the aggrandisement of the Quantum is no Hearing to the Infinite, for the difference of the Quantum and of its Infinite has essentially also this moment, that it is not a quantitative difference. It is only the expression of the contradiction driven closer into the straits ; it is to be at once great, i. a a QUANTITY IXTEEPKETED, ETC. 319 Quantum, and infinite, i.e. no Quantum. In the same manner, the infinitely small is as small a Quantmn, and remains therefore absolutely, that is to say, quah- tatively, too great for the Infinite, and is opposed to it. The contradiction of the infinite progress, which was to have found its goal in them, remains preserved in both. ' This Infinite, which is persistently determined as the Beyond of the Finite, is to be described as the spurious quantitative infinite. It is, like the qualitative spurious Infinite, the perpetual crossing hence and thence from the one member of the persisting contra- diction to the other, from the hmit to its non-being, and from the latter anew back to the limit. In the quantitative progress, what is advanced to is indeed not an abstract other, but a Quantum that is expressed as different ; but it remains equally in antithesis to its negation. The Progress, therefore, is equally not a progress, but a repetition of one and the same, — ^posi- tion, sublation, — re-position and re-sublation ; (the equating setzend with ponens and aufhebend with t(jl- lens is conspicuously plain here) — an impotence of the negative to which what it sublates returns through its very sublation as a Constant. There are two so con- nected that they directly mutually flee themselves ; and even in fleeing cannot separate, but are in their mutual flight conjoined.' Eemabe 1. Tlie High Repute of the Progresgus in Infinitum. This Eemark turns largely on certain declarations of Kant ; but it is not of such a nature as to suggest reser- vation, as is usual where Kant is in question. ' The bastard Infinite — especially in its quantitative form, this perpetual transcendence of the hmit and 320 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. perpetual impotent relapse into the same — is generally contemplated as something subhme, a kind of Divine Service, — just as in Philosophy it has been regarded as an Ultimate. This Progress has manifoldly contributed to Tirades, which have been admired as sublime pro- ductions. In point of fact, however, this modern sub- hmity enlarges, not the object, which rather flees, but only the Subject, that absorbs mto itself such huge quantities. The indigence of this mere subjective ele- vation, that would scale the ladder of the Quantitative, declares itself directly in the admission of the futility of all its toil to get any closer to the infinite End, which to be reached indeed, must be quite otherwise griped to. ' In the following Tirades of this nature there is at the same time expressed, what such elevation passes into and ends in. Kant, e. g., speaks of it as sublime, (Kr. d. pract. V. Schl.) when the Subject lifts himself in thought above the place he occupies in the world of sense and extends the synthesis of his existence into infinite magnitude— a synthesis with stars upon stars, worlds upon worlds, systems upon sys- tems, and moreover also into the immeasurable times of their periodic movement, of their beginning, and persistent dui-a- tion. — Conception sinks under this advance into the immea- surable Far, where the furthest world has still a further — the past, however far referred, a further still behind it — the future, however equally far anticipated, always another still before it; Thought sinks under this conception of the im- measurable; as a dream, that we travel a long road ever further and interminably further without apparent end, ceases at length with Falling or with Fainting (swimming of the head).* ' This description, besides compressing the matter of contents of the quantitative elevation into a wealth of * The latter half of this citation is not found at the place cited. QUANTITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 321 delineation, deserves especial praise for the honesty with which it relates how, in the end, it fares with this elevation : thought succumbs, the end is Falling and a Swimming of the head. What makes thought give in and produces the Fall and the Faint is nothing else than the weariness of the repetition that lets a limit disappear and again enter and again disappear ; and so ever the one after the other, and the one in the other, in the thither the hither, and in the hither the thither, perpetually arises and perpetually departs, and there remains only a feeling of the im- potence of this Infinite or of this To-be-to, that would be master of the Finite, but is without the power. ' What Kant names the awful description of Eternity by Haller is usually also specially admired, but often just not for the reason which constitutes its veritable merit : — I multiply enormous numbers, I pile to millions up, I gather time on time and world on world still up, And when I from the giddy height Seek thee once more with reeling sight, Is every power of count, increased a thousand number Not yet a part of thee. I drag them doitm and thou liest there hy me* ' When this massing and pihng up of numbers and worlds is considered what is valuable as in a descrip- tion of eternity, it escapes notice that the Poet himself declares this so-called awful transcendence to be some- thing futile and hollow, and that his own conclusion is, that only by giving up this empty infinite progress, * It is to be hoped the reader ' rhythm in which rather comes than will excuse this rough and ready is sought, — but, after all, the origi- translation, any ghost of rhyme or nal is but a similar doggerel. VOL. II. Y 322 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. is it, that the veritable Infinite itself becomes present to him. ' There have been Astronomers who pleased them- selves in making a merit of the sublimity of their science, because it has to do with an immeasurable number of stars, with such immeasurable spaces and times that in them distances and periods, in them- selves never so vast, are but as units that, never so many times taken, abbreviate themselves again into in- significance. The shallow astonishment to which they then surrender themselves, the absurd hopes some time yet in another life to wander from star to star, and for ever to acquire such new facts, they alleged as chief moments of the excellence of their science — which science deserves admiration, not because of such quantitative infinitude, but, on the contrary, because of the relations and the laws which reason recognises in these objects, and which are the rational infinite as against said irrational infinite. ' To the Infinite which refers itself to outward sen- suous perception, Kant opposes the other Infinite, when the individual returns into his invisible Ego, and opposes the absohite freedom of his will as a pure Ego to all the terrors of Destiny and of Tyranny, beginning with his nearest circumstances, sees them disappear in themselves, and even that which seems eternal, worlds upon worlds, collapse in ruins, and recognises singly himself as equal to himself. 'Ego, in this siagleness with itself, is indeed the attained Beyond ; it has come to itself, is by itself, here ; in pure self-consciousness the absolute negativity is brought into the affirmation and presence which in that progress beyond the sensuous Quantum only flee. But in that this pure Ego has fixed itself in its abstrac- QUANTITY INTBEPRETBD, ETC. 323 tion and emptiness, it has the There-being in general, the fullness of the natural and spiritual universe, over against it as a Beyond. There manifests itself the same contradiction which is implied in the infinite progress ; namely, a returnedness into itself which is immediately at the same time out-of-itself-ness, refer- ence to its other as to its non-being ; which reference remains a longing, because Ego has fixed for itself its mtent-less and untenable void on one side, and as its Beyond the fullness which in the negation still remains present. ' To both Subhmes Kant adds the remark, " that admiration (of the former, external) and awe (before the second, internal) sublime, may stimulate, indeed, to inquiry, but cannot compensate for the deficiency of the same." — He thus declares said elevations insufficient for reason, which cannot rest by them and the feelings connected with them, nor accept the Beyond and the Void for what is ultimate. ' The infinite progress has been taken as an ultimate, especially in its moral apphcation. The just-enun- ciated second antithesis of the Finite and the Infinite, as of the complex world and of the Ego raised into its freedom, is properly quahtative. The self-deter- mination of the Ego aims, at the same time, at the determination of Nature, and the emancipation of itself from her ; it thus refers itself through itself to its other which is, as external There-being, a manifold and quantitative. Eeference to what is quantitative becomes itself quantitative ; the negative reference of the Ego thereon, the power of the Ego over the Non-Ego, over sense and external nature, comes therefore to be conceived in this way, that morality can and shall become ever greater — the power T 2 324 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. of sense, on the other hand, always less. The complete adequacy, however, of the will to the moral law is misplaced in the infinite progress, that is to say, it is represented as an absolutely unreachable Beyond, and just this is to be the true anchor and the legitimate consolation, that it is unreachable; for morahty is to be as conflict ; this conflict, again, is only from the inade- quacy of the will to the law, and the law, therefore, is absolutely a Beyond for the will. ' In this antagonism. Ego and Non-Ego, or the pure wiU and the moral law, and the sensuousness and mere nature of the will, are presupposed as completely inde- pendent and mutually indifferent. This pure will has its peculiar law which stands in essential connexion with Sense ; and Nature, or Sense, has on its side laws which are neither derived from the will nor corre- spondent to it, nor can have even only, however dif- ferent from it, in themselves an essential connexion with it, but they are in general determined for themselves, fuU and complete within themselves. But both, at the same time, are moments of one and the same single Being, the Ego ; the will is determined as the negative against Nature, so that it (the will) is only so far as there is such an element different from it that shall become sublated by it, with which, however, it (the will) comes thus in contact, and by which it is even affected. To nature and to nature as human Sense, limitation through another is indifferent, as to an independent system of laws; she maintains herself in this limitation, enters independently into the relation, and limits the will of the law quite as much as it limits her. It is one act, the self-determination of the will with the sublation of the otherwiseness of a nature, and the assumption of this otherwiseness as there-beent, as continuing itself in QUANTITY INTEKPEETED, ETC. 325 its sublation and as not sublated. The contradiction that lies in this is not ehminated in the infinite progress, but, on the contrary, is expressed and maintained as not ehminated and as incapable of elimiaation ; the conflict of Morahty and Sense is represented as the absolute relation that in and for itself is. ' The incapacity to become master of the qualitative antithesis of the Finite and Infinite, and to comprehend the Idea of the true will, substantial freedom, has recourse to Quantity, in order to use it as mediatrix, because it is the sublated Qualitative, the difference become indifierent. But in that both members of the antithesis remain implied as qualitatively different, each rather becomes manifest at once as indifierent to this alteration, and just by this that in their mutual refer- ence it is as Quanta that they now relate themselves. Nature is determined by Ego, Sense by the WiU of the Good ; the change produced by the Will in Sense is only a quantitative difference, such a difference as allows it (Sense) to remain what it is. ' In the abstracter statement of the Kantian Philo- sophy, or at least of its principles, that is, in the Wissenschaftslehre of Fichte, the infinite progress constitutes in the same manner the fundamental principle and the Ultimate. The first axiom of this statement. Ego = Ego, is followed by a second inde- pendent of the first, the opposition of the Non-Ego ; the connexion of both is taken at once also as quan- titative difference, that Non-Ego is partly determined by Ego, partly also not. The Non-Ego continues itself in this way into its non-being, so that in its non- being it remains opposed, as what is not sublated. When, therefore, the contradictions thus involved have been developed in the system, the concluding result is 326 THE SECKET OE HEGEL. the same relation that was the commencement ; the Non-Ego remains an infinite appulse, an absolutely other; the ultimate mutual connexion of it and of the Ego is the infinite progress, longing and struggle, seeking and searching, — the same contradiction which was begun with. 'Because the quantitative element is the determi- nateness that is express as sublated, it was beheved that much, or rather aU, had been won for the unity of the Absolute, for the One Substantiality, when the antithesis in general was set down to a difference only quantitative. Every antithesis is only quantitative, was for a time a main position of the later Philosophy; the opposed determinations have the same nature, the same substance ; they are real sides of the antithesis, so far as each of them has within it both values, both factors of the antithesis, only that on the one side the one factor, on the other the other, is preponderant ; on the one side the one factor, a matter or power, is present in greater quantity or in stronger degree than on the other. So far as different matters or powers are presupposed, the quantitative difference rather confirms and completes their externahty and indifference to each other and to their unity. The difference of the absolute Unity is to be only quantitative ; Quantitativity is indeed the sublated immediate determinateness, but it is only the uncompleted, only the first negation, not the in- finite, not the negation of the negation. In that Being and Thought are represented as quantitative de- terminations of the Absolute Substance, even they, as Quanta, become, just lil?;e Carbon, Azote, &c., in a sub- ordinate sphere, perfectly external to each other and void of connexion. It is a Third (party), an external reflexion, which abstracts from their difference and QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 327 perceives their inner unity, that is only in itself and not equally for itself. This unity, consequently, is represented in effect only as first immediate unity, or only as Being, which, in its quantitative differ- ence, remains equal to itself, but does not set itself equal to itself through itself; it is thus not com- prehended as negation of negation, as infinite unity. Only in the qualitative antithesis arises the explicit Infinite, the Being-for-self, and the quantitative deter- mination itself passes over, as will presently more par- ticularly yield itself, into the Qualitative.' Remark 2, Which occurs here, concerns Kant, and is reserved for the present. It is again one of those miracles of analysis of which, as yet, no man but Hegel has set the example — a perspicacity absolutely irresistible ! — a singleness of statement absolutely annihilative ! c. The Infinitude of the Quantum. ' 1. The infinite Quantum, as infinitely great or in- finitely little, is itself an sich the infinite Progress ; it is Quantum as great or small, and it is at the same time non-being of Quantum. The infinitely great and infinitely little are therefore images of figurate conception, which, on closer consideration, show them- selves as idle mist and shadow. But in the infinite Progress this contradiction is explicitly present, and withal that also that is the nature of the Quantum — which as intensive magnitude has reached its reahty, and in its There-being is now exphcitly set as it is in its Notion. This identity is what we have to consider. ' The Quantum as degree is simple, unal, referred to itself and as determined in itself In that through this 328 THE SECEET OP HEGEL. unality the otherwiseness and the determinateness in it is sublated, this determinateness is external to it, it has its determinateness out of it. This its out-of-itself-ness is at first hand the abstract non-being of the Quantum in general, the spurious Infinite. But further this non- being is also a magnitude, the Quantum continues itself into its non-being, for it has just its determinateness in its externahty ; this its externality is itself therefore equally Quantum ; that, its non-being, the Infinitude, becomes thus hmited, that is to say, this Beyond is sublated, is itself determined as Quantum, which is thus in its negation by its own self. ' This, however, is what the Quantum as such is an sich. For it is just itself (es selbst) through its outer- liness ; the externahty constitutes that whereby it is Quantum, is by its own self. In the infinite Progress, therefore, the Notion of the Quantum is Express, Ex- plicit. ' Let us take it (the Progress) at first hand in its abstract distinctive features as they lie before us, then there is present in it the sullation of the Quantum, but equally also of its Beyond, therefore the negation of the Quantum as well as the negation of this negation. Its (the Progress') truth is their unity, in which they are but as moments. This unity is the solution of the con- tradiction of which the Progress is the expression, and its (this unity's) closest meaning consequently is the restoration of the notion of Quantity, — that it is in- different or external hmit. In the infinite Progress as such, it is usually only considered, that each Quantum, however great or smaU, must be capable of disappear- ing, that it must be capable of being transcended ; but it is not considered, that this its sublation, the Beyond, the downright Infinite itself disappears also. QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 329 ' Even the first sublation, the negation of Quality in general, whereby Quantum becomes explicit, is an sich the sublation of the negation, — the Quantum is sub- lated qualitative limit, consequently sublated negation, — but it is at the same time only an sich this ; it is set as a There-being, and then its negation is fixed as the Infinite, as the Beyond of Quantum which stands as a Here, a This side, as an immediate ; thus the infinite is determined only as first negation, and so it appears in the infinite progress. It has been shown that there is, however, more present in this last, — the negation of the negation, or that which the infinite is in truth. This was before regarded as that the Notion of the Quantum is thus again restored ; this restoration means, in direct reference, that its There-being has received its closer de- termination ; there has arisen, namely, the Quantum de- termined according to its Notion, which is different fi:om the Immediate Quantum — the externahty is now the contrary of itself, expHcitly set as moment of the Mag- nitude itself, — the Quantum so that by means of its non-being, the infinite, it has in another Quantum its deter minateness, i. e. qualitatively is that which it is. Nevertheless, this comparison of the Notion with the There-being of the Quantum belongs more to our re- flexion, to a relation that is not yet present here. The immediately next determination is, that the Quan- tum has returned into Quahty, is now once again qualitatively determined. For its peculiarity. Quality, is the externahty, indifference of the determinateness ; and it is now explicitly set, as being in its externality rather itself, as therein referriug itself to itself, as in simplicity with itself, i. e. as being qualitatively deter- mined. This Quahtativity is more particularly deter- mined, namely, as Being-for-self ; for the reference to 330 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. itself to which it has come, arises out of Mediation, the negation of the negation. The Quantum has the Infinite, the For-self-determinedness no longer out of it, but in itself. ' The Infinite, which in the infinite Progress has only the empty sense of a Non-being, of an unreached, but sought Beyond, is in effect nothing else than Quality. The Quantum as indifferent limit passes out beyond itself into the infinite ; it seeks so nothing else than the for-self-determinedness, the qualitative moment, that, however, in this way, is only a To-be-to. Its indifference to the hmit, consequently its defect of beent-for-self-determinateness and its going out beyond itself, is what makes the Quantum Quantum ; that, its going-out, is to be negated, and to find for itself in the infinite its absolute determinateness. ' Quite generally : the Quantum is sublated Qua- lity ; but the Quantum is infinite, transcends itself, is the negation of itself; this its transcendence is, therefore, an sich the negation of the negated Quality, the restoration of Quality ; and this is explicitly set, that the externality which appeared as Beyond, is determined as the own moment of the Quantum. ' The Quantum is thus set as repelled from itself, whereby there are therefore two Quanta, which, never- theless, are sublated, only are as moments of one unity, and this unity is the determinateness of the Quantum. This (Quantum) thus referred to itself in its externality as indifferent limit, and consequently qualitatively set, is the Quantitative Relation. In relation the Quantum is external to itself, different from itself; this its externahty is the referring of one Quantum to another Quantum, of which each is only valid in this its re- ference to its other ; and this reference constitutes the QUANTITY INTEEPRETED, ETC. 331 determinateness (the special virtue) of the Quantum which is as such unity. It has in this reference not an indifferent, but a quahtative determination; is in this its externality returned into itself, is in the same that which it is.' There is the possibility here of some very auxiliary remarks. — First of all, the contradiction in the notion of an Infinitesimal,- an infinitely great, or an infinitely httle, is accomphshed with the usual Hegelian master- liness in a very clear, and, as things are, very neces- sary exposition. It is to be at once Quantum and no Quantum, that is, it is an sich the infinite Progress : now it is the reduction of this contradiction to the unity of relation which is the relative merit of Hegel. The limitless externahty which hes in the notion of Quantum or Quantity is quahtative ; and therefore it is a cheap wonder that falls prostrate before the in- finite quantities that can be conjured up in the quanti- tative Progress ; for with such quality such quantity is the turn of a hand. The bearing which intensive magnitude — as that, as it were, qualitative One, which has nevertheless its affair in an external Many — has on the subsequent determination of Eelation must not be lost sight of Degree, quite generally as degree, has what constitutes its determinateness external to itself ; but there is no end to the possibility of degree, there- fore this its own constitutive externahty is endless ; or vice versd, the constitutive externahty being endless, degree is endless ; and we have thus in perfectly ex- plicit expression the quantitative spurious Infinite. In this Infinite, the externahty, the Many, can be seen to be relatively to the One, the degree, this degree's abstract non-being as such ; or this abstract non-being, the possibility of degree, is just the spurious Infinite. 332 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. Now all this is the very Notion of Quantum in general : Quantum is itself, is what it is, through its own out- wardness. We may even intensify the outwardness implied in the notion here ; for we may say, the Quantum is what it is through that outwardness which it is, and also through that outwardness which it is not — any quantitative assignment being absolutely relative. This relativity, the notion of a One from Tavo, is well before the mind of Hegel. As always relative, the assignment - — Quantum — can be seen, then, always to flee — in infinitum. From this flight it is Hegel's business, by virtue of the Notion, to recall it. I have translated Schlecht- ZJnendhche, downright Infinite. The sense assigned is an old idiomatic use of Schlecht as seen in Schlechthin, Schlechtweg, &c. ; and again, looking close, the Un of Unendliche seems italicised, which somehow plays very much into the hands of Schlecht in the sense of downright. Beyond all doubt, however, we have here the usual Hegehan irony ; what here is downright to figurate conception or ordinary reflexion is spurious to Hegel. The reader will assist himself greatly here if he will recall the suh specie ceterni, and reflect that it is the pure Notion, the Absolute, which Hes under all these forms. It was the sublation of Finite There-being, for example, that led through the absolute Being-for- self into the form of Quantity at all : aU then was One, One, One, — that is, Quantity ; but in that Quan- tity, the One, Quality, still is. ' Quantity, then, is an sich the sublation of the negation' — of what ne- gation? — why, of the quahtative negation, of qualita- tive hmit, of the fact that the Voice had a Notification QUANTITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 333 different from itself : Quantity is the negation of this qualitative limit ; what is, is One, but even so it must be One, One, One : Quantity is the condition of its life, of its very one-ness. AU this is very plainly present, especially in the last four paragraphs, which have been just translated. The One is always One, the immediate ; so the non-immediate is its non-being, the negation of itself: thus it is caught (befangen) in the spurious Infinite, the SoUen of all kinds, and is ' das ungluckhche Bewusstseyn,' the unhappy conscious- ness that cannot find itself, but is for ever lost in its other. AU this disappears before the simple considera- tion that the other is just the condition, the presupposi- tion of itself ; that the other is for it ; that it is through the other ; that it is One just because it is One, One, One ; that it is the other, and the other is it. This is return of the Quantum into Quahty : its determinate- ness as Quantum is its own externality ; but its own externahty was the determinateness of Quality also : sublation of the externality produces a like quaHtative Being-for-self in both. In fact, read by this absolute fight, these paragraphs will yield a perfectly marvellous meaning. Wfiile on one side all the assignments of Quantity are placed before us in a rigorous exactitude of form that is now for the first time witnessed, on the other side we have the Absolute itself demonstrated to us, and in those necessities which are the purest outcomes of its own reason, of its own pulse, that is, of its own self. Here, for example, we see that Quan- tity is not a thing apart and by itself, not something peculiar, independent and isolated, but absolutely one with quahty, absolutely one with what is : it is part and parcel of the One AU, and it is not part and parcel, 334 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. but is that One All ; for in no other way could there be One, One, One, a life. Quality : Quantity, in fact, is but the abstract expression of that concrete fact. To generalise and abstract may be necessary, but it is more necessary nowadays to conduct ou.r abstractions back into the life from which they have been sundered. This hfe is one and many : these many are not to be fixed as dead immovable solids (bits of ice) taken up from the One, the life, they are to be taken back, re-dissolved and seen as they are in the hving One. That Quality is Quahty, then, is just that Quantity is Quantity, or that there is Quantity : there is an abso- lutely necessary nexus between the two entities ; they are but sides of one and the same. How were an internality possible without an externality to extend it ? Thei-e is not here internality, then, and there externality ; but what is, is at once external and internal, and such constitution is an absolute necessity of thought or of the Notion. He that would see rightly, then, must always see in connexion, in co-reference. The Absolute Negativity, the negation of the negation, this is the key- note : what is, is a fire that feeds itself ; the fire and its fuel are one ; the former is through the latter, but the former always is, therefore the latter always is, and the one is the other. Such is the nature of the Divine Life : it is infinite, for that which it is through, the aliment, is infinite and itself. Thus is it the pure negativity or the negation of the negation, for it is through its other, its negation, which at the same time it negates: the Attraction that is explicit is for ever fed by the Eepulsion that is implicit. In this way it is that Hegel has taken firm hold of the formuila of the Absolute ; and this negation of the negation, this necessary duplicity in the character of every QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 333 actual concrete existence by wMch it has two abs- tract or relatively abstract sides, he has followed out through the entire circle of the universe, up from the abstractest determination to the concretest, and this too by an absolutely necessary method, and with an ab- solutely necessary beginning and end. The duplicity which we see here in regard to Quality and Quantity is the single regulative truth of things, and, the element of thought being it and it nothing but thought, it is not more regulative than constitutive ; it is what is, it is the Absolute, it is the pulse of God himself — at least as expressed in this universe. Quantity is a necessary position — it is but Quahty, completed Quality. Quality, when full-summed, consummated in itself, is Quantity, by virtue of its own life, its own continuance. Quan- tity, which is the hfe of Quality, its continuance, with- out which Quahty were not, which is required to extend Quahty, returns by virtue of its own notion and verit- able constitution into the Quahty which it was supposed to have left. We need not say, indeed, Quantity without which Quality were not ; for that is simply tautological. Quantity being very evidently just the same thing as Quality, though on the other side. That Quahty be, Quantity is a necessary condition, and so is it a necessary ingredient of Quality itself. Without the Quantity that extends it, Quality is inconceivable and impossible ; but conversely without the Quality that, so to speak here, intends it. Quantity is incon- ceivable and impossible. What were Quantum and Quanta if only Quantitative Quantum and Quanta? Quantum and Quanta must contract into the ultimate virtue, into the essential drop of Quality, — the ones are the One : Quantum and Quanta are only for Quality ; they are only Qualitative. Time, Space, 336 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. Matter, the Ego, — these we have already seen cited as examples of pure quantity ; but they are all of them qualitative, and there only because they are qualitative, they are necessary positions of the Abso- lute in the way in which we have seen such necessity as regards Quantity when referred to Quality. That they are qualitative is evident from this, that each has its own peculiarity; that is, they are not absolutely the same pure Quantity, and so not absolutely pure Quan- tity at all : pure Quantity as such is just the out-of- itself of Quality, or, what is the same thing, its continuance but in discretion, discretion and con- tinuance being but another example of the absolute duplicity by which neither is possible without the other, or either is the other. Quahty is the One ; but to be the One, it must be One, One, One endlessly, or Quantity : but the One refers these Ones to its own oneness — Quantitative Eelation. However it may be with the Absolute, it must be admitted, at least, that Hegel in pursuit of his Absolute has absolutely worked out and perfected, and for the first time in universal history, the Metaphysic or Theory of Quantity. Whether, then, what we may assign as the ultimate dictum of Hegel — Thought is the one dvayxri, and the avdyxr^ of Thought gives this Universe — be true or not, we must be thankful for the vast light his metaphysic has thrown on the particular and on all particulars. This brings us to say that before entering on the important enunciations of Hegel in reference to the Calculus and the higher analysis in general, which form the subject- matter of the three very long and laborious Eemarks by the first of which we now stand, it will be advan- tageous to renew the values of Quantity we have just obtained, especially those which bear on what is called QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 337 the Quantitative Infinite, True or False, Genuine or Spurious, Legitimate or Bastard. The Qualitative Infinite we probably understand thoroughly, and on both aspects, from the illustration of the absolute Yoice and its Notification. The Noti- fication as finite Note after finite Note endlessly, is that alternation of endedness and unendedness that but replace each other and repeat themselves, which is the spurious Infinite of Hegel. The absolute Voice itself, which is through these notes, and these notes, is the true Infinite. In efiect. Finite and Infinite are but a certain stage of the Notion, of the one double single, or of the single duphcity. An Infinite without a Finite were null, as a Finite without an Infinite is inconceivable and impossible : neither, then, is possible without the other ; each implies the other ; — either is the other : the -one truth is the single duplicity that is both. When we see Finite by itself, and Infinite by itself, we see a concrete Notion, or a phase of the concrete Notion, in each of its two abstract sides alternately. The truth is the absolute Voice which is through its other, which other it also negates or sublates ; and so is it the nega- tion of the negation, the pure negativity, the veritable Infinite. This Infinite as One passed through what we may call Monadology or the Metaphysic of the Monad into the indifferent continuous oneness which emerged as Quantity. Quantity showed itself immediately as Con- tinuous or Discrete ; both of which went together again in the notion of limit, which was found to be not only the common, but the entire truth of each. Limit next manifested itself as Quantum or Number, which went asunder into Extensive and Intensive Quanta, but col- lapsed again into the quantitative Something which, as VOL. II. z 338 THE SBCEKT OP HEGEL. the very quality or notion of Quantum, is endless self- externality, or the quantitative Infinite. The quanti- tative Infinite is first the spurious Infinite of Quantum fleeing ever into its indifierent hmit. But this flight or transcendence is in its truth a transcendence of the one Quantum as well as of the other : this is a reference of Quantum to Quantum, is quahtative, and the true Quantitative Infinite of Quantitative Eelation. Simple consideration sub specie ceterni of the One that issued from Quality and emerged in Quantity leads readily to ah. these forms. But, not to go too far back — as limit- less one, one, one that is always away over into another one, it is the spurious infinite, while as return to its own oneness in aU these ones it is the true Infinite and a return to Quality. This can be characterised, too, as the true reflexion for us here. Lastly, in an objective mode of looking, the oneness that results from the re- flexion of one to one is — Quantitative Eelation, and is here the true Quantitative Infinite, as it is Qualitative, or as it is the return of Quahty to itself from Quantity. I may add, that once having the absolute as One, or just the form, character, determination, or term of One, the whole of Quantity, and of all that holds of it, is potentially given. Eemaek 1. The Precise Nature of the Notion of the Mathematical Infinite. ' The Infinite which the higher analysis has intro- duced into mathematical science, while it has led to vast results in practice, has been always attended with great difficulties in theory. The latter, indeed, has never been able to justify the former ; 'confirmation has been required for the results, as it were, from with- out ; and the operation itself has been rather granted as incorrect. This is a false position in itself un- QUANTITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 339 scientific — and no science so situated can be either sure of its application or certain of its extent. ' What is interesting to Philosophy here i?, that while this, the Mathematical Infinite, is at bottom the True Infinite, it is the False or Metaphysical Infinite before which it is summoned and required to justify itself. The former, indeed (mathematic), defends itself by rejecting the competence of the latter (metaphysic), and by professing to own no authority but that of its own consistency on its own field. But while, on the one hand, metaphysic cannot deny the value of the splendid results achieved by mathematic in consequence of the Infinite in question, it must be admitted that this latter science, on the other hand, is unable to procure for its own self a clear conscience as regards the notion it has introduced and the dependent processes. ' So far as the difficulty concerns the Notion alone, that is a matter of no moment to any science which has rightly possessed itself of an element, and truly dis- tributed it. But here in the science concerned there is a contradiction in the very method on which, as a science, it rests. It permits itself, for example, to handle Infinite Quanta as if they were Finite Quanta, and yet to apply in determination of the former expe- dients which it absolutely rejects in the case of the latter. Justification, it is true, is sought for the ap- plication of these expedients, in the fact, that their results can be proved from elsewhere. But while, on one side, all results have not been so proved, it is, on the other side, the very object of the new method, not only to shorten, but in certain respects to super- sede the old, and obtain results impossible to the old. Again, a result cannot justify a manner per se ; and the manner here has this inexactitude in it, that it now z 2 340 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. introduces as the very essential of the operation, what it presently rejects as too small to be of any account. Nay, what is more extraordinary still, the results ob- tained from this process, the inexactitude of which is admitted, are, as Carnot says, ' not merely free " from sensible error," but rigorously exact! And we know all the while that something actually was omitted — something not quite zero. This is not truth as such — correctness as such — neither of which admits of a less or a more. Again, be it with the result as it may, Proof as such is an interest, and in mathematical science the interest 'proper. ' It will be interesting, then, to examine closer the various modes in which the general notion involved has been viewed, as well as the various expedients which have been adopted to justify it. ' The usual definition of the mathematical Infinite is, that it is a Magnitude beyond which — when it is infinitely great — there :s no greater^ or — when it is infinitely small — no smaller, or which, in the one case, is greater, and, in the other, smaller, than any assign- able magnitude. This definition does not express the true notion involved, but only that contradiction which is the spurious Progressus ; and again if Quanta are, as mathematic elsewhere avows, what can he lessened or increased, then plainly it is not Quanta as such that we have now before us. ' This is already something gained, and this is what usually just fails to be seen : the Quantum as such is sublated, its character is now of an infinite nature and yet its quantitative determinateness is to be con- ceived as still somehow persisting. It is in continuing to regard what is infinite as finite, as Quantum, that more or less becomes capable of being falsely attributed QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 341 to what is infinite. The infinite of a unity that is 2, or 3, or 4, &c., for example, may be regarded as greater than an infinite of a unity that is only 1, &c. How this depends on an infinite being stiU regarded as Quantum is evident. Kant — (but, as usual, this is reserved). ' We have seen that the True Infinite Quantum is infinite in itself [an ihm selbst) ; it is this inasmuch as both the Quantum as such and its Beyond of Exter- nality, through which Beyond it has its constitutive determinateness, are equally sublated. The Quantum is thus gone into unal self-reference. It itself and its externality, however, are still there as moments : it is the infinite Quantum as containing and being its own negated externality. But this is Quahty : it is not any particular assignable Quantum : it is the constitution of Quantum as such universally, and so Quahty. ' One can readily sublate the infinite series of Notes, through which the Voice is, into the one infinite Voice ; but, though the one infinite Quantum can be conceived as only through the series of finite Quanta, it is not so easy to conceive a qualitative infinite Quantum by sublation into its unity of the whole infinite variety or externality of the finite series. This, however, is what is required to be done : the relativity of Quantity is to be conceived in its own infinite qualitative form. Its infinitude is that it is a qualitative determinateness. The relativity, once firmly caught, can be seen to be but Moment, Quantitative determinateness in Qualitative form. As moment it depends on its other ; it has its determination from this other ; it has a meaning only in relation to what stands in relation with it. Apart from this relation it is nothing ; and is, in this respect, unlike Quantum as such, which as such seems wholly passive, indifferent as regards relation, and even in 342 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. relation to possess its own immediate, settled form. But as moment in relation, its passivity and indiffer- ence disappear ; its immediacy is sublated ; it is what it is through another. Quite generally now, then, the Quantum that has taken up this attitude to its own externahty (quite generally) can be seen to have sub- lated itself into a Quahtative Unity ; it is infinite Being- for-self, but possesses and is quantitative Being-for- One. Or we may say that quantitatively it is a Fur- Eines, a Being-for-One, while qualitatively it is a Being-for-self. Or again we might almost say that it is quantitative matter (the For-One) ideahsed into qualitative form (the For-self). This distinction is very difficult to realise. Though something has here been added in elucidation, the reader will do well to re- read — ' c. The Infinitude of the Quantum,' together with the relative comments — for this notion is evi- dently intended to be the key-note of all that follows. The moments are simply these : there is Quantum and its Beyond ; so put they flee each other and we have the spurious Infinite through their alternate repetition ; but they are not to be repeated : the Quantum is to be seen to depend on the Beyond ; the Beyond is to be seen to constitute it : the Beyond, then, is to be taken up into it to the formation of a single notion, a one infinite quahtative whole, — the quality being the pecu- liarity of its constitution.* ' This notion will be found to constitute at bottom the mathematical Infinite ; and it itself will become clearer in the progress of a consideration of the various stages of the expression of the Quantum as a moment * Exact translation was not at above, though compression was the first intended in this Kemark— general object, hence the admission of additions as QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 343 of relation, from the lowest, where it is yet at the same time Quantum as such, up to the higher, where it obtains the signification (value) and the expression of special infinite magnitude. ' The first example, then, will be Quantum in relation as exhibited in fractions. The fraction |-, for instance, is quite a finite expression, and possessed of a quite finite value, the exponent or quotient ; nevertheless it is difierent from the whole numbers, 1, 2, 3, &c. It is not immediate as they are, but mediate ; the virtue it possesses is neither 2 nor 7, but as it were that virtue which depends on the relativity of these two virtues mutually. The sublation of immediacy has introduced quite a change, then : the immediacy is no longer the essential, but the mediacy; and so long as the latter is retained, the former may be as it likes. Thus a certain infinitude emerges : 2 may become 4, 6, &c. ; and for 7 we may substitute 14, 21, &c. In this way we see more plainly that it is not an immediate 2 or 7 with which we have to do ; for both the 2 and the 7 may be changed infinitely, provided only their relativity be preserved : -f- has now, then, taken on a certain qualitative character, inasmuch as its quantitative cha- racter — its composing Quanta — manifest a certain in- diflFerence, in having become susceptible of infinite change. The 2 and 7 together, then, are very different from what they are apart : the passive, inert, quantita- tive limit which each, as 2 or as 7, has, is sublated into a certain infinitude ; their value seems no longer merely quantitative, and of the nature of 2 and 7 ; this value, or their virtue, seems to have gone over into a quali- tative drop, the qualitative Being-for-self, while at the same time quantitative determinateness seems stUl to be preserved, to enter as moment, as the Being-for-One. 344 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. The 2 and the 7 are moments in fact ; they are no longer 2 and 7, but each is what it is as in the relation, and so endlessly variable. That the virtue here is quali- tative will readily appear, when it is recollected that Quality is but seyende Bestimmtheit, beent Determi- nateness. The beent Determinateness which is here again may be considered of an infinite nature, as it rests on an infinite relation, or on Quanta which are of an infinite character. The Quantitativity of 2 as of 7 remains, but as in itself qualitative, seeing that each is what it is only in relation to another. ' Such fraction, however, is no perfect expression of Infinitude : the finite and quantitative character of divisor, dividend, and quotient — their mutual indif- ference and externality as Quanta — are too obvious. Its value as an illustration depends wholly on the infinitude which comes upon its Quanta when they cease to function as direct or immediate Quanta, — on the fact that Quantity seems to become indiEferent, if the Quality but remain. ' The more general form ^ might appear, so far, more ehgible as an expression for the Infinite ; nevertheless, as valueless in itself, as altogether symbohcal and de- pendent on another, it is quite indifierent and external, and so inapplicable as illustration here. ' The relation as we have seen it in the fraction, then, implies these two characters : firstly, that it is Quantum ; secondly, that it is not immediate but mediate Quantum, or that it implies the qualitative antithesis (i. e. a one of two, a reflexion into self from reflexion to other). The single virtue of the relation is the determinate but indifierent thing it is, because it has returned out of its otherwiseness (the contraposed QUANTITY INTBRPEETED, ETC. 345 numbers) into itself, and is so far an infinite. In other words, it is the secret quahty that 2 has to 7, or 7 to 2, that is the thing, no matter what quantitative amount this secret quahty may assume. The two characters are more distinct when developed in the following familiar form. ' The fraction f- can be expressed as -285714 . . ., as l-|-a-|-a^-l-a^4-5 &c. In this form, the fraction is as an infinite series ; the fraction itself is called the Sum or the finite expression of the series. These terms were, perhaps, more correct, however, if converted. Comparing the two expressions, -f- on the one side of the equation and its decimal expansion on the other, and so with the other fraction, we find that the side which is the expansion or infinite series expresses the fraction no longer as relation, but as Quantum, as an Amount, as a number of Quanta which add themselves to each other. That the Amount consists of decimal fractions, and so again of relations, is not a consideration here ; for the question refers wholly to the Amount and not to the nature of the Unity concerned. A number consisting of several places of figures is still an Amount ; and the Unities of the Amount are not required to be considered in their pecuharity as units of the general decimal system. Nor is it to be objected that all fractions do not, Uke f , yield an infinite decimal series ; for every fraction may be expressed as a nume- rical system of another unity than the decimal one. ' In the expansion, the Infinitude of relation has disap- peared, then, and has now the form of an endless series. ' But this series is evidently the spurious Infinite. It is the contradiction to state what is a relation and of quali- tative nature as relation-less and mere Quantum. Thus, 346 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. carried out to what extent it may, there is always a minus : such series is but a Sollen, a To-be-to ; a Beyond that is ever beyond is here inevitable. This is the permanent contradiction that ensues from the attempt to express what is quahtative as a quantitative amount. ' The inexactitude is here in actuality, which is only in appearance in the true mathematical Infinite. Both in mathematic and in philosophy the two Infinites, True and False, are to be carefully discrimmated. In spite both of some early and of some recent attempts, infi- nite series is no legitimate or necessary expression of the true Infinite. Such series is inferior as an expres- sion even to the fraction. ' The infinite series remains a SoUen, a To-be-to ; it expresses not what it is to express. What it expresses is burthened with a Beyond, and is different from what it is to express. It is infinite as incomplete, and reaches not the other which is to complete it. What is pro- perly there is a Finite, and stated as a Finite : it is — not that — ^which it is to be. The finite expression, on the other hand, the sum, is without deficiency. It has what the other only seeks. The Beyond is recalled from flight. What it is and is to he are unseparated and the same. ' The distinction is closer this : — In the infinite series the negative is outside of what is stated, as that is only a part of the amount. In the finite expression, on the contrary, a relation, the negative is immanent as the determinedness of the sides of the relation through one another ; it is thus as returned to within itself, a self-referent unity, negation of the negation {both sides being but moments) ; it has thus the character of infi- nitude within itself. The finite expression is thus the QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 347 infinite expression ; the sum is a relation. The infinite series is in truth sum, no relation, but an aggregate. The series, then, is what is finite ; it is an imperfect aggregate, and remains defective ; it is determinate Quantum, but less than it should be. What fails again is also a determinate Quantum, and it is this defi- ciency that constitutes what is z??finite in the series — this in the formal point of view that it is what fails, what is not, a non-being ; in real meaning and value it is a determinate Quantum. What is, only with what is not, constitutes what is to he but is not able to be. This word infinite, even in the case of the series so called, is to common opinion something high and holy ; such opinion is but superstition, the superstition of understanding; that depends, however, only on a want. {Negative, as used above, has reference to the necessary negatio7i required for qualitative distinctivity or deter- minateness. ' Formal point of view ' — it is only as regards form that the series is mfinite, that what fails is always not, &c.) ' It may be remarked that there are infinite series incapable of being summed; but this is an external and contingent circumstance with reference to the form of series as such. These involve an incommensura- bihty, or the impossibihty of representing the impHed quantitative relation as a Quantum. The infinitude of such series is of a higher order than in those that may be summed ; but the form of series as such is still, even in these cases, the spurious Infinite. ' The usual metaphysical Infinite, and not the true mathematical Infinite, it is, then, which ought to be called, not the Absolute, but the Eelative Infinite. There must be a conversion of dignity in these refer- ences. What cannot sublate its other is Finite ; what 348 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. has sublated this other and united it to itself is In- finite.* * For the sake only of the illus- tration it contains, it may be worth while noticing the curious attempt of Thomas Taylor, in his ' Disser- tation on Nullities/ to prove, through expedients which are at hottom only the spurious Injhiite, that there exist 'Nullities,' 'not Nothings,' but ' infinitely small quantities' that 'belong to, with- out being quantity,' and 'have a subsistence prior to number and even to the monad itself.' Such NuUities are 1—1, 2—2, 3—3, &c.; and these, in order, are stated by Taylor to be infinitely small quan- tities of 1, of 2, of 3, &c. Of 1—1, he says, it ' is not the same with 0, or, in other words, 1 — 1 considered collectively, or as one thing, is not the same with 1 considered as taken from one, so as to leave nothing.' The key-note of this Thomas ' Taylor's Theorem ' is, that \ is equal to i .y which, when expanded, becomes 1 — 1 + 1—1, + &c. ad infinitum. Taylor, while he accepts the summation of this series at the hands of the Mathematicians, seems — ^for he is by no means explicit — to obj ect to these gentlemen that they are ' very far from suspecting ' that they have accomplished at the same time the summation of the ' infinite Nullities.' He, for his part, however, evidently sees very clearly that, 1 — 1 being 0, (1—1) -|- (1 — 1), which is the single characteristic and constitutive act of the series, must be but «, sum- mation of to all through ; and consequently that, as this summa- tion issues, not in nothing, but in \, 1—1 is, after all, not a Nothing, but a ' Nullity,' — a quantity infi- nitely small. Taylor then proceeds to point out — what ' it is singular that neither Euler, nor any other Mathematician, should have consi- dered' — 'that 5=- , I -j^ I j^ ) 2^= -■ -■ I -1 I ■] > and, in short, all fractions whose numerators are Unity, and whose denominators are distributed into Unities, will, when resolved into infinite series, be equal to this same 1— 1-f-l — 1, &o. infinitely.' He does not on that account, however, alter his original conclusion that ' the sum of the infinite nullities is J.' Surely, ne- vertheless, he has now an equal title to infer that this same sum is i i, \, &c. Nay, i, J, 1, \, &c., ad infinitum, being all equal to the same thing and consequently to one another, surely he has now an equal title to infer that 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and in general all number or numbers whatever, are similarly equal ! Another instance of a like confusion is this : ' If 1 — 5, in whatever way it may be consi- dered, was always the same as — 4, and 1—2 the same as —1, then, since —1 divided by —4 is equal to \, 1—2 divided by 1 — 6 would also be equal to J ; but on the con- trary, it is equal to the infinite series l + 3-|-15+75, &c.' Taylor's error is the omission to perceive that all his Infinites are 'spu- rious : ' had he but compkted them by what Hegel names the ' defect,' the ' failing determinate Quantum,' and Euler — a few pages before the one cited by Taylor himself— the QUANTITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 349 ' It is in the sense of these findings, that Spinoza opposes the notion of the True to that of the False Infinite, and iUustrates the same by examples. ' Spinoza defines the Infinite as the absolute affirma- tion of the existence of a nature of any kind ; the Finite^ on the contrary, as determinateness, as nega- tion. The absolute afiirmation of an existence is to be taken, namely, as Self-reference.,_ not as what is because another is : the Finite, on the contrary, is the negation, a ceasing as mere referentiality to another that out of it begins. Absolute affirmation is inadequate, however, to the notion of the Infinite ; which is not immediate affirmation, but as what is restored through reflexion of the other into itself, or as negation of the negative. But the substance of Spinoza and its absolute unity are fixed and immovable : they have not the form of the self with self-mediating unity ; they possess not the notion of the negative unity of the Self, subjectivity. 'remainder' (whicli remainder is, the Hegelian distinction between in the cases mentioned, +J^, operating (through ' increase ' and ""1 + 1 ' diminution ') on -what IS Quantity, , 1 I 1 75 and on what is Quantity no longer. — 1+1+1' — 1+1 + 1+1' 1—5' Schoolboys, with a single string, equal respectively, +J, +J, +i, produce, by passing loop through 75 , , , -, , , „ 1 loop and tightening loop on loop, a :::3^or-18|), he would have found ^^^ ^^^^.^^^ whip-cord, which them instantly converted into the seems to consist of a series of sufE- original relations, i, ^, i, and J. ciently solid-looking knots : one These two one-fourths suggest that, pull at the tail of the last one, on similar reasoning, Taylor might however, and the whole series have declared 1—1+1—1, &c. = vanishes into its first One, the 1+3+15+75, &c.; but in this and single string. Thus Taylor's series in the other cases, absurdity and remained solid to him because he confusion disappear directly the forgot to pull the tail, the remain- spurious un-ended is ended by what der. This at least illustrates what it ivants — the relative remainder. Hegel is so anxious to make clear, the Elsewhere Taylor — possibly, in spuriousness of unended Progresstis similar cases, Mathematicians gene- regarded as an Infinite, and will, rally — might reflect with profit on perhaps, be excused by the reader. 350 THE SECKET OP HEGEL. 'Spinoza's example of the Infinite is the space between two circles, one of which, without touching, and without being concentric, is contained within the other. ' The mathematicians,' he says, ' demonstrate that the inequalities, which are possible in such a space, are infinite, not from the infinite number of the parts, for its magnitude is fixed and limited, and I can assume such spaces as greater and smaller, but be- cause the nature of the thing itself exceeds every deter- minateness.' This infinite of Spinoza, then, is present and complete, not any unended number or series ; the space, in his example, is limited, but it is infinite because ' the nature of the thing itself exceeds every determinateness,' because the magnitude contained in it cannot be expressed as a Quantum. The infinite of a series he names the infinite of the imagination ; that again which is self-referent, the infinite of thought, or infinitum actu. The latter is actually infinite, be- cause it is complete within itself and present. The other has no actuahty, something fails it. The f or = is, like Spinoza's space, so far finite, and can be assumed as greater or smaller ; but it admits not of the absurdity of a greater or less Infinite ; for this Quantum of the whole affects not the relation of its moments, ' the nature of the thing,' that is, the quali- tative determination of the magnitude. What in the infinite series is there is not only a finite Quantum, but, moreover, a defective one. Imagination cHngs to the Quantum as such, and reflects not on the qualitative pecuharity which constitutes the reason of the existent incommensurability. 'This incommensurabihty — that of Spinoza's example — comprehends within it the functions of curved lines QUANTITY INTERPEETED, ETC. 351 and brings us nearer to the true mathematical infinite which is connected with such functions and with the functions of variable magnitudes in general. ' In f both numerator and . denominator, as we have seen, are, ia a certain manner, infinitely variable ; J- again is infinitely variable in a still more unrestricted sense : if in the functions of variable quantities, then, X and y are to be distinguished from such quantities as 2, 7, a, b, &c., the principle of distinction must rest on something else than variableness as such or in general. Variable quantity, then, as an expres- sion that is to be specifically distinctive, is extremely vague, and, at the same time, very badly chosen for characters of quantity which have their interest and their principle of operation in something quite else than their mere variableness. ' In f the 2 and the 7 are, each of them, a fixed independent Quantum, and any co-reference or con- nexion is not essential to them. In - too, both a and b are such quanta as are supposed to remain the quanta which they are apart from, and independent of, the relation. Moreover, f and -=- have fixed quotients ; the relation constitutes an amount of unities, the denominator corresponding to the latter and the numerator to the former. To express it otherwise, whatever change is made on the 2 and the 7 (as into 4 and 14, &c.), the relation as Quantum remains the same. This is aU changed, however, in the function IL = V, for example. Here x and y represent variable X Quanta capable of receiving determinate values ; but 352 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. it is not on x and y, but on x and ^/^ that the quotient depends. That is, x and y are not only variable, but their relation is no fixed quantum but as a quantum also absolutely variable.. The reason of this peculiar variableness of the quotient is, that the relation is not of one quantity to another, but of one quantity to the square of another. This introduction of a power into the relation is the circumstance to be regarded as the fundamental deterviination : the relation of a magnitude to a power is no quantum, but essentially a qualitative relation. — Now in such functions as that of the straight line, the relation does not concern a power ; — = a y contains a fraction quite similar to ^ ; the fraction is b an ordinary one, the quotient an ordinary one : such functions, therefore, are only formally functions of variable quantities, and have not that character to which the principle of the Calculus applies. In view of the specific difference which we have here so strongly before us, it would have been proper to have introduced for the functions named variable not only a specific name, but specific signs also, and different from those of the usual unknown quantities in algebra. It is to fail to see the peculiarity of the Calculus and the need from which it sprung, that there should be included within its matter such func- tions as those of the first degree. It is right to complete the generahsation of a method, but it is a misunderstanding here so to leave the specific differ- ence out of view that the interest of the science seems to concern variable quantities in general. Much formalism of consideration and of operation would have been spared, had it been seen that what QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 353 was in question was not quantitative variableness as such., but relations to Powers. ' But, in addition to this, there is another peculiarity that distinguishes the mathematical Infinite. In the relation ^, the y and the x have still the force and the value of Quanta ; but this force and value disap- pear in the Infinitely Small Differences, dx, dy are no longer Quanta, nor do they represent Quanta ; they have meaning only in connexion, a sense only as Moments. They are no longer Something in the sense of a Quantum, they are not finite differences ; but they are not nothing, not indeterminate zero. Apart from their relation they are zeros, but they are to be taken only as moments of the relation, as determina- • ff 'Y* tions of the Differential Coefiicient -— . dy ' In this notion of the Infinite, Quantum is veritably perfected into a qualitative There-being (specific exist- ence) : it is in explicit position as actually infinite ; it is sublated not only as this or that Quantum, but as Quan- tum in general. Quantitative specificity remains, how- ever, as Element of Quanta, as principle ; it is Quanta and quantitative specificity, as some one has also said, in their first Notion. ' Against this notion is it that all attacks, bearing on the fundamental principle of the Calculus, have been directed. The misapprehensions of mathematicians themselves in this connexion occasioned these. Gene- rally they have been unable to justify their object as notion ; but this notion cannot be evaded ; for here it is not finite determinateness that is concerned ; rather on this field such determinatenesses are con- verted into identity with their opposites, just as curved VOL. II. A A 354 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. lines are converted into straight, the circle into the polygon, &c. The operations of the Calculus, then, are entirely contradictory to the nature of finite values and their connexions, and should have their justification only in the Notion. ' That, as vanishing, these infinite difierences should have been conceived as a middle-state between Some- thing and Nothing, was an error. This has been already discussed on occasion of the Category of Be- coming in Eemark 4. A state is a contingent and external affection ; it is the disappearing, the Becoming, — that is, the truth. ' What is infinite, it has been further said, is incapable of comparison as a greater or a less ; a relation of infinite to infinite, orders or dignities of the infinite — distinctions which are spoken of in the science itself — are therefore not legitimate. The conception of Quanta and of the comparison of Quanta in relation still under- hes this objection. But rather, it should be said, what is only in relation is no Quantum. A Quantum is what can have its own indifferent, independent existence apart from the relation — what, therefore, is indifferent to its distinction from another. What is qualitative, again, is that which it is only in its distinction from another. In this sense, these iofinite magnitudes are not only capable of comparison, but they are only as moments of comparison, of relation. ' If we examine now the chief mathematical views of this Infinite, we shall find that they all imply the same thought of the thing itself (which we have just expressed), but not fuUy expiscated as notion, and that they are driven to expedients in the appHcation at variance with the stricter principle. ' The thought cannot be more correctly determined QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 355 than Newton has given it ; that is, the conceptions of movement and velocity (whence fluxion) being with- drawn as burthening the thought with inessential forms and interfering with its due abstraction. Newton says of these fluxions (Princ. Mathem. Phil. Nat., lib. i. lemma xi. Schol.) that he understands by them disap- pearing Divisibles, not Indivisibles — a form belonging to Cavalleri and others, and implying the notion of a Quantum determined in itself; further not sums and relations of definite parts, but the Limits of sums and relations. It may be objected that vanishing quan- tities have no last relation, because what is before their disappearance is not a last, and after, there is nothing. But the relation of such magnitudes is to be conceived not before they disappear and not after ; it is the re- lation with which they disappear (quacum evanescunt). So of magnitudes that become, the flrst relation is that with which they become. ' Newton now proceeds to explain what is to be un- derstood by such and such an expression : this belongs to the scientific method of the time, and has no foun- dation iu the truth of things. The notion, which is in itself necessary, being demonstrated, any explanation of what is to be understood becomes superfluous as mere historical demand or subjective presumption. But Newton's words apply plainly to the notion as here demonstrated. We have quantities which dis- appear or are no longer Quanta ; and we have relations, not of definite parts, but relations which are limits of relation. Not only the Quanta or sides of the re- lation disappear, but the relation itself so far as it is Quantum. The limit of a quantitative relation is that in which it both is and is not, or, more accurately, that in which the Quantum has disappeared, and there A A 2 356 THE SECRET OF UBGEL. remains the relation only as qualitative relation of quantity, and its sides similarly as qualitative moments of quantity. Ultimate magnitudes, Indivisibles, how- ever, are not to be inferred from an ultimate rela- tion of vanishing magnitudes. This vrere to deviate again from the abstract relation to such sides of it as should be supposed to possess a value apart from their co-reference, per se, as Indivisibles — as something that were a one, relation-less. ' The last relations, he urges, are not relations of last magnitudes, but hmits, to which the relations of the infinitely decreasing magnitudes are nearer than any given, that is to say, finite, difierence : the limit more- over is not exceeded, to the production of nothmg. Last magnitudes were indeed Indivisibles, or Ones. In the last relation, however, any indifferent one that were without relation, as well as finite Quantum, dis- appears. Here, however, conceptions of infinite de- crease (which is only the infinite Progressus) as weU as of divisibility, have no longer any immediate sense, if the notion of a quantitative element, which is only moment of a relation, be held fast in its purity. ' As regards the continuance of the relation in the disappearance of the Quanta, there is to be found (elsewhere as in Carnot, ' E^flexions sur la Meta- physique du Calcul Infinitesimal ') the expression that hy virtue of the law of continuity the vanishing magni- tudes stiU retain the relation (or ratio) from which they spring, before they vanish. This conception ex- presses the true nature of the thing, so far as not that continuity of Quantum is understood which it has in the infinite progress, that is, so to continue itself in its disappearance that in the Beyond of itself there QUANTITY INTEEPRETED, ETC. 357 arises again only a finite Quantum, only a new term of the series ; a continuous progress is always so con- ceived, that the values are gone through, which then are still finite Quanta. In the continuity of the true infinite, on the contrary, it is the relation that is continuous ; it is so co7itinuous that it rather wholly consists in this, to isolate the relation alone, and to abohsh any element that is not the relation, any Quantum which as side of the relation were to be sup- posed to remain Quantum apart from the relation. This purification of the quantitative relation is the same thing as what is meant by an empirical existence of any kind being comprehended in its notion (begrifien). Such existence in such case is raised beyond its own self in such wise that its notion contains the same characterising constituents as it itself, but taken up in their essentiality and into the unity of the notion, in which they have lost their indifferent, notionless sub- sistence. ' Newton's generative magnitudes or principles are equally interesting. A generated magnitude (genita) is a product or quotient, rectangles, squares, or sides of these, — in general a finite magnitude. " Such being considered as variable, as in continual movement and flux, increasing and decreasing, he understands by the name of moments their momentary Increments or Decrements. These, however, are not to be taken as particles of a definite magnitude (particulse finitse). Such were not themselves moments, but magnitudes generated out of moments ; what is to be understood is rather the Principles or Beginnings (Elements) of finite magnittides." Here the Quantum is distinguished from itself, or how it is as product or there-beent, and how in its Becoming, in its Beginning and Principle, that is to 358 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. say, in its notion, or what is here the same thing, in its quahtative characterisation : in the latter the quan- titative differences, the infinite increments or decre- ments, are only moments ; only what is become is that which has gone over into the externality and indifference of There-being, the Quantum. If, on the one side, such conceptions are to be acknowledged to imply the true notion, on the other side these forms of increments, &c., are to be seen to fall within the category of the immediate Quantum and of the Pro- gressus, and to constitute the fundamental vice in the method — the permanent obstacle to the isolation into its purity of the quahtative moment in quantity in con- tradistinction to the usual Quantum. ' The conception of infinitely small magnitudes, which, however, is contained impliciter in the Incre- ments and Decrements themselves, is very inferior to the above determinations. These are described as such, that not only they themselves in comparison with finite magnitudes, but their higher orders in comparison with their lower, and even the products of several in comparison with a single one, may be neglected. This call to neglect is more strikingly prominent with Leibnitz than with others who preceded him. This call it is which, if it has won facUity for the Calculus, has also given to its operations an appearance of inexactitude and express inaccuracy. Wolf, in his way of making things popular, that is to say, of making turbid the notion and of setting in its place incorrect sensuous conceptions, has sought to render this neglect intelligible by such examples as, in taking the height of a mountain the calculation is not affected, if a particle of sand be blown away the while ; nor does the neglect of the height of the house or tower QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 359 interfere with, the accuracy of the calculations of lunar eclipses. ' If the fair play of Common Sense accept such inexactitude, all geometricians unite to reject the con- ception. In such a science as Mathematic there can be no question of empirical exactitude; its mensura- tion, whether by operations of the Calculus or by constructions in Geometry, is quite different from that of empirical lines and figures, as in Land-surveying. Proofs from elsewhere, besides, establish that there is no question of a less or more of accuracy, while it is self-evident at the same time that an absolutely exact result cannot issue from a process that were incor- rect. Then, on the other side, the process itself cannot do without this neglect — despite its protesta- tions that what it neglects is of no account. And this is the difficulty, this is what requires to be made in- telligible, and any appearance of absurdity in it re- moved. 'Euler, in adopting Newton's general definition, would, in considering the relations of the Increments, regard the Infinite Difference as zero. (Institut. Calc. Different., P. I., c. iii.) How we are to understand this, lies in the foregoing : the difference, if zero quan- titatively, is not so qualitatively ; it is no zero, but a piu-e moment in the relation. It is no difference by so much ; yet, again, it seems strange to characterise what is infinitely small, as increment or decrement or differ- ence ; and such external arithmetical operation really seems performed, addition or subtraction, in that, as regards the finite magnitude present from the first, something is added to it, or taken from it. It is to be said, however, that the transition from the function of the Variable to its Differential, must be regarded as of 360 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. quite a different nature, namely (as already determined), as a reduction of the finite function to tlie qualitative relation of its quantitative elements. Again tlie diffi- culty reappears when the increments are called zeros ; for a zero has no determinateness, and seems insuscepti- ble of the relation still attributed. Conception here has correctly reached the negative of the Quantum, but does not hold it fast, nevertheless, in its positive value of quahtative determinations of quantity, which, isolated j^om the relation and taken as Quanta, are zeros. — Lagrange -(Th^orie des Fonct. Analyt., Introd.) remarks of Limits or ultimate Eatios, that though we can very well conceive the ratio of two magnitudes so long as they remain finite, we can form no clear or distinct notion of this ratio so soon as its terms have become zero. In effect, the understanding must transcend this merely negative side with respect to the terms of the ratio being null as Quanta, and take them up positively as quahtative moments. What Euler says further as regards zeros that are yet relations, and so to be other- wise expressed than zeros, cannot be considered satis- factory. He seeks to support this on the difference between arithmetical and geometrical ratios. In the arithmetical there is no difference between and ; in the geometrical, however, if 2 : 1 = .* 0, then proportion is such, that the first is twice the second. In common arithmetic, too, n.0 = 0, i.e. n C 1 ::0 : 0. But just by this that 2:1 or n : 1 is a relation of Quanta, there cannot correspond to it any relation or expression of : 0. ' In the instances given, the veritable notion of the Infinite is really implied then, but it is not stamped out and taken up in its specific determinateness. It is not to be expected, then, that the operation can prove QUANTITY INTBEPEETED, ETC. 361 satisfactory. The true notion is not there kept in view ; finite Quantum intrudes ; and the conception of a merely relatively small cannot be dispensed with. What is infinite has still to submit to, and is suscep- tible of, the usual arithmetical operations, addition, &c. ; and is thus so far finite. Justification, then, is required for such duplicity of view which would consider infinite magnitudes now as increments or differences, and again neglect them as Quanta, immediately after having ap- plied to them the forms and laws of Quanta, of what is finite. ' There have been many attempts to remove these difiiculties ; I adduce the most important. ' It has been sought to procure for the Calculus the evidence of the Geometrical method proper and the rigour of the ancient demonstration — expressions of Lagrange. But the principle of the one being higher than that of the other, renunciation must be made of that sort of Evidence, just as Philosophy has no preten- sions to that plainness which the Sciences of what is sensuous (Natural History, &c.) possess, and as eating and drinking are a much more intelligible busiaess than thinking and comprehending. As for the rigour of demonstration — ' Some have endeavoured altogether to dispense with the notion of the Infinite. Lagrange mentions Landen's method as a pure analytic process that, without any infinitely small differences, assumes, first of aU, various values of the variables, and sets them equal in the sequel. He decides that the advantages proper of the Calculus — simplicity of method and ease of operation — are thus lost. There is something here corresponding to that, from which Descartes' method of Tangents proceeds. This process, on the whole, belongs to 362 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. another sphere of mathematical treatment than the method of the Calculus ; and the pecuUarity of the simple relation to which the actual concrete interest reduces itself — that is, the simple relation of the de- rived to the original function — is not made sufficiently- prominent. 'Many, as Fermat, Barrow, Leibnitz, Euler, and others, have always openly believed themselves war- ranted to omit the products of infinite differences, as well as their higher powers, only on the ground that they disappear relatively to the lower order. On this alone rests with them the fundamental position, that is, the determination of what is the differential of a pro- duct or a power, for to this the whole theoretical doctrine reduces itself. What remains is partly mechanism of development, but partly again apphcation ; which latter, as will appear again, constitutes in effect the higher, or rather only interest. As regards what is before us, the elementary instances may be worth mentioning, that, for the same reason of unimportance, it is assumed that the Elements of Curves, namely, the increments of the Absciss and of the Ordinate, have to one another the relation of the Subtangent and of the Ordinate ; with the view of obtaining sinailar triangles, the arc, which forms to the two increments the third side of a triangle, formerly rightly named the characteristic triangle, is regarded as a straight line, as part of the Tangent, and withal the increment extending to the Tangent. These assumptions raise these forms, on the one hand, above the nature of finite magnitudes ; on the other hand, again, there is appHed to the moments named infinite a process that is valid only of finite magnitudes, and in which nothing can be neglected because of its unimportance. The difficulty under QUANTITY INTBEPBETED, ETC. 363 wHch the method labours appears in such procedure in its full force. ' An ingenious artifice of Newton to get rid of the unnecessary terms in finding the Differentials, may here be mentioned. He (Princ. Math. PhU. Nat., Hb. ii. lemma ii. post propos. vii.) finds the Differential of the product in the following way. The product, when X, y are taken, each of them smaller by the half of its infinite Difference, passes into xy — _^ — ^__ + ^ ; and when x^ y are taken greater by the same . , xdv vdx dxdv mi a x. amount, mto xy-\ — ^ + '-^ -I — -A-- ihe first pro- duct now, being taken from the second, there remains over xdy+ydx, and this remainder Newton wishes us to regard as the excess of the increase by a whole dx and dy, for this excess is the difference of the two products; it is therefore the Differential of xy. In this process we see that the troublesome term, the product of the two infinite Differences, dxdy, neutra- lises itself. But, the name of Newton notwithstanding, we must venture to say that this — certainly very ele- mentary — operation is nevertheless incorrect ; it is incorrect that («+^) (^ + -y) ~ (f ~ y) C^~~|) = (x + dx) (y + dy)—xy. It can only be the pressing necessity of establishing an interest of such importance as the Calculus of Fluxions, which could bring a Newton to palm on himself the deception of such a proof.' It must be admitted that Hegel has succeeded here in striking his harpoon into that vast whale Newton. I dare say, by this time, however, even a Newton may 364 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. submit to carry the marks of a Hegel. It is possible that some readers may faU to see at once what Hegel, nevertheless, means here ; and they may be disposed to ask, where does Hegel get this (^x + dx) {y + dy)—xy of his ? That the equation said to be incorrect is really incorrect, is evident by inspection, or, at all events, on effecting the expansion; in which case it is seen that the equation in question amounts to a set- ting equal of xdy + ydx to xdy-\-ydx + dxdy, a result self-evidently false. But then this is just the reverse of what Newton does : Newton proposes no such equa- tion — and the question recurs, what does Hegel mean ? — where does he get this equation ? — and why does he saddle it on Newton ? The answer is simple : Hegel's {x + dx) (y + dy)-xy is the usual way (the ordinary u' — u) in or by which differentiation is in- troduced. Or to state it better — though the previous statement will probably prove useful to some readers — Hegel's Expression is what Newton says his is, — " the excess of the increase by a whole dx and dy." If it was clever in Newton thus slyly to fling out the im- portunate tail, it is certainly much cleverer in Hegel thus more slyly to fling it back again. ' Other forms employed by Newton in the derivation of the Differential are rendered impure by the concrete adjuncts of Motion, &c. The introduction of the serial form, too, brings a temptation to speak of attaining what accuracy we please and to neglect what is rela- tively unimportant, &c., not always to be resisted : it is thus that, in his method of resolving equations of the higher degrees by approximation, he leaves out of consideration the higher powers which arise by the substitution into the equation of each new-found but still inexact value, for the clumsy reason of their QUANTITY INTEEPKETED, ETC. 3G5 smallness ; (vide Lagrange, Equations Num^riques, p. 125.) ' The blunder into which Newton, in the resolution of a problem, by the omission of higher powers which were essential, fell, which blunder gave his enemies the opportunity of a triumph of their method over his, and of which Lagrange (Theorie des Fonct. Analyt., Seme P., ch. iv.) has demonstrated the true origin, proves the formality and uncertainty which still existed in the employment of said instrument. Lagrange shows that Newton threw out the very term which — for the problem in hand — was wanted. Newton had erred from adhering to the formal and superficial prin- ciple of omission because of relative smallness. It is known, namely, that in Mechanic a particular import is attached to the terms of the series in which the function of a motion is developed, so that the first term or the first function relates to the moment of velocity, the second to the accelerating force, and the third to the resistance of forces. The terms of this series are thus not to be regarded as only parts of a sum, but as qualitative moments of a whole of the notion. The omission of the remaining terms which belong to the pseudo-infinite series acquires here a wholly different sense from the omission because of their relative smallness.* Newton's error arose, then, * ' Both considerations (i.e. the tion x=ft ; this developed as qualitative and the quantitative) f{t+Sr) gives axe found very simply beside each fl+^ ft+^\,t^s^^_ other m the apphcation by La- j ' j <^ ^j ' i grange of the Theory of Functions The space, then, appears in the to Mechanic (Throne des Fonc, formula, 3eme P. ch. i., art. 4). The space ^ f /"^+ 1^/'"^+, &c. described considered as function ■> ' 2 ■' ' 2-3-' ' ' of the time elapsed gives the equa- The motion by means of which 366 THE SKCEET OP HEGEL. from not attending to that term whicli possessed the qualitative value sought. ' In this example, it is the qualitative sense on which the process is made to depend. In agreement here- with the general declaration may at once be made, that the whole difficulty of the Principle would be at once removed if — instead of the formahsm which places the determination of the Differential only in — what gives it its name — the problem to find the dif- ference of a function from the alteration it imdergoes when its variable magnitude has received an increase — the qualitative import of the principle were assigned, and the operation made dependent thereon. In this sense the Differential of x" manifests itself to be com- this space is described, is, it is said, therefore, that is to say, because tlie analytic development gives several — rather an infinite number of terms, — composed of several par- tial motions, of which the spaces, correspondent to the time, will be The fii'st partial motion is, in known motion, the formally uni- form one with a velocity designated by ft, the second the uniformly accelerated one which derives from an accelerating force proportioned to f"t. "As now the remaining terms relate to no simple hnoion motion, it is unnecessary to take them specially into consideration, and we will show that thei/ may be abstracted from in the determina- tion of the motion at the beginning of the time-point." This is now shown, but shown only by the com- parison of this said series {all the terms of which should belong to the determination of the magnitude of the space described in the time given) with the equation given. Art. 3, for the motion of a falling body, .r=:oi-|-5i^, in which equation only these two terms are to be supposed contained. But this equa- tion has itself obtained this form only by presupposition of the ex- planation which is given to the terms that arise through analytic development : this presupposition is, that the imiformly accelerated mo- tion is composed of a formally uni- form motion proceeding with the velocity acquired in the foregoing time, and of an increase (the a in s-=at^, i.e. the empirical co- eiEcient), which is ascribed to the force of gravitation, — a distinction which has noways any existence or gi-ound in the nature of the thing itself, but is only the expres- sion — falsely made physical — of what results in the case of an as- sumed analytic operation.' QUANTITY INTBEPEBTED, ETC. 367 pletely exhausted by the first term of the series which results from the expansion of {x-\-dxf. That the remaining terms are not to be considered, does not depend on their relative smallness ; — there is no pre- supposition in this case of an inaccuracy, a blunder, an error which is to be balanced and amended by an- other ; a point of view from which Carnot mainly justifies the usual method of the Infinitesimal Calculus. In that the question is not of a Sum, but of a Eelation or Eatio, the Difierential is completely found hy the first term ; and where farther terms, differentials of higher degrees, are required, their determination is not to be considered as the continuation of a series as Sum, but the repetition of one and the same ratio, which ratio is all that is wanted, and which conse- quently is already complete in the first term. The necessity of the form of a series, its summation, and of what depends thereon, must then be wholly separated from this Interest of the Relation. ' The elucidations which Carnot gives on the method of infinite magnitudes are of the purest and clearest. But in passing to the operation itself there enter, more or less, the usual conceptions of the infinite smallness of the omitted terms relatively to the others. He justifies the method by the fact that the results are correct, and by the utility which the introduction of imperfect equations, as he calls them, that is to say, of such as exhibit such arithmetically incorrect omis- sion, has for the simplification and abbreviation of calculation, rather than by the nature of the thing itself. ' Lagrange, as is well known, has taken up again the original serial method of Newton, in order to be relieved of the difficulties which attend the conception THE SECRET OF HEGEL o, t.e infinitely little as Wl -^^-^t^flS^sX ;rirs;:irLt^^^^^^^^ ::Sy acknowledged, rests on the Wamental propo- sition, that the Difference, without becommg nothmg may be taken so small, that each term of the series shall exceed in magnitude the sum of all that follow. Even in this method a beginning is made with the categories of the increase and of the difference of the function whose variable magnitude receives the increase, by which increase the troublesome series comes in, from the original function ; just as in the sequel the terms to be omitted are viewed only as sum, and the reason of omission is placed in the relativity of their Quantum. Partly the omission is not, as universal prmciple, re- duced to the qualitative consideration, which we saw exemplifying itself in some appHcations (where the terms neglected were exhibited not as quantitatively but as quahtatively insignificant); partly, again, the omission itself is omitted in the very prmciple which, as reo-ards the so-called differential coefficient, cha- racteristically distinguishes the so-named application of the Calculus with Lagrange, as will be discussed more at full in the Eemark that follows the present one. ' The qualitative character which has been pointed out, is to be found in its directest form in the category, lijnit of the ratio, which has been above mentioned, and the carrying out of which in the Calculus has given rise to a special method. Lagrange decides that this method wants ease of application, and that the expression Limit is without definite idea. We, then, shall take up Limit in its idea, and see closer what has been stated as regards its analytic import. In the QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 369 conception of Limit there certainly lies the adduced veritable category of the qualitative relational character of the variable magnitudes, for the forms which come in from them, dx and dy, are held to be only as moments of -^, and -^ itself is viewed as a single indivisible sign. That the advantage is thus lost which may be derived from the separation of the sides of the differential co-efficient, for the mechanism of the Cal- culus in its apphcation, — ^this we may pass by. The limit is now, then, to be limit of a given function ; — it is to assign in reference to this function a certain value, determined by the mode of the derivation. With the mere category of Hmit, however, we were no further than with what has been the object of this Remark, to show, namely, that the infinitely little, which presents itself in the Calculus as doo and dy, has not merely the empty, negative sense of a non-finite, a non-given magnitude, as in the expressions, an infinite number, in infinitum, &c., but the definite sense of the qualita- tive determinateness of the quantitative elements, of a moment of relation as such. This quahtative assign- ment is yet without definite application, and limit so far is similarly situated ; but hmit at once means more. Limit is hmit of Something ; it expresses a certain value which hes in the function of variable magnitude ; and we have to see the nature of this concrete r61e. It is to be the hmit of the ratio of the two increments which increase two variables conjoined in an equation, and the one a function of the other ; — the increase here is quite indefinite, and there is no use, so far, of the infinitely little. But the manner of finding this limit leads directly to the same incon- sequences as in the other methods. This manner, VOL. II. B B 370 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. namely, is the following. If y=fx become increased by k, then fx alters itself into fso-^-p h + qh^ + rh^, &c., k and so k=ph + qh?, &c., and — = p + qh + rV, &c. Now, let k and h vanish, and all vanishes except p, which p is now to be considered the limit of the ratio k of the two increments. Though A = 0, then, - is not to be at once= _ , but is to be supposed still to remain a ratio. The conception of limit now is to be supposed to extend the advantage of warding off the inconse- quence which appears here ; p is, at the same time, not to be the actual ratio that were=-, but only that par- ticular value to which the ratio infinitely approximates, so that the difference may be taken smaller than any given one. The preciser sense of this approximation in regard to what approximate will be considered again. That, however, a quantitative difference which may be taken smaller than any given one (and must be so taken), is no longer quantitative at all — this is self-evident ; but there is no advance even so, as regards ^ = ^ . If, on the other hand, ^ = p, i.e., if it be assumed as a definite quantitative ratio, as is in effect the case, then the presupposition which has set A=0 is k in a dilemma — a presupposition by which alone -i-~P is found. But if it be granted that - = 0, and with A = 0, A; of itself becomes=0 ; for the increment k to y is, only if the increment h is, — then it were necessary to say what p is to be, which as p is a quite definite quantitative value. To this there is at once the simple QUANTITY INTEEPRETED, ETC. 371 dry answer that it is a co-efficient and so-and-so derived, — the first function of an original function, and deter- mined in a certain definite manner. If we content ourselves with this — and in point of fact Lagrange has virtually contented himself with this — then the uni- versal or general part of the Calculus, and directly this form of it, which is named the Theory of Limits, are quit of increments and their infinite or discretionary smallness — quit of the difficulty of getting out of the way all the terms of the inevitable series except the first, or, rather, except only the co-efficient of the first — quit of the formal categories of the infinite, of infinite approximation, of continuous magnitude,* and of aU others the like, as effort, becoming, occasion of an alteration, to which men have been driven in the exigency of the case. But then it would be still necessary to show — besides the mere dry definition (sufficient for the Theory), that it is nothing but a function derived from the expansion of a Binomial — what meaning and value, i.e., what connexion and application this same p still has for further mathe- matical requirements : this will be the subject of Eemark 2. We proceed to discuss at present the confusion which the so current use of the conception of approximation has occasioned in the understanding * ' The category of continuous or goiy, seeing that as regards the law fluent magnitude comes iu with the of continuity it determines no- consideration of the external and thing. What formal definitions empirical increase effected on the one may be misled into, the fol- variahles; but, the scientific object lowing wUl exemplify: — "A con- of the Calculus being a certain tinuous magnitude, Continuum, is Relation (usually expressed by the eyery magnitude considered in a difierential co-eiEcient), which spe- state of genesis such that the cific peculiarity may be also named progress is not saltuatim, but un- Law, to this peculiarity the mere interrupted." This definition is continuity is partly heterogeneous, tautologically the same as the partly mere abstract empty cate- definitum.' B B 2 372 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. of the specific qualitative determinateness of the relation, which was the proper interest to be considered. ' It has been shown that the so-called infinite differ- ences express the disappearance of the sides of the relation as Quanta, and that what remains is their quantitative relation, pure so far as it is determined in quahtative form ; the qualitative relation is here so little lost, that it is rather that which just results from the transformation of finite into infinite magnitudes. In this, as we have seen, consists the whole nature of the thing itself. So disappear in the ultimate ratio, for example, the Quanta of the Absciss and Ordinate ; but the sides of this relation in principle remain, the one the Element of the Ordinate, the other the Element of the Absciss. Now, in resorting to figurate conception, and assuming the one Ordinate infinitely to approximate to the other, the previously distinguished Ordinate passes into the other Ordinate, and the previously distin- guished Absciss into the other Absciss ; but essentially the Ordinate passes not into the Absciss, nor the Absciss into the Ordinate. The Element of the Ordinate, to remain by this example of variable magnitudes, is not to be taken as the DiiTerence of one Ordinate from another Ordinate, but is rather as the Difference or qualitative-quantitative value relatively to the Element of the Absciss ; the Principle of the one variable mag- nitude stands in relation to the Principle of the other. The Difference, in ceasing to concern finite magni- tudes, has ceased to be a multiple within its own self • it has collapsed into the simple intensity, into the spe- cificity, of one qualitative relational moment opposed . to the other. ' This state of the case is obscured, however, by conceiving what has just been named Element say QUANTITY INTEEPEETED, ETC. 373 of the Ordinate, so as Difference or Increment that it is only the Difference between the Quantum of one Ordi- nate and the Quantum of another Ordinate. The Limit has here thus not the sense of a Eelation or Eatio ; it is nothing but the last value to which another magnitude of the same kind constantly approximates, and in such a manner that it may be as little different from it as we please ; and that ultimate relation or ratio is a relation of equality. Thus the infinite Difference is the libration of the difference of a Quantum from a Quantum, and the qualitative nature by reason of which dx is essentially not a relational character with reference to x, but with reference to dy becomes lost from view, dx^ is allowed to disappear with reference to dx, but stiU more does dx disappear with reference to X ; and that truly is as much as to say, it has only a relation to dy. The endeavour of Geometricians has been specially directed to the rendering intelligible of the approximation of a magnitude to its limit, and how as regards the difference of Quantum from Quan- tum, it is no difference and yet a difference. But besides this the approximation is in itself a category that says nothing and makes nothing intelhgible ; dx has the approximation already behind it — it is not near, nor yet a nearer ; and infinitely near were itself the negation of the being near and of the drawing near (approximation). ' Since it has happened that the Increments or in- finite Differences have been considered only on the side of the Quantum that disappears in them and only as its hmits, they are moments quite without mutual relation. We might infer from this the inadmissible conception that it is allowable in ultimate relation to set, say. Absciss and Ordinate, or even Sine, Cosine, 374 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. Tangent, versed Sine, and whatever else, all equal to each other. This conception seems at first hand to be motive, when an Arc is treated as a Tangent ; for the Arc is for its part incommensurable with the straight line, and its Element is directly of an other Quality than the Element of the straight Hne. It seems still more absurd and inadmissible than the interchange of Absciss, Ordinate, versed Sine, Cosine, &c., when qua- drata rotundis — when a part however infinitely small of the Arc is taken as a portion of the Tangent, and treated consequently as a straight hne. But this opera- tion is to be essentially distinguished from the inter- change censured ; it is justified by pointing out that in the triangle constituted by the Elements of Arc, Absciss, and Ordinate, there is the same relation as if the Element of the Arc were the Element of a straight line, the Tangent ; the angles are the same, and these constitute the essential Relation — that, namely, which remains for these Elements when the finite magnitudes belonging to them are abstracted from. We might even say, straight hues, as infinitely small, have become curved hues, and the relation of them in their infini- tude is a curve relation. In its definition, the straight line being the shortest distance between two points, its distinction from the curve would seem to rest on Number (Menge), on the smaller number of what is distinguishable in this distance, which is therefore a consideration of Quantum. But this consideration dis- appears in the line when it is taken as intensive mag- nitude, as infinite moment, as Element ; but so also disappears its distinction from the curve which rested only on the difierence of Quantum. Thus, as infinite, straight line and arc retain no quantitative relation, and consequently also — by reason of the assumed de- QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 375 finition — no qualitative diversity any longer relatively to each other, and the former passes into the latter. ' Analogous to the equating of heterogeneous forms, is the assumption that infinitely small parts of the same whole are equal to one another; an assumption in itself indefinite and completely indifferent, but which, apphed to an object that is heterogeneous in itself — an object, that is, which possesses essential irregularity of quantitative character — may produce a peculiar in- version. This we see in the proposition of the higher Mechanic, that, in equal infinitely small times, infinitely small parts of a curve are described, in uniform move- ment, inasmuch as this is said of a movement in which, in equal finite, that is, existent times, finite, that is, existent unequal parts of the curve are de- scribed — a movement, then, which as existing is irre- gular and is so assumed. This proposition is the expression in words of what is to be supposed as represented by an analytic term that yields itself in the development we saw of the Formula respecting a motion irregular but subject to a certain law (Note on Lagrange and relative text). ' Earher Mathematicians sought to express in words and propositions results of the newly-invented Calculus (which besides always concerned concrete objects), and to present them in geometrical dehneations, essen- tially for the purpose of applying them as Theorems in accordance with the ordinary method of proof. The terms of a mathematical formula into which the analytic method sundered the magnitude of an object, e.g. of motion, received now, in consequence of such views, a real import, e. g. of velocity, accelerating force, &c. They were held to furnish, in agreement with such import, true positions, physical laws ; and their 376 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. real connexions and relations were supposed to be determined in accordance with the analytic combina- tion. An example of this is the statement that in a uniformly accelerated motion, there exists a particular velocity proportional to the times, and moreover that there constantly accrues to this pseudo-uniform velocity an increment from the force of gravity. Such pro- positions are presented, in the modern analytic form of Mechanic, absolutely as products of the Calculus, without anyone troubhng himself as to whether they have per se and in themselves a real sense — one, that is, to which there is a correspondent existence, and whether this sense can be proved. The difficulty of rendering intelligible the connexion of such forms when they are taken in the real sense alluded to — e. g. the difficulty of rendering intelligible the transition from the downright or pseudo-uniform velocity to a uniformly accelerated one — is held to be quite removed by the analytic manipulation as a manipulation in which such connexion is a simple consequence of the now once for all estabhshed authority of the operations of the Calculus. It is given out as a triumph of science to find out by the mere Calculus laws beyond expe- rience, i.e. expressions of existence which have no existence. In the earher still naive period of the Calculus, it appeared, indeed, just what was right that, as regards those definitions and propositions pre- sented in Geometrical dehneations, a real sense per se should be assigned and made plausible, and they them- selves apphed in such sense in proof of the main positions concerned. See the Newtonian proof of his fundamental proposition in the Theory of Gravitation Princ. Math. Phil. Nat., lib. i. sect. ii. prop. 1, com- pared with Schubert's Astronomy (1st ed. iii. B. § 20), QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 377 where it is admitted that the truth is not exactly so, i. e. that in the point which is the nerve of the proof, the truth is not as Newton assumes it.) 'It will not be possibly denied that in this field much has been accepted as proof, especially with the help of the mist of the infinitely httle, for no other reason than that what came out was always already known before, and that the proof, which was so con- stituted that it came out, brought forward at least the show of a scaffolding of proof ; — a show which was always still preferred to mere belief or to mere know- ledge from experience. I have no hesitation, however, in regarding this mannerism as a mere -jugglery and charlatanery of proof, and in including under this cate- gory even JSTewtonian proofs, particularly those bearing on what has just been referred to, on account of which Newton was raised to the skies and above Kepler, as having mathematically demonstrated what the latter had merely found from experience. ' The vacant scafiblding of such proofs was set up for the demonstration of physical laws. But Mathe- matic is not at all competent to demonstrate quanti- tative determinations of Physic, so far as they are Laws which rest on the qualitative nature of the mo- ments ; this for the simple reason that Mathematic is not Philosophy, proceeds not from the Notion, and has, therefore, what is Quahtative, unless taken lemmatically from experience, lying beyond its sphere. The desire to uphold the honour of Mathematic, that all in it is rigorously proved, has tempted it to forget its limits ; thus it appeared against its honour simply to acknow- ledge experience as source and as only proof of pro- positions of experience ; consciousness (opinion) has become of late hetiev formed for the appreciation of 378 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. this : SO long, however, as consciousness (opinion) has not clearly before it the distinction between what is mathematically demonstrable and what can be only got elsewhere, between what are only terms of analytic expansion and what are physical existences, the interest of science cannot raise itself into rigorous and pure form. Without doubt, however, the same justice will yet overtake that scaffolding of Newtonian proof, which has been fulfilled on another baseless and artificial New- tonian structure of optical experiments combined with reflexion (inference). Applied Mathematic is yet full of a similar melange of experience and reflexion, but, as of said Optic, since a considerable time, already one part after the other has begun in point of fact to be ignored in science, with the inconsequence, however, of leaving alone the contradictory remainder, — so is it also fact that already a part of those illusory proofs has fallen of itself into oblivion or been replaced by others.' It was, in the first instance, intended, not strictly to translate, but to convey this Eemark by compression of the words through change of phrase or otherwise, without, however, omission, but rather with addition, of matter where it might seem necessary. Examples both of compression and of addition (the latter espe- cially, where the notion of the quantitative infinite is concerned) will be found; but in such a writer as Hegel, always compressed to the necessity of the notion, but, at the same time, to the same necessity equally /zi^^, attempts of either kind will almost always prove abortive. So it has been here, and I am disposed to beheve now that an exact translation, while infinitely less troublesome to myself, would have been less motley and more satisfactory to the reader. As it is, however I venture to say that there is given, on the whole QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 379 at once a correct and intelligible statement of the rela- tive thought of Hegel. This is something ; for, to the best of my belief, this most important note has re- mained hitherto absolutely sealed. Eosenkranz, indeed, mentions three writers who have followed Hegel on the subject. The first of these, C. Frantz, as in oppo- sition to, is to be assumed ignorant of, the views of Hegel, which plainly, so far they go, are inexpugnable. As regards the other two, E. Huhn and H. Schwarz, Eosenkranz quoting nothing from either (which surely he would have done, had he found they made plain statements such as these of Hegel, the importance of which no one with even the slightest tincture of mathe- matic, or through whatever rust of time and desue- tude, can miss seeing, once they are made plain), and nothing seeming to have reached this country on the subject at all, I am disposed to believe that they have both failed to see, or evolve, the hght which was necessary. In fact, what is wanting to intelhgence here is not mathematic, but metaphysic : the Eemark, indeed, must remain quite unintelligible to anyone not long acquainted with the language of Hegel, and per- fectly at home with his one vital thought — the Notion. My behef, therefore, is, that — on the whole — the entire Eemark has remained unintelligible. My behef, more- over, also is, that, despite the imperfection of form, of which I am very sensible, and for which I sincerely apologise, it is now, as I have already said, perfectly intelUgible — if taken after, and in full understanding of, all that precedes it. There may seem, in the first instance, no positive material gain for mathematic here, and accordingly the mathematical reader may be ex- pected to rise from his first reading not only disap- pointed, but hostile. Feelings both of disappointment 380 THE SECRET OF IIEGEL. and of hostility will vanish, however, if he but per- severe. Hegel approaches the subject, it must be reflected, not as a mathematician, but as a metaphy- sician, and all that he wishes to be made clear in this remark is the simple Notion. There is only one ques- tion, then, to put : is the Notion, obscure before, now clear? Besides this, we may ask also, by the way, are these numerous particular critiques of his just ? Indeed, we may ask, thirdly, is not the general result a new, clearer, and distincter power of vision, taken quite universally, and here specially in regard to all that holds of mathematic ? As regards the last of these questions, it can hardly escape any one that, with reference to the Calculus in general, as well as its various forms in particular and the chief subordinate conceptions in both respects, never has the determination of the negative been more sharply, more specifically and absolutely stamped out. Quanta, by very definition no longer Quanta, yet treated as Quanta ; Quanta, as named or as beheved, yet treated as it is impossible to treat Quanta ; omission because of insignificance, but omission obligatory and indispensable in spite of insignificance ; proof necessary from elsewhere, yet pretensions above any elsewhere ; great results of the operation, but the operation itself granted incorrect ; an incorrect operation, but abso- lutely correct results ; a specific nature claimed from variableness of Quantity, but variableness of Quantity equally elsewhere; a specific nature really so-and-so characterised, yet matter not of this specific nature admitted; a science par excellence the science of ex- actitude and proof, yet expressly inexact and con- fessedly oppressed with difiiculty as to proof: these are some of the examples by which this determination QUANTITY INTERPKETED, ETC. 381 of the negative is accompanied. Again, the concluding observations in regard to the show of mathematical proof in matters known from experience alone, are extremely striking, and no less instructive ; as the notices of Newton, Leibnitz, Euler, Lagrange, the method of Limits, &c. &c., are hits so instantaneously and fehcitously home, that the conviction from the reason, is hardly more than the dehght from the irre- sistible skin, of the thing. The great merit of Hegel here, however, is the Notion. You utterly stumble and uselessly lose your- selves in an irrelevant wood, he says, when you insist on seeing the thing in increments and decrements, the omission of the insignificant, approximations, continua- tions, nisus, &c. &c. The question of Quantity ought to be no difiiculty to you, for you are simply to abstract from it and take up what is positive enough and seiz- able enough as Quahty : what is present is only the qualitative relation of quantitative principia, which as principia are elements, but not Quanta. Seize but the relation, he says, and you may give it what quantity you hke. To understand Hegel aright, then, here, we must put ourselves perfectly at home in the first place with the notions of Quahty and Quantity. You think of salt and of sugar, of pepper and of pap, of heat and cold, of wet and dry, of soft and hard, of hght and heavy — of stick, stone, metal, glass, and what not, and you think to yourself, you sufficiently understand what Quality is. But this that you have so before understanding, is only the VorsteUung, only the figurate conception, only the metaphor, the hypotj^ose, the representation of the thing. What you want is the thing itself, and that is — the Notion. But Quality is the precipitation of the 382 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. , Werden, the Becoming ; Quality is the One of Being and of Non-being ; it is not more through what it is, than through what it is not ; it owes as much to its dif- ference as to its identity : quahty thus has — unhke the unended series — ' its negative within itself.' It is com- plete, or infinite, that is, not ended ; or it has sublated its other, and thus it is infinite. The series, on the contrary, has its other out of it, — so it is indeterminate ; when it attains to this other, this negative, this that fails it, it will be at once through that negative a de- termined Something, it will have attained a quahtative character. Quahty is beent determinateness, and as a one of two, always of the nature of relation, or of the negation of the negation. Quality, universally taken, is what is ; but Quality as What is, is, is, is ; that is, it is Quantity. Quantity is the out of itself of Quality ; or it is Quahty's necessity to be. In this way, the Qualitative and the Quantitative Infinite are alike and equal. Quahty as What is, is ' the nature of the thing itself which exceeds all determinateness,' and Quantity is indifferent to it : it remains the same in all Quantity. The infinite discretion of is, is, is, — this is What is, is. The Being-for-self is for itself only because at the same time what it is, is for it : the Being-for-self and the Being-for-One are identical. Now the Being-for-One as the What is, is this endless discretion, or it is the quantitative form of Quahty. But this referred to the pure quantitative sphere is the quantitative infinite. Or, simply the Notion of Quantity itself, a Notion ne- cessitated by the Notion of Quahty, is the Quantitative Infinite. Quantum, taken not as any particular Quan- tum, but quite generally, is at once external non-being quite generally, and its negation ; it is the one that is boundlessly many, and yet one ; it is quantitativity ; its QUANTIir INTEKPRETED, ETC. 383 infinitude is this, its one qualitative nature, or specific constitution. Quantity is the relation that Quahty has to itself in that it is : Quantity is thus One and Many and Infinite. Being, were it only Being, would at once decease ; Being is Being only by reason of a Non-being through which it is, is, is ; to be it must not be. All this again refers to Quantity as taken sub specie ceterni. That I should five, requires a To-morrow when I do not Hve. This is a negation to me as finite existence ; but sub specie ceterni that negation is taken up into, is made one of, is made one with, the Absolute Life. What has been said here as absolutely sub specie ceterni, is equally susceptible of being said with reference only to pure Quantity. The Quantum quite generally is through its other, and so the negation of the nega- tion : it is through the out, and the out through it, for the out is it. Eepulsion in Quantum is but self-refer- ence ; that Eepulsion is its what ; it is through its Eepulsion that which it is. The one is the what, and the what is the one ; there is a look out and a look in. The one's what is just aU these ones ; and that is just the one Quantum endlessly, but one. It is the one continuity of aU that multiplied discretion. Quantum's own wing ever stretches and includes its other : there is no occasion either to conceive it always stretching, stretching ad infinitum, but the two may be seen to- gether and in potentia. Quantum is the Piirsichseyn of aU that Fiireines. Hegel now sees the True Mathema- tical Infinite to represent all this. The relation of Quantum to itself is as to a power, is as to its own square ; this is its own self-reference where unity and amount are alike, equal, and the same. Quality in Quantity indeed, as out of its in, may be said to square itself I cannot help thinking Hegel to have even 384 THE SECEET OP HEGEL. directly had such thoughts as these. I think also he must have seen, and intends us to see, that any quali- tative One is similarly situated (as Quality in general) to Quantity. Quantity is but its Power, its Square ; and the Quantity is quite indifferent to it, so long as it, QuaHty, or the quaUtative One, is there. Now -J^ is to anyone so thinking the perfectly abstract general expression of a quahtative one in quantitative reference. The relation of Power is involved in it, the relation itself, and its sides or moments are no longer Quanta, but they have retreated into their principle, their element. Retreated here is a bad word if it recalls decrement, for in -^ there is no question of increment or decre- dx ment, of Quantum ; all that is ' at its back ' (im Eiicken). To Hegel, then, the whole problem now is very simple : the consideration before us is qualitative, not quantitative ; it is a relation ; and this relation is expressed in the differential co-efScient ; and so it is that all question of other terms, of increments and decrements, &c. &c., does not enter, and ought not to enter. Quality in relation to its own self is Quantity, and so relatively to it, or as it, Quantity is the infinitely little. Quality is the limit which Quantity ever ap- proaches and never is, or always is. It is the same thing with any quality in particular as with QuaHty in general. The relation of ordinate to absciss is qualita- tive and, as such relation, independent of any Quantum that may be assigned to it. -^ is the ultimate quan- titative potentiality of any quality whatever ; it is quantitative potentiahty as such. The one thing ne- cessary for intelligence here, as always, is to see both of QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 383 the moments and be able to re-nect them into their concrete one. What mistakes are rampant nowadays because of a neglect of this one precaution, or rather because of entire ignorance of all elements that be- long here ! The world is deeply disappointed ; its heart is broken ; all the hopes which its own beauty has made grow in it wither rapidly down ; religion fails from its grasp, and philosophy, which promised so much, is unintelligible or seems but babblement : hark now how loud the cry of Materialism, that knows but, and cares but for, the carcase ! Eminent men of science see a matter-mote rise up by an easy flux of develop- ment into a man, but (with an involuntary gria) through the monkey ! The brain secretes thought, as the liver bile : this whole product of some strange chance, which need not be inquired into — take your dinner rather — wiU just go together in the centre as a vast mass some day-— in the centre of infinite Space ! Is there not an echo of self-contradiction in your own words, starthng even to yourselves. Messieurs les Materialistes ? To say nothing of infinite Time, of infinite Space, which alone are always adequate to absorb any and every amount of matter the materiahsts may bring in explana- tion of them, does not the mere sight of matter uselessly heaped together there in the centre through all time suggest a glance back to all time and the easy question. Time being infinite in the direction back as well as in the direction forward, and gravitation, moreover, being the only power, why has a whole back infinitude failed to bring this gravitation to its hearth in the centre — why is a future infinitude still necessary ? It is not thought, then, it is but thoughtlessness which sees the whole universe reduced in course of time to a single central mass ; it is but figurate conception amusing itself with VOL. II. c c 386 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. very idle and very unsubstantial bubbles. That gravi- tation, loss of heat, &c. have not already effected what we are assured they will effect, or simply that they have to effect this consummation, is a demonstration rigorously exact of heat not always being directed outwards, as of gravitation not always being directed inwards. If thought, not thoughtlessness, would inspect the problem, it would find that Attraction is only possible through Eepulsion ; that were there no Eepulsion, there were no Attraction, and vice versa. There is but the one concrete Reciprocity. It is perfectly certain that Action and Eeaction are not more necessary reciprocals than Attraction and Eepulsion. A like one-sidedness it is which leads the friends of the monkey, in comparing him with man, to abstract from the Difference and regard the Identity alone. But what is this identity ? It is hardly worth while modern philosophers making such a fuss about our identity with monkeys, were it only for what Sallust tells us, that we have our bodies in common cete- ris animalibus. That man is an animal and that monkey is the caricature of him, has been known for thou- sands of years ; and the modern philosophers who hve by the cry (strange, is it not ?) know it not one single whit better than it was known at first, nor have they deposited one single stone of the bridge from the Difference to the Identity, nor yet will they — ^in their way — should they take an infinite time to the task. A strange metier this, then, that would enlighten us by telhng us we were monkeys originally, though it has nothing to show for itself but the worn-out triteness of thousands of years ! Yet we are expected to admire applaud, and — per Jovem — even pay ! It is the same abstraction from the Difference which misleads other QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 387 Eminent men to mis-spend whole laborious lives in twisting the idle sand-rope of Transformation. The Difference is there not one whit less than the Iden- tity, and though you fly in your researches utterly round all space and utterly throughout aU time, you win never eliminate it : it is impossible for you ever to take up an Identity unaccompanied by its Differ- ence. Tour quest is thus at once absolutely certain and utterly impossible : and this simply because What is is at once identical and different. The power of meta- morphosis hes with Thought only; it is not in Nature. Never shah, we see a first Natural Identity — ^which all mankind wUl accept as such — gradually giving itself Difference and Difference up to the present, as we might see ice become water and water steam. Such transformations are possible to the Notion only. Nay, these very thinkers acknowledge this same truth : they do not accept what is as it is — they seek it in its prin- ciple. What is this but accepting the metamorphosis of Thought ? Thought is nothing but metamorphosis — the metamorphosis of the isolated singular many into the one universal. It is iaconsistent, then, in these writers to accept thought only a certain way, and not foUow it out into the ultimate universal, the element of thought itself. They may say, ' Though we gene- ralise, we stni leave the individuals, and know always that our generalisations are but abstractions.' We too can say that we still leave the individuals; but we cannot say that our generahsations end as idle abstrac- tions which have only formal apphcation to what is, but, on the contrary, as truth itself and as the truth, and that the material and constitutive truth of the whole of things. This is a difference. Thought is the secretion of matter, as the bile of the hver, you say : c c 2 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. on the contrary, it is matter that is but the secretion of thought. Show me your first atom, show me it become time, space, matter, organisation, thought ; then I ask you, was not this first atom all these virtually at first ? Could it have become these, had it not been so virtually at first? But that it should imply such virtue— that is Thought— these are thoughts. Or even to say it was at first virtually Thought, is to say that Thought was the veritable prius. Your path, then, ends in mine. But you have not this path ; you have not made a single step on it ; you have only talked of it ; and you can only talk of it for ever : for your first problem, a deduction of Time and Space, is utterly impossible to you with Matter only. We, on the con- trary, have a path ; We, thanks to Kant and Hegel, can prove Thought to be the prius and the principle ; We can prove all to be but the Notion an sich. Once possessed of the concrete notion, We. can re-live its life up to the fullness of the universe. The two posi- tions, then, are widely difierent. Yet, since 1781, when the ' Kritik of Pure Eeason,' and since 1812-16, when the ' Logik ' was published, what innumerable writers have preferred obeying the impatience of their own vanity to patient assimilation, first of all, of the Historical Pabulum that at these dates was issued to them, and without which they could be nothing ! Formal attitudinists on the gas of genius, men of fervour, men who could evolve — Systems, Poems, Pic- tures, Eeligions, Alchemy, anything — these we have had by the thousand ; but how many men who knew that, in themselves, mere form only, they required the rock of another to which clinging they might, absorb- ing and assimilating matter into form, grow into their own complete entelechie ? These men would be matter QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 389 and form unto themselves, so they consumed them- selves in futile subjective pulses, and died so. He only who knows how to connect himself to his historical other, will ever attain to an actuality of manhood. Be a man's formal ability what it may, unless he attain to this, his products, however blatant, are but vacant idiocy. So only even is it, that he can be original. Thomas Carlyle found his other in German Literature — but the germs of what he found lay first of all in him- self ; it was his own hunger that made the food ; and if Thomas Carlyle is not original, what English writer is ? But for its Difference, abstract Identity dies of inanition then. So it is as regards the nisus of genius. So it is as regards the nisus nowadays of a material- istic pseudo-science. In every concrete there are two abstract moments which are not seen truly unless to- gether. So it is as regards the Attraction and Eepulsion which are stiU before us in Quantity, and whose union only is adequate to that quantitative infinite which Hegel finds represented in the mathematical infinite. Quantum, even in that it repels its other, flees into it ; and even in that it flees into it, it flees into its own self: no flight expliciter without but is a flight impliciter within. Quantum, then, is this one infi- nite relation, this boundless relativity, this without of itself that is the within of itself, this negation of the negation. And such is the mathematical infinite : Quantity as such has disappeared, there remains only the Qualitative element and in relation of potentiation. The thought is abstract ; but it is not more difficult than the abstract Something or any other pure Notion. It may be objected tliat Hegel does not sufiiciently illustrate and, on the whole, bring out the fact that the relation implied is one of powers. That it is 390 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. really so, we know now to be certain, for he has him- self ehminated all variables of the first degree, but to know the fact is not necessarily to know the reason of the fact. Again, having asserted the firet pecuharity of the mathematical infinite to depend on a relation of potentiation, he equally asserts the second pecuharity, and in complete isolation from the first. We can easily conceive -^ to be quahtative relation only ; but these are not squares, and Hegel has not been careful to bring the two pecuharities together. That the relation of one quantity to the square of another is qualitative, is also but an assertion ; intelligence and conviction are not secured by either reasoning or illustration. We know that Hegel regards the square, where Unity and Amount are equal, as of a quahta- tive nature ; but this knowledge seems to throw but little light here. As regards this last point, it may be worth while suggesting that the relation of the sides to the hypothenuse, being a relation that con- cerns the square of the hypothenuse, the result is quahtative, the triangle is always right-angled. But such illustrations must be left to the mathematician by profession. As regards objections, it is to be borne in mind, too, that the subject is not exhausted ; and that we have the promise of seeing in the second Eemark, how the abstract notion takes meaning in actual appli- cation, which apphcation, too, is termed the important part of the whole subject. It is with great regret, then, that I find myself (by the Number at the head of the page) obhged for the present to stop here, seeing that my matter already amounts to more than it is perhaps prudent to intrude on the public as a first venture on a subject so difficult, and, at least to super- QUANTITY INTEEPRETED, ETC. 391 ficial observation, so equivocal, as the Philosophy of Hegel. Enough, however, has been done to enable the mathematician or the metaphysician to complete the rest for himself The judgment of a pure mathe- matician has reaUy been so pecuharly ' trained, that, perhaps, any such will never prove decisive as re- gards any Hegelian element. Still, it is much to be desired that such a vast mathematical genius as Sir William Hamilton, of Dublin, could be induced to verify the findings of Hegel so far as they bear on the concrete science. As they appear abstractly expressed in the present Eemark, they seem perfectly safe from assault ; but there are others (alluded to also here), such as the earnestness with which Hegel seeks to vindicate for Kepler his own law from the hands of Newton's illusory mathematical Demonstration, on which one would be well pleased to possess a thoroughly-skilled opinion. There is at least something grand in the way in which Hegel would set up Time and Space them- selves as the co-ordinates that to the divination of Kepler and to the necessity of the notion of Hegel yielded and yield the law — or ^ . Hegel may be wrong ; but he possesses such keenness of distinction, that it is difficult to conceive any intellect — as the epoch is — too high to gain from it. It lies, too, on the surface to say that these Vectors, Tensors, Scalers, &c., of Sir William Hamilton are but forms of continuity and discretion in application to the concrete Quantity, Space. By way of giving at least a formal close to the subject, I add here the whole of Quantity as it appears in the third edition of the Encyclopaedia. The reader wiU be thus enabled to see as well Hegel's immense 392 THE SECRET OF IIEGEL. power of summary as the insufficiency of any such to a student who but learns, however advantageous it may prove to the student who has completed his course. He will also see that, besides the mathe- matical notes, which are two in number, what has yet to be completed of the general subject as it appears in the Logic is small, and that the bulk of it is already given in these pages. Some amount of change in the divisions he will also be able to discern ; and the very fact of change on the part of Hegel it is important to know. B. QUANTITT. a. Pure Quantity. Quantity is pure Being, or the pure Being, in which the Determinateness is no longer explicit as one with the Being itself, but as sublated or indifferent. (1) The expression magnitude (Grosse) is not appro- priate to Quantity, so far as it specially designates particular Quantity. (2) Mathematic usually defines magnitude as that which may be increased or dimi- nished. However objectionable this definition may be, as again implying the definitum itself, it involves this, that the nature of Quantity is such that it is expli- citly alterable and indifferent, so that, notwithstandincr an alteration, an increased Extension or Litension, the thing itself, a house, red, &c., ceases not to be a house, red, &c. (3) The Absolute is pure Quantity, this position coincides in general with this, that the determination of Matter is attributed to the Absolute, in which (Matter) Form is present indeed, but an in- different determination. Quantity also constitutes the QUANTITY INTERPRETED, ETC. 393 fundamental determination of the Absolute, when it is taken so that in it, the absolutely Indifferent, all differ- ence is only quantitative. For the rest, pure Time, Space, &c., may be regarded as examples of Quantity, so far as the Real (or -what is real) is to be conceived as indifferent filling of Space or Time. Quantity, firstly, in its immediate reference to itself, or in the form of equahty with itself as explicit or set in it in consequence of the Attraction, is continuous; in the other term contained in it, the One (Unit), it is discrete magnitude. The former, however, is equally discrete, for it is only continuity of the Many ; the latter equally continuous — its continuity is the One as the same of the many ones,- the unity. (1) Continuous and discrete magnitude must not, therefore, be regarded as hinds or species, as if the nature of the one did not attach to the other, but as if they contradistinguish themselves only by this, that the same whole is now explicit under the one, and again under the other of its discrimina. (2) The Antinomy of Time, of Space, or of Matter, as regards its infinite Divisibility, or again, its consisting of Indi- visibles, is nothing else than the assertion of Quantity now as continuous, and again as discrete. Time, Space, &c., being explicit only as continuous Quantity, are infinitely divisible ; in their other term, again, as discrete magnitude, they are an sich [in themselves) divided, and consist of indivisible Ones : the one term is as one-sided as the other. b. Quantum. Quantity essentially explicit with the excludent deter- minateness which is contained in it, is Quantum, limited Quantity. 394 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. The Quantum has its evolution and perfect deter- minateness in the Digit (Number), which contains within itself (imphes), as its Element, the One, in the moment of Discretion the Amount, in that of Con- tinuity the Unity, both as its qualitative moments. In Arithmetic, what are called the arithmetical operations are usually stated as contingent modes of treating numbers. If a necessity and withal an under- standing is to lie in them, the latter must he in a prin- ciple, and this only in the moments which are contained in the notion of the Digit itself; this principle shall be here briefly exhibited. The moments of the notion of Number are the Amount and the Unity, and the Number itself is the Unity of both. But Unity apphed to empirical numbers is only their Equality ; thus the principle of arithmetic must be, to range numbers into the relation of Unity and Amount, and bring about the Equality of these moments. The Ones or the Numbers themselves being mutually indifferent, the Unity into which they become exphcitly transposed appears in general as an external putting together (collection). To count is, therefore, in general to number, and the difference of the kinds of coimtmg hes alone in the quahtative nature (tahty) of the Numbers which are numbered together; and, for the tality, the determination of Unity and Amount is the principle. Numeration is the first, to make Number at all, a putting together of as many Ones as is wished. A Und of counting (an arithmetical operation), hoAvever, is the numbering together of such as are already numbers, and no longer the mere unit. Numbers are imme- diately and at first quite indefinitely Numbers in QUANTITY mTEEPBETBD, ETC. 395 general — unequal, therefore, in general : the putting together or numbering of such is Addition. The neait determination is, that the Numbers are equal in general ; they constitute thus one Unity, and there is present an Amount of such unities : to number such numbers is to Multiply ; — and here it is indifferent how the moments of Amount and Unity are appor- tioned in the two numbers, the Factors, indifferent which is taken as Amount, and which again as Unity. The third characteristic determinateness is finally the Equality of Amount and Unity. The numbering together of numbers so characterised, is the raising into powers, and first of all into the square. Further potentiation is the formal repetition of the multipli- cation of the number with itself which runs out again into the indefinite Amount. As in this third form, the complete equality of the sole present difference, of Amount and Unity, is attained, there cannot be more than these three operations in Arithmetic. There cor- responds to the numbering together, a resolution of the Numbers according to the same determinatenesses. With the three operations mentioned, which may be so far named positive, there are, therefore, also three negative. c. Degree. The limit is identical with the whole of the Quantum itself; as multiple in itself, it is extensive — as simple in itself, intensive magnitude : the latter is also named Degree. The difference of continuous and discrete from ex- tensive and intensive magnitudes consists, therefore, in this, that the former concern Quantity in general — the latter, on the other hand, the hmit, or the determinate- 396 THE SECKET OF HEGEL. ness of Quantity as such. Extensive and intensive magnitudes are, in like manner, not two sorts of whicli the one should possess a distinction which the other wanted ; what is extensive is equally intensive, and vice versa. In degree the notion of Quantum is in explicit posi- tion. It is magnitude as indifferently independent and simple, but so that it has the determinateness by which it is Quantum directly out of it in other magnitudes. In this contradiction, viz. that the heent-for-self indif- ferent hmit is absolute Externality, the infinite quanti- tative Progress is expressly explicit, — an immediacy which immediately strikes round into its counterpart, mediatedness (a going over and beyond the Quantum that has just been posited), and vice versd. A Number is thought, but thought as a Beingness completely external to its own self. It belongs not to perception because it is thought, but it is the thought which has for its characterisation the externality of perception. The Quantum not only may therefore be increased or diminished ad infinitum ; it itself is through its Notion this dispatch of itself beyond itself. The infinite quantitative Progress is just the thoughtless repetition of one and the same contradiction which the Quantum in general is, and Quantum as Degree, or expressly set in its determinateness. As regards the superfiuousness of enunciating this contradiction in the form of the infinite Progress, Zeno in Aristotle says justly : it is the same thing to say something once, and to say it always. This outerhness of Quantum to its own self in its beent-for-self determinateness constitutes its Quality; in it it is just itself and referred to itself In it are united. Externality, i.e. Quantitativeness, and IJeinc- QUANTITY INTBEPRETBD, ETC. 397 for-self, i.e. Qualitativeness. Quantum thus put is in itself the Quantitative Relation, — determinateness which is no less immediate Quantum, the Exponent, than me- diatedness, namely, the reference of some one Quantum to another, — the two sides of the relation, which at the same time are not valid in their immediate value, but have their value only in this reference. The sides of the relation are still immediate Quanta, the qualitative and the quantitative moments still ex- ternal to each other. Their truth, however, viz. that the Quantitativeness itself is in its externality reference to itself, or that the Being-for-self and the indifference of the determinateness are united, is Measure. 398 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. yi. THE COMMENTATOES OF HEGEL: SCHWEGLER, EOSENKEANZ, HAYM. Iisr the interest of one's own self-seeking to demon- strate the shortcomings of one's predecessors, is a pro- cedure now so \Tilgar that it would, perhaps, have been better taste to have left to others the task which is here begun. Any plea in excuse can found only on the important aid which may be so afforded to a general understanding of the single theme, and is only to be made good by the result. There are many other Commentators of Hegel, but we have selected these — examples, too, of feehngs impartial, partial, and hostile — as the latest and most generally-acknowledged best. Now, each of the three has devoted a vast amount of labour and time to the study of Hegel, and all of them have, more or less, attained to a very considerable relative knowledge. It is not, then, what is in general meant by ignorance that we would object here, but only a peculiar and insufficient state of knowledge in this way, that the path of this knowledge has been ever on the outside, from particular to particular, with darkness and inco- herences between, and without perception of the single light in which the whole should show — without attain- ment of the single Euck, of the single turn, stir, touch HEGEL'S COMMENTATOES. 399 by which the painful and unreachable Many should kaleidoscopically collapse into the held and intelligible One. In a word, whatever general connexion they may have perceived between Hegel and Kant, and however often they may have used, each of them, the word Begriff, they have all failed to detect that literal one connexion and that literal one signification which have been accentuated in the preceding pages. Hegel was literal with Idealism ; the whole is Thought, and the whole hfe of it is Thought ; and, therefore, what is called the History of Philosophy wiU be in exter- nahty and contingency, but a Gesetztseyn of Thought, but an exphcitment, a setting of one thought the other. So it was that Spinoza was Substance, Hume Causahty, Kant Eeciprocity, and Hegel the Notion — the Notion as set by Kant, and as now to be developed sub- jectively by Hegel into the Subjective Logic which ends in the Idea. So it was that he, as it were, anallegorised actual history, even contemporary history, even his own position, into the plastic dialectic of his abstract Logic. Hegel was hteral with Ideahsm up to the last invisible negation of the negation — up to the ultimate pure Negativity within which even the triple muscle of the Notion lay a hidden Nisus, retracted into transparency. To Hegel even the very way which had led to this was, so far, false ; it was but the chain of the jfinite cate- gories ; and their whole truth was this negative One. Thus it was that Hegel completed the whole movement of which Kant, Fichte, and Schelhng had been successive vital knots ; but still this completion he reached only by making good his attachment directly to the iirst of them. This was effected by the entire realisation and vitalisa- tion of Logic, even scholastic Logic (which Kant had begun), by reduction simply of the All into the simply 400 THE SBCKBT OF HEGEL. technical moments of Logic as named Simple Apprehen- sion, &c., through substitution of his own conscious con- crete Notion (which, in a word, is but the one existent, and the only existent, Entelechie of Difference and Identity), for the unconscious abstract Notion of Kant that lay in the question: 'How are a priori Synthetic Judgments possible ? ' It is this literality which we assert to have been universally missed, and we claim to have discovered the Notion which Hegel meant, what we call the concrete Universal, as weU as the precise nature of the genesis of this notion with special refer- ence to Kant. It often happens that, when particular announce- ments of this nature are made, many previous general expressions come to be collected which seem very fairly to convey the particularity announced. Now these ex post facto coincidences, as they may be termed, while they belong to the peculiar industry of the mere rats of literature, are themselves particularly delusive and deceptive. In these very volumes we have many instances in point. Some of these instances we shall adduce by way of illustration just as they occur. ' Hegel is quite in earnest when he maintains the co-incidence of History and of Logic : ' this (vol. i. p. 38) is a very exphcit and perfectly categorical statement ; nevertheless, it was probably written years before the true thought, or anything Like the true thought, of the fact which it seems to convey, had dawned on the mind of the Avriter. Plato's TaiTov and ^arspov, as well as a triad of an sich, ausser sich, and fiir sich, are spoken of, not far from the same neighbour- hood, but quite bhndly as to the true issues involved. ' Thus Hegel, horsed on his idea, penetrates and per- meates the whole universe both of mind and matter and HEGEL'S COMMENTATOKS. 401 construes all into a one individuality: The Whole is to be conceived as an organic idea — a concrete idea : He who understands Hegel's word BegrifF, understands Hegel.' These statements* are also very strikingly correct, the last in especial seems to reach the root ; yet they are made years in advance, and had I left the subject then, I should have left it wholly ignorant of Hegel. Here foUow a few more such bhnd guesses, results of external comparison, on the part of one absolutely denied as yet entrance to the internal truth. ' The process pic- tured in the History of Philosophy is the process of Philosophy itself : It is the pecuHar nature of the Idea to be the union of the universal and the particular in the individual : Kant's categories' form reaUy the substance of Hegel : Hegel's general undertaking, indeed, seems to be, to restore the evolution immanent to thought itself (which evolution has only presented itself con- cretely and chronologically in the particular thinkers preserved in History) — to restore this evolution to universal consciousness in abstract purity, &c. &c.' f Suoh instances, however, are so far unsatisfactory in that they rest only on one's own authority. Two examples which we have already seen in this con- nexion from Spinoza may be attended with more con- viction. The first occurs under Eemark 1 of the first Chapter on Quantity : it is that which relates to a Quantity of Imagination as different from one of Intel- lect. Now, both Kant and Hegel are here anticipated and in leading distinctions ; nevertheless, it is quite certain that Kant knew nothing of this, and that Hegel * They occur vol. i., pp. 79, vol. i. The last, however exact it 80. seem, is due only to an external t To be found respectively at look at the first portions of the pages 82, 89, 97, and 195, of ' Phaenomenologie.' VOL. II. D D 402 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. was able to perceive it only when he had made his own progress in Kant and from Kant. The other example is that of the Intellectual and Imaginative Infinite, which occurs, about one-third of the way on, in the long Mathematical note with which Quantity is terminated in vol. ii. On the whole, we have, for our part, no hesitation in concluding that words which as they fell from their speaker related only to some isolated particular, or to some result of mere outside comparison, may be found ex post facto very fairly to convey some whole inner and vital truth of wide appUcation. SCHWEGLEE. We have already spoken with sincere respect of this most accomplished man and admirable writer ; and it is to be acknowledged at once that he has not only perfectly availed himself of many of the main lessons both of Kant and Hegel, but that he possesses also an accurate acquaintance with the bulk of their details. Nevertheless, we hold that, having failed to penetrate into the very inmost articulation of Kant's a priori elements, he missed the key without which it was im- possible but that Hegel must have remained a mere outer assemblage and, on the whole, impervious to him. The few considerations on which this opinion rests we shall mention in the order in which they occurred to us in perusing his book, the ' History of Philosophy in Epitome.' The first point to which we shall advert is contained in the first four pages of the excellent little work alluded to, and relates, on the part of Schwegler, to objections to, or rather to a rejection of, the Hegehan equation of Philosophy and its History. In passing to this we may KEGELS COMMENTATORS. 403 remark, that for a Hegelian he unduly accentuates the relation between Philosophy proper and the Empirical Sciences : ' Philosophy (as the thought TotaUty of the Empirical) stands in reciprocity with the empirical sciences ; as it on one side conditions them, it is itself again, on the other side, conditioned by them. There is just as little, therefore, an absolute or completed Philosophy (in time, that is to say, generally in the course of History) as there is a completed Empiric ' (or science of all that reaches us by experience). There is here, on the whole, and for the position, too much stress laid on the empirical sciences, and too little on the fact of an independent Logic, which is above contingency, which is a necessary and objective crystal of the Empirical, and which, if it changes, at least fluctuates not at wlO. of the mere vicissitude of the latter. The identification of the historical with the logical evolution Schwegler combats from the position of the contingency of the former. He says, ' This view is neither to be justified in its principle, nor made good historically.' But he who were thoroughly on the stand-point of Hegel, would see that, while the contingency (even that of those who appear on the stage of History) is not denied, but, on the contrary, its relative necessity demonstrated, the principle, all being at bottom but an evolution of Thought, must be true, and must be capable of being actually discerned across the fluctuation of the Outward. Schwegler's imperfect discrimination of the elements concerned is seen also in his particular objections as to the notions of HeracHtus and the Eleatics (with reference to a place for them in Logic) that they are ' impure and materially coloured,' or as to the Ionic Philosophy that it began ' not with Seyn (Being) as abstract notion, but vsnth D D 2 404 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. what is concretest and crassest, the material notion of water, air, &c. ;' and that, accordingly, ' Hegel would have more consistently quite rejected the Ionic Philo- sophy.' It is rather eminently Hegelian quite to acknowledge the impurity and crassitude of all com- mencements; though it is equally Hegehan that this impurity and crassitude should, under pouring of the menstruum of thought, clear into the lineaments of the notion which, despite the clouding opacity, was never absent. Schwegler admits himself that the function of Philosophy is to find in Vicissitude a Fixed, that Philosophy begins 'there where an ultuuate ground of the Beent, of what is, is philosophically sought ;' and this is precisely the position he opposes. ' History is not a count to be exactly summed up : there must be no talk of an a priori construction of History.' But do such expressions really affect Hegel? Would Hegel a priori construct history, or even count it up like a sum in arithmetic? The concrete is a hither and thither of contingency ; there are difficulties and checks of aU kinds, chronological and other : Hegel denies them not ; he would only with masterful hands rive them from before the face of the notion. 'The datum of Experience is to be taken as a datum, a something given over to us just so, and the rational system of this datum is to be analytically set out ; the Speculative Idea wiU for the arrangement and scientific connexion of this historical datum furnish the Eegulative : Al- most everywhere the historical development is different from the notional : While the logical progress is an ascent from the abstract to the concrete, the historical development is almost always a descent from the concrete to the abstract ; Philosophy is synthetic, the I-IEGBLS COMMENTATOES. 405 history of Philosophy analytic : We may maintain, therefore, with more justice exactly the opposite of the Hegehan Thesis and sayVhat is an sich the first is fur uns just the last.' It will not be difficult to perceive that there is the same incomplete conscious- ness of Hegel's true position in these extracts also, the burthen of which Hegel would partly accept and partly reject, as what has been said already will enable the reader to see. It is worth while, per- haps, remarking that the evolution of thought being Gesetztseyn, is at once of an analytic and a synthetic nature. Schwegler's reversal of the Hegehan ' an sich oder fiir uns' is also worth pointing out. We have another instance of it at pages 82, 83, where he says, ' Virtue is to be defined as the keeping of the due middle in practice- — not the arithmetical middle, the middle an sich, but the middle fur uns.' Schwegler is, of course, at hberty to use these terms as he pleases ; but, as we have seen, the distinction imphed in them by Hegel is one eminently subtle and difficult, and may accordingly have escaped Schwegler. Hegel's use of them as synonymes is beyond a doubt. Under ' Die Schranke und das SoUen,' ' the Limitation and the To-be-to,' we have already seen and come to under- stand 'das SoUen ist nur an sich, somit fiir uns;' it has been pointed out also that this distinction, while it probably begins in the ' Introduction' to the ' Phaeno- menologie,' is to be found in the ' Preface' as well ; and here are three more examples to the same effiict : Encyc. § 162, and Logic, vol. ii. pp. 20 and 73, we have, ' Begriffe an sich, oder was dasselbe ist, fiir uns,' — ' nicht nur an sich, das hiesse fiir uns oder in der aus- seren Eeflexion,' — and 'so ist es an sich oder fiir uns bestimmt.' Hegel's intention with the phrase is 406 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. beyond a question, then, and the synonyme of ' outer Eeflexion' in the last example but one not only con- firms the signification alfeady attached to it, but con- siderably lessens the difficulty with which it seemed burthened. He, then, who reverses this distinction, though of course free to do so, risks his reputation as a student of Hegel. From pages 45 and 67, I adduce now two passages, which — the former as regards the Notion and the latter as regards the Idea — show that, even in writing on Philosophy, a German may say the Notion and the Idea when he means thereby neither the Notion nor the Idea of Hegel, but simply the abstract universals of generahsation : ' That aU human action reposes on knowledge, ah thought on the notion, to this result Plato was already able to arrive through the generah- sation of the Socratic Teaching itself : ' ' If Plato had taken his station in the Idea in order to interpret and explain the Given and Empirical, Aristotle takes his place in the Given in order to find and demonstrate in it the Idea.' With reference to Aristotle, Schwegler has occasion to speak of what must have suggested the notion of Hegel to him had he known it ; but (pp. 73, 74, 75, &c.) even in talking of 'Zweck' and 'Entelechie' as ' voUendetes Wesen,' and in reducing the four Aristo- telian Causes to Matter and Form, he is not tempted to remark on the striking essential analogy to the Concrete Notion, but, on the contrary, concludes in this absolutely anti-Hegehan fashion : ' There remains to us, therefore, the two ground-principles which pass not into each other. Matter and Form.' There is a certain defence to Schwegler here in this, that it is from the position of Aristotle he speaks, and not from that of KEGELS COMMENTATOES. 407 Hegel: but then the irresistible temptation to correlate Aristotle's notions with the notion of Hegel, had he known this latter, — if not here, at least elsewhere ? Schwegler's summary of Kant is a very excellent one, and perhaps the very best that, in a general literary point of view, has been yet given. When compared, however, with the skeleton which on this subject Hegel bore in his head, and which he allows us to see in his various critiques, and especially in that which occurs at the commencement of the Encyclo- paedia, we see how much this summary of Schwegler is in its kind external. Light here with him is always in proportion to the easiness and not to the difficulty of what is summarised ; and thus the discussion of the Eeligious and the Practical parts is much more satisfactory than that of the strictly Metaphysical. We just touch on a particular point or two : — At page 154, we find : ' The Kritik of Pure Eeason, says Kant, is the Inventarium of aU our possessions through pure reason systematically arranged.' This strikes strangely on one at home with Kant ; for every- one who is really so, has been so much accustomed to hear the Kxitik, however complete as ground-plan and system of inchoative principles, always spoken of as but propaedeutical to the Science of Metaphysic itself, or to the Transcendental Philosophy as such, that it grates at once. And this is really the truth, and these words of Schwegler's are never used by Kant in any such connexion : on examination they will be found to be taken from the Preface, and to be used there, not in reference to Kritik, but to Meta- physic. It was only in the future that Kant contem- plated such complete Inventarium as a completed system of Philosophy. The matter may seem small, but 408 THE SECEET OP HEGEL. it points at least to a certain slovenliness of information on the part of Schwegler. At page 160, again, we have : 'The question, there- fore, which Kant set at the head of his whole Kritik, How are a priori synthetic judgments possible ? . . . . must be answered with an unconditional No.' This, too, grates ; for we know the contrary : we know that Kant has pointed to whole spheres of such judgments, and has demonstrated in his way the rationale of them ; nay, we know that that is the express one object of his whole Kritik and Kritiken. It may be said that Schwegler must have had in his mind, that to every fact of actual knowledge Kant postulated elements of sense as well as those of intellect. But such defence were null, and from more points of view than one ; for, in the first place, the knowledge of these a priori principles, though abstract, were still a know- ledge, and would not be denied by Kant ; in the second place, there are, in Kant's system, a priori elements of sense, as well as of intellect, which give occasion to the conjunction necessary for such a priori synthetic judgments, and have been expressly anatomised by Kant for this very purpose ; and, in the third place, Kant actually details classes of such a priori synthetic judgments. Nay, at page 159, Schwegler himself says : ' These are the only possible and authenticated syn- thetic judgments a priori, the ground-lines of aU and every Metaphysic' Thus, then, Schwegler categorically contradicts himself, and declares that there are such judgments — this in spite of his ' unconditional No ! ' Again, though it is true that the judgments men- tioned are to be viewed as Metaphysical ground- lines, it is not true that these are the only synthetic judgments a priori ; for does not Kant regard all the propositions of pure Mathematic as a priori synthe- KEGELS COMMENTATOKS. 409 tics, and are not these a goodly number? — These things belong to that special central domain of Kant which came to him straight from Hume, which was his own principal and principial industry, and which passed straight from his hands into those of Hegel, to constitute there the central domain of this last also — the domain which, if we are correct, is precisely that which has remained unvisited, and is thus the cause of all existent difficulty and ignorance. Here, then, we conceive Schwegler not only open to the charge of slovenliness, but of very deficient information, and that, too, in regard to a main — or rather the main topic. Then to Schwegler the Hegehan system arises di- rectly out of that of ScheUing, and he has no per- ception of that whole field of considerations the issue of which is the partial ehmination of Fichte and Schel- ling, and the attachment of Hegel directly to Kant : in short, he knows only the common and stereotyped view of what is called the Literature of the subject I He says, p. 222, ' From reflexion on this one-sidedness (of ScheUing) the Hegehan Philosophy arose ; it holds fast, as against Fichte, with the then SchelHngian Phi- losophy, that not a Singular, the Ego, is the Prius of aU Eeality, but a Universal, which comprehends in itself every Singular.' We may point out, in passing, that the phrase ' a Universal which comprehends in itself every Singular,' were correct language if apphed to what we name the concrete notion. It has no such appKcation, nevertheless, but refers only to the common consciousness on this subject — that Hegel, namely, leads all up at last into the ' Absolute Spirit.' We find him, indeed, a line or two further down speaking of the ' Idea as the Absolute,' without men- tion anywhere of the relation of the Notion to the Idea. At pages 223, 227, 228, his perception of the method 410 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. and general industry of Hegel will be found to be whoUy from without, wholly as of a process and endeavour external and mechanical; there seems not even a dream of the one hving force which is the creative pulse of the whole. 'The Absolute,' he says, ' is, according to Hegel, not Being, but Development ; explication of differences and antitheses which, how- ever, are not self-dependent, or at aU opposed to the Absolute, but each singly as all together form only moments within the self-development of the Absolute.' ' The Hegehan Logic is the scientific exposition and development of the pure Eeason-notions, of those notions or categories which underhe all thought and being, which are as much the ground-principles of subjective cognition, as the immanent soul of objective Eeality, of those Ideas in which the Spiritual and the Natural have their coincidence-point. The realm of Logic is, says Hegel, Truth as it is without veil fiir sich. It is, as Hegel also figuratively expresses him- self, the exposition of God as he is in his eternal essence before the creation of the world and any finite Spirit.' ' Hegel has endeavoured, 1, completely to collect the pure Eeason-notions ; 2, critically to purge them (that is to say, to exclude all that were not pure perception-less thought) ; and, 3, — what is the most characteristic peculiarity of the Hegelian Logic, — to derive them dialectically from one another, and com- plete them into an internally articulated system of pure Eeason.' ' The lever for this development is the dialectic method that advances by negation from one notion to another.' " Negation is the vehicle of the dialectic march. Every previously established notion is negated, and out of its negation a higher, richer notion is won. This method, which is at once analytic HEGKLS COMMENTATOKS. 411 and synthetic, Hegel has carried out throughout the whole system of the Science.' This language is not incorrect ; it is largely Hegel's own. But this is its defect ; Hegel's indirect ways have not been penetrated, and the one secret found. What sense, for instance, is there in this negation of which Schwegler speaks ? How different it would have been could he but have explained it ! "We have objected abeady to an expression above being considered figu- rative. It appears to us also that Hegel himself would have very much objected to that ascription to him of collecting the categories and critically purging them. In short, what we have here are but external views, and, on the whole, the Literature of the subject ! Nor does Schwegler, when arrived at the notion of the notion, manifest any consciousness of what is truly before him. Speaking (p. 231) of Eeciprocity, which we know now to be the very nidus where the Notion is bom, he says, ' We have, therefore, again a Seyn (a Being) that disjoins itself into several Self-dependents, which are, however, immediately identical with it : this unity of the immediacy of Being with the self-dis- junction of Essence is the Notion.' And this is aU : there is not one word of that marvellous dialectic in which we get sight of the Particular as in a trans- parent distinction which is none, between the Univer- sal and the Singular, each of which is but negative reflexion into self and the same negative reflexion, and thus come at length actually to see the Notion, actually to realise at length the notion of the notion. After the sentence just quoted, Schwegler proceeds to define the notion, and he begins thus : ' Notion is that in the other,' &c. He says Notion is so and so, not the No- tion is so and so ; the notion, therefore, is to him just 412 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. notion, just notion in general, the abstract universal of thinking as opposed to sense. In fact, when a German begins a sentence with a noun thus without article, the idiomatic English translation would require us to begm with the indefinite article, — to say here, then, a notion is so and so. But let us give the whole definition : 'Notion is that in the other which is identical with itself; it is substantial Totahty, the moments of which (Singular, Particular) are themselves the whole (the Universal), Totality which as well allows the difierence free play as it embraces it into unity within itself When a man once knows the notion, it is not difficult for him to see assonances to it in this definition ; but would he ever have learnt it from it ? These are but vague words, vaguely and imperfectly copied fi:om others ; and what their own author is determined only to see in them is a notion in general, the Socratic Uni- versal, Plato's Idea, as the Idea of a man, a table, &c. This is evident from the words, ' it is that in the other.'' ' The spiritual substance (p. 241) of the Eevealed Eeligion or of Christianity is consequently the same as that of Speculative Philosophy, only that it is expressed there in the wise of the Vorstellung, in the form of a history, here in the wise of the notion.' There is no reason to suppose here either, that the notion is meant ; the particular words are just Hegel's own ; Hegel him- self uses Begriff ia some three senses ; and there is no reason to suppose, from anything in the whole book, that Schwegler ever saw more in the notion than Plato's abstract universal, as now specialised and particukrised, at most, by Kant and Hegel under the name of Cate- gories, and as opposed to VorsteUung. It is to be said, too, that the whole statement of Hegel's system in Schwegler is external, and reads to HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 413 everyone at first — to everyone at first, at least, who is not already an adept — just like a caricature, for which conviction can be expected from no sane human being. On the whole, we beheve ourselves right, then, how- ever willing we may be to ascribe to Schwegler parti- cipation in the spirit and extensive external knowledge both of Kant and Hegel, in denying him to have en- tered a certain internal adytum of either, which, never- theless, is absolutely essential to knowledge. EOSENKEANZ. Though not superior to Schwegler so far as partici- pation in the spirit of Kant and Hegel is concerned, Eosenkranz has, probably seen more clearly into the intimate connexion between these two, studied more closely the Particular of the latter of them, and brought himself just generally into more intimate relations with the dialectic whole. Nevertheless, we cannot make out that Eosenkranz has ever discerned either the literal attachment of Hegel to Kant, or the one thing that unites both and constitutes the single principle of the former — ^the Concrete Universal. In support of this opinion we shall take our evidence from the ' Wissen- schaft der Logischen Idee,' which, as pubhshed so lately, and as expressly devoted to a review and reformation of the Hegelian Logic, promises to be amply sufficient as relevant authority. It is to be admitted at once that Eosenkranz has again and again perfectly expressed the process of the Absolute, as that which is as well First as Last, Begin- ning as Eesult, that which returns into itself, the movement which from itself determines itself, &c. Nor less is it to be admitted that he has a hundred times accentuated the ' unity of opposites,' as well as (at 414 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. least once) directly mentioned the triplicity, Identity, Difference, and Eeduction of Difference into Identity. ISTay, Eosenkranz has actually told us foreigners that the first thing we had to do was to understand Kant's question, ' How are a priori synthetic judgments pos- sible .P and this idea of an a priori synthetic judgment he has further identified with the more abstract state- ment, ' a unity of opposites.' * Nevertheless, we can- not help beheving Eosenkranz to possess but a scattered vision, the rays of which, were they fairly brought to- gether, would, perhaps, astonish himself. We cannot believe him to see that, as Aristotle made explicit the abstract universal impHcit in Socrates, Hegel made exphcit the concrete universal implicit in Kant. Neither can we believe him to see that this concrete universal is the one logical nisus (nameable Simple Apprehen- sion, Judgment, and Eeason), of which this world, with all- that is subjective in it, and with aU that is objective in it, is but the congeries. With the exception of Hegel, has any man yet reached this simplicity : Sincerity with Ideahsm means, that the matter (objects) of Simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Eeason, is identical with these its forms ; or has this been ever said before ? And yet, when it is said, it is easy to see that the identity of Being and Thinking means the same thing. In this last form there is no clue, however; whereas the other The ' Science of the Logical Idea ' opens in this manner : ' Every man is flung unasked into a Together of circumstances to which he must accommodate him- self as conditions of his development. Thus in my youth I encountered the Hegehan Philosophy as one * Eosenkranz, however, had not ' Synthetic judgments d. priori far to look for this identification : (i.e. original co-references of Op- Hegel himself (Encyc. §. 40) says, posites).' HEGEL'S commentators. 415 of those Powers, in struggle witli wliich my destiny lias shaped itself. Years long alternately attracted and repelled, my relation to this Philosophy has assumed finally this issue, that I have devoted my life to its critical correction and systematic perfection. I should like to complete it from within out, in order to pro- mote the enjoyment of its veritable worth, as well as the fruitfulness of its apphcation to aU the sciences, &c.' Now, what have we indicated hereF — A life of struggle — of never-ending — and yet unended — struggle! Veritably Kant and Hegel are as those deserts of fable which lead to palaces of prophecy, but, meanwhile, whiten only with dead men's bones ! Eosenkranz, a man of unbounded acquirement, of rich endowment, of keen susceptibihty, of quick talent, has now a life behind him, and its one object — Hegel — is unconquered stiU ! Surely at least such interpretation of the quoted words is not unjust. Alternately attracted and repelled during long years : this is not success, this is not the language of possession ; these are but the words of the baflOied but stiU passionate wooer. There is bitterness as he looks back, too, on the length of the struggle, and thinks of what has been gained ; he sees a Together of circumstances accommodation to which was but necessity ; and he cannot help dwelling on his having been committed to them unasked. The task is not yet complete either : he would only like to complete it. It is true that Eosenkranz would have us assign the incompletion to Hegel, but we shall be nearer the truth should we assign it to himself. These considerations are strengthened by the avowals of the next paragraph, which records his experience as Professor of Philosophy. He had begun with Hegel simpliciter ; doubts arose ; for ten years he threw him- 416 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. self on Aristotle, but alternated him with Hegel ; he separated Metaphysic from Logic ; he takes Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel together and compares them, &c. This is not the repose, the oneness, of an intellect con- vinced, of a mind assured. If Hegel is right, his Logic supersedes all that has gone before it; for in it he professes to have brought the science down through all these two thousand years which separate us from Aristotle, and to have perfected it up to the highest level of the present day. Seclusion to Hegel, accordingly, would be intelhgible if Hegel has succeeded, as regres- don to Aristotle if Hegel has failed : but what are we to say of an alternation of both ? — and why formally explain and compare Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel as three interests apart, independent, each for itself.? If Hegel is right, his Logic is the only one that requires to be taught, and the contributions of Aristotle and Kant can be duly exhibited as they present themselves in their respective places there. And if Hegel is not right, why trouble with him at all ? The critique of various later Logics that follows, confirms the same inference of doubt, hesitation, vacil- lation on the part of Eosenkranz. Hegel's Logic being what it pretends to be, there is but short work needed as regards these others. Eosenkranz seeks to classify these Logics, too, from the notion of Thinking in gene- ral, and, being a sworn enemy of all abstraction unve- rified by the concrete, he would like to correlate each theoretical stage of the classification with an actual historical stage. As regards this latter particular, he knows no treatise but his own ' where a similar attempt is made.' All this, as in a perfected Hegelian, is far from satisfactory. Hegel's Logic is simply the development of the Notion qua Notion — that is, of Thought qua Hegel's commentators. 4i7 Thought. Hegel's Logic ought, then, at once to have supphed what Eosenkranz wanted, a Topic and criteria, namely, for all the various presentant Logics. Hegel's Logic, too, is supposed to be correlative to historical fact, though it could not by anticipation of, so to speak, posthumous Logics, prevent Eosenkranz from ranging these too in subjection to the pure tree, were he so minded. In fact, to analyse the notion of Thought and develope thus new classifications of Logic, is simply to put the Hegelian Logical classifications to the rout, is simply to be untrue to Hegel, is simply to show that one's mind is not as yet made up, but remains still with- out conviction or belief. That such analyses and classi- fications should be considered still necessary, leads to but one inevitable dilemma, — either that Hegel is not understood, or that he is not worth understanding. Hegel is, of course, not absolutely the last, and, it is to be hoped, there is progress still ; bat really that sort of procedure of Eosenkranz is neither progress nor ex- position : it is but the idle wandering to and fro of sub- jective unrest ; it is but an idle subjective ambition.* We come now to his proposed Eeform of Hegel, to his actual objections to the master, and specially to his system of Logic. ' In the first place,' says Eosenkranz, ' its collective form oscillates between a Dichotomy, namely, of Ob- jective and Subjective Logic, and a Trichotomy, namely, * One of Eosenkranz' sentences trates the general speecli of the No- in tlie above runs tliiis : 'I wanted tion in German writers. It is just to show proof that the abstract ge- short for the abstraction and gene- nealogy of the Notion makes good ralisation of Thought in general : its necessity in living Fact.' The it is the abstract universal of Notion here is that of Thought as Thought as any such ; not as the made out by Rosenkranz, with spe- Universal, Hegel's Universal, the cial reference to his critique of the concrete Notion, — the Notion, various recent Logics. This illus- VOL. II. E E 418 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. of the doctrine of Being, Essentity, and Notion. The former division repeats the old one of Theoretical Philosophy into Metaphysic and Logic, but with an expression which is derived from the sphere of con- sciousness, and consequently inappropriate and derang- ing. The antithesis of object and subject belongs only to the spirit, not to impersonal Eeason. The Tricho- tomy repeats the Kantian distinction of Understand- ing, Judgment, and Eeason. This distinction of Simple, Eeflexive, and Speculative characters is one, however, which pervades all the moments of the whole science, and is, therefore, not competent to afford an actual prin- ciple of division.' Now, all these objections disappear before knowledge of Hegel. The first two divisions of Logic may to- gether be considered objective, for they are both stages of consciousness only, not of Self-consciousness, the beginning of which constitutes the transition from the second to the third. This is seen whether we consider that, in the first two stages, we have but Apprehension and Judgment in act, or that what is acted on is but outer, as Quality, Quantity, Substantiality, Causality, &c., while in the third stage it is Eeason acts, and consciously on its own forms. Besides, it is Hegel (through Kant) who is the subjective Logic, while Hume, Spinoza, and so backwards, are the objective Logic. Up to recipro- city the progress was not Hegel's ; after reciprocity the advance is due to his conscious subject. This last consideration is only ancillary, however. Metaphysic is rightly taken into Logic ; for Idealism being the truth, all the principles of things must be Logical. The Trichotomy is 'competent to afford an actual principle of division,' and for the reason which is supposed to prove it 'not.' Lideed, it is interesting to KEGELS COMMENTATOES. 419 observe Eosenkranz here naming some of the nearest forms of the notion and talking of one distinction per- vading the whole, without the slightest consciousness of the connexion and hving unity into which he might throw all. The Triads of Being, Essentity, Notion, — Understanding, Judgment, Eeason, — Simple, Eeflex, Speculative, — are named together ; but, instead of being correlated, the general division under one of them is declared incompetent because another of them per- vades all the moments of the whole ! The reason pro is to Eosenkranz the reason con. The 'going up of the light,' however, that Kant speaks of in reference to Thales and the equilateral triangle, Galilei and his inchned plane, Torricelli and the weighing of the air, Stahl and his chemical transformations, &c., is a curious thing! A man shall read over the right passages scores of times ; he shall even have executed a translation of the Encyclopaedia, say ; yet the light of the notion shall only rise to him when occupied on some other ! So here Eosenkranz names individuals, but brings not together into the One. Logic as Logic, then, is its own element, and knows not a Psychological distinction ; but Logic, regarded as a History, was immersed in the object, till through Kant and Hegel it rose to the subject. Hume's Caus- ahty is outward, but Kant's Categories are inward, and from Kant the principle that moulds is subjectivity. The second objection brought forward is to the transition of the subjective notion into objectivity, as mechanical, chemical, and teleological ; and also to the admission of Life, the Good, &c., into Logic ; as if Logic 'were that total science which includes in it even reality itself.' To this we may add, that Eosenkranz objects also to- the transition of the Logical Idea into Nature, E £ 2 420 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. as ' the crux of the Hegelianic,' and that, so far as the Teleological notion is concerned, he here offers us a Logic re-distributed in its interest, .and so that it (the Teleological notion) appears intercalated between Essen- tity and the Notion. It must be borne in mind, in the first place, here, that our present object is not to answer objections to Hegel, but to apply these in test of the relative know- ledge of the objector. It is not for a moment to be pretended that Hegel is perfect, that there are not sins in him both of omission and commission, or that he may not be amended by certain of the suggestions of Eosenkranz. But surely it is inconsistent to seek to force upon Hegel matter which, it can be shown, he himself refused. The following passage (Op. cit. p. 530) wiU, perhaps, sufficiently explain the grounds generally of these objections of Eosenkranz : — The transition of the ideell causality of the notion into the reality fulfilled by it is the transition of the- End out of its possibility into actuality, its execution or realisation. This connexion is presented by Hegel as a syllogism ; the notion of the End is through the Means to clasp itself in its Execution together with itself, so that there is to be as- sumed in the result no other /«tent than was already present in the beginning. We have already admitted that a formal syllogism may be certainly as well pointed out here as in the process of Mechanism or of Chemism ; but we have also noticed that a syllogism in the sense of the logical notion of the unity of the Universal, Particular, and Singular is still not to be found in it. A detailed critique of the logical incongruities into which here Hegel has fallen, has been given by Trendelenburg in his ' Logische Untersuchungen.' "We fully agree with him when he says of the Teleological notion — ' If, in the manner of Hegel in the application stated, the Syllogism be looked for in actual existence, the three terms are then arbitrarily distributed to three dif- KEGELS COMMENTATOKS. 421 ferent Realities in the relation of Universal, Particular, and Singular, without holding fast the reciprocal relation of logi- cal subordination. In the teleological nexus, the subjective thought of End is in and for itself universal ; but it is not the universal genus of its Means and of its Eealisation : the Means are in themselves the Particular and Different, but still not the species of the former thought; they are really subjected to it and are ruled by it, but still not logi- cally subordinated as its species ; the realisation of the End is a Singular, but neither the individual of the hetero- geneous Mean, nor of the thought that projects the End. If it be said that the Mean is subordinated to the Design and the Result to both, then this real dependence is to be rigor- ously distinguished from the logical one, which arises from the relation of the Comprehension and Extension of Notions, and alone conditions the Syllogism.' What Trendelenburg says here is simply that Hegel, when he is in the third chapter of his Second section, is not at the same time back in the like chapter of his First. This consideration, had it occurred to Eosen- kranz, might have strengthened his amiability to resist the authority of the imposing Trendelenburg, who only commits here, as is but the ordinary habit of all pro- fessed Logicians, an Ignoratio Elenchi.* That is, Hegel would have admitted the objection, but maintained that his position was untouched. Hegel, in fact, knows all * Observe how mucli the some- says : ' Elenchen d. i. nach des Ari- what laboriose Latin of Trendelen- stoteles Erklarimg, JFmere, wodui'ch ■burg is behind the pithy vernacular man genothigt wird das Gegentheil of Hegel. The former (El. Log. von dem zu sagen, was man vorher Arist., Adnotata, §40) says : ' Ejus- behauptet hatte.' To the neatness modi igitur refutatio justa conclu- here the Italics are not the least sione sive inductione sive syllogismo contribution. It will be difficult to instituta elenchus vocatur, cui qui- find the same neatness in Aristotle, dem primitus id adhseret, lit in and possibly Trendelenburg follows eadem aliquis disputatione argu- not Aristotle but Hegel here. — A mentando cogatur aut quod affirma- definition so good is of general in- vit negare aut quod negavit confi- terest, ten.' Hegel, again (Log. i. 406), 422 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. that already, and he just expressly does what he is reproached with. It is the same objection that lies against the admission into Logic of the notion of Life, &c. ; and at page 244 of the tliird volume of his Logic, Hegel will be found formally explaining the grounds of his action. These grounds, however, concern the in- timate structure of his whole philosophy ; and as that has been missed, they themselves have not been re- garded. The reader will do well to refer for himself here. The transition of the notion into objectivity is equally clear before the consciousness of Hegel, and equally necessary from the very nature of his system. From page 121 of the second volume of his Logic we see that he expressly contemplates three orders of Seyn (Being). He says there : 'It is to be remembered beforehand that, besides immediate Seyn firstly, and secondly Existence — the Seyn that springs out of Wesen (Essentity), there is a further Seyn — the Objectivity that springs out of the Notion.' Hegel manifests an equally express con- sciousness as regards Teleology ; ' Where design is perceived,' he says (Log. vol. iii. p. 209), 'there is assumed an Understanding as its originator ; for the Teleological notion there is required, therefore, the own, free existence of the notion.' At page 77 of the second volume we have also this other distinct state- ment : ' This co-reference, the whole as essential Unity, lies only in the Notion, in the designful End The teleological ground is property of the Notion, and of be-mediation through the same, which is Eeason.' Of the designful, clear eye, with which Hegel worked, then, we are not allowed to doubt ; nor ought it to be difficult for us to be convinced that there could be no Zweck, no purpose, no design in existence before HEGEL S COMMENTATORS. 423 subjectivity, and that it would have been absurd in Hegel to develops a consequent in anticipation of its antecedent. Besides, we know now that the change proposed by Eosenkranz would be historically false ; for the Begriff, Kant's Begriff, Hegel's BegrifF, was the notional Eeciprocity that rose out of Hume's Causality. Yet Eosenkranz ' wants to maintain the right of the historical development' ! Not only does he contradict this development, however,but, even by his own showing, that of the notion also ; for he himself observes (p. 17) that ' the forms of Seyn are categorical, those of We- sen hypothetical, and those of the Begriff disjunctive ; ' which alone might have suggested to him Eeciprocity as the immediate foregoer of the Notion. That Me- chanism and Chemism should be forms of Causahty, is no objection to their being treated where they are ; for they are evidently concreter forms than abstract caus- ality, — forms of the Begriff in objectivity itself. To Hegel, Logic is the prius of aU ; and in it, first of aU, there appears in the abstract form of the notion what- ever is afterwards found in the more concrete spheres of Nature and Spirit. It belongs, indeed, to the depth of Hegel's discernment that the Good should be re- garded by him as a cognitive element, and should con- stitute to him the transition from Understanding to Eeason. Why Beauty should not be included (another objection of Eosenkranz) may depend on this, that its abstract elements — as Kant also seems to have thought — are not discrepant from those of Teleology, and that its own place is, like that of Religion, only in a very concrete sphere. But what has been said above is of no moment in comparison with this : the objection that Teleology, &c., are not technically exact syllogisms, is alone cru- 424 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. daily decisive of absolute failure to perceive the single secret of Hegel. Admit this objection, and the whole fabric of Hegel hes in pieces at our feet — perhaps not even with the exception of the doctrine of the syllo- gism itself. The principle which has given birth to Being, Nothing, Becoming,— to Being, There-bemg, Being-for-Self,— to Quality, Quantity, Measure, — to Ground, Phaenomenon, Actuahty, — to Substance, Cause, Eeciprocity, — to Being, Essentity, Notion, — is abso- lutely the same as that which gives birth to Mechanism, Chemism, Teleology; and if the objection of being but formal syllogisms is fatal to these three last, it must be considered equally fatal to all the others, for they also are in precisely the same manner but formal syllogisms. A man who uses the language of Hegel cannot help naming the principle of Hegel ; but to name is not necessarily to see. And this we hold to be the case with Eosenkranz. Had he been perfectly awake to what was in hand, he would have hesitated before contradicting the express, deliberate, perfectly conscious action of Hegel ; and the last tiling that would have occurred to him would have been to say, these forms — ^whether later or earher than the syllo- gism — not being exactly the syllogism proper, must be rejected. How could they be the syllogism proper, if either later or earlier ? — and to this syllogism proper is the whole system of Hegel required to shrink? Nay, observe this perfectly conclusive point : Eosenkranz actually denies the presence of the notion in any triad but (as we may say) its own, that, namely, where it is explicit : ' a syllogism,' he says, ' m the sense of the logical notion of the unity of the universal, particular, and singular is still not to he found in it,' — and the con- text win show that for it we may here read them. To HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 425 yield to Trendelenburg here was to confess essential ignorance. These same views — and something more — he ex- presses, at pages 504-5, thus : — But now there was yet another revolution in linguistic usage introduced by Hegel ; namely, as regards the word Notion. He declared that Substance and Subject were to be taken, not as if the Subject were to be subordinated to Sub- stance, but, on the contrary, as if the latter were to be subor- dinated to the former, and maintained that essentially for the notion of truth the thing was to recognise Substance as Subject. He sought here, as the eternally memorable pre- face to the ' Phaenomenologie of the Spirit ' exhibits in the grandest struggle of endeavour, to put an end to the blind necessity attaching to the causa immanens of the Spinosism which, under the form of the Absolute, was now dominant, and to say that the self-determination of Substance it was which was ground of necessity. With this thought he stood to the Schellingianism of the day in the same relation that the monadology of Leibnitz bore to the immobility and in- difference of the one Substance of Spinoza. Schelling's tractate on Free-will was, some years later, an express testi- mony to the truth of Hegel here, and sought, by his example, to leap from the position of mere Eeason to that of Spirit, though of Hegel's suggestion and instigation mention there was none. Now, when some time later Hegel in his ' Logik ' advanced, in reference to the Eeciprocity of Substance with itself, from Necessity to Free Will, he grasped together the whole domain of the Ideas under the name of the Subjective Notion, and at first occasioned thereby an indescribable confusion; for this word had had till then the significa- tion of a subjective Vorstellung, reprsesentatio, or of a sub- jective Thought, conceptus, or of an abstract determina- tion of understanding, notio. Certainly it was not unusual to say in Grerman Notion also for the necessity of a thing itself; for, It all comes to the notion of the thing, is as much as to say. It all comes to the necessity of the essential inner 426 THE SECEBT OF HEGEL. nature of the thing. But now Notion was required to mean the subjective unity of the Universal, the Particular, and the Singular. There were little to be said against this, since Aristotle applies X070S in the same manner, but sub- jective was to express here not only our subjective thinking of a notion, but the self-determination to its differences which lies in Substance (im Wesen), whsrein we have uncon- ditionally to acknowledge a great progress, an emancipation of logical forms from all improper psychological admixtures and adulterations. Thus far, then, therefore we should be considered to agree with Hegel. But now he had collocated the Kantian Categories as those of Being and Essentity under the name of the Objective Logic, and so made — from the notion of Substance out — the transition from the objective to the subjective Logic; and now, then, again in the subjective logic, the subjective notion was to set itself anew as the objective notion ; which objective notion, however, was only to extend to the forms of the objectivisation of the notion ; which forms are its realisation, for the complete notion, the unity of subjective and objective, was to be only the Idea. Among these forms Hegel reckons now the Teleologi- cal notion, and presents it thereby properly only as a Mean of the subjective notion for its realisation. Here he were completely fallen out with Aristotle, who subordinates matter and form to the notion of design, were it not perceivable, partly that what Hegel calls the subjective notion coincides with the Teleological notion as the First, from which the movement issues ; partly that he has carried over the objec- tive notion of End into the notion of the Idea as Self- End. Only by means of this confusion of the logical notion with the notion of the Idea are many utterances of Hegel to be justified ; he talks of the notion, of the divine the creative — the free, self-dependent notion, and means thereby the Idea. If the objective notion is to be product of the subjective, it must possess also the articulation of this latter in the distinctions of Universal, Particular, and Singular. Hegel in effect has endeavoured, in harmony with his method to demonstrate this, but, as we believe, with a double error: KEGELS COMMENTATORS. 427 firstly, that is, through the presence of a formal syllogism in the mechanical, chemical, and teleological processes which are to constitute the forms of the objective notion; and, secondly, by this, that these processes in the sphere of the idea are able to develope themselves into systematic unities. But the former determination is too little, and the latter too much. The former is too little, for a formal syllogism pre- sents itself as early as the categories of Being and of Essen- tity ; the latter is too much, because the objectivity in it has no longer the sense of intermediation but even that of the adequate expression of the notion. In the mechanical, chemical, and teleological processes as such, there fails the middle term of the Particular, in the manner in which, as the own distinction of the Universal, it forms the transition to the Singular, &c. Eosenkranz continues in this way to censure the transition of the notion into mechanical, chemical, &c. objectivity through syllogisms which are merely formal, and possess not the veritable universal, particular, and singular of the technical syllogism proper. He alludes, as we see, to the presence of a formal syllogism in the earUer categories ; but he gains nothing thus on the question of insight. He seems to say only that, as a formal syllogism was present then, a formal syllo- gism is not enough, is ' too little ' now ; and not a ray appears to strike from him of the true principles involved. But the above passage has been principally quoted as bearing on this last question. We have here Eosenkranz expressly declaring what he knows about the notion. It is not worth while entering into any special analysis, however : with the double, triple, and variously multiple confusion of notion and notions which exists in the above, it will be sufficient to con- trast the simplicity of the Notion, Kant's notion, Kant's Coperuican notion raised into the Hegelian, Kant's 428 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. Eeciprocity raised into the Hegelian Begriff — that Be- griffof which Hegel himself gives us the BegriiF, and which we have no excuse in failing to understand, — the one simple and single concrete Notion. What does the BegriiF of the Begriff, the Notion of the Notion, mean ? It means that the Begriff, the one Notion which had been each and every one of all these manifold Forms from Being up to Eeciprocity, is now formally the Begriff, has now reached its own appropriate form as Begriff, and this is true both His- torically and Logically. This, then, is the divine, the creative, the free, the self-subsistent Begriff, and Hegel means it — expressly it — and not ' the Idea,' when he uses-all such expressions : for if the Idea is its ultimate Logical stage, it itself is still the heart and soul and spirit of the Idea. In his preface to the second edition of his Logic, Hegel tells us with a pen of power that the categories are the substantial Intent of all natural and spiritual things, but even in them, pure as they are, there obtains the distinction of a soul and of a body. Now this soul is the Notion : not any general notion, subjective or objective or whatever other as Eosenkranz may be content to view it, but the one special Notion which has been already demonstrated. Hegel's words are these : — * But these thoughts of all natural and spiritual things, the substantial Intent itself, are yet such an /utent as pos- sesses manifold varieties, and has even still the distinction in it of a soul and of a body, of the Notion and of a relative Eeality ; the deeper base is the soul per se, the pure Notion, which is the inmost of objects, their single pulse of life as also of the subjective thinking of the same. ' Vom Begriff im Algemeinen,' with which the third * Log', vol. i. p. 18. HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 429 ■volume of Hegel's Logic opens, is an extended expla- nation of the Notion, is an extended Notion exoteri- cally (almost) of the Notion : here is what Eosenkranz makes of it : — The full introduction wtich Hegel has given to the sub- jective Logic turns on this — to show how Substance deter- mines itself as Subject, how Necessity sublates itself into Freedom. This is the proposition which, with full conscious- ness of its infinite significance, he had first enunciated in the preface to the ' Phaenomenologie,' 1 807, and which, rightly understood, lies at the bottom of his whole Philosophy. This is the proposition out of which Schelling constructed his second philosophy, a scholastically confused imitation of Hegel's Philosophy of the Spirit, &c. It is impossible to say that this is not true; still it falls short of the truth. The section in question turns on something deeper and more universal than is here assigned to it, on a more penetrating and exhaustive principle than ' the Absolute is Subject ' of the preface to the Phaenomenologie, however much the one may involve the other : what lies at the bottom of the Hegelian system, too, is something infinitely more definite and simple than that, and Schelling may have constructed his philosophia secunda out of whatever he may, but it was certainly not out of the Notion. In short, we oppose to the generalities, to the this and the other, to the vague hither and thither of Eosenkranz, the Notion, that which once seen the whole Hegelian system becomes seen — in Origin, Principle, Porm, and Matter. As we have said, however, he who uses the language of Hegel must a thousand and a thousand times state phrases which are perceived to tell the secret of Hegel, once that secret is itself perceived from elsewhere. Such utterances are to be found passim in 430 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. Eosenkranz, and here is the very strongest that I have yet come upon : — The admirable power of Science becomes particularly ob- vious at particular stages. However unsatisfactory it may frequently appear to us, however great the Doubtful which it leaves behind, at such stages we are obliged to admit that Science has already done much, and that it gives us pledges of a harmony of the universe capable of filling us with trust in the Eeason of the same. With immense velocity there rushes through infinite space a nowise particularly great ball. On this ball there move to and fro millions of nowise particularly great individuals, apparently given up to absolute chance, struggling with an existence ephemeral in its duration, often breaking loose into mutual enmity, or even murdering each other. But these weak creatures have come gradually to learn that they live on a ball which moves round another in an exactly-measured path. They have come gradually to learn that they are capable of mastery over the nature of their supporting planet ; that with growing insight into the laws of nature there grows as well the might of their mastery, and that it is the same Eeason which they find in themselves as law of their actions and their thoughts, and which they meet without themselves in the phsenomena of Nature. And amongst these absolute laws of Eeason, they have come to know one that is, as it were, the law of laws, the key to all pheenomena, the hidden-manifest Archeus of all Being and Becoming. This law they name in variously manifold wise, according to the particular regions in which it manifests itself. In Logic they name it on the side of subjective thought. Abstraction, Eeflexion, Speculation; or Understanding, Judgment, Eeason ; or Notion, Judgment, Syllogism; or Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Whatever names may be used, however, it is always the same Trias, in whose magic bands all lies bound : for what we enunciate as a law of our subjective thought, has, if it is really a law, objective existence as well. We use, therefore, these same names in order to designate objective relations. We say, for KEGELS COMMENTATORS. 431 example, a work of art is abstract when it wants the develop- ment into harmony of an inner antithesis. We say that an existence reflects itself into another. Eelations of the Idea we designate as speculative. We do not call Digestion, for example, an abstract, nor yet a reflected, but a speculative process, because it involves an assimilation of the inorganic, a transition from what is dead to what is alive. Such posi- tive unity of opposed characters is speculative or dialectic* In what he says of a one law, Eosenkranz seems to have got very near here : probably, nevertheless, it is but a ray of external and scattered vision. It is not difficult from the very outside to perceive the never- failing three of Hegel, and it is not more difficult to see or divine that in all these threes unity of system is aimed at. This is the external /orm of Hegel — a form with which we become acquainted from the first, and in which we can very soon become expert, so far as speech is concerned, while, at the same time, we are still stone-blind to the principle, and know of origin and matter only what we can catch up, by an all- insufficient good luck, in those desperate and desultory rambles on the surface with which the most of us begin and with which the most of us end. In the beginning of what has been named ' the struggle to Hegel,' there wUl be found a variety of passages in which the writer seems perfectly at home with an sich, ausser sich, fiir sich, with Difference and Identity, &c., and even with the notion, at the very moment that he is divided from this last by years. Similarly, in the case of Eosenkranz, it is difficult to believe a perfect success, despite such passages as we have quoted above — ^it is difficult to beheve this when we find him talk- ing of ' the obscurities and incongruities which the * Op. cit. pp. 73, 74. 432 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. Hegelian Logic has generated through its doctrine of the notion,' complaining that ' the Trichotomy of Being, Es- sentity, and Notion allows the notion of the Idea to be too much in the background behind that of the subjective notion' I and adopting in preference to this Trichotomy an early and imperfect one of Hegel, in which ' the first is the system of the pure notions of the Beent, the second that of the pure notions of the Universal, and the third contains the notion of Science.' It is difficult to beheve this when we find him, in spite of Hegel, and of what he has accomplished and how he accompHshed it, disjoining once again Logic and Metaphysic, desig- ]iating Design as Ontological, and proposing classifica- tions in the interest of an only external balance without regard to History or the hfe of the Principle. It does not consist with such success even to hear that Hegel, ' despite the height of his stand-point,' ' took into the Idea concrete existential forms,' because he was ' stiU entangled in the form of Science which he found to precede him,' or that it was 'indisputably the Schel- lingian definition of the notion of Eeason as of the ab- solute Unity of subject and object which still forced itself on him here,' or that the passage from the Meta- physic of Aristotle ' with which Hegel has closed the second edition of his Encyclopaedia represents an un- accomplished Science,' a projected 'reintegration of aU the moments of his system in a speculative philo- sophy ' ! Neither can we think Eosenkranz, though he defends it to a certain extent and would only remove misunder- standings from it, quite on the level of Hegel as regards the transition of the Idea into Nature. This transition is a perfect parallel to that of the subjective Notion into objectivity, and both belong to tlie very life of the HEGEL S COMMBNTATOKS. 433 principle of Hegel. On that principle these transitions could not fail to be ; and being, they could be no other. Eeciprocity alone admits of no other transition ; there they just are — reciprocals by the grace of God, the one out what the other is in. As regards the subjective notion passing into objectivity, we may say specially that this is historical, that a new determination of the object did in actual truth follow the subjective notion of Kant. When one reads the transition of the notion into objectivity whether in the Logic or the Encyclo- paedia, and the express explanations by which Hegel, in elucidating, formally acknowledges the doctrine and every step of the same, one feels much difficulty in believing that any one could object to this transition and yet still consider himself a Hegehan — a Hegehan who really understood his master. The Begriff that as negative Unity necessarily became Urthed could only come together in the Schluss. (Observe both the etymological and the common meanings.) Once to- gether, unity was restored, an immediacy, a voUstan- diges Selbststandiges, a completed Self- substantial, — the Object. So with the transition of the Logical Idea into Nature. This, too, is but an act of the living Ee- ciprocity that is — that is the Notion, or that the Notion is. The Notion is now perfected into the Idea — the inner is full ; it must fall over and asunder into the outer — Nature. The Entschluss and the Entlassung, the resolution and the release, are again the Hegelian equivoque that is the One Triple of the Direct and the Indirect, the Simple and the Eeflex, the hteral and the figurative : what remarkable consistency, that Hegel should have sought to be true to the triphcity of the Notion even in his single words ! But how otherwise can any one state the fact ? Or how otherwise can any VOL. II. F F 434 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. one think the relation, of God to Nature ? The trans- ition of God to Nature, which as his creation is still himself, how otherwise explain? It must be said, however, that Eosenkranz brings himself at last to be much more at home with the latter transition than Avith the former. Eeminding himself of the Johan- neische Logoslehre, and putting ' in place of the word Eeason the expression Logos,' he finds that it ' clinks already not so strange, when it is said of the latter that through its regard it produces Nature — that, in the assurance of itself, it releases Nature from itself.' It is just this alternation of agreement and disagree- ment, without motive from anything in the thing itself to warrant the one now if the other then, that leads one to believe in the wandering and uncertain catch which is aU probably that Eosenkranz has yet attained to as regards Hegel. Accordingly, in conclusion, we are disposed to infer that Eosenkranz has never fairly seen that single principle which was an sich in Kant, fiir sich in Fichte and ScheUing, and an und fiir sich in Hegel. This principle is Notional Eeciprocity : this IS the manifest Archeus of which Eosenkranz only talks — talks as ' hidden-manifest.' Only Hegel clearly saw the peculiarity of the notion of Kant (as in his latent theory of perception) — the necessity, that is, of a Lmion of the Universal with the Particular to the production of the Singular, which concrete Singxilar alone is any reahty, whether as notion or thing. Once arrived here, Hegel was able to see further, that a System on this principle was the next requisite ; and that the means to this was Determination, a Progressus from the first abstract to the last concrete, or, what is the same thing, from the last abstract to the first con- crete. This Determination was but a general realisa- HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 435 tion and vitalisation of Logic as a whole ; of which Simple Apprehension is the first act, its truth being the Universal ; Judgment the second, its truth the Parti- cular (otherwise nameable the Difierence, the Other) ; and Eeason the third, its truth the Singular, — which is the final truth, expressing that the Actual is just a single concrete, the nature of which may be con- ceived to be a particular universalised into a singular, which again is the one Logical Msus, the one Logical Vis ; and a Logical Vis and the Logical Vis is what is, and all that is. Logic is the completed rhythmus of thought : Seyn, what it is ; Wesen, what it was ; Be- griff" (in that it be-gripes), what it is, was, and wUl be. These, too, are the three Epochs both of Philosophy and of History. So it was that Hegel spoke of History being near its term. If, as is probable, each epoch, however, be a triple of all the three moments, Eeason, which is now at last happily in germ — but only in germ — has still the whole of her own proper path to tread, and the term of History is still comparatively remote. This concrete Power, then, to which Hegel remained true everywhere, and which alone gave him his Logic and his Nature, his Aesthetic and his Politic, his Ee- ligion and his History ; nay, which alone is the one subject, the one matter in all these elements, — Eosen- kranz has never succeeded fairly, clearly, firmly, and once for all to see, whether in its own distinct individual self- identity, or in the perfectly articulate cohesion and con- nexion of all its multiplex forms. His work on Logic, indeed, which professes to reform and complete Hegel, reads and rattles hke an amorphous heap of dry and disarticulated bones which a merely subjective breath turns over. Here dialectic, which is the very ghost of F r 2 436 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. Hegel, has fled, and unity we have none. For the plastic demonstration of a scientific progress more strict and rigid than that of even a Laplace or a Newton, we have but a hither and thither of philo- logical remark — not even common Raisonnement — as in a dictionary. Hegel, in the Introduction to his Logic (pp. 44, 45), speaks of how ' unfree ' thought finds itself when for the first time in presence of the ' Speculative,' and tells us that, would it free itself, the first thing it has to do, is to accustom itself to the notions and distributions without entering on the Dia- lectic. The logical statement that might so result, he says further, would give ' the picture of a methodically- arranged whole, although the soul of the structure, the method, which lives in the Dialectic, appear not itself therein.' Is it possible to say even as much as this for the ' Wissenschaft der Logik,' the culminating, Hegel-amending work, of Eosenkranz ? * Hatm. Eosenkranz, whom Haym denominates, with the universal agreement of Germany in general, ' the friend and pupil of Hegel, the warmest and truest of his apologists,' pubHshed the work with reference to which we have just spoken, ' Die Wissenschaft der Logischen * If the reader tiim up in Eosen- maintain its own Existence in tlie kranz what corresponds to ' Be- circle of its Bestinatio only throuo-h stimmung, Beschaffenheit, und its Aptitudo, Indoks, sive Natura • ' Grenze ' in Hegel and in the rela- and a style of explanation of things tive commentaiy, he wiU realise dialectic will manifest itself such, prohably what has just been said, that of six of its main terms any Take the following sentence, where one may he indiscriminately sub- the Latin words ai'e his own equi- stituted for the other with the re- valents of the corresponding German suit of a very lai-ge number of quite ones (Op. cit. p. 186) : ' Determi- identical sentences. This, then, is naiio is the Qualitas of Something quite external by yirtue of which it is able to IIEGEL'S commentators. 437 Idee,' in 1858, while the work of Haym with reference to which we are now going to speak appeared in 1857, a year earlier : why, then, do we take Haym after and not before Eosenkranz ? The answer is, because the opinions of Eosenkranz were before the Public in many works previously to 1857, and because, in especial, the matter of the work on the Logical Idea — very cer- tainly the matter criticised — had already appeared in the ' System der Wissenschaft,' 1850, and in ' Meine Eeform der Hegelschen Philosophic,' 1852 — (both, of course, by Eosenkranz). Haym, then, has been se- lected to ' close the debate,' because, so 'far as is known to me, he is the latest writer who has instituted a special inquest and come forward thereafter with a special and dehberate judgment on the general question of the worth of Hegel. Haym remarks * of the Preface to the Phaenomeno- logie, that ' it is not saying too much to maintain that he understands the Hegelian Philosophy who is com- pletely master of the sense of this Preface.' Now, while, on the one hand, it is impossible to overrate the value of the exposition involved, it is to be said, on the other, that this Preface may be very fairly understood, and yet he who understands it shall fail to understand — just anything of the Hegelian system proper — ^just anything, that is, of the origin, principle, (the form, in a certain sense, hes on the surface,) and matter of this system. Nevertheless, what Haym says here may be very allowably considered critical so far as he himself is concerned. The Preface to the Phaenomeno- logy contains — at least — all that Haym knows of the principle of Hegel : the Preface to the Pliaenomenology * Hegel und seine Zeit, p. 215. 438 THE SECRET OE HEGEL. contains within it the germ of all that Haym says of the principle of Hegel. His book, to be sure, does not confine itself to the Preface to the Phaenomenology, nor to the Phaenomenology itself, but passes through hands, as if under formal judicial inspection, the whole series of the works of Hegel. It never gets higher than this Preface, however, and from its height it is that what is said of the rest is seen. What is now so familiar to us as the Substance- subject, or just in gene- ral the Spirit (Geist) of Hegel : this, in fact, constitutes the entire Key which Haym offers us, and, as every- body knows, the Preface to the Phaenomenology is the easiest quarry for that. This, then, is all that Haym knows of Hegel, or, at least, all that for his book he need know. But again to him the movement alluded to, the schema imphed in this key, is all too plainly factitious — a thing got up, a pattern cut out. This to him — who is very much of a Politician — is but too clearly only Hegel's ideal re- source against the horrors of the German political reality. Gothe and Schiller, he tells us, hied them to Greece, and brought thence the veil of poesy where- with to shut out from themselves the painful hideous- ness of this same political reahty. So to Greece Hegel too betook himself in order to be able to cover over the Eeal of Modern German ugliness with an Ideal of beautiful classical Totality, the instrument of which is this same wonderfully artificial Spirit with its won- derfully artificial movement. The Philosophy of Hegel is but a side-piece to the poetry of Gothe and Schiller, and of both poetry and philosophy the inspiration is — as against our ugly German Political Eeal — an Ideal of Hellenic Cosmos ! This is really no exaggeration : I know nothing else KEGELS COMMENTATOES. 439 in Haym : and from Haym of Hegel nothing else will anybody else ever come to know. The following quotations will probably more than suffice, not only to confirm our sentence, but to illustrate as well the literary abundance of Haym — the extraor- dinary rhetorical tenacity with which he accomplishes the extension and expansion of a single scanty formula over hundreds of pages : — The Universe, according to this system, is a Cosmos, or beautiful Totality ; but it is at the same time Spirit, and describes, consequently, in whole and in part, the reflexive process which is the Essence of Spirit. The Universe is a living Whole : all parts of the universe must, therefore, in constant mutual self-reference, be conceived as, dialectically fluent, rounding themselves into the Whole (p. 221). Unable to transmute his Ideal into the Actual, he trans- forms the Actual into his Ideal (p. 86). It (the system) is not so much a great, unconscious crea- tion of time — not so much a jet, an invention of genius, as rather a product of talent — something, with reflexion and design, essentiallj factitious (jp. 10). He found that the Grothes and Schillers had opened to the German"" people the treasure of its own inner and there- with the genuine treasure of spiritual life in general, that they for this people had brought to view its Ideals and Senti- ments in a like manner as Sophocles and Aristophanes had brought for the Athenians theirs. He resolved in the same path to climb higher ; he resolved to do the same thing in reference to the general notions and categories of the German nation — to put into its hand, as it were, a Lexicon and a Grammatic of its pure thought (p. 310). True ; the poetry of Gothe and Schiller sets before us a world of Beauty and the Ideal, which brings into repo.se and reconciliation the disunion of German Spiritual life. But this reconciliation comes not into existence on the basis of a beautiful and self-satisfied actuality; these works take not nutriment from the marrow of the historical and actual life 440 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. of the nation. That reconciliation comes into existence in contrast to, and in defiance of, an unbeautiful actuality ; only by flight out of the present into the past of Hellenic life does it succeed with our two great poets to realise perfected beauty. Theirs, therefore, is an artificial poetry which terminates at last in an overcharged Idealistic and Typic. The end, then, again, is, with Gothe, resignation ; with Schiller, the unful- filled and abstract Ideal. In the enjoyment of this fair picture-world, our nation must needs delude itself a moment with the dream of Greek felicity and Greek repose to awake directly poorer and more restless than before. To Poetry such a delusion was indeed natural, and who would dispute it with her after she had offered to our enjoyment what was sweetest and most perfect? But we see now all at once Metaphysic seized with the same illusion. Turning aside from the strait path of sober inquiry and from the labour of deliverance through the most conscientious criticism, Hegel begins to expand over our spiritual world his Ideal that was found in Hellas, that was strengthened by exhaustive penetration into the ultimate grounds of all religion. A dreamed-of and yearned-for future is treated as present. A system tricked out with the entire dignity of the science of truth raises itself beside our Poetry, and with diamond net spins us into an Idea with which the want, the incompleteness, and the un- beauty of our political and historical actuality is at every point in contradiction. With the Hellenising picture of nature and of fate through poets, we receive a Hellenising Metaphysic which, in spite of our necessity, lures us to be- lieve that all the limitations and contradictions of our know- ledge, of our faith, of our life, reconcile themselves in the continuity of a beautiful whole (pp. 91, 92). Halt we a moment ; for we have put hand on the second decisive word for the composite enigma of the Hegelian Phi- losophy, the second key to the understanding of its inner texture. The first word [or key'] was : the beautiful Cosmos is in whole the reflexive process of the Spirit : the Absolute is Spirit. The second more important word [or keyl is : the beautiful Cosmos is just on this account in each particular HEGELS COMMENTATORS. 441 part the same perpetually self-renewing process, a transition, a compulsion forward from moment to moment, a Dialectic that returns into itself and gradually completes itself up to the whole : the Absolute is infinitely dialectic. And with this last word I signalise the strangely peculiar character and at the same time the pervading reason of the deep and en- during influence of this Philosophy. An sestheticising and vivifying of Logic that concealed itself under an abstract schema, that procured itself authority and systematised itself under premiss of a metaphysical formula for the universe, that pushed itself into everything — : on this mostly is that influ- ence based. This philosophy is an out-and-out revolution of the treatment of the notion. It proclaims that ' the Deter- minate as such has no other essential nature than this abso- lute unrest, not to be that which it is,' that ' all that is is a Be-mediate'* (a result). It brings through its Dialectic into flux and movement the elements which were previously held for fixed and immovable. It tears up thus the whole floor of thought, and brings forth thereby, beside the noble fruit of a marvellous mastery of intellect that breathes life into cogni- tion and the objects of cognition, the 'poisonous -product as well of an unscrupulous and indefensible Sophistic^ (pp. 106-7). And greater still than the difficulty of the outer, is that of the inner form. I mean th&t finishedness-from-the-first, that at-once-into-existence of the whole of this world of thought. Here there is not a word of any gradual introduction into an investigation, of any joining on to ordinary views, of any previous setting-up of the question whereby one might know where one was, of any critical statement of the case where one might of himself be able to take his stand. With the first step we find ourselves as through stroke of magic in a peculiar new world. Like the prince in Andersen's tale, we seem in sleep to have fallen on the back of the winged spirit who carries us off through the air in order to let us see deep * Be-mediate is an- ugly mongrel to me to convey the peculiar He- for ein Vermitteltes ; but it seems gelian sense somehow. 442 TflE SECRET OF HEGEL. beneath us the world from which we have been snatched. In other words, the System, as it is there, appears to bid defiance to every analysis, to all research. It shows there like a smooth ball more ready to roll than easy to catch. Broken down is the scaffolding over which the arch was built. Filled up are all the inlets and outlets to this edifice of thought. One and only one 'possibility is there to penetrate here. We possess the key to this edifice only by this, that we have followed the Philosopher in the course of his studies and the progress of his training, that we have stolen behind him into the innermost of his still resorts of thought and feeling. What is not in actuality— [this is the key as before] — shall exist in the ether of the Idea. The unreal notions of the Grermans, divorced from the truth of things, shall through the native energy and force of thought shape themselves into real notions, and, through this their realisation, into a world of notions. Eeflexion shall bring into reality the Ideal which the praxis of Grerman life denies. A deed of reflexion shall be set on whereby the gulf which by the political action of the German state is perpetually created and preserved be- tween the universal and the particular, between formality and reality, shall be filled up. Through thought shall the fair concord between inner and outer, between the parts and the whole, be restored to that reality which it possessed in the poetry and art, in the State and customs of antiquity. Through thought shall that contradiction-annihilating Life, shall that truth of Love, and that truth of Eeligion, be set into existence. The same sharpsighted and matter-of-fact, penetrating and history-sifting thought which discovered in Antiquity and the tenets of Christianity the Ideal, but in the German Present the negation of this Ideal — the same thought moves now from the hem of the Hegelian spirit to the centre of the same ; it throws itself once for all on this Ideal itself in order to raise its burthen into an absolute form for every interest, for the collective world of Being and of Consciousness. Leagued with the spirit of a better future, in silent agreement with the genius of German poesy, borne on the wave of a new world-epoch, it soars beyond the HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 443 immediate level of the actual life at its feet — nay, beyond the self-acknowledged limits of all reflection in order to construct a world which is a reality only under the heaven of Hellas, a truth only in the deeps of the God-adoring soul. Only the boldness and the breadth of the conception can conceal the inner contradiction and the impossibility of the enterprise. Only the intensest exertion of the thinking faculty will enable the unwilling medium of reflection to allow to rise from it an aesthetic product of cognition. Only the universe, on the other hand, will be wide enough to render inappreciable the dimensions within which every particular existence may be able to show as correlative part of a fair and living Cosmos. This is the history and this the character of the Hegelian system. I name it an cesthetic work of cogni- tion. It will not, as it were, critically decompose the world of Being and of Consciousness, but construct it into the unity of a beautiful Whole. It will not expose the aporias of cognition — not make clear to itself the limits, the contradic- tions, and antinomies in the world of spirit, but, on the contrary, it will strike down these difficulties and level out these contradictions. It is, I say, the Exposition of the Uni- verse as of a beautiful, living Cosmos. After the manner of the old Greek Philosophy, it will show how in the world as in a Whole all the parts conjoin to service of one harmonious order. It will make present to us the universal All as a vast Organism in which each particular ceases to be dead and receives the significance of a living organ. It will show that the Whole is an infinite All of life ; to this end it will in everything finite expose its finiteness, and just with this and on account of this demonstrate its necessary completion into an infinite life Such main idea on which lies the con- ception of the whole system, will require now in the first place to be swppleted by the imagination of the Systematiser. (Pp. 94-97.) This theory of Haym, so enormous in word if so scanty in thought, must be allowed to possess its own correctness so far. The system of Hegel certainly 444 THE SECEET OP HEGEL. aims at Totality — (as for jesthetic Beauty, Hellenic Cosmos, Greek Ideals, German Beals, Gotlie and Schiller, and Poetry and all that, it may be viewed for the moment as simply literary importation) — and the Self-reflexion of Spirit is as certainly somehow- present in it. An attempt at Totality, and an attempt at dialectic articulation, no one can deny in Hegel. But did we want Haym's five hundred brilliant pages to make us aware of this ? Which of us did not see this for himself the very first moment he looked into Hegel ? A whole, and, in dialectic symmetry, what else lies on the surface, on the very outside of the system ? Is not this just what the table of contents at once makes plain to us ? Is not this just the whole of the information we all of us get — and we get it at once — when we look at Hegel the first day, and per- haps the thousandth ? And is not this the single grievance we would have removed ? Is not this the single difficulty we long to have explained ? Yes, it is a whole, ' finished-from-the-first,' ' at-once-in-exist- ence' — Why? Yes, it is dialectically articulate — but How ? ' Beautiful TotaHty ! ' ' Self-reflexion of Spirit ! ' — with such hollow assumption you but mock us by an exclamatory echo in return for an interrogatory call. Nay, nay ! hide it not in rhetoric, cover it not with flowers and flourishes of hterature — Hellenic Cosmos and what not : we see it perfectly clearly aU the time — you see Totahty, you see Self-reflexion ; but as for any- thing else, you see it no more than we ourselves. How it is Totahty, and what is the TotaHty, how it is dialec- tically articulate, and what it is that is dialectically articulate — just in general what is all this about what are the thoughts here — till you can tell us some- thing about that, till we can tell you somethino- about HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 443 that, both of us had better hold our tongues, however literary we be. Haym's rhetoric and Hterature we blow into space, then, rhetoric and literature being no substitutes for ideas, no substitutes for information, and we see the so-called key which was supposed to lie in their midst to be no key — no key, but a juggle practised on us, as it were, by means of our own admissions. The pro- bability, then, is that Haym knows not the literal historical derivation from Kant — the probability, then, is that Haym knows not the literal Hegelian Begriff.P Just so ; this is the truth, and in the above extracts there are proofs to this effect ; but before commenting upon these, we shall add others. It (the Hegelian Philosophy) is the history of philosophy itself projected on a plane (p. 1). As it is the history of philosophy in nuce, so it is philo- sophy in nuce (p. 2). The Logic, to say it briefly, has a course like history ; and this, because history as such has been made the material and guide, the concrete agent of the Dialectic (p. 320). Critique and refutation of Kantianism pervade the ' science of Logic ' from one end to the other. This (' science of Logic ') relates itself to Kant as Kant's first great work related itself to Wolff and Hume. In Kant, Hegel sees his predecessor, as Kant his in Hume And further. As the science of Logic has its explanation with Griticismus (Kant's) behind it, so it has its explanation with the Philo- sophy of the Eomantic (Schelling's) behind it. Eather, it is nothing but the systematising of this latter explanation (p. 298). However strange the articulation of this system may seem, however forced the development of moment from moment, we should be extremely blind, did we not see the clue by means of which the pretended necessity of the dialectic progress re- ceives an authorisation of fact. It receives such authorisa- 446 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. tion by means of the history of the Pre-Hegelian Philoso- phy. Our dialectician expressly turns himself in special polemical Excursus now against Kant and Hume, now against Fichte and ScheJIing. Even this express polemic, however, always leans quite closely on his positive develop- ments, and almost blends with the dialectic of the categories. Nay, more. Just in the last-stated parts does this logical dia- lectic directly take nutriment from the factual dialectic of the historical course and matter of the latest philosophy. It is self-evident — not the less self-evident because it is not spoken out — that it is the matter and context of the Leibnitz-Wolffian Philosophy which is criticised in the ' System of Grrundsatze ' (axioms, principles) and in the 'Metaphysic of Objectivity.' It is the Fichtian Wissenschaftslehre, that, as in its Theoreti- cal and Practical parts, we recognise under the title of the ' Metaphysic of Subjectivity.' Kant, as is well known, had no Metaphysic of his own : he re-coined the WoliBan Metaphysic into a Metaphysic of Eenunciations and Problems.* He had, on the other hand, a Logic of his own, and different from the usual one, a so-called transcendental Logic. In this transcen- dental Logic he deduced the categories of Quantity and Qua- lity, the relational notions of Substantiality, Causality, and Reciprocity; the modal ones of Possibility, Actuality, and Ne- cessity. In the Critique of Pure Eeason, too, a ' system of Grrundsatze ' followed the deduction of the Categories ; and the dialectic critique of the previous Metaphysic followed the system of Grundsatze. Here we have the outlines, much modified, it is true, of the Hegelian Logic and Metaphysic. .... In his system Hegel realised the notions in truth in the most varied manner. He realised them neither least nor least successfully in this way, that he modified their colourless abstract nature by the dye of their historical value. In the most varied way, also, he made them fluent and capable of movement. One of these ways, and not the least successful, consisted in immersing them in the stream of the historical evolution. Notions, he might in this reference have said, are in truth just as in a particular time they were * Perhaps Aufgaben means only Duties here ? HEGEL S COMMENTATORS. 447 understood, and they develops in truth into what, in the historical transition from System to System, they developed into. Much more certainly than this historical background of the notion-' realising ' dialectic, behind the formalism of the same, do the vanous other ways, as just so many other concrete supports of the progress of the Reflexion from moment to moment, conceal themselves.' (Pp. 113-115.) These are the strongest expressions we can find anywhere in Haym in regard to his sense of the con- nexion of the Hegehan system with Kant and with history in general. And one is apt. to exclaim at first, And what would you have more ? Are they not strong enough ? Is it not clear from them that Haym knows all about Hegel and Kant, and Hegel and History ? We say. No : if the Hteral connexion with Kant and History on the part of Hegel which has been deve- loped in these volumes is to be interpolated by the reader into these words of Haym as uttered by Haym, we have again an instance of those fallacious ex post facto significations of which we have akeady spoken. Hegel tells us himself that his Logic is the History of Philosophy itself, not 'projected on a plane' indeed, but freed from the concrete contingency of the his- torical form. In this way, the Logic may be very well spoken of as the ' History of Philosophy in nuce ;' but how can we ever call the Hegehan System itself — whether with reference to the score of volumes of the ' Works,' or to the one of the ' Encyclopaedia ' — Philo- sophy in nuce ? Hegel's Philosophy is Philosophy in nuce : how shall we obtain any sense for this phrase, unless by simply explaining again that Hegel's Philo- sophy is the History of Philosophy in nuce ? There is something here of seductive literary jingle merely. Then, Haym says that Hegel's Logic has a course like History, not of its own pulse, not of any internal 448 TUB SECRET OF IIEGEL. principle in itself, but because of the simple and intelligible outside reason that Hegel has constructed his Logic out of History. But this is not to under- stand the Hegelian connexion of Logic and History. To Hegel, thought — Logic — is all; it has developed itself — it is a progressive alternating Gesetztseyn, ac- cording to its own laws, its own necessity, its own life ; and the History of Logic in concrete natural actuality is but the same process, the same life, in the mode of externality. In Logic, Substance by its own notional dialectic becomes Causality, which in turn and similarly becomes Eeciprocity, and then the Notion. In the History of Logic (or of Philosophy, if you will), this series is externally represented or realised by the actual thinkings of the men — Spinoza, Leibnitz, Locke ; then Hume, then Kant, and then Hegel himself. It is \h\s literal connexion which neither Haym, nor, if we are right, anybody else as yet has understood ; and it is a veritable inversion of the truth to assert the Logic of Hegel to have been formed from without by a consider- ation of actual history. In this assertion, even, it is not for a moment contemplated that the transition of Eeci- procity into the Notion is the abstract expression of the concrete history of thought from Kant to Hegel ; and the last-named (Hegel), instead of being enabled by History to construe Logic, was, on the contrary, enabled by Logic to construe History. We do not mean to say that Logic was throughout the fisrt ; but we do mean to say that a generalisation of Logic on hint of Kant was the first ; that the concrete con- nexion between Substantiality, Causality, Eeciprocity, &c., and actual modern history, was a discovery that constituted the second ; and that, after these, by means of a variety of labours and investigations now of his- tory and now of philosophy, there arose as result — Hegel's commentators. 449 the Hegelian System. Now it is this literal statement which we claim for ourselves and deny for others — as regards the connexion between the Hegehan Logic and actual History. Haym plainly has not even attained to the tinge of a dream of it. That there was some connexion, it was not difficult for Haym to Icnow, for Hegel tells us again and again the fact ; and a very simple comparing of their respective tables of con- tents sufficed to show that if Quantity, Quality, Sub- stance, Cause, Eeciprocity, &c. had been discussed by Kant, they had also been discussed by Hegel. Haym's knowledge amounts to no more than this ; he simply points to this community of contents : he knows nothing and says nothing of the inner articulations : what we name the unknown and hidden Heuristic hfe of Hegel when constructing his system, to this he has attained no access, with whatever closeness he has followed the outer history and appearances of Hegel. He sees some relation between the Logic and Kant, but immediately thereafter he sees some relation also between the Logic and Schelhng, and this latter relation he decides to be the dominant one. ' Eather,' says he, ' it (i.e., the Logic) is nothing but the systematising of this latter explanation' (that come to with the Eomantic of Schelhng, namely). Haym, in fact, has to say a great many things, and this is one of them. The Preface to the Phaenomenology had very plainly a great deal to do with ScheUing and his intellectual perception ; it is to gain breadth to say the Logic is occupied with the same business, and we need not fear to blunder, for beyond doubt there is question of Schelhng in the Logic as well. Li fact, never getting the clue into his hand, Haym cannot simply and satisfactorily just wind ; he VOL. n. Gt G 450 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. is obliged to grasp at a thousand scattered expedients as they float by. So it is that the Logic is this instant from end to end a refutation of Kant, and the next nothing but an explanation come to with SchelUng : the simple original unit is never caught, and then developed into its necessary many. In default of this unit with its necessary many, he is compelled to see and to say that Hegel reahses his notions, that is, con- structs his system, ' m the most varied manner ; ' and just after the stress which he lays on the 'historical background,' as the main genetic source from which Hegel drew his materials, he speaks of ' the various other ways ' which are the ' other concrete supports ' of the dialectic evolution, and which 'conceal them- selves certainly much more behind the formalism ' of the dialectic than even this historical background. But let us see what Haym himself says of what Hegel himself says about the Historical supports of the Logic, — perhaps we shall gain thus more light : — Hegel maintained — if, as regards the main notions of the successive historical systems of philosophy, we strip off that which belongs to their external circumstances of origin, their particular applications, &c., we obtain the various stages of the determination of the Idea itself in its logical notion ; conversely, we have in the logical progress, the progress of historical phenomena in its main moments. This, so far as I see, is more than a mere hint ; it is a naive admission of the source from which the Logic drew partly its matter, and more than partly the form of its movement. What in the Frankfort sketch of the Logic and Metaphysic became visible only in individual passages, that becomes evident now with reference to the entire • Logic. The Categories obtain their universal dialectic flux by the reality of nature and the mind being filled into them through the fine channel of abstraction. (P. 322.) HEGEL S COMMENTATORS. 451 Here Haym quotes from Hegel himself an assertion of the existence of a much closer connexion between Logic and History than even he (Haym) seemed to seek to exhibit. Hegel says, History is Logic in con- creto, and, conversely, Logic is History in abstracto. Haym's allusions to the Pre-Hegehan Philosophy, to ex- planations come to with Kant, Schelhng, &c., are thus by no means revelations, and not by any means disco- veries : Hegel speaks much more plainly, much more unexceptively than Haym. ISTay, Hegel, as we have seen, has not been taken at his own word ; it is here in these pages that what is the real significance (when concretely translated into history) of the transition of Eeciprocity into the Notion, has been for the first time pointed out ; and Haym, for his part, stiU beheves himself to throw a light of detection on Hegel, when he makes prominent some relation or other (he cannot say par- ticularly what relation) to history in the Logic. Nay, more ; Haym flatly refuses to take Hegel's own word, and insists on calling it ' a naive admission ' ! An admission, above all, a naive admission, and on the part of a Hegel ! Did the Sphinx, then, naively babble her own secret, and was it so that (Edipus overthrew her .P Hegel says, in such and such wise. History is Logic and Logic is History : Haym says. Don't believe him — that just means, he took outside facts and reduced them to his Logic by the fine channel of abstraction,^ — that just means, his Logic is but an artificial distil- lation, by means of a concealed process, of the concrete facts of nature, history, and consciousness, which are open, which are common to all of us. Haym wiU not take the hint that what is, is Thought ; and that every particular of what is, must be but a particular of Thought. An outer world that comes one knows not C G 2 452 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. whence, that is the Prius of Haym, and Hegel's work is to him but a cunning and external metamorphosing of it. Hegel gets thence, he says, partly his matter and more than partly his form. This seems an in- version ; surely Haym means to say that aU the matter came from without ! Whence else, in Haym's way of looking, could it come ? Perhaps Haym has it in mind, however, that Hegel's matter is partly pure invention, pure fiction. But then, that the form is more than partly derived from the realms of fact ! We thought the form was the dialectic, that it was an artificial and mechanical process got up somehow in imitation of the movement of Spirit, that it was a poisonous Sophistic, &c. &c. : but no ; the form comes ' more than partly ' from the realms of fact ! To account for this Hegel, then, it is quite enough to be always brilhantly in speech ? But, to Haym, with these realistic tendencies in him as we see, ought anything in this world to be more valu- able than the categories, if, as he says, ' the reality of nature and the mind ' has been ' filled into them ' ? Haym's observations in regard to History and the Hegelian Logic are very far, then, from possessing that weight and appositeness which they may at first seem to possess. We may say, he names a historical con- nexion, but sees not the historical connexion. In fact, to him the whole truth here is, that certain historical materials have been taken up by Hegel — sesthetically — for completeness' sake — into his beautiful Totality. The following extracts will extend evidence in this reference of a directer nature : — How does this apocrypha, this system which has grown in concealment, relate itself to the philosophy of the day • how first of all, and before all, does it relate itself to the then hilosophy of Schelling ? (P. 1 43.) KEGELS COMMKNTATORS. 453 Both had exchanged Kant's critical tendency in philosophy for a dogmatical one. Both had burst the thread with which Fichte had bound the whole of truth to the infinite self- certainty of the Ego. Both had ceased to regard hunaan Free- dom (Free-will) as the highest form and the highest law under which cognition had to subordinate the entire universe. . . . In contrast to the Fichtian method of Eeflexion and Deduc- tion, both had come to develope the matter of their theory of the universe in a representative and descriptive manner. . . . Both saw in the sensuous universe no longer the mere reflex of ' the light immanent in the Ego,' but the realisation and manifestation of a Third (party), of a metaphysical Absolute that grasped up both Subjective and Objective. The philo- sophy of both was, again, what neither the Kantian nor the Fichtian had been, a System. Both systems finally — and this one point is far and away the most important, to this one point all the rest may be reduced, from it all the rest may be explained — both systems rested ultimately on the same com- mon principle, were dominated by the one, now more and now less distinctly enunciated thought : the whole of being is like a work of art, the whole — thought as action, nature as history — stands imder the aesthetic schema and bears the type of absolute harmony. (P. 144.) But nothing of such a struggle, of such a groping, of such a vacillating irresolution, shows itself in the genesis of the Hegelian convictions. From the moment he enters philo- sophy independently there hangs before him an Ideal of a view of the world and of life that only late indeed realised itself in the form of a philosophical system, the physiognomy of which, however, was already visible in firm traits in those early paraphrases of the evangelical history and the theo- logical dogmas. Heart and soul immovably directed to this Ideal, he advances with firm step to his system ; neither the Eeason-Kritik nor the Wissenschaftslehre can impose upon him, perplex him, divert him, shake him. Unsteady, irre- gular-, and eccentric, advancing by zig-zag, is the line which Schelling describes before he throws himself into the point of Identity: contiauous, uninterrupted, straightly, surely 454 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. drawn the path along which the convictions of Hegel pro- ceed till they establish themselves in the system. (P. 145.) What Schelling had got at second-hand, that Hegel had got at first. The aesthetic world-theory of the former had the modern, that of the latter Hellenic, classicism and humanism as its foundation. . . . Hegel's Philosophy in its original form, on the contrary, is an independent fruit of philological studies ; it is a side-piece to the poetry of Gothe and Schiller, and grown on the same soil — a philosophical attempt to restore the Antique, as this poetry was a poetical attempt. ... He has, as it were, unconsciously converted into moments of his system both Kantianism and Fich- tianism, and in the construction of this system these modes of thought have themselves received the colour of his Ideal. . . . Schelling, because he has passed so directly from the school of the preceding systems to his new position, has the advantage over Hegel of being able more sharply and fundamentally to point this position. His system has a name, and we know distinctly what it wants. In its genesis from the preceding systems, and in its own principle, it is perfectly transparent. (Pp. 146, 147, 148, 149.) The more we consider the ' System of Ethics,' the more do we miss specific Hegelian features, the more do we discover in it Schellingian features (p. 171). The Schellingian mannerism of construction extends itself on the surface. (P. 174.) The metal was Hegel's, the stamp was Schelling's. It completes — I repeat it — the proof that the former, not only accommodated himself to the latter, but that, up to a certain degree, he was dominated and carried away by the peculiarity of the other. (P. 179.) When he describes Speculation as ' Synthesis of Eeflexion with the Absolute Perception,' the true method as 'Self- destruction of Eeflexion;' when he says that ' the Self-sublat- ing Contradiction is the highest formal expression of know- ledge and truth ; ' or when he characterises the ' absolute Notion ' as the ' absolute direct contrary of itself : ' when he demands that every part of philosophy be presented in the shape of an independent, complete formation, and this forma- KEGELS COMMENTATORS. 455 tion be ' united with the Logical element,' — all this amounts to expressions which do not indeed cancel his Schellingianism, but, &c. . . . The Dialectic is his peculiar difference from SchelJing (p. 212). He adapted himself in the first three and a half years of his Jena residence to the Identitdts- pJiilosophie : the consequence was, that he threw himself with greater stress on the aesthetic side of his world-picture (p. 221). Much deeper than the modern had the ancient spirit acted on him. Despite all acquaintance with later literary and philosophical endeavours, he was still a special Intimate only with the genius of Hellenic Antiquity. The pith and marrow of his system had just for this reason — of this we have convinced ourselves — grown up out of antique root; almost perfectly foreign and isolated it stood beside those creations of the German Spirit which were even then in bloom, and had arrested the interest of contemporaries (p. 126). The origin and character of this system were totally different from those of the systems of Kant and Fichte. The object of Kant was, first of all, before a single step was taken in philosophy, with the most self-denying and impar- tial accuracy to buoy out the terrain of possible cognition. It was his object to discover a fixed and immovable point of truth to which to attach with infallible certainty the whole of knowledge, and he discovered this points— grasping deep down into the undermost grounds of human nature — in the conscience. Quite otherwise lay the matter with Hegel. It is not in first rank the necessity of scientific conscientiousness and truth that impels him to philosophy, but it is the neces- sity to represent to himself the whole of the world and of life in a form fully ordered and arranged. It is not a fixed, marked-off point out from which he prosecutes the discovery of truth, but it is an Ideal grown out of history and the mind itself — a concrete image, a broad and full Idea, an Idea of the authority of which beforehand he gives himself no abs- tract critical account, but which out of the full energy of his being he has appropriated to himself and lived for him- self, which, he knows not himself how, has filled and pene- 456 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. trated him to the full, and into which he now longs to carry over the entire wealth of the being of nature and of man. The Hegelian philosophy, accordingly, arises, as it were, from a poetic impulse — from the impulse to project a figure of the world according to an ideal type lying ready in the mind of the Systematiser. He is beyond Kant and Fichte, without having and before he has expressly exercised any inquest into their leading principles. In Frankfort, indeed, he studied the Kantian moral and political theories which had just appeared ; but even in the detailed study of these writings, as he plies it for himself pen in hand, he enters not properly into any critical analysis of the Kantian principles, but he opposes to the rigorous consequences which Kant had developed from his ground-notions, quite simply his own notions which had grown up from the soil of religious senti- ment and historical Idea. . . . The question is the author- isation of Hegel to translate that Ideal into the form of Eeflexion and Thought. ... Be it as it may with the truth of the Kantian and Fichtian Philosophy, this is certain : they were pure and natural products of the factual situation of our nation (pp. 88-89). It is an Ideal grown up in a foreign soil and in an alien time by which Hegel is out and out actuated (p. 91). This labour stood visibly, quite independently of its being only a Torso, all too isolated and special, all too apart from the consequent, connected, manifest course which philosophy had taken in the hands of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling (p. 122). All here is and happens quite otherwise than in what has been elsewhere and ever called Logic and Metaphysic. We have here partly other notions than those we know from Aristotle, from Kant, or from the Metaphysic of Wolff. Quite otherwise is the nature of these notions, quite otherwise are their cognition and mutual relations conceived. The Hegel- ian restoration of Logic and Metaphysic is a total revolution of them (p. 313). The Apriorism of Hegel, because it did not, like the Kantian, derive from the concrete inner, was what broke the point off all the apparent liberality of the political HEGEL S COMMENTATOKS. 457 views of Hegel. . . . These were furthest from true freedom where they spoke biggest of Eeason and the Notion (p. 355). Since Kant we have had again an ethical, but no longer any- speculative Metaphysic : now (after Hegel) we have again a speculative but no ethical Metaphysic (p. 367). The defect with which morality remains affected in Hegel arises from his inability to appreciate the Kantian conception of it (p. 376). The word Free-will is a coin whose currency finds itself in constant oscillation. The inner intention alone determines the sense of this word. The construction which Hegel puts upon it, is the means of betraying the funda- mental defects of his philosophy. What falls at once into the eye, is the preponderance of the Theoretic over the Practical, or, to say it more correctly, the absorption of the willing into the thinking Spirit. Will and, Free-will evaporate by Hegel into thinking and knowing. The will, so runs the psychological definition which forms the basis of his whole system of Free-will, is ' a particular form of Thought.' . . . The will, he says, ' is only as thinking intelligence true Free- will ; ' free-will in that way is identical with Eeason. . . . Sharply to say it, this is a Will, then, which wills not (p. 370). If "we saw from previous quotations that Haym ascribed the development of the Hegelian Logic to the actual use of the historical materials of Kant, &c., and from others that he would not, at the same time, accept Hegel's own admission of this historical con- nexion as on internal principles, but would insist on a mere external, though covered, mechanism being the only agent at work, we see from these last quotations that Haym has not attained to the slightest conception of the veritable historical connexion which affihates Hegel to his predecessors. The truth of the matter is, that Hegel, by means of the most laborious, continuous, and frequently-repeated analyses, especially of Kant, but very certainly and very particularly of Fichte and 45S THE SECKET OF HEGEL. Schelling also, arrived at an accurate perception of the true nature and real reach of the principles that con- stituted the foci in the meditations of Kant, and of the respective influences of the further operations of Fichte and Schelhng thereupon. JSTot tUl this was accom- phshed, did he discern the remarkable hght which the new results reflected on the Philosophy of the Greeks and the History of Philosophy in general. The new interpretations thus obtained as regards these latter interests were more adapted, ia the first place, to con- ceal than reveal his relations to Kant ; but in this last he rooted, and the stifi", wooden, insecure enthu- siasm for Sophocles which HolderUn had awakened in him had no influence on his philosophy as such. We have it again and again under the hand of Hegel, though he was certainly not at all loud about it to his contemporaries, that he knew perfectly well that he worked only on a thing called the Kantian Philosophy, which was a genuine product of human history and human consciousness, and which he himself, as genuinely, endeavoured to advance to the place and function it promised to fill and fulfil as the Science of Philosophy at length. To Hegel it was perfectly evident that, do what he might, and let Fichte and Schelhng have done whatever they may, this thing would be known in time as, and would be named only, the Kantian Philo- sophy. Nor one whit less evident was it, that it was a true interest and carried in its womb all the germs of the future. So runs the story with us and in truth ; but the reader need only glance superficially back on the extracts we have made, to become at once aware that with Haym the whole matter runs in precisely the contrary direction. To Haym, despite certain borrowed articles he sees HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 459 in it, the house of Hegel is absolutely peculiar and absolutely isolated. It has no connexion whatever with the houses over-the-way. In origin, motive, plan, structure, it is wholly different from these. The very articles borrowed are but to fill his house ; nay, they are just such household articles as all such houses cannot be without. Hegel tells him, indeed, that in raising his house, he laid others under contribution : but Haym will not beheve him — not at all in his own way of it. The principle was modern and genuine, and its treatment was through thought, thought the sincerest and the truest ; but Haym would have it that the principle was ancient, and its treatment through art, imagination, invention. To fiU up this principle, accordingly, Haym has no natural clue of its own to wind into it : he is compelled to stop and to stuff it with a thousand miscellaneous expedients which his own great native ingenuity enables him to intercept on every side — but not, however, without falling on the face ever and anon over his own contradictions. These matters are so plain that it is not worth while spending time on them, and we shall offer to guide the reader in interpreting the above extracts by only a a word or two. In the quotations (pages 439-450), which were made for another purpose, we shaU find several ex- pressions which militate against the truth of the case (the 'Secret of Hegel') as it has yielded itself in the present work, and absolutely demonstrate the blindness of Haym to the real origin of the System from Kant. From these it is clear that to Haym the work of Hegel is but a factitious and illusory attempt to trans- form, not his Ideal into the Actual, but ' the Actual into his Ideal.' For the accomplishment of this work, 460 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. Hegel, in his opinion, 'turns aside from the strait path of sober inquiry, from the labour of deliverance through conscientious criticism' (such as Kant's), to set up a ' composite Enigma,' ' tricked out with, the ap- pearance of a Science of truth,' that merely seeks to be in relation with 'a dreamed-of and yearned-for future.' It stands in absolute isolation, absolutely with- out any connexion that might be a bridge to it. It is realised in 'the most varied manner' by a variety of expedients, and in general by a transcendence of ' the self-acknowledged hmits of all reflection.' It is no result of criticism and analysis ; it has no examination of the nature and hmits of concrete thought behind it ; it does not thinkingly decompose, but £estheticaUy construct. It wiU not have things as they are : it will have things as it would, &c. Though the description of the isolation of the System is exceedingly happy and exhaustively representative of the feeHngs of every man who approaches it for the first time, it is out of place in one who pretends to have attained to initia- tion, and gives not a hint of the true state of the case — the close and literal derivation from Kant. The whole conception which the words show Haym to entertain — the very phrase ' composite Enigma ' points to a conclusion the very opposite of that wliich has been here maintained. In relation to the extracts which occur specially in this particular reference, we cannot speak differently. What concerns SchelUng, for example, is an enun- ciation in many of its constituents completely wide of the truth. It is to follow quite a wrong scent to seek, ' first of all and before aU,' to track Hegel in this re- ference. Haym himself acknowledges the incommu- nicable disjunctions which, as regards SchelHncf, the Hegel's commentators. 46i Frankfort sketch of the Hegehan System displays — it was 'a quite other world' — and that 'it (the system) never receded from these its fundamental articulations ' as contained in this sketch. And this is the truth : in that sketch Hegel had reached to the Secret of Kant ; he had attained to the Begriff, and stood but in small need of Schelling — unless for the lift which the shoulders of the Schellingian fame were able to extend to the then Hegelian obscurity. The whole affiliation, then, of Hegel to Schelling is full of items quite at variance with the veritable origin, with the veritable conditions. The Frankfort sketch is evidently ' a Tor- so,' and beyond a doubt it required a licking into shape ; but how absurd to say it stood in need ' of an understanding being come to with the general course of German Philosophy,' inasmuch as it was nothing but this ' explanation,' nothing but the result of this ' course,' and how infinitely more absurd it is to opine as follows : ' that this iu both respects (the ' licking ' and the ' explanation') really took place, we have to thank the removal of Hegel from Frankfort to Jena ' ! Why, after such success as the Frankfort sketch de- monstrates Hegel to have obtained, the System would have been eventually licked into shape though its au- thor had been consigned to Timbuctoo,^ — had he been but left the necessary means otherwise. The well- balanced affinities of Hegel and Schelhng, then, and their equally well-counterbalanced differences, are, for the most part, but words, words, words. Hegel had not exchanged ' criticism' for mere ' dogmatism ;' he had not abandoned ' the infinite self-certainty of the Ego ; ' he had not ' ceased to regard human Free-wUl as the highest form and the highest law, &c. ;' he had not adopted, 'in contrast to the Fitchtian,' 'a repre- 462 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. sentative method' (at least, this is no correct account of the matter) ; lastly, he had not — with a great many- other things — viewed all as under an 'aesthetic sche- ma.' Again, it is speaking very wide to talk of the ' physiognomy' of the system being ' already visible in firm traits' in his early Theological studies. 'Nei- ther the Eeason-Kritik nor the Wissenschaftslehre can impose upon him, perplex him, divert him, shake him !' Hegel had taken good care of that, he knew better than that : he knew that out of these works only was it that he could buUd, and he took good care to ap- propriate aU he could for that purpose out of both. We may almost say, indeed, that in these two works, when they are rightly understood, wiU be seen the beginning, the middle, and the end of Hegel. Then all that about ' first hand,' ' second hand,' ' modern,' ' ancient,' &c., is but mere literary verbiage, so far as the special issue is concerned. The Hegehan System is not 'an independent fruit of Philological studies.' He has not ' unconsciously ' taken up into it ' both Kantianism and Fichtianism.' The position of Hegel, when it is understood, is as 'sharply pointed' as that of Schelhng, and his derivation from predecessors, not less, but even more close, Hteral, and, in the end, 'transparent.' Hegel could not get his Ethics from Schelling, but only from Kant. Hegel did ' accommodate' himself to Schelling, but he was not ' carried away ' by him ; he did not allow himself to be afiected by his 'manier ;' and both 'metal' and 'stamp' are in Hegel's works Hegel's own, all conditions of genesis being duly allowed for. When Hegel talks of ' the self-sub- lating contradiction being the highest formal expres- sion of knowledge and truth,' &c., these expressions not only do cancel his ScheUingianism, but exhibit KEGELS COMMENTATORS. 463 him — as in possession of the BegrifF — infinitely beyond Schelling. ' The pith and marrow of his system' — we may have convinced ourselves of whatever we please — was not ancient but modern, and this system did not stand ' almost perfectly foreign and isolated ' beside its predecessors 'Which were even then in bloom,' but rose bodily a literal birth out of them. 'The origin and character of this system' were not ' totally different from those of Kant and Fichte.' Hegel, as much as Kant, and more open-eyed, sought the ' terrain of possible cognition ; ' Hegel, as much as Kant, strove to a ■• fixed point (or principle) of truth ; ' Hegel, as much as Kant, is distinguished by ' the most self-denying and impartial accuracy.' ' The necessity of scientific conscientiousness' is primal with Hegel ; and he was not one whit keener in his longing towards Totality and a System than Kant himself. It is a ' fixed point' {the Notion) from which he proceeds, and not 'an Ideal' which possesses him 'he knows not how,' of which he can give 'no critical account before- hand ' ! No man that ever lived was ever less so pos- sessed ; no man that ever hved was ever abler just to give such an account. The system of Hegel does not arise from ' a poetic impulse.' He is not ' beyond Kant and Fichte before he has exercised any inquest into their leading principles.' He did enter — and vastly, infinitely, incalculably more thoroughly than ever student into any matter yet — 'into a critical analysis of the Kantian principles.' Haym does not know Hegel's ' authorisation,' certainly ; but not the less on that account is this authorisation good, — though, of course, the whole thing still wants confirmation. The Hegelian, quite as certainly as ' the Kantian and Fich- tian Philosophy,' was a 'pure product' of the 'factual 464 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. situation' in Germany. Hegel is not ' out-and-out ac- tuated' by an ' Ideal' merely, and that by which he is actuated is neither of ' ahen soil' nor of ' an alien time.' ' The Apriorism of Hegel ' did, ' hke the Kantian, de- rive from the concrete inner.' The ' isolation' of the system and the ' difference' of the Logic from any otlier have had comment enough ; but it is necessary to say a word as regards the relation of Hegel to morahty and free-will. It must suffice at present, however, just to assert, without statement of proof, that Hegel, while he is nowhere greater in himself, is nowhere truer to Kant, than in aU that appertains to Ethics. I know not that there is any lesson in any mere human book that can at all approach in value the lesson that comes to us from the words Subjective and Objective (Form and Inhalt) as used by Hegel in a Practical or Ethical connexion. It is quite plain, then, from a thousand tracks, that Haym knows nothing of the true and literal derivation of Hegel from Kant. His deliverances in regard to the ' Frankfort Sketch' are to the same effect. This sketch is named of Frank- fort because it seems to have been written there ; it dates thus not later than 1800 ; and it is still in manu- script — a manuscript 'consisting of 102 sheets in 4to, of which, however, the three first and the seventh are wanting.' As a specimen of the contents of this re- markable paper, I translate a passage contained in the notes to Haym's book : What is united in a judgment, the Subject and Predicate, the former the Particular, the latter the Universal, contra- dict themselves through their antithesis in themselves and through the opposed subsumption which they mutually exer- cise ; each is for itself, and each refers itself in its For-self- ity (Fiirsichseyn, Being-for-self) to the other, and sets HEGEL'S COMMENTATOES. 4CS (assumes, infers, implies, or eximplies) reciprocally the same as a Sublated(-ity). The one as much as the other must exhibit itself as setting this Ideality in the other. In the way in which they refer themselves to one another ia the notion of a judgment, the contradictory Fiirsichseyn (self-completeness) of each of them is set : each, however, is only for itself in that the other is not for itself ; as they are in the judgment each is for itself; the For-self-ness of the one must therefore make the other something other than it is immediately set in the judgment: this self-preservation through subjection of the other under itself is therefore imme- diately an othering of this other ; but the nature of Judg- ment must at the same time equally assert itself in this alteration and sublate at the same time this otherwise- ness. The way, therefore, is reflexion of this other into itself. The Eealising of the Terms of the judgment is thus a double one, and both together complete the Eealising of the judgment which in this its Totality has itself become another ; in that the peculiarity of the Terms — ^which pecu- liarity is essential to the judgment— has through its reflexions sublated itself for itself, and rather fulfilled for itself the empty nexus (co-reference). What Hegel is employed on here is the act of Per- ception as it has demonstrated itself to Kant, that is, as implying a judgment, the subsumption of a Particular under a Universal into a Singular. The matter of this act is carried over in ultimate or pure abstraction, and put in relation with Kant's notion of an a priori syn- thetic judgment. The whole thing transforms itself into the Notion, the Concrete Notion ; the result of which is a concrete One, an apparent Simple, whose breadth, however — whose recognisable breadth, how- ever, is a web of two opposites, which, singly or apart, are the two constituent abstract moments. It is thus he gets into the marrow of the Notion, and by close attention now to this side, now to that, and now to the VOL. ir. H H 466 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. ■uniting he-reference, the whole doctrine of the Notion, and of the Judgment, and of the Syllogism reahses itself before him. The subject and predicate, the particular and the universal, being both seen to be the same in the absolute Subject, leads to many deep and peculiar considerations too ; and all this is here present to Hegel. The quotations of Haym, in truth, surprise one with the light they throw on the true nature of the genesis and operations of Hegel. Indeed, the perfection to which this latter has already brought the inquiry is alone fitted to siu'prise, and in the highest degree. The triphcity is full-formed, and the various divisions and subdivisions, if with differences and different names, are well advanced towards the form they were after- wards to assume. In short, reciprocity, the disjunctive syllogism, the generahsation of the generahsation of Kant into its ultimate principle, the reahsation of the tri-une logical nisus, named in its separate or abstract moments Simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Eeason — this reahsation carried into everything, — these are the creative motives apparently throughout the whole sketch. Haym, for his part, knows nothing of all this ; these pecuharities are to him unmeaning blocks, stumps, over which he is constantly stumbling ; and the sincerest striving after the inner dialectic of the Notion can only show to him as a barefaced and external escamoterie. Had Haym truly seen what was at work, had he truly seen the exhaustive study of Kant and the carrying forward of the principles so found ; — had he known the veritable nature of what Hegel carried in his pocket at the moment that he — in appearance — gave in his adhesion to Schelling, — we should have had KEGELS COMMENTATORS. 467 some very different remarks from him on all these points. But to all this Haym is bhnd, and of all this he speaks blindly, for to all this he is simply external. Of the transition of the notions, the ein- fache Beziehung, our reflexion, and that of the thing itself, — of such things, he remarks (p. 109) : — ' It is clear, however, that it would be a false subtlety, would we see here more than one of the 7nany formal- istic turns and expedients of the system at present in its commencement.' Haym can only see sophistic here ; he does not know ' from what point as first our dialectician took his departure, and how he condi- tioned this departure,' but supposes so and so ; he speaks of 'the designations in themselves quite unin- telligible of Eeference, Eelation, and Proportion, &c.' This last graduated triplet ought not to have been so unintelligible, for it exhibits very clearly its relation to the Notion, — it exhibits very clearly the struggles of Hegel towards his System. FaiHng to perceive his departure from Kant, it is no wonder that the differences of Hegel from Schelling prove so puzzling to Haym. But turn we now to his mode of using the term Begriff, and let us see if it ever stood up to him — the Begriff. This Philosophy is an out-and-out revolution of the treat- ment of the Notion (p. 107). He forgets, in the necessity to see his Ideal in representation before him, the impotence of the mere Notion, of which he himself had spoken (p. 86). With both there unites itself the necessity to represent the inner, to find what were represented, as an actual. The organ of such representation is to him, such is the nature of his spirit, the understanding, the sole medium in which said actualisation can go on, the Notion. It is not enough to him to have begriffen Eeligion ; he will at the same time possess it, represent it, realise it in the Begriff (p. 87). When he characterises 'the absolute Notion' as the absolute imme- H u 2 468 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. diate contrary of itself . . . this is a declaration which does not remove his SchelUngianism, &c. (p. 212). It were endless to pursue everywhere — especially where only an ingenious association of ideas is at work — the trail of this Dialectic. Take, by way of example, nevertheless, the transition from the ' Eelation of Being ' to the ' Eelation of Thinking.' The relation of Eeciprocity is presented as the most highly developed form of the one, the definite notion as the most original form of the other. Transition is to be accomplished from the former to the latter. This transition is to be conceived as a transition of the one peculiarity into the other as its ' Eeality.' This Eealisingis to be considered to occur according to the form of the process of the absolute Spirit ; according to the form, that is, of ' the othering and of the return from the othering.' How runs the deduction? In the relation of Eeciprocity opposites are beent together. Each of the opposed substances now is in relation to the other at once active and passive. The double activity of both is only the expression of this, that in the same way each of the two is sublated, that both are set into the quiescence of equipoise. With the subtlest reality is this process described by Hegel and demonstrated in the machinery of nature. We see depicted, how here the line of Origin and Cessation goes on forwards and backwards in infinitum, how here many points of departure and issue are equally infinite; how through this infinite intricacy and intercrossing of origin and cessa- tion, the Actuality becomes the originating and at the same time the ceasing Being of the Substances. Directly, how- ever, the limning of this living fact becomes compressed into an abstract sum. Only so namely can, by means of the catching sight of an ingenious analogy, the reciprocal inter- action and interpassion of the opposed substances be converted into its ' Truth,' into the notion of the Notion, that is to say, into the relation of Universal and Particular. The truth of the relation of Eeciprocity, it is to be taken now then, is * a fulfilled oneness of the opposed peculiarities, and in this Sub- latedness at the same time a Positedness (an implication, eximplication) of the same as Sublateds. There has thus HEGEL S COMMENTATORS. 469 become, however, the contrary of itself: for in its original notion the Opposites were beent.' It is thus, negatively, the dropping of the characteristic peculiarity of Eeciprocity that it is a commerce of Beents, and, positively, attention to the oneness of Opposites, it is the one-sided reflecting on the abstractest trait of similarity between this relation and that in which Universal and Particular stand to each other in the notion proper, — it is by this that Dialectic here turns to nought the upright meaning of Kant, that the notion pene- trates indeed into Being, but never exhausts it. The notion, then, is the ' self-equal oneness of Opposites,' the coming into light of what is concealed in the action of Eeciprocity :— on this thin thread hangs the transition from the ontological to the logical forms ! (Pp. 116-17.) It is not our purpose, in regard to these extracts, to show that Haym does not know the Notion; — this has been shown already ; — our purpose at present is only to show that when Haym says the notion and the notion and the notion, he does not mean the Notion. We are not called upon at present even to take note of what Haym says of Eeciprocity. In this reference we shall say this, however, that in his own view Hegel has nothing whatever to do with Being or Beents as regards the Eeciprocity he contemplates. It may be true that, according to Kant, the Notion ' strikes itself into Being (Seyn),'but does not exhaust it : ' with this, Hegel herQ has no concern. But, if we withdraw from Seyn itself, or any Seyn, all the moments of the Notion, it will very much puzzle Haym himself to tell us what then remains. (In a very simple sense, indeed, that of which there can be and is no Notion, must be nothing.) To Hegel the Notion (not any thing, not any Being or Beent) of Causality, which is but a form of the Notion, has by its own dialectic movement passed into Eeci- procity. Wliat was Cause is now Effect as well, and 470 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. what was Effect is now no less Cause. They were tautological before, and they are now only differently tautological ; and this difference is the product of the thing itself. To Hegel the notion of Eeciprocily is a necessary result of the native movement of the element Thought itself But Haym may illustrate the thing to himself otherwise. Haym, we may certainly say, for example, has now a crude or figurate conception, a VorsteUung, of EeciprOcity. Well, if he will but take the trouble narrowly to watch his VorsteUung, whether as in Imagination or as in actual Perception — ^if he vdll but take the trouble to throw out all foreign admix- tures, if he will but take the trouble to purify and reduce his conception into its absolutely abstract notion, — he will obtain a result — something still appertinent to existence — so peculiar that even he wiU have some difficulty to prevent it passing into — the notion of the Notion. What we have before us, then, are notions as notions, or the forms of the notion as such, and any sneer about Being and Beents is quite irrelevant and beside the point. Kant, Fichte, ScheUing, and just any German writer since the first of these, have been in the habit of speaking of the notion just as they would speak of the perception. This is simply a German method of expressing what Englishmen express by Notions in general, Notions as such, Perceptions in general, Per- ceptions as such. The Notion and the Perception of such usage are just the universals of Notions and Perceptions. But the notion, as notion universally, as universal notion (though the meanings will in the end be found to come together), does not at all mean in this usage the notion, the notion singularly, the sin- gular Notion, which, though coming to him by natural KEGELS COMMENTATORS. 471 genesis from Kant, is peculiar to Hegel. Now ' the notion,' and ' the mere notion,' &c., of Haym is the former notion, and not the latter. The Perception is at this moment intelligible as Perception taken uni- versally ; but if ' the Perception ' were used as Hegel uses ' the Notion,' then the Perception would be one special, particular and peculiar — would be a certain single or singular Perception. This has just to be pointed out, and now the Eeader, every time he opens his Hegel, will be astonished again and again in every page that he did not see before that Hegel meant by the notion, a notion, a certain particular and pecuhar notion. It requires no minute inspection of the quotations from Haym to discern that all this has escaped him. He identifies the understanding, for example, with the medium of the notion, or just with the notion. To him to have begrifFen something and to realise this something in the Begriff are two different things ; but to Hegel they are the same thing, for to him to begreifen and to have the Begriff have both the peculiar and the same pecuhar Hegehan meaning — (a meaning in the end, however, that coalesces with the ordinary one, though to the development of a higher and entirely new stage of thought). The mode in which Haym talks of the ' absolute Notion ' is quite unconscious, quite blind, quite unwitting. Then the notion of the notion is not to Haym the notion of the Notion : it is but the relation of Uni- versal and Particular (which, of course, is true too in the new and higher, but to Haym unknown Hege- lian sense). In fact, both the way in which he uses the term, and his perfectly unconscious commentary on the transition of Keciprocity into the Notion — the 472 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. actual genesis of the latter — demonstrate Haym never to have even dreamed of regarding the notion as the Notion — that single and singular entity which Hegel means, and which we here and elsewhere attempt to express and convey. What Haym sees is but the attempt at an organically articulated Whole, which attempt everybody else sees. What he would do now is, account for this attempt; and the means he uses are an Ideal of Hellenic Cosmos which he holds Hegel to realise, and which he himself would in explanation realise, by ' various ways,' by ' many turns and expedients. ' Haym accordingly follows Hegel step by- step through his life and the series of his publications. He is thus with Hegel and near Hegel, and can always allude to some fact of Hegel. But the boastful exclamation, every now and then, ' Ha ! you see I am on his traces ; I take you with me into the very den of the unknown and inex- plicable monster at last,' is about the hoUowest attempt to bawl oneself and others into a baseless conviction of success which, perhaps, anyone has ever witnessed. In fact, it needs not directly to demonstrate the failure of Haym by reference to the historical connexion, the Frankfort Sketch, the Begriff, &c. : Haym's whole edifice cannot support itself on its own incessant self- contradictions, but tumbles through these into an un- tenable chaos ; and, for a conclusive and satisfactory refutation, it suffices to show this. Nor is this an operation of any difficulty, unless, indeed, the extreme abundance of the materials shall be thought such. The single Begriff is the genetic One of the Many and of the AU of Hegel. Knowing this, Haym would have given us simplicity and consistency; not knowing this, he has given us, instead, only multitude and HEGEL S COMMENTATORS. 473 incongruity. Not knowing this, he has exclaimed, That symmetrical Totahty is but an Ideal, a Greek Ideal, and Hegel has necessarily given it body through a variety of miscellaneous expedients. Haym accord- ingly sets up this Ideal as his own principle of expla- nation ; this is his facing, and behind it, to fiU it out into a show of substance, he stuffs aU manner of rags and rubbish. • These, however, as only disconnectedly together, easily fall piecemeal. Aesthetic fiction enunciated of a work in pure Philosophy, of a work in Logic, — that we feel at once is not hkely. Involun- tarily we expect the theory to prove insufficient, self- contradictory, and compelled to eke itself out ever and anon from elsewhere. A dream of beauty is to con- struct a Logic ! That vast Hegel, whom we so long to know just something of, — that vast Hegel is but a dream, and as the smoke of a dream he shall be shut together into the shining, little, hterary casket of Haym! — No; these things cohere not! Statement is easy, and especially to so accomphshed a rhetorician as Haym ; but how — just to say it at once — how are we to make intelligible a warp of Eeflexion and a woof of Imagination weaving into a Logic ? Even in the extracts which have been given already, many contradictions, on examination, show. Litera- ture, in fact, occupied with the satisfaction, with the applause of the moment, is, perhaps, in its own nature prone to contradiction. Consider this point alone : In the extract that occurs above at page 439, we are told that Gothe and SchUler ' had opened to the Germans their own inner,' 'had brought for this people its Ideals and Sentiments to view ' — ' even as Sophocles and Aristophanes (Thucydides and Plato are added else- where — ^p. 146 of Haym's book) had brought to the 474 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. Greeks theirs ; ' and that Hegel, following in the same track, wanted to do the same thing by the categories and notions of the Germans — wanted to put into then? hands 'a Lexicon,' ' a pure Grammatic' of such. Now, all the world is agreed that Sophocles, Aristophanes, Thucy- dides, and Plato did well in this matter, that they did in this a genuine work which is to reap the gratitude of the latest posterity. We are to suppose, then, that as these were to the Greeks, Gothe, Schiller, and Hegel are to the Germans, and similarly deserve well at the hands of posterity for an honest and glorious work done. But, in our very next extract, all this is strangely changed. It was not German Ideals and Sentiments, it seems, after all, that Gothe and Schiller and Hegel brought, — it was Greek ones, and accordingly the Hellenising poetry of the former is only ' artificial,' ' an over- charged Idealistic and Typic,' as the Hellenising philosophy of the last is but deception, delusion, and sophistic ! This, as one sees, is but a kind of hterary speaking in the air — for speaking's sake ! But there are other contradictions, and bearing more directly on the matter in hand. We see, for example, to begin with the earher extracts, that the motive of Hegel is an Ideal of Beauty, ' a poetic impulse,' derived ' he knows not how,' and we feel that the result is not such as we should have expected, when we are told that it is ' no unconscious creation,' ' no jet,' ' not an. invention of genius,' but ' a Gemachtes (an artifact) of talent.' Then analysis is demonstrated to be the forte of Hegel; but towards his Logic it is not analysis of the aporias of thought, &c., which he has employed — no, his Logic, on the contrary, shall be a synthesis, an assthetic, an artificial synthesis ! It is from Schelhng that Hegel shall derive too, at the same time, that his HEGEL S COMMENTATOES. 473 work is quite unlike that of Schelling, ' another world from the first ! ' One moment Hegel is to Haym in historical connexion with Kant, Fichte, and the rest ; and, the next, he is wholly isolated, disconnected, cut off, — in short, totally unlike all other philosophers in origin, character, &c. History (and the same thing is said of Perception) is the ' concrete agent of the dia- lectic,' ' natural and mental life its principle,' yet, ' because his Apriorism ( = his dialectic), unlike the Kantian, did not derive from the concrete inner, &c. &c.' A multitude of extracts which are now in place, and which were translated directly for the purpose of de- monstrating the numberless contradictions into which Haym's impossible theory leads him, must, out of con- siderations of space (which are now not unnatural), be passed over with but an occasional touch. We find, from page 229, that the Greek Ideal stands in need of — among other supplementary expedients — a Protestant Eeal ! We are told, too, that in the Frank- fort Sketch (p. 121) 'never has the Hegehan system receded from these its fundamental articulations ; ' yet, 'when Hegel undertook the elaboration of a Logic,' we learn (p. 293) that ' he did this from quite other points of view, with multiphed other objects ! ' We are led to suppose, then, that Haym is quite prepared for a difference here. But no : having said this — which would account for any difference — he seems im- mediately to forget what he has said, and suddenly to awake to the necessity of demonstrating — as in agree- ment with his theory — that we have still the old identity everywhere. This, indeed, is not effected without something of confusion. Though the crabbed opacity of the Frankfort Sketch has been made obvious to us by the most telhng words, and though the grate - 476 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. ful change of the Logic to perspicuity and symmetry, to aids and assistances of all kinds, has been by the same means made equally plain, we find that it is expected of us to believe, that there is no real differ- ence between these works, but only the appearance of such, in consequence of ' the freshness, fullness, and colour of youth ' in the former having naturally con- tracted ' the wrinldes, ossifications, and callosities ' of age in the latter ! It does not surprise us that Haym should intimate here that it will tax ' all our powers of memory and discernment' to see this — this, and any moderately satisfactory measure of human consistency and sense ! These metaphors, indeed, about ' wrinkles,' 'huUs,' 'kernels,' 'cores,' &c., only betray the contra- diction they are intended to hide (see p. 302). At pages 173, 318, 323, are opportunities of in- specting the materials, ' the most multifarious sensuously reahstic and spiritually reahstic, as well as historical motives,' out of which the beautiful Cosmos (!) is ' woven together ; ' and at pages 103-5, we have a detailed statement of how Haym beHeves Hegel to have gone to work in rearing his system generally. Positively the resultant edifice is not one whit stronger, not one whit less miscellaneous than any school-girl shall build you of a holiday. To Haym it all depends on this, ' that the same combining imagination which sup- pleted the schema of the whole, should perpetually conjoin and bring into play at once both of the faculties from the co-operation of which the problem as problem sprang.' The two faculties which imagination is here expected to unite, are Understanding and Perception. Now the word for Perception here (Anschanung) is very frequently used — by Haym himself among others — in a way that confounds it very much with Imao-i- HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 477 nation itself. It commonly indicates the apprehension of images whether outwardly by sense or inwardly by phantasy. It is not reaUy, then, hair-spHtting, to say that Haym here calls on imagination to conjoin two faculties one of which is itself. But no sooner has Haym made this call on imagination, than he makes the same call as strongly, and more strongly, on under- standing : — The special strength of this intellect (he says) lies in the tenacity of its faculty of abstraction, in the indefatigableness of its reflection : the whole burthen and honour will fall, consequently, on the function of the understanding [what is imagination to be about now, then ?] : in fact, and in truth, it will be the totality of the mind [Haym has got it at last] which acts in the execution of the world-picture ; in preten- sion and appearance, it will be a work of pure thought, or of abstract understanding. Haym, then, asks as regards the getting actually to work, — and, in view of such processes and tools, the question seems very natural, — How otherwise will this be possible but by a series of compromises ? The logical element plainly (he continues) must be everywhere blunted and bent ; the living element, again, must everywhere up to a certain degree accommodate itself to the logical one : only with broken limbs, indeed, will the beautiful life of the all appear in the form of reflection ; but this reflection, on its part, will become [will become is not difiicult to sayl as much alive as possible, it will become elastic and dialectic reflection ! A perusal of the whole passage will bring out every mark that is set here, in infinitely stronger reUef, in infinitely more glaring colours, and the reader will feel no surprise that all this should suggest itself to Haym as ' not unhke the quadrature of the circle ! ' He will probably raise his eyebrows, however, when 478 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. he finds that to the same Haym, ' all these operations ' shall ' express the special secret of Hegel's treatment of the notion ' — only — ' they must conceal themselves under abstract forms ! ' The confusion, the inconsistency, the inconceivable- ness, the constant necessity of plausible shadings and additaments — all this is too clear here to require expo- sition. How imagination and understanding might co- operate to a fiction, one can see well enough ; but that this fiction should be also a Logic and a Grammatic of pure German thought, and a Sophistic of Greek Ideals, and a beautiful Totahty, and a broken-Kmbed beautiful Totality ! — ' compromises ' we do see, but they are compromises into which Haym himself flounders, in the bewildered defence of an altogether impossible theory ! Such is the wonderful double faculty, the sinniger * Verstand, with which Haym, for his own purposes, comphments Hegel. In this reference the following passage is worth quoting for additional illustration : — It is easy to see that this vacillation between the preference which is given now to the pure Spiritual and now to the Eeal has its foundation in the ambiguity of the Hegelian mood of mind generally. It is the same vacillation that makes him declare at one time the reality of the state, at another the ideality of art, religion, and science, as the most consummate truth of the absolute spirit. It is the same vacillation that sends him to seek the greatest satisfaction now in the practical establishment of a vigorous and capable Grerman State, and now in the philosophical construction of a harmonious Ideal State rounded into itself. It is the same vacillation that • It is difficult to translate tlie baUy botli its etymological and sinniger of Haym. The diotionai-y ordinary senses in his mind. It senses are : sensible, judicious, seems to convey to him a sense at thoughtful, circumspect, ingenious, once of subtle (even crafty) and well-devised, &c, Haym has pro- realistic. HEGEL S COMMENTATORS. 479 leads him to work the concrete into his Logic and Metaphysic, and then again in his Eeal philosophy to rarify the concrete into abstractions. It is the same vacillation that on every point of the system causes the tongue of the dialectic balance to swing now over to the actual, and now — though in the ever-identical tendency of the ' Realising ' of the moments — to swing back to the notional. On this ambiguity the whole system rests. From this ambiguity the whole dialectic feeds itself. It is the bottom and the root, the life and the move- ment — it constitutes the worth and the worthlessness, the strength as well as the weakness of this philosophy. The philosopher is quite the same as the pedagogue (Hegel is now at Niirnberg). The inconsequence of the latter is the incon- sequence of the former. Here as there, in fine, the pre- ponderance inclines periodically now to the one and again to the other of the two sides. It inclines at the present period to the side of the abstract and logical. At the same time at which the philosophy of the Spirit is, in the Encyclopaedia, enriched by a new section in being carried up beyond the System of Ethics into the consideration of Art, Eeligion, and Science, at that same time it is declared that a philosophical education in public schools must apply itself to the abstract form — that the abstract is not merely in itself the earlier and the truer, but also the easier and to the pupil the more intel- ligible ! . , . The most essential result of his scholastic activity (at Niirnberg namely), the special memorial of this epoch of Hegel's life lies before lis in the three volumes of the ' Science of Logic ' (pp. 289-91). The vacillation, the ambiguity dwelt on here is but misintelligence. The reason seems to he in this, that the oscillation of the dialectic is altogether misunder- stood and mis-named. Vacillation is in very truth the absolutely last word that it should occur to anyone to attribute to Hegel, who, as much as any man that ever lived, is always consistent with himself. The reality of the state, of nature, &c., and the ideality of art, of logic, &c., have aU of them their prescribed places — ■ 480 THE SBCEKT OF HEGEL. they interfere not with each other, and Hegel looks through aU and over aU from the beginning. How differently Haym would speak did he know the Be- griff, did he truly know the origin, principle, and matter of Hegel ! It is the very essence of the science itself that there should be ever and everywhere a factor or moment of ideality and a factor or moment of reality, and that the latter in the end should always be subordinated to the former. We have seen already Hegel enunciate the advantage of abstract instruction at the commencement of study, and we feel that it really requires no very special knowledge of the man and his work to understand that the theoretic writing in the Encyclopaedia and the practical prescripts of the Niirnberg Gymnasium nowise clash, and that it is only externality of view that could possibly be tempted to make them clash. Haym himself, with acceptance, points out elsewhere that Hegel demon- strates ' the abstract' to be at present the nearest and most current to us. In fact, the extract is a very ex- cellent specimen of the worth of mere hterature. These words, in literary reference, are perfect : no general member of the public, hearing them, but must yield to the delight and the seeming instruction they convey. No trick, no air, no antithesis of such balanced charac- terisation fails. The very breadth is in keeping with the edge, the fullness with the point. It seems deci- sive ; yet is it but words. Go and see Hegel handle a Kant, and know the difference between a thinker and a litterateur — ^between the sohd aliment that fills and feeds, and the brilliant gas that but inflates and makes windily to reel. — Hegel's logic the most essential re- sult of his scholastic activity ! This is in one apex, the type of the entire business. Does anyone believe HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 481 that Hegel's Logic is the result of his temporary em- ployment as schoolmaster at Niirnberg, when forced by Napoleon's Prussian campaign to degrade from his Professorship at Jena ? Does anyone behove that we should not have had the Logic, and essentially the same Logic — its roots lying in quite another soil — though Hegel had never seen Niirnberg ? Why fill up paper with these emptinesses, then — ^this mere playing at causative relations, at connective articulations ? Is this aught else than a sort of customary Tarantula- dance of what is called Literature ? Will the slowest to beheve this any longer doubt when he is told that Haym cannot restrain himself from deriving the Bau of the Logic from the Bau of the Niirnberg street- gables ? Haym accentuates elsewhere also, and at great length, the incongruity that seems to lie between the pretensions of the Logic as the pure truth, and those of the Philosophies of Nature and the Spirit as also the pure truth, and asks where is the special seat of Hegel's Philosophy. This is from the outside and beside the point. The incongruity, however, is held up to reprobation by the same method of dexterous literature. Haym, however, would never have seen incongruity, had he been able through Hegel to see Eeciprocity, the animating reciprocity of the undeni- able actual. To Haym, then, ambiguity is the product, and sin- niger Verstand the instrument. It but suits the case that this instrument should, as we have seen, be itself an ambiguity — should be itself, even like the rest of the business, an ambiguity and a blur, — confusion which every new shift but worse confounds. Had Haym been but able to look from the mside instead of VOL. II. I I 482 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. the out, from the centre instead of the circumference, ^liad he been but able to see the one shuttle and the one thread of the Begriff, — the incoherent and unten- able Many of a dead chaos would have collapsed before him into the One of a living organism : ... in other words, sinniger Verstand would have become anschauender Yerstand ! And now we have touched the thing with a needle : it is impossible more glaringly to put the mistake of Haym ; it is impossible more glaringly to put the self-refutation of Haym. Tliia even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of our poisoned chalice To our o-wn lips. Shall this suffice, or shall we spread — after the method of Literature — the burthen of these two simple adjec- tives over a score of pages ? Shall we form antitheses : the one is confusion, the other order, the one false- hood, the other truth, the one darkness, the other light, the one death, the other life, &c. &c. ? — Well, it is impossible altogether to resist remark here, but we shall endeavour to be short. Haym speaks (108) of the sinniger Verstand which is one of his compulsory shifts to explain Hegel, as an understanding that is ' at once accompanied and led by an instinct for the concrete, and for the concrete that lurks in the abstract: just so,' he says, ' is Hegel enabled to disentangle those threads from the notions through which it is possible to spin them into other and further notions.' Look now not from the outside, like Haym who sees only the rising up of an artificial aggregate, but from the inside to which the opposed adjectives have given entrance, and observe the wonderful, new hving, and coherent sense which these words of Haym have at once assumed ! 'An instinct for the concrete ! ' KEGELS COMMENTATOES. 483 — Yes ! — but not sucb as Haym contemplated. ' So he was enabled to disentangle the threads of the no- tions ! ' — Yes ! — but not by artifice, not by pretence, not by a sinniger Verstand that was merely glued to- gether, — no ! — but by a living anschauender Verstand, an Understanding which had come into possession of the Concrete Notion, and was filled and quickened by its hfe. That broad-painted ambiguity, then, of which Haym, ambiguously to thought if antithetically to literature, speaks as 'the worth and the worthlessness, the strength as well as the weakness' of the Hegehan philosophy, is an involuntary testimony to the success of this last. That Haym should think of a sinniger Verstand with reference to Hegel tends to point out that Hegel has succeeded in realising that anschauen- der Verstand of which Schelling made so much with reference to Kant. The presumption is thus extended to us, that Hegel has found the single unity of the AU, and from it and through it been enabled to develope the All. The lusus naturae of an impossible faculty, so far as Haym is concerned, is seen to indicate the very inmost secret of the very latest philosophy ! It is true that Hegel would conduct the universe into Totality, into a single life, and Haym's error is in assuming the process to be only ambiguity. Hegel simply believes in God, believes that the universe is Grod's ; believes that in God, therefore, all rounds itself to Totahty. Totality, then, is the one funda- mental truth, and Hegel has only sought the clue to it. When Haym talks of Spirit as this clue, he is nearer the truth than when he forgets it for his sinniger Ver- stand. God is a Spirit, and Man, made in the image of God, is a Spirit, and the life of a Spirit is Thought. The early notes, however, in what is called the I I 2 484 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. Straggle to Hegel, show that knowledge to this ex- tent conies from the surface and from the first ; and Haym caimot really name the whence, the how, the lohat of this Spirit. He can only talk of its analogy; he cannot reahse, he cannot effect its fusion into the diversified material. Haym says of this movement: ' This dialectic, to beheve Hegel, is nothing else than the principle of all natural and mental life : the re- verse is the truth, — natural and omental life is the principle of that dialectic' (p. 320). To reverse, is to misunderstand, Hegel : but what, after all, does the reversal amount to ? Would it be wrong in Hegel to make natural and mental life the principle of his dia- lectic ? Where else would Haym have Hegel look for the principle of his dialectic ? Again, if natural and mental life thus identify itself with the dialectic, shall we not prefer to regard the latter, or abstract element, as the principle, and the former, or concrete element, as the realisation of the principle ? But, take it either way, let it be said with Hegel that the dialectic is the principle of reahty, or let it be said with Haym that reality is the principle of the dialectic, we have in both ways the same result — an identification of Logic and the Actual ! Are they, then, not to be identified ? Are Logic and the Actual for ever to confront each other divided by the impassable chasm of an irreconcilable difference ? What were Logic thus separated, thus inapphcable? What were the good of Logic, if it is not to be con- ceived as the thought, the principle, of the Actual? But this is just Hegel's attempt : he would reahse and systematise the identification of Logic with the Actual. Why, then, should Haym stigmatise this attempt as 'self-contradictory in itself,' as 'a confusion and cor- HEGEL'S COMMENTATOES. 485 ruption of the understanding and its conscience?' Idealism would result, but that need not scare us. That we are here to think, involves the virtual identity of thinking with that which it thinks ; for to think is to assimilate. Eeahty and Ideality must be set equal; the breadth of the universe is the reciprocity of Eeahty and Ideahty ; but the single pivot of rotation is Ideality itself. Nevertheless, though, in this way. Thought and Perception are virtually identical ; there is no necessity to confound opposing spheres. Can it be else, then, here, than that Haym has just missed the matter in hand, and ah. the while been but beating the air ? It is the problem of problems that Hegel would solve, and not the contradiction of contra- dictions that he would only cloak : his crime to Haym is his virtue to the Absolute. Nay, Haym himself means nothing else, though he does not see it, when he accentuates the Eeal and would have us seek wisdom in the Concrete. When the whole Concrete had disappeared, resolved into the Wisdom which Haym contemplates, what were this Wisdom but the Thought of the Concrete — Logic? The assthetic element and the logical element must, in the end, coincide ; and of the two ways of putting this, — dialectic is principle of life, hfe is principle of dia- lectic, — is not the alternative of Hegel the more legitimate and correct ? Haym, thus, would seem unable to bring his own thoughts together. Like a true litterateur, he riots in the infinite out of one an- other of Perception ; Ideas, Thoughts, Notions, are as casual and diverse organisms that delight him there ; but he is unable to bring the different of Perception into the unity of the Understanding. This purblind- ness seems strange in a spirit so vivid, but— (witness 486 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. tlie German Ideals that were yet Greek Ideals) — it is a true trait and constant. Haym, in truth, is perhaps very nearly exclusively concerned with the perfecting of his merely literary picture ; and that is largely accomplished by the liberal use of that peculiarly literary expedient, the supposi- titious es soil. That is, Haym gets within Hegel, and reports to us how Hegel sketches out his work before him by a ' this shall be done,' and ' that shall be clone ; ' but Haym all the time is lapped only in his own dream. This soil and sollen (v. p. 316 and the volume passim), this ascription of plausible genetic motive, grows into a very happy literary structure, which, however, just builds the philosophy it would enclose — out. There are deliverances of Haym in reference to Being and Nothing, Finite and Infinite, Qualitative and Quantitative, &c., which might be used towards the same general conclusion here of contradiction and defective information ; but enough probably has in that respect been now said, and we may remind only of the wonderful and true metaphysic which we have seen these points really to contain. It throws Hght just to know that Haym (291) is surprised Hegel should speak of ' Philosophy being as docihle as Geometry ; ' and there is a little mistake, on Haym's part, about Eeason, which it is perhaps worth the trouble to cite. One aspect of the duplicity which Haym sees in Hegel concerns the contrast which this latter exhibits of the remotest unreality in the extravagance of his specu- lation, and of the nearest reahty in the sobriety of his understanding. Now the ' Eeason' of the following sentence (269) is supposed by Haym to stand for this said sobriety of understanding. ' That " Eeason " which HEGEL S COMMENTATORS. 487 a reader of Hegel's philosophical writings,' says Haym, ' might easily mistake for an element wholly apart, is curtly defined as the capabihty of "being awake, of seeing in all, and of saying to all, what it is." ' Eeason here, however, is not simply vigilant common sense ; it is more than that, — it is trans- cendental reason, dialectic reason, speculative reason, Hegel's reason, Eeason Proper, which, when employed on one moment of a concrete, wUl not allow its own abstraction to bhnd it to the other : it will keep ' awake,' it will see ' all,' and it will sayjo all, ' what it is.' In the obhquity of Haym towards Hegel there mingles, as we would now point out, a certain political bias. PoHtical bias, inde'ed, what we may caU a sort of Fichtian flame of Liberalism, is a chief characteristic of Haym ; and he cannot view with patience the con- servatism of Hegel, whom he seems almost to suspect of simple ratting. This comes forward in what he says of Hegel's inaugural address at Berhn. The address itself, we may remark, is very short and very plain, but in its matter pecuharly rich. Hegel begins in it by expressing pleasure at the wider sphere of usefulness extended to him by his new position, now and here : now that peace promises scope for philosophy; and here in a centre of civihsation that has so distinguished itself Now this last topic receives but a word — a word, too, perhaps tamer than is usual and conven- tional in aU such circumstances — yet to Haym ' the sum of this address consists in the demonstration of the mutual affinity and necessity of the Prussian Go- vernment and the HegeUan Theory !' (P. 357.) Something of the same spirit sharpens the chuckle : ' thus runs the iiaive self-confession of the Absolute 488 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. Idealism that it is not absolute' (p. 387). Hegel, in his works, stands so perfectly self-consistent as regards what is absolute and what is not absolute in his mode of look- ing, that both ' self-confession ' and ' naive,' as words quite ahen, simply surprise. We have but to read the Begriff der Natur with which the Naturphilosophie opens to obtain the necessary conviction here. There is an allusion to Jacobi which is not dis- crepant. ' This is the first instance,' says Haym, referring to a certain identification of himself, on the part of Hegel, with the philosopher just named, ' of that Geneigtheit des Concordirens und Paciscirens, that trick of making union and peace which, later in the philosophy of Eeligion, as in reference to the Dog- matic of the Church, reached its acme ' (p. 346). Now this is not the first example of the tendency in question, nor were it very easy to point out where that first example is contained, unless we just say that the first sentence written by Hegel, after he reached years of discretion, constitutes such example. Erom first to last Hegel has no object whatever but this Concordiren and Pacisciren. The Aufklarung, or Illu- mination, by the light of Private Judgment, has gutted humanity of its whole concrete substance : Hegel would restore this substance but — in this hght. Tliis is the whole — there is nothing but this in Hegel — and this is a compromise. It is this compromise, however, which Haym does not understand — certainly not in its grounds — and which, therefore, he -jeeringly names a ' Concor- diren and Pacisciren.' Now what else was the action of Jacobi than to take stand by this very substance the enlightened gutting-out of which it was the precise object of Hegel to undo? What wonder, then, if Hegel pointed out that what Jacobi sought to realise KEGELS COMMENTATOES. 489 by the method of Sentiment, and in a consequently rhapsodic* form, he himself had realised by the method of knowledge, and in a consequently exact and necessary form ? Haym's dissatisfaction with certain of the Hegehan religious tenets is on the same platform. ' Only the long predominance,' he says, ' first of the Kantian and then of the Hegelian philosophy, has availed to obscure the simple truth, that Eeligion, quite as much as Speech or as Art, is a specific mode of expression of the human spirit ' (p. 399) ; and, again, ' an offensive coquetting at once with orthodoxy and philosophy became the order of the day, perplexed the head and the conscience, and ate Hke a cancer into the sound reason of our nation as into its character for straight- forwardness ' (p. 431). If conclusions are to be drawn from these allegations as regards the tendency of the religious teaching of either Kant or Hegel, and as regards the nature of the religious belief especially of- the latter, great injustice will be done both. While there is nothing in the teaching of Kant that could avail to obscure the ' simple truth ' spoken of, that ' simple truth ' is the special belief of Hegel. Again, the compromise sought by Hegel between Eeligion and Philosophy is frank, open, unconcealed ; and it is only the jaundiced or clouded eye of a Haym that, in a bearing so simple, could see the base and disreputable coquetting which he at least lays at the door of the system. But, as already hinted, it is Hegel's pohtical teaching * Mhapsodic is here used in the sion or perversion of the original Kantian, sense wiioh has reference Greek nse of the word : scholars to a process of contingent and dis- think that pairniv aniS-tiv refers to connected match. This is an in ver- a, continuous recitation. 490 THE SECRKT OF HEGEL. that Haym regards the most obliquely. He attacks, for example, with the greatest keemiess the celebrated dictum, ' what is rational that is real, and what is real that is rational.' We are spared, however, the trouble of any defence here ; for Hegel's own, in the beginning of the Encyclopaedia, is ample — such, indeed, that it is rather surprising to find Haym repeating what Hegel himself had already met. In fact, he who knows the Hegelian Philosophy at all, knows that 'the logical forms are the living spirit of the actual, and that only of the actual is true which, hy virtue of these forms, is through them and in them, true.' * As belonging to the liberalism of Germany, to know the better and to will the better are two of Haym's presuppositions. We may fancy with what feelings, therefore, he watches the grim contempt with which Hegel casts an utterly extinguishing thunderbolt or two at the shallowly conceited Besserwissen as at the shallowly sentimental BesserwoUen of the modern — let us say revolutionist. Haym's astonishment is inde- scribable. So many things are aU wrong, — it seems so natural to him that it should be thought right to know better and to wiU better. Especially to will better — why is not that virtue itself ? It is not won- derful, then, that Haym terms this portion of the system — though, surely, it is not difiicult to see that Hegel founds his contempt on the mere empty sub- jectivity of the bulk of those who raise the cries immoral, sophistical, and a tribute only to the quietism of the conservative re-action. He accuses it of neglect- mg the concrete inner of man, of degrading willing into knowing, and of ignoring individual subjectivity before a mere universal. Hegel's political system * Hegel's Encyclopaedia, § 102. The translation is exact. HEGEL S COMMENTATOKS. 491 coheres with his theory of morals ; and, as not bhnd to this connexion, Haym disliltes the latter also, and for reasons that relate to this same subordination of the individual to the universal and of will to thought. Fortlage, in a work already cited, speaks of Hegel having ' rolled forward the foundation-stone of a more intelligent conception of the historical development of States, of positive law and pohtical justice ; ' and this is the truth. Hegel is nowhere greater than in the Practical sphere — in that sphere, namely, which relates to morality, pohtics, and what in general concerns action. Whatever may be imperfect in Hegel, not so is his theory of morals, which, as only behoved the fol- lowing out of the Ethical principles of Kant, has placed the whole subject in such sohdity, breadth, and con- summation of development as will yet, if we mistake not, lead to many most important changes in the social arrangements of Europe. Yes, it is true that subjectivity qua subjectivity is not the true practical principle, and that it must give way to a universal. In the practical field, subjectivity that would be subjectivity is simply Evil, the Bad, and all that can be called such ; whereas subjectivity that would be the universal is really all that we possess as the Good. In the interests of the universal the in- dividual must harness himself. In general, the pro- babihty is that — through Hegel — we are on the point of receiving political principles at last, and of attaining to the possibihty at length of a nation governed. Is it, then, government — and this is not only what is prac- tically done, but with much pomp even theoretically laid down nowadays— to wait for the voices of the governed, and then to move only with such calcu- lated slowness as shall just anticipate any outbreak of 492 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. impatience on the part of the same governed? If Hegel is correct, there are objective principles which, by teaching us the right, render us independent of the shallow conceit and shallow sentimentality of the bulk of those vain subjectivities that so commonly k7iow better and would better than their neighbours. But these objective principles require quite another knowledge and quite another will than these same sub- jectivities can extend to them. It were easy to dilate here ; but enough has been said to suggest probably that the utterances of Haym in this reference have been singularly rash and inconsiderate, and counte- nance the assertion of his erroneous and external po- sition to the Hegelian system generally. It cannot be denied, nevertheless, that Hegel, in his actual connexion with the Prussian State, seemed to play — at least weakly — into the hands of the aristo- cratic re-action. This was a grave error ; this was, on the part of Hegel, to do vast injustice to liim- self. If the place of the Philosopher was very cer- tainly not at the side of insensate revolution, neither was it — and quite as certainly — at the back of selfish, brutal, and merely aristocratic obstruction. Hegel the staunch bull-dog of Prussian pigheadedness aud pride that honoured his inferior blood when it em- ployed his talent — this is a position of all possible the most preposterous and pitiable ! It is not im- possible, however, something to extenuate the blame of Hegel. Hegel's life had not been one of pro- sperity, of uninterrupted advance. Por six years an humble house-tutor, for an equal period Schelling's unknown second, and at the same time an unintelligible and almost unattended sub-professor (though holding any actual professorship only for a few months), for HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 493 two years, being ' in want of all other means of sub- sistence,' editor of an inconsiderable journal, for eight years a mere schoolmaster in Niirnberg, and reaching his true place at length in Berhn only at the ripe age of 48, — pain, disappointment, difficulty, mortification — in a word, humble-pie had been his only nourishment from the moment he stepped out of sanguine student- Ufe into the chilling world. At Berhn he was at last in full sunshine ; no wonder that he opened to the heat, that he chirruped to it, that in thought he truckled to the givers of it. In thought to truckle to such benefactors is natural to universal mankind. But how is such truckling in thought to be translated into action by an awkward, inexperienced, unac- quainted recluse of books ? It is only the accomplished world-man who knows what is his own, and, with that, when to speak and how to speak, when to act and how to act, when to take offence and how to take offence. Most book-men are in such matters — babies ; apt, perhaps, to fall into convulsions if obhged to ask change for a shiUing ; now pocketing with an insensate smUe, what men of the world would throw off with a glance of the eyes, or receive on the edge of a still keener joke ; and now with hysterical eloquence, or maniacal violence, furibund in demeaning positions, which these same men of the world never would, or never could, have entered, or which — if by some evil star they had been once for aU flung into them — they would have been but too happy to be allowed to quit, in submissive silence and with their heads down. The natural truckling in thought to exalted benefactors is but too apt by such bookish innocents to be translated into a truckling in fact, — and they cannot help it. Hegel was a vigorous piece of mother-spun Suabian 494 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. manhood undoubtedly; but he was a recluse of books, he had tasted the bitters of adversity, he had had to creep for his bread : place him now at once in the position and with the associates that, however far off, he had always by presentiment known as his own ! Would he not be innocently pleased to find that his book-theories were able to lend an even welcome aid to the great state-policies of those high and mighty names which had been familiar to him from the dis- tance, and whose bearers were now in personal con- tact with him ? He was now one of them himself ! He was a power in the State ! It is in the same way we would reduce to ordinary human motives the action of Hegel with reference to Schelling. There was a certain cunning, a certain cal- culation in the approaches of Hegel to Schelling at Jena, and in the relative position he assumed there. He undoubtedly stood as SchelHng's adherent, as Schel- ling's second, and he undoubtedly knew that he had voluntarily given himself something of this air in order to ob'tain the benefit of Schelling's introduction and support. Nevertheless to Hegel, in the unclear con- sciousness to all such matters of a mere book-man — shall we say of a mere pedant ? — the whole thing was very differently named. He longed keenly for a cer- tain advantage, he knew that he could identify Schel- ling's philosophical platform so far with his OAvn. So far, then, said innocent book-cunning to him, propitiate Schelling, and obtain this thing you so long for. This cunning, equally with the Berlin truckling, we believe to be a feature of the innocence and babiness incidental to a fife of mere books, and the impressible, egoistic, inwardly-Hving men who usually adopt such. Cunning, too, it undoubtedly was, for, when Hegel appeared in Kegel's commentators. 495 Jena, he had brought with him the Frankfort Sketch of his System ; and that sketch proves him to have then penetrated to the ultimate generahsation of Kant — to the BegriflT. The hysterical vehemence with which he called some one ' in so many words a liar,' who had given his relation to Schelhng its coarsest name, throws hght on Hegel's own feehngs and on the theory of his general action now propounded. In the same way, the defence he sends up to the Prussian Govern- ment in reference to the Eoman Catholic Priest who had taken umbrage at his language as regards the mouse that nibbled the host, illustrates his frame of mind as man of books that knew himself a functionary of the State and — on the right side. It is always to be seen, however, that what Hegel did say as regards Sclielhng at Jena, did not compro- mise him as said, but as interpreted, — though, at the same time, it must be confessed that the unnecessary and cruel bitterness with which he afterwards threw off Schelhng contrasts unfavourably with the calculated language of suppression and accommodation with which in the first instance he had taken him on. Similarly, the conservatism of his writings is a genuine result of his researches and convictions ; as there it is without motive from considerations of the State ; and he erred only in the too prominent pleasure mth which he observed that it was capable of application to the iaterests of the day. Hegel manifests the same bookish simplicity of obsequiousness, together with a congruously innocent irrepressibleness of dehght, in his relations with Gothe. When Gothe quotes him, he cannot help appending to the passage quoted a notice of the honour done it. In every correspond- ence that takes place between them, too, — seeing that 496 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. there is on one side a — certainly not larger — sort of German Voltaire, and on the other the deeper Ari- stotle of a modern Europe, — the superiority of Gothe both as given and taken, is surely of a veritably bookish innocence on the part of both. Usage of the world seems requisite to make a book-man know where his own honour lies ; and certainly roughing of the world were not amiss where this same world's success may have stiffened a book-man into so much ridiculous starch. It is in this manner we would attempt to scratch off some appearance of ambiguity from the action of Hegel ; but, be all this as it may, we hold with perfect conviction, as against Haym, that not only is he honest in his moral, pohtical, and religious position, but that that position is the ripest outcome of his reflexion and the special sphere of promise to us. In the state of his behef, however, we cannot feel surprise at the sentence which Haym in the end has pronounced on Hegel. A few extracts wiU explain : — An intelligent contemporary of Hegel, a man of action, who, indeed, knew not how to speculate, but only so much the better how to judge, has compared the Hegelian Logic to the gardens of Semiramis; for in it abstract notions are art- fully twisted into Arabesques : these notions are only, alas ! without life and without root. With the practical philosophy of Hegel, it is not otherwise than with his metaphysic. Where he persuades himself that he is most and deepest in reality, he penetrates only superficially into its outside. His practical notions have also the withered look of plants that root only in the flat surface. In the entire depth of individual life, in the concrete inner, lies the mighty motive and matter of reality. Into this richest mine of living actuality the absolute idealism disdains to descend. It esteems subjectivity only so far as it has ceased to be subjectivity and clarified itself into the universal. Hence the superficialising of willing HEGEL S COMMENTATORS. 497 into knowing; hence, moreover, the disregard manifested for what is subjectively spiHtual in general, and with it for what is individual. (Pp. 374-5.) The Logic, briefly to sum it, is the sustained attempt to intensify and concrete abstract thought as such by means of the fullness of the totality of the human spirit, and, by means of the fullness of actuality. Contradictory in itself as is this attempt, it must be desig- nated from the stand-point of living spirituality, from the stand-point of religious and aesthetic conception, as a crude and tasteless barbarism ; while from the stand-point of pure rationality, it must be designated as a confusion and corrup- tion of the understanding, and of its conscience. ... In a dogmatic and uncritical, in a confused and barbarous form, the Hegelian Logic has been the first fraudulent attempt at such a Grnosology and Philosophy. . . . That was, I repeat it, a rude and coarse manoeuvre, resting on a palpable confu- sion and confounding of what is of the understanding, and of what is of the concrete spirit. (Pp. 324-27.) This is plain. Whatever of external /orm may have been seen by Haym, it is evident that he has missed the origin, the principle, and the matter. Of these he has even said what must be held to be the exact reverse of the truth. It is impossible, indeed, to mistake the nature of this conclusion ; it is impossible to fail to see that in Haym's opinion the Hegelian Logic is an utter and — what is worse — a fraudulent failure. Nevertheless, as usual, contradictions per- petually turn up in Haym, as regards both failure and fraudulence ; and perhaps it is not impossible to adduce himself in confutation of himself. Some such, indeed, we have already seen ; and, I dare say, the reader has been already puzzled to reconcile, on the one hand, that marvellous faculty of sober understanding, of which he has heard so much, with failure, and, on the other hand, that marvellous labour of research (for VOL. II. K K 498 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. what, if not to see the thing, the truth ?) with fraudu- lence. The sort of double faculty into which this sober understanding converted itself by an alliance with a so-called aesthetic faculty, was so much of a contradiction, that we could only name it a lusus naturae; but these contrasts seem even worse — seem capable of being considered only irreconcilable contra- dictories. When we hear, for example (p. 328-9), that ' the allmachtige (almighty) understanding which Hegel lets operate, saw, in most cases, into the actual foundation and genuine sense of the notions, and be- hind this understanding there stood a solid knowledge, pure feeling on the whole, a sober sense, and a modest phantasy,' we feel that we have just received an express receipt against all possibility of failure — and quite as much an express receipt against all possibility of fraudulence. Failure and fraudulence, it must be said, are entirely unintelligible side by side with such endowments. But Haym is consistent with himself throughout — consistent, that is, in his incon- sistency ; he does not content himself with this anti- thesis in general or in reference to Logic only, — he carries it with him throughout the whole of his Critique. We have seen, for example, the unmitigated repro- bation which he has heaped on the Eechtsphilosophie, yet we hear presently that even the Eechtsphilosophie ' posesses an imperishable Kern (core).' This too, he says, after having spoken thus : ' Only one step, indeed, but that a great one to this self-destruction, is the Hegelian Eechtsphilosophie : it essentially has the blame of the fate, that the highest science has sunk into contempt, and stands opposite the powers of the actual almost impotent ! ' It is in a similarly dubious mood that Haym finds himself in presence of the Ee- HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 499 ligionsphilosophie ; but as regards the Aesthetic and the Philosophy of History his satisfaction seems simple and unmixed. 'The German people,' he assures us, ' possesses in the former an aesthetic such as no other nation possesses ; ' and, as this aesthetic ' constitutes an atoning side-piece and a correction for the Eeligions- philosophie, the Philosophy of History constitutes a no less important complement to the Eechtsphiloso- phie.' As regards the Philosophy of History, indeed, Haym expresses himself at great length, and always almost rapturously : — An energy of concrete vision (he says) accompanied here the energy of abstraction, which must have surprised him to whom it was unknown that even the Logic and Metaphj'sic had sprung from the same combination of faculties. The capacity of thinking himself into a peculiar spiritual life, and of bringing it, out from the firmly-seized centre, into an expanded panorama, was in youth scarcely so special to him as now when in age he made a second voyage of discovery into the wide realm of the life of peoples. With this talent for generalisation stood that of contraction into a single significant word, the talent of categorising and of bringing to a point, in the most admirable equipoise. Not but even the philosophy of history has a logical impress — [but] — these are thoughts of a metalline clang which cause us to forget the thin and soundless thoughts of metaphysic. (P. 451.) It 'is impossible, we say, to believe in such a mangled operation of so supreme a faculty : it is difhcult to beheve in failure ; it is impossible to believe in fraudu- lence. Compare thoughts of failure and fraudulence Avith the following : After talk of ' the bitter and unsparing thoroughness of Hegel's criticism,' his ' hard and stinging words, &c.,' Haym goes on : — Here again comes to the surface that power of an all-gene- 500 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. ralising characterisation which had contracted the entire compass of Grerman thought into a system of sharply-limited, surely-signalised categories ; here again is manifest that talent of incisive critique — incisive into the flesh and life of the opponent — that skill to operate with knife and club at once. (P. 350.) Here, before all, Hegel a-ppears in the entire mastery of his insight. Just as experienced age discourses of the worth of life, so discourses the philosopher of the worth of the intellectual and imaginative forms of his time. Com- pletely in it, he stands at the same time triumphant over it ; with every turn of opinion he is familiar ; he sees through every stand-point, and against all of them he makes good, with a superior air of quietude and urbanity, a definitive conclusion of the deepest and most matured conviction. (P. 393.) And, what is peculiar, the Hegelian delivery was most helpless there where the ordinary talent of declamation is just most at home. In narrative he foundered in an almost comical fashion. Just in what was easiest he became dull and tiresome. Just in what was deepest, on the contrary, did he move with a grandly self-assured complacency and ease. Then, at last, ' the voice rose, the eye glanced sharp over the auditory, and the tide of speech forced its way with never-faiUng words to every height and depth of the souU And that, too, not merely when the question was of fleshless abstractions, but no less when he descended into the deeps of the material outward. Even to paint epochs, nations, events, individuals, succeeded with him perfectly. Even the most special singularities and depths of the character withdrew themselves not from this gift of statement. (P. 396.) In quotation from Haym we are certainly peculiarly- diffuse, but there is an irresistible pleasure in dwelling on his vivid and perfectly successful words at aU times that he praises. Of this the reader may rest assured : however wide he may be when he censures, Haym is always absolutely home when he applauds. We may seem here to perpetrate the very contradiction on which it is our present business to animadvert ; we HEGEL S COMMENTATORS. 501 may seem here to expose ourselves to the retort : Are not the cases parallel? — if Haym is so very right when he commends, is it not a contradiction that he should be so very wrong when he blames ? — in what respect is the contradiction greater to speak well of Hegel here, but to denounce him as a fraud and a faUure there ? To this it is easy to answer : It is no contradiction to say, that though Haym has hit the /orm., he has missed the matter ; though he sees, that is, the subjective power, he is blind to the objective product, of Hegel. But it is a very great contradiction to allow a man all the attributes of success, and yet predicate failure of the very work special to these attributes ; and it is a vastly greater contradiction to portray a man, as in the last extract, who shall display every sign and token by which the true, by which the genuine shall be known and discriminated, and yet this man shall produce, nevertheless, only what is artificial, only what is fraudulent. Here in a final extract surely this contradiction, as a general attribute of Haym, is palpable : — Quite undeniably, Hegel is excelled in purity and acribie of thought by one of his fellow-labourers for the philosophic palm — Herbart. That the understanding and the actual, that pure thought and the other faculties cannot be alter- nately set equal in the manner of a Quiproquo, that between this setting equal the want of a transcendental critique of the living spirit of man remains to be filled up — this hint the disciples of Hegel may borrow from the doctrine of Her- bart. Hegel, compared with Herbart, is an inexcusable confusionary. To the position of the former, that contradic- tion is the soul of things, Herbart — with his philosophy that is wholly of the understanding — opposes the principle, that only the method of the elimination of the contradiction leads to truth and the inner soul. But not only that in power of 502 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. abstraction, in penetration and tenacity of thought, Hegel may very well measure himself with his rival — his greatness just lies in his courage to bend and to break the law of the iinderstanding. That means: he alone has had the great instinct to bring to a halt the spiritual powers wbich awoke in our nation through our classical poetry, to train them into the service of philosophy, and in this manner to let them sink into the scientific mind of the age for further purifica- tion. He was, perhaps, not altogether the greater thinker : he was certainly the greater philosopher. ' Grive up all hope,' one must call to those who even yet endeavour to avenge the fate of the neglected Herbart : the Hegelian Logic is a living term in the history of the development of the German Spirit, and will continue to exercise its powerful influence even then when the name of a Hegelian shall have as completely ceased to be heard of as those of a Cartesian or a Wolfiian. (Pp. 330-31.) Here is what Hegel would name, after Kant, a com- plete nest of contradictions. Herbart imdeniably ex- cels Hegel ' in purity and acribie of thought ; ' yet, ' as regards power of abstraction, as weU as penetration and tenacity of thought,' Hegel may ' very well measure himself with Herbart : ' Hegel of the two is ' the greater philosopher,' if not quite ' the greater thinker.' Of any difference that may exist between a thinker and a philosopher, as in reference to two such men and so placed as Herbart and Hegel, we may 'give Haym the benefit ; but what is ' power of abstraction,' if not ' purity of thought .? '—and what is ' acribie,' if not ' penetration and tenacity of thought ? ' That is to say, in the same purity and acribie of thought in which Herbart ' quite undeniably' excels Hegel, Hegel, nevertheless, may very well measure himself with Her- bart ! It may be pleasant to ring changes on hterary phrases, and no doubt it is agreeable to have the credit HEGEL S^ COMMENTATORS. 503 of incisive antithesis ; but really some consistency of thought were, witli all that, much to be wished. We are given to understand that Haym's preference of Herbart to Hegel turns on this — that while, on one side, the work of the latter, his Quiproquo of faculties, is an untenable contradiction, the want so indicated has, on the other side, been filled up by the work of the former. Herbart shall be the express antidote, the exact counter-poison to Hegel. Or, the principle of Herbart shall be the honourable and true one of the elimination of contradiction, whUe that of Hegel shall be the sophistical and confusionary one of Contra- diction itself. Yet — despite this, and despite all that superior purity and acribie of thought — ^it is the true and genuine Herbart that is to succumb, that is, like the damned of Dante's hell, to abandon all hope ; and it is the sophistical and confusionary Hegel that shall be held the greater philosopher — it is this false man's influence that shall endure when, &c. &c. &c. ! In presence of such things, one recurs involuntarily to the problem of a Providence. But, while we are lost in wonder at this extraordinary reversal of what is just and right — ^while we are engaged speculating on the possible secret reason of it, — we are suddenly quite dumbfounded to find that the precise source of the inferior virtue of Hegel is the precise source as well of his superior success, or that just for his righteousness' sake is it that Herbart has been condemned and con- signed to the place without hope ! The confounding of the understanding and the other faculties— iAg Qui- proquo, — this it was that seemed to found the inferiority of Hegel to Herbart : but, if this were so, we find now that Hegel's greatness — his ' grandeur ' — justs rests on the very ' courage with which he bent and broke the 504 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. law of the understanding ! ' To bend and to break the law of the understanding, it appears, is synonymous with bringing ' into harness to philosophy the spiritual powers which German classical poetry awoke, and so sinking these powers into the mind of the century for further purification ! ' Why, then, because of this bending and breaking, because of this Quiproquo, was Hegel denounced as a fraud and a failure ; and why is a fraud and a failure to continue, aU the same, to exer- cise on the German Spirit such a wonderful influence, when Cartesians, and Wolfiians, and even Hegehans themselves, have so completely gone to the dogs, that their very names are lost ? It is quite possible — it is pretty certain, that Hayin has here an idea in his head — an idea which we have already attempted to reduce to its true specification ; this, namely — that we have to look for wisdom in the concrete, and not in abstractions. But surely the real- isation of this idea does not necessitate a bending and breaking of the law of the understanding! Surely Haym — to whom, we have been led to suppose, under- standing is the highest faculty — by whom, just because of his supreme understanding, now Herbart and now Hegel (did this latter bend and break, then, just what he was best in ? or is it possible to exhaust the con- tradictions here?) was praised — must stand appalled before a bending and breaking of the law of the under- standing ! Surely he does not mean to say now that the Hegelian Quiproquo is the means of the realisation of his idea ! Have we not been just given to under- stand that ' a transcendental critique of the Living spii'it of man ' is what is wanted for this realisation ; and has not this critique, as the work of Herbart, been opposed to the denounced antagonistic work of Hegel ? How KEGELS COMMENTATOES. 505 tlien, after all, is it Hegel's work that gets the credit of the realisation which Haym specially desires, and which, we were led to believe, he had actually found accomplished in Herbart — and in Herbart as exultingly opposed to Hegel? But, after all, did the German Poets do what Haym says here they did do ? Has he not told us himself, that it was to shut out German Eeals, that they brought Greek Ideals, and that so, consequently, their poetry was an ' artificial Idealistic and Typic ? ' Has he not told us also, that just such was the industry of Hegel ; that he, too, with similar objects, and for similar purposes, addressed himself to Greece ? What, then, are these specially German Powers that are, nevertheless, awakened, and that are to do so much ? Here truly we have but confusion worse confounded ! Here we have but a rankness of Uterary phrase that usurps the appearance of philosophical thought ! That is it ! Haym demonstrates to the quick what difference there is between the careless abund- ance of the Litterateur, and the anxious parsimony of the Philosopher. Had Haym been but as familiar with philosophical distinctions as he is with literary images ! Images and again images, let them be bril- hant — let them but dazzle, let them but interest, and be it as it may with the unity of thought ! ' This,' says Lord Macaulay, ' may serve to show in how slovenly a way most people are content to think ; ' and it is cer- tainly strange, ' the slovenly way ' in which so brilliant a writer as Haym ' is content to think ! ' Hellenic Cosmos, this is the conclusion to which we have been brought on Hegel ; a Cosmos, of which we do not very well know what to think, — a Cosmos, of which we do not very well know what to think Haym himself thinks. To this conclusion we have been borne along on 506 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. an abounding and triumphant stream of the most bril- liant and vivid rhetoric. Not but that we have become aware, from time to time, of how this stream has been indebted for its volume to contributions from without; for we have seen gliding into it the spirit of the Pro- testant present, facts of aesthetic perception, experiences of Hegel's own life, as Niirnberg and his vocation of teacher, influences of Fichte, of Schelling, criticisms of Kant, and just, in general, as Haym says himself, ' the plunder of historical and natural actuahty.' So it is that we have been borne in triumph to this conclusion of a Hellenic Cosmos which has been — artificially manu- factured and put together, violently, coarsely, crudely, barbarously, sophistically, fraudulently, by aid of an unheard-of confusion and contradiction of facts or faculties, or both ! . . . . But in what condition are we when we arrive ? With much complacency we had remarked in the preface the singularly satisfactory pre- vious advantages and preliminary preparations pos- sessed and made by Haym for the important task he undertook. We heard, well pleased, that 'he had repeatedly lectured at the University on the life, writings, and tenets of Hegel ; ' that ' he had attained to the possession of a material that compelled him to enter into the details of the tenets and individual de- velopment of Hegel ; ' that he had procured for study ' the whole abundant treasure of the manuscripts left by Hegel,' as well as other ' most desirable communi- cations.' AU this we heard with delight ; and it was even with the intensest interest that we listened to the magnificent scheme he propotmded — a scheme by which very plainly the Hegehan secret would be at length secured. How otherwise were it possible to feel when experiencing the promise of such words as these ? KEGELS COMMENTATORS. 507 I shall not supplant and subdue metapTiysic by metaphysic, .dialectic by dialectic — not system by system. Not this ; but I shall give, at first at least and before all, an objective his- tory of this philosophy. Very certainly I propose to expound it, very certainly to criticise it:— but the ground to both, I shall win in the method of history by an analysis of its origin and development. . . . Our purpose is to conduct the current of history into a well-enclosed and fast-shut edifice of thought. ... In the place of reason there steps up the entire man, in the place of the universal the historically determined human being. It was by an abstract critique that Kant, it is by a concrete historical critique that we, with the resolution of a metaphysic abandoned by the belief of the world, seek to furnish a contribution to the purification of the science of philosophy. ... Our business is the his- torical cognition of this system. Our business is to resolve it into its special genesis and into its historical value, to follow into its very structure the power which history has exercised over it, and to discover the threads to which the progressing time could attach itself, through which this time could get power over it. Oiu: endeavour shall it be to restore it to the departed or half-departed life in which it had its foundation. Something analogous it shall be ours to effect in its regard to what for his part Hegel effected as regards the systems of his predecessors. He set them altogether in his own system. He threw over their dead bodies the mighty pyramid of his absolute idealism. It is fit that to this ideal- ism no less an honour fall. In a wider, more imperishable tomb we shall set it — in the huge structure of eternal history we shall preserve it; a place and veritably a place of honour we shall assign it in the history of the development of the German Spirit. Unfiguratively to speak : we shall see this philosophy take birth and develope itself, we shall cooperate in its production. Step by step we shall follow the growth of its originator — shall bodily transport ourselves into the spiritual environment, into the historical relations out of which his mode of thought and his entire intellectual fabric rose — shall conceive to ourselves that the influences of deve- 508 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. lopment, the intellectual and the moral instigations which worked on Hegel, work also upon us, and shall then inquire whether we should have allowed ourselves to be determined by them, should have employed and formalised them, should have decided in their regard in the same manner as he. (Pp. 2, 11, 14, 8.) Penetrated by the wonderful promise of these and other such words, we had listened breathlessly from the first, and never for a moment flagged. As for that, indeed, we were never allowed to flag : perpetual incitement, rather, even goaded us into a preternatural intensity of attention. ' Hold we a moment in ! ' ' Let us take it more objectively ! ' ' Turn we now the leaf, sharpen we our memory, strengthen we our attention!' ' We have reached the point to understand the univer- sal articulation of the Hegelian system ! ' ' Learn we it at last in its entire peculiarity ! ' Goaded by such prickles, how otlierwise can we arrive than breathless, haggard, worn, and — at such a finale — after such pro- mises, through such torments of disappointment and contradiction, with the echoes of such cries of excitation still in our ears — at such a finale — Hellenic Cosmos, still Hellenic Cosmos, nothmg but Hellenic Cosmos ; how can we but stare and stagger, how can we but wanly, ^vildly smile and ask, as we choke. Hah ! is that it ? Ah ! we remember the pride with which we joined in the exclamation of Haym : ' No longer shall either the logical abstractness or the linguistic barbarism prove a hindrance to our intelligence ! ' But we are ashamed now. We heard, with a smile, Haym declare of Hegelian formulas : ' No doubt that he who were so instructed, would find himself quite in the position of the student to whom Mephistopheles, disguised as Paust, holds the first prelection on the method of KEGELS COMMENTATOES. 509 academic study; no doubt that lie would understand nothing of the whole of it, that these formula would appear to him very strange, and their identification very confused.' With a smile of superiority and pity we heard this, for we beheved what Haym assured us in regard to our own knowledge — ^we beheved him when he said : ' They (these formulae) can no longer appear to us as a witch's rhyme ; they will appear to us only as an abbreviation for a view of things which is now perfectly intelligible to us, not only in its mean- ing, but in its historical genesis and real value.' We smiled with pride, pity, and superiority then ; but when we look back to the very occasion on which Haym made these declarations (p. 220), we find that, despite his protestations, he had given us no keys whatever, unless those very formulse at which he pretended to smile — Substance is Subject, the Absolute is Spirit, the True is System; — we find this, and by as much as we were proud then, by so much are we dejected now. It can seem, indeed, as if Haym had been but chaffing us. Where is the ' view of things ' which is to be ' perfectly intelHgible to us ? ' Where is the Hegelian ' genesis ' which we are supposed to be so much at home in ? What is, then, that ' real value,' of which the knowledge is so coolly attributed to us? We know nothing of these things — with aU the phrases we have learned. The article on Hegel in the ninth edition (1844) of the Conversations-Lexicon contains the following : — The Hegelian System — through its connexion with the Identitatsphilosophie, through the original and (at cost of those logical laws on which all the sciences directly repose) dearly-bought novelty and seeming depth of its method, through the semblance of a universal knowledge that 510 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. equally embraced God and the World, througli the imposing confidence with which it presented itself as the sole possessor of ' rational ' thought, through the captivating symmetry of its arrangement, through the unremitting labour with which its originator, supported on a wealth of knowledge, continually applied himself to the following out of the fundamental thought of his system even into the most concrete phenomena, — finally, through the favour of external influences, which is not by any means to be considered of small account — had acquired a great and extensive influence. . . . He saw the necessity of a thinking development of what ' the intellectual intuition ' meant. This necessity, taken together with — what is common to every Identitatssystem — the proposition of Spinoza, that the order and connexion of our thoughts is the same as the^order and connexion of things, — may be regarded as the natural germ of the peculiar method which gives to the Hegelian system its specific character. There is nothing here that can be considered widely different from the external view of Hegel, which is common and current everywhere. Now, while it is quite certain that Haym adds nothing to this, it is not quite certain that he either says all this, or says as well this. In particular, we may instance the proposition attributed to Spinoza, which is the same thing but in an infinitely more penetrating form than the ' Spirit ' of Haym. To what end, then, has Haym written ? — to what end are his whole five hundred brilliant pages ? Are these aught else than the glitteiing bubbles of mere literature, that, after the manner of bubbles, presently die out, as with a murmur at their own inanity ? Is it that Haym, known to have been engaged on Hegel, felt himself obliged, for his own credit, to say some- thing of Hegel ? Is it that all this — all this brilUant rhetoric and all this perfect literature, all these adroit turns and all these expert antitheses, all that is unhesi- HEGEL S COMMENTATORS. 511 tatingly arrogated, and all that is unhesitatingly denied, — is it that all this^— and we have taken every care, at least, to examine and inquire, — is it that all this is but Haym's way of saying, the grapes are sour ? Of the three writers we have passed under review, Eosenkranz is the most at home with Hegel. He has evidently read him faithfully — most faithfully. Nor could he so read without attaining to a very satisfactory insight into the general spirit of his author. We have con- vinced ourselves, however, that he has remained out- side — that he has missed the focus and centre of the single secret. Indeed, the failure of a spirit so vivid as Haym — coming after Eosenkranz — testifies to the failure of the latter as well. If these three have failed, then, we may rest assured that no other has succeeded ; for — so far as general evidence " of books can be depended on — these three, of aU who have approached the subject, are the latest and the best, and ought to be amply representative of whatever has pre- ceded them. The general failure of Germany and of Europe in this matter must seem extraordinary ; but when we think of the failure of a man so pecuharly endowed and so peculiarly placed as Schelling, we are left but small room for wonder at the failure of the rest. SchelHng opined that the system was but 'Wolffianism,' and that Hegel himself was but the ' purest exemplar of inner and outer Prosa.' We take leave to think differently. Only a maker, only a faculty of the intensest poesy could move as Hegel moved. It is possible that what the imagination of a Homer or of a Shakspeare saw — compared with what the imagi- nation of Hegel saw — vsdll yet show but as a school- 512 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. boy's pictures on a schoolboy's books. Everything in existence — were it but a dry wall or a morsel of soap, a grain of sand, a drop of water, or the twig of a plant — is vahd and valuable only by the amount of thought it contains ; and the imagination of Hegel holds in solution the deepest, the purest, the heaviest thought of any imagination that ever lived. Yet to Haym this very thought has been ' more than refuted: it has been judged !' At the same time, it is de- clared — not quite without the usual contradiction — that ' this one great house has only failed because this whole branch of business lies on the ground ; ' ' we find our- selves at this moment in a great and almost universal shipwreck of the spirit, and of faith in spirit at all.' ' Of pretenders to the empty throne, it is true, there is no want ; we hear now this one and now that one wagered on as the philosopher of the future : now at last, timidly hope the disciples of Herbart, is the time come when posterity will do their master a tardy justice ; now many for the first time hear of the Schopenhauerian philosophy, &c. &c. The truth is — just this crowding up, this obtruding and intruding of the Dii minorum gentium is the proof of what we say — the truth is, that the realm of philosophy is in a state of complete m,asterlessness, in a state of break-up and demise.' Haym then tells us that the most rigid Hegelians themselves admit this ; that, with a timidity unlike their ancient assurance, they only plead now, ' Hegel was " still not unfruitful " for the development of philosophy ;' and that they do ' not trust themselves to decide whether the Hegehan system has yet found " its Eeinhold and Beck " or not.' Haym also asks, as if with the hope of cure for these things, ' what if science now should have only to seek a broader and surer HEGEL'S COMMENTATORS. 513 basis — for what Kant did ? ' * Now, we do not dis- pute what is so vividly described here— only we should prefer to say that, instead of Hegel having failed because philosophy is in ruins, it is philosophy that is in ruins because Hegel {who just sought said basis) has failed — to be understood ! Hence the want of successors — ■ hence the shipwreck of philosophy — hence the judg- ment on Hegel himself — hence the necessity of a return to Kant — hence the inquiry after a Beck and a Eeinhold, who were still to seek, perhaps, not only for Hegel, but even for Kant ! f * Haym, pp. 6, 6, 3, 4, 6, 13. Eeinliold, only with indirect and t This is said, howeyer, if with insufficient knowledge of Beck, direct and sufficient knowledge of VOL. 11. L L 514 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. YII. CONCLUSION : LAST WOED ON " THE SECEET," ETC. In the course of his inquest, it probably occurred ('a hght went up') to Hegel, that the one common object of the search of all of them — Kant, Fichte, ScheUing, Hegel — ^was the concrete notion. Kant named what he wanted, an a priori synthetic judgment, which amounts to a principle the sameness of which was already multiple, and this as determined independently of aU experience by pure reason, or, what is the same thing, as self-determined. Fichte aimed at precisely the same thing in his synthesis, which was to be the one of thesis and antithesis, the last, too, being a process as spontaneous, a priori, and necessary, as the second. ScheUing, again, gave direct name to the operations of both Kant and Fichte, when he spoke of the identity of identity and non-identity. Lastly, Hegel, while he felt that what he himself had been striving after was no less and no other, perceived that this very principle was the principle as well of the concrete and the actual. There was this actu^ world ; consequently, the First had been no bare identity, no abstract identity : it must have at once and from the beginning contained difference, — it must have been from the very outset a concrete, i.e. a one at once of identity and difference. Nay, such was the actual constitution and nature of every single entity in this CONCLUSIOiy. 515 universe. How did I know that door, this window, or that shutter ? The difference of each was simply the identity of each : what each was for-other, that it was as reflected into self, or each was only and nothing but its for-other reflected into its in-itself, its difference reflected into its identity, or (as even ancient logic holds, in its way, of definition — Bestimmung) its Diffe- rentia reflected into its Genus. This was the common character of the whole world, and of every denizen iij the world. Again, and, as it were, on another side, to perceive was to think, and to think was to identify difference. There is a vast amount of material which can be aU brought under this one point of view. A summum genus, for example, is a necessity of thought ; but the true name and nature of a summum genus were only identity. That summum genus, too, if it were the summum genus of this actually varied universe, must have been not more the primitive and original identity than the primitive and original difference : in other words, that summum genus must have already held within it also the summa differentia. A union of op- posites, then, was thus the one concrete fact ; and it was no wonder that — as principle of explanation — it had been the one abstract quest of Kant and the rest. It was thus seen that what we ought to look for was not, as in common thought, abstract identity, but pure negativity ; for a one that is through opposites, or an identity that is supported on differ ents, that hves, that is through these, can be named no otherwise. What is pointed at, in fact, is but the concrete reciprocity of a disjunctive sphere, where each is no less itself than it is the other. Nay, the reciprocity is such, that you cannot signalise the one without implicating the other : I- L 2 616 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. the current forward is equally the current backward. You look before to attraction; but could you look behind, you would equally see repulsion : if the one moment of the mitithesis is explicit, the other of the two is always also at the same time correspondingly im- plicit. Eeciprocity has been the bottom consideration of all modern philosophy, and it is remarkable that in just such reciprocity it began. Hume closed his in- quiry by concluding CausaUty not to be necessary because it was matter of fact ; and Kant, with a sort of reciprocating reversal, opened his by inferring Caus- ality not to be matter of fact because it was necessary. This perception on the part of Kant led to the im- portant conclusion, that there must be inferences in us quite a priori and independent of any reference what- ever to sensible facts. This single thought of Kant it was that Hegel gazed into its ultimate abstraction, or into its ultimate life, — the concrete notion, the primitive and original radical, the Eoc's egg of the whole huge universe. Study of Kant, too, enabled Hegel to see that the intent or ingest of this notion was not confined to the intellect proper, but repeated itself in perception as well ; for an act of perception was to Kant this, that only by the universal is the particular converted into the singular. This singular, further, a phenomenon to Kant as a-uvo'Kov of variety of unknown thing from without and of unity of known categorical universal from within {affection brought by function into focus), became a noumenon to Hegel, the actually existent concrete, the only reality and truth — this, by abstract- ing from any and every subject, as well as by regard- ing the universal and particular as only the abstract moments of the single singular. To find the primordial form of this singular, then, and let it by means of the CONCLUSION. 517 nisus of its own life develope, through the fullness of all and every, into the one spirit that alone is — this was to find also the system of Hegel. The ultimate of Hegel, then, is the notion as no- tion. Let us suppose a spore, a germ, and call it the notion. Now, this spore has its own life ; there are three glances in it, each of which is the spore itself and the whole spore. Such is the nature of notional universality, particularity, and singularity. They are necessary mutual complements, and cannot be disunited — unless by the fiction of abstraction. They are the constituent reciprocals of a disjunctive sphere : they are the constituent reciprocals of the disjunctive sphere; it is the unity, the all, the absolute ; they are its — (its own proper inalienable, inherent) — manifold, plurality, variety, or phenomenal show of attributes. It is the one Identity ; they are the one Difference : and identity and difference are the moments of the single concrete, or they are imiversality and particularity in the single singular. The secret of the universe is thought, the spirit of thought, whose own fife is the play of what is, and that which is, is thought in its own freedom, which at the same time also is its own necessity. The absolute is the vibration of a mathematical point, the tinted tremble of a single eye, infinitesimally infinite, punctually one, whose own tremble is its own object, and its own life, and its own seE This is what it is to be serious with idealism. If God is a Spirit and thinks, if God created the universe on thought — : in other words, if thought is what is, then aU is reducible to thought, and logic is the name of the whole. If the word ' logic ' offend, let us say "koyog ; but let us admire then our own resultant satis- faction! The three — absolute reciprocals, that is, — 518 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. may be named Simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Eeason: with these we can shadow out the whole history of man, and the whole hfe of the individual. — Ideahsm is this: the Inhalt of Simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Eeason is identical with these its Torms ; Perception is identical with Intellect ; AiFection is identical with Fimction ; Object with Subject. What is, is the ' intuitus originarius,' the anschauender Ver- stand, the one absolute Spirit — God. How very httle is required to convert the Vorstel- lung of Kant into the Vorstellung of Hegel, we may see from these words of the former : — The transcendental hypothesis, that all life is properly only intelligible, nowise subject to the vicissitudes of time, and that neither is there a beginning through birth nor aa end through death : that this life is nothing but a mere phseno- menal show, i.e., a sensuous Vorstellung of the pure spiritual life, and the entire world of sense a mere picture which hangs before our present mode of cognition, and, like a dream, has no objective reality in itself : that, did we see things and our- selves as they are, we should find ourselves in a world of spiritual natures, with which world our only true union had begun neither through birth nor would cease with the death of the body (as mere phsenomenal appearances), &c. (Krit. of P. E., Discipline of P. E., third section, last paragraph but two.) That we should be able to say the same thing in such a variety of ways, is itself a proof of the truth of the principle. The reflexion of difference into iden- tity it was, however, that Hegel probably kept in his eye when he described his dialectic in those words about each whole passing into its own opposite, which have been so often repeated without intelligence, and with the conviction at bottom that they concerned only an idle receipt, a something factitious that merely CONCLUSION. 519 would be. Collation with th e various other points of view wHcli have been just indicated will supply a correction to this conviction, however. Hegel, in short, perceiving that the reflexion of difference into identity was the one concrete principle in the world of sense as in the world of thought, must have at once seen that he had caught the principle of truth — the principle which would be at once beginning, middle, and end. There was progress in the very thing itself: if difference could be reflected into identity, difference might also be separated from identity ; and was not that the very definition of progress ? The following out of such considerations could only lead to the development of Hegel's necessary chain of units, which were, at the same time, an all. A beginning would not be difficult to find; for a beginning would require simply to be as a beginning is in thought, thought being aU. We have no admissions of Hegel's actual procedure ; we have this latter expressed in abstract results only. We have seen for ourselves, however, that a beginning is impos- sible to any outward principle. Any outward prin- ciple would at once presuppose and leave unexplained both space and time. A single outward principle changing itself into thought, changing itself into new kinds, changing itself even into new dimensions — changing itself at all — is inconceivable. A single out- ward unit that had so changed itself into this universe, would demonstrate itself to have held even at the first this universe potentially or virtually within it. This is ideahsm, but an imperfect ideahsm, time and space being left on the outside, absolutely unyielding to every attempt to pack them in. A beginning externally is absolutely impossible. The materialist, it is true, may admit this ; but probably he wiU admit that 5-20 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. a beginning must be thought. If he admit this, he will now admit also, that that beginning must be thought in an internal principle. Should he deny, however, that a beginning must be thought, he wiQ admit that it certainly very often is thought, and always, at all events, that it may be thought. But if a beginning may be thought, it must be thought only so and so. That is, as Hegel shows, the beginning must be both absolutely First and absolutely Incompound. Now, only pure Being corresponds to that description, and this is all that Hegel requires : from this, by process of simple watching, the whole universe ascends ; into this, too, it rounds, taking up into itself the incon- ceivable Firstness and Incompoundness ; for if a Begin- ning must he absolutely First and absolutely Incompound, just as much it can be neither. That what is, is the concrete notion, explains this. We have seen, also, many other considerations, as Identity, the Genus Sum- mum, the Universal, &c. &c., which could only lead to the same result. Being passes into its opposite, Non-being ; and Non- being returning to Being passes into its higher opposite. Becoming. We have already seen this process at some length. By external reflexion of the moments into each other (as of Nichts into Seyn to the development of Werden), it has already appeared to us so easy to bring about the whole Hegehan series, that a danger manifested itself, on the one hand, of the whole business being considered phantasy and delusion, and, on the other, of our being exposed to an inundation of similar attempts, with endless modifications on the part of others. It must be said, however, that Hegel, for his part, has done his best to obtain only solid results. To this end, he has carried into each element the move- CONCLUSION. 521 merit of the notion internally, and has not contented himself with the mere external reflexion of Nichts into Seyn, &c., or of Seyn into Mchts, &c. (for the process has always evidently the two directions to the evolution of the two new moments), — but has endeavoured, on this principle, to develope and demonstrate the whole con- crete matter of logic, metaphysic, &c. Nor is this a light labour. There is probably nothing in this world more oppressively difficult than to attempt to follow Hegel into the inner of his transitions ; as, for example, in Measure, or Substantiahty, Causality, Eeci- procity, &c. In these Hegel shows to us, like a man with an enormous load on his head, who endeavours laboriously, with many an ineffectual effort, many a sway, now to, now from, to turn into such a direction (that of the notion) as would immediately hghten his burthen into a new form. Nor can we enter with him into the same element without feeling the same weight imposed on us — to the utter crushing generally of our weaker powers. Hegel has not been crushed, however, but has veritably demonstrated the matter of meta- physic, logic, &c., in such perfection as far surpasses the very happiest attempts of aU his predecessors. Nor is this a weak tribute to the notion : for to the notion Hegel seeks ever to be true. Another aspect besides those of transition into oppo- sites, reflexion of moments mutually, successive func- tions of Simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Eeason, &c., on which the principle of the method may be regarded, is this : Whenever there has been coalescence to a new element, the last moments may be re-extri- cated from this element, hut in the form of this element, that is, as the new moments to a new and further coalescence. The moments, in short, always proceed in 522 THE SBCBET OF HEGEL. pairs, and in pairs that gradually ascend. Consider sucli sequences as these : Being, Nothing ; Eeality, Negation ; Somethiag, Other ; One, Many ; Attraction, Eepulsion ; Continuity, Discretion ; Extension, Inten- sion ; Identity, Difference ; Positive, Negative ; Matter, Form; Whole, Parts; Force, Manifestation; Inner, Outer ; Substance, Accident ; Cause, Effect ; Action, Eeaction, &c. Does not one see an extraordinary tautology here ? To limit ourselves to the three last pairs, does it not give to think that Substance and Accident are the same matter as Cause and Effect, and that, in Eeciprocity, what was previously Cause and Effect is now alternately both Cause and Effect ? Are we not made to see an ascending tautology here ? Nor is it very different in other spheres. These pairs will be readily seen also always to constitute what Hegel calls the Antithesis : the successive ones of their union also will be as readily seen to prove a gradually ascend- ing series till final echpse in the Absolute Spirit. It is not to be pretended that Hegel has always been successful, or that what he has done, like everything else that holds of time, is not to be — partly by rejec- tion, partly by absorption— eventually superseded. The work was too prodigious for that, the fever of the zymosis of the day much too ardent. Indeed, the instrument he has in hand brings with it its own temptations to merely arbitrary products, and the bare show of a consistent and continuous rationale : that is to say, there is a duphcity in the notion itself which steads you easily whether you would distinguish into antithesis or unite to harmony. This is a dangerous power for the architect of a system to possess: whether an impassable chasm yawn in the Object, or an exhausted faculty frustrate the Subject, the fascination of the CONCLUSION. 523 ready expedient is equally irresistible. We must lay our account, then, with finding inequaUties in Hegel — even crudities, it may be, and things that revolt. Where such side of Hegel comes most prominently to the surface is, as the nature of the element would alone lead us to expect, in the Philosophy of Nature. Here the object of Hegel is to lead the notion into the reports of nature which the concrete sciences extend ; and the inner principle finds, as Hegel takes care to make us see, the outer element only naturally stiff and refractory. Nevertheless, we have in appearance one unbroken chain from the abstractest natural object — space, through time, motion, matter, the laws of matter, light, heat, electricity, chemistry, geology, &c., up to the concretest natural object, the animal, and the last mani- festation of the animal, death ; and, no doubt, glances of the most penetrating character have been here thrown by Hegel on many of the hardest and most important matters. StiU at times the notion shows through these matters ; it is as a frame, a lay-figure, externally in their midst ; they fall off from it hke clothes that are not its own and wiU not fit. It is dangerous to read here, if one would preserve one's respect for Hegel. Rejection is at times so unexceptive, and in an element of such, feeling, that all the essential greatness of the man has disappeared for the time, as it were, behind a dwarf It is to be said, however, that the newer and lighter the look at these points, the more instantaneous and unhesitating is our sentence. Consideration duUs our disapproval, and we retire at last, perhaps, aU but won over to that in regard to which we had laughed our scornfuUest. At all events, one glance to the ' Science of Logic ' or the ' Philosophy of Spirit,' and our balance is restored ; — one glance to these — one 524 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. glance (say) to that discussion of what are called the fundamental laws of thought under Identity, Difference, Ground, &c., for which Hegel has in this country been so ignorantly decried, and this same Hegel is once again to us the absolute master of thought. It is but fair, however, that the reader should have a sample of Hegel on this side also, and be able here as well to judge for himself. In § 369 of the Encyclopaedia, Hegel thus delivers himself in regard to the relation of sex : — The first sundering of the Genus into Species, and the further determination of these into the immediate exclusive Being- for-self of the Singular, is only a negative and hostile relation as regards others. But the Genus is just as essentially affirm- ative reference of the Singular to itself in it ; so that it (the Singular), in that it is exclusive, an Individual as against other such, continues itself into this other, and has the sentiment of itself in this other. This relation is process — a process which begins with a want, inasmuch as the Individual is as Singular not adequate to the immanent Genxis, and is at the same time in one unity the identical reference of the Genus to itself: the individual has thus the the co-sentimnent of this want. The Genus is in it, therefore, as hostility to the inadequacy of its actuality in the Singular, the impulse to obtain in the other of its Genus its feeling of self, to integrate itself through this union (one-ing) with it, and through this interposition of means to shut together the Genus with itself and bring it into Existence — Generation. There are those who will burst into a horse-laugh here, and the jeering exclamation, ' And so Hegel has made the woman ! ' and the whole thing will probably appear, indeed, to most readers arbitrary and a fancy merely. Eemarking only on a word or two, we shall just leave it, however, as it is, for consideration. Genus and Generation convey, perhaps, tolerably the assonance CONCLUSION. 525 of Gattung and Begattung, which the reader is not to neglect. Similarly, the inner connexions of etymo- logical meaning in the words Process, Bediirfniss, Einzelnes, are to be observed : the singular is but one, a want, and so process follows. Gefiihl, co-sentiment or consent (or say, on the model of conscience, con- sentience), deserves particular remark, too. Hegel con- siders the Ge, which has the force of together. There is a communion, a together of two, and so the possi- bility of Spannung, divarication, resistance, here trans- lated hostility. This disunion in the communion is the Trieb, the spring, the motive, the drive to regain self- consent, self-communion ; and so on, — Hegel's special inner thoughts being guessed from the very particles he uses. The sentences in &gel immediately preceding the above will, perhaps, bring us a satisfaction just in pro- portion to our dissatisfaction with this latter. Some- what eliminating the technicality of the notion, they run thus : — Life is subjected to the complicated conditions and circum- stances of external nature, and may exhibit itself in the poorest forms. The fndtfulness of the earth lets life for every sake and in all ways strike out everywhere. The ani- mal world can, almost even less than the other spheres of nature, exhibit a rational system of organisation independent within itself, hold fast ideal forms, and preserve these from the imperfection and intermixture of conditions, in conse- quence of transitions, interferences, and confusions. Thus not only is the development of individuals subjected to ex- ternal contingencies, not only is the perfected animal (and man the most) exposed to monstrosities, but even the genera are wholly a prize to the "changes of the external universal life of nature, the vicissitude of which the life of the animal undergoes also, and is consequently only an alternation of 526 THE SECKET OF HEGEL. health and disease. The entourage of external contingency contains almost only what is alien ; it exercises a perpetual violence and threat of dangers on the animal's feeling, which is an insecure, anxious, and unhappy one. This seems much more in the way of the materiahst than of the ideahst. Allenthalhen has been translated for every sake, as the itahcs seemed to demand, but everywhere has been added. Of disease Hegel speaks thus : — The organism finds itself in a state of disease, so far as one of its systems or organs in conflict with an inorganic potence becomes excited (irritated), sets itself apart by itself, and per- sists in its special action against the action of the whole, whose fluency and all-pervading process is thus obstructed. The peculiar phsenomenon of disease therefore is, that the identity of the entire organic process presents itself as successive passage of the vital movement through its several moments. Sensibility, Irritability, and Eeproduction — i. e., as fever, which, however, as process of the whole against the individualised action is just as much the effort and the commencement of cure. The curative agent rouses the organism to eliminate the special irritation, in which the for- mal activity of the whole is fixed, and replace in the whole the fluency of the particular organ or system. The curative agent produces this effect by being itself an irritative, but one difficult to assimilate and overcome, so that an external somewhat is offered to the organism against which it is neces- sitated to exert its force. Directing itself against what is external, it steps out of the limitation in which it was imprisoned, and with which it had become identical, but against which it could not react so far as it was not as object to it. (Encyc. §§ 371-3.) Now, such speculation as this, in connexion with the pretensions of the Notion, gives pause. We feel dis- posed to ask, what is meant by ' conflict,' ' potence,' ' external irritative,' &c., and, in fine, has not Hegel CONCLUSION. 527 here just committed himself to the carriage of that very Vorstellung which he would not hesitate sarcasti- cally to blow to pieces from beneath the sitting Of everybody else ? The organism is a transparent breadth composed of myriads of ants in regular connexion and in regularly consecutive movement. An individual ant is suddenly thrown across to the production of an opaque spot, the opacity of which rapidly spreads and thickens under the misfortunes of the succeeding ants who stumble over the begun obstruction. The whole power of the general organism is now centred in that one spot. Present now a Spanish fly, or other hostile insect, at the periphery; instantly the ants flee asunder from the opaque spot, each to its post, to defend the common whole, — with restoration of transparency as the result ! We have thus a picture ; but have we more than that ? Hegel, however, might conceivably say here, it is just the Vorstellung that is in place in Nature, the externalisation of the Begriff in the ex- ternalisation of the Idee. And it is to be admitted that the greatest philosophers, as Plato and Leibnitz, have made advances by just such expedients. Nay, the progress of those who are named scientific men par excellence, Bacon, Newton, Berzelius, &c. &c., is not difierently conditioned. The most respected theories in all branches of science are at this very moment only such Vorstellungen : irritatives, coriflicts, potences, are by no means confined to Hegel. It will reward the student's trouble, if he but consider the most current speculations in the most current text-books of the day. Should he regard them as pictures and question them as such, he will astonish himself with his own results. On the whole, then, perhaps we may conclude with Hegel himself here : — 528 THE SECEET OP HEGEL. However general, and therefore in comparison with the so multifarious phsenomena of disease insufficient, the above determinations may be, nevertheless it is only the firm fun- damen of the Notion which is capable as well of penetrating and pervading the particular details as of rendering perfectly intelligible that which, whether as regards the phsenomena of disease or the principle of cure, appears to Custom sunk in the externalities of the Specific, as extravagant and bizarre. It is but fair on our part to add also, that in Hegel himself there is neither the ant nor the fly. Hegel, then, on the whole, must be considered quite as eligible for dispensation with respect to errors of detail as anybody else ; and it is on his great principles that, in the end, his merits or demerits must rest. Now, for these surely much can be said. At the one great principle itself, the Notion, on the supposition of its being fanciful, we may shake our heads ; we may be allowed to express ourselves equally doubt- fully as regards the method, which may appear to us a mere mechanical process of the easiest and at the same time the most fallacious nature : for what difficulty, or what hkehhood of soundness, can there be in the reflecting of Nothing into Being to the production of Becoming, of Negation into EeaUty to the production of Something, of Quantity into Quality to the pro- duction of Measure, &c. &c. ? But how are we to account for the results ? It may appear to us that we but alternately intricate and extricate Affirmation and Negation from the very Alpha to the very Omega of the System; but how is it that this gradual rise of categories takes place — categories* which strike down * Hegel says (Logic, vol. ii. what is said, maintained, of the sect. 1, chap. ii. Remark), ' CoiSe- Beent' (or of a Beent— of that ffonj, according to its etymolog-y which is, or of anything that is). and the definition of Aristotle, is CONCLUSION. 529 into the very heart of the actual ? Is not the very- conception of the examination of the categories as such, apart and by themselves, a master-stroke ? We go on arguing and reasoning with each other, we settle Politics, Eehgion, Philosophy, Science, House-affairs, and all through use of certain distinctions which pass current with us like poimds, shillings, pence, — ^Being, Becoming, Finite, Infinite, Essence, Appearance, Iden- tity, Difference, Inner, Outer, Positive, Negative, Cause, Effect, Substance, Accident, &c. &c., — but we have never turned upon these things themselves to ask the warrant and nature of their vahdity. To use them, nevertheless, without this inquest is not to be free, but boimd — ^is to drive about an absolute log, and abso- lutely at their mercy. This, then, must be granted as a great merit in Hegel, that he has taken these things up, and subjected them to analysis in their abstract and veritable selves. Bvit the categories are not the only Hegelian results ; there are others, and quite as striking. On many concrete interests Hegel is sup- posed to have thrown some very extraordinary and yet very acceptable lights. His Philosophy of History, his Philosophy of Eeligion, his Philosophy of Pohtics (Eecht), his Aesthetic, have given to think to the very deepest and severest thinkers. Take the Aesthetic alone (and Franz and Hillert give enough of it to judge by), it is a work absolutely unexampled, whether we consider the exhaustive completeness and capti- vating felicity of the divisions and classifications, or the unerring truth of the criticism in detail — as regards matter too, — Art, Poetry and General Literature — in which we have no reason to suppose that Hegel had ever particularly dwelt, and for which we have no reason to suppose that he was ever particularly called. VOL. II. M M 530 THE SECRET Oli' HEGEL. Now, how is this ? — whence is this immense, extra- ordinary, and unexpected success? The longer we inquire and the deeper we look, the more shall we be inclined to answer — the Notion, all comes from the Notion, the Notion does all. Just in proportion to the reality of a man's piety, too, is his insight into the penetrating truth of Hegel's statement of the act of devotion, of inward rehgious experiences. Yet in the very centre of this statement — the spirit that produced the matter — the notion can with a scratch be demon- strated to he at full length. This, then, is very striking, that Hegel should have produced such important re- sults and in such pecuhar spheres, and all in conse- quence of utter and unswerving fidelity to his one single principle — the Notion. There cannot be a doubt of it, the most momentous questions that have inter- ested humanity since the first accents of recorded time, all lie in the pages of Hegel in ultimate dis- cussion ; and this ultimate discussion has been at- tained only through the Notion. Special proof as regards these results were out of place here ; but the reader, who is now better prepared, might like to see some expressions of Hegel's own in regard to the Notion, which shall extend evidence in favour of what has been said of it in these pages. As re- marked, now that the Notion has been held up to view, almost every page wiU oiFer illustrations in place (as shown, indeed, by these very last quotations in regard to sex, disease, &c.), but it may be worth while to adduce one or two of a more striking character. Thought has its Forms Proper, the Universal of which Forms is the Notion. . . . From the Notion in the specula- tive sense, what has been usually named Notion is to be dis- tinguished. (Encyc. § 9.) In this field of Mutation and Contingency, not the Notion, CONCLUSION. 531 but only Grounds (or Reasons) can be made available. (Encyc. § 16.) The One Notion is in all and everything the Substantial. (Encyc. § 114.) The Forms of Logic are, as Forms of the Notion, the living Spirit of the Actual. (Encyc. § 162.) As the Spirit is not only infinitely richer than Nature, but as moreover the absolute unity of the Contrapositive in the Notion constitutes its essential being, it shows in its Mani- festation and Reference to Externality the Contradiction in its ultimate determinateness. (Logic, iii. p. 264.) The Notion is the Eternal, the Beent in and for itself, just because it is not the abstract but the concrete Unity — not determinedness abstractly referent of self to self, but the Unity of itself and of its other ; into which other, therefore, it cannot pass over as if it altered itself in it, just because it itself is the other, the determinedness (specific peculiarity and characterisedness); and in this passing over, consequently, it only comes to its own self. (Lc. iii. p. 268.) Das Lebendigste, Beweglichste, nur im Beziehen Be- griffene — The Livingest, Movingest, what is comprehended only in the be-referring or co-referring. (Lc. i. p. 248.) It is particularly the relation of potence or power which has been applied more recently to the moments of the Notion : the Notion in its immediacy was named the First potence ; in its Otherwiseness or the Difference, the existential there- ness (Daseyn) of its moments, the Second, and in its return into self, or as Totality, the Third potence. (Lc. i. p. 393.) The Notion which Kant has set up in the a priori synthetic judgments, — the notion of an Intercerned (a Dis-tinguished, a Dif-ferenced) that even so is Inseparable (incapable of dis- union), an Identicality that is in itself (as such) unseparated Dif-ference — belongs to what is great and imperishable in his philosophy. This Notion, AS it is the Notion itself and EvBETTHiNG IN ITSELF IS THE NoTiON, is indeed equally pre- sent in Perception. (Lc. i. p. 241-2.) Although Kant made the deep observation that concerns a priori synthetic axioms, and recognised the unity of self- M M 2 532 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. consciousness as their root — recognised, that is, the Identity of the Notion with itself — he took, nevertheless, the particu- larised interdependence (the matter of detail), the relational notions and synthetic axioms themselves, out of formal Logic as given; the Deduction of these should of neces- sity have been the demonstration of the transition of said simple unity of self-consciousness into these its characterising forms and dif-ferences ; but the exposition of this truly syn- thetic Progress, of the Notion engaged in production of its own self, Kant has omitted to supply. (Lc. iii. p. 282.) Science Proper can organise itself only through the own life of the Notion; in such science the peculiar principle, which a schema merely sticks on outwardly, is the self- actuating soul of the full-filled Intent. (Phaenom. p. 40.) After that the Kantian Triplicity — only re-discovered by instinct, y^et dead, yet uncomprehended — has been raised to its absolute import, and so, consequently, the true Form has been set up in its true Matter as well, and there has arisen the Notion of Science, &c. (Phaenom. p. 37.) These quotations will make the Hegelian Notion, and all that it imports, so obvious, — as it were, so self- evident, — that little merit wiU seem to be left for any- one who shall have signalised this. It is quite certain, however, that it was not from them that the ' light ' of the Notion ' went up ' to ourselves : before that hght went up, they were all of them read repeatedly, but till that light went up they all of them remained unyield- ingly dark. If we are right, too, though read repeatedly in all probability, they yet remain dark to the most com- petent Germans themselves. Again, it is to be con- sidered that they lie here in one focus ; whereas in Hegel they lie widely apart from, each other, scattered over hundreds of pages. Nor is it to be less considered that, while here they are direct and express, they occur in Hegel orAy indirectly, parenthetically, accidentally. We add a few more such passages which may illustrate special points in the one operation, nameable expo- CONCLUSION. 533 sition of the Notion ; and we feel assured that a perusal (to which the reader who has followed us with a know- ledge of German will now find himself — ^much to his dehght, probably — perfectly competent) of ' Vom Be- griflf im Allgemeinen' at the beginning, and of ' Die absolute Idee' at the end of the third volume of the Logic, wiU complete conviction, and definitively clinch all that we have in this respect anywhere said. To be held fast in finite categories, i. e., in the yet unre- solved Antithesis. (Encyc. § 27.) The Antithesis expressed in immediacy as Being and Nothing. (Encyc. § 87.) The second forms constitute a sphere in its Difference. (Encyc. § 85.) The Negative, the Peculiarised, the Eolation, the Judg- ment, and all the other determinations which fall under the second moment. (Lc. iii. p. 342.) That the Totality be set, to this there belongs the double transition, not only that of the one character into its other, but equally the transition of this other, its return, into the First . . . this Eemark on the necessity of the double trans- ition is of great importance for the whole of the scientific method. (Lc. i. p. 392.) It is one of the most important facts to know and hold fast, this nature of the reflexional forms considered, that their truth consists only in their reference to one another, and that each, consequently, contains the other in its own very notion; without this knowledge there is properly possible no step in Philosophy. (Lc. ii. p. 66.) The Difference (TJnterschied) is the Whole and its own moment; as the Identity is equally its Whole and its moment. This is to be regarded as the essential nature of Eeflexion, and as deteiminate 'prim.itive Ground of all Activity and Self-moveynent. Difference, like Identity, [these] make them- selves Moment or Setness (Gesetztseyn, ostensive expression), because as Eeflexion they are the negative reference to them- selves. (Lc. ii. pp. 38-9.) 534 THE SECKKT OF HEGEL. Kant has applied the infinitely important form of Tripli- city, however much it has manifested itself with him only first of all as a formell spark of light, not to the Genera of his Categories (Quantity, Quality, &c.), as also this name only to their Species : he has, therefore, not been able to get at the Third to Quality and Quantity [Measure]. (Lc. i.p. 396.) In general, every Eeal is in its beginning an only imme- diate Identity (and Identity = Ansichseyn, Being-in-self, Lc. ii. p. 202) ; for in its beginning it has not yet opposed and developed the moments, on one side not yet innered itself (remembered itself) out of externality, on the other side through its activity not yet uttered (outered, alien&teA) and produced itself out of internality ; it is therefore only the Inner as Detei^minateness counter the Outer, and only the Outer as Determinateness counter the Inner. It is thus partly only an immediate Being ; partly, so far as it is equally the Negativity which is to become the activity of the develop- ment, it is as much essentially only an Inner. In every natural, scientific, and spiritual development in general this presents itself, and this is essentially to be recognised, that the First, in that Something is only first of all inwardly or in its notion, is just for this reason only its own immediate, passive There-being (Daseyn, quasi existential breadth, exist- ential Out-being). So the Eelation here is only the Eelation an sich (in itself), its notion, or only inwardly. But on this account again it is only the external, immediate Eelation, &c. (Lc. ii. p. 181.) JustifiGation and support will be found in these extracts for many decisions in regard to the movients and their names with which the Eeader must now be perfectly famOiar. At page 94 of the first volume, and in reference to an extract of Kant which was spoken of as hkely to have been suggestive to Hegel, it was remarked of the action on the world of a beinar that can think, that it would amount to a projection of this being out around him, so that the otiier would CONCLUSION. 535 come to be only the stand for this being's qualities thereon disposed : if the reader will consult ' die Idee des Wahren,' in the third volume of the Logic, he will be struck with the singular truth of the accidental con- ception ; and he will also see reason to admire Hegel for realising this side of the Notion (for it is a side of the Notion) under Erkennen (Cognition). At page 610 of Frantz and HiUert's Hegelian Ex- tracts, we have the following from the Philosophy of Eeligion : — The Third is the elimination of this Antithesis, of this separation, this banishment of the Subject from Grod, the effecting that Man feel and know Grod within himself ; as this Subject, raise himself to God, give himself the assurance, the satisfaction, the joy to have God in his heart, to be imited with God. This is the Cultus : the Cultus is not merely rela- tion, knowledge, but act; the action to give himself the certainty, that Man is accepted by God, received into Grace. The simple form of the Cultus, the inner Cultus, is Devotion, Worship — this Mystic thing, the unio mystica. The most fervid believer that ever lived could give no better and no other account of his inner experi- ences : yet here we are in the third moment of the notion. The development of the notion through its ordinary moments has led us to this : it is fidelity to the notion and its own accurate language that has given birth to this fidelity to the vital feelings and expressions of Eehgion. The last extract suggests the propriety of a word on the Matter of Hegel — and we may say again, in pass- ing, that his Origin is directly from Kant, and more especially from Kant's Deduction of the Categories with pecuHar reference to the Unity of Apperception and the fundamental Kantian query as regards the 536 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. possibility of a priori synthetic judgments, or, what is the same thing, mental inferences independent of any reference to the facts of experience ; his Principle is the Concrete Notion so developed, and his Form or Method is his evolution of new Moments to the production of a new Whole by means of extrication, or reflexion, or opposition of these moments, or disposal of them according to the triple movement constituted by Simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Eeason, or however else we may name the operation indicated.* As regards the Matter, we may say at once, that it consists of all the questions which have ever in any sphere been re- garded as Philosophical. Probably no man that ever lived ever studied as deeply as Hegel the progress of humanity in regard to those questions which it puts for the procurement of explanation as respects its own existence, that of its world, and the constituent pheno- mena of both. A man so rich in knowledge of the Eeal, a man that had so trained himself in the actual, could not by any possibility come to us oflering only what was formal or formell, and without concrete nutriment. In an age that exacts such scientific re- quirements as the present, it is impossible that such a man, in such a position, and with such pretensions, could have treated of such interests as Logic and Philosophy, History and Aesthetic, Morals, PoHtics, and Beligion, with no result but that of an arbitrary, fanciful, idle, and all but unintelligible systematisation, and without any addition or improvement of a solid and substantial nature. This is whoUy incredible : rather, it is to be expected that Hegel has said what will » The exti-act from Kant (vol. i. pure Form, and so Ms pure Prin- p. 92), in'-what concerns pure Rea- ciple, pure Method, pure Matter, son aspure Syllogism, may, if looked and even pure Origin, deeply at, manifest itself as Hegel's CONCLUSION. 537 prove for centuries, perhaps, to come, the absolutely last word on all the great concrete interests for which alone Humanity hves, and to which alone it strives. In Logic, to consider the Categories alone abstractly and in themselves, is a glance the deepest and the truest, as the leading of them aU up into the Notion and the Idea is not only the most subtle and original feat, but probably the most important work which any philosopher has yet achieved. Consider Being alone ! What is Being ? Driven on the literary hot-bed which is given us at present, we are aU geniuses nowadays, men of rapid ideation and symbolical speech (which, I suppose, is the definition of this wonderful thing genius — often the perquisite of the weakest), — and at the very first touch of the question, we soar away up on VorsteUung, on Imagination, away up, up to the Empyrean in search of the Unimaginable — big at heart — but to return presently drooping — with No- thing ! This is VorsteUung. The Notion, however, is a cool old swordsman, takes time, moves not from the spot, and looks at the thing. What is Being ? it says, — why Being is simply presence absolutely indefi- nite — equally Nothing — hut^ this time, a seen Nothing. Being is all in general, and no one thing in particular ; and Nothing is no one thing in particular — and also all in general, for the Nothing that is no one thing in par- ticular has not destroyed a single dust-point of the all, which just remains after as before. What is, has been, and ever will be : we are in presence of the Infinite. Nay, this Infinite as much is not as it is. The is to the was is another, the was is not. Unchanged identity exists not even in a dream. The is, to know itself — even to continue itself — must other itself, must become not. Not, Not, Not, are the finks of the circle of 538 THE SECEET OP HEGEL. Identity : only by Not, Not, Not, is Identity preserved. Truly to think these thoughts, truly to think Identity and Difference, but — sub specie oeterni — is, in ultimate result, to develope the System of Hegel. The Hegelian Notions are parallel to the Vorstellungen, the myths, of all concrete History : Chaos is Seyn, Creation is Daseyn, Christianity (Vision, Love, Submission, — Intel- ligence, Union with God, Immortality) is Fiirsichseyn. And this series is but Simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Eeason, the one, single, and sole-existent logical throb ! But we must renounce any attempt to present more of the Matter, in the meantime, than has been already presented in the two sections from the Logic, and in the various extracts which have occurred to be inserted here and there. We must content ourselves for the present by simply saying again, that the Matter of Metaphysic, Logic, of the Philosophy of Nature, of Psychology, Morals, Politics, Eeligion, History, Cri- ticism, Art, has all, or mostly all, been exhaustively considered by Hegel, and if presented in freedom from the peculiarity of the form, would speedily convince all men who cared to inquire, of his ultimate and absolute mastery of thought. Nay, if even the Hegelian Notion were proved (which would require such another industry as Haym's, but on quite another platform of vision) an artifice, a poem, and a dream, the state of the case would remain substantially the same. As to that, indeed, it is to be admitted, that the Hegehan Notion has yet to receive the guarantee of a competent jury who will decide as to whether or not it goes together in the end, as Hegel says, with Notion as ordinarily used (if not seen), and constitutes, at the same time, the principle of Perception.* * At the end of Reciprocity in Ms reader, not only to understand the Logic, Hegel attempts to enable but to see the Notion. "We there see COXCLUSIOlSr. S39 Be this as it may, there can be no doubt but that Hegel's object was truth. ' That to which,' he says, ' in my philosophical efforts, I have wholly striven and strive, is the scientific Cognition of Truth.' His works, he tells us, ' have been many years thought through, and with all earnestness of the object and of scientific reqiiirements worked-through.'' He would 'seek truth but with a consciousness of the nature and value of the Eelations inherent in Thought itself, which are the uniting and determining element of every Matter (In- halt).' A great motive of his action is ' the misunder- standing, that the inadequacy of the finite categories to truth brings with it the impossibility of objective know- ledge, from which misunderstanding the right is inferred to speak and pronounce from feehng and subjective opinion, so that, in place of proof, there step forward asseverations and the recountments of what is found as facts in consciousness ; and the more uncritical this is, it is considered the purer.' To Hegel Philosophy is ' the reconciliation which the Spirit solemnises of itself with itself ;' and this is accomphshed by ' the restora- tion of that absolute Content (Gehalt) beyond which Thought at first struggled and set itself out, but a reconcihation in the freest and most native element of the Spirit.' (Passages in commencement of Prefaces to Universality and Singularity trans- continuity, Particularity and Uni- parently to collapse, while Particu- versality, reflect together into the larity is held in a transparent dis- one self-identical concrete <Yliat we can leai'u from evexy eollee-house eonvei^^tion ; ' ami this he would have said, we doubt not,* independently of the style. Thei-e ai>? iliose who say stiU of litoravy oxoellence, ivally so for as the thoughts are oonoeraed, there is noihing new. or pe«.niliar. or great in it — it all comes to tlie style, it is the style that gives the value. It may be well to intimate agjun that a tiling is valuable — and CvMisequently style itself — only in proportion to the amount of thought it contains. StiU we think the position made gooil. that tlie dis- ciples of Hume and Smith have pnsheil the doctrines of their mastei-s into unwarrantable abstractions, one- siile(.l. folse, dangeix>us, — and utterly ii-rational. Hume points OUT himself the advantage of equable distri- bution, and talks of the dangei-s of monopolies. Xow the great tendency at prosout is to these latter. All must be on the great scale nowadays — ^Fanus, Fac- tories, Contracts. — S}>eculations of all kinds. People ai^ no longer content to ply a modest and moderate industxy with jtist suliicienl sm-plus to insure the wel- lai-e of their children and the comlort of their own old ai^?. That was pessible formerly, when men — apirt fix^m their immediate occupuion — still interestetl them- selves in other objects of intellect, of morality, of i-eligion. But now all is changcil — ^\vhat is now is but a longing and a nish — ^we have no time to wait — we must enjvw now — ^we must make a fortime at a stroke. or let us insi go midfr. Self-will vies with sell- will for material possession. Material p<.^ssession. indeeil, is, in sum, the single category now ; and for result there is this botmvUess welter. wher->e no individual is connectetl with another, wheiv many jail every instant out, as through trap-div>i^^ of the bridge of Mirza. imheedeil 568 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. and uncared for. Nor is there any cure for this but in the promulgation of true principles — intellectual, moral, and rehgious — which will, perhaps, lead in the end to a coalition of upper, middle, and uftder-class veritable manhood against the spurious middle-class which self- love has so swiftly generated in the material of com- merce. Destruction ought to be seen now to be as absurd as Obstruction, and Construction the only duty. Did but true Constructives form themselves there in the centre, possessed of principles, either of the extremes. Destructive or Obstructive^ were overmatched, while any coahtion of both were but the result of a blunder. The veritable Destructives among us are the apostles of self-love, who worship the American constitution of no institution, and know no human ability to admire but that which by successful commodity-riding raises itself into the spurious middle-class, the miserable, never-satisfied, self-love- goaded members of which vie, painfully, vulgarly, Avith each other, ' in the fashion of a rmg or the pattern of a shoe-buckle,' in the cost of their carriages or the prices of their wines. But if we can bring Hume to our side, we think it not impossible similarly to withdraw from the ranks of the enemy even Bacon himself No one will deny that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were employed on true interests, political, moral, scientific, &c. How about their descendants, the Schoolmen, however.? Yes, here it is plain that what is a rich and living concrete with masters, can become a dead and empty abstract with pupils. This it was that disgusted Bacon and turned him once again to Fact. Nor is this alone less than a sufficient guarantee for the originality, or, as we prefer to name it, for the genuineness of the faculty of Bacon ; which genuineness it is, that in all cases makes the superior man. Bacon — for the rest COKCLUSIOi:^. 569 perhaps, a somewhat weak and ostentatious personahty. infected, on the whole, by force of classical example (see Sallust in his openings), with the specious mouth- ing of a thin morahsation — said here : all these logi- calities are but idle abstractions, — they do nothing ; — let us turn to Fact instead, and then we shall have something that is, for something that only sounds. But if Bacon turned on what had degenerated from a concrete into an abstract then, we have a right to claim his protest against a similar abuse now ; for that it really is a similar abuse which in these days we suffer at the hands of Political Economy, we think certain. Such simple suggestion, however, as we have seen already, must on this head at present suffice. Men, indeed, who would have us regulate our conduct by such void abstractions as Demand and Supply, Capital will find its own outlet, Labour its own market. Wages their own level, &c., are really as idle as the seraphic doctors who discussed the number of angels that may stand on the point of a needle. Did any merchant ever make sixpence by any such prescripts ? Apart from the cutting asunder of the ligatures of an obsolete system (Feudalism, &c.), and apart from the seeming convenience of hard, unrelenting self-interest (which will be found just its own dialectic in the end, however), what merchant, since the promulgation of Political Economy, can point to a gain which he owes not rather to his own individual sagacity — that saga- city, for example, that found cheap markets for pur- chase and dear ones for sale, and that lessened, as well, the number and commissions of the intervening hands ? Will those interminable platitudes about the nature of Credit ever enable a merchant to know more than his first transaction of the kind teaches him, that a credit, namely, is but a loan for a consideration ; or, 570 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. in fact, does any merchant ever trouble himself to read the same ? Demand and Supply, Capital, "Wages, Labour, &c., all these are concerns of human Eeason, and can be guided by human Eeason only ; they cannot be left to the mere allegation of a law that exists we know not where — in the air, perhaps? And would Pohtical Economy leave them to aught else ? It is really worth looking at the cheap triumph of immaculate wisdom which Pohtical Economy procures itself in this refer- ence, as well as at the self-devotion of its trust, the awe, the prostration, the superstition of its worship of mere abstractions, mere formahties that — substantially — are not. At present, for example, observe with what swelling self-complacency Pohtical Economy watches the rise of the rate of discount at the Bank of England in steady reply to the increasing ferment of reckless speculation ! It is in the presence, it thinks, of infallible law, it sees Commerce — the mighty com- mercial system — correct itself — and this without med- dlesome interference ! It remits its gas for a moment, indeed, when it suddenly sees reckless Banks spring to meet this reckless speculation, but presently recovers itself on renewed recognition of law. Even on the ultimate result of wide-spread ruin and misery, it still smiles, as on the legitimate fruit of law ! Yet at this moment, Pohtical Economists, if not Pohtical Economy, are never done with cries to England to interfere for the Danes and against the Prussians ! Will, then, the widows and orphans of the foreign sin be worse off than the robbed widows and orphans of the domestic sin ; and is English Eeason all-powerful for a trouble without, but impotent for a trouble within ? If we are passively to leave all to law, — law we don't know CONCLUSION-. 571 where — law in tlie air — law which is just as a law of nature, — why make an exception of the Danish diffi- culty ? That too, in the end, will settle itself on law — the law of the strongest, as the other case {reckless speculation, &c.) on the law of the cunningest and richest — a law of nature very truly each ! But, indeed, this levity of recognition and acceptance of law is wonderful. Where, after all, is this law ? Is it in the commodities themselves ? Political Economy swells big as it thinks to itself of its laws of Produc- tion, its laws of Exchange, its laws of Distribution : but ought these abstract phrases to conceal from Political Economy this, that neither the Distribution, nor the Exchange, nor, in a true sense, even the Pro- duction, is in the commodities ? Distribution, Ex- change, even Production, lies only in Humanity ; laws in this connexion can only be generahsations of Hu- manity's action ; and the action of Humanity as Humanity is Eeason. The true laws of Pohtical Eco- nomy, then, are laws of Eeason, and not of Nature. But it is to some fiction of a blind law of nature that Pohtical Economy has in reahty looked superstitiously reverent. It seems to itself hitherto to have been in presence of a vast power which was supposed to be quite beyond and. above all assignments and prescripts of any mere man. Mr. Buckle very naively betrays an instinctive consciousness of the true state of the case, not only in acknowledging that all triumphs of Pohtical Economy hitherto have been but destructions of an old (that is, that Pohtical Economy wins for its idle abstractions the credit of the industrial progress due simply to the cutting of ligatures which were in place elsewhere and at another time), but in proposing to mediate between man and nature through the laws of r.Ti TUB SECRET OF IIEOEL. Political Economy, for in this he very plainly indicates what he felt, that, somehow or other, there was an efTort on the part of Political Economy to reduce human interests to laws of Nature. Nor could it be otherwise, and the whole thing is a very simple matter: for Self-will is a law of Nature, a law of the flesh ; it is universal will that is the law of lleason. Tlie light here ought to be absolutely convincing, for to attempt to subject Pteason to Nature — brute Nature with its brute Necessity and no less its brute Continf^ency — is simply the contradiction of contradictions, is simply prepos- terousness proper ; for we are human jast by this, that we supersede Nature, and that we conduct its Contin- gency into the Necessity of Peason. Political Economy in this aspect, then, is but de-hu- inanisation, and an abdication of Picison — the grossest delusion, perhaps, that this world has ever yet seen. Nor will it be possible for anyone to realise by-and-by the power possessed by be-frilled and be-ruffled I'oli- tical Economy at present, of sneering its opponent into the cold shade of ignorance, to be tljcre, indeed, aT)srj- lutely ignored. But I confess I cannot well see how Political Economy can escape the correction that lies for it in the simple distinction between universal will and self-will : a concrete practicality, actum, must correct its abstract impracticality, its mere peflantic vjnaxia. TfiC only defence I can conceive for Political Economy here is, that it should say, self-will oj^fK/sed to self-will neutralises self-will, and there is a universal human result oVjtained thus by the action of natural law without the dangerous and uncertain influence of legi.slative interference. Jjut here, again, Political lvx)nomy simply deludes itself by the abstnictness of its own phra.se. Self-will opposing self-will is but a state of CONCLUSION. 573 nature : and Political Economy has but to look around to see that, in the atomism its own caU to self-will has produced, it has already carried us far on the road tliither. Nature — brute self-will — this is the beginning of history, and this Political Economy would make the end also. We are so far on our way, indeed, that we have actually reached the Gorilla and the Sensation Novel. Consider what important witnesses both are to the trutli of the general position maintained here. Wliat can be the nature of a popidation where the one is acceptable and the other necessary ? ' Goais and Monkeys ! ' The truth, nevertheless, is, that we must live in system : the individual belongs not to himself, but to the community. No Eichard Ai'kwright can jump into the air — into isolation — and say, I am my own, and what I have is my own. Neither he, nor what he has, are opaque independent units, quite indifferent there in the middle of the current : they really con- stitute portion of its transparency and flow Avith it. The Arkwrights of the day, however, are so far fi'om seeiug this, that they would absurdly isolate each the whole foison of the universal into the punctuaHty of his single Ego, — a feat whicli, were it accomplished, would only prove its o^y\\ dialectic — absolute want. We are to understand, then, that a national steward- ship would create a garden of reason and reasonable work ; whereas PoHtical Economy, as it is plied now, can end in absolutely nothing else than a wilderness of self-wiU and animal rapine ; that the one is concrete, whereas the otlier is abstract, and that it is for this reason we claim the countenance of Bacon. For Bacon's smgle constitutive virtue was to oppose the concrete to tlie abstract ; from the mere formal self- 574 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. identity of thought, from merely formal Logic, he sought to divert the attention of mankind to interests actual, real, and substantial. True it is that Bacon is usually reckoned on the other side from that main- tained here, and that to his authority is ascribed the present merely sensuous ransacldng of Nature in the pursuit of a merely sensuous commodity. But this position is itself no concrete — this position is itself an abstract ; if what Bacon opposed was the abstract Universal, this is but the abstract Particular, mere Sense. What Bacon pointed to was not exactly this, however, but, as union of nature and thinking inquest, rather the concrete Singular, though, it must be said, perhaps one-sidedly, as only out. We see here, then, that if the descendants of Hume have come to occupy an abstract and untenable extreme, it is not different with those of Bacon. If Sense alone and Thought alone oppose each other, the concrete Singular is lost to both, which are now but mutually the abstract Par- ticular and the abstract Universal. Bacon's own partial- ness, however, led to this ; for if we are to see only an external magazine to exploiter, there is no ascent over material commodity, and end there can be none but materialism and self-will. Hence the need of Hegel, who, to Bacon's out, adds his own necessary in. It was said, some time ago, that there was no such great difference, after all, between Hegel and Locke — that if the latter derived Notions from Sensations, the former derived those from these. This is not strictly true; this were to assign to Hegel the position of abstract or formal Idealism, while that which he plainly arrogates to himself is manifestly a concrete, of which both Eealism and Idealism are indifferently predicable. Hegel's Notions, in fact, are not divorced CONCLUSION. 575 from Sensations, but are the skeleton of Necessity in the Contingency of the latter ; and thus the addition of the third moment completes a concrete in this element. So, then, is Hegel's necessary in constituted ; and there results, in place of Bacon's man and nature, the single Geist, the one Spirit, the true concrete Singular which alone is — which takes up Nature into unity and mean- ing — possible only through both. There are both. The Idea is the Prius. What it becomes it is. It already is a completion of its own necessity. — Each of these points of view will have thrown its own light, then, on the general allegation, that what constitutes the Matter of Hegel, constitutes also the cor- rection and the complement of the Auf klarung. Hegel would restore to us — and in the light of thought — the concrete Substance which the light of thought carried ofl! Hegel would procure for us a scientific answer at length to those our questions, which are strictly and properly ours, which are strictly and pro- perly human : Is there Free Will, Immortahty, God ? For we must presume to differ from Lord Macaulay here. ' It is a mistake,' this distinguished Aufgeklarter avers, ' to imagine that subtle speculations touching the divine attributes, the origin of evil, the necessity of human actions, the foundation of moral obligation, imply any high degree of intellectual culture : such speculations, on the contrary, are, in a pecuhar manner, the delight of intelligent children and of half-civilised men.' We disagree with this, and would adduce against Lord Macaulay his own master, David Hume, who (' Of Luxury') affirms : 'We cannot reasonably expect that a piece of woollen cloth will be wrought to per- fection in a nation which is ignorant of Astronomy, or where Ethics are neglected.' And this is the truth, and 576 THE SECKET OF HEGEL. demonstrates the immeasurable superiority of Hume to Macaulay so far as thought is concerned. You cannot withdraw one element of the concrete without derang- ing and disturbing all. The fineness of an ode, of an epigram, is an element in the dehcacy of a tissue, even in the edge of a razor. The poet enters the drawing-room no less honoured a guest than the inventor or the warrior, for he is known — though not consciously perhaps — to contribute to the common stock as sub- stantially as either. Nor is the philosopher behind the poet. The philosopher is, indeed, the central light and heat of humanity; and this — by his answers to those very questions which Macaulay, the too preci- pitate pupil of Hume, consigns to children and half- civilised men. All men hang together to constitute humanity, and the Whole would perish were a single hnk to fail, for each is as a centre of the relations of the all. The interests represented by these questions, then, can simply not be omitted. As well might you hope that man, disencumbered of his brain, would remain man, if hving by his stomach alone. These interests, in fact, stand to the universe in no less a relation than the brain to man, and their suppression, like its sup- pression, would reduce the universe, as it were, to a sort of stomach. These interests constitute what is essential to humanity as humanity. To convince our- selves of this, we have but to recall the passage already quoted from the Judgment-Kritik, where Zant points out that the existence of the world would have no worth if it consisted, firstly, of inanimate beings ; or secondly, of animate beings without reason ; or thirdly of animate beings with reason, but a reason adequate only to considerations of bodily expediency. Guided by this passage, we shall have no difficulty in discernino- CONCLUSION. 577 that man, deprived of any interest in the questions con- cerned, would at once sink into no higher a place than that of a human beaver, who knew only and valued only what contributed to his merely animal commodity. Elsewhere Macaulay's words show that he places quite under the same category the question of the immor- tality, and almost of the main mystery of religion in general. ' The immortality of the soul,' he says, ' is as indemonstrable now as ever ; ' and, ' as regards natural rehgion, we are no better off now than Thales or Simon- ides.' It is not unfair, on the whole, then, to infer that Macaulay said generally to'himself on these points, These are things which we never can settle, and of which it is useless to speak — allons ! — and, as Voltaire concludes, and Candide concludes, ' cultivons notre jardin ! ' That is, turning the back on all else, let us cultivate our garden of material commodity ; for with the sup- pression of these questions and these interests, all would come to material commodity. What is peculiarly human is not to live in towns, with soldiers and poHce, &c.,, safely to masticate our victuals ; what is peculiarly human is to perceive the Apparition of the Universe ; what is pecuharly human is to interrogate this apparition — is to ask in its regard — what ? — whence? — why ? — whither ? It may suit Macaulay and the Illumination to say. It is absolutely useless to put these questions, you never can get an answer ; do not trouble yourself with them, turn your back on what you call the apparition and look to the earth — ' an acre in Middlesex is better than a princi- pality in Utopia ' — all your Platos and your Socrates but ' fiU the world with long words and long beards' — take to Bacon and be content with the ' fruit : ' but, — apart from the valuelessness of such fruit, if alone, if VOL. IL p P 578 THE SECBET OF HEGEL, all,— hud there been no such questions, there could never have been this fruit itself, 'not even woollen cloth,' — in a word, had there been no such questions, there could never have been this formed world, this system of civilised hfe, this deposit of an objective reason. On no less a stipulation than eternal life will a man consent to hve at all : so it is that philosophy and morality and religion are his vital air, without which his ovra resultant madness would presently dissi- pate him into vacancy. No perception was ever clearer to man than this was to Hegel : his one work, in whatever number of volumes, is but an answer to what we may call — the questions. After Kant, the freedom of the will had httle difficulty ; for that is free which is amenable only to itself, and this is Eeason. Eeason is its own neces- sity, and in its own necessity is its own freedom, for in obedience there it but obeys itself. The universal will is free, then, and in the universal will man is free ; for his true will is the essential and universal will, while his self-will is but enslavement. Man, then, as was a perception of one's early student days, is free because he obeys motives ; for what obeys motives obeys itself, and is not subject to the compulsion of another. Kant is particularly beautiful on this question— particularly beautiful in the illustrations he adduces in proof that men value a man, that a man values himself, just m proportion to the sacrifice he makes of self-will for universal Eeason. As for the Immortahty of the Soul, that hes secure in the Notion. The notion is the vital heart of all and for the notion self-consciousness is but another name. The subject and the concrete notion are iden- tical, and they have not in them the character of the CONCLUSION. 579 finite, but of tlie infinite. The system of Hegel, from stage to stage, is full of utterances on this head, and he who can read there has no room to doubt. Abstract absorption into the universal is not Hegel's doctrine, and need be a fear to no one. ' The One is Many, and the Many One.' A system of horizons under one horizon, as Kant figures it — this is the true Monado- logy. God is no abstraction, but a Spirit in his own concrete differences, of which every finite spirit is one. That each is, is to each the guarantee of his own neces- sity both here and hereafter : that he should be then, is not more incredible or absurd than that he is now. At death, the external other of nature falls from us, we are born wholly into spirit — spirit concrete, for it has taken up into itself nature and its own natural life. Nature is to Hegel much as a late extract showed it was to Kant. It is but the phenomenon of the nou- menon — ^it is but the action of what is, and passes, whUe the latter is and remains. Time and space and all questions that concern them reach only to the phenomenon, they have no place in the noumenon. There is but one life, and we live it with, as the Germans say. That life we live now, though in the veil of the phenomenon. There is but an eternal now, there are properly no two places and no two times in the hfe of the Spirit, whose we are, and which we are, in that it is all. So it is that Hegel is wholly sincere and without afiectation, when he talks of it being in effect indifferent to him, how and whether he be in this finite life. He is anchored safe in thought, in the notion, and cares not for what vicissitude of the phenomenal may open on him. Hegel, then, not Fichte, is the rock, which Mr. Carlyle, in reference to the latter, feigns : rock in his spirit, that is, in his faith 580 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. and in his hope, which faith and which hope spring alike from knowledge, if, in his finite life, wraths, and indignations, even fears and apprehensions, were per- haps known to him, just as they are to us. Flesh is weak, and, while in the phenomenon, consciousness is but the mirror of its vicissitude, and never blank. Then God — there is for Hegel nothing but God ; and this God is a personal God, and no mere Pantheistic Substance that just passively undergoes a mutation of necessity. Hegel, however, looks on thg ordinary etre supreme of infidelity as but a name, an empty abstrac- tion, and he has attempted to construe God out of his universe into the one absolute spirit which he is. We say construe, not construct — Hegel as httle constructs God as he constructs God's universe. The system of Hegel is but the process of this construing, in which all finite categories show their untruth and their fini- tude, and pass into their truth and their infinitude, the Absolute Spirit. As abstractions, for example, there are both Seyn and Daseyn ; but the true concrete singular is the Fiirsichseyn into which they both collapse. Neither Quality is, nor Quantity is — truly, or as such ; what truly and as such is, is Measure. Both Ground and Appearance are the formal abstract moments of the concrete singular, the Actual, which alone is. Substance and Causality collapse into Recipro- city ; Notion and Judgment into the Syllogism ; Life and Cognition into the Absolute Idea, &c. &c. Being and Essence are but correlative abstractions that find their truth in the Notion ; nay. Logic and Nature are only the abstract m.oments, the abstract universal and the abstract particular of the Absolute Spirit, which is the final concrete singular, the ultimate unity, the livino- One, which alone is. Here all finite categories collapse CONCLUSION. 681 and disappear, while those which are infinite are but names of the one on lower stages. The pulse, never- theless, the ultimate vital throb, is the Notion. So little does this scheme seem to Hegel to contra- dict Christianity, that it is just on this scheme that he is able to perceive that Christianity is, must be, and can only be, the Eevealed Eeligion. It is here that Hegel is, perhaps, at his greatest, at his truest, at the greatest and truest of thought itself. Christianity is, in his hands, rescued not less from the contingency and externahty of mere History, than from the contradic- tions and discrepancies of the mere separating, and, so to speak, self-identifying understanding * — ^rescued from the vulgarity of material sensation, and restored to a spiritual reahty which is, in very truth, one and iden- tical with the absolute inner of the hving souJ. To him who understands the full force of the Hegelian terms, there is no profane reading whatever more ennobHng, consoling, peace-giving, than that which Hegel offers us here. Crass facts, which were opacities and obstructions, melt and flow at his touch, and are taken up into us — sustenance, as it were, into the souls of men before whom there seems to open at length the kingdom of grace. It is not with the mere abstrac- tions and distinctions of thought that Hegel deals here, but with the concrete element of religion itself, which is as truly human, which is as much ours and indis- pensable, as our very senses. If the instrument be thought, thought as clear and consecutive as that of the soberest Aristotle, the result is feeling — feehng as * The self-identifying action, al- is submitted to it, into independent, luded to here, must be supposed to self-identical selves : in a wide sense, fall on the objects as well as the sub- its function is thus simply to self- Jeat : Understanding proper sepa- identify . rates not only itself, but whatever 582 THE SECEBT OF HEGEL. substantial, palpable, real, as ever gave beatitude to the intensest of Saints. It is the doctrine of the Trinity which constitutes to .Hegel the central and vital principle of Christianity. Again and again he may be found animadverting on the gratuitous astonishment of Understanding at the identifying of such differences as one and three. We saw a very prominent instance of this in Eemark 2 of the second chapter of Quantity. Similarly, towards the beginning of Maass in the complete Logic, Hegel will be found expressing interest in the trace of a trinity even in the ' enormous Phantastery ' of Indian superstition, — 'like a TOO(ierating thread in what is immocZerate.' The passage continues : — Though this Indian Threeness has misled to a comparison with the Christian Trinity, and though indeed a common element of the movement of the notion is to be acknow- ledged in them, we must still, however, attain a preciser con- sciousness in regard to the essential difference between them which is not only infinite, hut the veritable infinite just is this difference. So much in earnest is Hegel with the doctrine of the Trinity, that he finds Christian writers of the most undoubted orthodoxy strangely lukewarm in its regard. Tholuk, for example, he censures most unsparingly, because he terms ' this doctrine a scholastic doctrine, and regards it merely on the external side of an assumed only historical origin from speculation on scriptural texts under the influence of the Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle ; ' because he asserts also that ' the doc- trine of the Trinity is not in any way a fundament on which faith can be founded.' Hegel complains also that ' he conducts his reader only to the Passion and Death of Christ, but not to his Eesurrection and CONCLUSION. 583 Ascension to the right hand of the Father, nor yet to the Pouring out of the Holy Ghost ; and intimates that, in this way, the doctrine of Eedemption cannot have more than a moral, or even a heathen, that it cannot have a Christian, sense. Perceiving the taint of Illumination and mere morahty in religionists represented by such men as Tholuk, Hegel avers further : — Through such finite mode of viewing the Divine— that which is in and for itself, and through this finite thinking of the Ahsolute Intent, it has happened that the fundamental tenets of Christianity have in great part disappeared from the formulary. Not only is Philosophy — rather Philosophy sig- nally is — now essentially orthodox; the tenets which have been always held to be the ground-verities of Christianity, are maintained and preserved by it. [To Hegel, indeed, it is not a care] to prove that the Dogma, this still mystery, is the eternal truth ; for this is what goes on in the entire of Phi- losophy. In truth, no one can doubt the depth and fervency of the religious sense of Hegel, who will take the trouble to read his pertinent dehverances. They have the breadth of feeling in them of a George Fox or a Bunyan, yet do they rigorously issue from the notion, and rigorously dispose themselves according to its moments, — and this is no unimportant testimony to the truth of the principle. The pecuharly deep, Hving, and meaning way in which all the great doc- trines of our rehgion — Good and Evil, Original Sin, &c. — are reahsed in the new element, is especially striking. We shall dwell on a few extracts by way of illustration : — The cultus is to give oneself this supreme, absolute satis- faction (Grenuss) — there is feeling in it — I am there present 584 THE SECRET OF IIEGEL. with my particular personality : it is thus the assurance of the absolute Spirit in his people, it is their knowledge of their essential being ; this is substantial unity of the spirit with itself. It is a twofold act — God's grace, and man's sacrifice. The latter has reference essentially to the inner ; it is the sacrifice of natural will, the will of the flesh, as comes more to the surface in Eepentance, Purification, &c. God is the creator of the world ; it belongs to his Being, his Essence, to be creator ; so far as he is not this, he is imper- fectly understood. But a secret, a mysteiy in the usual sense, is God's nature not, least of all in the Christian religion ; there God gave himself to be known, showed what he is, there is he revealed ; but it is a mystery for sensuous perception, conception, for the sensuous mode of view and for understanding as such. In the Idea, the Differences present themselves not as self-excludent, but so that they only are in this self-conclusion (shutting-together) of the one with the other : that is the true supernatural, not the usual supernatural, that is to be conceived as up there ; for that is just so something sensuous and natural, that is to say, what is an asunder and indifferent. The self-identical substance is this Unity, which as such iafundamen axid pi'incipitim, but as subjectivity it is that which acts, which produces. Eeligion is diviue wisdom, man's knowing of God and know- ing of himself in God ; this is the divine wisdom and the field of absolute truth. In general, religion and the basis of the state are one and the same ; they are in and for themselves identical. The laws of the state are rational and divine things, in view of this presupposed original harmony ; religion has not its own principles as opposed to those which obtain in the state. (Hegel no voluntary.) There is one notion in religion and state ; this one notion is the highest thing that man has ; it is realised by man : the nation that has a wrong notion of God, has also a wrong state, wrong government, wrong laws: this relation is seen in men's ordinary concep- tions, and expresses itself in this way, that to them the laws, the authorities, the constitution, come from God, that thus these are authorised and by the highest authority which can CONCLUSION. 585 be given to them. But if the laws are from the will of God, it is important to know God's will ; and this is not the busi- ness of one in particular, but belongs to all. When only the formal side is taken, room is given to caprice, tyranny, and oppression. This showed itself in a marked manner in England, under the Stuarts, when passive obedience was insisted on, the sovereign claiming to be accountable to God only. Through means of this same claim of a divine revelation, the antithesis, however, directly manifested itself. The distinction of priests and laymen, namely, is not held by protestants ; the priests are not privileged to possess the divine revelation, and still less is this the case as regards the so- called lay. So there arose in England a sect of protestants who maintained it was given to them by inspiration to tell how they should be governed ; in consequence of such inspi- ration of the Lord, they stirred up a rebellion in England, and beheaded the king. This demonstration of the inevitable alternation of the antithesis — that in repelling the point you are struck by the but — Hegel accomplishes finely also with reference to the Eoman Empire. The people so named worked only to a single end, universal dominion ; but, this attained — 'abstract dominion,' 'simple dominion' — ' there manifested itself over all, a common present power, a power of self-will — the Emperor — which, without all moral restraint, could act, rage, give a loose to itself This same abstract dominion of the Eoman people — ' this universal unhappiness of the world ' — was, in a religious point of view, the preparation for Christianity : — The gods of all nations were collected in the Eoman Pan- theon, and they mutually annihilated each other just by this, that they were to be united. Eome fulfils this un- happiness of the annihilation of beautiful life and conscious- ness . . . and produces a throe which was to be the labour- pain of the religion of Truth. ' When the time was fulfilled, 586 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. God sent his Son,' it is said ; the time was fulfilled, when despair to find satisfaction in the temporal and finite had taken possession of the spirit of man. Again, of Faith, Hegel declares that it is indispen- sable : — The relation of the individual to this truth, is, that the individual just comes to this conscious unity, renders himself worthy of it, produces it within himself, becomes filled with the Spirit of God : this takes place through process within him, and this process is, that he has this Faith, for Faith is the truth, the presupposition, that in and for itself and assuredly redemption is accomplished : only through this faith that the redemption is in and for itself and assuredly accomplished, is the individual capable of setting himself into this unity. Of Baptism we find it said, this rite demonstrates that the child is born in the community of the Church, not in outer wretchedness, that it will not have to meet a world at enmity with it, but that its world is the Church. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper is characterised thus : — In it there is given to man the consciousness of his recon- ciliation with God the entering and dwelling of the Spirit within him : the Lord's Supper is the focal centre of the Christian Church, and from it all differences in the Christian Church receive their colour and form. In regard to it there are three conceptions. 1. According to one of these, the Host, this external, this sensuous, unspiritual thing, becomes through consecration the present God — God as a thing, in the wise of an empirical thing, is just so empirically enjoyed by man. Inasmuch as God was thus known as an outward in the Lord's Supper, this centre and focus of the entire doc- trine, — this externality is the fundamental basis of the whole CONCLUSION. 587 Catholic religion. There arises thus servility of thought and deed ; this externality pervades all further forms of it, the True being represented as what is Fixed, External. As thus existent without the subject, it may come into the power of others ; the Church is in possession of this, as of all other means of grace ; in every respect, the subject is passive, receptive, knows not what is true, right, good, but has only to receive it from others. 2. The Lutheran conception is, that the movement begins with an External, that there is an ordinary, common thing, but that the Spirit, the self-feeling of the presence of God realises itself, insomuch and in so far as the externality is absorbed, not merely bodily, but iu Spirit and Belief. In the Spirit and Belief now is the present God. What is sensuously present is of itself nothing, and even consecration makes not of the Host an object of veneration, but the object is in the Belief alone ; and so in the consumption and destruction of the Sensuous element, there is the union with God, and the consciousness of this union of the subject with God. Here has the grand con- sciousness arisen, that, apart from the Enjoyment and Belief, the Host is a common, sensuous thing : the process is only in the spirit of the subject truly — certainly a trans-substantia- tion, but such that by it the external element is eliminated, God's presence is directly a spiritual one, so that the Faith of the subject belongs to it. 3. The idea here is, that the present God is only so in conception, in remembrance, and thus has only an immediate, subjective presence. This is the reformed idea, an unspiritual, only lively remembrance of the past, no divine presence, no actual spirituality. Here the divine element, the Truth, is debased to the Prosa of the Aufklarung and mere Understanding, a merely moral relation.' That, in general, it is the Notion which is the guide to these determinations, will, perhaps, now at last come home to the reader, in a perfectly undeniable and defi- nitive manner, from the Division (Eintheilung), which runs thus : — 588 THE SECKET OP HEGEL. ' The First is the Notion, as always ; the Second, again, its Determinateness (specificity, Particularity), the notion in its determinate (specific, Particular) forms; these cohere necessarily with the notion itself: in the mode of considera- tion properly philosophical, it is not the case that the Universal, the Notion, is put first as it were for the sake of honour. Notion of Eight, of Nature, as set first in ordinary usage, and as to which, as so set, we are still in uncertainty, are general determinations, on which properly the matter in hand does not depend, that depending, on the contrary, on the special intent, the single capital. In this usage, the so- called notion has, in the continuation, no influence on this further intent ; it indicates in a way the ground on which we find ourselves with these materials, and that we are not to introduce intent (matter) from any other ground (sphere) ; the intent — for example, magnetism, electricity — passes for the thing itself, the notion (that is, in the usage alluded to) for the formal or formell element of it. In philosophic consideration, the notion is also the beginning, but it is the Thing, the Substance, as the germ from which the whole tree developes itself. In it are all the determinative characters contained, the whole nature of the tree, the peculiarity of its saps, ramification, but not pre- formed in such wise that, if we take a microscope, we shall see the branches, leaves, in miniature— not so, but, on the contrary, in spiritual wise. So the notion contains the whole nature of the object, and knowledge here is nothing but the development of the notion, of that which is con- tained impliciter in the notion, not yet come into existence, explicated, laid out (displayed). Thus it is we begin with the notion of Eeligiou. The second, then, is religion in its determinateness, the determinate notion. This we take not from without, but it is the free notion itself, that propels itself into its deter- minateness. It is not as if we empirically treated Right, for example : in which case. Right is, first of all, defined in general ; but then the determinate (particular) Rights (the CONCLUSION. 589 Eoman, Grerman, &c.) are to be taken from elsewhere, from experience ; here (that is, with us) the determinateness has to jdeld itself from the notion itself. The determinate notion of Eeligion is finite religion, a one-sided something, thus and thus constituted as against other, one particular as against another particular; Eeligion in its finitude. The third is the notion that comes to its own self out of its determinateness, finitude, that again restores itself out of this finitude, limitation ; and this restored notion is the infi- nite, veritable notion, the absolute Idea, the true Eeligion. The first religion in the notion is not yet the true religion. The notion is true certainly within itself, but it belongs to truth that the notion should also realise itself, as it belongs to the Soul that it should have given itself a body. This realisation is directly determination of the notion ; the abso- lute realisation is that this determination is adequate to the notion: this adequate notion is the Idea, the veritable Notion. These, in an abstract way, are the three parts in general. This division may be also characterised thus. We have to consider the Notion of Eeligion, first, in general, as universal, then in its particularity as self-differentiating notion, which is the side of the Urtheil (Judgment, &c.), of limitation, finitude; and thirdly, the notion which shuts itself together with itself, the Schluss (close, shut, or syllogism), or the Return of the Notion from its determinateness (particularity), in which it is unequal to itself, to its own self, in such wise that it comes into equality (adequacy) with its form. This is the Ehyth- mus, the pure eternal life of the Spirit itself ; and had it not this movement, it were dead. The Spirit is, to have itself as object ; it is its manifestation, relation of objectivity, to be a finite something. The third is, that it is object to itself, reconciles itself in the object, is by itself, is come to its freedom, for freedom is to be by oneself. This division is thus the movement, nature, act of the Spirit itself, as regards which, we, so to speak, only look on. Through the notion it is necessary, but the necessity of 590 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. the further progress has, first of all, in the development itself, to demonstrate, explicate, prove itself.* * The quotations that refer to Tholuk occur ia the prefaces to second and third editions of the Encyclopaedia ; those that bear on Religion, in the pertinent extracts from Frantz and Hillert (Hegel's Philosophie in wortlichen Auszii- gen). From the latter extracts I derive also the three folio-wing equations, which "wiU. interest the stuchnt : Be- ziehung=:das, worin sie identisch sind ; — Verhaltniss =: Auseinander- treten dieser Einheit ; and Setzen =dass diess durch mich sey. Re- ference is thus reserved, as has been the general practice of this work, for the identity of the sphere of Simple Apprehension, Seledion for the dif-ference of the sphere of Judgment, and Setzen is seen to apply to what is established in con- sciousness through process of and from — another, which indeed is the life of thought itself qua thought. The internal process sets the exter- nal forms. That is gesetzt, into which another has formally become. A succession of intellectual results that appear from implication, and disappear from explication, but into new explication — this is Gesetzt- seyn — ostensive expression of an implicit mutuation. There is the fruit of a womb in aperto, which is presently withdrawn again, as into eclipse for a new issue. If the ice is explicit, the water is implicit, but still there is substantial union. Ex- implication, Gesetztseyn, is all that goes on — it is the one onward. To know the Hegelian Notion, and to know that the verb setzen is re- tained for the determination of the life of the notion, is, as regards Hegel, pretty nearly to have arrived. I should say, indeed, that if the reader, who has studied his way this length, wiU now take the trouble to peruse the first two chapters of the second volume of Hegel's complete Logic, he will iind this author — really — at length in his power. Hegel's fidelity to the notion — - which, indeed, is wholly imswerv- ing — is seen, not only in the above equations, but in all the extracts in the text. As, in fact, we have seen, even in the single terms, he is true to the triplicity of the notion : each of them is a syllogism ; the ordinary sense coquets with the virtual sense into a third, the He- gelian or speculative sense ; and thus the whole notion, even in a word, has come full circle. Urtheil, for instance, is, fii-st, j udgment, then dif-fereuce, and, thirdly, re-duction of the dif-ference into the first iden- tity. Begrifi) similarly, is, as Uni- versal — a notion indefinitely ; as Particular — a notion definitely, as the notion of some particular con- crete ; as Singular — the Notion, Kant's Notion, Hegel's Notion, the concrete Notion. Hegel is reported to have said, ' that only one man understood him, and he did not.' This man, I am inclined to believe, was Gbschel. Hegel accepted Gbschel's exposition of his own religious views ; but, no doubt, saw clearly that Gbschel knew nothing, after all, of the No- tion. — Sir William Hamilton opined Gabler to have been this man ! CONCLUSION. 591 The depth and truth of these glances of Hegel into the inner significance of Christianity will be denied by no one ; but there is now an external side on which it wiU be well to say a word. It relates as weU to what is called plenary inspiration, as to the counterpart of the same, — the grubbing into what is supposed the region of historical fact by such men as Strauss and Eenan. On the first head, we may say, that Hegel is perfectly sincere in his adhesion to the doctrine of plenary inspiration in its true sense — in that sense, namely, in which it relates to the inner : the Bible is to him perfectly instinct with the inspiration of the Spirit. Hegel, however, is unable, from the whole nature and principle of his philosophy, to believe in the inspiration of an outer as outer. The outer element, as in the sacrament, is to him but the medium, and disappears in the inner reahsation of the spirit. Plenary inspiration, most assuredly, he would say, but not in- spiration of the letter. The letter as letter is an outer ; and the sphere of externality as such is a prey to boundless mutabihty and contingency. It is the decree of God that it should be so. The notion in external manifestation, is nothing but, and can only be, this spectacle of change and accident. Let anyone look at his own copy of the Bible. He got it at a certain time, he carried it to certain places, he has used it on such and such occasions, and others have so used it : there are accidental dog's-ears in it, tears, burns, stains, thumb-marks (of Prussian officials or others). Then the binding, — it is in such and such materials, form, colour, &c. The paper is of such and such quality, and is at such and such stage of decay. There are such and such a number of pages. The printing is of such and such a date, and in such and such a type. The chapters. 592 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. verses, &c., are appointments of certain human beings. Then the matter : it is in prose and in poetry ; there are histories, legislative enactments, narratives, bio- graphies, letters, proverbs, prayers, sermons, parables, revelations, prophecies, &c. Then there are a variety of authors actually assigned. These authors, too, are completely in the yoke to the categories of their respective countries, ages, languages, &c. Nay, ex- ternality goes deeper still, — there are discrepancies in this matter : Of the vision that appeared to Saul as he went to Damascus, we hear, for example, in the seventh verse of the ninth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, that ' the men which journeyed with him stood speech- less, hearing a voice, but seeing no man ; ' whereas, in the ninth verse of the twenty-second chapter of the same Acts, we are told, ' And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid ; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me.' Now, this is a con- tradiction in terms — a deeply-marked discrepancy, then : doubtless, reconciliatory explanation is possible, is easy ; doubtless, it is an external discrepancy which, instead of weakening, adds force to the inner truth of the par- ticular narrative, and of the Bible generally : still it is a discrepancy — a proof that whatever is external must yield itself a prey to the contingency of the external. We stop here ; into discrepancies at all it is no joy to enter ; we have had enough of them at the hands of the general Auf klarung ; we would not protract the agony ; what is wanted now is something quite else — an end to the misery, a renewal of Faith. This, however, will probably sufficiently illustrate what we hold to be the relative position of Hegel, as justified by such passages as the following, also from the extracts of Frantz and Hillert : — CONCLUSION. 593 The Christian is positive religion in the sense that it has come, been given, to man from without ... it will be in- teresting to see what is the Positive. . . . The laws, muni- cipal ones, laws of the state, are in the same way positive : they come to us, are for us, have authority ; they are not so that we can let them stand, that we can pass them by, but that even in this their externality they are to be for us what is subjectively essential, subjectively binding. When we appre- hend, recognise, find reasonable, the law that crime be punished, it is then essential for us, has power over us, not because it is positive, because it is so, but it is of validity inwardly also, to our reason, as what is essential, because it is inward, rational. As regards revealed religion, there is necessarily this side also : inasmuch as we have there what is historical, externally apparent, we have also there what is positive, contingent, that may be in this manner, and also in that. Even in religion we have this. Because of the exter- nality, sensuous manifestation, which is implied to accompany it, there is always present what is positive. But this is to be distinguished : the Positive as such, the abstractly Posi- tive, and the law, the law of Eeason. The law of Free-will is not to be allowed to act, because it is, but because it is the determination of our Eeason itself; when it is so known, it is nothing positive, nothing blindly operant. Eeligion also appears positive in the entire tenor of its doctrines; but it ought not to remain so, it ought not to be an affair of mere apprehension, of mere memory. . . . The attestation is spiritual, lies not in the sensuous, cannot be brought about in immediate sensuous fashion : against the sensuous facts, therefore, there may always be something objected. This will suffice for the first head ; as regards the second, the point of view may be seen to open in the following extract : — As regards the empirical world, the Church does so far right in this, not to undertake such investigations as those concerning how it was with the appearance of Christ after his VOL. n. Q Q 594 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. death,: for such investigations proceed from the point of view, as if the thing depended on the sensuous element of mani- festation, on this mere historical element ; as if in such narra- tives of one as historically perceived, in historical manner, there lay the attestation of the spirit and its truth. This truth stands firm in itself, although it has such point of origin. There is an edge here that tells most unmistakeably against those that grub into historical fact, as if they could so discredit the sacred history, let them find out what they may. Hegel has no sympathy whatever with this industry ; and it is rather singular that it is one which — in appearance at least — has emanated from his school. The mantle of the prophet is not always of direct descent, however. To Hegel it is no attest- ation of anything in a spiritual sense, or simply in meaning, that it should have such and such sensuous documents in its support. Apart his ordinary curiosity as man and interest as antiquary, Hegel would toss into the fire — if ofiered to attest, if offered for worship just so — never so authentic a piece of the true cross with as httle compunction as John Knox flung into the water the painted hoard named Virgin. Eeally, what can sensuous facts attest ? What were the value of a tooth of the wolf that suckled Eomulus ? Should we be really better off, had we even a letter to the fact under the hand of Lupa herself? Hegel's dishke to critical history (which really springs from his general principle), so lively in expression is it, is quite amusing : it is to him nothing but an exhibition of personal vanity. What can any man now hope to make of the death of Eemus — what good would he do, did he even demonstrate it to have actually happened so and so what really is the value of such an industry ? To CONCLUSION. 595 Hegel the beginning is always the continuous identity of apprehension ; it appears to him everywhere, as he actually names it in the geographical element, ' gedie- genes Hochland,' hard, solid, unbroken steppe : it lies there under vapour ; it recedes as you approach ; it can never be got at to come under the knife or to lie in the scales ; it is but a cast of the eye, and is always there before you ; it is the necessary presupposition of the notion itself: it is, in short, a sphere of apprehension, and in externality — why would you vainly seek to spht it into the self-identities of the present Urtheil? So always is the germ ; Hegel knows it such, and mocks the idle curious that would thrust fingers into it. And Hegel here is, no doubt, scientifically right, while Strauss and Eenan (Hegelians that reverse their master!) :are only inept. Hegel, in point of fact, recommends us, ' In considering this religion, not to go historically to work after the fashion of him who begins from the outward, but to take start from the notion.' He tells him also who begins in the external manner, that he only seems to himself 'receptive,' that he is in fact ' active ; ' that is, that the resultant work of his efforts is not a work which he has only found, but which he has also made. In short, the grubbers into the his- torical facts of such commencements are but mis- taken men, who, as it were, with one foot on the centre, stubbornly endeavour to set the other on the horizon. Notion is the word, not the Datum of Fact ; to which latter would you stretch ' the ladder of Jacob,' it instantly 'goes further off and becomes astronomical.' There is no ultimate solution of any element but the notion, which being in effect ourselves, any nearer nearness were a strange desideratum. Q Q 2 596 THE SECEET OF HEGEL. Hence, pageant History ! hence, gilded cheat ! . . . . Wliat care, though owl did fly About the great Athenian admiral's mast ? Juliet leaning Amid her window-flowers, Doth more avail than these ! So Keats exclaims, and Keats is right. Would we know truly how the spirit of man lived, and moved, and was in the old Greek world, it is to Homer we must turn, and not to Thucydides. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, in the soul of Homer — ^whom, despite the testimony of centuries and the voices of the demi- gods themselves, a prurient modern vanity would deny — in the Iliad and Odyssey, in the soul of Homer, veritably a one — there lies in crystal reflexion the whole Greek world, organically together ; in the soul of Homer, there lies in crystal reflexion, organically- together, the spirit of man himself gone asunder into his own necessary and native diiferences. Preserve the Eeal, Thucydides — destroy the Ideal, Homer : we have lost both Greece, and the deepest insight into man and the world of man. Eeverse the action, — and of what account is the loss, when compared with the gain ? As then, so now : the prologue of Chaucer, the plays of Shakspeare, the poems of Burns, will readily outweigh any professed history. We wiU agree with Hegel, then, that, possessed of the notion, we feel ourselves lifted high above the historical, the external, the contingent, and we shall only smile at the necessarily futile efforts of a Strauss and a Eenan to paw the horizon. ' The spiritual is higher than the external ; the spiritual cannot be externally authenticated :' it is this position also which gives Hegel his peculiar place as regards miracles. He does not oppose them, admits CONCLUSION-. 597 the belief they would bring to sensuous men, but still he subordinates them. They are to him in a sensuous, external element, and consequently lower than what is spiritual as such. To support his view, he points out that the Egyptian Sorcerers performed miracles as well as Moses ; but The main point is, Christ himself says : There will come many who do miracles in my name ; I have not known them. Here he himself rejects miracles as veritable criterium of truth. This is the main point of view, and what is to be held fast: attestation through miracles, as the impugning of the same, is a sphere which does not concern us ; the testimony of the spirit is the true one. Hegel has, however, probably missed here an aspect of the miraculous element which, even in obedience to his own principles, should procure it a vastly higher place. The reader of Hegel is very apt to be haunted with this dilEculty : what we have here for God is a sort of universal that has no expression of his own, that has an expression only through us ; there is a hfe — the individual disappears, the one, the universal alone is ; but he is only through the individual, if the individual, in turn, is only through him ; and even if the contin- gency of Nature be but an externaHsation of the Idea, it is independently there, and all-powerful on its own side. There can be no quiet heart on such a stage as this. Now, it appears to us that the miraculous element contains the necessary resolution. God must be con- ceived as Lord of Nature : prayer must be beheved to stay the arm which sways the universe. This is abso- lutely necessary; unless this be so, men have no business here. Now, the miraculous element in the New Testa- ment is a guarantee of this. Indeed, is not this ele- ment in every way an essential one? Can the New 598 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. Testament be believed without its miracles ? We do not say, then, that Hegel impugns the Christian miracles — this he forbids ; but we say that he subordinates them : whereas, not only the historical position, but the ne- cessity of the absolute, the principles of Hegel himself, compel us to believe that Christ had power over nature. Only so is there guarantee for a Personal God ; and without a Personal God there can be no Cultus. But Hegel is perfectly sincere in his expressions as regards the Cultus, therefore, &c. If such be the attitude of Hegel in regard to reh- gious relations, his bearing is quite of a piece in refer- ence to pohtics, in reference to the State. The State is the rational substance of the u^niverse, and depends not on the wise opinion and good knowledge of either you or me. The Auf klarung, to be sure, suddenly turned its lantern upon it, among others, and declared all there-appertinent rotten. Since then we have been stripping our walls bare, and Mr. Buckle has been able, with much comfort — opening a waistcoat button — to perorate on Superstition. The value of Descartes, it appears, is that he sOijv into the imposition of priests and princes, and our forefathers were plunged in a hopeless limbo of ignorance and darkness ! Super- stition ! Superstition ! The category of superstition is not enough for Hegel, however ; he is not unjust to the Aufklarung, but he will not deny all tapers but its own. On the contrary, Eeason to him did not begin with the Aufklarung, but had been, for thousands of years, building itself into the outward crassitude. Hegel, then, examines Eeason as regards the State, and assigns, through the Notion, the essential deter- minations that constitute its organisation and life. To say this much must here suffice, however; and, per- CONCLUSION. 599 haps, for the present, the hint alone is sufficient, that pohtical wisdom cannot possibly consist in undoing alone, else its own activity were speedily its own and. There are principles here, as there are in all human interests, and, through Hegel, we may yet get to see and reahse them. In simple truth, the last chance is offered us in thought as thought : in matter as matter, we have nothing but despair. In Germany, they already ask, how would life constitute itself — sejposita animorum immortalitate ? But we in England should ask simply, how would it be were matter all ? This supposed, we shall presently see everything that has been formed out of the reason of man, during untold generations, break up and disappear. Thought is but a function of matter, and must be studied in the laws of matter. There is, consequently, no God, no spirit, no immor- tality: Eehgion, Metaphysic, Morals, Pohtics, vanish. Even science remains not ; for we are left with the registration of phenomena alone ; and phenomena being but appearances, and not things in themselves, inquest is at once endless and hopeless. And is Poetry, Litera- ture, one whit more possible ? WiU anyone any longer take interest in sea or star, in mountain or in flower, or in the loves and hates of men ? All must perish : there is nothing left us but material com- modity ; each is for himself — each would realise that. And would that — would material commodity continue to be reahsed ? Does not the high priest, Hume, teU us himself, that a piece of woollen cloth cannot be expected to be realised in a nation ' where Ethics are neglected ? ' What can be expected but a reahsation of the ideal of political economy at length, — self-will the only prmciple — barbarism — a state of Nature ? And 600 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. could men now bear a state of nature ? — The misery of the present is infinite, and it is because the Illumination has*stripped us naked — to matter. Schopenhauer, who has fairly arrived at this stage, talks (Parerga and Para- lipomena, Bd. II., § 156) thus : — If we reckon up, so far as is approximately possible, the sum of want, pain, and misery of every kind which the sun illuminates in his course, we shall admit that it would have been much better, had he been as little able to evoke the phenomenon of life on the earth as on the moon, and did the surface in the former, as in the latter, still find itself in a crystalline condition. We may conceive our life, indeed, as a uselessly interrupting episode in the blissful repose of Nothing, , . .^as only a gross mystification — not to say, Prellerei, cheat ! This is the voice of Atheism, and to this voice only is Materialism adequate. This is the ' ungliickliche Bewusstseyn,' the unhappy consciousness ; and there is hardly a great hterary man in England at present who smoulders not slowly into a grey ash under it. This is the infinite misery ! What wonder, if the wretch who reahses it to himself should creep to bed with a dose of aconite in his stomach ! The sick hke him- self wiU say, it is all one ; but there are those who see the pain of the' simple souls that stand in relation, — and more ! Even as they hft the hat that honom-s, not him, but death in his place — their hps shall in- voluntarily wear the shadow of a sneer — a sneer that means : Oh, no ; it will not do to take the pet ; you should have strutted your part out — you should have played out the Idea ! This is it — there is an Idea. It is ours to realise it — and in contentment so but we are wretches if we refuse. This materialistic ruin is illustrated also by the Illu- mination in its latest scientific phase. This phase, or CONCLUSIO^r. 601 this misnamed science, says simply, that all that we see and know are but material phenomena, that vary to contingent material conditions. The contingency of the variation may be understood from this, that such disturbances of the earth's interior as depend on volcanic agency, — which itself is due to accidents of the central conflagration, or to fortuitous com- plexions, gaseous or other, — may give rise to very various interchanges of land and sea, of heat and cold, &c., and, consequently, to very vaijous worlds, and very variously inhabited. Nevertheless, there is, at the same time, everywhere present in this variety such common analogy as can point only to a common origin; and it seems reasonable to conclude that all that ' we see is but the result of the successive transmutations of a single primitive species, or, indeed, of a single primi- tive atom. From such antecedents, there conceivably emerges, under favourable circumstances, the first rude cell, which propagates itself, which improves itself. Improvement, in particular, becomes very intelligible so soon as a stage of animality has been attained : for what will exist then will be a battle of life ; all action win be a trial of strength. Men select their breeders, and so modify species that they cease almost to be specifically the same. So Nature : through the struggle for existence and the victory of the strongest, she also selects her breeders. Thus it is that we have the Flora and Fauna which presently exist ; and these together constitute but a single chain of organisation from the lowest forms of fife, up, through the monkey, to the man. If any hnks in this chain still fail, if intermediate steps are still required in order to com- plete the proof of actual transmutation, appeal need only be made to the element of time. AH human 602 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. records are but as a day, an hour : but infinite time extends a field, adequate, as we look backwards, to the possibihty of the fact, — adequate, as we look forwards, to the actual demonstration of the same. Infinitude in the latter direction has probably its term, however, so far as man (and, indeed, the pre- sent sidereal system) is concerned. Conditions being presupposed to remain as they are at present, there is evidently going on such gradual loss of heat, mechanical force, energy of all kinds, as will reduce all, in the end, to a single cold, dark, meaningless mass, in the centre of a cold, dark, meaningless space. Whether there be what is called a God to change that or not ? . . . This is what the Aufklarung, that began by seeing the corruptions of the medieeval church, has ended in. It is not to be supposed, however, that all the mem- bers of the movement are absolutely of the same mind in regard to the various articles of the general creed : rather, it is curious to watch the differences — to watch the particular predilections. One, the Philopitheque par excellence, bravely goes the whole ape — waves, as he advances to battle, the picture of a procession of monkeys, man at top, and triumphantly thrusts his fist of enlightenment into the bhnd pride and wretched superstition of men ! Oilily another, — buoying himself blandly up on a well-balanced series of smooth plausi- bihties, — talks, subrisively-deprecatingly, of this ' pic- ture of the ever-increasing dominion of mind over matter,' and ascends — the gratification of a triumph of enlightenment being enough for him — in Jovine serenity to his elevated Olympus of — shall we say — ' philoso- phical Atheism ' ? The figure of Mr. Buckle is quite comic here, Garrick-Hke : with tears in his eyes he speaks of the consolations of deism and immortahty ; but, sud- CONCLUSION. 603 denly recollecting his duty to himself as an advanced thinker, he struggles forward beyond — oh, if it were only possible ! — beyond Comte himself, ' whose great merits it were unjust to deny ! ' Another figure I know, more comic still, 'the pattern lUuminatus of a generation back : with Mr. Buckle, he too does not like the reproach of having been left behind ; but old leavens are stiU strong within him, and he ventures to suggest that is not quite certain yet, not quite agreed yet, that the belief in a God and in Immortahty is to be given up. The specially comic element Ues in his shoulders, hbwever. Above these shoulders there rises a clear, experienced head, and beneath them beats a sound warm heart, by virtue of both of which he can speak in the fullest and most conclusive manner of books, and men, and crises of life, at the same time that he is the most social and agreeable of human beings. By these excellences he sets no store, how- ever ; all that he values himself on hes in his shoulders. His right shoulder he names to himself Political Eco- nomy ; his left he cherishes more quietly as Pang at the Biblical humbug. Talk to him of the first, of the right shoulder, and he raises it high, proudly advancing to the front in all the fuUness of a crop well rufiled, in all the spreading dignity of Philosophy in bloom. Talk to him now of the second, and, ah ! it is no less dear to him ; but, see, it has instantly sunk, while over it^ suddenly shows, crouchingly, as if for a spring, a red, blue, green, yeUow face, that spits out, — with a maniacal eye, and a rabidity that appals — And what of that? As regards the theory itself, perhaps, it would be fair to point out, in the first place, a certain vacillation as to what position it is to assume on the question of 604 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. progress. For a long time, — generally, indeed,' such is the case still, /or the first three-fourths of the volume, — improvement in series, ' a chain,' from lowest to highest, was a fixed and undoubted tenet : it was al- ways understood, for example, and it is still said, that ' the earliest known fossil mammaha are of low grade.' Now, however, — and especially towards the end of the volume, — a change has set in ; progress seems no longer necessary, and we are told that ' the earhest crypto- gams are the highest.' It would be fair, we say, to point to this, and to call for consistency and decision ; but we shall assume — to give materiahsm" its strongest side at once — that progression as progression is out of place in any such element. Progression as progression involves an antecedent idea, involves design — a principle not by any means welcome to the materiaUst, who would know no moulding hand but that of .external conditions. Accordingly, the progression that results from Natural Selection is rather apparent than real. In certain seasons of scarcity, for example, the long- necked Herbivora might live, while the short-necked should die ; but the former need not necessarily be an improvement on the latter. This, then, were not properly progression; this rather were but succession — contingent succession, on contingent variations of contingent conditions. We shall not object that, per- haps, succession is inadequate to the facts ; we shall adhere to such influences only as might lead to a natu- ral selection of the Giraffe, on the one hand, and to an equally natural rejection of the Ox, on the other. But' let us remark for a moment on what in the theory concerns this Giraffe. How came the Giraffe by such a length of neck ? Oh, it was not always so, poor thing ; it used, indeed, to be much like other creatures; CONCLUSION. 605 only, you must know, there was once a season of scarcity, and out of a mass of herbivorous quadru- peds, none survived but those that got at the leaves of trees, by having the advantage of the others in length of neck. But was one season enough ? Oh, as for that, the same thing happened more or less every season. And why is the process terminated — why does the Giraffe's neck not lengthen still ? How do you know the process is terminated ? Perhaps, it is going on still ; from the short records of human exist- ence, we cannot hope, you know, &c. &c. : besides, it is only fair to say that things cannot be expected to stretch for ever ! Are not these just such propos as schoolboys might indulge in, all concerned, the while, being al- ready much too dark in the beak to believe a word of them ? This theory is supposed to be superior to that of Lamarck, who feigns the neck of the Giraffe to have simply stretched to the effort of desire ; but is not this latter much the more likely of the two ? Compare the hut of the first Barisius with the palace of the Tuileries, and see between, the long series of cabins, cots, cottages, and houses, which must have been built the while, before the skill adequate to the first was transformed into the skill adequate to the last. Figure this transformation now, not as in series, but as in an individual : behold the hut of the Barisius grow into the Tuileries. In this way, man's hut has so grown in process of time only in obedience to his own desire : why, then, should not the neck of the Giraffe have similarly grown, through long generations, in obedience to a similar principle ? If we can figure a single hut and a single man to represent the one respective series, we may figure also similarly, respectively, a single Giraffe and a single neck. There, then, at the foot of 606 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. its single tree, is the single Giraffe, witli its single neck It but reaches the lowest leaves as yet, and has no further desire. But now a breeze blows into its teeth a branch from the tier above : how tender, juicy, and dehcious ! Desire awakes, and by dint of effort it attains to the tier above. An accidental branch from the third tier similarly incites to new effort, which, ever similarly stimiilated, continues ever stretching from tier to tier, till at length, in the end, the Giraffe — or, what is the same thing, its descendant after millions of generations- — finds itself browsing on the very top ! One must admit, at all events, the intrepidity of men who can commit themselves to such giraffe-stories. But we do not wish to concern ourselves at present with the puerilities of the execution in detail, nor with the inadequacy of succession to progression, nor with the comic uncertainty of hand that cannot let go and yet will not hold progression : what concerns us here is the materialistic theory in itself, of which succession is, perhaps, the most characteristic feature. Now, suc- cession does not by any means necessitate a beginning ; and it is a proof of the haziness of the theorists that, through the principle of analogy, they nevertheless postulate such. Of \h.is postulatum, haziness, indeed, is the very element ; for though the conception of a primitive atom floats somewhere or other as nucleus in it, this nucleus, however primitive it is to be, has al- ready around it an entire world of more primitive conditions, to which it, indeed, is but the medium through which they variously pronounce themselves. A beginning must be something First, and something absolutely One ; but a primitive atom already in con- ditions is neither the one nor the other. The thought, then, is evidently very defective that would conceive CONCLUSION. 607 an atom primitive, and yet would see it in time and in space, and surrounded by conditions. If all these elements were to be granted as a beginning, creation — at least to theory — were not so difficult. But, though a material atom be evidently thus wholly inadequate to Time, Space, and Conditions, and, consequently, quite impossibly a beginning, let us conceive it such ; let us name it a First and One, and let us look at it on other sides. Now, in the first place, of what size shall it be ? This question is adapted to give long reflection, perhaps, to the majority of minds ; but we hasten to interrupt this by asking again : Nay, all size being but relative, why think of size at all ? Any size is surely ■ quite indifferent to infinite space — one size quite as good as another ; a needle-point were in this connexion quite as effective as a pin-head, and that as a whole solar system ! A whole solar system . of a single sub- stance dwindles down in opposition to infinite space into a needle-point ; and, e contra, a needle-pohit is thus tantamount — quantitatively — to a solar system. In a word. Quantity is indiiferent ; it must have been hazard that assigned the first quantity ; or, in our way of it, we do not see any reason for quantity at all — we cannot tell why there should have been any quan- tity, or just such a thing as quantity. That is true ; these questions have been only concerns of Hegel as yet.* There seems no reason, then, why we should not * There is tliat in the above other side, but brought back, as it which will give a firm hold at last were, into unity of notion. The on the Quantitative Infinite, which reader wiU do well to refer to the consists simply in the fact of the relative places under Quantity, and absolute relativity of Quantity ; any will probably be delighted to iind positivity of Quantity seems abso- himself in complete light at last, lutely and infinitely to flee. This We may point out now too, that, is just the infinite divisibility on an- though the rationale, formerly as- 608 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. at once go back to nothing, so far as quantity is con- cerned : but, not to distress ourselves with this, we signed for the apparent difficulties that presented themselves on occa- sion of the ' Nullities ' of Thomas Taylor, is the technically correct one, what lies at bottom is this, that any quantity is quite as good as another, so far as a capability of discretion is concerned. What is involved in all that, is simply the antithesis, the Notion, the fact that the seen explication implies, is through an unseen im- plication. This is the Species. What is, is but the middle of the growing antithesis, which was at first Being and Nothing. There is no advance to identity that is not implicitly ac- companied by an advance to differ- ence : 80 it is you repel the point only to he struck by the but. Energy, you will grant to be positive, and very positive too ; still it implies a negntive, another, on which it acts, through which indeed it is. Nay, of the two, either is indifferently the other, just as it is often mani- festly indifferent which of the mo- ments you name universal, which particular. Energy is much talked of, nowadays, by philosophers, who will only stultify themselves till they understand this necessary mu- tuation. Meantime they think energy a one ! Hegel, with his pairs of inner and outer, force and energy, &c., is there the while to save them, if they wish, from whole lifetimes of mere futility. It is necessary to know that any identity, or whole, may be viewed as an ab- solute, which is absolute, however, only through its relativity, and identical only through its differ- ence. The extrication and opposi- tion of the relativity, the difference, from and to, the absoluteness, the identity, is the Method, the collapse or eclipse of the one into the other to a new. God is, what he is, through himself; God is, at the same time, not what he is, through himself; otherwise he were not what he is through himself. This again is the Notion, an Affirmative, an explicit 2nd that involves a Ne- gative, an implicit 1st, a 1st and 2nd that are identical in a 3rd : the Trinity! The whole secret nature of the case will yield itself to due meditation here. The reader will, perhaps, perceive that there has been contemplated something of an arrangement to produce a graduated conviction ; and the following statement will, it may be, complete the metaphysical side : — The Notion, or Thought as Thought, which as siich has alwjiys an object on which it is engaged, is, according to Hegel, this, that it (you or I if you will) cannot expli- cate without, accurately and exactly to the same extent, implicating — cannot set into position without, at the same time, quite correspond- ently, setting into negation. Of this Notion, all Antitheses are modes; or all possible antitheses are, in ultimate analysis, identical with each other in their essential Form and in their essential Matter. Thus, explicate Being as completely as you may, you are, all the time, just as completely, implicating No- thing ; and of this absolutely abs- tract antithesis, all other antithe- ses are but repetitions — on higher CONCLUSION. 609 shall just assume a quantitative atom in the middle of Time and Space. Now, again, how shall this atom distinguish itself? It must be something — something positive — not nothing ; it must affirmatively distinguish and assert itself. But it is impossible for anything to make itself distinguishable, to assert itself, unless as in contrast to another — and the atom is by supposition alone. The quahtative is quite as much an indifferent hmit, as the quantitative one : the that is not less a one of two than the there, — each is through its other. The redound, the contrecoup, is inevitable. You cannot make a vacuum without at the same time filling the identically same vacuum : diiference is identity, iden- tity difierence. Ehminate A — its place is fiUed ; and you have the labour of the Danaids, not to the end of the chapter, but to the creation of the world. Setzung and Aufhebung, Ponency and Tollency, (we may coin also ponated and tollated, ponation and foliation,) are the moments of the single mutuation that is. This explication of nature, in which you are now, will stages, and in graduated series, how- system also he conceives himself to ever. All possible antitheses of complete as well, not only — its he- thought will he found to constitute ginning and germ — the Kantian a System— the Logical Idea. Of philosophy, hut philosophy as such, this Idea, Nature is hut — and accu- and this finally and definitively, hy rately so — the extemalisation. Spi- raising it to a SCTewij^c basis and in- rit, again — or say actual Humanity forming it with a scientific principle. — is but a return of the idea from In short, we may say that "Hegel externality to intemality. These has shown the Metaphysical world three spheres, however, — Logical to be not less under the control of Idea, Nature, Spirit, — are not to be Action and Meaction than the Phy- understood as each self-dependent sical ; and that, while it is Action and self-subsistent : they are to- that, as explicit and overt, is, in the gether one — one in trinity. The first instance, believed the whole, total result is a System, by which Reaction, though implicit and oe- Plegel conceives himself to answer cult, is no less real, essential, and all philosophical questions which necessary, have ever yet been put. By this VOL. II. R R 610 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. • disappear into its implication, but in the new explica- tion you will abide. Eemain in the disappearing ex- phcation, and you remain in the eternal sorrow. The explication as the explication is the abstract side, and this you have chosen, — forgetting that you are the concrete, and will still be the other that emerges. A primitive atom is an untenable position, then, for it were absolutely indistinguishable without another. Such atom, in fact, were no more than abstract Quality, that and no more. But, abstracting from the fact that, with a primitive atom, we are but in presence of abstract Quantity and abstract Quality, let us hold a first and one space-filling atom to be still conceivable: Space is around it. Time is over it ; it is there, one and single, the absolutely First. Why it was the first, and not another, we shall not ask. It is there, and in such manner there : but how will anything else ever come there? It is absolutely single, how can it possibly change? — how can it possibly grow? — how can it pos- sibly move? — and where are your necessary condi- tions ? — ^Pshaw ! kick thought into limbo : it is easy to see that condensation takes place, motion results, heat, fight, and electricity are generated, and so we have the whole ! — Certainly the kick has made Cosmogony easy ! The theorists, in fact, feign all back into a single identity, but quite forget to ask themselves. How, then, can we extricate difference from identity? This is really the problem in ultimate generafisation, and these theorists know not — who does? — that this was the problem Kant set up when he asked, 'How are a jonon synthetic judgments possible?' This, however, is the first step towards a true way of stating the problem, and into this it is perfectly clear that Hegel saw. CONCLUSION. 611 What it all comes to, then, is simply things as they are ; a primitive atom is nought, we have only material structure under material conditions. Indeed, the theo- rists in question may declare, We never intended it otherwise, of primitive atoms we never spoke. It may be said in reply, that to go back to a primitive atom was, in fact, to put their own problem into its true place. A primordial form seems really to demand a primitive atom; and to bridge the gulf from this first atom to an oyster, were not more difficult than to bridge the gulf from an oyster to a man : agencies adequate to the latter may be readily assumed adequate to the former also. But, indeed, the search for a primordial form, to which they say they are driven by the universal analogy, is, ia ultimate analysis, nothing but the search — for identity without difference ; quite the same problem as that of the primitive atom. The one great error of these theorists, in truth, is their one- sided resolution to look only for identity : I am like the monkey; so I am to abstract from the differences, and speculate on how and when I derived thence ! But, similarly, I am like the rat ; slit each of us from chin to pubis, and how analogous are the organs ! I am, in fact, an animal, and as such analogous to all animals — nay, I stand as summary of the entire round of the principles of nature : but what then ? Am I not also more? — have I not an inner as well.? — and on which side is the testimony, if that whole outer be but one analogy of this inner, and on principles of this inner ? It is a mistake, then, to abstract from difference and signaUse identity alone, just as it is a mistake to signalise difference and abstract from identity.* This * Enlightenment, on the general well to have remembered these question of Man, would have done words of one of its own foremost B B 2 612 THE SECBET OP HEGEL. mistake coheres with the general mistake that these theorists propose to approach the problem and mani- pulate the problem with all their categories ready- formed : it has never occurred to them to say, we determine all by difference and identity, by conditions, by cause and effect, &c. : it will, therefore, be necessary to examine first of all what these things mean, and whether what they involve be in itself true or not. Now, this it was that occiirred to Hegel ; and so it was that he was enabled to discern an entire internal system, of which nature was but the externalisation, and thus complete on both sides the single analogy, the concrete reciprocity. Had the theorists in question but perceived the necessity of verifying those internal standards by which they proposed to appreciate and appraise all, they would have consulted Metaphysic, and would have been surprised to find that the whole industry they contemplated had received its rationale, and, in its extreme form, its coup-de-grdce, more than fourscore years ago at the hands of Kant. Or — as we may say it otherwise — they would have been surprised to find that what they contemplated was at once absolutely certain and utterly impossible. In what he calls the Anhang, or Appendix, to the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant proves the existence of three laws in human nature imposed by it on the objects of sense, and received by it from and with these objects, as if they (these laws) were part priesta, Bayle : — ' L'liomme est le sais si la nature peut presenter un morceau le plus difficile a dig^rer object plus strange et plus difficile a qui se prfisente a tous les systemes. p^ngtrer a la raison toute seule, que II est rScueil du vrai et du faux ; il ce que nous appelons un animal embarrasse les naturalistes, il em- raisonnable.' barrasse les orthodoxes Je ne CONCLUSION. 613 and parcel of these objects themselves, and not a re- flexion, a colour fallen on them from the very faculties to which they (these objects) presented themselves. This peculiarity is summed up in the single word transcendental : that is transcendental which is really a contribution to objects from us, but which, at the same time, appears to us actually in the objects themselves. Further, the thi'ee laws in question enter not into objects as Constitutive of them, but only influence them, so to speak, from without, as Regulative of them into unity and system. Now, it is such laws that become transcendent when wrongly applied— r- when, on the supposition that they belong to the objects themselves, conclusions are attempted to be made in regard to these objects which transcend the limits of all possible experience. Here, then, we have a perfect indication of the entire nature of the Darwinian industry : a law, not in objects, but falling from us on them, has been erroneously supposed by the reasoners alluded to to be stiU, nevertheless, in them, and to be capable of sup- plying results quite impossible to any experience. In other words, these gentlemen have supposed objective what was only transcendental, attempting, moreover, to force the same into such use that it became trans- cendent. The three laws in question Kant speaks of thus : — ' Eeason, therefore, prepares for Understanding its field, 1. by a principle of the Homogeneity of the Variety of individuals under higher genera ; 2. through a principle of the Variety of the Homogeneity of indi- viduals under lower species ; and, in order to complete the systematic unity, it adds, 3. a law of the Afiinity of all notions, which law dictates a continuous transi- tion from every single species to every other through 614 THE SECKET OF HEGEL. gradual increase of Diversity : we may name them the Principles of the Homogeneity, of the Specification, and of the Continuity of Forms.' The first law Kant further expresses by the proposition, "■ Entia prceter necessitatem non esse multiplicanda ; ' the second by, ' Entium varietates non temere esse minuendas ; ' and the third by, '■Non datur vacuum formarum,' or, ' Datur continuum formarum,' or, ' Est lex continui in natural Each of these laws aims only at a ' Focus Imaginarius,' for the use of our understanding, which, therefore, as a focus imaginarius, can only be asymp- totically approached, nor ever reached, for it is un- derived from experience, and is indeed wholly beyond the limits of any possible experience. Into the proofs of Kant we have no room to enter, but it vdll probably be found, in the end, that they are irrefutable. Variety, Affinity, and Unity are three necessities of Eeason, and they fall on Nature from Eeason, but are not in Nature as such : they are only the source of three maxims of Eeason, which Eeason only seeks to realise. When, then, the supporters of the modern argument in question would refer aU to a common genus, and would account for all variety by 'transmutation of species' (accomphshed by whatever expedients they may Hke), they are only repeating the schoolboy's chase- after the rainbow ; they are pursuing only what is in themselves, and will move as they move. There is no single genus in Nature, nor any infinitude of mutually- affined species : these are but spectra of the reasoner's own projection, illusions merely when their real quality is undetected. They have their indispensable use, they connect and give meaning to experience, but they are only snares and pitfalls when applied beyond the pos- sibihty of experience. One grand system, unity of CONCLUSION. 615 type, all this must be postulated from the very consti- tution of human reason ; but from the very constitution of experience as well, it can never be reahsed in ex- perience. It is ours to assume that there is such arti- culate chain in fact : we but stultify ourselves, however, would we attempt to see this chain in growth. This, nevertheless, is just what Darwinists would see ; and just so it is that Darwinianism is at once absolutely certain and utterly impossible. We would catch Nature in the fact, would we — actually come upon her with an individual half in and half out ! . We would see identity end, and difference begin ; but so stiU that the one were the other ! But we may support Kant by Hegel, who (Encyclo. § 249, and Eemark) pronounces as foUows : Nature is to be regarded as a System of Grades, of which the one necessarily rises out of the other, and is the proximate truth of the one from which it results — but not so that the one were naturally generated out of the other, but only in the inner Idea which constitutes the Grround of Nature. Meta- Tnorphosis accrues only to the Notion as such, as only its alteration is development. The Notion, however, is in Na- ture partly only inner, partly existent only as living indivi- dual : to this individual alone, then, is existent metamorphosis confined. It has been an inept conception of earlier and later ' Naturphilosophie ' to regard the progression and transition of one natural form and sphere into a higher as an outwardly actual production which, however, to be made clearer, is relegated into the obscurity of the past. To Nature exter- nality is precisely proper — to let the differences fall asunder and present themselves as neutral Existences : the dialectic Notion which guides forward the stages, is the inner of the same. Thinking consideration must deny itself such nebul- ous, at bottom sensuous, conceptions, as is in especial the 616 THE SEOKET OP HEGEL. so-called origin, for example, of plants and animals from water, and then the origin of the more highly developed animal organisations from the lower, &c. This, written many years before the appearance of Mr. Darwin's book, reads like a critique on nothing else. This, in fact, is the truth of the case and ends the business. Nature is the externahty of the Notion, and, as such, a prey to boundless contingency : the metamorphosis, the development, the articulation, is due to the Notion alone. Name it in the language of Kant, or name it in the language of Hegel, it is the same thing that is indicated. Kant himself says, ' the principle of genera postulates identity,' that of species ' diversity.' In ultimate abstraction, indeed, the whole problem just concerns the metaphysic of identity and difference ; neither of which is without the other* The error, then, of the reasoners in question is patent. We may say, in general, too, that they have been precipitate and rash, that they have attempted to execute the realisation of their problem without having first thought this problem out. Not only is it utterly impossible for any material principle to be an adequate Beginning, an adequate First and One, but the whole problem they set themselves concerns at bottom abs- tract Quality, abstract Quantity, abstract Identity, abstract Difference, abstract Condition, and, in general, the whole body of Metaphysic with which — though they knew it not themselves — unexamined, simply pre- supposed, they set to manipulate their atom or their species, as if so any legitimate result could be possible. * It is interesting- to find Kant with Perceptions, proceeds to No- ooming so often directly on the No- tions, and ends with Ideas ' the tion. At the end of this Appendix, triplicity of the Notion almost in its he -will be found saying, ' Thus, very logical name, then, all human knowledge begins CONCLUSION. 617 Consider their zoological infinite alone ! What is it but a blind presupposition that Difference, through its own infinitude, identifies itself at last ? So it is that the infinitude of Discretion eliminates itself and restores Continuity ; and thus, too, it is that we arrive at length at truth — the Kantian, the Hegehan, the Con- crete Notion. Cuvier shall pursue Difference, and St. Hilaire Identity : but we shall take part exclusively with neither. There is a genus which holds under it all species, and aU individuals ; there is a horizon which holds under it infinite horizons, as they others : but this genus, this horizon is not a material atom ; it is the Notion, it is Self-Consciousness, it is God. In passing, let us just point out again the one-sided- ness of the Infinite of Natural Philosophy at present, the progress of which is to bring all material atoms into a cold mass, or a hot mass, in the centre ! Were there nothing in existence but the material forces of this Natural Philosophy, the past Infinite ought long ago to have achieved the result contemplated. That it has not done so depends on the duplicity of the Notion, to which Attraction were impossible, did it not possess, at the same time, just as much Eepulsion. Did said Natural Philosophy consider this, it would wisely with- draw in time from a Metaphysic in reference to Energy, which is, at bottom, as crude as the ludicrous inco- herences of the Medical Philosophers, or Philosophic Medicists, who, at present, wall-blind themselves, afihct with their own malady every mortal — who attempts to read them ! * Wc were badly enough off, then, with the mere • In coherence witli the Infinites however, ought to he seen to be no already mentioned, there is a Geo- Geological Infinite, but a Geologi- logical lufinito in general -which, cal Skeleton. 618 THE SECRET OP HEGEL. brute law of Mr. Buckle, but we are worse off still with the contingent lawlessness of varying conditions ; for so, there were nothing left us but the atoms of Demo- critus, in the void of Democritus, under the T()-)(ri of Democritus. But even suppose it so — even suppose all the views of materiahsm accepted, one after the other, up to complete Darwinianism (necessarily, of course, Identity as Identity, but in material form — that is, as a Primitive Atom) — why, we have but to turn the back, and the world is as it was, the problem as it was. We shall admit all, we shaU see the primitive atom, we shall see its gradual evolution into the formed universe. So admitting, so seeing, we shall lose ourselves in the despair of materiahsm ; we shall lament to ourselves that material agency is all, that there is no hope. But just let us turn our backs on the atom a moment, just let us turn round to the formed universe, came it from whence it may, — Ah ! it is aU stiU there the Apparition, in its wonder, in its beauty, with its innu- merable ideas ! The majestic shape has been there all the while, in unmoved serenity, as if smihng on the tetchy infant, Man ! How came she there, that majestic shape, jewelled in ideas — jewelled in ideas, were they but shells of the shore, or simple heath-bells of the most savage moor ? — That is it, aU has been duly de- veloped from an atom, but whence are the ideas — the ideas of the vast resultant organisation ? Meantime — how easy soever, how varied soever the refutation ^ men have given themselves up a prey to this materiahsm : they go down everywhere despe- rate at present in a wide welter of atheistic atomism. The end of the Aufklarung is material self-will. But is it well so ? Is it really good to end as Schopen- CONCLUSION. 619 hauer? Are we prepared to bear such misery? Is there no consciousness but ' the unhappy conscious- ness ' — das Ungliickliche Bewusstseyn ? Must we be- lieve ourselves but isolated atoms — unconnected with each other, unconnected with the universe — disjimcts — foam-bells, haply murmuring ourselves out, on some plashy pebble of a forlorn shore ? No : the triumph of superior enlightenment wiU not support the materiahst himself long. It is in vain that the soul is burned out of us, that God is burned out of us ; even when reduced to a material calx, these, which might have been within us to our comfort and support, return to haunt us from without, as ghosts of ven- geance. God is what is, and he will pain his creatures till they confess him. We live in the diastole of the universe, and our souls long for the season of systole. All is in the disjunct — cold, lonely, unsupported : fain would we have company once again, warmth, support, in the conjunct. Let us not be too miserable, neither ; judg- ment is now the moment at work, we must accept the element — we may enjoy the variety. There is a comique to amuse at present, even in the shallow, even in the triumphant worthless. We must not give aU to tears ; there is matter still for laughter. GrisUdis is, but not far off as well the wanton she of Bath. If there be the 'Cotter's Saturday Night,' there are likewise the ' JoUy Beggars ; ' if we have Milton's ' Cathedral Music,' we have also an ode of Catullus — (to Furius if you will). So let us make the best of what is given •us — Only, let us know rightly what that is, and of what whole it is but a part. We are shaken asunder from each other certainly, and the traditional substance 620 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. in whicli we lived — a common cement* — has fallen out ; but it is ours to see this, and it is ours to repair this. Systole must succeed diastole: it is now the time to fill the bucket. It is but another side of the same fact, that all weight, for some time back, has been put upon the conscience : not in our works, it has been said, is merit, but in the spirit which produced them. An eloquent utterance to this effect will be found in Car- lyle's Hero-worship (Hero-worship itself, by-the-by, is but a part of the same whole). This, however, is not all true ; this, indeed, is now largely false. This is but the empty bucket, and the bucket has value only in its filling. I, you, he, — we are not to be left, each to his own opinion of conscience, of spirit ; there must be a guarantee that the conscience, the spirit, is the right one. No one can be trusted in that respect to his own self-will. What is concerned is a rational object, which can be reaUsed by the universal will alone. The conscience of the individual is amenable to the prescriptions of the rational object, nor possesses authority but in assent and consent to the universal. It is not in the power of a single female individual even to refuse a crinoline at present without a creak in the machinery of society — a creak that falls with most pain on the ear of the recusant. This is an extreme case, and a temporary, unjustifiable too, certainly, to universal reason : but, in absolute fact, Use and Wont is the true Morality. That is the meaning of the * This may bring pictures of Economy is but a subordinate part mites in a cbeese : no matter ! tra- of it) baa discbarged for tbe time, dition is to bumanity just sucb an leaving us all isolated units, unsup- eloment ; and it is tbis element ported and unbappy. whicb tbe Aufldfirmag (and Political CONCLUSION. 6:21 Hegelian clistinction between SiuUchkeit and Moralitcit. Moralitdt is the conscience of the Aufklaruug: it demands the right of private judgment — place for its own subjective feeling. Sittlichkeit is the deposit of objective reason realised by time in the practical ways of a people. Moralitdt — despite the tolerance, the enhghtened hberality it asserts for itself at present — is a sour and thin fanatic that burns its enemy ahve. Sittlichkeit is a jolly Burgher that hves in Substance, with his family, with his neighbours, with his adminis- trators, with his God. It ought to be ours then, as it were, to fatten our Moralitdt with a filhng of Sittlich- keit — to pasture, as it were, the one on the other. But — in direct antagonism to this — your thorough Illuminatus of the day shall laugh at the mass for wearing absurd round hats and absurd-tailed coats : he, for his part, shall be above the folly of the herd ; his wedding shall be surreptitious, and he shall skulk about it with the air of a thief in the sulks ; he shall not christen his children, neither, nor attend church ; he shall not ceremoniously exchange cards, and never for the hfe of him drop one with a P.P.C. on it. He shall write no letters of sympathy, none of congratu- lation, not any of condolence. He shall never send any kind messages to inquire, and never be seen at a funeral. He shall exist in Pure Reason ! — But what is this Pure Eeason ? It is only his own reason ; it is uncorrected by the reason of others ; it tyrannises over himself, it tyrannises over everyone unfortunately sub- mitted to him. Eeason here, in fact, is simply tanta- mount to abstract self-will; and the rule of self-wiU is the only tyranny, the rule of self-wiU is despotism proper. This self-wiU feels itself, indeed, abstract — divorced 622 THE SECKET OF HEGEL. from Substance. But the whole bent of all theoretic teaching for a long time back — in Political Economy and the Aufklarung generally (compare Shelley on that ' Anarch,' ' Custom') — has been to foster nothing but this self-will ; and so it is that we are aU, more or less, infected— Society, more or less, disintegrated by it. To seek a cure, then, is not now an affair of a few individual Illuminati, but that of the community at large, and it is to be accomplished by a return to Substance. But what is Substance ? Substance is the tradi- tional observances prescribed by objective Eeason, in the elements of State, Town, Church, Family, &c. And would you have this Substance in the authority and articulation of the Notion, it is there for every- one in the pages of Hegel. On such a wrong course are we all nowadays, that — to take a homely example — people still entertain indeed, but there is no longer any hospitahty. Eather entertainments at present are periodical mortifications : I mortify you by a display of my splendour in April and June ; you mortify me by exhibiting yours in May and July. And in the midst whether of mortification or triumph, we each sigh for the days when things were otherwise : we eat the diner a la Russe, but what is present to thought — ^what is actually fragrant in the nostril — is some plainer meal years since. We are disposed to prophesy, then, that the first symptom of a return to Substance will be a return to meals actually intended for enjoyment — and next, perhaps, the recall of the children from the Boarding-school ! In short, what we all long for, is the Christian simplicity, the Christian happiness of our forefathers. We have seen already in picture the subject of this CONCLUSION. 623 simplicity, the subject of this happiness ; but it will do us good to see him once again, ' the simple pious soul, on the green earth, in the bright fresh air, — patiently industrious, patiently loving, — piously penitent, piously hopeful, — sure of a new world and a new life, a better, world and a better hfe, united to his loved ones, there for ever in the realms of God, through the merits of his Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.' This is happiness — the thinnest Auf geklarter, if he deny it with his lips, will confess it by his sighs ! This is happiness, and this is what must be restored to us, else History indeed draws nigh its term : a universe recognised to be mate- rial only were but Humanity's grave. But this happi- ness will be restored to us, and in this restoration the very most powerful instrument will, perhaps, be the identical Hegel as in contrast to whom — so contra- dictorily opposed the error was — the picture of this happiness first suggested itself. Hegel, indeed, has no object but — reconcihng and neutrahsing atomism, — once again to restore to us — and in the new light of the new thought — Immortahty and Free-will, Christianity and God. "With the quotation from Bacon with which Kant begins his Kritik, it seems fit that we should now, after Hegel, and the glimpse obtained into him, end. It runs thus : — De nobis ipsis silemus : de re autem, quae agitur, petimns : ut homines earn non opinionem, sed opus esse cogitent; ac pro certo habeant, non Sectee nos alicujus, aut Placiti, sed utilitatis et amplitudinis humanse fundamenta moKri. Deinde ut suis commodis sequi ... in commune consulant . . . et ipsi ia partem veniant. Prseterea ut bene sperent, neque Instaura- tionem nostram ut quiddam infinitum et ultra mortale fingant, et animo concipiant ; quum re vera sit infiniti erroris finis et terminus legitimus. 624 THE SECRET OF HEGEL. Now, probably, it will appear not presumptuous that Kant should have sought to prefigure his work so. Now, too, it may be, we are able to see not too dimly that the Kantian Philosophy concerns an opus, and not an opinio; the foundations of human advantage and advancement, and not the interests of any dogma or sect ; and that it may, indeed, be the end and legitimate term of infinite error. And now, perhaps, we shall be willing to consult together, and, for our own profit, participate in the work — not without hope ; — at the same time that we shall assuredly not bind ourselves to the mere human letter whether of Kant or Hegel, as either infinite or more than mortal. Fiaally, if we may be allowed de nobis ipsis non silere, it wiU be only to say that we hope the imper- fections of these volumes may prove but as the irre- gularity of a ladder — but as the interruptedness of a series of stepping-stones which yet reach at least to the terra firma of a general desire — Hegel. THE END. LONDOIf PnlNTED ET SPOTIISWOODE AND CO. NEW-STKEET SQUARE BY JAMES HUTCHISON STIRLING, F.K.C.S. & LL.D., Edin.; FOEEIGN MeMBEK 01' THE PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OE BERLIN. I. In 2 vols. 8vo, Price 28s. THE SECRET OF HEGEL; Being tlie Hegelian System in Origin, Principle, Form, and Matter. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. From Bell's Messenger. "There can be no question whatever respecting the weight and solidity of Mr. Stirling's exposition. ... It will mark a period in philosophical transactions, and tend more thoroughly to reveal the tendencies of modern thought in that direction than any other work yet published in this country has done." From the Edinburgh Courant. " Mr. Stirling's learned and laborious endeavours to unveil the mystery of Hegel are entitled to attentive and thoughtful consideration. . . . Mr Stirling has applied himself to his subject systematically and thoroughly. . . . There can no such complete guide be found in the English language." From the Glasgow Herald. " This is a most remarkable book in several respects. The author is, perhaps, the very first in this country who has labori- ously and patiently sounded Hegel. . . . Unlike any of the commentators of Hegel that we have yet Been, Mr. Stirlmg can always be understood by an intelligent and attentive reader. He writes as if he wished to make himself plain to the mean- est capacity, and he has a facility of language and illustration which lights up the driest and most abstract reasonings of his master." Prom the Temperance Spectator. " A great book has just been published, entitled ' The Secret of Hegel,' which, sooner or later, must attract the attention; and influence the conclusions, of true thinkers." Prom the Weekly Despatch. '* A very elaborate, conscientious, and earnest work. . . We express our high estimation of the ability and research dis- played in it." Prom the John BvU. " If anything can make Hegel's ' complete Logic ' acceptable to the English mind, such faith and industry as Mr. Stirling's must succeed. . . . Those who wish to form a complete survey of the great field of German philosophy will do well to study these volumes." Fi'om the London Review. " We welcome most cordially these volumes. ... A work which is the monument of so much labour, erudition, persever- ance, and thought." From the Athenaurn. " To say that this is by far the most important work written in the English language on any phase of the post-Kantian philosophy of Germany would be saying very little. . . . One of the most remarkable works on philosophy that has been seen for years." From the Churchman. " The book itself is of much value, especially at the present time. ... It will repay those well who will give the necessary attention to its reading. We have to thank Mr. Stirling for setting these obscure dicta in as clear a light as they can be set in, and making them as intelligible as they can be made." From the Eclectic Review. " All readers who have the taste and patience necessary for the encountering such tasks wiU be glad to receive Mr. Stirling's exposition. We have read it with deep interest. It was a very tough task, and he has wrought it in a determined and intelligent manner." Prom, the Westminster Review. " . . Has approached nearer to an intelligible exposition of the Hegelian philosophy than has yet been accomplished in Eng- land. . . . The Preface a remarkably vigorous and masterful piece of writing — the book able in the highest degree." Frovi the Globe. " Mr. Stirling has certainly done much to help the English student. . . . He is a writer of power and fire — original, bold, self-reliant, and with a wealth of knowledge and thought that must soon make him distinguished among the teachers of the teachers of this country. From Professor Masson. " The book deserves a cordial welcome." Prom Mr. Cupples. " The whole work is in my view a masterpiece — a great book. The style, manner, method, and art of it enchant me — to use a, loose expression among general terms. I consider it to be com- pletely successful in what it proposes to do. Its appearance should constitute an era at once in the literary and the philoso- phical aspect. The ease and fulness of philosophical expression in it — the power and wealth of illustration, comparison, assimila- tion, analogy, metaphor, literary filling out and accommodation, and finish — are to my mind unique. The labour, the patience — the instinct for truth and for metaphysical tracks and trails — the constant connection with life — the explanatory method of re- suming and taking up, so that the reader is taught without almost any stress on his own thought — these things continually rouse my admiration and deh'ght. The whole book is colossal — a won- der of work. The style of it is unique in raciness, original force, and utterly unaffected prodigality of wealth— expository, ratiocinative, illustrative, literary, familiar, discursive. The characterisations of the man Hegel are delicice of literary touch. " From the Caledonian Mercury. " Whatever may be said of the speculative Gsrman himself, the ability of his expositor is superior to question. Mr. Stirling has brought to his work an able and instructed mind, and an unwavering confidence in the power and majesty of his master. He is in himself a host of critics and disciples." From the Scotsman. "The critic, the historian, the sociologist, the physiologist, the student of natural science, will find ideas in exploring after the secret of Hegel that will be useful in arresting other secrets." From the North American Bcview. " The author is a man of classical accomplishments, of the sturdiest and, at the same time, keenest inteUeotual faculty, of imagination enough to stock an aviary of popular poets. " From the British Controversialist. " It is granted to few in any age- -and especially in this age of critical rather than of effective thought — to gain by a single effort the highest place in any department of literature. This rare feat has been accomplished by James Hutchison Stirling. To him ' familiarity has been converted into insight ; the toils of speculation have made him strong ; and the results of specu- lation have made him wise.' At a time when philosophic thinking seemed exhausted, and panting souls toiled after truth apparently in vain ; when realism and psychology appeared to be triumphant over ideaUsm and metaphyaio ; when the diviner element in man was losing the consciousness of itself, and had begun to be ignored in speculations upon human nature ; and when the outward forms of Being looked as if they were certain not only to win, but to monopolise the entire attention of man- kind — one arose, suddenly as an apparition, capable of changing all that. A philosopher in good truth— one who, stirred by the love of wisdom, had toiled long and longingly to acquire a knowledge of the hidden roots of thoughtful life, and who, un- restingly though unhastingly, devoted the vigour of manhood's prime to that researchful study which alone repays the thinker with revelations — came forth from the seclusion of a self- imposed discipleship to lay upon the library table of reflective men the results of a ' ten years' conflict ' with the mighty mysteries of human thought and feeling. SoUd, judicious, and capable men saw in the book matter for profound consideration, and determined to bestow on it a loving perusal and a careful judgment. . . . The value of the book is so great that merely to read it is an education in philosophy." From Ber deutscJie Pionier of Cincinnati. " So blieben die Sachen stehen bis vor uugefahr einem Jahr- zent als zu gleicher Zeit in England und in America dem Studium deutscher Philosophic ein nener bisher unerreiehter Aufschwung gegeben ward : in England geschah diess namentlich durch J. Hutchison Stirling." ' From the Troy [U.S.A.) Daily Press. " Dr. James Hutchison Stirling, the newest and deepest thinker of Great Britain, has for the first time reproduced German philosophy, with sufficient insight and culture to render it thoroughly intelligible. Dr. Stirling has not only proved that such men as Kant and Hegel tmderstood themsdves, but he has duly scalped the quacks who have met transcendentalism with sneers instead of brains. " Prom Letter of Prof. Sosenkranz to Journ. Sp. Phil. "In an article, 'Theism and Pantheism,' you have, in speak- ing of Hegel, adopted an interpretation of his system to which I adhere, and which is also represented on the part of the English by Dr. Stirling (' Secret of Hegel '). Hegel not only does not deny God, freedom, and immortality, but he teaches them as the highest consequences of his speculation. He rejects atheism and pantheism in the clearest words. Freedom is the soul of his ethical view of the world. In regard to immortality he has nowhere propounded a credo in catechism form ; but the manner in which he expresses himself in his 'Philosophy of Keligion,' in treating of the Egyptian religion, can surely leave no doubt on the subject." II. In Svo, Pi-ice as. SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON; BEING THE PHILOSOPHY OP PERCEPTION. AN ANALYSIS. From the Scotsman. " Mr. Stirling h»3 published a separate thin volume, justifyinc his hostile criticisms by details, and dealing altogether a blow to the reputation of Sir W. Hamilton's doctrine of perception more ponderous than that dealt by Mr. MiU ; for it is a blow struck from a higher altitude, and directed by an eye that com- mands a wider range than Mr. Mill's, From the Aberdeen Journal. " Mr. Stirling's works in exposition of the Hegelian philoso- phy stamped him as a writer of the first rank on philosopical subjects. . . . We unreservedly give Mr. Stirling high praise as a controversialist ; he had already earned his laurels as an expositor in the field of philosophy. His vision is large, clear, and minute; and as a mental anatomist, he outs neatly, cleanly, and to the core." From the Glasgow Herald. " We place a very high value upon this analysis. It shows that the author writes from fulness of knowledge, and after a careful thought ; and it also exhibits ingenuity, dexterity, clear decided convictions, and vigorous expression." From the Guardian. " It is the genuine product of a peculiar mind which is really original and thoughtful." From the Edimburgh Courant. " His knowledge of metaphysical subjects is plainly thorough and extensive ; and his book, as it stands, will very well reward the attention of the student." From the Westminster Review. " There could not be a more vigorous and damaging onslaught on Hamiltonianism than that of Mr. Stirling — the more damag- ing, because we have here the result of an unprejudiced ex- amination of the writings of that celebrated logician." From, the London Review. "The author of this second volume under notice, bears a name that stands high in the list of modern philosophical writers. Mr. Stirling's ' Secret of Hegel,' which was noticed in our columns some time back, stamped the writer at once a.s a man of profound thought, wide erudition, and great independ- ence of view. . . , As we might expect from a critic of Mr. Stirling's subtlety, earnestness, and self-reliance, the scrutiny is very close and unsparing, and we must say that Hamilton's reputation comes out of the trial considerably damaged." From the British Controversialist. "This is the work of a man who is emphatically a thinker. James Hutchison Stirling has written a treatise on. ' The Secret of Hegel ' — which, we regret to say, we have not read. There is, however, in this harsh-spoken, trenchant, and incisive critique, proof enough of ability to give new, fresh, vigorous thought to the problems of philosophy. The vision and the insight of the man is acute and accurate. The argument against Sir WUliam Hamilton's tenets is put in a more telling form than it has been presented by its author's ' more distinguished contemporary, Mr. Mill ; ' and as it is less discursive, it is more cogent. The eye with which Mr. Stirling has perused the scattered writings of Hamilton has been lynx-like in its fault-seeing. The selective faculty which culled the pertinent extracts to which he refers as embodying the distinct utterances of the doctrine of Hamilton, has been choicely gifted with a sleuth-hound's infaUibility of pursuit and seizure, despite of aU dodges and evasions. The logical power by which comparisons have been made between passage and passage, thought and thought, is cultured and sharpened to the finest ; while the language employed in the discussion is terse, animated, varied, well arranged, and most eflfectively put together. It would be difficult indeed to mistake the signification of any sentence in the book. Without being 8 so pedantically scholastic, it is as translucent as Hamilton's. The grasp of his mind is tense, the heat of his passion intense, and the language in which he expresses both is sententious, graphic, and precise." III. In 8vo, Price Is. AS REGAEDS PROTOPLASM; SECOND COMPLETED EDITION. From the Journal of Speculative Philosophy. " The preface is an annihilating reply to the last rejoinder of Mr. Huxley. Indeed the pamphlet as a whole is one of the most powerful polemics ever written." From the Athenceum. " Clearly and forcibly written, it is distinguished by a fairness of statement and a moderation of tone which are rare in contro- versies of this sort. If Professor Huxley intended in his essay to propound a complete theory of the physical basis of life, the honours of the controversy must be adjudged to Dr. Stirling." From " Nature " {Dr. Bastian). " When one of the most powerful representatives of the transcendental school of philosophy, himself possessing a know- ledge of biological science, consents to do battle against the modern doctrines concerning life and its assumed material sub- stratum, protoplasm, we may .expect, at least, that the strongest arguments which can be adduced will be brought to bear against the obnoxious theories and their supposed materialistic tenden- cies. Still more especially must we prepare ourselves for battle A outrance when the champion that steps forward is one who has already grappled so manfully with the ' Secret of Hegel,' and is otherwise so distinguished a leader aimongst the adverse school of thinkers." From the Watcliwm-d. " We have space for nothing more than a sentence to accord to this splendid tractate the tribute of our highest admiration. It meets the materialism of Huxley at every point, and at every point confutes it by the clearest demonstrations, and by a wonderful surplus of overwhelming argument, at once in phy- siology, chemistry, logic, and metaphysics." From the Oourant. " We may just say that Dr. Gamgee, as well as Dr. Beale, bears most emphatic testimony to the completeness and success of Dr. Hutchison Stirling's argument with Mr. Huxley." From " Force and Matter," hy Prof. Arthur Gamgee. " To enter into a complete discussion of the whole argument would extend far beyond the limits of this lecture, and would serve no useful purpose, more particularly after the very able and exhaustive essay in which one of the leading thinkers in Europe — Dr. Hutchison Stirling — has treated the subject." From "Protoplasm," by Dr. Beale. "Since the first edition of this work was published, Mr. Huxley's essay on the ' Physical Basis of Life ' has been sub- mitted to a very just but clear and searching philosophical criticism by Mr. James Hutchison Stirling, of Edinburgh, whose excellent treatise I very strongly recommend my readers care- fully to study. I should have taken from it many extracts, but the work is easily obtained, and readers should see it in a com- plete form." From " Systematic Tlieology," hy Dr. Bodge, of Princeton. " This is considered to be the best refutation of the theory of the correlation of physical and vital force." 10 From Dr. John Brom}, " Thanks very much for the knowledge and comfort your ' As Regards ' has given me — it is lion's marrow, and disposes of Huxley and his protoplasm once for all." From "As regards Protoplasm," hy Br. Hugh Martin. " The Edinburgh press has reason to be proud of producing the overwhelming exposure whiclj Hutchison Stirling's splendid and masterly reply contains. . . . While students of physio- logy wiU find in Stirling's ' As regards Protoplasm ' a much more complete discussion of the physiological question than Huxley has supplied, those interested in the higher philosophy and natural theology will find in it a power of analysis, a cogency and conclusiveness of reasoning, a completeness of treat- ment, and an occasional beauty in the line of the severe and higher eloquence, which wUl lead them to deal with it as a charm- ing study rather than as something to be merely perused." From "Fallacies of Darwinism," by Dr. Bree. " It is impossible to read such clear logical reasoning as this without pleasure. . . . Mr. Huxley's lecture upon Protoplasm has been dealt with, unanswerably and unanswered, by Dr. Stirling." From the Dublin Review, " ' As regards Protoplasm ' brims over with fact and reason- ing, and is at the same time lightly and agreeably written. " From Sir John Herschel. " Anything more complete and final in the way of refutation than this essay, I cannot well imagine." 11 IV. In Svo, Price 6s. LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF LAW. TOGETHER TVITH WHEWELL AND HEGEL, AND HEGEL AND EEV. W. R SMITH : A Vindication in a Physico-Mathematical Eegard. From the Jom-ncd of Speculative Philosophy. " llie first of these lectures is a very entertaining * Introduc- tion to PiuloBophy in general,' and the others unfold, step by step, in a style such as only Dr. Stirling can write, the ideas of rights in general, of property, of criminal jurisprudence. They furnish an exceedingly valuable contribution to philosophical literature, and should be largely read in America, now that so much thought is directed towards the foundation-ideas cf government." From the Journal of Mental Science. " These admirable lectures upon the Philosophy of Law are not given to the public for the first time in the present volume. Originally delivered before the Juridical Society of Edinburgh, they were published in the * Journal of Jurisprudence ' in the four first months of the current year. Erom thence they passed into the pages of the ' Journal of Speculative Philosophy,' and are at the present time, we have reason to believe, being re- printed in book form in St. Louis, Missouri. ... It is satisfac- tory to find one work which is reaUy valuable, highly thought of — to find that a book, which is in every way admirable, has a real marketable value, and has found favour in the eyes of pub- lishers both in this country and in America. . . . Further, in the work before us Dr. Stirling ' falls foul ' of Whewell, and shows not only his ignorance of German, but his incapacity for 12 the criticism of Hegel, which he so gratuitously undertook ; and, at the same time, he deals summarily with Mr. W. B. Smith, who thought to prove that Hegel had attempted to ' establish the calculus on a new and very inadequate basis.' . . . Afl against Whewell, he is vindicating Hegel against a mistaken belief that the great German had really tried to throw discredit upon New- ton's law of gravitation, and on the mathematical proof of Kepler's laws in the ' Principia ; ' and that, aa correcting the errors of Mr. W. R. Smith, he is vindicating the metaphysical position of Hegel in reference to the calculus, and that every- where and always he is simply philosophical. . . . The mistake which has been made by Whewell, Smith, and the rest is just this : Hegel never did profess to find fault vrith any one received physical principle ; he neither thought of substituting a mathe- matical proof of Kepler's laws for that which had been offered by Newton, nor did he think of attempting to establish a calculus upon a new basis. . . . His work was not with physics as physics, but with metaphysics as such. . . . His objections are never mathematical, always metaphysical. . . . The incom- petence of such men as Whewell and Smith to deal with the questions which Hegel had in hand to answer is remarkable, and is pointed out with much skill and intense force of reason and expression in these most able vindications. No vindications could be more satisfactory. "... We may say that one of Dr. Stirling's greatest merits is his admirable power of statement of creeds. Nothing could be better than his statement of the contents of Kant, contained in his article in the October number of the ' Portnightly Review ' ('Kant refuted by dint of muscle'). Here, in the first of these lectures upon the philosophy of law, we have equally good ac- counts of Kant and Hegel in their relation to each other. These statements, which only extend over a couple of pages, are the rich results of years of labour. ... In no relation does the con- sciousness of Dr. Stirling's power force itself more resolutely upon us than in connection with these pithy expressions. . . . Hence we have that marvellous system, which is so admirably rendered by Dr. Stirling in these lectures into the most compact and crowded English. . . . One thing we wonder at, and that is how Dr. Stirling has been able to convey so much in so little. . . . We fear that we have d-one but scant justice to Dr. Stir- 13 ling's very admirable work which lies before us. . . . We hope that we have said enough to convinoe our readers that this work is worthy of the most careful attention and untiring study. . . . We must here quit the subject with an expression of our deep sense of indebtedness to Dr. Stirling for work which he alone in this country, nay, even in Germany itself, was capable of doing. That it has been done with care, with thorough metaph3^ical ability, and with genius, we are happy to be able to report, as we were previously prepared to expect. Dr. Stirling is our greatest — almost our only great metaphysician." Telegra/phed to Scotsman hy its London Correspondent. " Dr. Hutchison Stirling's new work was published to-day. . . . This chapter, though a short one, is very incisive. . . . Bach point of attack is taken up successively, and vigorously assailed. . . . Here the renowned Hegelian philosopher appears in his might, and the manner in which he lays about him is indicative of the intellectual giant in the world of metaphysics." LONDON: LONGMANS & CO., Pateknostek Row. V. ADDEESS ON MATERIALISM. From the Newcastle Chronicle. " The students of philosophy who are familiar with that profound work, The Secret of Hegd, will be pleased with a Irochure just issued by Blackwood & Sona, being an Address to Medical Students on ' Materialism,' etc. It contains, be- sides much beautiful writing, one of the most acute and power- ful assaults upon the Darwinian hypothesis of ' Natural Selec- tion ' which has yet been published." 2 N 14 VI. Eighth Edition, Crown, &vo, Price 6s. SCHWEGLER'S HANDBOOK OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. From the London Revieto. " Those who are acquainted with the other works of Dr. Stirling «ill be disposed to congratulate Schwegler on falling into such good hands. It will be diflBlcult to mention any one in England BO well versed in the philosophy of Germany, from Leibnitz to Hegel, as the translator of this Handbook. Dr. Stirling is also a man of independent thought, fearless judgment, and a meta- physical appetite, that enjoys with the keenest relish the heavy and somewhat unpalatable systems of German speculation. The subtleties of thought and expression in which Berlin professors delight are quite to our translator's taste. ... It would be hard to praise the Handbook too highly, and we hope to hear that within a short period it has taken the place of Lewes and Renouvier in the hands of our young philosophical student." From the Qlasgow Daily Herald. " We should hardly call a book of this character here by such a modest name as a ' Handbook,' because handbooks, especially handbooks of philosophy, are generally of the most meagre and trashy description. The student, however, will find this little history of three hundred and forty pages crammed full of infor- mation, systematised, and clearly expounded by a mind that took in the whole range of philosophy at a glance. . . . Dr. Stirling, whom we do not now hesitate to call the ablest metaphysical writer we have in Scotland, says that to the student of philosophy Dr. Schwegler's History is indispensable ; and we believe he is correct. We do not know any other work where such a comprehensive view of the long life of philosophy, from Thales to Hegel, is to be found." 15 From the Courant, " Mr. Stirling has done good service to the student of philo- sophy by translating Dr. Schwegler's admirable and excellent little Handbook." From the "Jievival of Philosophy," by Dr. Inglehy. " Schwegler's ' Handbook ' is not only indispensable, but suffi- cient. . . . The annotations by Dr. Stirling are fully as im- portant as the text of the work, and are almost of equal bulk. . . . Apart from Hegel, that splendid work (the ' Secret of Hegel') affijrds the only trustworthy English commentary of Kant." From " Pedagogics as a System," by Professor Rosenkranz. " The Germans are fortunate, in consequence of their philoso- phical criticism, in the production of better and better text- books, among which may be mentioned Schwegler's ' History of Philosophy. ' " From the Chronicle. "It is a history of philosophy in the ordinary sense, Written with extreme accuracy and clearness, and with wonderful power of condensation. Zeller's ' History of Greek Philosophy ' is too masterly a book to contain much that is superfluous : still, the earlier part of Schwegler's volume contains in substance nearly all that is important in Zeller, except the references and illus- trations. . . . His translation abounds in vigour and liveliness, which is quite wanting in the very imperfect version of Mr. Seelye. Schwegler's text does not stand in much need of anno- tation. Still the remarks which Dr. Stirling has appended are useful in bringing Schwegler's results side by side with the con- clusions of writers popular in England ; and they may certainly claim the merit of thorough insight into the points at issue, " From the Oxford, University Herald. "The circumstances narrated, the facts reproduced, the inci- dents' compiled, and the conclusions deduced, are suggestive of Jiistorical research and descriptive powers on the part of the writer of a high order. Dr. Stirling's translation and annotations are a valuable addition to the standard works of the classical 16 library, and our only desire in speaking cautiously of the work is that the talented translator may be induced to reproduce the rendering of ' The History of Philosophy ' in a more elaborate form." From the Aberdeen Free Press and Buchan News. " This is a good translation of an admirable book. . . . Avoid- ing the lengthened criticisms in which Lewes frequently indulges, Schwegler is able to devote more space to the historical and ex- pository part of the subject, and consequently, except in the case of the English schools, his delineation of the system of any philo- sopher is generally fuller and more minute, and his exposition more detailed than the corresponding one in Lewes. We might point to the account of the philosophy of Spinoza as a good ex- ample of the author's singularly lucid manner in portraying an important system." From the Morning Journal. " Its careful and intelligent perusal must prove of very great service to any one just entering upon the noblest of all studies. . . . This German Handbook deserves all the merit assumed for it by the translator, in respect of its clearness, fulness, and con- nectedness. . . . The annotations at the close of the volume by the translator are both elucidatory and controversial, and throw considerable light on the early schools of philosophy." From the Saturday Review. " Dr. Hutchison Stirling himself ia neither a confused thinker nor an obscure writer. An essay which he has lately published on De Quinoey and Coleridge shows an intelligence clear of all fog, and a power of direct and forcible exposition. . . . His account of the mode, half-conscious, half-unconscious, in which Coleridge lapsed into his appropriation of another's thoughts and words, is a really fine piece of pyschological tracery. So in the little volume which is now before us. Dr. Stirling has appended some fifty or sixty pages of annotations, which, taken by them- selves, win be foimd very interesting and original reading." From the British Quarterly Review. " Enough is done to enable us to endorse Dr. Stirling's verdict, that Schwegler's is at once the fullest and the shortest, the 17 deepest and the easieat, the most trustworthy and the most elegant compendium that exists in either German or English." From the Westminster Review. " Sohwegler's is the best possible ' Handbook of the History of Philosophy,' and there could not possibly be a better translator of it than Mr. Stirling : it is rarely, indeed, that a person of such qualifications will be good enough to translate." From the British Controversialist, " This translation is fluent, readable, and thoroughly English, although it retains the clasp and grasp of the original German. . . . The annotations as a whole form a body of powerful con- troversial odversa/riatoiTae positive school of speculative writers." VII. In Crown 8vo, Price 5s. JERROLD, TENNYSON, AND MACAULAY, WITH OTHER CEITICAL ESSAYS. From the Edimhwrgh Courant. " Dr. Hutchison Stirling has for some time past been known and recognised as a thoroughly matured and competent philo- sophical thinker and critic, but he has not hitherto come before the public as a contributor to general literature. In the volume before us, he therefore presents himself in a new light ; and although it is true that once a, metaphysician, always a meta- physician, and that whether in criticism of politics, or history, or poetry, the metaphysician, if true to himself, must criticise upon philosophical principles, and after a philosophical method, yet, in appearing as a popular essayist, he must exhibit other, and, if commoner, not less indispensable, qualities ere he can be said to have won his spurs in literature. The collection of Essays here gathered together and republished, shows that Dr. Stirling is possessed of many of these qualities. The writer who can read the Secret of Hegel, also evidently possesses the recep- tivity and sensitiveness to poetic gifts and graces which a critic 18 of poets and poetry requires. He is full of fervour, and appre- ciative of the most delicate traceries which we owe to the poet's imagination. . . . The admirers of Tennyson owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Stirling for the finely discriminative and thoughtful criticism with which the Essay on the Poet-Laureate is replete. . . The essayist shows himself capable of judging Macaulay's real capacities, which were certainly great, fairly and without prejudice ; and we l