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T

A COMMENTARY

ON

HEGEL'S LOGIC

CAMBEIDGE UNIVEESITY PEESS

Eontion: FETTEE LANE, E.G.

C. F. CLAY, Manager

anjinfautsl) : 100, PRINCES STREET

Serlin: A. ASHER AXD CO.

Utiojig: F. A. BROCKHAUS

^ttu gork: G. P. PUTXAM'S SONS

fiombatj anH ffialrtitta : MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.

All rights reserved

f^s/c

^Y^A COMMENTARY

ON

HEGEL'S LOGTC

BY

JOHN McTAGGART ELLIS McTAGGART

DOCTOR IN LETTERS, FELLOW AND LECTURER OF TRINITY COLLEGE
IN CAMBRIDGE, FELLOW OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY

Cambridge :
at the University Press

1910

^

(>

b

iM3 1'

2.7 H 3

Sr r^S S4J/£ AUTHOR

STUDIES IN THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC. 8s.
STUDIES IN HEGELIAN COSMOLOGY. 8s.
SOME DOGMAS OF RELIGION. 10s. M. net.

PREFACE

/CHAPTERS II, III, VIII, IX, and X of this book are
^^ based on articles which appeared in Mind (Oct. 1902;
April, 1904; April and July, 1897; Jan. 1899; and April,
1900). In many cases, however, both the interpretation and
the criticism as now published are materially different from
the earlier versions.

I am much indebted to my wife for her aid in reading
this book in proof, and for many valuable suggestions, as
also to Mr Bertrand Russell for his kindness in reading
Chapter III, and for giving me much assistance in the
treatment of the categories of Quantity. I owe much, too,
to the criticisms and suggestions of the pupils to whom
I have lectured on Hegel's philosophy.

Trinity College, Cambridge.
January^ 1910.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

PAGE

1. Object of this book 1

2. Previous writers on the same subject ..... 1

3. Relative authority of the Greater Logic and the Encyclopaedia 2

4. Terminology adopted in this book 3

5. Errors of Hegel concerning the dialectic method. He exaggerates

the objectivity of the dialectic process .... 5

6. And also its comprehensiveness ...... 6

7. Errors in particular transitions — sometimes caused by his

failure to confine the process to the existent ... 7

8. Sometimes by his desire to include conceptions of importance

in science .......... 8

9. Sometimes by confusion between categories and the concrete

states after which they are named ..... 8

10. Errors in Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic (a) as to the tran-

scendental character of the process 10

11. (6) As to the change in method in the later categories . . 11

12. The same continued 11

13. (c) As to the relation between a Synthesis and the next Thesis 12

CHAPTER II

QUALITY

13

15
15
17
17
19
20

14. Divisions of Quality

15. /. Being. A. Being

16. B. Nothing

17. C. Becoming

18. Hegel's conception of Becoming does not involve change .

19. But the name suggests change, and is therefore misleading

20. Alterations in names of categories suggested .

Vlll

CONTENTS

21. II. Being Determinate. A. Being Beterniinate as Such
(a) Being Determinate in General
(6) Quality ........

(c) Something ........

Are the divisions of A. superfluous ? .
Is the introduction of Pkirahty justified ?

B. Finitiide. (a) Something and an Other

(b) Determination, Modification, and Limit

(c) Finitude

The divisions within (&) are unjustified
The Ought and the Barrier in Finitude .

C. Infinity ........

(a) Infinity in General

(6) Reciprocal Determination of the Finite and Infinite
(c) Afiirmative Infinity ......

The treatment of Finitude and Infinity in the Encyclopaedia

The same continued

///. Being for Self. A. Being for Self as Such, (a)

Determinate and Being for Self ....

Being for One .......

One. The divisions of J. are unjustified .
The One and the Many, (a) The One in Itself .

The One and the Void

Many Ones

Repulsion and Attraction, (a) Exclusion of the One
The one One of Attraction .....
The Relation of Repulsion and Attraction .

22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.

38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.

(0)
B.

(b)
(c)
C.

(b)
(c)

Transition to Quantity

Being

PAGE

21

22
22
22
24
25
26
28
28
29
29
31
31
32
32
34

35
37
37

38
38
39
40
40
40
41

CHAPTER III

QUANTITY

47. Divisions of Quantity 42

48. Hegel's knowledge of mathematics. The bearing of this ques-

tion on the dialectic ........ 43

49. /. {Undivided) Quantity. A. Pure Quantity .... 45

50. B. Continuous and Discrete Magnitude 46

51. Defects of this category 47

52. C. Limitation of Quantity ....... 48

53. //. Quantum. A. Nximher ....... 49

54. Possibly all the Ones taken together are finite in number.

Hegel ignores this possibility, but it does not affect his

argument .......... 49

55. The relation of Quantum and Limit ..... 50

56. B. Extensive and Intensive Quantum, (a) Their Difference . 51

CONTENTS

IX

57. (b) Identity/ of Extensive and Intensive Magnitude. Are these

on a level, or is Intensive Magnitude higher ?

58. The latter view seems more probable

59. The instability of Quanta

60. (c) The Alteration of Quantum

61. C. The Quantitative Infinity, (a) Its Notion

62. {b) The Quantitative Infinite Progress

63. An objection discussed ....

64. (c) The Infinity of Quantum

65. Relations between Quality and Quantity .

66. ///. The Quantitative Ratio

67. A. The Direct Ratio .

68. B. The Inverse Ratio

69. C. The Ratio of Powers

70. The transition to C. is unjustifiable

71. And the whole of ///. is unjustifiable for more general reasons

72. Suggested reconstruction

73. The treatment of Quantity in the Encyclopaedia

PAGE

52
54
55
57
58
60
61
62
62
63
64
64
65
65
66
68
70

CHAPTER IV

MEASURE

74. Divisions of Measure .... . .

75. Criticism of the transition from Quantity

76. The same continued

77. Possible reasons for the error ......

78. /. The Specific Quantity. A. The Specific Quantum

79. B. Specifying Measure, (a) The Rule ....

80. (6) The Specifying Measure ......

81. Here a new conception of Measure is introduced illegitimately

82. (c) Relation of both Sides as Qualities ....

83. C. Being for Self in Measure ......

84. //. Real Measure. A. The Relation of Stable Measures .

85. (a) Union of two Measures ......

86. (Z>) Measure as a Series of Measure Relations

87. (c) Elective Ajfinity ........

88. B. Nodal Line of Measure Relations. Here we return to the

conception of Measure abandoned in /. B. {b) .

89. And do so by an illegitimate transition ....

90. C. The Measureless

91. ///. The Becoming of Essence. A. The Absolute Indifference

92. B. Indifference as Inverse Relation of its Factors

93. C. Transition to Essence

94. The treatment of Measure in the Encyclopaedia

71
72
73

74
75
76
77
78
79
80
80
81
81
82

83
84
85

86
87
88
89

CONTENTS

CHAPTER V

EHSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

Of).
!)<;.
!)7.

!)!».
100.
101.
102.
103.
104.
lOf).
10().
107.
I OS.

10!).

no.
I li.

11-2.

1 1 1.

115.

IKi.
117.
118.
11!).
1 -20.
l-2\.
l'2-2.
1:23.
124.
120.
1 -2(!.
1-27.
1-28.
1 -2;).
130.
131.

DivisiniiH of EHsencc

Tnuisitioii to Essence .......

'Jlio n.inio Appearance may be misleading

Wliat is meant by the immediacy of Appearance ?

'I'lio name Es.sencc is ambiguous

y. tSliow. A. The Essential and Unessential .

Is the retention of Plurality at this point justifiable ?

The same continued

Ci'iticism of the transition to the next category

li. Show

C. Reflection, (a) Positing Reflection ....

(/>) E.vtenial Reflection

((■) Determining Reflection ......

//. The Essentialities or Determinations of Reflection. A

Idintity

Hotel's treatment of the Law of Identity

IJut this Law is not specially connected with Hegel's category

of TiliMitity .........

II. Difference, (a) Absohtte Di fere nee ....

(/)) Varieti/ .........

Suggested alteration of argument

Hegel's treatment of Qualities and Relations requires enlarge

mont ..........

llegors treatment of the Principle of the Identity of In

discornibles

(c) ()ppositio)i ........

(^riticisjn of the category of Opposition ....

('. Contradiction

Suggested reconstruction of this category

llogers treatment of the Law of E.xcluded Middle .

///. Orouuit A. Absolute Ground, (a) Fonn and Essence

yb) Form and Matter .......

(c') Form and Content .......

B. Determined Ground, (a) Formal Ground

(6) Real Ground

The possibility of sophistry in Ground ....
yc) Complete Ground

C. Condition, (a) The Relatively Unconditioned .

{b) The Absolutely Unconditioned

i^c'^ Transition of the Fact into E.visfence ....
Suixcostod rooonstruotion of Ground ....

COXTENTS

XI

CHAPTER VI

APPEARANCE

132.
133.
134.
135.
136.
137.
138.
139.
140.
141.
142.
143.
144.

145.

146.

147.
148.
149.
150.
151.

152.

153.
154.

and

Divisions of Appearance

/. Existence

A. The Thing and its Properties ....
{a) The Thing in itself and Existence

(b) Property

(c) The Reciprocal Action of Things

B. The Constitution of the Thing out of Matters

C. The Dissolution of the Thing ....
Criticism of the categories of Existence .
//. Appearance. A. The Law of Appearance

B. The World of Appearance and the World in itself

C. The Dissolution of Appearance ....
///. Essential Relation. A. The Relation of Whole

Parts .

The same continued

B. The Relation of Force and its Manifestation, (a
Conditionedness of Force .....

(6) The Solicitation of Force

(c) The Infinity of Force .....

Criticism of the divisions of 5.

Suggested reconstruction

C. The Relation of Inner and Outer
Note on the Difference between the Greater Logic and the

Encyclopaedia in the first two divisions of Essence
Table of the categories according to the Greater Logic and

the Encyclopaedia ........

Account of the differences

The same continued ........

The

PAGE

128
129
131
132
133
135
136
137
1,38
139
140
142

142
143

145
146
146

147
148
149

150
152
153

CHAPTER VII

ACTUALITY

155. Divisions of Actuahty

156. /. The Absohiie. A. The Exposition of the Absolute

157. Criticism of the conception of the Absolute .

158. B. The Absolute Attribute

159. Criticism of this category

160. C. The Modus of the Absolute ....

155
156
157
159
160
160

Xll

CONTENTS

PAGE

161. //. Actuality 162

162. A. Contingency, or Formal Actuality, Possibility, and Necessity 162

163. The same continued 164

164. B. Relative Necessity, or Real Actuality, Possibility, and

Necessity 165

165. C. Absolute Necessity . . . . . . . .167

166. ///. The Absolute Relation. A. The Relation of Substantiality 168

167. Suggested reconstruction of the argument by which Substance

is reached 169

168. Hegel's remarks on the philosophy of Spinoza . . .170

169. B. The Relation of Causality, (a) Formal Causality . . 171

170. The transition to Formal Causality is not justifiable . . 172

171. (6) Determined Causality . . . . . . .173

172. Hegel unduly ignores the differences between Formal and

Determined Causality 175

173. He attempts to remove one such difference by asserting the

identity of Cause and Effect. Criticism of this . . 176

174. The same continued 177

175. The same continued 179

176. The treatment of Causality in the £'/iCj/c^o/9aeo?ia . . .180

177. The Infinite Series of Causes and Effects .... 180

178. (c) Action and Reaction ........ 181

179. C. Reciprocity .182

180. The infinity ascribed by Hegel to Reciprocity . . . 183

181. The treatment of Actuality in the Encyclopaedia . . . 184

CHAPTER VIII

SUBJECTIVITY

182. Divisions of Subjectivity ......

183. The significance of the nomenclature in Subjectivity

184. The same continued

185. Hegel's assertion that Freedom is the Truth of Necessity

186. /. The Notion. A. The Universal Notion

187. Suggested reconstruction of the argument

188. The same continued .......

189. B. The Particidar Notion

190. The same continued

191. C. The Individual

192. //. The Judgment. A. The Judgment of Inherence, (a) The

Positive Judgment .

187
189
190
191
193
194
195
196
197
198

198

CONTENTS

Xlll

193. Transition to the next category

194. Criticism of the transition ....

195. (6) The Negative Judgment ....

196. (c) The Infinite Judgment ....

197. The same continued

198. B. The Judgment of Suhsumption .

199. The same continued

200. (a) The Singidar Judgment ....

201. (6) The Particular Judgment ....

202. Transition to the next category

203. (c) The Universal Judgment ....

204. C. The Judginent of Necessity

205. (a) The Categorical Judgment

206. {b) The Hypothetical Judgment

207. (c) The Disjunctive Judgment ....

208. Transition to the next category

209. D. The Judgment of the Notion, (a) The Assertoric Judgment

210. {b) The Problematic Judgment

211. (c) The Apodictic Judgment ....

212. Criticism of the Judgment of the Notion

213. The same continued

214. ///. The Syllogism. A. The Qualitative Syllogism, (a) First

Figure .......

215. The first defect found by Hegel in this category

216. The second defect

217. {b) Second Figure

218. (c) Third Figure

219. {d) Fourth Figure

220. Criticism of the Second and Third Figures

221. Suggested reconstruction ....

222. B. The Syllogism of Reflection, (a) The Syllogism of Allness

223. (6) The Syllogism of Induction

224. (c) The Syllogism of Analogy

225. Transition to the next category

226. Criticism of the Syllogism of Reflection .

227. C. The Syllogism of Necessity, (a) The Categorical Syllogism

228. {b) The Hypothetical Syllogism

229. (c) The Disjimctive Syllogism ....

230. The same continued

231. Hegel's conception of the Self-Diflferentiating Notion

PAGE

200

201

202

202

203

205

206

208

208

210

211

213

213

214

215

217

217

218

218

218

220

221

222

224

224

225

225

226

228

228

229

230

231

232

234

236

236

237

238

XIV

CONTENTS

CHAPTER IX

OBJECTIVITY

PAGE

232. Divisions of Objectivity 241

233. Significance of the term Objectivity 242

234. Transition from Subjectivity 242

235. Proposed amendment of the transition ..... 243

236. /. Mechanism. A. The Mechanical Object .... 244

237. B. The Mechanical Process 246

238. .(a) The Formal Mechanical Process 247

239. (6) The Real Mechanical Process 247

240. (c) The Product of the Mechanical Process .... 249

241. C. The Absolute Mechanism, (a) The Centre . . . 250

242. The example given by Hegel is misleading .... 252

243. The transition to Chemism in the Encyclopaedia . . . 252

244. (b) The Lato 254

245. (c) Transition from Mechanism ...... 254

246. //. Chemism. A. The Chemical Object 255

247. B. The Chemical Process 255

248. Transition to the next category ...... 256

249. Criticism of this transition 256

250. C. Transition from Chemism ....... 257

251. Is there more than one Chemical Notion ? . . . . 258

252. III. Teleology 259

253. The same continued 260

254. The same continued 261

255. The terms End and Means are misleading .... 263

256. Are there more Ends than one 1 264

257. A. The Subjective End 265

258. B. The Means . . ■ 265

259. The first argument for the transition to the next category . 267

260. The second argument for the transition 268

261. C. The Realised End 269

CONTENTS

XV

CHAPTER X

THE IDEA

this inadequacy

262. Divisions of the Idea ....

263. Transition from Objectivity .

264. /. Life

265. Hegel's view that there are many Organisms

266. His view that the Body is an inadequate manifestation of

the Seele

267. A. The Living Individual

268. B. The Life-Process

269. C. The Kind .

270. Criticism of this category

271. The inadequacy of the manifestation is shown in Propagation

and Death .

272. Which also provide the escape from

273. The same continued

274. The same continued

275. IL The Idea of Cognition

276. The same continued

277. Criticism of this category

278. The same continued

279. A. The Idea of the True

280. The same continued

281. (a) Analytic Cognition, (b) Synthetic Cognition, Criticism

of these categories

282. The transition to the Idea of the Good can be made without

them

283. The transition further considered

284. B. The Idea of the Good

285. Criticism of this category

286. Hegel regards this category as higher than the Idea of the True

287. And as involving the complete goodness of the universe

288. Transition to the Absolute Idea

289. The same continued

290. ///. The Absolute Idea .

291. The same continued

292. The same continued
3Q3. The same continued

294. This is the final category. The proof of this

295. Is the Absolute Idea exemplified in any concrete state k

to us ?

296. Conclusion

now

PAGE

272
272
274
275

276
277
279

280
•281

282
283
285
286
287
288
290
291
292
293

295

296
298
299
300
300
301
302
303
303
304
306
307
308

309
310

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1. In this book I propose to give a critical account of the
various transitions by which Hegel passes from the category
of Being to the category of the Absolute Idea. I shall not
describe or criticise the method which he employs, nor his
applications of the results of the dialectic to the facts of
experience. With these subjects I have dealt, to the best of
my ability, in my Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic and Studies
in Hegelian Cosmology. I hope that my present work may
serve two purposes — that those students of Hegel who have
read the Greater Logic may find it useful as a commentary,
and that it may serve as an account of the Greater Logic for
those who are prevented by want of time or ignorance of
German from reading the original.

2. The dialectic process of the Logic is the one absolutely
essential element in Hegel's system. If we accepted this and
rejected everything else that Hegel has written, we should
have a system of philosophy, not indeed absolutely complete,
but stable so far as it reached, and reaching to conclusions
of the highest importance. On the other hand, if we reject
the dialectic process which leads to the Absolute Idea, all the
rest of the system is destroyed, since Hegel depends entirely, in
all the rest of the system, on the results obtained in the Logic.

Yet the detail of the Logic occupies a very small part of
the numerous commentaries and criticisms on Hegel's philo-
sophy. They are almost entirely devoted to general discussions
of the dialectic method, or to questions as to the application
of the results of the Logic to the facts of experience. The

M"^!. 1

2 CH. I. INTRODUCTION

most elaborate of the expositions of Hegel's system — that
which Kuno Fischer gives in his History of Philosophy — allows
to the detail of the Logic less than one-ninth of its space.

There are, however, two admirable accounts of the Logic,
category by category — HegeVs Logic, by Professor Hibben of
Princeton, and La Logique de Hegel, by the late M. Georges
Noel, which is less known than its merits deserve. I owe
much to these commentators, but my object is rather different
from theirs. I propose, in my exposition, to give frequent
references to the passages in Hegel's text on which I base
my account, and to quote freely when necessary. When the
meaning of the text is doubtful, I shall not only give the view
which I think preferable, but shall discuss the claims of other
interpretations. I shall also add a certain amount of criticism
to my exposition.

Professor Hibben follows the Encyclopaedia in his exposition,
while M. Noel follows the Greater Logic^. I shall adopt the
Greater Logic as my text, but shall note and discuss any point
in which the EncyclojMedia differs from it.

3. The Greater Logic and the Encyclopaedia agree much

more than they differ, but they do differ on variouS important

points. Wlien this happens, the advantage is not always

on the same side, but is, I think, more often on the side

of the Encyclopaedia. But, whichever is the more correct, there

is no doubt that the Greater Logic is much clearer. The Logic

of the Encyclopaedia is excessively condensed. The treatment

of the categories, as distinct from preliminary questions, is,

in the Encyclopaedia, only one-fourth as long as it is in the

Greater Logic. Some room is gained in the Encyclopaedia by

the elimination of certain sub-divisions, and also by the omission

^ By the Greater Logic I mean the work published in 1812 — 1816. Hegel
himself calls this simply the Loijic, but I use the adjective to distinguish it from
the Logic which forms part of the Encyclopaedia. My references to the Greater
Logic are to the pages of the complete edition of Hegel's works, in which the
Greater Logic occupies Vols. 3, 4 and 5 (quoted as G. L. i., G. L. ii., G. L. iii.)
published in 1833 — 1834. My references to the Encyclopaedia are to Sections,
and in quoting from it I have generally, though not always, availed myself of
Professor Wallace's valuable translation. When, in expounding the Greater
Logic, I give references both to the Greater Logic and to the Encyclopaedia, the
latter merely indicates that it is in this Section of the Encyclopaedia that the
corresponding point is treated, and not that the treatment is the same as in the
Greater Logic.

CH. I. INTRODUCTION 3

of the notes on mathematics which fill a disproportionate space
in the Greater Logic, but in spite of this the categories in the
Encyclopaedia are in some parts of the process crowded so
closely together, that the arguments for the transition from the
one to the other almost disappear.

With regard to the relative authority of the two Logics, as
expressing Hegel's final views, nothing very decisive can be said.
The last edition of the Logic of the Encyclopaedia published by
Hegel appeared in 1830. In 1831 he published a second
edition of the Doctrine of Being in the Greater Logic. His
death prevented him from carrying this edition further. It
would seem, therefore, as if the Greater Logic was the best
authority for the Doctrine of Being, and the Encyclopaedia for
the Doctrines of Essence and the Notion.

But many of the points in the Doctrine of Being in which the
first edition of the Greater Logic differs from the Encyclopaedia
are repeated in the second edition. We can scarcely suppose
that in each of these cases Hegel had abandoned by 1831 the
view he held in 1830, and returned to the view he held in 1812.
And thus it seems impossible to attach any superior authority
to the second edition of the Greater Logic. But if, to the end,
he regarded the changes in the Encyclopaedia as improvements,
at any rate he cannot have regarded them as very important,
since he did not alter the second edition of the Greater Logic to
correspond with then.

The actual language, however, of the Greater Logic has
a much greater authority than much of the language of the
Encyclopaedia. For every word of the Greater Logic was
written and published by Hegel himself. But in the Encyclo-
paedia a part of the supplementary matter added, with the
title of Zusatz, to many of the Sections, is compiled from
students' notes or recollections of what Hegel had said in
his lectures ^

4. A few points about terminology must be mentioned.
The whole course of the dialectic forms one example of the
dialectic rhythm, with Being as Thesis, Essence as Antithesis,
and Notion as Synthesis. Each of these has again the same

1 Cp. the editor's Preface to the Logic of the Encyclopaedia in Vol. 6 of the
Collected Works.

1—2

4 CH. I. INTRODUCTION

moments of Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis within it, and so
on till the final sub-divisions are reached, the process of division
being carried much further in some parts of the dialectic than
in others.

Hegel has no special name for the system formed of a
Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis. A name, however, is con-
venient, and I propose to speak of such a system as a triad.
Being, Essence, and Notion I shall call primary categories ;
their immediate divisions {e.g. Quality, Quantity, and Measure)
I shall call secondary, and so on with smaller sub-divisions.

One difficulty of terminology arises in writing about Hegel
from the fact that he uses so many terms as names of particular
categories that none are left to be used more generally. For
example, to what does the whole dialectic process apply ?
According to one view, the subject-matter of the process is what
is commonly called Being or Reality. According to another
view it is what is commonly called Existence. But Hegel has
already appropriated these names. Being and Existence are the
names of particular categories in the process, while Reality,
according to Hegel, is a term only applicable after a certain
stage in the process has been reached. {G. L. i. 120; Enc. 91.)

Again, after a few categories we reach the result, which
persists through the rest of the process, that the subject-matter
under consideration is a differentiated unity. It would be very
convenient to have a name by which to designate these diffe-
rentiations, irrespective of the category under which we were
viewing them. But here, again, every name is already appro-
priated. One, Thing, Part, Substance, Individual, Object —
each of these is used by Hegel to indicate such a differentiation
as seen under some one particular category. To find a name for
more general use is not easy.

To meet this difficulty so far as possible, I have always used
a capital initial when a term indicates one of Hegel's categories,
and a small initial when the term is applied more general ly^
I have distinguished in the same way between those of Hegel's
categories which are named after concrete facts, and the concrete
facts after which they are named — e.g. I have written Life when
I meant Hegel's category, and life when I meant the biological
state.

CH. I. INTRODUCTION 5

5. With regard to the Logic as a whole, I believe, for
reasons which I have explained elsewhere \ that the dialectic
method used by Hegel is valid — that, if the categories do stand
to one another in the relations in which he asserts them to
stand, he is entitled to pass from one to another in the way in
which he does pass. And I believe that in many cases this
condition is fulfilled, and that therefore, in these cases, the
actual transitions which he makes are justified.

The points on which I should differ from Hegel are as
follows. In the first place I think that he falls into serious
errors in his attempts to apply the results gained by the Logic
in the interpretation of particular concrete facts. In the second
place I think that he did not in all respects completely
understand the nature of that dialectic relation between
ideas which he had discovered. And in the third place there
seem to be certain errors which vitiate particular stages in the
process,

I have considered the first of these points elsewhere ^ With

regard to the second there are two fundamental questions as to

which I believe that Hegel to some extent misunderstood the

nature of the dialectic process. I think that he exaggerated

* both its objectivity and its comprehensiveness.

By his exaggeration of its objectivity, I mean that he did not
merely hold that the dialectic process conducted us to a valid
result, and that the lower categories of the process were con-
tained, so far as they were true, in the Absolute Idea which
synthesised them. So much he was justified in holding, but he
went further. There is no doubt, I think, that he held that if
that chain of categories, which was given by him in the Logic,
was correct at all, it was not only a valid way of reaching the
Absolute Idea, but the only valid way. He would have held it
to be a priori impossible that two valid chains of dialectic
argument, each starting from the category of Being, should each
lead up to the Absolute Idea, so that the goal could be attained
equally well by following either of them. And he would also
have rejected the possibility of alternative routes over smaller

^ Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, Chapters I. to IV., but cp. below, Sections
10—13.

2 op. cit. Chapter VII.

6 CH. I. INTRODUCTION

intervals — the possibility, e.g., of passing from the beginning of
Quantity to the beginning of Essence by two alternative dialectic
arguments.

Now I do not assert that such alternative routes are to be
found, but I cannot see that their possibility can be disproved.
And, if there were such alternatives, I do not think that the
dialectic process would lose its value or significance. In re-
jecting the possibility of equally valid alternatives, it seems to
me that Hegel exaggerated the objectivity of the process as
expounded by himself.

6. His exaggeration of the comprehensiveness of the
dialectic lies in the fact that, having secured, as he rightly
believed, an absolute starting point for the dialectic process in
the category of Being, he assumed that this was not only the
absolute starting point of the dialectic, but of all philosophy.
No preliminary discussion was required, except negative criticism
designed to remove the errors of previous thinkers, and to
prevent misunderstandings. Nothing in philosophy was logically
prior to the dialectic process.

Here again there seems to be an error. For example, what
is the subject-matter to which the whole dialectic applies ? It
is, I think, clear that Hegel regards it as applying to all reality,
in the widest sense of the term. But, when we examine various
stages of the process it becomes clear that he is only speaking of
what is existent, and that his results do not apply, and were not
meant to apply, to what is held by some philosophers to be real
but not existent — for example, propositions, the terms of pro-
positions, and possibilities^ The apparent inconsistency is
removed if we hold, as I believe Ave should, that Hegel, like
some later philosophers, held nothing to be real but the
existent. I do not mean that he ever asserted this explicitly.
Probably, indeed, the question was never definitely considered
by him, if we may judge from the fact that his terminology
affords no means of stating it. (Reality and Existence, as used
by Hegel, refer, as was mentioned above, to particular stages of
the dialectic.) But it seems to me that the view that nothing

^ I had not realised this distinction with suiBcient clearness when I wrote
my Studies hi the Hegelian Dialectic, but what is said there is not inconsistent
with my present view. Cp. Sections 17, 18, and 79 of that work.

CH. I. INTRODUCTION 7

is real but the existent is one which harmonises with his general ]
position, and that he would have asserted it if confronted with |
the problem.

But the view that nothing but the existent is real, whether
right or wrong, is one which cannot be assumed without dis-
cussion. It is a difficult and disputed point, and Hegel had no
right to take a dialectic of existence as equivalent to a dialectic*'
of reality until the question had been carefully considered.J
Moreover, the absence of such consideration leaves Hegel's
position, not only unjustified but also rather vague. Generally,
as I have said, the categories seem clearly intended to apply
to the existent only, but there are some steps in which he
seems to change his position unconsciously, and to take the
categories as applicable to some other reality in addition to
the existent.

There is another point on which preliminary discussion was
needed and is not given. Hegel's arguments assume that, when
a thing stands in any relation to another thing, the fact that it
stands in that relation is one of its qualities. From this it
follows that when the relation of one thing to another changes,
there is a change in the qualities of-each of them, and therefore
in the nature of each of them. Again, it follows that two
things which stand in different relations to a third thing cannot
have exactly similar natures, and on this a defence might be
based for the doctrine of the Identity of Indiscernibles.

This is a doctrine of the greatest importance, and by no
means universally accepted. It is possible to conceive a dialectic
process which should contain a proof of it, but, so far as I can
see, Hegel's dialectic does not contain any such proof, direct or
implied. In that case he had no right to use the doctrine in
the dialectic unless it had been proved in some preliminary dis-
cussion, and he does not give such a discussion.

7. Passing to the errors in certain particular transitions,
there are some, I think, which cannot be traced to any general
cause, but are simply isolated failures. But other errors appear
to be due to certain general causes. In the first place some
errors have, I believe, been caused by Hegel's failure to realise
explicitly that his dialectic is a dialectic of the existent only,
and by his treatment of some categories as applying also to

8 CH. I. INTRODTJCTION

some non-existent reality. This is unjustifiable, for he would
have no right to pass in this way from the smaller field to the
more extensive, even if the more extensive field were in being.
And, as I have said, it seems implied in his general treatment
that there is no such wider field, but that existence is co-exten-
sive with reality, in which case any attempt to apply the
dialectic beyond existence is obviously mistaken.

8. Another general cause of error may be found in a desire
to introduce into the dialectic process as many as possible of the
conceptions which are fundamentally important in the various
sciences. It is, doubtless, a fortunate circumstance when a con-
ception which is important in this way does occupy a place
among the categories of the dialectic. For then the dialectic
will assure us that such a conception is neither completely valid
of reality, nor completely devoid of validity — an important
result. Moreover, its place in the dialectic process shows us
how much, and in what respects, its validity falls short of the
validity of the Absolute Idea, and whether it is more or less
valid than those other conceptions which are also categories of
the dialectic. And this also may be of much importance.

But there is no reason to believe that this fortunate state of
things will always occur. We have no right to anticipate that
every category of the dialectic will be a conception of funda-
mental importance in one or more of the particular sciences.
Nor have we any right to anticipate that every conception of
fundamental importance in a science will be a category of the
dialectic. In several cases I think that Hegel has distorted the
course of his argument, and made an invalid transition, moved
by an unconscious desire to bring into the process some concep-
tion of great scientific importance \

9. This is connected with another source of error, which
arises from Hegel's practice of designating many of his cate-
gories by the names of concrete states which are known to us
by empirical experience. Thus we find a category of Attraction

1 It has lately been objected to Hegel's treatment of Quantity that it does
not include the conception of Series, which is of such great importance in
mathematics. If the dialectic process can go from Being to the Absolute Idea
without passing through the conception of Series, then the omission of that
conception is no defect in the dialectic. But this truth is obscured by Hegel's
anxiety to bring all important scientific conceptions into the dialectic process.

CH. I. INTRODUCTION 9

and Repulsion, and categories of Force, Mechanism, Chemism,
Life, and Cognition^.

This practice does not necessarily involve any error in the
dialectic process. For when Hegel names a category in this
way, he does not suppose that he has deduced, by the pure
thought of the dialectic, all the empirical details which can be
determined with reference to the corresponding concrete state.
He merely expresses his belief that the category is manifested
- in a special manner by the concrete state whose name it bears.
For example, in giving a category the name of Mechanism he
does not assert that it is possible to determine by the dialectic
process any of the laws of the finite science of Mechanics. All
that the use of the name implies is that, when we perceive the
existent in such a way that it appears^ to include bodies
obeying the laws of Mechanics, then the category in question
will be manifested with special clearness in the facts as they
appear to us.

There is thus nothing unjustifiable in the use of such a
nomenclature, and it has the advantage of making the meaning
of the category clearer, by informing us where we may look for
clear examples of it. But in practice it turns out to be ex-
tremely difficult to use such names without being led by them
into error.

There is, in the first place, the possibility of choosing a
wrong name — of taking a concrete state which manifests the
particular category less clearly than another state would, or
which itself manifests more clearly some other category. But
this is a mistake which, so far as I can see, Hegel never makes.

But there is a second possibility. The concrete states which
give their names to the categories contain, as has been said,
much other content beside the categories in question. Hegel
does not suppose that the dialectic process could help him to

1 The use of logical terms as names for the categories of Subjectivity is an
example of the same practice, though in this case the conceptions are not
borrowed from empirical knowledge. But, relatively to the dialectic process,
they are concrete, for the logical processes, which give the names, have charac-
teristics not to be found in the categories which they exemplify. Cp.
Chapter VIII.

2 Such a perception would, of course, be held by Hegel to be more or less
erroneous. Nothing really exists, according to his system, but Spirits. Bodies
only appear to exist.

10 CH. I. INTRODUCTION

deduce this other content. But in practice he sometimes con-
fuses the two sides — the pure conception which he had deduced,
and the remaining content which he had not. And thus he
introduces into the dialectic process, in connection with certain
categories, some characteristics illegitimately transferred from
the concrete states after which they are named. In Judgment,
in Syllogism, in Life, in Cognition, we find sub-divisions intro-
duced and transitions made, which rest on characteristics which
are found in the judgments and syllogisms of ordinary logic, in
the life of biology, or in the cognition of psychology, but which
have no justification as applied to the categories of the
dialectic.

These cases, of course, lend support to the theory, which I
have discussed elsewhere \ that the dialectic process, while pro-
fessing to be a process of pure thought, does, in fact, always
rest on empirical elements illegitimately introduced. But the
categories of the process which are named after concrete states
are comparatively few, and it is not in all of them that an
illegitimate element has been transferred to the category.

In several of those cases where the illegitimate transference
has taken place, it seems to me that the process, so far from
being dependent on the transference, would have g<me better
without it. The transition Hegel does make, with the aid of
the element illegitimately introduced, is in these cases one
which would be invalid even if the element it was based on had
itself been legitimately deduced. And sometimes, I think, a
perfectly valid transition was available, which was only obscured
by the intrusion of the illegitimate element.

Whenever a particular transition seems to be invalid, I have
given the reasons which prevent me from accepting it. In
some cases I venture to think that I could suggest a valid
substitute. When this does not involve a reconstruction of
more than a single category I have generally made the sugges-
tion, but any more extensive alteration would, I think, be
beyond the scope of a commentary.

10. I wish to take this opportunity of correcting some
errors as to Hegel's method in my Studies in the Hegelian

^ Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, Sections 41 — 43.

CH. I. INTRODUCTION 11

Dialectic. (The correction of errors on other points would
be irrelevant here.) In Section 19 of that book, after giving an
account of the method which I still think correct, I added " It
will be seen that this argument is strictly of a transcendental
nature. A proposition denied by the adversary. ., is shown to be
involved in the truth of some other proposition which he is not
prepared to attack." But this is not a description confined to
a transcendental argument, but applies to all attempts to
convince an adversary. I failed to see that the proposition with
which a transcendental argument, in Kant's sense of the term,
starts, is always a proposition which asserts that some other
proposition is knoiun to be true. (For example, Kant's tran-
scendental argument on Space does not start from the truths of
geometry, but from the truth that we know the truths of I
geometry a priori.) Hegel's argument does not start from a
proposition of this kind, and I was wrong in supposing it to be
of the class which Kant calls transcendental.

11. In Section 109, I pointed out two characteristics in
which the method in the later part of the dialectic process
differed from the method at the beginning. Firstly, at the
beginning the Antithesis is the direct contrary of the Thesis.
It is not more advanced than the Thesis, nor does it in any way
transcend it. But, as the process continues, the Antithesis,
while still presenting an element of contrariety to the Thesis, is
found to be also an advance on it. It does, to a certain extent,
transcend the inadequacy of the Thesis, and thus shares with
the Synthesis that character which, in the earlier type, belonged
to the Synthesis only.

The second change follows as a consequence of the first. In
the first triad of the dialectic the movement to the Synthesis
comes from the Thesis and Antithesis together, and could not
have been made fi:"om the Antithesis alone. But later on, when
the Antithesis has transcended the Thesis, and has the truth of
it within itself, it is possible to make the transition to the H
Synthesis from the Antithesis alone, without any distinct __;
reference to the Thesis.

12. In Sections 112 — 114 I enquired whether these
changes were sudden or continuous, and came to the conclusion
that they were both continuous. And here I think I was partly

12 CH. I. INTRODUCTION

wrong. The first change is continuous. As we proceed through
the dialectic there is on the whole (there are a few exceptions)
a steady diminution in the element of contrariety to be found in
the Antitheses, and an increase in their synthetic functions.
But the second change cannot be continuous. For the direct
transition must either be from both the Thesis and Antithesis,
or from the Antithesis only. There is no intermediate
possibility.

The truth seems to be that the direct transition is from the
Antithesis alone whenever the Antithesis is at all higher than
the Thesis — that is, in every triad after the first. (The
Particular Notion, and the Negative Judgment of Inherence,
seem, however, to be exceptions to this rule, since, contrary
to the general character of the dialectic, they are not higher
than their respective Theses.)

13. In Section 80 I said of the transition from the
S}Tithesis of one triad to the Thesis of the next. " It is, in fact,
scarcely a transition at all. It is... rather a contemplation of
the same truth from a fresh point of view — immediacy in the
place of reconciling mediation — than an advance to a fresh
truth." This needs some qualification. In the first place, it is
only true when the Synthesis and new Thesis are categories of
the same order of subdivision. Thus, in Essence as Reflection
into Self, we have Determining Reflection as a Synthesis, to
which Identity, which is a Thesis, immediately succeeds. But
Determining Reflection is a category of the fifth order, while
Identity is only of the fourth order — produced by four succes-
sive processes of analysis instead of five. And the content in
these two categories is not an identical content looked at from
two different points of view.

In the second place, the identity of content is only to be
found when the two categories are not further divided. Thus
Actuality is the Synthesis of Essence, and Subjectivity the
Thesis of the Notion. They are contiguous categories of the
same order — the third. But each is subdivided, and the content
of the two is not identical.

Finally, although with these two qualifications the statement
is generally true of the dialectic, there are several cases, which
I have noted when they occur, in which it does not apply.

CHAPTER II

QUALITY

14. The Logic is divided into Being (Sein), Essence
(Wesen), and Notion (Begriff). Being is divided into Quality
(Qualitat), Quantity (Quantitat), and Measure (Maass). The
divisions of Quality are as follows :

I. Being. (Sein.)

A. Being. (Sein.)

B. Nothing. (Nichts.)

C. Becoming. (Werden.)

II. Being Determinate. (Dasein.)

A. Being Determinate as Such. (Dasein als solches.)

(a) Being Determinate in General. (Dasein iiber-

haupt.)

(b) Quality. (Qualitat.)

(c) Something. (Etwas.)

B. Finitude. (Die Endlichkeit.)

(a) Something and an Other. (Etwas und ein

Anderes.)
(6) Determination, Modification and Limit. (Bestim-

mung, Beschaffenheit und Grenze.)
(c) Finitude. (Die Endlichkeit.)

14 CH. II. QUALITY

C. Infinity. (Die Unendlichkeit.)

(a) Infinity in General. (Die Unendlichkeit tiber-
haupt.)

(6) Reciprocal Determination of the Finite and In-
finite. (Wechselbestimmung des Endlichen
und Unendlichen.)

(c) Affirmative Infinity. (Die affirmative Unendlich-
keit.)

III. Being for Self. (Das Ftirsichsein.)

A. Being for Self as Such. (Das Ftirsichsein als solches.)

(a) Being Determinate and Being for Self. (Dasein

und Ftirsichsein.)

(b) Being for One. (Sein ftir Fines.)

(c) One. (Fins.)

B. The One and the Many. (Fines und Vieles.)

(a) The One in Itself. (Das Fins an ihm selbst.)

(6) The One and the Void. (Das Fins und das Leere.)

(c) Many Ones. Repulsion. (Viele Fins. Repulsion.)

C. Repulsion and Attraction. (Repulsion und Attrak-

tion.)

(a) Fxclusion of the One. (Ausschliessen des Fins.)

(b) The one One of Attraction. (Das Fine Fins der

Attraktion.)

(c) The Relation of Repulsion and Attraction. (Die

Beziehung der Repulsion uud Attraktion.)

We must notice the ambiguity with which Hegel uses the
word Being. It is used (i) for one of the three primary divisions
into which the whole Logic is divided ; (ii) for one of the three
tertiary divisions into which Quality is divided ; and (iii) for
one of the three divisions of the fourth order into which Being,
as a tertiary division, is divided. In the same way Quality,
besides being the general name for the secondary division
which forms the subject of this Chapter, is also the name for
a division of the fifth order, which falls within Being Determi-
nate as Such. And Finitude, again, is the name of a division
of the fourth order, and also of a division of the fifth order.

BEING 15

I. Being.
A. Being.

15. (G. L. i. 77. Enc. 86.) I do not propose to discuss here
the validity of the category of Being. Since the dialectic
process starts with this category, its validity is rather a question
affecting the whole nature of the process than a detail of the
earliest stage, and I have treated it elsewhere^ If, theo, we
begin with the category of Being, what follows ?

It must be remembered that the position is not merely that
we are affirming Being, but that, so far, we are affirming nothing \ -^
else. It is to indicate this absence of anything else that Hegel
speaks of Being in this division as Pure Being (reines Sein),
though the adjective does not appear in the headings.

Pure Being, says Hegel {G. L. i. 78. Enc. 87) has no
determination of any sort. Any determination would give
it some particular nature, as against some other particular
nature — would make it X rather than not-X. It has therefore
no determination whatever. But to be completely free of any
determination is just what we mean by Nothing. Accordingly,
when we predicate Being as an adequate expression of existence,
we find that in doing so we are also predicating Nothing as
an adequate expression of existence. And thus we pass over to
the second category. ^

B. Xothing.

16. {G. L. i. 78. Enc. 87.) This transition, which has
been the object of so much wit, and of so many indignant
denials, is really a very plain and simple matter. Wit and
indignation both depend, as Hegel remarks {G. L. i. 82. Enc.
88), on the mistaken view that the Logic asserts the identity
of a concrete object which has a certain definite quality with
another concrete object which has not that quality — of a white
table with a black table, or of a table with courage. This is
a mere parody of Hegel's meaning. Whiteness is not Pure
Being. W^hen we speak of a thing as white, we apply to it

Cp. Section 6. Also Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, Sections 17, 18, 79.

16 CH, II. QUALITY

Tuany categories besides Pure Being — Being Determinate, for
example. Thus the fact that the presence of whiteness is not
equivalent to its absence is quite consistent with the identity
of Pure Being and Nothing.

When the dialectic process moves from an idea to its
, Antithesis, that Antithesis is never the mere logical contra-
dictor of the first, but is some ^nevF idea which stands to the
first in the relation of a contrary. No reconciling Synthesis
could possibly spring from two contradictory ideas — that is,
from the simple affirmation and denial of the same idea. In
most parts of the dialectic, the relation is too clear to be
doubted. But at first sight it might be supposed that Nothing
was the contradictory of Being. This, however, is not the case.
If we affirmed not-Being, in the sense in which it is the mere
contradictory of Being, we should only affirm that, whatever
reality might be, it had not the attribute of Being./ And this
is clearly not the same as to say that it has the attribute of
Nothing. It may be the case that wherever the predicate
Being can be denied, the predicate Nothing can be asserted,
but still the denial of the one is not the affirmation of the
other.

Hegel says, indeed {G. L. i. 79) that we could as well say
Not-being (Nichtsein) as Nothing (Niclits). But it is clear
that he means by Not-Being, as he meant by Nothing, not the
mere denial of Beino^, but the assertion of the absence of all
determination.

If the identity of Being and Nothing were all that could be
said about them, the dialectic process would stop with its
second term. There would be no contradiction, and therefore
no ground for a further advance. But this is not the whole
truth {G. L. i. 89. Enc. 88). For the two terms originally
meant different things. By Being was intended a pure
positive — reality without unreality. By Nothing was intended
•1 a pure negative — unreality without reality. If each of these
is now found to be equivalent to the other, a contradiction has
arisen. Two terms, defined so as to be incompatible, have
turned out to be equivalent. Nor have we got rid of the
original meaning. For it is that same characteristic which
made the completeness of their opposition which determines

1

I

I. BEING 17

their equivalence. A reconciliation must be found for this
contradiction, and Hegel finds it in

C. Becoming.

17. The reconciliation- which this category affords appears
to consist in the recognition of the intrinsic connexion of
Being and Nothing {G. L. i. 78. Enc. 88). When we had-
these two as separate categories, each of these asserted itself
to be an independent and stable expression of the nature of
reality. By the affirmation of either its identity with the
other Avas denied, and when it was found, nevertheless, to be
the same as the other, there was a contradiction. But Becom-
ing, according to Hegel, while it recognises Being and Nothing,
recognises them only as united, and not as claiming to be
independent of one another. It recognises them, for Becoming
is always the passage of Being into Nothing, or of Nothing into
Being. But, since they only exist in Becoming in so far as
they pass away into their contraries, they are only affirmed as :/
connected, not as separate, and therefore there is no longer any
opposition between their connexion and their separation.

But, Hegel continues, this is not the end of the matter.
Being and Nothing only exist in Becoming as disappearing
moments. But Becoming only exists in so far as they are
separate, for, if they are not separate, how can they pass into
one another ? As they vanish, therefore. Becoming ceases to
/ be Becoming, and collapses into a state of rest, which Hegel

j calls Being Determinate {G. L. i. 109. Enc. 89).

1 18." X^ confess that I regret the choice of Be_coming as

a name for this category. What Hegel meant seems to me to
be quite valid. But the name of the category suggests some-
thing else which seems to me not to be valid at all. _
All that Hegel means is, as I have maintained above, that
Being is dependent on Nothing in order that it should be
Being, and that Nothing is dependent on Being in order that
it should be Nothing. In other words, a category of Being
without Nothing, or of Nothing without Being, is inadequate
and leads to contradictions which prove its felsity. The only
truth of the two is a category which expresses the relation of
Lthe two. And this removes the contradiction. For there is

18 CH. II. QUALITY

no contradiction in the union of Being and Nothing. The
previous contradiction was between their identity and their
difference.

Hegel seems to have thought it desirable to name the new
category after a concrete fact. But, as I have said above
(Section 9), the use of the names of concrete facts to designate
abstract categories is always dangerous. In the present case,
the concrete state of becoming contains, no doubt, the union
of Being and Nothing, as everj^thing must, except abstract
Being and Nothing. But the concrete state of becoming
contains a great deal more — a great deal which Hegel had
not deduced, and would have had no right to include in this
category. I do not believe that he jneant to include it, but his
language almost inevitably gives a false impression.

When we speak of Becoming we naturally think of a process
of change. For the most striking characteristic of the concrete
state of becoming is that it is a change from something to
something else. Now Hegel's category of Becoming cannot be
intended to include the idea of change.

Change involves the existence of some permanent element
in what changes — an element which itself does not change.
For, if there were nothing common to the two states, there
would be no reason to say that the one had changed into the
other. Thus, in order that anything should be capable of
change, it must be analysable into two elements, one of which
does not change. - This is impossible under the categories of
Quality. Under them each thing — if the word thing could
properly be used of what is so elementary — is just one simple
undifferentiated quality. Either it is itself — and then it is
completely the same — or its complete sameness vanishes, and
then the thing also vanishes, since its undifferentiated nature
admits no partial identity of content. Its absolute shallowness
leaves no room for distinction between a changing and an
unchanging layer of reality.

This was recognised by Hegel, who says that it is the
characteristic of Quantity that in it, for the first time, a thing
can change, and yet remain the same (G. L. i. 211. Enc. 99).
He cannot therefore have considered his category of Becoming,
which comes before Quantity, as including change.

I. BEING 19

But, it may be objected, although Hegel's category of
Becoming is incompatible with fully developed change, may
it not be compatible with change in a more rudimentary form ?
Is it not possible that, even among the categories of Quality,
a place may be found for a category which involves, not the
change of A into B, but the disappearance of A and the

r appearance of B instead of it ? To this I should reply, in the
first place, that if such replacement of J. by 5 was carefully
analysed, it would be found to involve the presence of some
element which persisted unchanged in connexion first with

I^A and then with B. The case would then resolve itself into
an example of change proper. To defend this view would,
however, be an unnecessary digression here. For it is clear

' that, if such a replacement could exist without being a change

of A into B, then A would be quite disconnected with B. But

■ in Hegel's category of Becoming the whole point lies in the

intrinsic and essential connexion of Being and Nothing. The

category could not, therefore, be an example of such replace-

' ment.

19. Thus Becoming, as a category of the Logic, cannot j
consistently involve change. And when we look at the transi-
tion by which Hegel reaches it, we see, as I said above, that
the essence of the new category lies in the necessary implication ^
of Being and Nothing, and not in any change taking place
between them.

But the name of Becoming is deceptive in itself, and so is
Hegel's remark that the category can be analysed into the
moments of Beginning (Entstehen) and Ceasing (Vergehen)
(G. L. i. 109). If the implication of the two terms is to be
called Becoming, there is, indeed, no reason why these names
should not be given to the implication of Being in Nothing,
and of Nothing in Being, It all tends, however, to strengthen
the belief that we have here a category of change. The same
result is produced by the mention of the philosophy of
Heraclitus in connexion with the category of Becoming. Of
course a philosophy which reduced everything to a perpetual
flow of changes would involve the principle of the implication
of Being and Nothing. But it would also involve a great deal
more, and once again, therefore, we meet the misleading

2—2

20 CH. II. QUALITY

suggestion that this great deal more is to be found in the
f category of Becoming.

P 20. For these reasons I believe that the course of the
dialectic would become clearer if the name of Becoming were
given up, and the Synthesis of Being and Nothing were called
J Transition to Being Determinate (Uebergang in das Dasein).

This follows the precedent set by Hegel in the case of the last
category of Measure, which he calls Transition to Essence

/ (Uebergang in das Wesen) {G. L. i. 466).

When we have taken this view of the category, the transi-
tion to the next triad becomes easy. So long as the third
category was regarded as involving change, it might well be
doubted whether Hegel had succeeded in eliminating, in Being
Determinate, the change he had introduced in Becoming.
And to do this was necessary, since Being Determinate is
certainly not a category of change. But on the new interpre-

•■ tation change has never been introduced, and does not require
to be eliminated.
,( The assertion that Being Determinate contains Being as

an element is simple enough. But to say that it contains
Nothing as an element seems strange. The difficulty is,
however, merely verbal. The Antithesis to Being should

■ rather have been called Negation than Nothing. The word
Being involves a positive element, but does not exclude
a negative element — unless we expressly say Pure Being. But
Nothing is commonly used to designate a negative element
combined with the absence of any positive element. It
corresponds to Pure Being, while Being corresponds to
Negation. ,

Now Being Determinate contains Being as a moment, but
not Pure Being, since Pure Being means " Being and nothing
else." In the same way, then, we must say that Being Deter-
minate contains as an element, not Nothing, but Negation.
Hegel recognises this, for he says {Q. L. i. 81) that in Being
Determinate we have as moments Positive and Negative,
rather than Being and Nothing. But he fails to see that
1 1 Being and Nothing are not in ordinary usage correlative terms,
and that, while, when he came to the Synthesis, he had to
substitute Negative for Nothing, he could just as well have

I. BEING 21

kept Being instead of Positive. It seems to me that it would
have been better if he had spoken of the Thesis and Anti-
thesis as Being and Negation. He could then have said in
this triad, as he does in other cases, that it was the Thesis and
Antithesis themselves which are the moments of the Synthesis.
21. It is easy to see that in Being Determinate, Being and
Negation are synthesised. If anything has a definite quality,
this involves that it has not other definite qualities, inconsistent
with the first. A thing cannot be green unless it is not red, .
and thus its greenness has a negative aspect, as well as a
positive one.

II. Being Determinate.

A. Being Determinate as Such,
(a) Being Determinate in General.

(G. L. i, 112. Enc. 89.) This, as the first subdivision of
the first division of Being Determinate, has, as its name
implies, no other meaning except the general meaning of
Being Determinate, namely, that in all existence Being and «/
Nothing are united.

And now, for the first time, we get the possibility of
differentiation and plurality. Being and Nothing did not
admit of this. Whatever simply Is is exactly the same. And
this is also true of whatever simply Is Not. But under the
category of Being Determinate, it is possible to have an
a which is not b, and is thus distinguished from b, which is
not a. And not only the possibility of such differentiation,
but also its necessity is now established. For whatever is
anything must also not be something, and cannot be what it is
not. It must therefore not be something else than what it is.
And thus the reality of anything implies the reality of some-
thing else. (The validity of this will be discussed in Section 25.)
Hegel calls the various differentiations by the name of Qualities,
and so we reach the second subdivision of Being Determinate as
Such, namely

22 CH. II. QUALITY

(b) Quality.

22. (G. L. i. 114.) We must not be misled by the ordinary
use of the phrase " a Quality." As a rule, when we speak of
a Quality or of Qualities, we mean characteristics which inhere
in a Thing, and of which one Thing may possess many. Hegel
calls these, when he comes to treat of Essence, by the name of
Eigenschaften. We have not yet got any idea so advanced as
this. It is not until Essence has been reached that we shall
be able to make a distinction between a Thing and its charac-
teristics. And, although we have now attained a plurality, we
have not yet acquired the idea of plurality in unity, which
would be necessary before we could conceive one Thing as
having many characteristics.

The Qualities of which Hegel speaks here are simply the
immediate differentiations of Being Determinate. They do not
inhere in anything more substantial than themselves ; they, in
their immediacy, are the reality. Consequently they are not
anything separate from the Being Determinate. Each Quality
has Determinate Being, and the universe is nothing but the
aggregate of the Qualities. There is not one Being Determi-
nate with many Qualities, but there are many Determinate
Beings. These may be called, not inappropriately. Some-
things. And this is the transition to the third division of
Being Determinate as Such, namely,

(c) Something.

23. {G. L. i. 119.) At this point, says Hegel, we first get
the Real (G. L. i. 120. Enc. 91). The reason for this is not
very obvious. Reality seems to be taken as a matter of degree
— a thing is more or less Real in proportion as it is regarded
under a more or less true category. Something is, no doubt,
a truer category than those which preceded it, but it is less
true than those that follow it, and I cannot see why Reality
comes in here, if it did not come in before. Something is not
even the first Synthesis.

24. Looking back on the two last transitions — from Being
Determinate in General to Quality, and from Quality to Some-

II. BEING DETERMINATE

23

thing — they must, I think, be pronounced to be valid. A doubt
might perhaps arise as to the necessity of passing through them.
Is it not clear, it might be asked, that the differentiations cannot
lie on the surface of Being Determinate (since that would
involve a distinction between Essence and Appearance) but
must be in it ? And in that case could we not have simplified
the process by taking Something as the immediate form of
Being Determinate, and so forming the undivided first moment
of iti ?

But between simple Being Determinate and Something
there is a difference — namely the explicit introduction of
plurality. The fact that the name Something is in the singular
number (inevitable with the German word Etwas) may obscure
this if we confine ourselves to the titles, but in reading the
demonstrations it soon becomes evident that, between Being
Determinate in General and Something, plurality has been
introduced. In the idea of Something, therefore, we have more
than is in the simple idea of Being Determinate, and a transi-
tion between them is required.

We can also see why there should be two steps between
Being Determinate in General and Something, and why the
road from the one to the other should lie through the category
of Quality. The transition to plurality takes place in the
transition to Quality, since Hegel speaks of one Being Deter-
minate in General, but of many Qualities. Now we can see,
I think, that it is natural that, in passing from what is singular
to a plurality, we should first think that what is plural is some-
thing different from that which had previously been before us
(and in Quality the suggestion is that they are different) and
that we should require a fresh step of the process to show us that

1 This objection may be made clearer by a table.

I. Hegel's division of Being Deter
minate.

A. Being Determinate as Such.
(a) Being Determinate in

General.
{b) Quality,
(c) Something.

B. Finitiide.

(et cetera.)

II. Division proposed by Objection.

Something
(without any sub-divisions).

B. Finitude.

(et cetera.)

A|.S.

24 CH. H. QUALITY

the plurality is the true form of what we had previously taken
not to be plural (and this is what is gained by the transition to
Something).

We have, then, a plurality, and a plurality which does not
inhere in anything else. It must therefore be regarded as
a rudimentary form of plurality of substance, rather than of
plurality of attributes. Now the categories are assertions about
the nature of existence. So, when we have got a plurality of
Somethings, we have got a plurality of existence. Is this
justified ?

25, It may be objected that we are not entitled to argue in
this way from the existence of one Something to the existence
of others. No doubt, it may be said, if this Something is x,
there must, by the results we have already reached, be some y,
which OS is not, but it does not follow that 3/ exists. If (to take
an example from a more complex sphere than that of Some-
thing) an existent object is red, it must be not-green, but it
does not follow that any green object exists. Thus, it is urged,
there might, for anything we have proved to the contrary, be
only one existent Something, whose definite nature consisted in
the fact that it was x, and was not y, z, etc.

I do not, however, think that this is valid. For if we get
the definiteness of the Something out of the fact that it is x and
not y, not z, etc., then it will have a plurality of qualities, x, not-
y, not-2^, etc. This requires the conception of a thing as a unity
which holds together a plurality of attributes, and is not
identical with any one of them. And this is a conception which
we have not yet reached, and have no right to use. Thus the
negative element in each Something cannot fall within it, and
must fall outside it, and so we are compelled to follow Hegel in
asserting the plurality of existent Somethings.

It may be replied that what belongs to the nature of any-
thing cannot be wholly outside it, and that if two existent
Somethings are distinguished from each other by being respec-
tively X and y, then after all it must be true of x that it is not-
y, and of y that it is not-a;, and so that there will be the plurality
of attributes in each Something, in which case the possibility
that there is only one Something has not been effectively
refuted.

II. BEING DETERMINATE 25

It is quite true, no doubt, that the existence of a plurality
of substantial beings does involve a plurality of attributes in
each of them. But the recognition of this forms a further stage
of the dialectic, in which we shall have passed beyond the
category of Something. We have not yet reached this stage,
and at present, since there is no plurality of attributes in a
Something, each Something can only find its determinateness in
another existent Something.

When we do reach to the conception of a thing with a
plurality of attributes, we shall no longer have our present
reason to believe in a substantial plurality. For that reason,
as we have seen, is that plurality is necessary, and that no other
plurality is possible, and this becomes invalid when a plurality
of attributes in one thing has been established. If the concep-
tion of a substantial plurality is finally retained, it must rest on
considerations not yet before us\

Thus we have a plurality of Somethings. Each of these is
1 dependent for its nature on not being the others. It may thus
be said, in a general sense, to be limited by them. (Limit, as a
technical term in the dialectic, denotes a particular species of
limitation in the more general sense.) With this we pass to the
second division of Being Determinate, which is

B. Finitude.

(a) Something and an Other.

26. {G. L. i. 122.) This category should be a restatement,
in a more immediate form, of the category of Something. This
is exactly what it is. For the category of Something, as I have
said, included the idea of a plurality of such Somethings. And,
from the point of view of any one of these, the other Somethings
will be primarily not itself. So we get the idea of Something
and an Other.

Since each Something is dependent for its own nature on an
Other, its nature may be called a Being- for-Other. (Sein fur
Anderes.) But this is not the only aspect of its nature. The
relation to an Other is what makes it what it is. And thus

1 Cp. Sections 101—102.

r

26 CH. II. QUALITY

this relation is also what it is By Itself or implicitly (An Sich^).
And thus this relation is also a quality of the Something itself.
{G. L. i. 129. Cp. also Enc. 91, though the explanation is here
so condensed as scarcely to be recognisable.) This takes us to
the next subdivision, Determination, Modification and Limit.
(I admit that Modification is not a very happy translation of
Beschaffenheit, but it is impossible to get really good names for
so many meanings which differ so slightly.)

(6) Determination, Modification and Limit.

27. {G. L. i. 129.) Not content with the analysis of his
subject-matter by five successive trichotomies, Hegel further
analyses this category into a triad of the sixth order, the terms
of which are Determination, Modification, and Limit. The
subtlety of the distinctions at this point is so great that I must
confess to having only a very vague idea of what is meant. So
far as I can see, Determination is the character of the Something
viewed as its inner nature, and Modification is that character
viewed as something received by it from outside — is, in fact, the
Being for Other come back again. It follows then, naturally
enough, that Determination and Modification are identical.
And from this again it follows that, as the Something was con-
ceived as having a nature which was both a characteristic of
itself and of its Other, that nature should be conceived as a
Limit. In such a sense a meadow is limited by the fact that it
is not a wood, nor a pond. {Enc. 92.) Now it is clear that we
only get such a Limit when the nature of the Something is seen
to be both in itself and in its relation to an Other. The con-
ception of a LimiFimplies thaTtnnakes^the^^omething what it
is — no more and no less. That it should be no less than itself
requires that its nature should be in itself, so that it should
maintain itself against the Other. That it should be no more
than itself requires, at the present stage of the dialectic, that its
nature should also be outside itself, that the Other should
maintain itself against it.

^ It is, so far as I know, impossible to find any one English phrase which
will adequately render An Sieh. I have followed Prof. Wallace's example in
using either By Itself or Impb'citly, according to the context.'

II. BEING DETERMINATE 27

The correctness of this interpretation is, no doubt, very
problematic. But whatever Hegel's meaning may have been
in this obscure passage, we can see for ourselves that the
• category of Limit would necessarily have come in at this point.
For, in the category of Something and an Other, the nature of
each Something lay in the Other. But it is also true, as Hegel
points out without any obscurity, that the nature of Something
must also lie in itself And, since the nature of Something lies
both in itself and in its Other, we have the idea of a Limit — of
a characteristic which, while it belongs both to Something and
to its Other, keeps them apart.
r Here, as Hegel remarks {G. L. i. 133), we get for the first
time the conception of Not-being for Other. In the category
of Something and an Other we had the conception of Being for
Other, but now in Limit the Something has its nature in itself
as well as in the Other, and so it has a certain stability and
exclusiveness.

At this point, therefore, we may be said to get the first
glimpse of the conception of Being for Self But it is not yet
seen to be the truth of Being for Other. On the contrary it
appears to be in opposition to it, and this opposition produces
fresh contradictions, which cannot be solved until the true
nature of Being for Self is discovered in the category which
bears that name.
r We now come to Finitude in the narrower sense. That this
conception should only be reached at this point will not seem
strange if we realise the meaning which Hegel always gives to
this term. For him the Finite is not simply that which has
something outside it, and the Infinite is not simply that which
[ has nothing outside it. The Infinite for him is that whose
nature and, consequently, whose limits, are self-determined.
The Finite, on the other hand, is that whose nature is limited
by something outside itself. The essential feature of the
Infinite is free self-determination. The essential feature of
^the Finite is subjection to an Other.

This explains why Finitude only becomes explicit at this
point. Two things are necessary for subjection to an Other —
the Other, and a definite nature in the Something to be sub-
ejected to it. The conception of plurality was onl}^ reached at

28 CH, II. QUALITY

the end of Being Determinate as Such, and till then there could
be no question of Finitude, ^Yhen this point was reached,
Finitude began to appear, and accordingly the second division
of Being Determinate, which we are now considering, is, as we
have seen, called Finitude. But Finitude does not become fully
explicit till the Something's nature is seen to be also in itself,
and not only in the Other. For till then there can scarcely be
said to be anything to be subjected to the Other. Only with
the conception of Limit does Finitude become fully explicit.
And therefore the next category — the last subdivision of
Finitude in the ^\'ider sense — is called in a special sense

(c) Finitude.

I 28. {G. L. i. 137.) This category is merely a restatement of

the last moment of the previous subdivision — that is to say, of
Limit. The idea of a Limit is, as has already been said, the
idea of Finitude, since they both mean that the limited thing
has a nature of its own, and that its nature is in subjection to
an Other. This conception takes the form of Limit when we
view it as overcoming the difficulties which arise from the
opposition between the nature as in an Other and the nature as
in the object itself. When the conception is taken as a more
immediate statement of the truth, it takes the form of Finitude.

Finitude is the Synthesis of a triad of which Something and
an Other is Thesis, and Determination Modification and Limit
is the Antithesis. The Thesis asserted that the nature of the
Something lay in its Other, the Antithesis asserted that the
nature of the Something lay in itself. These assertions are
reconciled in Finitude.

29. On looking back we can see, I think, that the sub-
divisions found within the category of Determination Modifica-
tion and Limit are useless. Modification is only a repetition
of Something and an Other\ while Limit is identical with
Finitude. The only idea remaining is Determination. It
would have been better, therefore, if Determination by itself
had been the Antithesis of Something and an Other. The

^ Hegel denies this, but I cannot see that he has shown any difference
between them.

II. BEING DETERMINATE 29

name of Limit, not being wanted for a subdivision of the
""Antithesis, would be set free, and could be used, instead of
Finitude, as the name of the Synthesis, and this would avoid the
inconvenience of using Finitude here, for a division of the fifth
order, when it is also used for a division of the fourth order.

30. In Finitude, as was said above, there are two sides —
the internal nature of the finite Something and the relation in
which it stands to the Other. These Hegel calls respectively
the Ought and the Barrier. (Das Sollen und die Schranke.)
(G. L. i. 140.) The Barrier seems an appropriate name. But
why the internal nature of the Something should be called the
Ought is not so clear. It may be said that a conscious being,
when he feels himself limited by something, says that the limit
ought to be removed, and that he ought to have room to
develop freely. But the resemblance between such a conscious
being and a limited Something is very slight, and far less
important than the difference. When a man says that he ought
to be able to do what, in point of fact, external circumstances
do not allow him to do, he has an ideal of som.e course of action
different from the one which he is forced to take, and he judges
that his ideal course would fulfil his true nature more completely
than the other. The position here is entirely different. The
content of the two opposed sides is here the same, for the
Something has only one nature, which may be looked at either
as in itself or in the Other, and the opposition is only between
the two ways of looking at it.

Why then did Hegel use the word Ought ? I believe he
did so because it gave him a chance of introducing an attack on
the ethics of Kant and Fichte {G. L. i. 142 ; Enc. 94). This
was a temptation which he was never able to resist.

31. But the inner nature of the Something now bursts its
Barrier. The Other which limits it has no nature which is not
expressed in the limitation itself. And the limitation belongs
to the nature of the Something. So that it now finds its own
nature beyond the Barrier, which it has, therefore, passed.
{G. L. i. 147. The line of the argument in the Encyclopaedia
is different, and will be considered later on.) To go back to
Hegel's own example, a meadow is limited by the fact that it is
not a wood. Not to be a wood is a part, and an essential part.

30 CH. II. QUALITY

of the nature of the meadow. Thus the nature of the meadow
is to be found in the nature of the wood, and is thus no longer
something bounded and confined by the wood's nature — for
what is left to be bound ?
We thus pass to

C. Infinity

the third division of Being Determinate {G. L. i. 147). For, the
Barrier being abolished, the Something is no longer determined
by anything outside itself. Thus we have got rid of Finitude,
and so attained Infinity, though only, so far, in a very rudi-
mentary form.

The transition here, it will be noticed, is a distinct advance.
Infinity is a fresh conception from Finitude. This is not what
might have been expected, for Finitude (in the narrower sense
of the word) is a division of the fifth order, and stands to the
next division of the fifth order (Infinity in general) as the
\ySynthesis of one triad to the Thesis of the next. According to
khe general scheme of the dialectic, therefore, their content
should have been the same.

And the transition seems to me to be invalid. I cannot see
that anything which Hegel has said entitles him to conclude, as
apparently he does, that in this category we have got rid of
Limit and Barrier. The nature of the meadow is determined
by that of the wood — but it is determined negatively. It is its
nature not to be the wood. And this determination, while it
relates the two, does not in any way destroy the difference
between them, so that there is no justification for concluding
that the second of them has ceased to limit the first, or to act as
its Barrier. For the proper transition at this point, we must, I
believe, adopt the view of the Encyclopaedia, rather than that
of the Greater Logic.

Continuing the treatment of the subject in the Greater
Logic, we find that when, in the first place, the Something
passes over its Barrier, it finds itself outside the Barrier, and so
unlimited. Thus the first stage is

II. BEING DETERMINATE 31

(a) Infinity in General.

32. {G. L. i. 148.) And now Hegel proceeds to restore the
limitations which, if I am right, he ought never to have dis-
carded. What, he asks {G. L. i. 153), is this Infinity ? It has
been gained by negating Finitude, and passing beyond it. Now
nothing can negate anything definite, except by being definite
itself. But we have seen that a thing can only be definite if it
has a limit and is finite. And thus the Infinite which we
seemed to have reached turns out to be another Finite. A
meadow, for example, cannot be negated by pure Being, or by
Nothing. It must be by some other Being Determinate. And
this must be finite.

The Infinity, which had been reached, thus turns out to be
finite. But, being finite, it will have its nature outside itself,
and so again passes the Barrier, and becomes infinite — only
once more to become finite. This process goes on without end,
and thus we have the second subdivision {G. L. i. 149)

33. (h) Reciprocal Determination of the Finite and Infinite

which may be called more briefly Negative Infinity (cp. Enc. 94).

It must be noted that this is not a category of change. A

category of change would assert that the reality, when viewed

under that category, is viewed as changing its nature. This is

not the case here. The reality — the nature of the Something —

'"is not conceived as changing. All that changes is the way in

which we judge it. We conceive its nature, first as being

generally outside itself, then as being in another Something,

then as generally outside that other Something again. We

oscillate endlessly between these two views. But this does not

involve any judgment that the reality changes. It is only a

)_jchange of judgment about the reality.

p This involves a contradiction. The nature of the Something

is first seen not to be Finite, but Infinite. But it is then seen

to be, not Infinite, but Finite again. And the second step does

not transcend the first, for the second leads back again to the

32 CH. II. QUALITY

first. Therefore a part of the nature of the Something — that
part which lies outside the Something — cannot be pronounced
either Finite or Infinite. Thus it can be found nowhere — for
the category recognises no third alternative. And since this part
of the nature of the Something has been shown to be essential
to the Something, there can be no Something, and so (so far as
can be seen under this category) no Determinate Being at all.
And so there is a contradiction.

'" It is sometimes said that Hegel holds that an Infinite Series
is as such contradictory. But this is a mistake. He denies that
there is anything sublime in endless repetition, and asserts that
its only important feature is its tediousness (Enc. 94), but he
does not assert it to be intrinsically impossible. It is only
Infinite Series of particular kinds which are contradictory, and
then only for some reason other than their infinity. In the case
of the present series, as we have seen, there is such a reason.

34. How do we get rid of this contradiction ? Hegel points
out (G. L. i. 155) that the same fact which produced the con-
tradiction has only to be looked at in a rather different light to
give the solution. That fact is the unity of the Finite and
Infinite — or, in other words, of what is within any finite Some-
thing and of what is outside it. It was this which produced the
contradictory infinite series, for it was this which made the
content of the Something first overstep its Barrier. But if we
put it in another way — that the content of the Something is in
part its relation to what is outside it, then the Something has an
internal nature which is stable through its relation to what is
outside it, and the contradictory infinite series never begins.
Instead of saying that the nature of the Something must be
found in what is outside it, we must now say that it has its
nature through what is outside it. The conception of relatively
self-centred reality thus reached is called by Hegel {G. L. i. 155)

(c) Affirmative Infinity,

35. The treatment of the subject in the Encyclopaedia is
different. After establishing the category of Limit, Hegel
continues {Enc. 93) " Something becomes an Other : this Other
is itself Something: therefore it likewise becomes an Other,

II. BEING DETERMINATE 33

and so on ad infinitum^ The transition here is not alternately
from Finite to Finite. The only Infinite is the infinite number
of such Finites.

This seems to me to be better than the argument in the
Greater Logic. In the first place, the categories are so arranged
in the Encyclopaedia as to avoid the difference of content
between a Synthesis and the succeeding Thesis — which, as we
saw above, occurs in the Greater Logic.

In the second place, the Encyclopaedia avoids the transition
from the limited to the unlimited, which I have maintained
above to be invalid. And the transition which it substitutes is,
I think, valid. Part of the nature of A is found in its Other,
B, since it is part of its nature not to be B. But this can only
be a definite characteristic of J., if B is definite. Now part of
jB's nature, on the same principle, must be found in its Other G.
Thus the nature of A will be partly found in G, since it is part
of its nature to be not-B, while B's nature includes being not-G.
A similar argument will prove that the nature of A is partly in
C"s Other, D, and so on without end.

Here, again, we get an infinite series which is a contradic-
tion. ^, as a Something, must have a definite nature. But
part of this nature is not to be found in itself It must,
according to the category, be found in one of the series of
Others. But it cannot be found in any one of them, for which-
ever we take proves to have part of its own nature, and
therefore of A's nature, in yet another. Thus this indispensable
part of A's nature is to be found in none of the series of Others,
and therefore, according to this category, can be found nowhere.
Thus A has no definite nature, though it is a Something. And
this is a contradiction.

Nor can we escape from this contradiction by saying that
the part of A's nature which is external to itself is found in the
whol§ series, though it is not found in any one term of it. For
nothing which we have yet reached entitles us to regard the
series as a unity with which A can enter into relations. Its
relations can only be to some particular Something which forms
part of the series.

It will be seen that the contradiction does not rest on the
impossibility that a mind working in time should ever reach the

[

84 CH. II. QUALITY

end of an infinite series. This impossibility might prove that
the full nature of any Something could never be known to any
mind working in this way, but in this there would be no
contradiction.

36. From this contradiction we are freed by passing to the
category of True Infinity. Hegel says that the Something
stands in the same position to its Other, as the Other stands
to the Something. The Something is the Other of its own
Other, and, therefore, " Something in its passage into Other only
joins with itself" {Enc. 95). This means that, while the nature
of A is partly to be found in B, and the nature of B is partly to
be found in something other than B, this need not be a third
Something, C, but can be A, which is after all other than B. So
the infinite series, with its contradiction, is avoided. A and B
are each determinate through the fact of not being the other.
Thus we reach Being for Self. A's nature is now wholly in
itself. It no longer has part of its nature in its Other, but its
nature within itself is what it is because of its relation to its
Other. (The Encyclopaedia is very condensed here, but it
seems to be certain that this is the meaning.)

This position, Hegel says, is that of True Infinity, and it is
identical with what was called, in the Greater Logic, Affirmative
Iiifinity. The name of Infinity may appear inappropriate. For
here all assertion of Infinity, in the ordinary sense of the word,
has disappeared, since the necessity for an Infinite Series of
Somethings has disappeared. According to the category we
have just reached there must be at least two Somethings, and
there may be any number, but, so far as I can see, there may be
only two.
p It is very characteristic of Hegel's thought that he should
call this concept True or Affirmative Infinity. According to
him the essence of Infinity lies in the fact that it is what is
unconstrained, unthwarted, free. And freedom, according to him^
can only be found, not in being unbounded, but in being self-
bounded. That is truly infinite whose boundaries are determined
by the fact that it is itself, and not by mere limitation from
outside. It is through applications of this principle that Hegel
holds that a conscious spirit has more true infinity than endless
space or endless time. Now in this category we have reached

II. BEING DETERMINATE 35

self-determination, though only as yet in a very rudimentary
form. And therefore, in comparison with what has gone before,
Hegel calls it True Infinity.

37. From this point the Greater Logic and the Encyclopaedia
again coincide in their treatment. It is here, says Hegel, that
we first get Ideality (G. L. i. 164. Enc. 95) and that Idealism
becomes possible {G. L. i. 171). Idealism, he says, consists in
maintaining that the Finite is Ideal (das Ideelle, not das
Ideal), and this, again, means that the Finite is recognised
" not truly to be." For this it is necessary that the Finite
should have been reached, and should have been transcended,
and that we should recognise that what is merely Finite is
impossible. (Finite is, of course, used in Hegel's own sense,
and means, not that which is bounded, but that which is not
self-bounded.) This is the first category in which such a recog-
nition is involved.

Affirmative Infinity gives us, as we saw when dealing with
the Encyclopaedia, Being for Self. In the Greater Logic they
form two separate categories, but the content of Affirmative
Infinity — the final Synthesis of Being Determinate — is identical
with the content with which the new division of Being for Self
begins. The Something has now its whole nature inside itself.

III. Being for Self

((t. L. i. 173. Enc. 96) is the last of the three tertiary
divisions to be found in Quality. Its first subdivision is called
by Hegel

A. Being for Self as Such

{G. L. i. 174), while the first subdivision of this again is named

(a) Being Determinate and Being for Self.

{G. L. i. 175.) The position here is that a thing has both
Being Determinate and Being for Self (This seems to me to be
invalid, but the discussion of its validity had better be post-
poned until we reach the end of Being for Self as Such.) Since
it has both, it is qualitatively differentiated from its Other,
while the Being for Self gives it stability and saves it from the
infinite series of Others, in which Being Determinate, taken by
itself, is compelled to seek the nature of each differentiation.

3—2

36 CH. II. QUALITY

But the position, Hegel continues {G. L. i. 176), cannot be
maintained. For Being Determinate has, by the previous
transition, been transcended in Being for Self, and is a moment
of Being for Self In so far as it is valid at all, its validity is
summed up in Being for Self In so far as it claims to be
anything distinct from, and supplementary to, Being for Self, it
Tis not valid. Therefore all Being for Other has now dis-
(^ appeared, and Being for Self is not for an Other. Being for
Self has not negation "an ihm" as a determinateness or limit, and
therefore not as a relation to a Being Determinate other than
itself

We have no longer a Something, since Hegel confines that
term to the sphere of Being Determinate. At the same time
we are not yet entitled to speak of a One. Let us for the
present call the reality, which was previously called the Some-
thing, by the neutral name of X. The point of the present
argument is that the relation of the X to the not-Z" has become
more negative than before.

We must not exaggerate the change. The relation of the
Something to the Other was already, in a sense, negative, for
the Something was limited by its Other, and was what the
Other was not. And, again, X is still related to the not-X.
For it is only by distinguishing itself from the not-X that it
got Being for Self at all, and this distinction is itself a relation,
as will appear more explicitly when we come to the categories
of the Many and of Attraction. (When Hegel says that Being
for Self does not contain negation "as a relation to a Being
Determinate other than itself" {G. L. i. 176), the emphasis is,
I believe, on the last five words. There is a relation, but it is
not a relation to a Being Determinate, nor to anything which is,
in the technical sense, the " Other " of the Being for Self)

But the change is there, and is important. When the Some-
thing was determined by its Other, the positive nature of the
Other was essential to the determination. The Something was
this quality, and not any other, and it was determined in this
way because the Other was what it was, and nothing else. Now
it is different. In Being for Self all that is essential is that
there should be something else which is not X. Whatever this
other thing may be, X can determine itself by means of a

III. BEING FOR SELF 37

relation to it. It has no longer its own peculiar Other. This
increased independence of X is the natural consequence of X
being more individual and self-centred than before.

The new category to which we now pass is called by Hegel

(b) Being for One.

38. {G. L. i. 176.) We ought, I think, to consider the
significance of this category as mainly negative, in spite of its
positive name. Its essence is that Being for Self is not also
Being Determinate, and it might not unfairly have received the
name of Not-Being for Other.

Hegel has then no difficulty in proving that the One, for
which the X is, can only be itself. If it were anything else the
Being for One would be Being for Other. And this is impossible,
since Being for Other has already been transcended. The
Being for One of X, then, is Being for Self

This takes us to a new category which consists in the re-
statement of Being for Self, but this time by itself without Being
Determinate. To this Hegel {G. L. i. 181) gives the name of

39. (c) One,

which emphasises the negative and exclusive character of Being
l__ for Self

It seems to me that Hegel was wrong in subdividing Being
for Self as Such. The category of Being Determinate and
Being for Self is unjustified, for he only reached Being for Self
by transcending Being Determinate. Being Determinate,
therefore, in so far as it is true at all, is contained in Being for
Self and cannot properly be put side by side with it. The
Thesis of the triad must thus be rejected, and the Antithesis
must go with it, since the only thing done in Being for One is
to remove the Being Determinate which had been improperly
introduced in the Thesis. There only remains the Synthesis of
the triad — namely, One. Now Hegel's conception of One is just
the same as his conception of Being for Self So the Thesis
and Antithesis are removed, and the Synthesis is the same as
the undivided category. Thus all the sub-divisions are re-
moved. It would be convenient to call this undivided category
One, rather than Being for Self as Such, as this distinguishes

38

CH. II. QUALITY

it more clearly from the wider tertiary category of Being for
Self of which it is a subdivision. This is the course actually
taken by Hegel in the Encyclopaedia (Enc. 96), where an
undivided category of One is the Thesis in the triad of Being
for Self.

We now pass to the second division of Being for Self,

40. B. The One and the Many

(G. L. i. 182. Enc. 97) of which the first subdivision is

(a) The One in Itself.

p {Q. L. i. 183.) The first subdivision here is, as is to be
expected, a restatement of the last subdivision of the previous
division. The two bear, in this instance, almost the same name.
Now the One, since it is Being for Self, has its nature by relating
itself to, and distinguishing itself from, something other than
itself. But this other is at first only determined negatively in
regard to the One. The relation of the other term to the One
is simply that the other term is not the One. This other term
has therefore, to begin with, a merely negative nature. The
One is limited by the not-One, by which is meant, so far,
not the Many, but only something which is not the One. Thus
we get

(6) The One and the Void.

41. {G. L. i. 184.) The name of this category is appropriate
enough as a metaphor, but we must remember that it is nothing
but a metaphor. If it were a Void, in the literal sense of the
term, which was thus related to the One, the One could only
be an atom in space, which is not the case.

But the One can only be negated by something like itself
{G. L. i. 187). The One is definite, and its definiteness depends
on a definite relation with the other term. And the relation
between them cannot be a definite relation to a definite One,
unless the other term is itself definite. Now it has been shown
that nothing can be definite, unless it is for itself, and so is
a One. Thus the One can only be negated by another One,
which bring us to the category of

III. BEING FOR SELF 39

42. (c) Many Ones

' (G. L. i. 186), to which Hegel gives the additional name of
Repulsion, since the relation of the Ones to each other is raainly
negative.

Since the conception of the Many has been reached, the
natural question to ask is How Many ? Hegel does not regard
this, I think, as a question which can be answered by pure
thought. Pure thought has proved the necessity for a plurailt^.^
has proved, that is, there must be at least two Ones, but ilol
that there must be more than two. The proof of that would
rest on the empirical fact that we are presented with more than
two differentiations of our experience. So far as the dialectic
can tell us, the number of Ones may be any number not less
than two. There is no reason, that I can see, why the number
should not be infinite, since the contradiction in the infinite
series in Being Determinate did not depend on the infinity of
the series but on the way in which its members wfere connected.
This, of course, leaves the question undetermined whether, as we
advance in the dialectic, we shall discover objections to an
infinite number of differentiations^

Hegel says that the deduction of the Many Ones from the
One must not be considered a Becoming " for Becoming is a
transition from Being to Nothing ; One, on the other hand,
only becomes One" {G. L. i. 187). And he also warns us
{G. L. i. 188) that the plurality is not to be regarded as Other-
being, for each One is only externally related to all the other
Ones — while in Other-being the whole nature of the Something
was found in its Other.

The divisions of the One and the Many may perhaps be
condemned as superfluous. If we start with the conception of a
One determined by its relation to something else, it might be
possible to conclude directly that this must be another One, and
so reach the Many without the -intervening stage of the One
and the Void. At the worst, however, the subdivisions here
only are superfluous, and not, as in Being for Self as Such,
positively erroneous.

1 It might be said that any question of the number of Ones is improper, since
Hegel does not introduce Number till he comes to Quantum. But it seems to
me that what he introduces in Quantum is only the conception of a number of
units less than the whole, and that therefore even before Quantum it is legitimate
to enquire about the total number of Ones. (See below, Section 5-i.)

40^ CH. II. QUALITY

We now pass to the last division cf Being for Self which is

43. G. Repulsion and Attraction,

(G. L. i. 190. Enc. 98) of ;vhich the first subdivision is

(a) Exclusion of the One.

{G. L. i, 190.) This is a restatement of the category of
Many Ones, which, as was said above, involves the Repulsion
^ ^ each One of the rest of the Many. But what is the nature
of this Many which the One repels ? They are other Ones,
and thus the One in Repulsion only relates itself to itself
{G. L. i. 191). The Repulsion thereupon becomes Attraction,
and the Many Ones come together in a single One.

The new category thus obtained is called by Hegel
{G. L. i. 19i)

(h) The one One of Attraction.

44. It shows itself to be as untenable as its opposite. If
there were only one One there could be no Attraction. For
what would there be to attract it, or to be attracted by it ?
And, again, that there should be only one One is impossible,
because as has been shown already, One implies many Ones.

The truth is, as we now see, that Attraction is only possible
on condition of Repulsion, and Repulsion is only possible on
condition of Attraction. They must be united, and so we reach

45. (c) The Relation of Repulsion and Attraction

(G. L. i. 195) which concludes the categories of Quality.

It seems to me that the subdivisions of Repulsion and Attrac-
tion, like those of Being for Self as Such, are positively erroneous.
No doubt that which each One repels is other Ones, but this
does not make them identical with it. Each One has Being
for Self, each has its own nature, and the fact that they are all
Ones does not destroy their plurality. If this is correct, we
must reject the transition to the Antithesis, and therefore
Hegel's deduction of the Synthesis must be invalid.

The Relation of Repulsion and Attraction, which Hegel
makes the Synthesis of the triad of Repulsion and Attraction,
ought really, I think, to be the whole content of the undivided
category of Repulsion and Attraction. And, if so, it may be
very easily deduced. The previous category — the last in One

III. BEING FOR SELF 41

and Many — was Repulsion. But Repulsion is impossible by
itself. Two things cannot have merely negative relations to one
another. If A is itself only on condition of not being B, then
the existence of B is essential to A, and the relation is positive
as well as negative. To take an example from a more concrete
field, the relation of a combatant to his antagonist is negative.
But it is also positive, for, if he had no one to fight, he could not
be a combatant. Thus the relation of each One to the other
One which it repels is positive as well as negative, and we have
arrived at Hegel's conclusion, though in a simpler and more
valid manner.

We must, of course, here, as elsewhere, be on our guard
against confusing Hegel's categories of Repulsion and Attraction
with the far more concrete ideas of Physics after which he has
named them. The Repulsion and Attraction of Physics may
exemplify these categories, but they also contain empirical
elements which Hegel has not deduced, and which he does not
think that he has deduced.
-^ 46. The dialectic has now reached Quantity. Quantity
involves that the units should be so far indifferent to one another,
as to be capable of combination or separation without any change
in their nature. This is rendered possible by the equipoise
between Repulsion and Attraction which has now been estab-
lished. The Ones are sufficiently under the influence of
Attraction to be brought together in aggregates. They are
sufficiently under the influence of Repulsion to retain their
separate existence in their aggregates, so that the quantity of
the aggregate varies according to the number of its units.

The dialectic thus regards it as an advance to pass from
Quality to Quantity. This may seem to conflict with the
ordinary view that quantitative determinations are more
abstract and less profound than qualitative. But it must be
remembered that this is said with reference to those qualitative
relations which have transcended and absorbed Quantity, while
Hegel, as we have seen, means by Quality only the simplest and
most rudimentary form of what usually goes by the name. The
most abstract Quantity may be an advance on this, although
such Quantity may be very inadequate as compared with more
complex qualitative determinations.

CHAPTER III

QUANTITY

47. Quantity is divided as follows :

I. Quantity. (Die Quantitat.)

A. Pure Quantit3^ (Die reine Quantitat.)

B. Continuous and Discrete Magnitude. (Kontinuirliche

und diskrete Griisse.)

C. Limitation of Quantity. (Begrenzung der Quantitat.)

II. Quantum. (Quantum.)

A. Number, (Die Zahl.)

B. Extensive and Intensive Quantum. (Extensives und

intensives Quantum.)

(a) Their difference. (Unterschied derselben.)

(b) Identity of Extensive and Intensive Magnitude.

(Identitat der extensiven und intensiven
Grcisse.)

(c) The Alteration of Quantum. (Die Veranderung

des Quantums.)

C. The Quantitative Infinity. (Die quantitative Un-

endlichkeit.)

(a) Its Notion. (Begriff derselben.)

(6) The Quantitative Infinite Progress. (Der quanti-
tative unendliche Progress.)

(c) The Infinity of Quantum. (Die Unendlichkeit des
Quantums.)

I. (undivided) quantity 43

III. The Quantitative Ratio. (Das quantitative Verhaltniss.)

A. The Direct Ratio. (Das direkte Verhaltniss.)

B. The Inverse Ratio. (Das umgekehrte Verhaltniss.)

C. The Ratio of Powers. (Potenzen verhaltniss.)

It will be noticed that Quantity is used in an ambiguous
manner, since it is the name both of the whole secondaiy
division, and of the first of the tertiary divisions contained in it.
The tertiary division might be distinguished if we gave it the
name of Undivided Quantity, which, as we shall see, would be
appropriate to it.

The treatment of Quantity is not one of the most successful
parts of the Greater Logic. It occupies a greater space than
any of the other eight secondary divisions. Yet the transitions
are frequently obscure, and often appear to owe their obscurity
to excessive compression. By far the greater part of the
186 pages which are employed on Quantity are occupied with
Notes on collateral points. Some of these, indeed, throw
additional light on the main argument, but the rest only con-
tain criticisms of Kant's views on Quantity, and of certain
mathematical doctrines. Hegel is never at his best when
criticising Kant, and the mathematical discussions are too
purely technical to give us much assistance in comprehending
the course of the dialectic.

48. Again, w^ere Hegel's mathematics correct ? Was he
right about the mathematics of his own time, and, if so, would
he be right about the mathematics of the present day ? To
answer these questions requires a knowledge of mathematics
which I am very far from possessing. Mr Bertrand Russell —
one of the few philosophers who are also mathematicians — says :
" In Hegel's day, the procedure of mathematicians was full of
errors, which Hegel did not condemn as errors but welcomed as
antinomies ; the mathematicians, more patient than the philoso-
phers, have removed the errors by careful detailed work on
every doubtful point. A criticism of mathematics based on
Hegel can, therefore, no longer be regarded as applicable to the
^existing state of the subjects"

1 Mind, 1908, p. 242.

44 CH, III. QUANTITY

But the value of Hegel's treatment of Quantity would only
be slightly affected by the fact that his criticisms of mathematics
were based on ignorance or by the fact that they had been
invalidated by the progress of that science. The main object of
the dialectic, after all, is to reach the Absolute Idea, and so to
demonstrate what is the true nature of reality. Thus the
principal function of the lower categories is to lead on to the
Absolute Idea. And for this it is only requisite that each of
them should logically follow from the one before it, and lead on
to the one after it.

Now the question whether Hegel's various categories of
Quantity do perform this function is not affected by any mathe-
matical mistakes which he may have made, nor can it be settled
in the negative by any mathematical criticisms. The only
question is whether Hegel was justified in starting the dialectic
with the category of Pure Being, and whether the validity of
the Hegelian categories of Quantity can be shown to be involved
in the validity of the category of Pure Being. And this is
a question for metaphysics and not for mathematics.

It is true that Hegel's main aim in the dialectic was not his
only aim. He wished, not merely to deduce an absolutely valid
conception of reality, but to account for other less valid con-
ceptions, and to range them in the order of their relative
validity. He probably believed that the categories with which
he deals in the sphere of Quantity were identical with the
fundamental notions of mathematics. In so far as they were
not so, he must be considered to have failed in his subordinate
purpose, and, in so far as he has failed, to have introduced
additional obscurity by the fact that he has called his categories
by the names of the mathematical notions.

But the purpose in which he may have failed is, as I have
said, only of subordinate importance for him. And his failure
if there is one\ would not be a sign of any metaphysical flaw in
his system, but only of mathematical ignorance. If the dialectic
process is correct, it will be true of all mathematical conceptions,
as of all others, that the way in which we can judge of the

1 Whether there is such a failure or not is left undetermined by Mr Russell's
criticisms, since these do not deal with the main course of the argument but
with one of the mathematical Notes.

I. (undivided) quantity 45

degree of their validity will be by means of the dialectic process.
If the ideas are themselves stages in that process, the place
which they occupy in it will give us their relative validity. If
they are not stages in the process, their relative validity can be
found by ascertaining the point in the dialectic at which it
becomes clear that they are not absolutely valid. For example,
if the absolute validity of mathematical ideas implied the
absolute validity of the general conception of Quantum, as given
in the dialectic, then, as the dialectic transcended Quantum, it
would become evident that the mathematical ideas could not
be absolutely valid. Thus, even if Hegel's judgments about
mathematics were all wrong, that would not prevent his
dialectic from being the foundation of right judgments on the
same subject to a person more skilled in mathematics.

I. (Undivided) Quantity.
A. Pure Quantity.

49. This stage (G. L. i. 212. Enc. 99) appears to be
identical in content with the last stage of Quality, though ex-
pressed with greater immediacy. The two elements, Repulsion
and Attraction, which were recognised as inseparable in the
final category of Quality, here receive the names of Discrete-
ness and Continuity.

Pure Quantity is a category of the fourth order, while the
category immediately preceding it (Relation of Repulsion and
Attraction) is of the fifth order. Thus, according to the general
method of the dialectic they should not be identical in content.
If, however, the subdivision which produced categories of the
fifth order at this point is excessive, as I have maintained above
(Section 45), this objection would disappear in an amended
dialectic.

But, although Discreteness and Continuity are recognised as
inseparable, it is still possible to lay a greater emphasis on one
of them than on the other. And we begin, Hegel tells us
{0. L. i. 213), by laying the greater emphasis on Continuity.
The reason appears to be that this element is more character-
istic of Quantity, though not more essential to it, than Dis-
creteness. For as long as we had only Repulsion the process

46 CH. III. QUANTITY

remained within Quality, but, as soon as Attraction was added,
the transition to Quantity took place. And there is always a
tendency to put most emphasis on the element last reached.

B. Continuous and Discrete Magnitude.

50. (G. L. i. 229.) By a somewhat abrupt transition we
come to this category, in which Magnitude is to be taken
first as Continuous. Here there is as yet no plurality of
Quantities, and the one .Quantity is indefinite. A plurality of
Quantities would require that they should be Discrete from one
another. And, again, no Quantity can be definite unless by
its having fixed boundaries — that is to say by being Discrete
from the Quantity beyond those boundaries. It is true that,
as was said above, all Quantity has an element of Discreteness.
But, so far, the only things which are Discrete from one another
are the units — the Ones — which are alike Discrete from and
Continuous with one another.
P Now a One, taken by itself, is not a Quantity at all. For it
has no plurality in it. And Ones have no possibility of varying
in magnitude. All variations of magnitude are only variations
in the number of the Ones. These characteristics are essential
to Quantity, and they are not possessed by isolated Ones. And
the isolated Ones being, so far, the only Discrete things, we
have as yet no definite Quantity, and no plurality of Quantities.
(-_ (It may appear incorrect to say that a One admits of no

plurality. Can we not, it may be asked, conceive an isolated
One as consisting of two halves, four quarters, and so on ? But
a One which consists of parts is no longer a me/'e One, which is
all that the dialectic has got at present. It is something which,
while from one point of view a unit, is, from another point of
view, an aggregate of two or four units. And this involves the
higher conception of Discrete Magnitude, which has not yet
been reached.

In the same way, we may conceive the units of which an
aggregate is made up as having magnitude, and as being
capable of having different magnitudes, and of varying in
magnitude. But we can only do this in so far as we conceive
each of them as made up in its turn of parts, and so as not being
mere Ones.)

I. (undivided) quantity 47

The position at present is that we have a plurality of Ones —
of the number of which we know nothing — which form a single
Quantity. But within this single all-embracing Quantity there
are as yet no minor Quantities. Each Oae is qualitatively
different from each of the others, but all these qualitative
differences are as yet unique. There are no qualities common
to more than one One — except, indeed, the quality, if it may be
called a quality, of being a One. And this is common to all
Ones.

Continuous Magnitude was formed by pa.ssing from One to
One in virtue of their Continuity, (Continuity, it will be
remembered, is what was previously called Attraction. It is the
capability, possessed by Ones, of being united in an aggregate.)
We now pass to Discrete Magnitude {G. L. i. 229). Each One
is as really Discrete from all the others as it is continuous with
them. Thus a Quantity, less than the whole, can be formed by )
taking certain Ones together, in virtue of their Continuity, and
cutting them off from all others in virtue of their Discreteness.
And this Quantity, being cut off by its Discreteness from the
indefinite Quantity beyond it, will be a finite Quantity. In the /^
indefinite Quantity, again, other finite Quantities can be formed,
and thus we get a plurality of finite Quantities.

51. In the form of this stage, as presented by Hegel, there
appear to be two defects. The first is that no reason is given
why we should pass from Pure Quantity to the new stage. The
second is that, although Continuous and Discrete Magnitude is
not divided into a subordinate triad, yet there is a distinct
dialectic advance within it — namely from Continuous to Discrete
Magnitude.

These defects seem to me to be merely a matter of arrange-
ment. Continuous Magnitude is not really a fresh stage, or
part of a fresh stage, at all. It is nothing but Pure Quantity,
since, as we have seen, it does not permit of definite Quantity,
or of a plurality of Quantities,

On the other hand Discrete Magnitude is not merely corre-
lative with Continuous Magnitude. It is distinctly a more
advanced conception. It gives us the distinctness and plurality
which were lacking before, and it gives them to us by differen-
tiating the relation between Ones — by joining some of them to

48 CH. III. QUANTITY

others, and disjoining them from others again, instead of making
the relation uniform.

It is, then, in reality, to Discrete Magnitude that the
advance from Pure Quantity is made. This is evident in
Hegel's text, but is misrepresented by his headings. In order
that these should correspond with his argument, he should have
dealt with Continuous Magnitude under the head of Pure
Quantity, and should have made his second stage simply
Discrete Magnitude, instead of Continuous and Discrete.

It should be remarked that, although the transition to
Discrete Magnitude lies in the possibility of breaking off the
Quantity at any One, this does not mean that it is merely
a possible transition. Continuous Magnitude is that which
cannot be broken otf at any point. Discrete Magnitude is that
which can be broken off at any point. When we are forced to
admit the possibility of breaking Magnitude off at any point,
this is a necessary transition to the category of Discrete
Magnitude.

We can break it off, then, at any point we like. But no
reason has been given why we should break it off at one point
rather than at another. Nor can any such reason be given
until we have passed out of the sphere of Quantity into
Measure. To this point we shall recur later on.

G. Limitation of Quantity.

52. (G. L. i. 231.) Hegel says that Discrete Magnitude as
such is not limited. It is only limited as separated from the
Continuous. By this, I conceive, he means that, if the Discrete
Magnitude were taken in isolation, its final One would not be
a Limit, because it would not divide the Discrete Magnitude
from anything else. It is only in so far as it is regarded as in
connexion with the indefinite Continuous Magnitude from which
it has been carved out, that its final term is to be considered
a Limit. (On Hegel's use of Limit cp. above, Section 27.)

The Discrete Magnitude, then, shares its Limit with the
Continuous Magnitude outside it. It is thus in a definite relation
to that which bounds it, and has itself a definite amount. To
definite Quantities Hegel gives the name of Quanta, and so we
pass to the second main division of Quantity.

II. QUANTUM 49

II. Quantum.

A, Number.

^ 53. {G. L. i. 232, Enc. 101.) In reaching the conception of
a limited and definite Quantity we have, according to Hegel,
reached for the first time the possibility of Number. While
Quantity is merely continuous it cannot be numbered. For
then there is no intermediate term between the separate Ones
and the whole indefinite Quantity. And the separate Ones in
their separateness cannot have any Number, since each of them
is only One. But now that we have a definite Quantum, it
consists of those Ones which are included between certain
[ Limits, and can therefore be numbered.

54. It may be admitted that, up to this point, there could
be no Number of anything less than the whole Quantity. But
why could not this have a Number? We do not know how
many Ones there are. But this does not prevent them from
having a Number, though the dialectic cannot tell us what it is.

Hegel would probably have said that what was infinite
could have no Number, and he does not seem to have con-
sidered the possibility that there should be a finite number of
Ones. But I cannot see that this possibility can be neglected.
Each One has — or rather is — a separate Quality. I cannot see
anything in the dialectic to exclude the possibility that there
should be just twenty such Qualities, and so twenty such Ones,
no more and no less.

We must remember that the Ones are not Somethings. The
latter had to be infinite in number, since each of them required
a fresh Something beyond it. But the Ones have Being for
Self, and so avoided, as we saw, this infinite series. Again, if
Ones were always divisible into other Ones, their number would
necessarily be infinite, but each One is a simple Quality, which
is not divisible. Nor does each One involve an endless chain
of derivative Ones in the same way, e.g., that every relation is
related, so that the number of relations is infinite.

It is true that the Number of the whole Quantity of Ones
could not have a Limit, in the Hegelian sense, since there
would be nothing outside it. But a Limit, in this sense, does
not seem necessary, since the Ones which are numbered have

50 CH. III. QUANTITY

Being for Self. They can reciprocally determine each other,
and when their natures are given, the number of them is given
also.

Thus it seems quite possible that all the Ones, taken together,
should have a definite and finite Number. That this possibility
should have escaped Hegel may very well, I think, be due to
the fact that he did not keep sufficiently in his mind the precise
significance of his categories of Quantity.

These categories, like all others in the dialectic, refer only
to what is existent. (Cp. above, Section 6.) He is not dealing
wdth the purely abstract conception of quantity, which can be
applied to anything which can be thought of at all. His
categories of Quantity are attempts to explain the nature of
what is existent by the conception of quantities of existent
Ones — the nature of each One being, as we saw in the last
chapter, a simple and unique Quality.

So far as I can see, he never definitely asserts anything
inconsistent with this view of the categories of Quantity — the
only view which he is entitled to take — except when he deals
with Quantitative Ratio. (Cp. below, Section 6Q.) But his
expressions often suggest that he is thinking rather of abstract
quantity than of a Quantity of existent Ones. This may
account for his failing to see the possibility of the total number,
under the categories of Undivided Quantity, being limited. For
of course there is no limit to a purely abstract quantity.

What Hegel says, however, in reaching his category of
Number, only requires a verbal correction. For it is true that
Hegel's category of Number is the first point at which any
Quantity, less than the whole Quantity of Ones, could have
a number.
^ 55. " Quantity is Quantum " says Hegel, " or has a Limit,
both as Continuous and as Discrete Magnitude. The difference
f_^ of these species has here no meaning" (G. L. i. 232). This
must not be taken as an assertion that Continuity and Dis-
creteness have no longer meaning as different moments in any
Quantity. It is only the distinction between Continuous and
Discrete Magnitudes which has no longer any meaning. And
this result was brought about in Limitation of Quantity. For
there we saw that a Discrete Magnitude could only be Discrete

II. QUANTUM 51

in so far as it was positively related to that which was outside
it. And this positive relation is what Hegel calls Continuity.

Quantity is now indifferent to its Limit, but not indifferent
to having a Limit, for to have a Limit is identical with being a
Quantum (G. L. i. 232). The distinction seems to be that it
is always essential to a Quantum to have a Limit, but never
essential to it to have a particular Limit. Of course, if it had
a different Limit, it would be a different Quantum. But then
there is no reason why it should not be different. This will be
explained when we reach the Quantitative Infinite Progress.

Hegel further says that the Ones which make up any
Quantum are indifferent to the Limit, but that the Limit is
not indifferent to the Ones {G. L. i, 234). As the Limit is
that which determines the Quantum to be what it is, it follows
that the Ones in a Quantum are indifferent to the Quantum,
while the Quantum is not indifferent to them.

This superiority of the units to the aggregate is essential to
Quantity, and is implied in all quantitative statements. When
we say, for example, 7 = 5 + 2, we assume that each of the
units dealt with will remain unchanged, whether it is combined
with more or fewer others. If not, the proposition would not
be true. But the aggregates do not remain the same, regard-
less of the units. If, for example, we take one unit away from
7, what remains is no longer equal to 5 + 2.

B. Extensive and Intensive Quantum.
(a) Their Difference.

56. {G. L. i. 252.) Extensive and Intensive Quanta differ
from each other in a manner analogous to the difference between
Continuous and Discrete Quantity. The distinction between
the two pairs of terms is that Extensive and Intensive refer to
Quantitative Limits only, and, as the Quantum is identical with
its Limit, they apply to Quanta, while, since no Quantities
except Quanta have Limits, they apply to no Quantities except
Quanta. Continuous and Discrete, on the other hand, apply to
all Quantities.

We have first Extensive Quantum. This conception is
identical with that of Number, except that its determination is
now explicitly posited as a plurality (Vielheit) {G. L. i. 253),

4—2

52 CH. III. QUANTITY

I do not see why plurality is more explicitly posited in the
conception of Extensive Quantum than in that of Number, nor
does Hegel give any reason why it should be so. The idea of
Extensive Quantum has the same content with the idea of
Number. The Extensive Quantum is looked on as primarily a
plurality. It is not exclusively a plurality, for, since it is
a Quantum, it must be definite, and, being definite, must be
Discrete. It is therefore a unity as well as a plurality, but its
distinctive mark is plurality. Now this is also the case with
Number. A Number is a unity, or it could not be definite.
But it is conceived as more essentially a plurality. In
Number, as we saw above, the Ones are indifferent to the
Quantum, but the Quantum is not indifferent to them. The
plurality is thus more essential than the unity.

But since the Quantum is a unity it can also be taken with
the greater emphasis on the unity, and when this is done we get
the conception of Intensive Quantum {G. L. i. 253. Enc. 103).

The difference between Intensive and Extensive Quantum
is thus one of comparative emphasis^ Extensive Quantum has
a certain unity, but its unity is subordinate to its plurality. It
is comparatively Continuous with what is outside it, and com-
paratively Discrete within itself Intensive Quantum is more
Discrete from the external, more Continuous within, and its
unity is therefore greater than that of Extensive Quantum.
The Limit of an Intensive Quantum is called its Degree
((r. L. i. 254. Enc. 103). The Degree of such a Quantum is
rather Mehrheit than Mehreres, and while it may be spoken of
as a Number (Zahl), it must not, since it is simple, be regarded
as a Sum (Anzahl) {G. L. i. 254).

(6) Identity of Extensive and Intensive Magnitude.

57. {G. L. i. 255.) The treatment of this point is rather
obscure. Hegel says " Extensive and Intensive Magnitudes are
thus one and the same determination of Quantum ; they are
only separated by the fact that one has its Sum inside itself,
the other has its Sum outside itself Extensive Magnitude
passes over into Intensive Magnitude, since its plurality falls

1 Hegel's use of the term Intensive Quantum differs considerably from that
of most other writers.

II. QUANTUM 53

inherently into a unity, outside which plurality is found. But
on the other hand this unity only finds its determination in
a Sum, and in a Sum which is regarded as its own ; as some-
thing which is indifferent to Intensities otherwise determined,
it has the externality of the Sum in itself; and thus Intensive
Magnitude is as essentially Extensive Magnitude" {G.L. i. 256).

Does this mean that the two terms are strictly correlative —
that they stand side by side in the dialectic process, and that
the transition from Intensive to Extensive is of precisely similar
nature to the transition from Extensive to Intensive ? Or does
it mean that Intensive Quantum stands higher on the scale
than Extensive, and that the transition from Extensive to
Intensive is the transition of the dialectic process, while the
transition from Intensive to Extensive only means that what is
seen under a higher category can, if we choose, also be regarded
under a lower one ?

The words quoted above suggest the first of these alterna-
tives. And this is supported by the passage which immediately
follows them {G. L. i. 257). In this we are told that with
this identity we gain a Qualitative Something, since the
identity is a unity which is formed by the negation of its
differences. This on the whole suggests that the two terms are
to be taken as on an absolute equality.

Nevertheless it seems to me that the weight of the evidence
is on the whole in favour of the view which finds Intensive
Magnitude a more advanced stage of the dialectic process than
Extensive Magnitude. To this conclusion I am led by three
reasons.

In the first place we cannot safely lay much weight on
Hegel's expressions about the Qualitative Something. For the
mention of a Qualitative element here seems very casual. It is
dropped as soon as it has been made. We hear nothing more
of it while we remain in the division of Quantum. The next
mention of a Qualitative element comes in the division which
succeeds Quantum — namely Quantitative Relation. And when
it comes in there, it is introduced quite independently, with no
reference to the passage on p. 257, and in quite a different
way. That passage cannot therefore be considered as of much
importance.

54 CH. III. QUANTITY

In the second place, the transition to the next category
(Alteration of Quantum) does not start from the identity of
Extensive and Intensive Magnitudes, but from the consideration
of Intensive Magnitude taken by itself. This will, I think, be
evident vehen we come to consider the transition, and it would
follow that Intensive Magnitude must be above Extensive in
the scale of categories, since the possibility of advancing from
the Intensive alone implies that the Intensive has absorbed the
Extensive.

In the third place, this view is supported by several passages.
Hegel says (G. L. i. 279, 280) that the notion of Quantum
reaches its reality as Intensive Magnitude, and is now posited
in its Determinate Being as it is in its Notion. This agrees
with the Encyclopaedia, where he says {Enc. 104) that in
Degree the notion of Quantum is explicitly posited. Also there
is not the slightest doubt that, in the Encyclopaedia, Intensive
Quantum is higher than Extensive Quantum, since it falls in
the third subdivision of Quantity, while Extensive Quantum
falls in the second.

58. On the whole, therefore, although the evidence is
certainly conflicting, I think that the Greater Logic regards
Intensive Quantum as higher than Extensive Quantum. We
can see why this should be so. .Intensive Quantum empha-
sises the unity of the Quantum rather than its plurality.
In other words, it emphasises the Limit. This carries us
further away from the indefinite Quantity with which the
treatment of Quantity began. Intensive Quantum is thus
the more developed idea of the two.

The necessity of the transition does not lie in any contra-
diction in Extensive Quantum which forces us to pass to
Intensive. The contradiction would lie in denying that a
Quantum which was Extensive was also Intensive. For any
Quantum must be Continuous within itself, and Discrete from
what is outside it. In virtue of this it is a unity, and so is
Intensive. Thus the previous conclusion that the universe is
such that the conception of Extensive Quantum is applicable
to it, involves that the conception of Intensive Quantum is
likewise applicable, and anything else which is involved in the
conception of Intensive Quantum.

II. QUANTUM 55

Hegel's titles, then, do injustice to the course of his
aro-ument. The real advance is not from the difference between
Extensive Quantum and Intensive Quantum to the identity
between them. It is rather from Extensive Quantum to
Intensive Quantum. And thus the two first subdivisions
of Extensive and Intensive Quantum should have been
(a) Extensive Quantum, (6) Intensive Quantum.

Thus, for the second time in this chapter, we find that
Hegel's titles are misleading. In each case the defect arose
from the titles taking as correlative two conceptions, of which
his argument shows one to be superior to the other. In the
first case it was the Continuous and Discrete; in the second
case it was the Extensive and Intensive. It may perhaps be
the case that the confusion arose from following in the titles
the usage of mathematics, for which each of these pairs is a
pair of two correlatives which are strictly on an equality with
one another. Should this be the true explanation, it would
add another to the cases in which the consideration of the
finite sciences, so far from rendering assistance to the dialectic,
has distorted it, and injured its cogency.

59. We now come to the transition to the next category.
Of this Hegel says : " The Quantum is the determination
posited as transcended, the indifferent limit, the determination
which is equally the negation of itself. This discrepancy is
developed in Extensive Magnitude, but it is Intensive Magni-
tude which is the determinate being of this externality, which
constitutes the intrinsic nature of the Quantum. It is posited
as its own cpntradiction, as being the simple determination
relating itself to itself, which is the negation of itself, as having
its determination, not in itself, but in another Quantum.

" A Quantum is therefore posited as in absolute Continuity,
in respect of its Quality, with what is external to it, with its
Other. It is therefore not only possible that it should go
beyond any determination of Magnitude, it is not only possible
that it should be altered, but it is posited as necessarily alter-
able. The determination of Magnitude continues itself in its
Other being in such a way that it has its being only in its
Continuity with an Other; it is a limit which is not, but
becomes" {G. L. i. 261. Cp. also Enc. 104).

56 CH. III. QUANTITY

That is to say, there is nothing to decide why, when there
is a Quantum, it should be one Quantum, with one Magnitude,
rather than another Quantum, with another Magnitude. Magni-
tudes can only be fixed by non-quantitative considerations.
There is an d priori reason why a triangle has three sides,
rather than two or four. There is an empirical reason why there
are seven apples on this dish, rather than six or eight. But these
reasons are not to be found in the nature of three or seven,
but in the nature of triangles, or of the distribution of apples.

Now there are no non-quantitative considerations to deter-
mine the Quanta under this category. The only non-quantitative
feature that the Quanta have at all is that each One is a
separate and unique Quality. And this obviously can give
no reason why some of the Ones should be conjoined in a
particular Quantum and others left out. This could only be
determined by some general quality, shared by some of the
Ones, and not by Others. And this is a conception which the
dialectic has not yet reached.

But, it may be objected, why should a reason be wanted
at all ? Why should it not be an ultimate fact — since some
facts must be ultimate — that these seventeen Ones, for example,
should be parts of the same Quantum, and that no others
should be ? This would give a definite Quantum.

I do not think this objection is valid. If this Quantum
was an ultimate fact, it would imply that there was some
difference between any One inside the Quantum and any One
outside it, of a different nature from any difference which could
occur between any two Ones inside the Quantum, A, inside
the Quantum, cannot differ in the same way from B inside it
and from G outside it. Now, with the category at present
before us, it is impossible that there should be such a difference
between differences. Each One differs from every other One
precisely in the same way. Each is a separate numerical One,
and each is a unique Quality. And there is no other way in
which any One can differ from another One^. Thus, not only

1 This argument assumes the principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles,
since it would be invalid if Ones could differ in their relations without differing
in their nature. But Hegel habitually assumes the truth of this principle.
(Cp. Section 6.)

II. QUANTUM 57

can no reason be given for stopping at one point rather than
another, but to stop at one point rather than another would
introduce a conception (that of different sorts of differences
between Ones) positively incompatible with the present
category.

60. Hegel expresses this by saying that, while each
Quantum has its determination in another Quantum \ and
stops where the other begins, it is at the same time continuous
with this other Quantum — the Ones are just the same on each
side of the Limit, and there can be no reason why the Limit
should not be put elsewhere, and so add to the Quantum or
diminish it. And so we come to

(c) The Alteration of Quantum.

{G. L. 261.) Why, it may be asked, did not this conception
of the necessary variation of Quantity come before ? Surely
it is as true of an Extensive Quantum as of an Intensive
Quantum that it is essentially alterable.

I think it is true that, if we had stopped at Extensive
Quantum, without going on to Intensive, this conception of
Alteration would have necessarily followed from Extensive
Quantum. But the more immediately obvious transition —
and therefore the one to take first — was the transition to
Intensive Quantum. And, if Intensive Quantum was to come
in at all, the transition to Alteration of Quantum comes better
after it, for the necessity of that transition then becomes far
more obvious. As was said in the passage quoted above, it
was developed in Extensive Magnitude, but finds its determi-
nate being in Intensive Magnitude.

When we regard a Quantum as Extensive, we regard the
plurality of Ones as the element which is logically prior, and
the Quantum as a whole is regarded as dependent on the Ones.
Now so long as we refer the Quantum to the Ones, there is
a reason for the Quantum being the size it is, and no other,
namely that it includes those Ones, and no others. If we go
further, and ask why those Ones and no others should be

1 The transition from the Quantum is taken by Hegel as being first to an
indefinite Quantity. (Cp. below. Section 61.) It would therefore have been
better if he had said here that each Quantum was bounded by another Quantity.

58 CH. III. QUANTITY

included, no answer could be given, and the conception of
Alteration would arise, but so long as we regard the Ones
as ultimate in reference to the Quantum, the necessity of
Alteration remains in the background.

But with Intensive Quantum it comes at once to the front.
For then the unity of the Quantum is the prominent element.
And therefore our question — why is it this Quantum, and not
a larger or smaller one — cannot be referred back to the Ones
which it contains. And therefore the necessity of Alteration,
which is due to the impossibility of answering this question,
follows more obviously and naturally from Intensive Quantum.

This is what Hegel means when he says {G. L. i. 253) that
a determination of a Quantum through Number (which is a
category previous to Intensive Quantum) does not need another
Magnitude, because in Number Quantum has its externality,
and its relation to another, inside itself (If this passage seems
to deny all tendency to Alteration in the case of an Extensive
Quantum, we must remember the explicit assertion on page 261
that the difference in this respect between Extensive and In-
tensive is merely a matter of degree.) And again (G. L. i. 254)
" Degree, therefore, which is simple and in itself, and so has its
external Otherbeing no longer in itself, has that Otherbeing
outside itself, and relates itself to it as to its determination."

61. We have now come to the end of Extensive and In-
tensive Quantum, and pass on to the third subdivision of
Quantum, which is called

C. The Quantitative Infinity.
(a) Its Notion.

(G. L. i. 263.) The first subdivision of Quantitative Infinity,
is, as it should be, the restatement of the last subdivision of the
preceding triad. The first movement of the Quantum when it
passes its Limit is into a Quantity which is simply defined
as not being that Quantum. So far, then, it is only Quantity,
and no longer Quantum. And as Quantity is only bounded
when it is Quantum, this Quantity has no boundaries at all.
Thus it is infinite.

Hegel now proceeds to remark on the difference between
the Qualitative Infinity, which was one of the triads in Being

II. QUANTUM 5D

Determinate, and that Quantitative Infinity with which we are
r now dealing (G. L. i. 264). That which is Qualitatively deter-
mined is not posited as having the other in itself. Magnitudes,
on the other hand, are posited as being essentially Alterable —
as being, in Hegel's somewhat peculiar language, " unequal to
themselves and indifferent to themselves."

The difference is one which always arises between lower and
higher categories in Hegel's philosophy. The method of the
dialectic changes gradually as the dialectic process advances.
(Cp. Enc. Ill, 161, 240.) It becomes more of a spontaneous
advance from category to category, and less of a breaking
down, by negative methods, of the resistance of categories
which oppose any movement beyond them. It is thus to be ex-
pected, since Quantity comes later than Quality in the process,
that the finite in Quantity should lead on to the infinite more
expressly and directly than the finite in Quality does.

The transition to the Infinite Quantitative Progress, which
now takes place, is analogous to the transition to the Infinite
Qualitative Progress. (Cp. above, Section 33.) The Quantum
is after all continuous with the indefinite Quantity into which
it has passed over. If it were not, it would not have passed
over into it. The passage has only taken place because both
terms are Quantities, only separated by a Limit to which it
is the nature of Quantity to be indifferent. But the Quantity
on the other side of the Limit will also be composed of Ones,
and thus the argument is again applicable which originally
transformed Quantity into Quantum. The Other Side (Jenseits)
of the original Quantum is now itself a Quantum. And there-
fore, like the original Quantum, it is essentially subject to
alteration, and will pass the Limit, only thereby to reach a
third Quantum, which will be suppressed in its turn, and so
on {G. L. i. 265)1.

1 The category of the Notion of Quantitative Infinity, which we have just
been considering, corresponds to the category in Quality called Infinity in
General, and the Quantitative Infinite Progress corresponds to the Keciprocal
Determination of the Finite and Infinite. We saw reason to think (Section 31)
that the stage of Infinity in General was a mistake, and that we should have
passed, in Quality, direct from Finitude to Reciprocal Determination of the
Finite and the Infinite.

I do not, however, think that the Notion of Quantitative Infinity is an
invalid category. The argument for the Infinity is quite different in the two

60 CH. III. QUANTITY

62. We now come to

(b) The Quantitative Infinite Progress.

(G. L. i. 264. Enc. 104.) At this point Hegel inserts an
interesting note on the supposed sublimity of the sort of
Infinite which is revealed in such a progress as this. Such an
Infinite, he says, can produce nothing but weariness {G. L. i. 268.
Enc. 104) ^ This is extremely characteristic of Hegel. When
he says that the true Infinite is not the unbounded, but the
self-determined, he does not merely change the meaning of a
word, but claims for the self-determined all the dignity which
is commonly attributed to the unbounded. It is, perhaps, to
his deep conviction that true greatness lies in self-limitation,
and not in the absence of limitation, that we are to ascribe
much of the special reverence which he shows for the ideas
of the Greeks, as well as his low opinion of the Romanticism
of his own age and country.

We must not forget, however, that Hegel never says that
the False Infinite of an Infinite Series is necessarily contra-
dictory, though he does say it is worthless and tedious. But
in the present case there is a contradiction, as there was with
the Infinite Series in Quality. We had reached the idea of
a Quantum, and a Quantum has to be definite. But it can
only be definite by having a certain Limit, and by keeping
within it. We have seen, however, that any Quantum neces-
sarily passes its Limit, and overflows into a fresh Quantum.
It is not, therefore, determined in Magnitude. But it is of

cases, and here it seems to be valid. If a Quantum passes its Limit, the first
result of that is, as Hegel states it to be, that it becomes an unlimited Quantity.
It is a fresh step in the argument to show that this Quantity must still be a
Quantum and have a fresh Limit, and so on indefinitely. Thus the passage to
the Infinite Progress in Quantity, unlike the passage to the Infinite Progress in
Quality, does require a transition through a stage of absence of Limitation.

It was possibly the necessity for such a stage of absence of Limitation in
Quantity, which misled Hegel into supposing that it was necessary in Quality
as well.

1 His expression in the Encyclopaedia is "welches Kant als schauderhaft
bezeichnet, worin indess das eigentlich Schauderhafte nur die Laugweiligkeit
sein diirfte." In the first edition of his translation Prof. Wallace happily
renders this : " which Kant describes as awful. The only really awful thing
about it is the awful wearisomeness." The second edition is, I think, less
successful.

\

II. QUANTUM 61

the. essence of Quantum to be determined, and the dialectic
will not permit us to reject the idea of Quantum altogether.
In this case, therefore, a contradiction arises.

63. To this argument an objection might be raised. Let
us take the Quantum as enlarged till it includes the whole
Quantity of Ones. Will it not then be determined, since it
is impossible for it to increase beyond this point ? It will not,
indeed, have a Limit, in the technical Hegelian sense, but it
will have a fixed Magnitude, and this is all that is wanted.

Hegel does not seem to have considered this point. As I
said above (Section 54), he would probably have considered
that an infinite Quantity of Ones would have no Number, and
no definite Magnitude, and he apparently ignored the possibility
of the Ones being finite in number. But this possibility, as we
saw above, cannot justifiably be ignored.

It does not, however, remove the contradiction. And this
for two reasons. In the first place, the category of Quantum
arose from the fact that Quantity, in virtue of its characteristic
of Discreteness, could be divided at any point — we could make
a Quantum wherever we liked by dividing Quantity. Now if
the only way in which we can get a Quantity of a fixed
Magnitude is by including all the Ones, then there will only
be one such fixed Magnitude, and it will not arise by dividing
the total Quantity, but by including it all. This is not a
Quantum. For a Quantum is made by dividing the total
Quantity, and has always, therefore, other Quanta beyond it.
The fixed Magnitude of the whole of Quantity, then, would not
be a Quantum, and thus the contradiction would still remain —
that it has been proved that there must be determined Quanta,,
and that no Quantum can be determined.

In the second place, a Quantum would not be determined
by the fact that it could increase no further. For its instability
works both ways. There is no more reason why it should not
be smaller than it is, than why it should not be larger than it
is. (Hegel only speaks of the indeterminateness in the one
direction, but his arguments apply equally to the other.) Thus,
suppose a Quantum could contain all the Ones, the process of
Alteration would take place with it as much as with any other,,
though it could only take place in one direction.

62 CH. III. QUANTITY

64. How is the contradiction to be avoided ? In a very
similar way to that in which the same difficulty was met in
the case of Qualitative Infinity. That which is outside any
■Quantum is another Quantum. If we try to find the determi-
nation of any Quantum in itself exclusively, then we fiad that
its Limit continually alters, and that the task is endless. But
the case is changed if we fully accept the relation of each
Quantum to the other which is outside it. No Quantum can
•determine itself as against another Quantum. But two Quanta
can reciprocally deteruiine one another. There is no reason
why 7 Ones should not change to 8, or 17 Ones to 16, if we
take 7 Ones and 17 Ones as isolated facts, each of which must
be determined by itself, or not at all. But if we take these
•Quanta as related to one another, then there is a reason why
7 Ones should not become 8 — for then the Quantum would
bear a different relation to the 17 Ones. And there is a
corresponding reason why 17 Ones should not become 16.
Thus the Quanta have now some real self-determination,
though it is slight ; A cannot become greater or less, because
it would thereby change its relation to B. And its relation
to B is what it is, not only because B is B, but because A
is A. With this partial self-determination we reach

(c) The Infinity of Quantum

{G. L. i. 279. Enc. 105) by which is meant the true Infinity
of self-determination, as opposed to the False Infinity of an
unending progress.

65. It will be noticed that there is a difference between
the Quantitative Infinite Progress and the earlier Qualitative
Infinite Progress. In Quality the Something finds its nature
only in another Something, which in turn finds its nature in
a third, and so on. The Somethings themselves do not change,
tut fresh Somethings are continually reached in the vain search
for a final determination. In Quantity, however, the Infinite
Progress is not a Progress of an Infinity of Quanta, but of a
single Quantum, which endlessly increases in size as it succes-
sively overleaps every Limit.

In Quality no change of anything was possible. The nature
of reality was not yet sufficiently complex to allow anything

II. QUANTUM 63

to become different in one respect while remaining the same
in others. If a thing is not completely the same it has utterly
vanished. It is impossible, therefore, for a Something to change,
and the Infinite Progress can only take place by adding fresh
Somethings.

[ In Quantity, however, change is possible. The gradual
addition of fresh Ones to a Quantum affords a changing
element, while the Ones previously in it afford the permanent

[^element, without which there can be no change.

p With this stage of the dialectic the idea of Quality becomes
more prominent again. Not only are the Ones each a separate
Quality, as they have been all along, but in each Quantum,
I also, a Qualitative nature begins to develope (G. L. i. 281.
JEnc. 105). This is most clearly stated in the Encyclopaedia.
" That the Quantum in its independent character is external
to itself, is what constitutes its Quality. In that externality
it is itself and referred connectively to itself There is a union
in it of externality, i.e. the Quantitative, and of independency
<Being-for-Self) — the Qualitative." The essential character of
Quantity was its instability. Now this characteristic begins
to disappear. The Quantum can no longer alter without any
effect on anything but its own Magnitude. For it is now in
relation to some other Quantum, and it cannot alter unless
either that other Quantum, or the relation, alters simulta-
neously. This is the first step (though as yet a very small one)
towards bringing back, on a higher level, the fixity of Quality.
With it we pass out of Quantum to the third and last division
of Quantity, after some mathematical digressions occupying
nearly a hundred pages.

III. The Quantitative Ratio.

66. {G.L.i.379. Enc. 105.) The Ratio between two Quanta,
says Hegel, is itself a Quantum (G. L. i. 880). And it is true
that it is a determinate number. But it differs too much from
the Quanta, which it relates, to have any claim to the name of
Quantum. For they are Quanta of Ones, while the Ratio is
not. The Ratio between twelve existent Ones and six existent
Ones is certainly two, but it is not two existent Ones. Hegel

64 CH. III. QUANTITY

does not seem to see this, and treats all three quantities here
as if they were simply terms in abstract arithmetic, in which he
is not justified.

67. The first and simplest form of Ratio is called

A. The Direct Ratio.

{G. L. i. 381.) The related Quanta are here taken as logic-
ally prior, and the Quantum which is their Ratio as logically
subsequent. Thus we get, for example, that the Ratio of 7
to 35 is 5. The Ratio is called the Exponent.

Now the Quantum which is the Ratio is no more deter-
mined by the two Quanta of which it is the Ratio than it is
by an infinite number of pairs of other Quanta. For example,
5 is equally the Ratio of 6 and 30, of 8 and 40, and so on.
It follows that the related Quanta can alter to any extent
absolutely, provided that they do not alter relatively. So long
as one remains five times the other they may both increase or
diminish indefinitely.

Nothing is stable but the Exponent. And therefore Hegel
finds it a defect in this category that the Exponent is not
sufficiently discriminated from the other Quanta. It cannot be
the largest of the three Quanta concerned, but it can be either
of the others. We have said that 7 and 35 stand to each other
in a Ratio expressed by 5. But we might just as well have
said that 5 and 35 stand to each other in a Ratio expressed
hy7 (G. L. i. 383).

It seems to me that this argument is defective because it
ignores the fact, pointed out above, that the Ratio is not a
Magnitude of the same sort as the Quanta of which it is a
Ratio. They are Quanta made up of existent Ones, using the
word One in the special sense in which the dialectic has
determined it. But the Ratio is not a Number of Ones, in
this sense, at all. Therefore the Ratio and the related Quantum
are not interchangeable in the way Hegel asserts.

68. It is on this supposed defect that the transition to
the next category is based. Since — this appears to be
Hegel's argument — the Exponent has the stability which the
other Quanta do not possess, it must be distinguishable from
them. But in Direct Ratio this is not the case, since the

III. THE QUANTITATIVE RATIO 65

Exponent is interchangeable with the related Quanta. We
must therefore seek out another sort of Ratio, where the
Exponent is marked out by the nature of the relation. Now,
if we take three integral numbers, there is a relation between
them which has the required definiteness. If one of them is
the product of the other two, then it is the largest of the three
that will be the product'. So we come to

B. The Inverse Ratio

{G. L. i. 384) where the Exponent is the product of the two
related Quanta. It appears to be called Inverse because the
increase of one of the related Quanta involves the diminution
of the other.

69. The transition to the next category is extremely
obscure. So far as I can understand it, it is as follows
{G. L. i. 389). Either of the two related Quanta can increase,
so long as the other diminishes, the only Limit of this process
being that neither of the related Quanta can become larger
than the Exponent. Thus either of the related Quanta is
implicitly (an sich) the Exponent. Hegel calls this "the
negation of the externality of the Exponent." This means, I
believe, that there are no longer necessarily three Quanta, but
only two, namely the Exponent, connected with one other
Quantum, no longer by a third Quantum, but by some non-
quantitative relation. And thus, says Hegel — without giving
any further explanation — we reach

G. The Ratio of Poiuers.

(G. L. i. 389.) By this he appears to mean only the special
relation which exists between two numbers, one of which is the
square of the other. It is the square, as the result of the
process, which is treated as the Exponent.

70. The transition appears very questionable. It may be
admitted that the indefinite approximation of one of the
related Quanta to the Exponent brings a Qualitative element
into greater prominence, and that the Ratio of Powers has
also a relatively prominent Qualitative element. But in other

1 The related Quanta must be represented by integral numbers, since they
consist of indivisible Ones. The product therefore must also be integral.

M"=T.

66 CH. III. QUANTITY

respects they are quite different conceptions. And Hegel gives
us no reason for passing at this point from one partially-
qualitative relation to another and distinct partially-qualitative
relation. He is satisfied with showing that they are both
partially-qualitative, which is clearly not sufficient.

It is difficult to see, too, why Hegel thought himself
justified in considering only those cases where one Quantum
was the square of the other, and in excluding cubes and other
powers. If, however, he had considered those other powers,
it would have become evident that the relation between the
two Quanta was not yet one which could dispense with a third
Quantum. For the question of the power to which one was
to be raised to equal the other could ouly be answered by
naming a third Quantum,
r Hegel makes the transition to the next category as follows:
" Quantity as such appears as opposed to Quality ; but Quantity
is itself a^ Quality, a determination in general which relates
itself to itself, and which is separated from the other deter-
mination, from Quality as such. Yet it is not only a Quality,
but the truth of Quality itself is Quantity : Quality has shown
itself as going over into Quantity ; Quantity, on the other hand,
is in its truth that externality which is turned back on itself,
which is not indifferent. So it is Quality itself, in such a way
that outside this determination Quality as such is no longer
anything The Quantum now as indifferent or external deter-
mination (so that it is just as much transcended as such, and
is the Quality, and is that, through which anything is what it

j is) is the truth of the Quantum — to be Measure " (G. L. i. 392).

^ 71. We have now reached the end of Hegel's treatment

of Quantitative Ratio. As we have seen, serious objections
exist both to the transition from Direct to Inverse Ratio, and
to the transition from Inverse Ratio to the Ratio of Powers.
But, apart from these, there is a more general objection. The
whole triad of Quantitative Ratio is a blind alley. It does not
lead, as it professes to lead, to the category of Measure, and the
chain of the dialectic cannot be continued through it.

The passage I have quoted above contains the transition
from Quantity to Measure. We have therefore before us the
way in which the inadequacies of Quantity are, according to

III. THE QUANTITATIVE RATIO 67

Hegel, to be transcended, and in which Quality is to be
synthesised with Quantity in Measure. These objects would
certainly have been attained if Hegel had succeeded in his
attempt to demoiastrate that Quantity is Quality. But it
seems to me that he has not reached this result by Quanti-
tative Ratio, and that therefore he has neither removed the
inadequacies of Quantity, nor synthesised it with Quality.

As to the first. The special characteristic of Quantity was
its instability. We saw, to begin with, that it was that which
could alter, and yet remain the same. When we reached
Alteration of Quantum, we found that it not only could alter,
but must alter, and it was to remedy the contradictions thus
caused that we were forced to resort to Quantitative Ratio.

Does Quantitative Ratio remove this indifference, even
when taken in its highest form, the Ratio of Powers ? Let
us pass over the difficulty that the power to which a number
is to be raised can only be expressed in another number, which
might be any other. Let us confine ourselves, as Hegel does,
to .squares, and ignore the quantitative nature of the index. Has
this removed the instability ? If we take 49 Ones as a simple
Quantum, it is under the necessity of changing continually. If
we take it as the square of 7\ has the necessity disappeared ?
p Surely it has not. It is true that the Square cannot now
change unless the Root changes as well. But the Root is also
a Quantum, and so it also will be unstable, and the Square will
be unstable with it. The first numbers the Square can change
to are no longer 48 and 50 but 36 and 64. But the number
of changes of the Square is unbounded except by the total
number of Ones, and we have seen that this restriction does
not remove the instability of Quantum. And therefore Quanti-
tative Ratio has not removed the contradictions of Quantitative
Infinity, nor has it enabled us to transcend the characteristic
nature of Quantity. It is true that the Square and the Root
j are linked Quanta, but they are still Quanta.

Very closely connected with this is the second defect of the
triad. It professes to lead us to Measure, and it must therefore

1 I do not recur here to the difficulty that 49 Ones (in the Hegelian sense)
are neither the square of 7 Ones, nor of 7, nor of anything else. This is a fresh
case of the mistake mentioned above (Section 66).

5—2

68 CH. III. QUANTITY

bring back Quality. In the passage quoted above {G. L. i. 392)
Hegel says that it has done this. Quantity " is Quality itself,
in such a way that outside this determination Quality as such
is no longer anything." That is to say, he holds that we have
here reached a Synthesis of Quality and Quantity. Now it is
true that the introduction of related Quanta has introduced a
certain Qualitative element into Quantity. The movements of
each separate Quantum are no longer completely arbitrary and
unconditioned, and every restriction on the movement means
some departure from the typical idea of Quantity. But this
does not amount to what Hegel claims to have reached — the
complete absorption of Quantity. We have got a Quantity,
which is more like a Quality than before, but which is still
essentially a Quantity and not a Quality. The test of this is
the instability, and the Infinite Progress to which the in-
stability gives rise. Till we have got rid of this, we have not
transcended Quantity. For the instability is, as we have seen,
the special characteristic of Quantity. Thus we have not
reached a point at which Quantity is transcended, and therefore
united with Quality. The category at which we stand is still
essentially Quantitative, and does not combine Quantity with
Quality. And as Measure certainly has to combine Quantity
with Quality, we have not yet got a valid transition to
Measure.

72. What then is to be done ? We saw reason to think
that the transition from Quantum to Quantitative Ratio is
valid, and I believe that it is possible to recast the triad of
Quantitative Ratio in such a way as to make a valid transition
to Measure. The Thesis of my pi-oposed triad would be the
restatement of the general idea of Quantitative Ratio, as it
had been arrived at in the previous category of Infinity of
Quantum. It might be called Quantitative Ratio as such, or
again Quantitative Ratio in general (iiberhaupt), either of which
would be in accordance with Hegel's terminology.

The inadequacy' of this Thesis would lie in the fact that a
Quantum is not fully determined by its Ratio to another unless
that other Quantum is determined. Nor can the two Quanta
mutually determine one another by their Ratio, for, as we have
seen, two Quanta can vary and yet preserve the same Ratio to

III. THE QUANTITATIVE RATIO 69

one another. The second Quantum, then, must be determined
by its Ratio to a third, with regard to which the same question
will arise, and so on continually. This Infinite Series forms
the Antithesis of our triad, and might be called the Infinite
Series of Ratios.

It will be noticed that this Infinite Series resembles the
Infinite Series of Quality rather than the Infinite Series of
Quantity. For the Ratios do not continually alter, as the
Quanta did in the Series of Quantity. The Infinity comes
in through the necessity of going to fresh Ratios to determine
those already existing.

Here, as in the two previous cases, the Infinite Series
involves a contradiction. The original Quantum is determined.
But it can only be determined by a Ratio to a Quantum
which is determined otherwise than by a Ratio. But no such
Quantum is to be found. Therefore the original Quantum is
not determined, and we have a contradiction.

We must pass on, then, to a fresh category, which will
remove this contradiction, and will form the Synthesis of
Quantitative Ratio. We have seen that Quantity, however
developed, can never, while it remains only Quantity, get
rid of the inadequacy which has shown itself once more in
the Infinite Series of Ratios. Now the ground of this in-
adequacy was the necessary instability of all Quanta. And
this instability, we saw, proceeded from the fact that the
differences between all Ones were so similar that no reason
coidd be assigned why a Quantum should stop at any particular
limit rather than another. (Cp. above, Section 59.)

The only way of escaping from our difficulty, therefore,
will be to reject this similarity of the differences between the
Ones, and to find a state of things in which the natures of the
Ones shall link some of them more closely together in a group
from which others are excluded. And this can be done only
if there are Qualities each of which belongs to several Ones,
but not to all, so that each of these forms a bond which binds
those Ones which have it into a group from which those which
do not have it are excluded.

The instability of Quanta would thus be arrested. For
there would be a reason why the Quantum should not increase

70 CH. III. QUANTITY

beyond a certain Limit. Every Quantum is a Quantum of
Ones which have a certain common Quality, and beyond a
certain Limit there would be no more Ones with that Quality.
The Ones outside it would have some other Quality.

We have now reached a category which transcends the in-
adequacy of Quantitative Ratio, and also of Quantity generally,
and so reaches the category of Measure as defined by Hegel
{G. L. i. 392) in the passage quoted above. Our argument
avoids Hegel's error of ignoring the difference between a
Quantum of Ones and a Quantum (if that name is appropriate
to it) which is a Ratio between Quanta.

73. The treatment of Quantity in the Encyclopaedia is
practically the same as in the Greater Logic, except in one
point. In the Greatey^ Logic, as we have seen, Extensive and
Intensive Magnitudes, and the Infinite Progress all fall within
the second subdivision, while the third subdivision is com-
pletely taken up by Ratio. In the Encyclopaedia, the second
subdivision (named, as in the Gi^eater Logic, Quantum) deals
with Extensive Magnitude only. The third subdivision is
called Degree, and contains Intensive Magnitude, the Infinite
Progress, and Ratio. This arrangement shows more clearly
that an advance is made in passing from Extensive to Intensive
Magnitude, but otherwise it seems inferior to the order of the
Greater Logic. For Intensive Magnitude seems more closely con-
nected with Extensive Magnitude than it is with Ratio. And,
again, the Infinite Progress makes manifest the characteristic
contradiction inherent in all Quantity. It would seem, therefore,
more appropriately placed in the second subdivision, which is
the Antithesis of the triad of Quantity, than in the third,
which is the Synthesis.

CHAPTER IV

MEASURE

74. Measure (Das Maass) is divided by Hegel in the
following manner :

I. The Specific Quantity. (Die specifische Quantitat.)

A. The Specific Quantum. (Das specifische Quantum.)

B. Specifying Measure. (Specifirendes Maass.)

(a) The Rule. (Die Kegel.)

(6) The Specifying Measure. (Das specifirende

Maass.)
(c) Relation of both Sides as Qualities. (Verhaltniss

beider Seiten als Qualitaten.)

C. Being for Self in Measure. (Das Flirsichsein im

Maasse.)

II. Real Measure. (Das reale Maass.)

A. The Relation of Stable Measures. (Das Verhaltniss

selbststandigen Maasse.)

(a) Union of two Measures. (Verbindung zweier

Maasse.)
(6) Measure as a Series of Measure Relations. (Das

Maass als Reihe von Maassverbaltnissen.)
(c) Elective Affinity. (Wahlverwandtschaft.)

B. Nodal Line of Measure Relations. (Knotenlinie von

Maassverbaltnissen.)

C. The Measureless. (Das Maasslose.)

72 CH. IV. MEASURE

III. The Becoming of Essence. (Das Werden des
Wesens.)

A. The Absolute Indifference. (Die absolute In-

differenz.)

B. Indifference as Inverse Relation of its Factors.

(Die Indifferenz als umgekehrtes Verhaltniss
ihrer Factoren.)

C. Transition to Essence. (Uebergaug in das Wesen.)

It should be noticed that the title of Specifying Measure
is borne both by I. B., and by its second subdivision, I. B. (6).
r 75. It seems to me that the whole of Hegel's treatment
of Measure is invalid. He has no right to the fundamental
conception of Measure — the conception with which he begins,
I and which, in a modified form, persists till we reach Essence.
If this is so, of course, all the categories of Measure must
be abandoned, and the transition from Quantity to Essence,
if it can be made at all, must be made in some other way.
I should depart too largely from the object of a commentary if
I attempted, in this book, so large a reconstruction. But it
is necessary, before considering Hegel's treatment in detail, to
substantiate my general criticism of the validity of Measure.

The categories of Quantity ended with the result that every
Quantitative difference must involve a Qualitative difference.
Every Quantum, consequently, must have a common Quality.
And since each of the Ones, of which every Quantum is
composed, has its own separate and unique Quality, it follows
that each One must have at least two Qualities — its unique
Quality and another which it shares with other Ones which
are united with it in a Quantum.

I maintained in the last chapter that Hegel's treatment
of Quantitative Ratio failed to justify this result, and also
that it could be demonstrated another way. But whether
Hegel did or not fail to demonstrate the result, I do not think
it can be doubted that this is the result which he believed
himself to have demonstrated, and that it is, therefore, the
only basis which he was justified in taking for the categories
of Measure.

I. THE SPECIFIC QUANTITY 73

r His argument all through Quantitative Ratio was directed
to show that the Quanta which were thus related had also
a Qualitative aspect. His final words are " The Quantum
now as indifferent or external determination (so that it is just
as much transcended as such, and is the Quality, and is that,
through which anything is what it is) is the truth of the
Quantum — to be Measure " {G. L. i. 392). And again in the
Encyclopaedia, " Measure is the Qualitative Quantum, in the
first place as immediate — a Quantum to which a Determinate
I Being or a Quality is attached" {Enc. 107).

76. This is the last conception of Quantity, and ought to
be the first of Measure. At any rate Hegel has no right to
go beyond it without justifying the transition by an argument.
But directly he begins to deal with Specific Quantum — the
first of the categories of Measure, he suddenly assumes that he
has reached an entirely different conception. "The Quantum
as Measure has ceased to be a limit which is no limit; it is
now the determination of the nature of the fact^ such that this
nature is destroyed, if it is increased or diminished beyond this
Quantum " {G. L. i. 403). The conception here is that which
is involved in the changes, for example, of water into a solid, a
liquid, and a gas, according to its varying temperature.

It is clear that this is quite a different conception from that
of Qualities common to all the members of a Quantum. It is
a more complicated conception. Fur it involves that each One
to which it applies should have at least two Qualities which can
be common to it with other Ones. Of these Qualities one — the
temperature, in our example — varies in Quantity, but remains
the Quality of all the Ones included under this Measure. The
second Quality in each case is common to those of the Ones
for which the first Quality falls within certain Quantitative
limits. Thus all water whose temperature exceeds a certain
limit has the second common Quality of being gaseous. Now
the conception at the end of Quantitative Ratio only involved
the existence, in each One, of one Quality common to it with
other Ones.

And, in the second place, the relations of Quality and

1 The original is "Die Bestimmung der Sache." On the whole, I think
"nature of the fact" fairly represents Sache in this passage.

74 CH. IV. MEASURE

Quantity to one another are quite different in the old con-
ception and in the new conception. In the old conception
Quantity came in as the number of Ones which had the same
Quality. Here it comes in as a Quantity, not of Ones, but in
each One. It is a Quantity of a Quality of the One.

The old conception, then, at the end of Quantitative Ratio,
is quite different from the new one with which Hegel starts in
Specific Quantum. And the latter could only be legitimately
reached from the former by a fresh step of the dialectic, the
necessity of which would have to be demonstrated. But Hegel
offers no demonstration of the transition, and, indeed, fails to
see that there is any difference between the conceptions. He
treats them as if they were identical, and as if he was only
using the final result of one section as the starting point of the
next — which is what should happen according to the dialectic
method, but which is not what has happened here.

77. How he fell into so serious a mistake is a difficult
question. The new conception, it is true, resembles the old in
so far that they each involve both Quantity and Quality, and
that in the new conception also Quantity is limited by Quality^,
though the Quantity limited is not, as the dialectic requires
here, a Quantum of Ones. Again, the new conception is com-
patible with the old, though it is not identical with it or
deduced from it. If the Ones A, B, G, have the common
Quality x, and the Ones D, E, F, the common Quality y, the
old conception would apply to them. And it would be possible
that the one group were cc because they had a quality z with a
certain intensity, and that the other group were y because they
had the Quality z with a different intensity. In this case the
new conception would apply also.

These circumstances might have led Hegel to confuse the
two conceptions. Or, again, it is possible that Hegel started
with a presupposition that Measure (in the sense of the new
conception) was probably the Synthesis of Quality and Quantity.
This would be natural enough, since it does involve them both,
and involves them in a form which is frequently present to us
in empirical experiences. If he started with such a presup-

1 If, e.g., certain water has the Quality of being fluid, the Quantity of its
temperature is fixed by that fact.

I. THE SPECIFIC QUANTITY 75

position he might more easily fail to see that he had not
deduced his new conception of Measure from the previous
categories.

Passing to the consideration of the categories of Measure in
detail, we have first

I. The Specific Quantity.
A. The Specific Quantum.

78. {G. L. i. 403.) This category is naturally the expression
of the new conception of Measure in its simplest form. The
Ones have each two Qualities such that if the first varies in
Quantity beyond certain limits, the second Quality is changed
for another. (The first Quality might be called the permanent
Quality, the second and its successors the varying Qualities.)

This category is pronounced inadequate by Hegel because
the union of Quality and Quantity is only apparent, and it does
not, therefore, really remove the difficulty which called it into
being. So long as the Quantitative change keeps within the
limits of the Quality — as when fluid water becomes colder
without freezing, or hotter without boiling, we get the Quantity
changing while the Quality remains the same. The two sides
thus remain isolated, and there is nothing which checks the
inherent instability of Quantity. Now the whole object of our
transition to Measure was just to check this instability.

At intervals, no doubt, the Quantitative change is accom-
panied by a Qualitative change. Water passes from a liquid
state into the form of ice or steam. But here, also, the changes
of Quantity and Quality are not really connected For a
Qualitative change is always instantaneous, in the strictest
sense of the word.

This may at first sight appear to be inconsistent with our
experience. Bat when we say that a Qualitative change can be
gradual, we mean one of two things. We may mean that the
different parts of a whole undergo the change successively, as
when a kettle full of water is gradually converted into steam.
This, of course, is compatible with the change being instan-
taneous for each part.

Or we may mean that the change from the quality A to the
quality B is not instantaneous, because there are intermediate

76 CH. IV. MEASURE

qualitative changes. Ice does not pass instantaneously into
steam, for it must first become water. And a process which
appeared to go directly from A to B may be found, on closer
investigation, to go through the forms X Y, and Z, before it
reaches B.

But however many stages may be intercalated before B, it
is certain that, when the quality A changes, it must do so
instantaneously. For if ^ changes, it must change into some-
thing which, whatever its positive nature, can be correctly
described as not-^. And, by the law of Excluded Middle, the
quality must either be A and not not-^ (when the change will
not have begun) or else not-.4 and not A (when the change will
be completed). The change, therefore, is instantaneous (G. L. i.
[_^ 405. Em. 108).

Quantity, then, can change without Quality changing, and
all changes of Quality take place while the Quantitative cliange
is infinitely small. The two terms are thus, in Hegel's opinion,
not really united. It is this defect, he tells us, which is at the
root of the old difficulty as to the point at which a head, whose
hairs are being pulled out one by one, becomes bald. To say
that the absence of one hair can make a head bald, which was
not bald before, seems absurd. Yet, if one hair never made the
difference, we come to the equally absurd conclusion that a head
with no hair on it could not be called bald {G. L. i. 406. Enc. 108).

79. Hegel's conclusion is that the Measure now becomes
double. We have (1) the actually existing Quantity of the
permanent Quality, (2) the other Quantity of the permanent
Quality which, if reached, would involve the change of one
varying Quality into another. The second Quantity forms the
limit within which the first can vary, while it is itself fixed.
This limitation Hegel expresses by saying that it specifies the
first Quantity, and so we reach

B. Specifying Measure.

{G. L. i. 407.) This transition seems to me erroneous. We
have not really got a new category at all. Two Quantities were
involved in the idea of Measure from the beginning — the
Quantity which exists, and the other which marks the point of
transition into a fresh Quality. If a basin of water is fluid.

I. THE SPECIFIC QUANTITY 77

rather than gaseous, because its temperature is 60°, this involves
the conception of a further temperature at which it would
become gaseous. Thus Specifying Measure takes us no further
than Specific Quantum. It is neither a development of the
difficulty involved in the transition from Specific Quantum, nor
a solution of that difficulty, and it has no right to be the next
category to it. Hegel calls its first subdivision

(a) The Rale.

(G. L. i. 408.) This, he tells us, is identical with the general
idea of Specifying Measure. The defect of the category is that
the Rule — that is, the limiting Quantity, is merely arbitrary.
And as this is inconsistent with the nature of Measure, which is
not merely arbitrary, the category is inadequate.

But why are we to suppose that the Quantity taken for the
Rule is merely arbitrary ? Hegel's example is a linear foot, and
this, no doubt, is arbitrary. We might just as well measure
length by ells or by metres as by feet. But the example is not
fair. Measures of length are used for the measurement of space.
And the conception of space makes abstraction of all Qualita-
tive differences. We measure the Quantity of space, and the
Quantity only, regardless of the Quality of the matter which
fills that space. Any Rule here must be purely arbitrary, for it
concerns Quantity only, and all limits of Quantity, taken by
itself, are purely arbitrary. But the dialectic has now passed
beyond mere Quantity to Measure, where a change of Quantity
brings about a change of Quality. And here the Rule is no
longer arbitrary. The Rules of the temperature of liquid water
are 32° and 212° Fahrenheit, and these are not arbitrary, but
grounded in the nature of the subject-matter. (It is arbitrary,
no doubt, to call them 32° and 212°, rather than 0° and 100°, or
any other numbers. But it is not arbitrary that the limits to
the heat of liquid water are these temperatures and not others.)
80. Hegel endeavours to remove the defect of this category
by passing on to

(6) The Specifying Measure
(in the narrower sense) {G. L. i. 408). Here the something
(Etwas) which is the Measure receives an alteration of the
amount of its Quality from outside. It reacts against this, and

78 CH. IV. MEASURE

receives it in a way of its own, so that the resulting Quantum of
the Quality, as reproduced in the Something, is not the same
Quantum as in the external source of the alteration, but is
increased or diminished through the effect of a Qualitative
difference in the Something.

The introduction of such a category at this point seems very
extraordinary, but Hegel's language places it, I think, beyond
doubt. The description of the category will bear no other
meaning, and the nature of the other categories, which
immediately follow, supports the same interpretation. And his
example is also quite clear. Material objects he tells us
(G. L. i. 410) have specific temperatures, which cause the
changes of temperature which they receive from outside to be
different in them from what they are in the medium from which
they are received.

81. This transition appears to me to be quite illegitimate,
since it introduces an entirely new conception of Measure with-
out deducing it from the conception previousl}' established.

Hegel does not even say that it is changed. But the change
is very great. We started with a conception of Measure,
according to which the continuous change of Quantity involved
at certain points a sudden change of Quality, There was only
one Quantitative series involved, and there was a Qualitative
series. Here, on the other hand, we suddenly find ourselves
with a new conception. We have now two Quantities in
different Somethings (in the example, the temperature of the
medium, and the temperature of the object). The first of these
determines the other. We have also two Qualities (in the
example, heat, and that Quality in the object which causes its
heat to be more or less than that of the medium. But there is
no Qualitative series, for neither Quality is conceived as
necessarily changing into another Quality.

This category is not in any sense implied in the previous
category of Rule. It simply ignores it. The difiiculty in Rule,
according to Hegel, was to find for the Quantitative changes of
any particular Quality, a limit which should not be arbitrary.
But in the new category the Qualities never change into other
Qualities at all, and even the imperfect check on the Quantita-
tive changes has been swept away.

I. THE SPECIFIC QUANTITY 79

Again, in this category we have two objects connected with
each other — the original object and a second one. (In the
example which Hegel gives, the first object is that with a
specific temperature, the second object is the medium.) Before
this, the Measure of each object was stated without reference
to any other object. The introduction of this new element
ought to be justified as an inevitable consequence of the pre-
ceding category. But, so far as I can see, Hegel makes no
attempt whatever to do this.

Moreover this category, as stated by Hegel, includes the
idea of Cause. This is not the case with previous categories.
In Quantitative Ratio the Quantities implied one another, but
did not cause one another. But here we are told {G. L. i. 408)
that the Something experiences an " external alteration " of the
amount of its Quality. This is nothing but Causality. It may
be doubted, indeed, whether it does not involve more than
Hegel's category of Causality, but it certainly could not be
introduced without including that category, and if the dialectic
is right in introducing Cause for the first time towards the end
of Essence, it cannot be right here.

If what I have said is correct, the dialectic at this point is
vitiated by two errors — there was no adequate ground for con-
demning Rule as inadequate, and there has been an unjustified
change in the meaning of Measured I shall now only expound
Hegel's arguments, without further criticism, until we reach the
Nodal Series of Measure-Relations, at which point, as will be
seen, the effects of the second error are eliminated.

82. So far only one of the two objects has been considered
as having a Quality which affects the Quantity of its other
Quality. In Hegel's example, the object which receives heat
from the medium is considered as having its specific tempera-
ture, while no specific temperature is attributed to the medium.
But now Hegel points out that each object must have a similar
Quality. In each the Quantity of the quantified Quality will
be dependent on the nature of the object {G. L. i. 411). The

1 The error in the transition from Specific Quantum to Rule cannot be
counted as a third, since the only error there is in supposing that a transition
has taken place at all.

80 CH. IV. MEASURE

medium, for example, is either air or something else, which
must have a specific nature of its own. We thus reach

(c) Relation of both Sides as Qualities.
{G. L. i. 411.) Here the two sides have each (a) a Quality,
which it possesses in a certain (b) Quantity. And each of them
has (c) a second Quality, which determines the magnitude of b
in it. Now as the two 6's are each a Quantity, their relation to
each other can be expressed by a third Quantity {G. L. i. 412).
And, as the nature of the two c's is just to determine the
different amounts of the two 6's, this third Quantity expresses
also the relation of the two c's {G. L. i. 417, 418).

83. This third Quantity is the Measure of the two sides —
it is the Quantity which expresses their relation. In Specifying
Measure (in the narrower sense) one of the two sides was the
Measure of the other, while in Relation of the two Sides as
Qualities each was the other's Measure. Now that they are
united into a whole which has a Measure, we pass out of
Specifying Measure (in the wider sense) and reach the third
division of Specific Quantity, which Hegel calls

C. Being for Self in Pleasure.
{G. L. i. 417.) The name is apparently due to the fact that we
have passed from finding the Measure of anything outside it to
finding it within itself. For the two Somethings which have
the common Measure may be considered, Hegel tells us
(Gr. L. i. 421) as a single Something, which may also be called
a Thing. (I shall call them Things, in what follows, to dis-
tinguish them from their constituent Somethings. But of
course Hegel does not mean that we have yet reached the
conception of a Thing, properly so called, which does not come
till half-way through Essence.)

84. This Measure, he says, must be considered as realised
Measure, since both its sides are Measures {G. L. i. 430).
Thus we reach the second of the three divisions of Measure

II. Real Measure.

{G. L. i. 421.) This Real Measure relates itself to another
Real Measure {G. L. i. 422). This gives us

II. REAL MEASURE 81

A. The Relation of Stable Measures.

(G. L. i. 423.) Why it should relate itself to another Real
Measure, Hegel does not, so far as I can see, explain.

It should be noted that we have by this time relations of
three degrees of complexity. (1) In each Something we have
relations of Quality and Quantity. (2) The Somethings are
related to one another by a Common Real Measure, which
unites the Somethings into a Thing. (3) The Real Measures,
or Things, we have just been told, are in relation to one
another.

85. This last relation will be, in the first place, immediate
(though between terms which are no longer immediate, but
stable), thus we get

(a) Union of two Measures.

~ {G. L. i. 423.) Hegel's treatment of this is very extraordinary.
He starts with considering the union as a relation between the
two Things. And this is all that he seems justified in deducing
from the previous position — if he is justified in deducing even
so much. But suddenly {G. L. i. 425) he tells us that the two
Things "in Beziehung stehen und in Verbindung treten." And
from this point he speaks of the actual chemical combination of
chemical elements.

Now the fact of chemical combination, which Hegel brings
in here, involves, according to his own subsequent statement,
the category of Chemism, which occurs in the middle of the
categories of the Notion. If Hegel is right in postponing the
category of Chemism till the Notion, he cannot be right in
introducing here a category under which he professes to explain
) chemical combination.

And this is not all. Hegel does not merely introduce into
this category the pure idea which is implied in, and specially
characteristic of, the facts of chemistry. He also introduces
empirical chemical details, which could not form part of the
dialectic process of pure thought at any stage, and he introduces
them as part of the argument.

86. We read that, while in such combinations the weight
of the whole is equal to the weights of the parts {G. L. i. 425),

M'^T. 6

82 CH. IV. MEASURE

the volume of the whole is not equal to the volume of the
parts, but is generally less {G. L. i. 426). This is stated, not
as an illustration only, which might have been legitimate, but
as the ground of the transition to the next category. For he
says {G. L. i. 426) that the Measure itself of the new combina-
tion is thus shown to be variable, and that therefore even
so-called Stable Measures have shown themselves not to be
stable. We must therefore try to find the determination of the
combination in other Measure relations. And this is the way in
which he reaches

(6) Measure as a Series of Measure Relations.

{G. L. i. 426.) Here each of the Things regains the stability it
has lost. It regains it, because it can combine not only with
one other, but with any one of many others. Its capability
of each of the changes which it could undergo in combining
with any of these others is a permanent characteristic of its
nature. This gives it stability. When M changes as it com-
bines with N, it keeps a permanent nature throughout, for it
remains that Thing which would undergo another definite
change in combining with 0, another with P, and so on. It
has a nature beyond and unaffected by that change which it is
actually undergoing, and so remains the same.

87. But in its union with each of the other Things with
which it can unite, it does not merge its unity in something
which remains unaffected. The other side is also altered, and
they combine to form something new. The union is thus an
" exclusive " unity (ausschliessende Einheit) (G. L. i. 429, 480).
By this Hegel appears to mean that neither side is merely
passive, awaiting any other Thing that may come to it, but that
both sides express their nature in the union, since neither of
them would suffer precisely that change, except in combining
with the other. Thus we get

(c) Elective Affi^nity.

(G. L. i. 430.) In connexion with this Hegel introduces a
dio-ression on some chemical theories of his time. It does not,
however, profess to be part of the main argument.

II. REAL MEASURE 83

88. We now come to a very remarkable transition. Each
Thing which is formed by Elective Affinity has in it an
element of Separability (Trennbarkeit) due to the fact that
each of its constituents can enter into other relations (G. L.
i. 446). It may be convenient to distinguish these constituents
as Elementary Things, and their combinations as Compound
Things. It must be remembered that, as was pointed out above
(Section 83), even the Elementary Things are compounded of
Somethings.

From this we proceed to a passage which I do not venture
to paraphrase. " The exclusive Measure according to this more
exact determination is external to itself in its Being for Self.
It repels itself from itself, and posits itself both as a merely
quantitative other, and also as another relation, such that it is
also another Measure ; and is determined as a unity which
specifies itself, and which produces relations of Measure in
itself These relations are distinguished from the kind of
affinities mentioned above, in which one stable object relates
itself to stable objects of a different quality, and to a series of
such objects. These relations occur in one and the same Sub-
stratum, inside the same moments of neutrality. The Measure
determines itself as repelling itself to other relations which are
only quantitatively different, but which form at the same time
Affinities arid Measures, alternating with such as remain only
quantitative differences. They form in this way a Nodal Line
of Measures on a scale of more and less " {G. L. i. 446, 447).
Thus we get

B. Nodal Line of Measure Relations,

{G. L. i. 445.) With regard to this category we have to remark
three things. In the first place, we have suddenly returned to
that conception of Measure which the dialectic suddenly aban-
doned at Specifying Measure (in the narrower sense, I. B, (b), not
I. B). We had started with the conception of Measure as the
relation between a Quantity and a Quality, which Quality was
such that, when the Quantity altered beyond certain limits, it
changed into another Quality. At that point Hegel substituted
the entirely different conception of a relation between two

6-2

84 CH. IV. MEASURE

Somethings, each with one Quantity and at least two Qualities.
And now, when the Somethings have developed into a Thing
formed by the union of Somethings, we find in this Thing the
old conception of Measure. The Elementary Thing, as its
Quantity changes, dissolves the connexion which made it part
of one Compound Thing, and forms another connexion, which
makes it part of another Compound Thing. And this is a
Qualitative change in the Elementary Thing. Once more the
Measure of the object is in itself

That this is the right interpretation seems to follow from
the passage quoted above, and also from the next sentences
(G. L. i. 447). " Such a Being for Self, since it is at the same
time essentially a relation of Quanta, is open to externality and
the alteration of Quantum. It has an extent within which it
remains indifferent (gleichgllltig) to this alteration, and within
which it does not alter its Quality. But a point comes in this
alteration of the Quantitative, at which the Quahty is altered,
and the Quantum shows itself as specifying, so that the altered
quantitative relation is transformed into a new Quality, a new
" Something."

The second point to be noticed is that, in spite of the cate-
gories which have intervened, we return to the old conception
in a form no higher than that in which we left it, so that, even
if the intervening categories had been legitimately deduced, we
should have gained nothing by them. It is true that the sub-
stratum which undergoes the changes of Quantity and Quality
is now a more complex unit, but this does not make the problem
of the relation of the changes a more complex problem, nor does
it advance it nearer to a solution. When we consider the
treatment in the Encyclopaedia, we shall see that the category
of the Nodal Line can be reached directly from the category of
Specific Quantum,
p 89. The third point to be noticed is that the transition
' from the category of Elective Affinity to that of Nodal Line is
illegitimate. Let us grant that the Elementary Things which
are combined by Elective Affinity into Compound Things retain,
within these latter, a certain separability, due to the fact that
they could combine otherwise than as they do. But what
follows from this ?

II. REAL MEASURE 85

All that can properly be deduced is that the Elements in a
Compound can separate, and then combine again, either with
one another, in which case the same Compound would be formed
again, or with other Elements, thus forming fresh Compounds.
But Hegel asserts that the dissolution of the Compound would
only take place after there had been certain Quantitative changes
in its Elements — changes which did not dissolve the Compound
till they had exceeded certain limits. This does not seem
justifiable. Elective Affinity caused the Elements to combine
in certain proportions. So long as these proportions were
observed, the Combinations would not be broken up. But if the
proportionate Quantities were altered in the least, it would
follow from Hegel's previous account that the Compound might
be instantly destroyed. There is nothing to permit him to
treat the nature of the Compound as being variable within
limits.

90. Thus both the departure, in Specifying Measure, from
the previous conception of Measure, and the return to it at this
point are illegitimate. Hegel's next category is

G. The Measureless.

(G. L. i. 452.) When the Quantitative change has gone beyond
its limit, and a Qualitative change has come about, the new
Quality is at first to be considered as the Measureless. The
Measure of the original Quality is that it cannot go beyond
certain Quantitative bounds. Of the new Quality we only
know, so far, that it has gone beyond these bounds. It is
therefore, so far, the Measureless.

The category, however, contains more than this, so that the
name is not very appropriate. The new Quality, Hegel con-
tinues, is itself a Measure. It has its Quantitative bounds
which it cannot pass. When the Quantity exceeds these fresh
bounds, yet a fresh Measureless is created. And so we get an
Infinite Series. It is this Infinite Series which seems to be the
most characteristic feature of the category.

In this way, we are told, "the first immediate connexion
between Quality and Quantity, in which Measure in general
consists, is turned back on itself, and is itself posited"

86 CH. IV. MEASURE

{G. L. i. 453). The Quantity changes till it brings about a new
Quality. The Quality in its turn has a new Quantity of its
own, which varies till it once more changes into Quality, and so
on indefinitely.

Quantities and Qualities are, then, neither of them stable.
Yet something must be stable, for we could not say that
Quality A had changed into Quality B, unless something was
identical in A and B. Otherwise there would be no reason to
suppose that it was A, rather than anything else, which had
changed into B.

What is constant then ? Hegel answers that it is the
substratum. The conception of substratum, he reminds us, has
already been introduced. " What is before us is one and the
same fact (Sache), which is posited as ground of its difference,
and as persisting. This separation of Being from its determina-
tion has already begun in Quantum in general ; Something has
magnitude, in so far as it is indifferent to its determination as
Being (seiende Bestimmtheit)" {G. L. i. 453).

It should be noticed that Hegel does not say that tJiis
Infinite Series is contradictory. As I said above (Section 33)
he never does assert that Infinite Series as such are contradic-
tory, but only that some of them are. His position here is that
the Infinite Series would be impossible unless there were some-
thing stable underlying it, and that therefore we must conclude
that something stable does underlie it.

It must also be noticed that it would have been equally
necessary that something stable should underlie the series, if it
were not infinite but finite. Any series of Qualitative changes
would require the substratum, whatever the length of the series.
The transition, therefore, would not be invalidated, if it could
be shown that the series here was not, as Hegel holds it to be,
infinite.

91. The substratum is stable, then, and the lesson of
the ceaseless oscillation — first the change of the Quantity
of a Qualit}^ then the change of the Quality, and so on
without end — is that the substratum is indifferent to its
determinations. Since they change, while it remains un-
changed, they can have no effect on it whatever. Thus we
reach {G. L. i. 456)

III. THE BECOMING OF ESSENCE 87

III. The Becoming of Essence.

A. The Absolute Indifference^.

92. But, after all, the Indifference cannot be absolute.
That which is indifferent is a substratum. It could not be a
substratum, unless there was the series of changes to which it is
a substratum, and therefore they have an influence on it. "It
is just the externality and its disappearance which determines
the unity of Being to be indifferent and is thus within that
unity of Being, which therefore ceases to be merely substratum"
{G. L. i. 456). Thus we get

B. Indifference as Inverse Relation of its Factors

(G. L. i. 457), the characteristic of which is that the Quantities
of the different Qualities vary inversely, so that the sum of
them is always the same.

This category seems indefensible. The Quantities, we are
told, are " variable, indifferent, greater or smaller against one
another" {G. L. i. 457). And the substratum is the sum of
them and a " fixed Measure " (same page). The increase or
decrease of one side must be simultaneous, therefore, with the
increase or decrease of the other. But this is impossible, for
the sides are the Qualities of the substratum, and the different
Qualities of the substratum are alternative and not compatible.
The increase or decrease of Quantity produces one Quality and
destroys another. The whole point of that earlier conception of
Measure, to which we returned in the category of the Nodal
Line, was that a reality had one Quality or another, according to
the Quantity. If the Qualities of the series became compatible,
we should not only have removed the Absolute Indifference in
which Hegel finds a contradiction, but we should have removed all
Indifference altogether. For the Indifference arose solely from
the permanence of the substratum among the variations of the
Quality series, and would cease if the variations were abandoned.

1 Since the Measureless and Absolute Indifference are undivided categories,
and are respectively Synthesis and new Thesis, the second would naturally be
only a repetition of the first, which is not the case. This seems to indicate that
the category of the Measureless was really considered by Hegel as subdivided —
the Infinite Series forming a separate stage from the Measureless in the stricter
sense.

88 CH. IV. MEASURE

Now it is clear from the title of this category, and from the
treatment of the early categories of Essence, that the Indifference
of the substratum is not considered to be yet removed.

93. After these considerations Hegel's transition from this
category need not, perhaps, be examined in detail. He argues
that the Qualities are not independent of each other, since that
would make the Indifference an empty name. Each of them
has, therefore, only reality in its quantitative relation to the
other, and each, therefore, can only reach as far as the other
(0. L. i. 460). It is impossible for either to gain at the
expense of the other, and so the Inverse Relation breaks down,
and we are driven back to Indifference in the form of a " con-
tradiction which transcends itself" (G. L. i. 461). In other
words, the external is not absolutely unreal, but is not real in
its own right. It is the appearance of a reality which is not
itself. So we reach (after a digression on Centripetal and
Centrifugal Force) the last category of Measure

C. Transition to Essence.

{G. L. i. 466.) In reaching this category we have already
reached the fundamental characteristic of Essence. This con-
sists in the assertion of the duplicity of reality — its possession of
an external and an internal nature, capable of distinction from
each other, but not indifferent to each other. And this is the
conception which we have now reached.

This conception is rendered necessary by Qualitative change.
All change requires some distinction in the nature of that which
changes. For if the nature of reality were all of one piece,
then each thing must be completely the same as something else,
or completely different from it. Thus, under the categories of
Quality, no change is possible. With the categories of Quantity,
it is possible to have Quantitative change. For there each One
has its own Quality, and is also part of a Quantum, and so the
same One can be part of Quanta of varying sizes, and the
Quanta can change. A Quantum, for example, can change into
a larger Quantum, and the necessary identity in difference is
found in the fact that certain Ones form part of both Quanta.

But now that we have Qualitative change, the duplicity of
nature must not be merely between Quality and Quantity, but

III. THE BECOMING OF ESSENCE 89

must be found within Quality. If that which has Quality A is so
to change as to have Quality B, there must be a unity in the thing
which persists through this change. At the present stage of
the dialectic this can only be a permanent Quality X, and so we
have the two strata of Essence.

94. The treatment in the Encyclopaedia is very different
from that in the Greater Logic. In the first place, it is much
simpler. In the Greater Logic there were thirteen undivided
categories. In the Encyclopaedia Hegel gives no divisions at
all. This gives indeed an appearance of greater simplicity than
really exists, for by observing the course of the argument we can
see that it really does form a triad, the three categories of which
may be called Specific Quantum, The Measureless, and The Be-
coming of Essence. Still, there are only three divisions instead
of thirteen. The difference is accounted for by the fact that
Becoming of Essence forms only one undivided category, instead
of three, as in the Greater Logic, and by the omission of the
seven categories, from Rule to the Nodal Line inclusive, which
only bring the dialectic back to the point of Specific Quantum
again. Also the Encyclopaedia treats under the head of the
Measureless what is divided in the Greater Logic into the Nodal
Line and the Measureless.

The Encyclopaedia then starts {Enc. 107) with the simple
conception of Measure, as it is found in the Greater Logic, to
which we may give the name of Specific Quantum, as in the
earlier work. Hegel then discusses, as in the Greater Logic, the
contrast between the continuous change of Quantity and the
instantaneous changes of Quality, and the sophisms which are
based on it (Enc. 108)\ Then comes the transition to the
Measureless, which here, as in the Greater Logic, he seems to
connect in some especial manner with the contrast just men-
tioned between the methods of change in Quantity and Quality.
How it should be connected with this contrast is not very
plain, nor does this seem necessary for the transition. The
category of Specific Quantum gives us the result that, if any

1 In the Encyclojyaedia Hegel seems to use Eule to indicate a Measure in
which the Quantity does not pass the limits which involve a change of Quality
(Enc. 108). This is different from the use of Eule in the Greater Logic (cp.
above. Section 79).

90 CH. IV. MEASURE

thing has the Quality A within certain Quantitative limits, it
will also have the Quality M. This inevitably raises the
question of the result which will follow if the Quantity of A
passes the limits within which it determines the presence of M.
"Quantity... is not only capable of alteration, i.e. of increase or
diminution : it is naturally and necessarily a tendency to exceed
itself" {Enc. 109). And this is sufficient to take us over to the
next category.

In the first place, all that is said is that the object will no
longer have the Quality M. It is therefore the Measureless—
since Measure consisted in the relation between the permanent
Quality A and the variable Quality. But M will be replaced
by a fresh Quality i\^— solidity, e.g., by fluidity, when heat has
pa.'ssed the melting-point. From this Hegel proceeds to the
Infinite Series in the same way as in the Greater Logic (Enc.
109).

The transition from the Infinite Series to Becoming of
Essence (Enc. Ill) is the same as in the Greater Logic, except
that the intermediate forms of Absolute Indifference and
Indifference as Inverse Relation are omitted, and the transition
made direct to the fully developed conception which, in the
Greater Logic, forms the third subdivision.

The treatment in the Encyclopaedia is superior to the other
in avoiding the unjustified and useless loop which stretches
from Rule to Elective Affinity in the Greater Logic. The
absence of Indifference as Inverse Relation is also an improve-
ment. On the other hand, the transition from the Infinite Series
in the category of the Measureless direct to Essence seems
somewhat abrupt, and inferior to the path taken by the
Greater Logic through Absolute Indifference.

But the vital defect of the Greater Logic is not removed in
the Encyclopaedia. This is the substitution for the conception
of Measure, reached at the end of Quantity, of another concep-
tion of Measure — undeduced and unjustified. This invalidates
the chain of reasoning in both books, and if the broken links
are to be replaced it must be by something which is not to be
found in Hegel's own work.

CHAPTER V

ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

95. Essence is divided in the Gr^eater Logic into Essence as
Reflection into Self, Appearance, and Actuality. In the two
first of these the difference between the Greater Logic and the
Encyclopaedia is more marked than elsewhere in the process.
Categories which are found in one of these two secondary
divisions in the Greater Logic are transferred to the other in the
Encyclopaedia — a change which has no parallel in any other
part of the dialectic. For this reason I shall postpone any
reference to the Encyclopaedia till the end of Chapter VI.

Essence as Reflection into itself (Das Wesen als Reflexion
in ihm selbst) is divided as follows :

I. Show. (Der Schein.)

A. The Essential and Unessential. (Das Wesentliche

und Unwesentliche.)

B. Show. (Der Schein.)

C. Reflection, (Die Reflexion.)

(a) Positing Reflection. (Die setzende Reflexion.)

(&) External Reflection. (Die aussere Reflexion.)

(c) Determining Reflection. (Die bestimmende Re-
flexion.)

II. The Essentialities or Determinations of Reflection.
(Die Wesenheiten oder Reflexions-Bestimmungen.)

A. Identity. (Die Identitat.)

92 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

B, Difference. (Der Unterschied.)

(a) Absolute Difference. (Der absolute Unterschied.)

(b) Variety. (Die Verschiedenheit.)

(c) Opposition. (Der Gegensatz.)

C. Contradiction. (Der Widerspruch.)

III. Ground. (Der Grund.)

A. Absolute Ground. (Der absolute Grund.)

(a) Form and Essence. (Form und Wesen.)

(b) Form and Matter. (Form und Materie.)

(c) Form and Content. (Form und Inhalt.)

B. Determined Ground. (Der bestimmte Grund.)

(a) Formal Ground. (Der formelle Grund.)

(b) Real Ground. (Der reale Grund.)

(c) Complete Ground. (Der vollstandige Grund.)

C. Condition. (Die Bedingung.)

(a) The Relatively Unconditioned. (Das relative

Unbedingte.)

(b) The Absolutely Unconditioned. (Das absolute

Unbedingte.)

(c) Transition of the Fact into Existence. (Hervor-

gang der Sache in die Existenz.)

The term Show is used ambiguously — both as the title of I.,
and as the title of I. B.

96. At the end of the Doctrine of Being the conclusion was
reached that there was a Qualitative substratum to the changes
of Quantity and Quality. At first this substratum was regarded
as entirely indifferent to the changes, but this view was dis-
covered to be untenable, and it was then that the conception of
Essence was reached. " At this point " Hegel says (G. L. i. 468),
" Being in general, and Being as the immediacy of separate
determinations and as Being an sich has vanished. The Unity
is Being, immediately posited Totality, in such a way that this
is only simple relation to self, mediated by the transcending of
this positing. This positing and this immediate Being are
themselves only a moment in its repulsion, and its original

I. SHOW 93

stability and identity with itself only exists as the resulting and
infinite coming together with itself. In this way Being is
determined to Essence — that Being which, through the trans-
cending of Being, is simple Being-with-itself "

The language of this passage is rather difficult, but the
meaning is not, I think, doubtful. Things are no longer simple
in their nature. The nature of each thing has two sides. That
which previously seemed to be the whole nature of the thing
is now only a moment in a more complex whole. The other
element, to which it is related, is called the substratum by
Hegel — a natural metaphor, since it is the element which the
dialectic process reaches after the other. It is this element to
which he gives the general name of Essence, the first element
being called Appearance.

97. Both these names have some erroneous suggestions
about them. That the first element should be called Appear-
ance might lead us to suppose that the distinction between it
and Essence was that the Essence is the real nature of the
thing, and the Appearance the partially erroneous represen-
tation of the thing to some conscious subject. But this would
be a complete mistake. Hegel justly says that the categories
of his dialectic are objective in the sense that they deal with
what the reality is, and not with what it is thought to be.
Unlike Kant's categories, they do not refer to our knowledge of
the reality, but to the reality which is known. And therefore^
when Hegel speaks of the Appearance of a thing, he means a
part of its own nature, not of the knowledge of it in us.

If we avoid this mistake, we may fall into another. We
may be led by the names Appearance and Essence to suppose
that the Essence represents a truer way of looking at the reality
than the Appearance does. This would certainly be suggested
by the English adjectives apparent and essential, though the
suggestion is perhaps not so strong in German. And this view
would be supported by the fact that the first two categories of
Essence, in the Greater Logic, treat the Appearance as less real
than the Essence^ But in the other categories this is not so.

^ I shall try to show later that the categories in which the Appearance is
treated as unreal are unjustified, and that their omission in the Encyclopaedia.
was an inprovement. (See Section 103.)

94 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

The Appearance there is as real as the Essence, and it is as
essential (in the ordinary English use of the word) to the
Essence, as the Essence is to it.

The reason for calling this side Appearance is, I think, as
follows. It is real, but it has not the exclusive reality which
was attributed to it in the earlier categories of Being, when it
was taken as the only nature of reality. Its true position, as
now determined, gives it a less important function than that
with which it started. And it is to express this, I believe, that
Hegel gave it a name which, as contrasted with Essence,
suggests subordination and diminished reality. The name can-
not, however, be regarded as fortunate.

98. Hegel speaks of the Appearance as being immediate.
This cannot mean that which is immediately known, for that
would bring in the subjectivity which has already been
said to be foreign to the dialectic. Nor can it mean literally
that which is not mediated, since Appearance is mediated by
Essence. It means, I conceive, that the Appearance corresponds
to the nature of reality as seen in the categories of Being, when
there was no internal mediation, because there was no internal
diversity. It is not what is immediate, but what had previously
been supposed to be so. The element of Essence would not be
called immediate for this reason, since from the first point at
which it is reached, it is seen to be in relation to the other side.
p 99. The name of Essence is not more fortunate than that
of Appearance. In the first place, as has already been said, it
suggests, when contrasted with Appearance, that one side of the
. relation is more real than the other. And in the second place
it is ambiguous. Hegel uses it to designate one side of the
relation. But he also uses it for the relation of the two sides,
as when he speaks of the categories of Essence. It is sometimes
difficult to see whether he is using it in the former sense or the
latter, and it is desirable to find another name to designate the
side of the relation which is not Appearance, so that we can
confine Essence to its other meaning — the view of reality as
consisting of the two related sides. The name of Inner, which
would perhaps be the most natural, is unavailable, since Hegel
uses it for a special category further on. I propose to use the
word Substratum, which has already been used by Hegel of this

I. SHOW 95

side (G. L. i. 453). The Appearance side can then be called
Surface, which will avoid the ambiguity arising from the fact
that the second division of Essence is called Appearance.

At this j)oint we may notice Hegel's remark {G. L. ii. 5) that
Essence has the same characteristic, in the dialectic as a whole,
which Quantity has in the Doctrine of Being — the characteristic
of indifference to its boundaries. It is, as we shall see, impos-
sible to keep Substratum and Surface separate. Whatever is
found in the one cannot be excluded from the other. But this
leads only to an oscillation between these two sides, and not to
an unending process in a straight line, such as we found in
Quantity.

100. Hegel tells us that while the form of the process is, in
Being " an Other and transition into an Other," it becomes in
Essence, " showing, or reflection in the opposite " {Enc. 240).
The transformation of form is, however, continuous throughout
the dialectic, and no sudden change must be expected at this
points

I. Show.

A, The Essential and Unessential.

(G. L. ii. 8.) The first category of Essence ought to have the
same content as the last category of Measure. But its content
is, in fact, very different, and this constitutes a serious defect in
the argument.

At the end of Measure the Substratum was clearly the more
persistent Quality which only varied Quantitatively while the
other Qualities came and went. This was a perfectly definite
Quality with a determined nature of its own. Moreover, it
would seem that there were many such Substrata. For each
Nodal Line would have such a Substratum of its own, and there
is nothing to suggest the view that the whole of the universe
could be reduced to a single Nodal line.

But now, without any deduction or justification, the Sub-
stratum assumes a perfectly different nature. We are told
{G. L. ii. 4) that it is "an undetermined simple unity." And
the whole of the treatment of the three categories of Show^

1 Cp. my Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, Chapter IV. ~

2 Show in the wider sense, whose three categories are the Essential and
Unessential, Show in the narrower sense, and Reflection.

96 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

supports this. This is very different from the definite Quality
at the end of Measure. From the new position it follows that
the whole universe has only one Substratum, since there can be
no plurality in what is undetermined. And this also is sup-
ported by the treatment of these three categories.

It is possible that this flaw in the process might be removed
by avoiding an earlier flaw. We saw, at the beginning of the
last Chapter, that Hegel starts Measure with a conception which
is unduly specialized and complex as compared with the concep-
tion which he had reached at the end of Quantity. I think
that it might be maintained that if he had kept, as he ought,
to the broader and simpler conception of Measure, it would have
developed in such a way as to enable him to reach legitimately
the wide conception of Substratum which, as it is, he reaches
illegitimately. But to work this out would take us too far from
what Hegel actually does say,

101. There is another point to be discussed with relation
to the starting-point in Essence. The Surface is conceived as a
plurality, and not merely as a plurality of qualities inhering in
a single subject, but as a plurality of subjects. These subjects
have been with us ever since the category of Quality (Quality
in the narrower sense, the Antithesis in the triad of Being
Determinate as such). At first they were called Somethings,
and afterwards Ones. At present Hegel gives them no special
name. A name is desirable, and I propose to call them at once
by the name of things. It may be objected that Hegel uses the
name of Thing for a special category later on. But his intro-
duction of it there for the first time only means that there for the
first time the Thing forms the Substratum. It does not mean
that this is the first time that the conception of thing enters
into the dialectic at all. I shall therefore use the name from
this points

There is, then, a plurality of things in the Surface at this
point. All Hegel's treatment implies this, and the transition
from the category of Identity to that of Diversity rests on it
explicitly. Now how is this assertion of a plurality to be

1 To distinguish this more general use of the word thing from that in which
it refers to Hegel's categories of Thing, I shall use a capital initial only when
the special categories are spoken of.

I. SHOW 97

justified ? There is, I think, not much doubt about the answer
Hegel would make. There was, he would say, a demonstrated
plurality in the categories of Being, which arose, as has been
said, in the category of Quality, and continued to the end of
Measure. Now that which was Being has become the Surface
side in Essence, and therefore the plurality is legitimately
transferred to the Surface.

But there seems to me a defect in this argument. In
the Second Chapter we considered whether Hegel was justified
in making his transition from one existent to a plurality
of existents (Section 25). And the result at which we
arrived was that he was justified because an isolated existent
could only have a definite nature by having a plurality of
qualities, and because the dialectic had not at that point
reached the notion of one subject with a plurality of qualities.
But now the case is different. We have been led on by the
dialectic to the view that one subject can have a plurality of
qualities. In that case I cannot see that anything that Hegel
has said excludes the possibility of an existent having a definite
nature although it should be the sole existent, and undifferen-
tiated into parts. And if such a sole and undifferentiated
existent could have a definite nature then nothing that Hegel
has said excludes the possibility that nothing exists but one
single undifferentiated unit. (I use undifferentiated to denote
that which has no plurality of parts, though it may have a
plurality of qualities.) If this is so, then Hegel is not
justified in taking the Surface as consisting of a plurality
of things.

102. The supposition that there is no plurality of things is
doubtless wild enough. For it does not mean that the universe is
one as well as many, or even that it is more truly one than many.
Both these propositions would be compatible with a plurality of
things. The only alternative which is incompatible with a
plurality of things is the view that there is no differentiation at
all — no plurality except a plurality of qualities of the same
subject.

Such a view is incompatible with any reality of Space or
Time, since the parts of Space and Time would give such a
differentiation. And it is also incompatible with the existence

M"^!. 7

98 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

of any belief, volition, or emotion, all of which are internally
differentiated.

Moreover, there is certainly an appearance of differentiation
in the universe as we perceive it. And if this is condemned as
an illusion, the illusion will have to be itself part of the
universe. And it is not easy to see how it is to be that without
introducing differentiation into the universe.

But although there may be very good reasons of this sort for
rejecting the view that the existent is completely undifferen-
tiated, they are not such as the dialectic can appeal to. The
dialectic has to deduce all its results from the category of Being
without the introduction of any fresh data. If it is to exclude
the hypothesis of an undifferentiated existent, it must be either
because that hypothesis is self-contradictory, or because it is
incompatible with some of the results reached by the dialectic
process. It might be possible to show that it is to be rejected
for one or other of these reasons, but I cannot see that Hegel
has shown it. Here, too, therefore, we must regard the transi-
tion to Essence as erroneous.

103. We have then, in the present category, a Surface of a
plurality of things with common qualities, and a Substratum
which is "an undetermined simple unity." From this Hegel
proceeds as follows: "that the Essence becomes a merely Essen-
tial, as opposed to an Unessential, comes about through this,
that tlie Essence is only taken as transcended Being or Being
Determinate. The Essence is in this way only the First, or
the negation, which is determination, through which the Being
becomes merely Being Determinate, or the Being Determinate
becomes merely an Other. But the Essence is the absolute
negativity of Being, it is Being itself, but determined not
merely as an Other, but as the Being which has transcended
itself both as immediate Being, and also as the immediate
negation, as the negation which is linked to an Otherbeing.
The Being or Being Determinate has in this not preserved itself
as something Other than the Essence is. And the immediacy
which is still distinguished from the Essence is not merely an
unessential Being Determinate (unwesentliches Dasein) but is
the immediate which is null (nichtig) in and for itself: it is
only an Unessence (Unwesen), only Show" (G. L. ii. 9).

I. SHOW 99

This argument seems to me to be mistaken. No doubt the
Being has not preserved itself as an element completely
separated from the Substratum of which it now forms the
Surface. But the proper conclusion from this is merely that
which has already been reached in reaching Essence — namely
that the two are related as sides or aspects of the same reality.
To infer that, because the Surface is nothing apart from its
Substratum, therefore it is null and an "Unessence" in its
relation to its Substratum, is surely erroneous.

If this is so, the transition to Show must be rejected. But
in rejecting the Greater Logic here we do not part company
altogether with Hegel, for in the Encyclopaedia the Surface
is never treated as null. The three categories of the triad of
Show — Essential and Unessential, Show, and Reflection, find no
place in the Encyclopaedia, where the Doctrine of Essence
starts with the category of Identity. In this the later work
seems to me to be much superior to the earlier.

B. Show.

104. (G. L. ii. 9.) Th« translation I have adopted for
Schein is scarcely satisfactory, but I can find no better.
Appearance is not available, as it is wanted to translate
Erscheinung. Nor would Appearance emphasise with suffi-
cient strength the total nullity of the Surface at this point.

This category must not be confounded with Absolute In-
difference, which occurred towards the end of Measure. In
Absolute Indifference it was not the reality of either side of the
relation which was denied, but the relation itself was expressed
in such a way as to be rather the denial of relation. Here, on
the contrary, it is one side of the relation which is denied all
reality.

The position of this category — that the Surface is merely
nothing — is one which is easily seen to be untenable. If the
category were correct, the Substratum would have no Surface.
In that case it would not be a Substratum, and we should have
no Essence-relation at all. We should have fallen back on the
simpler conception of reality which was found in the Doctrine
of Being, and which the course of the dialectic has already
compelled us to abandon.

7—2

100 CH. V. ESSENCE AS KEFLECTION INTO ITSELF

The Show is, then, and yet the Show is nothing. It is
nothing and yet something. And this is impossible. Hegel
aptly instances the attempt of the Sceptic to treat everything
as devoid of all reality, and Fichte's endeavour to consider as
merely negative the "Anstoss" which in the long run deter-
'^ mines the Ego (G. L. ii. 11. His further examples from
Leibniz and Kant might perhaps be criticised as misrepre-
^ sentations).

Since this category is untenable, we must proceed further.
We must do this, Hegel tells us, by perceiving that the Show is
a moment of the Essence, and not something distinct from it
(G. L. ii. 12). It is clear that he must mean, not merely that
the Show is a moment of the Essence-relation, which it has
been all along, but that it is a moment of the Essence-side of
that relation. The Show is, then, an element in its Substratum.
Thus Hegel is able to admit that all the reality is in the
Substratum (the result which he thought he had arrived
at in the category of the Essential and Unessential), while
avoiding the impossible position of denying all reality to the
Surface.

105. We reach here, then, a new category, in which the
Essence-relation is between the whole nature of the Sub-
stratum and a part of that nature. To this Hegel gives the
name of

C. Reflection
(G. L. ii. 14), which is, in the first place,

(a) Positing Reflection.

{G. L. ii. 16.) Noel remarks {La Logique de Hegel, p. 63) that
in Ground "for the first time the Essence appears as substratum
of the mediation." I cannot regard this as correct. The
Essence-side of the relation seems to me to be a true Sub-
stratum in the two first categories of Essence, and to become so
again in Diversity — if not in Identity. But, with regard to^
Reflection and its subdivisions, it is, I think, true that the
Essence-side is not properly a Substratum. It does here, as
Noel says (loc. cit.), "confound itself with the very movement of
reflection." For the Surface is here, as we have seen, actually

I. SHOW 101

part of the Essence-side. The whole of the relation of the two
sides falls within one of them.

At this point, therefore, the name of Substratum, which I
have adopted for the Essence-side of the relation, is unsuitable,
since it suggests that the Surface is outside it. But it would
be difficult to find another which was not already claimed by
Hegel for use elsewhere. And, when we have passed beyond
the three categories of Reflection, Substratum will again be an
appropriate term.

Hegel says of the category of Positing Reflection that it is
"a movement from nothing to nothing," and again that it is
"transition as transcending of transition " (G. L. ii. 16). The
immediacy of the Surface is " only the negative of itself, only
this — not to be immediacy," for it is only a moment of the
Substratum. But again Reflection is " the transcending of the
negation of itself, it is coming together with self; in this way
it transcends its positing, and since it is, in its positing, the
transcending of positing, it is presupposition (Voraussetzen) "
{G. L. ii. 17). In other words, in this category the immediate
element loses its immediacy, because it is only a moment of the
non-immediate element, the Substratum. But the Substratum
has now nothing outside itself, and is therefore itself immediate.
As the negation of itself, the immediate ceased to be immediate.
But the Reflection is " the transcending of the negation of
itself" and thus immediacy is restored.

106. The first form in which it is restored is, according to
Hegel,

(h) External Reflection

(G. L. ii. 19), in which the Reflection finds an immediate
element which exists independently of it — which is, in Hegel's
language, presupposed (vorausgesetzt), not posited (gesetzt).

107. But this, the argument continues, is an untenable
position. The two are not really external to one another, but
depend on each other for their existence. For Reflection is
clearly dependent on the Immediate. Without an Immediate,
it would be unable to perform its work of mediation. The
Immediate, again, without the Reflection, would be the mere
Immediate of Being over again. This, of course, it is not. But

102 CH. V, ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

for the difference it depends on Reflection. Thus the connexion
between the two sides is essential to them. This gives us

(c) Determining Reflection

(G. L. ii. 23), in which we see that the Immediate is really the
"absolutely mediated" — that is to say, the self-mediated, that
which is mediated, not by anything outside it, but by a process
within itself. That which is absolutely mediated has the same
character of stability as the Immediate, since it does not refer
to anything outside itself Thus the new category synthesizes
the two former. Like Positing Reflection, it places the media-
tion within that which is mediated. But, like External Reflec-
tion, it provides a real Immediate for mediation. The Surface
no longer falls within the Substratum, as in Positing Reflection,
nor is it something independent of the Substratum, as in
External Reflection. The Surface and Substratum are now two
moments, neither of which falls within the other, but both of
which as moments in the same reality, are intrinsically united,
and not independent of each other.

It seems to me that Hegel would have done better if he
had suppressed Positing and External Reflection altogether, and
had taken what he now calls Determining Reflection as the
undivided category of Reflection. For the conception of Deter-
mining Reflection is really much simpler than that of Positing
Reflection, and it would have been more convincing to reach it
directly from Show (which it would have synthesized with
Essential and Unessential), than first to proceed to Positing
Reflection and then to reach Determining Reflection through it.

This would avoid, also, the transition from Positing Reflec-
tion to External Reflection, which seems to me fallacious. No
doubt, as Hegel points out, the Substratum, if it absorbed the
Surface, would be immediate, but it is very difficult to see
how we could possibly pass, as Hegel apparently does, to the
position that it has an immediate reality external to it.

II. ESSENTIALITIES OR DETERMINATIONS OF REFLECTION 103

II. The Essentialities or Determinations of

Reflection.

108. (G. L. ii. 26.) Hegel accounts for the name as
follows : " The Reflection is determined Reflection ; and so the
Essence is determined Essence, or it is Essentiality (Wesenheit)"
{0. L. ii. 26). But this does not help us to see why these, rather
than the other categories of Essence, should be distinguished by
a title so specially connected with Essence.

A . Identity.

{G. L. ii. 30.) This category is a restatement of the last. If
anything is self-mediated, then that which is found on one
side of the relation has exactly the same content as that which
is found on the other side. Surface and Substratum reflect
each other perfectly. If we start from an immediately given A,
and endeavour to understand it by determining its Essence, the,
result which we get at this point will be " A is A."

Before this point we could not have reached the category of
Identity. So long as we had not passed beyond the Doctrine of
Being, it would have been impossible to assert Identity as a
category. For no category of the dialectic is a tautology. And
consequently the Identity asserted must be an Identity between
what can be distinguished, from another point of view, as not
identical. Now this would be impossible among the categories
of Being. For there we find no difference within the subject.
And, if we predicate anything of it besides itself, our judgment
will not be one of identity. The category of Identity only
becomes possible when the division of form between Substratum
and Surface enables us to put the same content on each side of
the judgment, while at the same time keeping a distinction in
form.

109. We must now consider Hegel's treatment of the
logical law of Identity, A=A, or, as he also expresses it,
" Everything is identical with itself (Alles ist sich selbst
gleich)." In the first place, in his general discussion of the
Essentialities, he asks {G. L. ii. 27) why this law (which also, as
he points out, takes the form of the Law of Contradiction, A is

104 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

not not-^), and the Law of Excluded Middle, should be con-
sidered as universal laws of thought, to the exclusion of others.
All the other categories, he reminds us, are also predicates of all
things (" von Allem," G. L. ii. 28). Such laws as " Everything
is," " Evei'jthing has Determinate Being" are just as true as
the laws of thought in formal logic. In the case of the higher
categories, it is not surprising that they have not formed the
basis for generally recognised laws of thought, as the validity of
the higher categories is not so immediately obvious — is, indeed,
often not to be seen at all without the aid of the dialectic. But
this cannot be said of the categories of Being — especially of the
earlier among them.
/ In answer to this question Hegel points out {G. L. ii. 28) that
in Being the Antithesis of each Thesis is its direct opposite.
If we attempted to base a universal law on each category,
these laws would directly contradict one another. By the side
of the law that "Everything is," we should find, based on the
category of Nothing, the law that "Everything is nothing^"
It would be quite clear then that each of these laws could not
be absolutely true, since they contradict one another, and there-
fore they would not be taken by formal logic as universal laws
of thought, to all of which it must ascribe absolute truth.

With the categories of Essence the case is different, owing
to the gradual modification in form of the dialectic process.
Difference is not so directly opposed to Identity, as Nothing is
to Being. As we shall see, the Difference is added to the
Identity, and does not replace it. And therefore no law formed
out of Difference can be obviously and directly incompatible
with the law of Identity, and thereby challenge the absolute
truth of the latter.

I do not, however, see that the difference in question,
though it certainly exists, can be accepted as the reason why
previous thinkers did not make " universal laws of thought "
out of the categories of Being. For the necessity of proceeding
from the Thesis to the Antithesis is Hegel's own discovery.
The founders of formal logic would not have been deterred from
making "Everything is" into a universal law of thought by its

^ Hegel does not specify what the laws of Being and Nothing would be, but
only says that they would be directly opposed to one another.

II. ESSENTIALITIES OR DETERMINATIONS OF REFLECTION 105

obvious incompatibility with " Everything is nothing." For the
latter would have seemed simply false to them, and to everyone
else who had not accepted or anticipated the first triad of
Hegel's dialectic.

110. We must look for another way out of the difficulty.
And I believe that this is to be found in the fact that the Law
of Identit}' is not specially connected with Hegel's category of
Identity at all, and therefore gives us no reason to expect that
similar laws will be connected with the other categories.

The category of Identity is, as we have seen, the assertion of
an Identity of content in the Surface and Substratum of
existent things. This, of course, narrows its field. Not to speak
of non-existent realities, if such there are, it is clear that the
category cannot be applied either to qualities or relations, since
it is not qualities or relations which have Surfaces and Sub-
strata, but only things. And, again, it cannot be applied to a
Surface or Substratum. For, if so, there would have to be,
within that Surface or Substratum, a division into a fresh
Surface and Substratum, and this is not Hegel's view.

On the other hand, the Law of Identity can be applied to
any subject whatever. We can say just as well that a quality is
a quality, or that a Substratum is a Substratum, as we can say
that a thing is a thing. Since the law and the category have
such difference in their application the law cannot be founded
on the category.

And, again, the truth of the category of Identity is by no
means a tautology. When we bring a thing under this category
we assert that its nature has the two sides of Surface and Sub-
stratum, and that the content of these two sides is the same.
And both these propositions are very far from being tautologies.

It is different with the Law of Identity. In the sense in
which that asserts A to be ^, the proposition is a complete
tautology. Its truth rests, not on identity in difference, but on
the absence of all difference. If any difference existed between
the A of the subject and the A of the predicate, the assertion of
their identity would be a proposition which might be true, and
which, true or false, would have some interest. But it would
not be the Law of Identity of formal logic. And it is this Law
of Identity of which Hegel speaks here.

106 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

Later on (G. L. ii. 35) he admits the tautologous character of
the Law of Identity. Such propositions as " a plant is a plant,""
he says, are simply useless and wearisome. They would be
universally admitted to be true, and universally admitted to say

r nothing. This is sufficient to show that the Law of Identity is
not based on Hegel's category of Identity. The statements that
the nature of a plant has a Surface and a Substratum, and that
the content of these is identical, certainly tells us something,

L whether it be false or true.

r The connexion, then, between the logical Law of Identity
and Hegel's category of Identity is so slight that we need not
be surprised at the absence of similar Laws corresponding to the

I earlier categories.

r In his criticism of the Law of Identity Hegel, I think, goes
too far when he says that its truth is incompatible with the
existence of Difference {G. L. ii. 29, " If everything is identical
with itself, it is not different, not opposed, and has no Ground."
Again, G. L. ii. 37, " The Law of Identity or Contradiction,
since its object is only to express abstract Identity as the truth
in opposition to Difference, is no law of thought, but rather the
opposite of such a law "). That A \% A would surely be quite
consistent with the facts that A is not B, that A and G are
polar opposites, and that A and D have a Ground E.

111. From the category of Identity Hegel passes on as
follows. " The Identity is the Reflection into itself, which is
only this as being inner Repulsion (Abstossen), and this Repul-
vsion exists as Reflection into itself, Repulsion which immediately
takes itself back into itself. It is thus Identity as the Differ-
ence which is identical with itself. But the Difference is only
identical with itself in so far as it is not the Identity, but
absolute Not-Identity. Not-Identity, however, is absolute in so
far as it contains nothing of the Other, but only itself, that is to
say, in so far as it is absolute Identity with itself" {G. L. ii. 32).

We have already discussed the fact that Hegel starts the
categories of Essence with a Surface containing a plurality of
things (Section 101). This has not so far involved a corre-
sponding plurality in the Substratum. For, till the transition to
Determining Reflection, there was nothing in the relation of
Surface to Substratum which should prevent an undifferentiated

II. ESSENTIALITIES OR DETERMINATIONS OF REFLECTION 107

Substratum from having a differentiated Surface, and we could
not argue from the differentiation of the Surface to a differen-
tiation of Substratum. But in Determining Reflection, and its
restatement as Identity, the Surface and the Substratum are
identical in their content. And therefore the Substratum, like
the Surface, is differentiated.

It is in this way that Identity, as Hegel says, involves
Differentiation. Things aie different on the Surface, and if the
Substratum in each thing is identical with the Surface, then it
must be different from the Substratum of every other thing.
Since the conception of Difference is thus carried into the
Substratum, we reach

B. Difference,
(a) Absolute Difference.

(G. L. ii, 87.) Difference is at first simple (einfach)
{G. L. ii. 38). The Difference between two things is only that
they are different. If one is A, the other is not- J.. By this
Hegel cannot mean that the second is a mere negation of the
first, for the second must also be identical with itself, and
therefore must be as positive as the first. What he means is
that the element of Difference between them lies simply in the
fact that the second element, B, is not- J.. If we had begun
with B, then the difference would consist in A being noi-B.

He goes on to say that we have here the Difference of
Reflection and not the Otherbeingf of Determinate Beinsr. In
the Otherbeing of Determinate Being, the things are conceived
primarily as isolated, and only secondarily as related. But now
that we have reached Essence, the connection with others is
seen to be a fundamental part of the nature of each thing.

There is no Difference without Identity, and no Identity
without Difference. Identity, Hegel says, may thus be con-
sidered as a whole of which Difference and itself are moments.
And Difference may be considered as a whole of which Identity
and itself are moments {G. L. ii. 38). (This seems to be only
an unnecessarily paradoxical way of expressing the fact that
Identity involves itself and Difference, and that Difference
involves itself and Identity.) This, he continues, " must be
regarded as the essential nature of Reflection, and as the deter-

108 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

mined fundamental ground of all acting and self-movement."
It is, indeed, a rudimentary form of the principle of the mutual
implication of Unity and Differentiation, the establishment of
which may perhaps be maintained to be the supreme result of
the whole dialectic.

(b) Variety.

112. (G. L. ii. 39.) The deduction of this category {G. L.
ii. 39 — 41) is extremely obscure. Hegel says that from
Absolute Difference arise two forms, " Reflection into self as
such, and Determination as negation, or the Posited. The
Posited is the Reflection which is external to self" {G. L. ii. 40).
Of these the first is primarily Identity, and the second is
primarily Difference {G. L. ii. 40). So far this seems only a
repetition of what was said before. The Reflection into self is
the Identity which includes itself and Difference, while the
External Reflection is the Difference which includes itself and
Identity. Hegel's statement that they are indifferent (gleich-
gliltig) to one another is also explicable. Identity and
Difference, pure and simple, were not indifferent to one another.
Each was the other's complement. But if Identity is taken as
including itself and Difference, or Difference is taken as in-
cluding itself and Identity, each of them is a stable whole,
since it includes its complement. And therefore they may be
taken as indifferent to one another.

Things are Various, he continues, when they are indifferent
in their connexion with each other. For, when they are
indifferent to each other, it is because the Difference between
them is seen to involve the Identity of each. A and B are
indifferent, when B'q difference from A lies in the fiict that it is
B (and not in the merely negative consideration that it is not
A), and when A'b difference from B lies in the fact that it is A.
And it is this — the difference of positive from positive — that he
calls Variety, as distinguished from Absolute Difference, which
is the difference of a positive from its mere negation. And
since Reflection in self gives us indifference, he says {G. L. ii. 41)
that it gives us Variety.

But now Hegel goes on to a further argument which appears
to me fallacious. "The External Reflection on the other hand

II, ESSENTIALITIES OR DETERMINATIONS OF REFLECTION 109

is the determined Difference " of the two moments " not as
absolute Reflection in self but as Determination, against which
the Reflection in self is indifferent; its two moments, the
Identity and the Difference itself, are thus externally posited,
and are not Determinations which are in and for themselves.
Now this external Identity is Likeness (Gleichheit) and the
external Difference is Unlikeness, Likeness is indeed Identity,
but only "what is posited, an Identity which is not in and for
itself In the same way, Unlikeness is Difference, but as an
external Difference, which is not in and for itself the Difference
of the Unlike "((?. Z. ii. 41).

But Likeness cannot be reduced to a sort of Identity. For
the Identity of which Hegel speaks — the Identity of the
previous category — is a relation which falls entirely within some
particular thing. A is identical with itself because it has the
same content in Surface and Substratum. And this cannot
possibly become the Likeness of which Hegel speaks, Avhich is
a relation between different things.
r~ It is true that, if things are like one another, they will have
some identical quality. But then the identity is of the quality,
while the identity of which Hegel has been speaking is an
identity of a thing. And the identity of a quality cannot be
an instance of Hegel's category of Identity, since that only
applies where there is a Substratum and Surface with an
identical content, and it is only things, and not qualities, which
Hegel regards as having Surfaces and Substrata.

113. It seems to me that it is necessary to reconstruct part
of Hegel's argument, though it is only the latter part which will
need altering. The transition will start, as it does with Hegel,
from the fact that Identity implies Difference, and Difference
Identity. Then that A should be not-B, not-C, etc., is implied
in its being A. And again that B should be not- J. is implied
in its being B. Thus A differs from B now because B is B,
since its being noi-A is seen to be a moment of its nature as J5.

We have thus got two of Hegel's steps towards Variety.
The things are (a) indifferent to each other. For their connex-
ion is now through their positive qualities on both sides, which
have other meanings than merely to express their Difference,
though they do express it. And the things are (6) Unlike.

110 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

For they have positive qualities, which are different in each of
them. And so we get Unlikeness, a name which Hegel does
not give to the difference between a term and its mere negation,
such as A and not- J..

On both these points we have followed Hegel's argument,
except that we have not distinguished between the two forms
in which the unity of Identity and Difference can be put, which
seems to be irrelevant here. But there remains the third point.
The Various things must be determined by Likeness as well as
by Unlikeness.

Some Likenesses exist wherever there are common Qualities,
and we found in the categories of Measure that each thing had
at least two qualities in common with others. But the break of
continuity which we found to exist at the beginning of Essence
renders it doubtful how far we are entitled to rely on this now.
And, at any rate, it would not be sufficient. For the Likenesses
to be found in Measure group things in one order only. No
cross-groupings are possible by means of them, unless a thing
(or, as it was there called, a One) should belong to two different
Measure-series, which is not apparently contemplated by Hegel.
Now the Likenesses in the category of Variety are clearly more
complicated than this. For when the Likenesses turn into
Grounds, we shall find that Hegel tells us that A can be con-
nected with B and not with C, or with C and not with 5,
according to the Ground chosen. It is clear, then, that the
category of Variety requires that A shall have one Likeness to
B, and a different Likeness to 0.

Can we prove that this must be the case ? I think we can.
Take any group of things, if, N, 0, which is less than the whole
universe^ There will therefore be one or more things outside
this group. If we call one of these Z, it is clear that the
individuals in the group M, N, 0, have each the quality of not
being Z — or, if you prefer it, of being not-Z. And this con-
stitutes a Likeness between them.

We can go further. For any group of things we can find,
not only a Likeness, but a Likeness shared by no others. Let

1 All the things in the universe have likewise a common Likeness. For
of all of them it may be said that they are things, besides various other state-
ments which are true of all of them.

TI. ESSENTIALITIES OR DETERMINATIONS OF REFI.ECTION 111

M, N, 0, X, Y, Z, stand for a complete list of existent things.
Then take the group M, N, 0. Each of these has the quality
of not being either A'', Y, or Z, which constitutes a Likeness
between them. And no other group can have this Likeness, for
no other group can be formed (except one included in the group
M, N, 0) which does not include either X, Y or Z. And the
same principle will apply, however great the number of things
in the universe may be,

114. Thus we should be entitled to predicate Likenesses,
as well as Unlikenesses, of the various things. But to do so in
this manner would raise an important question which Hegel
never considers. It will be noticed that the only qualities
which have been deduced by my argument are the qualities
which arise from the relation of Difference which has already
been proved to exist between all things. The argument there-
fore rests on the principle that every relation determines a
quality in each related thing. If Smith is taller than Brown,
then " to be taller than Brown " is a quality of Smith, and " to
be shorter than Smith " a quality of Brown. This principle, as
I mentioned in Chapter I. (Section 6), is accepted by Hegel.

But when this principle is accepted, the question arises
whether all qualities arise out of relations in this way, or
whether there are some which do not. (These latter might be
■called for distinction ultimate qualities.) To this question there
•can, I think, be no doubt that Hegel's answer would be that
there were such ultimate qualities. The Qualities mentioned in
the Doctrine of Being certainly did not depend on relations,
though relations depended on them, and nothing in the sub-
sequent transitions has removed these Qualities from our view
of the nature of things.

These ultimate qualities differ in such an important way
from the qualities determined by relation, that it would be very
desirable to know something about them as distinguished from
the others. Hegel unquestionably held, when dealing with
Measure, that each thing had at least two ultimate qualities
which could be common to it with other things, without being
common to all things. And he probably went further, and held
that every thing possessed some qualities which were common
to it and to some other things. But does this hold now that we

112 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

have passed out of Measure ? It is clear that things have still
ultimate qualities. It is clear, from what has been said above,
that everything has still qualities which are common to it with
some other things, without being common to it with all other
things. But are any of these common qualities ultimate
qualities ? On this point the dialectic tells us nothing.

115. Hegel discusses here Leibniz's principle of the Iden-
tity of Indiscernibles (G. L. ii. 44). The reasons by which he
accounts for the supposed connexion of the Law of Identity
with his category of Identity (cp. above, Section 109) would
suggest that a similar Law might be found in connexion with
the category of Difference, and he seems to regard the principle
of the Identity of Indiscernibles as holding this place. But the
analogy is very slight. The Law of Identity, Hegel tells us,
was universally admitted, was a mere tautology, and fell within
formal logic. Now the principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles
is by no means universally admitted, is certainly not a mere
tautology, and does not come within the sphere of formal logic.

116. We now proceed to the transition to the next category.
Hegel says (G. L. ii. 44) "the Various is the Difference which
is merely posited, the Difference which is no Difference." And
he goes on to say that the transition is due to the Indifference
(Gleichgliltigkeit) of Variety.

What is meant by this ? I conceive that he means that in
this category there is no special connexion of any thing with
any other thing. The relation may fairly be said to be one of
Indifference, if no thing has any connexion with one other
except that which it has with all others. And this Indifference,
I conceive, arises as follows. We are now dealing with Like-
nesses and Unlikenesses. But every thing is, as we have seen,
Unlike every other thing. And it is also Like every other
thing, for in any possible group we can, as we have seen, find a
common quality. Thus under this category everything has
exactly the same relation to everything else. For it is both Like
and Unlike everything else.

It may naturally be objected to this that the relations are
not precisely similar. A may be both like and unlike B and C,
but it will be like B because they both have the quality x,
unlike because A has and B has not the quality y. With G, on

I

II. ESSENTIALITIES OR DETERMINATIONS OF REFLECTION 113

the other hand, it may be the quality vi which makes the like-
ness, and the quality n the unlikeness.

The answer to this, I believe, would be that our present
category makes the Substratum of things to be simply their
Likeness and Unlikeness, and that therefore the relations recog-
nised by it are just the same although they may be founded on
different qualities. A is like B in respect of x, like C in respect
of ni, but all that this category deals with is the abstract relation
of Likeness. And this is the same in the case of A and B as it
is in the case of A and C.

The possession of a common quality is not, for Hegel, a
direct determination of the nature of things till we reach the
categories of the Notion. It is this, I believe, which is indicated
by the fact that he then for the first time calls them Universals,
and says that they constitute the nature of the things. Before
the Notion is reached a community of quality only affects the
nature of a thing by putting it into, or taking it out of, a group
with another thing. In Quantity and Measure this did not
produce Indifference, because the common qualities there per-
mitted only one system of grouping (cp. above, Section 113).
But in Variety, where everything is like and unlike everything
else, the Indifference arises.

The Indifference is a defect which makes the category
untenable. We passed from Being to Essence because the
existence of a plurality completely ungrouped and unorganised
was impossible, and because its grouping required the duplicity
of nature which comes in Essence. But it is evident that
Essence cannot fulfil its task if all that the Substratum does is
to give a relation which links everything to everything else in
exactly the same manner. It gives no reason why A should be
linked with B rather than with G, or with C rather than with
B. And, ever since Undivided Quantity passed into Quantum, we
have seen that such preferential linkings must exist.

Hegel maintains that we can only escape this difficulty by
finding a Likeness and Unlikeness which are not indifferent to
each other. Now if A and B have a particular Unlikeness which
depends on their having a particular Likeness, then the indif-
ference, he holds, has broken down. A and B are not simply
Like and Unlike. Their Unlikeness depends on their Likeness.

M^T. 8

114 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

And, if A can only enter into this particular relation to B, and
to nothing else, then A and B are specially connected. Now
this happens in cases of what is called polar opposition. Such
is the case where A and B have both a temperature, and A is
hot and B is cold. And again we have it when A and B are
movements on the meridian of Greenwich, and ^ is a movement
North, and B a movement South, or when A and B are sums of
money, and I owe A and am owed B. Thus Hegel passes to a
category which he calls

(c) Opposition.

{0. L. ii. 47.) This is a synthesis of Absolute Difference
and Variety. As in Variety, the differences are positive on
each side, but, as in Absolute Difference, the differences lie in
characteristics which are in a definite negative relation to one
another, and are not simply not the same.

117. Hegel says {G. L. ii. 48) that the Likeness is the
Positive here, and the Unlikeness the Negative. I must own
myself entirely unable to understand what he means by this.
The whole course of the argument seems to show that the
Likeness consists in the common character shared by two
opposites, and that each of these opposites can be taken either as
Positive or Negative.

He then recapitulates {G. L. ii. 49, 50) the three elements
which make up the Positive and Negative. The first is that in
which they are merely moments of the Opposition. In the
second, each side has both elements in it — the elements of
Positive and Negative — and they thus become indifferent
towards one another. In the third, they are essentially con-
nected, and yet at the same time have each a positive nature.

This recapitulation must not be mistaken for a subordinate
triad within Opposition. In the first place, its terms are not
marked off from each other in the text by separate headings, or
provided with names of their own, which always happens with
distinct categories. In the second place, it is obviously a
recapitulation, since the last stage of the three is just the idea
which we gained on passing from Variety to Opposition — that
of two things, different in their positive nature, and yet each
determining the other as its negative. The two earlier stages —

n

II. ESSENTIALITIES OR DETERMINATIONS OF REFLECTION 115

those dealing with a mere difference and with indifferent
diversity — had been transcended before we came to Opposition
at all, and could not return in it, since they are incompatible
with the principle of Opposition. They are, as Hegel calls them,
"determinations which constitute Positive and Negative," but not
forms of the category which contains Positive and Negative.

The transition to the next category (G. L. ii. 57) is as
follows : Each extreme, he says, " has indifferent stability for
itself through the fact that it has the relation to its other
moment in itself (an ihm selbst). Thus it is the whole Opposi-
tion contained in itself As this whole, each is mediated with
itself through its Other, and continues its Other. But it is also
mediated with self through the Not-Being of its Other ; thus
it is a unity for itself, and excludes its other from it." As
thus it includes and excludes the Other in the same respect
(Riicksicht), and therefore is only stable in so far as it excludes
its own stability from itself, it involves a contradiction. --_^

Is the category of Opposition valid ? I do not think that it '
is. The Indifference of Variety was really a defect, and had to
be transcended. But all that is needed for this purpose is that
some Likeness shall be taken as specially fundamental — the
conception which is introduced afterwards in Ground. If this
were done, the Indifference would be removed, since things
which had the same Ground would be specially linked together.
And we have no right to introduce into the new category more
than is necessary to remove the contradiction of the one below
it. Now Opposition, involving as it does a special relation of \
the Unlikeness between two things to the Likeness between
them, is a more complicated idea than Ground, and we ought
not to have introduced it when Ground would suffice — to say
nothing of the incorrectness of reaching Ground (as Hegel does)
after the more complex conception of Opposition has been trans-
cended.

Moreover, if we could have accepted the transition which
Hegel makes into Opposition, we should still have to reject the
transition by which he passes out of it. The contradiction
which he finds here rests on a mistake. The stability of the
Extremes of an Opposition rest, no doubt, on their relation to
one another, and this very stability excludes them from one

8—2

116 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

^ another. But there is no contradiction here. There is simply
the truth, which the dialectic gave us as long ago as Being for
Self, that a thing is determined to be itself by the fact of not
I being other things.

n- I think, therefore, that the category of Opposition is not to

/ be justified, and that the transition should run from Variety
direct to Grounds The insertion of Opposition may be due to
the tendency to which we have to ascribe so much of what is
weakest in the dialectic — the tendency to bring in irrelevant
conceptions which play a large part in empirical science, or
in the history of philosophy. Polarity is, of course, a very im-
portant conception for science. And — a still more important
consideration — it was the central conception of the philosophy
which Schelling had constructed, and from which Hegel had
found his way to his own system. It is not wonderful therefore
that Hegel should have unconsciojisly deflected the course of

L_the dialectic to include it.

118. We now pass to a category which Hegel calls

C. Contradiction.

p (G. L. ii. 57.) In giving it this name, however, he seems to
confuse the category with the transition to it. The contradiction
just stated is the reason why we must pass on from Opposition
to another category, but it cannot J)e the category itself How
could we pass to a conception which, as we get to it, we know
to be contradictory ? The whole point of the dialectic method
is that the perception of a contradiction is a reason for
abandoning the category which we find contradictory. Moreover
the category now before us is the Synthesis of Identity and
Difference. And it is especially clear that a category cannot be
accepted as a reconciliation of others where it is seen to be itself
I contradictory. ~~

Hegel's transition /row his category of Contradiction is to be
found on p. 61. "The exclusive Reflection of the stable
Opposition makes it a Negative, something only posited. So
it " — the Reflection — " degrades its previous stable Determina-
tions, the Positive and the Negative, to the level of being onl^

^ Though not, as I shall explain later on, to the same subdivision of
Ground which comes first in the Greater Logic (cp. below, Section 131.)

II. ESSENTIALITIES OR DETERMINATIONS OF REFLECTION 117

Determinations, and since the Position (Gesetzsein) has been
made Position in this way, it has gone back into unity with
itself. It is simple Essence, but Essence a^ Ground."

119. It seems to me that we can do justice to Hegel's
argument here by taking the contradiction (which he makes
the category of Contradiction) as the transition into a category
constituted in the way described in this passage. The con-
ception of Ground will thus be reached in II. C, instead
of at the beginning of III., w^here Hegel puts it.

The contradiction which, if Hegel is right, is found in
Opposition is now removed by taking the terms as each possess-
ing its own Substratum — no longer merely sharing one with its
r Opposite — but a Substratum which is clearly recognised as
something with both positive and negative nature. As Hegel
says, " Ground is Essence as positive Identity with itself, which,
however, at the same time relates itself to itself as negativity,
and thus determines itself and makes itself exclusive (ausge-
schlossenen) Position ; but this Position is the whole stable
Essence, and the Essence is Ground, which in its negation is
identical with itself and positive " (G. L. ii. 62).

For this category, to which the name of Contradiction is \\ \
clearly inapplicable, I should suggest the name of Stable « ' •
Essentiality. It bears a marked resemblance to Identity, for in
it, as in Identity, each part of the Surface has its own Sub-
stratum, which belongs to it, aud to no other. This contrasts
wdth the categories of Diffei-ence in each of which the Sub-
. stratum of each thing consisted in its relation to others.

But the difference between this category and Identity must
not be overlooked. In the new category the Substratum is not
merely the nature of the thing, but that nature recognised as
essentially different from the nature of the other things round
it. In the category of Identity, Difference has not yet been
recognised. When it is recognised, we have passed on to the
category of Difference. But in Stable Essentiality the Sub-
stratum includes in it, as an essential element, the fact of its
difference from other Substrata. It is therefore, as its position
in the process requires it to be, the Synthesis of Identity and
Difference. '

And this involves another change from Identity. The

118 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

Substratum and Surface in Identity were seen to be identical,
except in the form of being Surface and Substratum. Here, on
the other hand, there is a further difference between Surface
and Substratum. For the Substratum includes in itself its
determination as different from the other Substratum — to
■which nothing corresponds in the merely immediate reality of
the Surface.

120. At this point {G. L. ii. %Q) Hegel inserts a Note on the
Law of Excluded Middle, which he regards as specially connected
with the category of Opposition. He remarks that there is one
thing wldch is neither -'t A nor —A, namely A itself, which
enters into both. No doubt this is true, and we might add that
all the indefinite number of things in the universe of which A
cannot be predicated are neither -\- A nor — ^. If A is Seven,
for example, Courage is neither + A nor — A. But the Law of
Excluded Middle says nothing of + J. and —A, but of A and
not-^, which is very different (Hegel states the Law correctly
at the beginning of his Note, but, towards the end, suddenly
substitutes —A for not-^, without any warning or explanation).
Now with regard to A and not- J., it is quite true that every-
thing must be one or the other. Courage, for example, is not-
Seven. And the law is true of A itself. For, although it is

I neither + A nor -A, yet it is A, and it is not not- J.. "

121. We now pass {G. L. ii. 73) to

III. Ground.

A. Absolute Ground,
(a) Fortn and Essence.

(G. L. ii. 77.) Here the Substratum of each part of the
Surface belongs to that part of the Surface alone. But it is
distinguished from it as being explicitly determined by the
negative relation to its surroundings, which is not the case with
the Surface.

122. But, again, we cannot keep these relations out of the
Surface. If the Surface is to be anything definite at all, it
must have in it the negative relation of one thing to another,
without which nothing can be definite. And thus, as Hegel
says {G. L. ii. 79), "everything definite belongs to the Form."

III. GROUND 119

The Substratum is left behind as an empty shell, " The Essence
is according to this moment the Undetermined, for which the
Form is an Other. So the Essence is not " (i.e. is no longer)
" the absolute Reflection in itself, but is determined as formless
Identity; it is Matter" (G. L. ii. 82). So we get

(6) Form and Matter.

(G. L. ii. 82.) Matter here is much more indefinite than the
Matter of Materialism, or of physical science. For that is
conceived as having a definite nature while here all the definite
nature has been absorbed by the Form, leaving the Matter as
an undetermined and undifferentiated basis for the Form.

It is, however, impossible that Matter, taken in this sense,
should be the Subslratum of anything. For, with no definite
nature, it can have no definite relation to anything. It is clear
then that it cannot be in the very definite relation to the
Surface of being its Substratum, without which the Surface
would be inexplicable.

123. We must therefore conceive the Matter as having
Form as a moment of itself — as being formed Matter. But
again, the Form, since it has, according to the argument which
produced the category of Form and Matter, everything in it,
must have the Matter as a moment in itself {G. L. ii. 86). Thus
both sides — Substratum and Surface — have the same nature,
and we come to

(c) Form and Content.

(G. L. ii. 88.) In this category, says Hegel {G. L. ii. 89), we
reach Determined Ground. It might be objected to this that
the Ground is to be conceived rather as determining than as
determined. But it must be remembered that Ground, like
Essence, is used by Hegel both as the name of a relation and as
the name of one term of that relation. It is, I think, rather the
Ground-relation than the Ground-element of that relation of
which he speaks here. And this relation may properly be called
at this point determined, because here, for the first time in
Ground, the nature of the two sides is explicitly identical, and
there is therefore nothing on either side which is not related to
its correlate on the other.

120 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

B, Determined Ground,
(a) Formal Ground.

124. {G. L. ii. 90.) This is simply the restatement of Form
and Content. The Ground of the whole nature of the thing is
its whole nature. The explanation is thus perfectly complete.
ABC is the Ground of ABC Such an explanation leaves out
nothing, assumes nothing, and explains nothing. It is for this
reason that it is called Formal.

It is worth while to compare this category with two previous
categories which resemble it to some extent — Identity, and Form
and Essence. Form and Essence is distinguished from it by not
possessing the same absolute likeness of the two terms which is
found in Formal Ground. The Substratum in Form and Essence
has, as we saw, a more explicit reference to other reality than is
found in the Surface.

But the resemblance between Identity and Formal Ground
is closer, for in neither of them is any difference to be found
between Surface and Substratum, beyond the fact that they are
Surface and Substratum. The distinction between the categories
is that, when we come to Formal Ground, the advancing process
has determined each thing as explicitly possessing differences
from other things, and similarities with them. The question is
no longer a vague " What?" but a more definite "Why this and
not that ? " In the category of Identity we merely tried, in a
quite undetermined manner, to explain the thing. Here we
have the definite problems to answer which are presented by a
thing, each of whose similarities and differences is a special
problem. In Identity, it is to be remembered, there was not
yet a plurality of characteristics for each thing. That came in
for the first time in Variety.

The inadequacy of Formal Ground is clear. If the Surface
was sufficient to explain itself, we should not want the Essence-
relation at all. And since it is not sufficient to explain itself,
we shall not gain anything by formally offering its own nature
as its explanation. W"e must therefore look elsewhere for a new
category, to avoid the contradiction of positing as an explanation
that which can explain nothing.

125. How do we proceed ? Hegel says {G. L. ii. 97) " The

III. GROUND 121

side of Ground has shown itself to be something posited, and
the side of the Grounded has shown itself to be itself Ground;
each is in itself this identity of the whole. Since, however, they
belong at the same time to the Form, and constitute its deter-
mined Difference, each of them is in its own Determinateness the
identity of the whole with itself Each has thus a separate
content as against the other. Or — to consider it from the side
of Content — since it," the Content, " is Identity as the Ground-
relation with itself, it has essentially within itself this difference
of Form, and is as Ground something different from what it is
as Grounded.

" From this fact, that the Ground and the Grounded have a
different content, it follows that the Ground-relation has ceased
to be formal. The return into the Ground, and the advance to
it from what is posited is no longer a tautology ; the Ground
has become real (ist realisirt). We demand therefore, when a
Ground is enquired for, that the Ground shall have a different
determination of content from that for whose Ground enquiry
was made."

The truth contained in this, I think, is that however much
the argument may require us to think of the two sides as
exactly similar, still, if we keep to the Ground-relation at all,
we must conceive the two sides as more or less different. The
Ground is that to which we refer in order to explain the
Grounded, and a thing cannot be explained by a mere repetition
of itself. Thus " the Determinateness of the two sides " — that
is, the fact that one is Ground and the other is Grounded —
requires a difference in what is contained in each of them.

Hegel's language, however, is misleading. It suggests that
the relation between the Ground and the Grounded not only
requires a difference between what they contain, but also
produces such a difference. In other words, it suggests that
the Formal Ground turns into the Real Ground — that the
Formal Ground which appeared at first sight to have both sides
identical, turns out on further consideration to show some
difference between the two.

This is not what really happens. What does happen is that
the category of Formal Ground has broken down, because the
characteristics implied by the Formality are contrary to those

122 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

implied by the Ground. We have therefore to look for a
category in which this contradiction shall be removed, and in
which Ground shall be so expressed that the required difference
in the content of the two sides shall be possible. And when
Hegel developes the idea of his new category we see that in the
new category the Ground is part of the nature of the thing and
no longer the whole nature. It is not therefore the same
Ground as before, looked at in a different manner, but a different
Ground. It is called

(b) Real Ground.

(G. L. ii. 96.) Its advance on the last category consists in
the Surface — the Grounded — havinsr more in it than there is in
the Substratum — the Ground, The Grounded is " the unity of
a double content " {G. L. ii. 97), of which one side is also to be
found in the Ground, and the other is not. The difference has
to be made somehow, and therefore one side must have more in
it than the other. The reason why the excess is to be found on
the side of the Grounded is not given by Hegel. I conceive it
to be that we always start from the Surface, as that which now
represents the stratum of the reality which was first determined.
The Substratum is what is required to explain this. It is
possible, therefore, that we should determine a Substratum
which only explains part of the Surface, if all of the Substratum
does explain part of the Surface. But if the Substratum con-
tained more than the Surface, so that there was an element in
the Substratum which did not explain the Surface, how could
we ever show the existence of that element ? For it is not
part of the datum to be explained (since it is not part of the
Surface), and it is not part of the explanation. The only
alternative, then, is to take the Surface as having more in it
than the Substratum.

The ungrounded element in the Grounded has a merely
immediate connexion with the other element. The unity of
the double content " is, as unity of the different, their negative
unity, but since the Content-determinations are indifferent
towards one another, it is only their empty relation, without
Content in itself, and is not their mediation ; it is a One or
Something as their external junction " {G. L. ii. 97).

Thus Something, as the explanation of the union of the two

III. GROUND 123

elements — or rather, as the assertion of it as an ultimate fact —
is itself to be considered a Ground of a different sort. "The
two relations, the essential Content, as the simple immediate
Identity of Ground and Grounded, and then the Something, as
the relation of the separated Content, are two separate Grounds^"
(G. L. ii. 99).

126. It may be remarked of a Real Ground, though Hegel
does not mention the fact, that it may be shared by two or
more things. For the nature of several things may be in part
similar, and the Real Ground only explains part of a thing, so
that it may in this way explain several similar things. But it
is also the case, as Hegel points out in a Note {G. L. ii. 101),
that a thing can have more than one Real Ground. (This is
distinct from the fact that both the Real Ground and the
Something may be considered as Grounds.) For the special
characteristic of any Real Ground is that it does not contain
so much as is contained by the Grounded, and out of the
remainder of the content of the Grounded, other Real Grounds
may be made. This, as Hegel points out, gives a chance to
Sophistry {G. L. ii. 103). To refer a thing to part of its coutent
as its Real Ground implies that that part is the true significance
of the thing — that which is, even in ordinary language, called
essential to it. This can, by a selection of characteristics for
that purpose, be used to disguise truth. Thus it would be
sophistical to take as the Ground of highway robbery that it
diverted wealth from a richer man for the benefit of a poorer
man. For that would imply that the resemblance of highway
robbery to voluntary charity or to the imposition of a poor rate,
was more important than its difference from them.

127. This possibility of different Real Grounds for the
same thing shows the defect of the category. It does not serve,
as it professes to do, as a basis for the Surface of which it is a
Ground. It does serve as a basis, no doubt, for that part of the
Surface which has the same content as itself — but if we stopped
there we should have got back into Formal Ground. And the
other element is merely immediately connected with the

1 The last word of this extract is in the original Grundlage, not Grund (as
in the other places where I have used Ground in translating). But later on Hegel
gives the name of Grund to both the Eeal Ground and the Something.

124 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

actually Grounded element — so that this other element is not
Grounded at all. Either no Ground, or the Formal Ground,
which has already been abandoned — this is obviously an im-
possible position for a category of Ground. The solution is
offered by the possibility, already noticed, of considering the
Something, in which the Grounded and not-Grounded elements
meet, as a Ground of their union. We thus reach

(c) Complete Ground.

(G. L. ii. 103.) On the one hand we have the Real Ground
connected with the corresponding element in the Surface. On
the other hand we have the new connexion between that
element and the other element in the Surface. (For the sake
of distinction we might call this second element the Supple-
mentary Ground.) Hegel calls this category the Complete
Ground because it contains both the Formal and the Real.
The Real Ground remains, and in the Supplementary Ground
we have the Formal Ground back again, in the sense that in the
Supplementary Ground whatever is in the Grounded is also
found in the Ground. If the Grounded is ABC, and the Real
Ground is A, then the Supplementary Ground is the assertion
of the connexion of A with BC. It thus accounts for the whole
of the Grounded {G. L. ii. 104).

128. The elements of the Surface are not yet on an
equality. If ^ is the Real Ground, then the element A in the
Surface is grounded in a sense in which the other elements are
not. And thus the elements BC are considered as less funda-
mental to the nature of the thing, but equally necessary. That
is to say they are Conditions. Thus we pass to the last division
of Ground,

C. Condition.

(a) The Relatively Unconditioned.

(G. L. ii. 107.) This new category is a transformation of the
Supplementary Ground, the Real Ground being maintained
within Condition as it was within Complete Ground. The
Supplementary Ground, as has been said, was Formal. It
explained ABC by asserting that A was connected with BC.
The two sides being thus alike, the difference vanishes, and.

III. GROUND 125

instead of the connexion of A with BG being referred to a
Ground which only repeats it, it is simply taken as an im-
mediate fact. Condition is what was a form of Ground, but is
so no longer. " The Condition stands over against the Ground-
relation. The Something has a Ground besides its Condition "
{G. L. ii. 109).

We may ask why the Ground-form should collapse here
because of the identity of the two sides, though it did not do so
in the category of Formal Ground. The answer, I think, is that
there was then another way of avoiding the tautology, namely
the recourse to Real Ground, and that this did not involve the
collapse of the Ground-form. This alternative is not available
here, for the Supplementary Ground has been required just
because Real Ground, by itself, has been shown to be untenable.

But although Hegel's position may be correct, his terminology
seems to me to be misleading. He first calls the connexion of
A with BG a new sort of Ground, by the side of Real Ground,
and then ceases to call this by the name of Ground, though the
earlier Real Ground still persists. It would surely have been
clearer, if the connexion of A with BG — something quite
different from any previous Ground — had from the first been
called Condition and not Ground. The category of Complete
Ground might then have been called Conditional Real Ground,
which would be a natural and appropriate name for the category
whose restatement takes us into Condition.

129. The two elements in the Surface — the Condition-
element and the Ground-element — are at first considered as
related, but as being also on one side indifferent and uncon-
ditioned towards one another {G. L. ii. 109). It is because of
this that the present category is called the Relatively Uncon-
ditioned.

But this involves a contradiction. "Each of the two sides is
thus the contradiction between indifferent immediacy and
essential mediation — both in one relation ; or the contradiction
between stable existence and the determination of only being
a moment " {G. L. ii. 110). The same element in a thing cannot
both be immediate and mediated by something else.

Moreover, Hegel continues {G. L. ii. 110), if the same thing
could be both immediate and mediate, then, as immediate, it

126 CH. V. ESSENCE AS REFLECTION INTO ITSELF

would be Being Determinate. And Being Determinate, like all
the other categories of Being, has been shown to lead up to
Essence. Thus the very conception by which the Immediacy is
expressed has been shown to involve Mediation.
Thus we pass to

(b) The Absolutely Uncondition-ed.

(G. L. ii. 110.) The two elements have no longer any
independence of one another. The whole thing is a sinc^le
unity, and, looked at as a single unity, it is Absolutely Uncon-
ditioned. The elements indeed condition each other, but
the whole has nothing determined as conditioning it. The
Absolutely Unconditioned " contains the two sides, the Con-
dition and the Ground, as its moments within itself; it is the
unity into which they have returned. The two together make
the Form or Positing of the Absoluteh' Unconditioned. The
Unconditioned Fact is the Condition of both, but the Absolute
Condition, which is itself the Ground" {G. L. ii. 113). It will
be seen that the Absolutely Unconditioned is not equivalent to
the Absolutely Undetermined, but means that we are no longer
considering a reciprocal determination of separate elements.

(c) Transition of the Fact into Existence.

130. (G. L. ii. 114.) Ground has now disappeared. The
Unconditioned Fact is its own Ground, and thus the two sides.
Surface and Substratum, are identical, destroying the distinc-
tion which is essential to Ground. The same situation arose
previously in Formal Ground. But there the distinction was
restored by making the Ground correspond to part only of the
Surface. This, however, has now been shown to lead us back to
the rejection of the distinction. For the ungrounded parts of
the Surface became Conditions, and these, with the grounded
parts, have now fallen back into the unity, which is its own
Ground, and which is therefore immediate. "This immediacy,
mediated through Ground and Condition, and identical with
itself through the transcending of the mediation, is Existence "
{G. L. ii. 118). (It is not, of course, all mediation which is
transcended, but the mediation through Ground and Condition,
mentioned in the first part of the sentence.)

III. GROUND 127

Existence is the first subdivision of Appearance, and in
reaching it we pass out of Essence as Reflection into Self.

131. If the dialectic process were amended, as I suggested,
by passing straight from Variety to Ground, the transition
should be, I think, direct to Real Ground, since this would
remove the Indifference, which was the defect of Variety, by
making one Likeness between any two things (the Likeness
selected as the Ground) of special significance and importance.
From this the argument would proceed to Condition, as it does
with Hegel, and from Condition a valid transition could be
made to the categories of Form and Essence, Form and Matter,
and Form and Content, with which Ground would close. Thus
Formal Ground, which is identical with Form and Content,
would follow Real Ground instead of preceding it. This would
resemble the treatment in the Encyclopaedia, where, though
Ground is not explicitly divided at all, the course of the argu-
ment begins with Real Ground and then passes through Formal
Ground to Existence.

The difference is not so great as might be supposed. Formal
and Real Ground are complementary conceptions. The defects
of either would drive us to the other, unless the other had
already been proved untenable. In that case we are driven to
a new conception. Thus a transition from Real to Formal and
a transition from Formal to Real would be in themselves equally
valid. Which is correct would depend on which conception the
dialectic ought to reach first.

CHAPTER YI

APPEARANCE

132. Appearance (Die Erscheinung) is divided as follows :

I. Existence. (Die Existenz.)

A The Thing and its Properties. (Das Ding und seine
Eigenschaften.)

(a) The Thing in itself and Existence. (Ding an
sich und Existenz.)

(6) Property. (Die Eigenschaft.)
(c) The Reciprocal Action of Things. (Die Wechsel-
wirkung der Dinge.)

B. The Constitution of the Thing out of Matters. (Das

Besteheu des Dings aus Materien.)

C. The Dissolution of the Thing. (Die Auflosung des

Dings.)

II. Appearance. (Die Erscheinung.)

A. The Law of Appearance. (Das Gesetz der Erschei-

nung.)

B. The World of Appearance and the World in itself.

(Die erscheinende und die an-sich-seiende
Welt.)

C. The Dissolution of Appearance. (Die Auflosung der

Erscheinung.)

I. EXISTENCE 129

III. Essential Relation. (Das wesentliche Verhaltniss.)

A. The Relation of Whole and Parts. (Das Verhaltniss

des Ganzen und der Theile.)

B. The Relation of Force and its Manifestation. (Das

Verhaltniss der Kraft und ihrer Aeusserung.)
(a) The Conditionedness of Force. (Das Bedingtsein

der Kraft.)
(h) The Solicitation of Force. (Die Sollicitation der

Kraft.)
(c) The Infinity of Force. (Die Unendlichkeit der

Kraft.)

C. The Relation of Inner and Outer. (Verhaltniss des

Innern und Aeussern.)

p It will be seen that Appearance is used ambiguously, as the
name of the whole secondary division, which we are here
considering, and also as the name of its second tertiary
division.

I. Existence.

133. (G. L. ii. 120.) Hegel, as we saw in the last chapter,
defines Existence as " an Immediacy, mediated through Ground
and Condition, and identical with itself through the trans-
cending of the mediation" {G. L. ii. 118). This goes too far,
if we take it literally. If Existence were really constituted by
transcending mediation, and so was identical with itself, there
would be no more difference, here or in any subsequent category,
between Surface and Substratum. But such a distinction exists,
as we shall see, throughout all the categories of Appearance.
We must therefore regard this definition as exaggerated.

On the next page we find a more moderate statement.
"The doctrine of Being contains the first proposition: Being
is Essence. The second proposition : Essence is Being, con-
stitutes the content of the first division of the doctrine of
Essence. But this Being, to which Essence has determined
itself, is Essential Being (das wesentliche Sein), Existence,
that which has emerged from negativity and inwardness"
{G. L. ii. 119).

M«T. 9

130 CH. VI. APPEARANCE

Here the meaning does not appear to be that Existence
is completely immediate, but that its immediacy is greater
than that of the categories in the first division of Essence.
And this is correct. The typical conception in Existence is
that of the Thing and its Properties, and the relation between
a Thing and its Properties is, I think, to be considered as closer
than that between a Ground and the thing which is Grounded.

Now if the connexion is closer, the category may be called
more immediate. The Surface is always immediate; imme-
diacy is its distinguishing characteristic. The Surface, however,
has to be referred for explanation to a Substratum. In so far
as this Substratum is distantly and negatively related to the
Surface, the reality as a whole will not be immediate. In so
far as the relation is close and positive, and the immediate
Surface expresses the nature of the Substratum, the reality as
a whole is to be looked on as immediate.

To this extent, therefore, Hegel would be right in asserting
the greater Immediacy of Essence. But I think he goes
further. The extreme expressions, indeed, which indicate
absence of all mediation, cannot be taken literally. It is
evident he does not mean them literally, since, as has been
said, each of the categories of Existence is described by him
as having both a Surface and a Substratum. But when this
correction has been made, there remain so many expressions
emphasising the immediacy of Existence, that it seems difficult
to deny that he maintained some sudden and exceptional
increase in immediacy at this point — perhaps, indeed, an
increase which was not maintained in subsequent categories.

Here, I think, he is wrong. Existence is more immediate
than Ground, but, so far as I can see, only in the same way in
which Ground is more immediate than Essentialities, and
Essentialities than Show. In the same way, Appearance (the
tertiary division) seems to me more immediate than Existence,
and Essential Relation, again, more immediate than Appearance.
If the Thing is more closely connected with its Properties than
the Ground is with the Grounded, the Law again is more
closely connected with its examples, than the Thing is with its
Properties. Hegel's emphasis on the immediacy of Existence
must thus, I think, be considered excessive.

I. EXISTENCE 131

134. The first subdivision of Existence is

A. The Thing and its Properties.

(G. L. ii. 124.) The different elements of the Fact were
Conditions of one another. Thus a fresh unity is substituted
for the unity of Ground, which has disappeared. The various
elements were directly connected among themselves. They
belong to this Fact, and not to another. They are thus
mediated by their relation to this unity. The Substratum is
now the union of various elements of the Surface, instead of
being, as in Ground, one of those elements. Thus we get the
category of the Thing and its Properties.

It will be observed that there is no new element introduced
here into our conception. Both Things and Properties had
been already recognised. The Properties which we have here
are only the Qualities, which we have had previously, under
another name. And a Thing, for Hegel, is that which has
Qualities or Properties. Thus the dialectic has been con-
sidering things ever since it reached, at the end of Quantity,
the conception of a subject with a plurality of Qualities.
Hegel has not given them the name of Things before this
point, but the conception of a thing is the conception which
he has previously employed.

In what way, then, is this a new category ? It is a new
category because a different element is selected for the
Substratum. The conception which runs all through Essence
is that the explanation of reality lies in the relation between
one element of it and the rest. In Ground the element which
formed the Substratum was a Quality. Now that we have
been driven beyond the category of Ground, we find that in
abandoning it we have emphasised another principle of unity.
If the multiplicity of the surface can be united by the fact
that different things have a common Ground, it can also be
united by the fact that different Qualities belong to the same
thing. And as the first relation has proved inadequate as an
explanation, we proceed to the second. It is the union of
different Qualities in the same thing which is now the Essence-
relation. Hegel now, as we said above, uses the name of Thing
for the first time. The word Property, I think, is used with

9—2

132 CH. VI. APPEARANCE

this slight difference from Quahty, that two Things would not
be said to have the same Property, though they might have
similar Properties, while Qualities can be said to be common
to two things. This individualising of the Property is necessary
when, as is the case here, the vital point is its connexion with
this particular Thing. We shall see that it is again trans-
cended when we pass to the category of the Constitution of
the Thing out of Matters.

135. The connexion between the Thing and its Properties
is first taken as merely immediate. Thus we have

(a) The Thing in itself and Existence

(G. L. ii. 125), where Existence denotes the Properties —
the Surface-element. The externality of the relation con-
sists in the fact that, although the general nature of the
Thing in itself requires it to have some Existence, yet there
is nothing in its nature which requires it to have that
particular Existence rather than any other. It " is not the
Ground of the unessential Determinate Being, it is the unmoved,
undetermined unity" (G. L. ii. 126). He continues, "Therefore
the Reflection also, as Determinate Being mediated through
another, falls outside the Thing in itself. The latter must have
no definite multiplicity in itself; and so receives it first when it
is brought in by external Reflection ; while it remains indifferent
to the multiplicity. (The thing in itself has colour first in the
eye.,.&c., &c.)"

In this last sentence Hegel appears to regard his Thing in
itself as equivalent to Kant's. This comes out more clearly on
p. 131. "In so far as the Thing in itself is posited as the
undetermined, all determination falls outside it, in a reflection
which is strange to it, and against which it is indifferent. For
Transcendental Idealism this external reflection is Conscious-
ness." And he then proceeds to point out Kant's error in
taking the conception of the Thing in itself as absolutely
valid.

~ It seems to me, however, that this identification is erroneous.
Kant's Thing in itself differs from Hegel's in two important
respects. In the first place, Hegel's Thing in itself does possess
the characteristics which form its Existence, however imperfectly

I. EXISTENCE 133

it possesses them. They are the Surface of which it is the
Substratum. They can be predicated of it, and there is nothing
else of which they can be predicated. In the second place,
Hegel's Thing in itself can have no characteristics except in
this imperfect way. Its fundamental nature is to be indifferent

i to all characteristics which belong to it.

1 In neither of these points does Kant's Thing in itself
resemble it. In the first place, the phenomenal qualities are
not, for Kant, the characteristics of the Thing in itself at all.
They may be partly caused by it (inconsistent as this is with
other parts of the theory) but they are not its characteristics.
It may be due to the Kantian Thing in itself, on Kant's theory,
that I have a sensation of green. But to say that the Thing
in itself was green, would be simply a mistake. In the second
place, Kant does not exclude the possibility of the Thing in
itself having characteristics, which not only belong to it, but
express its nature, so that they would be what Hegel calls
Properties, and the Thing in itself would not be what Hegel
calls a Thing in itself Such properties of the Kantian Thing
in itself cannot, indeed, be known by the Pure Reason. But
the Pure Reason, according to Kant, expressly recognises their
possibility, and when we come to the Practical Reason we find
that some of them are pronounced to be actual.

136. We now pass to Hegel's demonstration of the
inadequacy of this category. There are, he tells us {G. L.
ii. 127), a multiplicity of Things in themselves. And it is
clear that this follows from the multiplicity of things which, as
we saw, Hegel started with at the beginning of the doctrine of
Essence. The Things in themselves are simply these things
transferred to the Substratum side of the relation.

The various Things in themselves are connected by their
respective Existences ((r. L. ii. 127). It is clear that it is only
through these that they could enter into any relations, since
the nature of the Thing in itself, as distinguished from its
Existence, excludes any relations.

But Things in themselves, as distinct from their respective
Existences, are not in any way different from one another
{G. L. ii. 128). They can only be distinguished by their
characteristics, and these all fall within their Existence. Apart

134 CH. VI. APPEAEANCE

from that, all that can be said of any Thing in itself is that it
is a Thing in itself which stands in an external and indifferent
relation to some Existence. And as much as this can be said
of any other Thing in itself,
f So far the argument seems clear. But now Hegel continues:

" The two Things in themselves, which ought to form the
extremes of the relation, do in fact (since they are to have no
definiteness as against one another) fall together into one ; there
is only one Thing in itself, which in the external relation relates
itself to itself, and it is its own relation to itself, as if to another,
which makes its definiteness. This definiteness of the Thins:
in itself is the Property of the Thing" ((?. L. ii. 128).

But it is not evident why that which was merely Existence,
when it related two Things in themselves, should now, when
the two Things in themselves have become one, have ceased to
be external and indifferent to the Substratum, so as to turn
itself into Property, and the Things in themselves into Things.
Hegel gives no reason why the connexion should be less
external and indifferent when it is with one Thing than when
it is with two.

Again, if all Things in themselves, which are connected by
their Existence, run together into one, then in the end there
wnll be only one Thing in itself. For all the Things in them-
selves are taken by Hegel as connected by their Existences.
And as this fusing of the Things in themselves forms the
transition to Things with Properties, then all reality would
consist of only one Thing with Properties. But Hegel's treat-
ment of the next category involves that there are many
Things, and not only one. And he explicitly asserts this
plurality (cp. G. L. ii. 133: "The Thing in itself is therefore
a Thing which has Properties, and there are therefore many
Things, which separate themselves from one another through
themselves, and not through an alien aspect ").

Hegel's demonstration of the transition does not, therefore,
seem satisfactory. But we can see that the transition is
necessary. The conception of the Thing in itself was that
its Properties, although they were its Properties, did not affect
it, or form part of its nature. And this is impossible. A
Property is a Quality. And the Qualities of anything are just

I. EXISTENCE 135

what constitute its nature. If they could be different without
producing any difference in the Thing, they would not be its
Qualities. And if the Qualities of the Thing were not part
of its nature, it could have no nature at all, for nothing but
the Qualities of anything can form part of its nature. Thus it
wotild have no nature, and, consequently, no reality.

We must, therefore, abandon the isolation of the Thing
from its Properties which was the characteristic of the Thing
in itself, and thus we pass to (G. L. ii. 129)

(b) Property.

137. Here the nature of the Thing is seen to consist in
its Properties. It might seem that we had returned to such
a tautology as is found in Formal Ground. But each of the
Properties, taken by itself, is not identical with the nature of
the Thing. The nature of the Thing consists in having all
its Properties and uniting them. It is this element of union
in the Substratum which keeps the category from being
tautological.

The Things are now in a living connexion with each other,
and not in the merely external connexion which existed between
Things in themselves {G. L. ii. 133). As with the Things in
themselves, so the present Things also are connected by means
of their Surface element, but while the Things in themselves
were only externally connected with their own Existence, and
consequently only externally connected with one another, here
the connexion expresses their own nature. So we reach

(c) The Reciprocal Action of Things.

(G. L. ii. 132.) Things, a.s we have seen, are connected
with one another through their Properties. But the only
connexion that has been demonstrated is that through the
similarity of Properties. Hegel, however, seems to think that
there is more. For he says {G. L. ii. 129) that the Properties
are " determined relations to an Other," which is very different
from saying that they produce relations of Likeness.

He also says {G. L. ii. 129) that " a Thing has the Property
to produce (bewirken) this or that in its Other." This looks as
if we had already arrived at Causality, and Hegel's distinction

136 CH. VI. APPEARANCE

between Causality and his present position is not very
clear. (" The Thing is here still only the quiescent (ruhige)
Thing of many Properties ; it is not yet determined as actual
Cause ; it is still only the Reflection of its determinations an
sidi, not yet itself the positing Reflection of them " (G. L.
ii. 130).)

138. Having reached this result he goes on to argue that
" the Property is this Reciprocal Action itself, and the Thing

is nothing outside it Thinghood is thus degraded to the form

of undetermined Identity with itself which has its Essentiality
only in its Property" (G. L. ii. 133). His conclusion is "The
Property, which had to constitute the relation of the stable
extremes, is now therefore itself that which is stable. The
Things on the other hand are the Unessential" {G. L. ii. 134),
Thus the Properties are now the Substratum, and the Things
the Surface. But it is not clear why all this should follow
from the connexion of Things by their Properties. Even if the
Properties could be reduced, as he supposes, to the Reciprocal
Action of the Things, the Things are as essential to the
Reciprocal Action as the Action can be to the Things, and
nothing has been introduced by which the Things should
become unessential, relatively to the Properties.

Hegel confuses the transition by mentioning, as if it were
relevant here, the ambiguity of Things. " A book is a Thing,
and each of its leaves is a Thing, and likewise every fragment
of its leaves, and so on infinitely" {G. L. ii, 133), This is
quite true, but, if it were brought in here, the next category
could not follow. For, as we have just seen, that category
takes the Properties as stable instead of the Things. But such
an ambiguity of Things as that of the book and its leaves,
makes the Properties as unstable as the Things, " I am cold,"
as written here, may be taken as one sentence, as three words,
as seven letters, or as an indefinite number of fragments of
letters. But the Properties will vary in each case. For
example, the sentence has, among its Properties, truth or
falsehood. The three words, taken separately, cannot be true
or false, but they each possess the Property of having a
meaning. The separate letters, again, have no meaning. The
ambiguity of Things which Hegel mentions here does not

I. EXISTENCE 137

really come in until the category of Whole and Parts at the
earliest.

The name of the present category also seems unfortunate.
For the new conception in it is not the Reciprocal Action of
Things, which, if Hegel's argument were right, would have
been reached in the category of Property, but the transfer of
stability from the Things to the Properties.

The name of Property now becomes inappropriate to such
stable existences. Hesjel calls them Matters. Thus we reach

B. The Constitution of the Thing out of Matters

{G. L. ii. 135), which may be called, for brevity, the category
of Matters and Things. Matters correspond to Qualities, rather
than to Properties, since the same Matter is to be found in
many Things {G. L. ii. 135), while Things had similar Properties,
but did not share the same Property. An identical Quality
might form two separate though similar Properties, for they
would be distinguished by the fact that it was the nature of
one to belong to one Thing, and of the second to belong to
another Thing. But Matters have to be determined in-
dependently of the Things which they constitute, for it is the
Matters, not the Things, which are stable. And thus what was
two similar Properties in the last category, is here replaced by
a single Matter.

The Things, though now subordinate in importance, still
remain. The Thing is now defined by enumeration of the
Matters which constitute it. It is simply made up of its
constituent Matters. It is a mere " Also " (" Auch," G. L. ii.
138.) There is Matter A, and Matter B, and the simple juxta-
position of these is the Thing.

139. Hegel now finds a contradiction in this category, on
the ground, apparently, that if the Matters are really united by
the Thing they will have to exist " in one another's pores."
(This is clearly only a metaphor, but what is meant by it is
very difficult to see.) In that case they will not be as stable
as the nature of Matters requires. On the other hand, if they
are not really united by the Thing — if the Thing is a mere
Also — it will not be a true Thing at all {G. L. ii. 139, 140).

138 CH. VI. APPEAEANCE

This argument leads him to

C. The Dissolution of the Thing.

((r.Z.ii. 138.) The name is somewhat misleading, for the Thing
is in no greater difficulties than the Matters. But what Hegel
appears to mean is that this category marks the break down of
the attempt to explain the universe by the correlative con-
ceptions of Thing on one side and of Properties or Matter on
the other. It might more appropriately be called the Disso-
lution of Existence, in the sense in which Hegel uses Existence.

We have the Things still, and we have their Qualities or
Properties. But the attempt to account for the facts by taking
either the Things or the Qualities as the Substratum has broken
down. We want a principle which will determine certain
Qualities to be found together in one Thing, and each of these
Qualities to be also found in other Things. It must be some-
thing which underlies both the Things and Qualities — which
will be a Substratum while Things and Qualities are in the
Surface. And we find what we want in the conception of
Law. Such and such Qualities are grouped in a Thing, or a
Thing has such and such Qualities in its nature, according to
Laws. Things are no longer explained by Qualities, or Qualities
by Things \ but the Laws explain both of them. Law is the
characteristic idea of the second subdivision of Appearance —
the subdivision which is also, in a narrower sense, called
Appearance, and to this we now pass.

140. Looking back on the categories of Existence, the
transition from the Thing in itself to Property must be
pronounced inevitable, even if we see cause to reject Hegel's
account of it. As to the transitions which led us from
Property to Matters and Thing, they must, I think, be rejected.
For even if Hegel had been right in taking the Properties of
Things as Relations between them, I cannot see how this would
entitle him to abandon the conception of Things and Properties
for that of Matters and Things.

But I believe it would be easy to show that the conception

1 It will be remembered that Matters are only Qualities taken as the Essence
of Things, while Properties are Qualities of which Things are taken as the
Essence.

II. APPEARANCE 139

of Matters and Things possesses equal validity with that of
Things and Properties (though not, as Hegel maintains, greater
validity). And from the category which would be formed by
the recognition of the validity of both conceptions, I believe
we could pass to Law by a process not unlike that which
Hegel does adopt.

II. Appearance.

141. {G. L. ii. 144.) The name is, as I have pointed out,
ambiguous, and it seems to have no very definite connexion
with the particular categories w^iich are found in this division.
Its first subdivision is

A. The Laiv of Appearance.

(G. L. ii. 146.) The transition to this category from the
last has been already discussed. The change is that the
categories of Thing could only account for the grouping of
the Surface-elements by making those groupings ultimate and
essential to the elements grouped. Here the groupings are
accounted for by something other than themselves, which
leaves them only a subordinate and conditioned position.

Hegel now proceeds to point out three defects in this
category. In the first place, the Law does not account for
the whole of the nature of the Surface. " The Appearance
has also another content against the content of the Law. This
other content is indeed unessential, and a return into the
content of the Law, but for the Law it is a First, not posited
by the Law; it is therefore a content externally connected with
the Law" {G. L. ii. 151). If, for example, we endeavour to
explain the fall of a leaf by the Law of Gravitation, the
explanation is only partial. The shape of the leaf, the currents
in the air, and other considerations will affect its course. Nor
would it have fallen at all, if it had not been heavier than the
air. That it is heavier is a fact, not a Law. Or if its greater
weight could be traced to another law, we may then ask why
this Law should be applicable to the leaf, and not to hydrogen.
And the answer must finally be found in a fact which is not
a Law.

140 CH. VI. APPEARANCE

The second defect in the category of Law is that the
additional content, whose existence constitutes the first defect,
is related to the content of the Law in a negative manner.
The Law is unchanging (ruhig) (G. L. ii, 151). The other
content is changing (unruhig). I do not believe that Hegel
means that some Laws (it would not be true of all) deal with
changes of what is subject to them, while the Laws themselves
are unchanging. I believe him to mean that the additional
content, besides being indifferent to the Law, is different in
different cases, in all of which the Law is the same. A leaf
and a stone both obey the Law of Gravitation in falling to
( the earth. But the additional element in the two cases is
I very different. Hegel is, however, rather obscure here.

The third defect is the absence of any inherent connexion
between the circumstances linked together in the Law itself.
Why should one body attract another ? And why should the
relation between the distance of the bodies and the force of
the attraction be what it is, and not something else ? This
may be explained by another Law. But then a similar question
will arise about this second Law. Eventually we must come
to a conjunction which is ultimate and inexplicable {Q. L.
ii. 152).

142. The first two defects are due to that part of the
content of the Surface which is not accounted for by the Law.
But this content is not intrinsically different from the part
which the Law does account for. If one can be accounted for,
so can the other {G. L. ii. 153). This can be done by making
the Law more precise. Instead of referring the fall of the leaf
and the rise of the tides to the same Law of Gravitation, we
can find for each a separate and more detailed Law of the
action of gravitation under particular circumstances, which
will leave much less of the content of the Surface unaccounted
for. Still, however, a general Law of tides will leave outside
of itself many aspects of the rise of the tide at a particular
time and place. To remedy this we must make the Law still
more particular. And so we shall go on, till the Law covers
all the circumstances of the particular case. But by doing
so it will have ceased to be a Law, for it will have no generality.
It will not explain the case by connecting it with others. It

II. APPEARANCE 141

will simply restate it. Thus we pass, when this is applied to
the whole of the Surface of the universe, to

B. The World of Appearance and the World in itself.

(G. L. ii. 153.) Here the Substratum is merely the restate-
ment of the Surface, or, to put it more accurately, the Surface
is the retlection of the Substratum.

Hegel appears to think that this cures the third defect which
he finds in Law, as well as the other two. He says that the
two sides of the Law now involve one another, because each is
determined as being different from the other, and so involves
the other {G. L. ii. 154). But I cannot see that they do this
more than they did before. The Law is changed into the World
in itself. The connexion between two classes of particulars
which we found in the Law is replaced (since generality is now
sacrificed for the sake of completeness) by a connexion between
two particulars in the World in itself. But the two particulars
are no more inherently connected than the two classes were.

It seems to me, indeed, that Hegel was wrong in counting
this third characteristic of Law as a defect which has to be
transcended here. We find just the same immediate ultimate
conjunction far higher up in the dialectic in the Syllogisms of
Necessity. And there it is not regarded as a defect to be trans-
cended, but, on the contrary, as a truth the explicit recognition
of which is itself an advance. The characteristic inadequacy of
the present category of Law — the one which we must trans-
cend as we pass out of it — seems to me to be contained in the
first and second defects given by Hegel. And these, as we
have seen, ay^e transcended in the World of Appearance.

Hegel regards these two worlds as having their correspond-
ing contents related to each other as polar opposites. The
North Pole in the World of Appearance is "in and for itself*
the South Pole. Evil and unhappiness in the World of Appear-
ance are "in and for themselves" good and happiness {G. L.
ii. 158. The phrase used here is "an und fUr sich," and not, as
in the title of the category, " an sich ").

I must confess myself at a loss to understand this. The two
Worlds are, of course, distinguished as Surface and Substratum.
But why should this make any difference in their contents.

142 CH. VI. APPEARANCE

except that of being Surface and Substratum respectively ?
And what, on this view, would correspond, in the World in
itself, to those characteristics of the World of Appearance which
are not one of a pair of polar opposites ?

143. Since the two sides are now perfectly alike except for
a distinction of form (for Hegel does not regard the polar oppo-
sition of the two Worlds as more than this, and, if we reject the
polar opposition, it is still clearer that there is only a formal
ditference) the category breaks down. In referring the World
of Appearance to the World in itself we are only referring it to
itself. The only difference is the difference of form, and that is
simply the affirmation of the fact that one is referred to the
other. Now to refer anything to itself as its own Substratum
is obviously useless. If it does explain itself, there could be no
need for a reference to a Substratum at all. If it does not
explain itself, such a Substratum can never explain it. So we
reach {G. L. ii. 158)

C. The Dissolution of Appearance.

Once more, as previously in Identity and in Formal Ground,
we find the conception of Essence reduced to a tautology, owing
to the identity of content in Surface and Substratum. What
is to be done ? We cannot, as we did in the case of Identity,
supplement ^'s identity with itself by means of its difference
from B, for here the identical content covers the whole of the
universe. Nor can we, as with Formal Ground, avoid the
difficulty by ascribing to the World in itself only part of the
content of the World of Appearance. For that had already
been done in Law, and it was the inadequacy of this which
drove us on to the category of the two Worlds.

144. Only one alternative remains. We must abandon the
attempt — hitherto characteristic of the categories of Essence —
to explain the content of the Surface by means of the content
of the Substratum. The explanation of the Surface is now to
be found, not in the content of the Substratum, but in its own
relation to the Substratum — a relation which no less explains
the Substratum {G. L. ii. 160). Thus the tautology has
vanished. The Surface is no longer explained by the content
of a Substratum which has the same content as itself. It is

III. ESSENTIAL RELATION 143

explained by the fact that this content is found in two aspects
— Surface and Substratum. And the fact of the relation of the
two aspects is of course not identical with either aspect. This
is the positive significance of our present category, and this
takes us out of Appearance, in the narrower sense, into the last
subdivision of Appearance, in the wider sense {G. L. ii. 161).

III. Essential Relation.
A. The Relation of Whole and Parts.

(G. L. ii. 162.) Hegel shows us with sufficient clearness
the transition to Essential Relation as a whole, but he is not
■explicit as to the transition to Whole and Parts. It is clear
that this category falls properly within Essential Relation, The
identity of content between Whole and Parts is manifest ; the
cardinal fact about them is that they are equal to one another.
And tautology has disappeared, for we do not attempt here to
•explain the nature of the Parts by the nature of the Whole, but
by the relation of the form of the Parts to the form of the
Whole. But why is this the first subdivision of Essential
Relation, and why do we proceed to it direct from the Dis-
solution of Appearance ?

The reason, I think, is as follows. The Surface has always
been a multiplicity throughout Essence. On the other hand,
the Substratum has always presented itself as a unity, not
always as an undivided unity, but always as something which
did unify the multiplicity of the Surface. The only exceptions
have been the limiting cases in which the Substratum became
identical in nature with the Surface. And this always involved
a break down through tautology.

Whenever the Substratum has not been impotent from
tautology it has unified. Now that we have seen that the two
sides of the Essence-relation have the same content, and only
differ in form, what we require is a difference of form such that
the one side is a unity and the other a multiplicity, while the
content of each is the same. And this just gives us the con-
ception of the Substratum as a Whole, and of the Surface as its
Parts. All that is existent forms a single Whole consisting of Parts.

145. If we look more closely at this category, we see that
the statement that the Whole is equal to its Parts is only true

144 CH. VI. APPEARANCE

if the Parts are conceived as taken together. The Whole is
not equal to all its Parts in the sense in which the original
resembles all its copies — it is not equal to each of them. It is
only equal to them as taken together — taken as a unity. But
the unity of the Parts is the Whole. And thus we have come
round to the tautology that the Whole is equal to the Whole
{G. L. ii. 166).
^ In the same way the Parts are not equal to the Whole as a
Whole. If the Parts are taken as separate (and, if not, they
would he the Whole) then the Whole has to be taken as
divided in order to equal them, since it is not, as a Whole,
equal to each of the separate Parts. But the Whole as divided
is the Parts. Once more we reach a tautology — the Parts are
I equal to the Parts {G. L. ii. 167).

The reason of this is the indifference of the relation between
the forms of Whole and Part. Under this category there is no
necessity to take what is taken as Many as also One, nor to take
what is taken as One as also Many. And so we can only say
that the One is the Many if it is the Many — i.e. that the Many
is the Many, and, in the same way, that the One is the One.
The One could as well be undivided, and the Many as well un-
united. Since the undivided One is not a Whole, and the un-
united Many are not Parts, we may say that if anything is
merely a Whole, it is quite indifferent to its nature whether it
is a Whole or not, and if any aggregate of things are merely
Parts, it is quite indifferent to their nature whether they are
Parts or not.

The category has thus broken down. Instead of the signi-
ficant assertion that the Whole equals the Parts, we have the
two tautologies that the Whole equals the Whole, and the Parts
the Parts. Now our present position permits and requires that
the content of the Substratum and of the Surface shall be
identical, but this is only possible because the difference
between them, which is still essential, is transferred to the form.
If the difference of forms goes too, the tautology that results
involves as complete a failure as previous tautologies. Indeed,
the failure is more obvious, for the category has developed into
two separate and unconnected tautologies. Thus all connexion
between the Substratum and the Surface is denied. All that

III. ESSENTIAL RELATION 145

we can say is that the Substratum is the Substratum, and the
Surface is the Surface.

And even the tautologies destroy themselves. As Hegel
points out (G. L. ii. 167) the Whole, when taken out of all
connexion with the Parts, ceases to be a Whole at all, and
becomes an abstract identity; and the Parts, taken out of all
connexion with the W^hole, cease to be Parts, and become an
unconnected manifold.

146. The category has broken down on account of the
merely indifferent connexion of Whole and Parts. It is true
that, as we have just seen, a Whole is not a Whole unless it
has Parts. But when we bring a unity under the conception
of Whole, we imply that it is indifferent to it whether it has
Parts (and so is a Whole), or not. The indifference to the
correlative form makes the form with which we start itself
indifferent to the content it is imposed on.

It is this indifference which produced the tautologies, for,
since there was no inherent connexion between the two forms,
the equality could only be asserted by eliminating the differ-
ence of form. It is necessary, therefore, to regard the unity of
the Substratum as a form which cannot exist except in com-
pany with the other form of the variety of the Surface, and the
variety of the Surface, again, as a form which can only exist in
company with the unity of the Substratum. Whatever exists
in the one form must also exist in the other {G. L. ii. 168). So
we reach

B. The Relation of Force and its Manifestation.

f (G. L. ii. 170.) This category seems to imply by its name
much more than has been reached in this deduction. But if we
take Hesrel's definition of Force and Manifestation we shall find
that it contains no more than the deduction justifies. " The
Relation of Force is the higher return into itself, in which the
unity of the Whole, which determines the relation of the stable
Other-Being, ceases to be external and indifferent to this
multiplicity" {G. L. ii. 170). As elsewhere in the dialectic,
the name taken from a conception used in empirical science
does not indicate that the category has all the content to be
found in that empirical conception. It only implies that the

146

CH. VI. APPEARANCE

category finds in that conception its clearest empirical embodi-
ment.

In the first place, says Hegel, Force has its Surface-moment
in the form of an existent Something. This gives us

{a) The Conditionedness of Force.
(G. L. ii. 171.) This Something, he tells us, is to be con-
ceived as a Thing or Matter separate from the Force {G. L. ii.

171).

147. But, as he remarks at once, the immediate existence
is not, in Force, something outside it, but a moment in its own
nature. "The Thing, in which the Force is supposed to be
(sein soUte), has here no more meaning.... And the Force is thus
not merely a determined Matter; such stability has long ago
passed over into Positing and Appearance " {G. L. ii. 172).

Force has its immediate existence as an element in its own
nature. That which exists in the form of Force must also exist
in the form of Manifestation. Since the immediacy here " has
determined itself as the negative unity which relates itself to
itself, it is itself Force" {G. L. ii. 173). The Surface and the
Substratum are both Forces. " The relation " of each to the
other "is not the passivity of a process of determination, so
that thereby something Other came into it; but the Impulse
(Anstoss) only solicits (sollicitirt) them" {G. L. ii. 174). From
this Hegel calls the new category {G. L. ii. 173)

(6) The Solicitation of Force.

148. Solicitation is the determination exercised by each
Force on the other. (The two Forces are the original Force of
the Substratum, and the Force of the Surface, which was
originally Manifestation.) But since this is so, each "only
solicits in so far as it is solicited to solicit." And each " is only
solicited in so far as it has solicited the other to solicit it"
{G. L. ii. 175). Thus neither side has any immediacy as against
the other, and all that is real is the unity of the two {G. L. ii.
176). This gives us

(c) The Infinity of Force.
{G. L. ii. 176.) This is so called because Force is no longer
limited either by a Thing on which it acts, or by another Force

III. ESSENTIAL RELATION 147

outside it. The Force and its Manifestation have nothing in-
dependent of one another, even in form. The Force is thus
completely self-determined, that is, in Hegel's language, it is
infinite. From this Hegel proceeds to make the transition to
the next category of Inner and Outer.

149. I believe that the subdivisions of Force and Manifes-
tation are not only unnecessary, but positively erroneous. The
Thesis seems to me unjustified, since it involves a degree of
independence between the Force and the Manifestation which
is quite inconsistent with the general idea of Force and Mani-
festation. The Force, as Hegel has told us (G. L. ii. 170,
quoted above, Section 146), is not external or indifferent to its
Manifestation. But in this category of the Conditiouedness of
Force he makes the Manifestation " an existent Something."
Not only is this too independent to be reconciled with the
general conception he has given of Force, but it would even
involve a retrogression beyond Whole and Parts. For in
Whole and Parts, though the forms of the two sides were
indifferent to each other, their content was the same. Here,
however, since the Something is conceived as a Thing, or as a
Matter, it seems inevitable that it should be conceived as having
to some degree a different content from the Force.

It seems curious that Hegel should have introduced this
Thesis at all, since he remarks, in the passage quoted above
(Section 147) from G. L. ii. 172 that it involves conceptions
which have been already transcended. It is probable that he
had unconsciously slipped from his own definition of Force to a
more common use of the same word. It would be by no means
unusual to speak of a heavy body as manifesting the force of
gravity, or of a man as manifesting the force of ambition. But
they could not be Manifestations of Forces in the Hegelian
sense, for they are very far from being mere forms of gravity or
ambition. It is this that Hegel seems to have forgotten.

Even if we grant the Thesis, can we defend the Antithesis ?
If Force is found on both sides of the relation, can Force, as
Hegel has defined it, retain any meaning ? Force is for Hegel
merely the name of a form, since the content is identical with
that of Manifestation. And this form is strictly correlative with
Manifestation. If we ask what is the distinction of the form of

10—2

148 CH. VI. APPEARANCE

Force from the form of Manifestation, I do not see that there
is any possible answer, except that Force is the form of the
Substratum, and that Manifestation is the form of the Surface,
and, further, that Force is the unity, and Manifestation the
plurality. Now if Force has to be taken so widely as to include
the Surface-form (which is the plurality) it has lost both its
characteristics, and ought not to be called Force. We cannot
have Force without Manifestation, and, if both sides are Forces,
there is no Manifestation left.

Here, once more, Hegel seems to have slipped into the
ordinary use of Force, in a way which is inconsistent with his
own definition. In ordinary language Forces often mean, not
moments, but stable realities, which can exist each for itself,
and can stand in causal relations to one another. But Force,
as defined and demonstrated by Hegel, means the whole of the
Substratum of any reality. To reduce the Essence-relation to
a relation between two Hegelian Forces is therefore impossible.
For they cannot exist without their Manifestations, and such a
relation has no place for Manifestations.

150. I believe that these two categories are unnecessary as
well as unjustifiable. We can proceed without any subdivisions
from the undivided category of Force and Manifestation to the
catearorv of Inner and Outer. We saw that Force and Manifes-
tation differ only in form, and that the two forms are not
indifferent to each other, as they were in Whole and Parts, but
depend on each other. There can be no Force without Mani-
festation, nor any Manifestation without Force. Consequently
each of them is no longer related to anything merely external
to it. The Force is distinguished from the Manifestation, but
the difference is not one immediately given to Force, but one
which is found in the Force's own nature. The difference is
also to be found in the Manifestation's own nature.

And thus we reach at once what Hegel calls the Infinity
of Force. The Force is not limited by anything outside itself
— not even a form. For the form of Manifestation is posited
in the very nature of Force. Force, therefore, only limits itself,
and is, in Hegelian language. Infinite. (This state of things
might as well be called Infinity of Manifestation. For the form
of Force is involved in the nature of Manifestation.) The

III. ESSENTIAL RELATION 149

Infinity of Force is not an advance on its original conception,
as Hegel says that it is, but is its characteristic from the first.
He only appears to advance to it because, as we have seen, he
first illegitimately falls back.

151. From the Infinity of Force we can go on, with Hegel,
to Inner and Outer. For now all difference between Surface
and Substratum disappears. That difference, till Essential
Relation was reached, had been a difference of content, so that,
wherever the difference of content was eliminated, the category
broke down from tautology. With Essential Relation the
content of both sides was admitted to be the same, and the
difference was confined to the form. But now even the differ-
ence in form has vanished. It is no longer the case that the
universe can be taken under one form or under the other form,
and that this duplicity of form can be relied on for an explana-
tion. To get rid of the contradiction in the category of Whole
and Parts, we had to say that the unity has ceased to be "ex-
ternal and indifferent to" the "multiplicity" (G. L. ii. 170).
And thus the universe cannot be taken as One and again as
Many and an explanation sought in the relation of these two
forms. There is only one form in which it can be taken, in
Avhich it is both Many and One. When you take it as Force,
you thereby take it as Manifestation. When you take it as
Manifestation, you thereby take it as Force. The Surface is
involved in the Substratum, and the Substratum in the Surface.
" The Externality of Force is identical with its Internality "
{G. L. ii. 177). With these words Hegel passes to

G. The Relation of Inner and Outer

{G. L. ii. 177), where the two sides are completely identical.
There is no longer even a difference of form. " The Outer is
not only equal to the Inner in respect to content, but both are
only one Fact (Sache)" {G. L. ii. 178).

The name of the category may not seem very well chosen
to express this absolute identity. The terms Inner and Outer
are sometimes used to express a considerable difference between
the two sides (cp. Enc. Section 140). Again, they are some-
times used to express a closer relation between the two sides, with
very little difference. But, in ordinary language, they always

150

CH. VI. APPEARANCE

imply some difference, whereas Hegel uses them to denote the
absence of difference.

It would, however, have been difficult, if not impossible, to
find a double name which would have been more appropriate.
For when we are clear that we mean only a single reality, we
do not naturally use a double name. Any other name, which
consisted of two correlative terms, would have implied at least
as much difference as Inner and Outer.

But why, it may be asked, does Hegel want a double
name ? The Substance and the Substratum are now absolutely
identical. Why, then, require a double name for what is
essentially single ? The explanation is, I think, that Inner
and Outer is the Synthesis of the previous categories, and that
its double name has reference to those earlier stages. The
identity of the Substratum and Surface is the result of a gradual
and lengthy modification of the view that they are really
different. The Synthesis states this in a way which sums up
what has been gained, by mentioning the distinction only to
deny it.

With the identity of Inner and Outer we pass from Appear-
ance to Actuality — the third and last division of Essence.

Note on the Difference het^ueen the Greater Logic and the
Encyclopaedia in the first two divisions of Essence.

152. I have postponed this question till now because, as I
pointed out in Chapter V., some categories which are found in
one division in the Greater Logic are found in the other in the
Encyclopaedia.

The following table will show the different arrangements.
For the sake of brevity I omit categories of the fifth order in
the Greater Logic, except in the two cases where they correspond
to categories in the Encyclopaedia.

Greater Logic.

Essence as Reflection
into itself.

I. Show.

A. The Essential and Un-
essential.

Encyclopaedia.

Essence as Ground of
Existence.

Pure Determinations of Re-
flection.

A. Identity.

III. ESSENTIAL RELATION

151

B. Show.

B. Difference.

(a) Diversity.

(&) Likeness and Unlike-

ness.

(c) Positive and Negative

C. Reflection.

C. Ground.

IT. The Essentialities.

II. Existence.

A. Identity.

B. Difference.

(a) Absolute Difference.

(b) Variety.

(c) Opposition.
C. Contradiction.

III. Ground.

A. Absolute Ground.

(a) Form and Essence.
(6) Form and Matter.
(c) Form and Content.

III. The Thing.

A. The Thing and its Pro-
perties.

I.

II.

B.

Determined Ground.

B. The Thing and Matters.

C.

Condition.

C. Matter and Form.

Appearance.

Appearance.

Exi.

3tence.

I. The Phenomenal World.

A.

The Thing and its Pro-
perties.

B.

The Constitution of the
Thing out of Matters.

C.

The Dissolution of the
Thing.

Appearance.

II. Content and Form.

A.

The Law of Appearance.

B.

The World of Appearance
and the World in itself.

C.

The Dissolution of Ap-
pearance.

Essential Relation.

III. Relation.

A.

The Relation of Whole
and Parts.

A. Whole and Part.

B.

The Relation of Force and

B. Force and its Manifesta

its Manifestation.

tion.

C.

The Relation of Inner and

C. Inner and Outer.

III.

A. T

B. T]

C. Tl
Outer,

1-52 CH. VI. APPEARANCE

153. Comparing these two tables, we find the following
differences. (1) The whole triad of Show, which is a division
of the third order in the Greater Logic, is absent in the Ency-
clopaedia ; and the Essentialities, under a different name, are
the first division of the third order in the Encyclopaedia, while
in the Greater Logic they were the second division. (2) Con-
tradiction is not found in the Encyclopaedia, and in its place
among the Pure Determinations of Reflection we find Ground,
which is here only an undivided category of the fourth order,
while in the Greater Logic it was a category of the third order,
and was itself divided, and again subdivided. The result of
these two differences is that the whole content of the secondary
division called, in the Greater Logic, Essence as Reflection into
itself, is condensed, in the Encyclopaedia, into a single tertiary
division.

The gap which is thus left for the Encyclopaedia is filled up
by (3) transferring Existence from the second to the first of the
secondary divisions ; and by (4) dividing it into two. Existence
and Thing being taken as two separate divisions of the third
order, while in the Greater Logic Existence is the name for the
division of the third order which contains the categories of
Thing as its subdivisions.

This transference of Existence produces the result (5) that
the Phenomenal World forms the first division within Appear-
ance in the Encyclopaedia, although its significance is the same
as that of Appearance (in the narrower sense) in the Greater
Logic, which there forms the second division of Appearance in
the wider sense.

The Encyclopaedia (6) takes, as the second division of
Appearance, Content and Form, which is thus a division of the
third order. In the Greater Logic, on the other hand. Form
and Content is a division of the fifth order within Ground. We
have now reached, in each Logic, to the categories of Relation,
which are treated in the same way in both works.

In addition to these changes (7) Form and Matter is, in the
Greater Logic, a division of the fifth order within Ground, while
in the Encyclopaedia it is a division of the fourth order within
Thing. Also (8) as was mentioned in Chapter V. (Section 131)
the line of argument in the Encyclopaedia passes from Real

III. ESSENTIAL RELATION 153

to Formal Ground, while in the Greater Logic it passes from
Formal to Real.

154. The first five of these changes place categories in
different places in the chain, and make them of higher or lower
orders than before, but do not invert their places. The changes
of place are caused only by the omission of certain categories,
and by the expansion and contraction of others. But the sixth
and seventh do invert the order of categories. In the Encyclo-
paedia Form and Content comes after Existence, after Thing,
and after the Phenomenal World, while it comes before the
corresponding categories in the Greater Logic. Form and
Matter is not so much displaced, but in the Encyclopaedia it
comes after Existence, and as the last division of Thing, while
in the Greater Logic it precedes both Thing and Existence.

The first of these differences — the omission of the categories
of Show — appears to me an improvement for the reasons which
I have given above (Section 103). With regard to Ground, I
think, as I have also explained above (Section 131), that the
line of argument adopted in the Encyclopaedia is better than
that adopted in the Greater Logic in respect of the eighth of
our differences — the order in which Formal Ground and Real
Ground were taken. On the other hand the greater develop-
ment given to Ground in the Greater Logic, and the number
of subdivisions introduced (the second difference), seems to me
to give it an advantage over the Encyclopaedia, where the
treatment becomes obscure from its condensation.

The removal of Existence and Thing to the first section,
which is the third difference, does not seem to have any great
importance^ And the fourth change — the separation of Exist-
ence and Thing as separate categories — appears to be only a
change in the use of names. In each Logic there is, between
Ground and Thing, a stage where Ground and Consequent fall
together. The only difference is that in the Encyclopaedia this
is taken as a stage distinct both from Ground and Thing and
called Existence, while in the Greater Logic it falls within
Ground, and is called Transition of the Fact into Existence.

1 Rosenkrenz, in his Erlduterungen zu Hegel's Encyclopddie, pp. 30, 31, finds
a distinct change for the better in the arrangement of the Encyclopaedia, but
I am not convinced by his argument.

154 CH. VI. APPEARANCE

Thus in the Greater Logic the name of Existence is left over as
the general name for the categories of Thing, The difference
is thus simply verbal.

The fifth difference — that the Phenomenal World is a Thesis
in the Encyclopaedia, while the corresponding category is an
Antithesis in the Greater Logic — may also be dismissed as
unimportant. In respect of the sixth and seventh — those which
concern Form and Content and Form and Matter, the Gi^eater
Logic appears to have the advantage. It treats them as
categories of Ground and places them next one another, while
the Encyclopaedia puts them well after Ground, and inserts
between them the category of the Phenomenal World. Both
these changes are for the worse. Both Form and Matter and
Form and Content are essentially categories of Ground — of the
attempt, that is, to link things together by similarities. (Form
and Content is the collapse of Ground into tautology — the end
to which it inevitably tends, and which proves its inadequacy,)
And by placing them next one another there is a valid transi-
tion from one to the other. In the Encyclopaedia, on the other
hand, Hegel's attempt to pass from Thing and Matters to
Matter and Form {Enc. Section 128), and, again, his attempt to
pass from the Phenomenal World to Content and Form {Enc.
Section 133), are unsatisfactory.

CHAPTER VII

ACTUALITY

155. Actuality (Wirklichkeit) is divided as follows :

I. The Absolute. (Das Absolute.)

A. The Exposition of the Absolute. (Die Auslegung

des Absolute.)

B. The Absolute Attribute. (Das absolute Attribut.)

C. The Modus of the Absolute. (Der Modus des Abso-

lute.)

II. Actuality. (Die Wirklichkeit.)

A. Contingency, or Formal Actuality, Possibility and

Necessity. (Zufalligkeit, oder formelle Wirk-
lichkeit, Moglichkeit und Nothwendigkeit.)

B. Relative Necessity, or Real Actuality, Possibility and

Necessity. (Relative Nothwendigkeit, oder
reale Wirklichkeit, Moglichkeit und Noth-
wendigkeit.)

C. Absolute Necessity. (Absolute Nothwendigkeit.)

III. The Absolute Relation. (Das absolute Verhaltniss.)

A. The Relation of Substantiality. (Verhaltniss der

Substantialitat.)

B. The Relation of Causality. (Verhaltniss der Kausali-

tat.)

(a) Formal Causality. (Die formelle Kausalitat.)

156 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

(b) Determined Causality. (Die bestimmte Kausali-

tat.)

(c) Action and Reaction. (Wirkimg und Gegen-

wirkung.)

C. Reciprocity. (Die Wechselwirkung.)

The only ambiguity in these titles is that Actuality is used
to denote both the whole secondary division we are considering,
and the second of the tertiary divisions contained in it.

Actuality is, I think, one of the parts of the Greater Logic
which I'equires most amendment. In the first place, as I shall
endeavour to show, the whole content of the first two sub-
divisions, the Absolute and Actuality, is erroneous, and should
be removed. (In doing this, however, we should only be
departing from the Greater^ Logic to follow the Encyclopaedia.)
And, in the second place, the treatment of Causality presents
very grave defects.

The transition which leads to Actuality asserts that Ex-
ternality is identical with Internality (G. L. ii. 177). It is
the stability and solidity given by this complete union which
causes the present secondary division to be specially worthy of
the name of Actuality. " In this identity of Appearance with
the Inner or Essence, Essential Relation has determined itself
to Actuality " {G. L. ii. 183).

I. The Absolute.

A. The Exposition of the Absolute.

156. (G. L. ii. 186.) We have, says Hegel, the Inner, or
Essence-element, and the Outer, or Being-element. " The
Absolute itself is absolute unity of both " (G. L. ii. 186).
"The determination of the Absolute is to be the absolute form,
but not in the same way as Identity, whose moments are only
simple determinations — but as an Identity, each of the moments
of which is itself the totality, and is therefore indifferent towards
the form, and is the complete content of the whole" (G. L. ii. 186).
This is the restatement of Inner and Outer which is to be
expected at this place, but there seems no particular reason

I. THE ABSOLUTE 157

why it should be called the Absolute. On the next page, how-
ever, we find a very important statement — namely that the
conception of the Absolute is incompatible with a variety of
content. " The Absolute itself is the absolute Identity ; this is
its determination, so that all multiplicity of the World in itself,
and of the World of Experience, or all multiplicity of the inner
and outer totality is transcended in it" (G. L. ii. 187).

This passage must, I think, be taken as meaning that in
this category not only has all difference between the Surface
and Substratum vanished, but all differences which previously
existed within the Surface, or within the Substratum, have also
vanished, leaving a unity quite free from difference. This is a
very important addition to the information about the category.
For the vertical difference, so to speak — the difference between
the immediate element and the deeper element which explains
it — might have vanished, and yet the horizontal differentiations
— the distinctions between one finite thing and another finite
thing — might have been preserved.

I do not think that there can be any doubt that Hegel
regarded both of them as eliminated here. The words quoted
above from p. 187 could not be made to apply to the difference
between the World in itself and the World of Appearance, or
between the Inner and the Outer. It is a multiplicity which
is here transcended, and not a mere duality, such as is the
difference between Surface and Substratum. And it falls within
the Surface, and within the Substratum, not between them.
This view is confirmed by the subsequent course of the argu-
ment in the triad which commences here, and is supported by
Hegel's choice of this place to discuss Spinoza's philosophy
{G. L. ii. 194).

157. We can now understand why Hegel gives this category
the name of the Absolute. The word is habitually used of the
universe viewed as a unity, and it forms a very appropriate
name for a category which denies everything except the
unity.

But the introduction of this fresh characteristic is illegiti-
mate. The assertion of the unity between Surface and Sub-
stratum is justified, for it was demonstrated in the category of
Inner and Outer. But the removal of all multiplicity from the

158 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

Actuality thus formed has not been demonstrated at all. And
without the necessity of this transition being demonstrated, we
have no right to go on to it. It seems scarcely possible to
suppose that Hegel has confused the two unities, and imagined
that we are justified in denying all multiplicity in Actuality
because the duality of Surface and Substratum has been
transcended. And yet it seems scarcely possible to explain in
any other manner the introduction of the new characteristic
without the least attempt at demonstration.

Hegel has proved, no doubt, that the Outer is now identical
with the Inner. And it may perhaps be said that, though
this is not the same as the denial of all multiplicity, yet it
involves it. For, as against the Outer, the Inner was looked
on as emphasising the unity of the content, while the Outer
emphasised the multiplicity. But the unity of Surface and
Substratum has not been reached by explaining away the
Surface and leaving the Substratum as the only reality. The
attempts of both sides to preserve their natures as they were
when they were separate have been transcended. The Inner
has been identified with the Outer as much as the Outer with
the Inner. The result ought to be a category which combines
harmoniously the multiplicity and the unity — such a category
as we shall find later in Substance — not a category which ignores
the multiplicity in favour of the unity.

The fact is that the conception which Hegel introduces
here has been reached and transcended in the very earliest
stages of Essence. The Surface, in so far as it is real at all, is
always taken by Hegel as a multiplicity. And thus a category
which denies the reality of multiplicity has to treat the Surface-
element as completely unreal.

This is how Hegel does treat it here. And by doing so he
goes back to the category of Show. (I do not mean the division
of the third order, but the division of the fourth order, which
forms the Antithesis of the division of the third order.) The
characteristic of Show was that the Substratum was everything
and the Surface nothing. And this is really Hegel's position
with regard to the Absolute. He asserts, indeed, that Surface
and Substratum are identical, but, as we shall see, he admits
that multiplicity still arises on the Surface, and has to be treated

I. THE ABSOLUTE 159

as unreal. Thus he falls back here into a position which he has
already demonstrated to be inadequate, and replaced by some-
thing more adequate, and which he has therefore no right to
introduce again here\

In so far as Spinoza's philosophy is appropriately treated
under this category of the Absolute, it could be treated with
equal fitness under the category of Show. It is only one side
of Spinoza's thought — that which finds expression in the
principle that all determination is negation — which exemplifies
Hegel's category of the Absolute. And this is exactly the
position of Show.

158. Leaving the question of the legitimacy of this category,
we must now consider the transition to the next. We cannot
after all get rid of the multiplicity. Since the Absolute
"contains all ditference and determination of form, or since it
is the absolute form and reflection, the variety of content must
also come forward in it" {G. L. ii. 187). The Absolute, that is,
cannot preserve the purit}' of its unity by rejecting anything.
It contains everything, including multiplicity. But the Absolute
has been determined as this pure unity, and it follows that "the
transparency of the finite, which allows only the Absolute to be
seen through it, ends in entire disappearance (Verschwinden);
for there is nothing in the finite, which could maintain for it
a ditference from the Absolute; it" (the finite) "is a medium
that is absorbed by that which shines through it" {G. L. ii. 188).
But such a disappearance cannot be complete. For, in order
even to disappear, the finite must have some reality, and that
is just what this category must refuse to it. The Absolute can
destroy the finite, if it is assumed that the finite is there to
destroy, but the fact that it should be there to destroy is
incompatible with the supremacy of the Absolute. " Such a
determination has not its beginning in the Absolute, but only
its end" {G. L. ii. 189). And thus we are forced to the con-
clusion that the Absolute, which is a pure unity, cannot, after
all, be the whole of reality. " That Absolute, which has its being
only as absolute identity, is only the Absolute of an external
reflection. It is therefore not the Absolute-Absolute, but the

^ In several passages be actually gives the name of Show to the Surface-
element of the Absolute, e.g. G. L. ii. 188 and 192.

160 CH, VII. ACTUALITY

Absolute in a determinatioD, or it is an Attribute" ((?. L. ii. 189).
So we reach {G. L. ii. 190)

B. The Absolute Attribute.

159. This transition seems to me not to be valid. For it
is a transition to a conception which is recognised, at the time
when we pass to it, to be a contradiction. The Absolute was to
be the sole reality. It is contradictory to take it as one side
only of the reality. It cannot be said that the conception of
the Absolute is so altered in the transition that there is no
longer a contradiction. The contradiction does remain, for it is
subsequently put forward as the ground of the transition to the
category of Modus.

Now it is illegitimate to pass to a category which is realised,
from the previous course of the argument, to be a contradiction.
The transitions of the dialectic are made to avoid contradictions,
and if we see that we create a new contradiction by going on,
there is no ground why we should go on at all. Of course each
category to which we go develops a contradiction, but as soon
as it does that, it is seen to be untenable. A category, which
was from the beginning seen to be contradictory, which we only
made by explicitly asserting the contradiction which makes it
necessary to leave it, can have no rightful place in the dialectic.

160. If, however, this category be once reached, the necessity
of advancing from it is obvious. If the Absolute is an Attribute,
it only expresses part of the nature of that of which it is an
Attribute. There must be other parts of that nature, which
are not expressed by the Absolute, and which are independent
of it. But this is impossible, for the Absolute has all along-
been determined as the whole nature of reality, and if it can
only exist by the side of something which is not itself, it cannot
exist at all. " The Form therefore, whether taken as Outer or
Inner, through which the Absolute is an Attribute, is at the
same time posited as being something intrinsically null, an
external Show, or mere Manner (Ai't und Weise)" {G. L. ii. 191).
We thus reach

G. The Modus of the Absolute.

(G. L. ii. 191.) The meaning of this category is difficult to
grasp. Hegel says of it : " The true meaning of the Modus is

I. THE ABSOLUTE 161

that it is the Absolute's own reflecting movement ; a determi-
nation, but not one through which it becomes Another, but
only a determination of what it already is ; the transparent
Externality which is the sign (das Zeigen) of itself; a move-
ment out from itself, but so that this outward Being is as much
the internality itself" {G. L. ii. 193). This seems to indicate
that the category denotes a sort of logical movement, compar-
able to that found earlier in Reflection, by which the Absolute
determines, by its own nature, a multiplicity. But although
this seems to be the right interpretation, it is impossible to
explain why Hegel should have said that it was a mere "Art
und Weise," and how the name of Modus is appropriate to this
category.

Has the category been validly deduced ? I do not think
that it has. For, if it is meant that the Absolute, while
remaining a pure unity, determines a multiplicity, the difficulty
remains the same as before. The multiplicity cannot be part
of the Absolute, if that is a pure unity. And yet there is
nothing outside the Absolute. (This difficulty did not occur in
the case of Reflection, because there the two sides of the relation
had not mutually exclusive qualities, such as pure unity and
multiplicity are here.)

If, indeed, we were to take the unity of the Absolute no
longer as a pure unity, but as a unity which contained multi-
plicity, and was all the more of a unity because it did so, we
should certainly have transcended the difficulty. But I cannot
find so advanced a conception as this in Hegel's words, nor does
the subsequent course of the dialectic suggest that it is reached
at this point.

The use of the names Attribute and Modus in connexion
with the Absolute seems suggested by Spinoza's terminology.
Hegel, however, uses the terms in a way quite different from
Spinoza's. For Hegel the Absolute is, in the Antithesis of this
triad, an Attribute of something, not, as with Spinoza, the
Substance to which all Attributes belong. And for Hegel
Attribute and Modus denote two different ways of looking at
the universe, of which the second transcends the first, while for
Spinoza the Attribute and the Modus have places in the same
theory of the universe as compatible elements.

M'^T. 11

162 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

161. We now pass to

II. Actuality.

(G. L. ii. 199.) The last category has filled up the gulf
which, in the category of the Absolute Attribute, had once
more opened in reality. In the Absolute Attribute we had
once more a Surface and a Substratum of different natures,
but in Modus the separation is again transcended. The restored

P solidity of reality makes the name of Actuality appropriate.
" The Actual is Manifestation, it does not enter the sphere of
alteration by its externality, nor is it the appearance of itself
in another, but it manifests itself; that is, in its externality
it is itself, and is only itself in its externality, that is, in a
determining movement which separates it from itself" {0. L.

I^ii. 201).

|~ It seems to me, however, that this conception of an Actuality
which is itself in its externality, and only there, is just the
conception which is reached in Inner and Outer, and that, after
the triad of the Absolute, we have only come back to the place

L we started from. And it is to be noted that Hegel himself
speaks of Actuality as " the immediate form-unity of Inner
and Outer" {0. L. ii. 201. The context makes it clear that
he is not speaking of the secondary division, but of the tertiary
division which we are discussing here).

A. Contingency, or Formal Actuality, Possibility and

Necessity.

162. {G. L. ii. 202.) Here the first point is the intro-
duction of Possibility. " Actuality is formal, in so much as
it is, as first Actuality, only immediate unreflected Activity,
and thus exists only in this determination of form, but not
as a totality of form. It is thus nothing more than Being
or Existence in general. But since it is essentially (wesentlich)
not mere immediate Existence, but is the form-unity of Being
in Self (Ansichsein) or Innerness, and Externality, it therefore
contains immediately Being in Self or Possibility. What is
Actual is Possible" ((?. L. ii. 202).

r The argument seems to be that in Actuality we once more
look for a Substratum which shall explain the Actuality. We

II. ACTUALITY 163

find it in Possibility. Accordingly Actuality, as opposed to
Possibility, becomes the Surface.

This seems unjustifiable. Surely the result of the category
of Inner and Outer was that Surface and Substratum had
become permanentl}^ identical, and that it was impossible to
find the explanation of any part of immediate reality in a
Substratum which is in any way different from it. Now
Possibility is, as Hegel fully recognises, something quite
different from the corresponding Actuality. And so, in taking
Possibility as a Substratum, we have gone back to a position
already transcended — which is, of course, illegitimate. The
only way to avoid this difficulty would be to show that
Actuality differed from Possibility in some subtle way which
had not been transcended in reaching Inner and Outer, and
which was not, therefore, denied in asserting the identity of
Inner and Outer. Hegel does not make any such distinction,
nor does it seem possible that one could be made. The
relations of Surface and Substratum were developed so care-
fully, and in so much detail, in the first two divisions of
Essence, that it would be improbable that any possible form
had not been considered.

At present the Possibility of each thing is looked for entirely
within itself. Possibility due to the Actuality of something else is
not reached till we come to Relative Necessity. Thus Possibility
can only mean here the absence of internal contradiction. "A is
possible just means that A \s> A" (G. L. ii. 203). The only
difference, he goes on to say, between Possibility and Identity, is
that Possibility is only one side of the relation, while Identity is
both. Possibility implies that there is something more — namely
Actuality. It is " das Sollen der Totalitat der Form " {G. L. ii. 203).

It might be thought that Identity extended further than
Possibility. A four-angled triangle is not formally Possible,
but it is true that a four-angled triangle is a four-angled
triangle. But we must remember that Hegel's category of
Identity, as we have seen, has a much narrower scope than
the logical law of Identity. The category applies only to
the existent, and, as nothing can exist which is not formally
Possible, Identity can only be rightly applied in cases where
Possibility can be applied also.

11—2

164 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

163. Hegel now asserts {G. L. ii. 204) that Possibility is
in itself a contradiction, and therefore Impossibility. This is
rather misleading. What he means, as he explains, is that
Possibility is an Essence, a Substratum, which can only be
if it is in relation to a Surface. Possibility taken without
reference to an Actuality would be a contradiction, and so
impossible. This is, no doubt, true, but it is only true in the
same way that any other Substratum, in any of the previous
categories of Essence, would be impossible without the corre-
sponding Surface. Hegel's language suggests that Possibility
passes into Impossibility as its contrary, which is not his
meaning.

Since the content of the Possible, he continues, '" is only a
Possible, another which is the Opposite (Gegentheil) is just
as Possible. A is A, \n the same way —A is —A" (G. L.
ii. 204). Opposite is a rather ambiguous word. Hegel's
example oi — A suggests that he means by Opposite a Material
Contrary. But, as we saw in his treatment of the Law of
Excluded Middle, he sometimes ignored the difference between
not- J. and —A. If in this passage he meant by — ^ nothing
more than not-^, his statement will be correct. If there
is no internal contradiction in A, there can be none in not- J..
The assertion of noi-A is exactly equivalent to the denial
of A. And if there is no internal contradiction in A when
it is asserted there can be no internal contradiction in A
when it is denied.

Thus we reach the conception of the Contingent, "an
Actual, which is at the same time determined as only Possible,
whose Other or Opposite is also possible " {G. L. ii. 205).

From the Contingent we proceed to the Necessary, as
follows. The Contingent as such has no Ground. For the
fact that it is Contingent means that its Opposite might have
taken its place, and that there is no reason why it has not
done so {G. L. ii. 205). But, again, it must have a Ground.
The Substratum to which it has been referred is insufficient to
explain it. For it is only its Possibility, and as the Opposite —
which is not Actual, for they are incompatible — is equally
Possible, some other explanation must be sought for the fact
that the one Possible is Actual, while the other is not. We

II. ACTUALITY 165

cannot, as we have seen, find this explanation within the
Actual in question. We must therefore look for it outside.
The Actual, taken as Contingent, is "no longer in and for itself,
but has its true Reflection-into-self in Another, in other
words, it has a Ground " ((?. L, ii. 206).

So far Hegel's language is clear. But he adds a perplexing
sentence. " Thus the Contingent has no Ground, because it is
Contingent ; and just as much it has a Ground, because it is
Contingent" {G. L. ii. 206). This, by itself, would suggest that
it had a Ground and had not a Ground in the same sense,
and that a contradiction arose here which would have to be
transcended. But his previous argument, given in the last
paragraph, makes it clear that he only means that the Con-
tingent has not a Ground within itself, and that it has a
Ground outside itself

164. In this way we reach Necessity. When the Actual
has a Ground outside itself, it ceases to be Contingent, for that
Ground determines why it exists, rather than its Opposite,
which possessed the same Formal Possibility. And so Actuality
and Possibility coincide. For, now that the Actual has its
Ground, which determines why it exists rather than its
Opposite, its Opposite is no longer Possible {G. L. ii. 206, 207).
But this Possibility is no longer the Formal Possibility, which
is always possessed equally by the two Opposites. It is the
Possibility which is limited by the relations of the Actual to
other things. Actuality and Formal Possibility can never
coincide. With this reference to what is external, we pass
over to

B. Relative Necessity, or Real Actuality, Possibility and

Necessity.

{G. L. ii. 207.) Real Actuality is Actuality in relation to
another. This relation to another is also Reflection-into-self.
"The Thing is stable, but has its Reflection-into-self, its de-
termined Essentiality, in something else stable" {G. L. ii. 208).
In the same way, the Real Possibility of the Thing is in
another Thing. " The Real Possibility of a fact is therefore
the definitely existing (daseiende) multiplicity of circumstances
which relate themselves to it" {G. L. ii. 209).

166 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

But this Real Possibility is identical with Necessity. "What
is Really Possible can no longer be anything else; under these
conditions and circumstances nothing else can follow" (G. L.
ii. 211). We have gone beyond the Formal Possibility which
consists in the absence of internal contradiction, and now find
the Possibility of a fact in the absence of any facts which
are incompatible with it. But, if nothing is incompatible with
its Actuality, it must be Actuals For otherwise it might
either be Actual or might not, and so we should have gone
back to the position that there can be an Actual with nothing
to determine that it, rather than its Opposite, should be
Actual. Thus a Real Possibility which does not completely
determine Actuality is only imperfect. We may say that the
circumstances of a certain enterprise leave it possible either
that it should succeed or that it should not succeed. But
then the circumstances known to us are only some of the total
number. If a complete knowledge of all the circumstances
revealed no impossibility of success, success would be certain.

We may sum up Contingency and Relative Necessity by
saying that in the first Formal Actuality and Formal Possibility
were separate, that the contradiction which this involved led
on to Necessity, and that Necessity is now seen to be identical
with Real Actuality and Real Possibility. There are not two
Necessities, a Formal and a Real, as there are two Possibilities
and Actualities. The Necessity which falls within the division
of Contingency is the transition to the next division, and is
not Formal, but the same Real Necessity which, in the next
division, is seen to be identical with Real Actuality and
Possibility".

But this Real Necessity is only a Relative Necessity. For
when we ask why A is Necessary, the answer is that it has

^ It is, of course, equally true that if nothing is incompatible with its non-
Actuality, it will not be Actual. Actuality has not any prerogative in this
respect, such as was sometimes attributed to it in pre-Kantian philosophies.

2 Hegel certainly speaks (G. L. ii. 213, 215) as if the Formal Necessity of
Contingency was different from the Eeal Necessity of Relative Necessity. But
I think the only change he means is that, in the latter, Necessity is seen to
coincide with Actuality and Possibility, which it did not in the former. And
this coincidence comes about through a change in Actuality and Possibility
(from Formal to Eeal), not from any change in Necessity.

II. ACTUALITY 167

its Real Possibility in B, G, etc. It depends on these, and
these are, so far as this relation goes, merely immediate. Thus
^'s Necessity depends on the mere fact of the existence of
B, G, etc., and is so, in the last resort, Contingent. " The
Really Necessary is a limited Actuality, which, on account of
this limitation is also, from another point of view, a Contingent"
{G. L. ii. 212).

165. This difficulty is removed for Hegel by the passage to

G. Absolute Necessity.

(G. L. ii. 213.) The nature of this category and the transition
to it are extremely obscure. I am inclined to agree with Noel's
interpretation (La Logique de Hegel, p. 79). The transition
seems to consist in the fact that if we took all Existence as a
whole it would form a Necessity which was not Contingent, but
which had Contingency as an element within itself. It would
not be Contingent, for it would have no Ground outside itself.
But Contingency would be an element in it, because each part
of it would be determined by other parts of it. Each part then
would have its Ground outside itself, and, looked at separately,
would be Contingent {G. L. ii. 213).

Hegel's obscurity here seems to me to be due to the fact
that the ideas of this triad are not really, as he supposes them
to be, categories distinct from, and leading up to, the categories
of Substantiality, Causality, and Reciprocity. The idea of
Necessity, as used by Hegel here, is really the same as his
category of Causality. The difficulty that the Relatively
Necessary is Contingent, because of the immediacy of its
external determinant, is really the same difficulty as that
which produces the infinite series of Causes of Causes and
Effects of Effects. And the only way to escape from it is
the way in which Hegel does escape from it, when it recurs
a second time under the head of Causation — by means of
Reciprocity. And he gets very close to this solution here,
when he has recourse to the conception of the system as a
whole to transcend the Contingency of the parts. But he
does not see that the difficulty is the same in the two places,
(If he had seen this, indeed, he would have seen that he was
wrong in bringing it in twice.) And consequently he states

168 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

his sohition here as if it were different from the later one. It
is this, I think, which accounts for the obscurity.
166. In this way Hegel reaches

- III. The Absolute Relation.

A. The Relation of Substantiality.

{G. L. ii. 219, Enc. 150.) According to this category the
universe is something which is to be looked at both as a
multiplicity of particulars (the Accidents) and as a unity
(the Substance). There is thus a certain duplicity, but no
longer the old duplicity which was finally transcended in Inner
and Outer. Substance and Accidents are not two forms, in
either of which we may regard the reality. They are two
characteristics of one form, which is the only form which the
reality takes. We could, according to Hegel, contrast the
reality seen as Whole with the reality seen as Parts, for
although the content was the same in both cases. Whole and
Parts were two separate forms, under either of which it could
be seen. And the same was true of Force and Exertion. But
now it is different. To regard it as Substance is to regard it
also as Accidents, and to regard it as Accidents is to regard it
also as Substance.

Thus the Essence-relation has been transcended. There
is no longer a Substratum and a Surface, in whose relation
to one another the explanation of reality was to be found.
All that we can say is that Substance — the characteristic of
junity — corresponds to Whole, Force, and the Inner, which
were previously Substratum, and that in the same way
Accidents correspond to the previous Surfxces — Parts, Manifes-
tation, Outer. But to have a Substratum and a Surface we
want more differentiation than is here permissible. It may
seem curious that categories in which the Essence-relation is
transcended should fall in the Doctrine of Essence, but we
are now very near the end of that Doctrine.

Is there only one Substance, or are there many Substances,
each having many Attributes ? It seems that, in the sense
in which Hegel uses Substance, there is only One. The

III. THE ABSOLUTE RELATION 169

Absolute Necessity, from which he attempts to derive the
new category, connects the whole universe in one. And of
Inner and Outer (which should have been the immediate
predecessor of Substance, as I shall point out later) we must
say, as of its predecessor Whole and Part, that with such a
conception all existents can be grouped in a single unity.

There is, then, only one Substance. But what are the
Accidents ? Accident is generally used as a name for the
qualities of the Substance which has them. Extension and
impenetrability would be said to be Accidents of material
Substance. But this is not Hegel's use. The Accidents of
which he speaks are the things which are parts of the Sub-
stance. "They are... existing things with manifold properties,
or wholes which consist of parts, stable parts" (G. L. ii. 222).
Although Hegel's special categories of Thing and Properties,
and of Whole and Parts, have been transcended, we must say,
in a more general sense, that the Accidents are parts of the
Substance, and are themselves things with properties.

167. This, then, is what Hegel means by the category.
Is it valid ? I believe that it is valid, but that the way in
which he reached it is invalid, and that it should have been
reached directly from Inner and Outer.

In the first place, it can be reached from Inner and Outer.
For it is simply the restatement of that category, as a new
Thesis should be of the previous Synthesis. All that we have
said of Substance and Accident is equally true of Inner and
Outer (cp. the last Chapter, Section 151).

Now, if it can be reached from Inner and Outer, Hegel
must be wrong in inserting two triads between them. For
every triad indicates an advance, and there must be something
wrong with the argument when, at the end of the second
triad, we are only where we were before the beginning of the
first one.

And, secondly, the transition by which Hegel does reach
Substance from Absolute Necessity is intrinsically invalid. For,
as I said above, the conception of Necessity is really that of
Causality. Necessity means for Hegel much more than the
fact that reality is certainly determined. If it only meant
that, we should have had Necessity very early among the

170 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

categories of Being, and the relation between Surface and
Substratum in Essence would have been Necessity throughout.
Necessity for him involves two characteristics. In the first
place, that which is necessitated must be a Thing — not the
mere Somethings of the earlier categories. In the next place,
that which determines it must not be its own Substratum — its
Ground, Matter, Law, or Force — but some other Thing. It
will be remembered that it was the introduction of the idea
of Necessity which formed the transition from the Formal
Actuality and Possibility, which regarded the thing in its
isolation, to the Real Actuality and Possibility, which regarded
the thing as connected with others. Now the determination
of one thing by another is just what Hegel means by Causality.
And, if this is the case, the Greater Logic proceeds, in effect,
though not in name, from Causality to Substance, and then
from Substance to Causality. And this must be wrong. For
the same category cannot be both higher and lower in the
chain than another category.

Thirdly, Hegel had no right to reach the category of
Absolute Necessity at all. For, as I argued above (Sections
157 and 161), the Exposition of the Absolute is not properly
deduced from Inner and Outer, nor is Contingency properly
deduced from the Modus of the Absolute, so that there are
two breaks in the chain.

Thus Hegel had no right to reach the categories of the
Absolute and of Actuality (in the narrower sense), and he has
no right to go on from them to Substance. On the other
hand, by leaving them out, we get a valid transition from
Inner and Outer to Substance. It is clear then that they
ought to be left out, and, as we shall see, this is just Avhat
Hegel does in the Encyclopaedia.

168. It is in connexion with Substance that Hegel in-
troduces in the Encyclopaedia (Section 151) some remarks on
the philosophy of Spinoza, which he dealt with in the Greater
Logic under the category of the Absolute {G. L. ii. 194). The
position in the Greater Logic was more appropriate. It is true
that Spinoza called his sole reality by the name of Substance.
But in Hegel's category the whole nature of the Substance
is to be found in the Accidents, and they are as real as the

III. THE ABSOLUTE RELATION l7l

Substance. This is very far from Spinoza's view. Indeed,
according to that tendency in Spinoza's thought to which
Hegel gives most attention, the Accidents, as finite, would
be unreal. Such a view is more appropriately dealt with
under the category of the Absolute, but this category, as I
have said, is omitted in the Encyclopaedia.

Hegel says in the Encyclopaedia that Spinoza should not
be called an Atheist, but rather an Acosraist. There is great
truth in the view that he was an Acosmist, though it must
be admitted that he did not carry out consistently the principle
that all determination is negation, on which his Acosmism

p is based. As to his Atheism, it is beyond doubt that he
denied the existence of a personal or conscious God, but then
Hegel never regarded personality or consciousness as essential

_ characteristics of God. At times he took God as being the
Absolute Reality, whatever that reality might be. If the
word is used in this sense, nobody but an absolute sceptic could
be an Atheist. At other times he took God to mean the
Absolute Reality conceived as a unity. It is in this sense
that he appears to use it here. In either sense, of course,
it would be true that Spinoza believed in the existence of
God.

169. We now proceed to Causality. The transition lies,
according to Hegel, in the fact that Substance, in its relation
to Accident, is to be conceived as Power. This relation of
Substance to Accident " is only the appearing totality as
Becoming, but it is just as much Reflection; the Accidentality,
which is implicitly Substance, is for that very reason posited as
such ; and it is thus determined as a negativity which relates
itself to itself, it is determined as over against itself, as relating
itself to itself and as a simple identity with itself; and is Sub-
stance existing for itself and powerful. Thus the relation of
Substantiality passes over into the relation of Causality" {G. L.
ii. 223).

In other words, the Substance is conceived as determininsr
the Accidents. The Accidents are now conceived as something
existing in and for themselves, as a reality separate from the
original Substance, and as themselves Substantial. Thus the
relation of Substance to Accident changes into the relation

172 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

between two Substances (the original Substance, and what was
originally the Accident), and passing over into

B. The Relation of Causality
{0. L. ii. 223. Enc. 153), we have, as its first form

(a) Formal Causality.

(G. L. ii. 224.) The Accidents, being now, as Hegel tells
us, "Substance existing for itself" must be taken as having a
separate existence from the original Substance, though they
stand in relation to it, and though the content of the two is
identical. Thus it is not merely that the conception of Causality
has been substituted for that of Substance, but that the two
terms in the Substance-relation have been transformed respec-
tively into the two terms in the Causality-relation, the original
Substance being the Cause, while the Accidents become the
Effect.

It would seem that there is a plurality of Causes, each having
a single Effect. For the Accidentality comprised plurality,
and if it is taken as Substantial it must be taken as many Sub-
stances. And as each Cause is identical in content with its
Effect, the plurality of Effect would require a corresponding
plurality of Causes.

170. Is the transition valid ? I think it is not. For I
cannot accept Hegel's argument to prove that what was taken
as one Substance must now be taken as two Substances with
identical content. So far as I can see the whole transition
rests on the phrase quoted above from p. 223, that the relation
is Reflection and that therefore " the Accidentality, which is
implicitly Substance, is for that very reason posited as such."
The Accidents, that is, if I understand it rightly, are so closely
related to the Substance, that they themselves are Substance.
B, let us say, is an Accident of the Substance A. Substance
and Accident are so closely connected — in Hegel's language,
are so reflected into one another — that B is implicitly its Sub-
stance A. From this we proceed to the conclusion that B is
itself a Substance, over against A.

I cannot interpret Hegel's words in any other way than this,
and surely this is invalid. It was nothing else but the fact that

III. THE ABSOLUTE RELATION l73

Force was implicitly Manifestation, and Manifestation was impli-
citly Force, which led Hegel to transcend the difference of form
previously, and to reach, in Inner and Outer, a category where
Surface and Substratum were completely united. And now he is
using just the same argument — that each side is implicitly the
other — as a reason for going back to the conception transcended
in Inner and Outer, the conception of an identical content in
two separate forms. It is impossible that the same considera-
tion should both disprove and prove this conception. It seems
to me that it did disprove it, that it does not prove it, and
that the present transition must therefore be condemned.

It must be noted that in this Formal Causality the Causal
relation is not between what Avould be generally called two
different things — things different in content, and on the same
stratum of reality. Causation of this sort does not come in till
the next category. At present the Causation is only between
the Substratum, which is Cause, and the Surface, which is
Effect, and these have the same content. For the separation
of the two sides has restored the difference between Surface
and Substratum. If we carry on the spatial metaphor which
these two terms involve, we may say that Formal Causality is
vertical, while ordinary Causality is horizontal.

171. Hegel now continues. " In this identity of Cause and
Effect the form is transcended, whereby they distinguish them-
selves as that which is in itself and as that which is posited.
The Cause expires in its Effect ; thus, equally, the Effect has
expired, for it is only the determination of the Cause. This
Causality expired in its Effect is thus an Immediacy, which is
indifferent towards the relation of Cause and Effect, and has it
outside itself" {G. L. ii. 226).

(6) Determined Causality.

(G. L. ii. 226.) " The identity of the Cause with itself in its
Effect is the transcending of their might and negativity, and so
is a unity which is indifferent to the differences of form, and
is the content. — It is therefore only implicitly related to the
form, in this case the Causality. They are therefore posited as
separated, and the form as against the content is posited as

174 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

something which is only immediately actual, as contingent
Causality.

" Moreover the content as so determined is a content with
internal differences (ein verschiedener Inhalt an ihm selbst);
and the Cause is determined according to its content, and
thereby the Effect also. — The content, since the reflectedness
is here also immediate Actuality, is so far actual but finite
Substance.

" This is now the Causal Relation in its reality and finitude.
As formal it is the infinite relation of absolute power, whose
content is pure manifestation or necessity. On the other hand,
as finite Causality it has a given content, and subsides into an
external difference to that identity which is one and the same
substance in its determinations " {G. L. 226, 227).

This is very obscure. But it seems to me that the same
things which were Cause and Effect in Formal Causality are
taken as Cause and Effect in the new category. If A is the
Cause of B by Formal Causality, then, I think, under the new
category A will still be the Cause of B, though the nature of A
and B, and their relation to one another, are conceived rather
differently. The same Identity which connects Cause and
Effect in Formal Causality connects them in Determined
Causality. This seems clear, for it is '"' the Identity," " this
Identity," " the Content " all through, without any suggestion
of a change in the Identity. And if it is the same Identity, it
must be the same things which it connects. The Identity
which links together two things of which one was the Substra-
tum of the other, could not connect any other two things.
Moreover, if the Causalit3'-relation related things in the new
category by other groupings than those of the last category, the
transition would have to show some negative character — some-
thing which broke down the one system and so made the
substitution of the other necessary. Now there is no such
negative element to be found in the transition, which appears
to be entirely a direct movement forward, and so leads to the
conclusion that if A was the Cause of B under the first
category, it w^ill also be the Cause of B under the second. At
any rate, Hegel does not give any indication of why the group-
ing should change, or how any new one should be formed.

III. THE ABSOLUTE RELATION 175

172. But the attempt to regard the things which are
joined by Formal Causation as also joined by Determined
Causation is impossible. Hegel appears to ignore the funda-
mental difference which exists between the two. Determined
Causation is what is ordinarily known as Causation, with one
very important difference. Hegel defines it entirely without
relation to Time or Change. Thus while the ordinary con-
ception of Causation is that a change in A produces a change in
B, Hegel's Determined Causation only says that the nature of
A determines the nature of jB. It would be as applicable in a
timeless world as in a world of change.

This is no doubt a very important difference. But in
spite of the fact that Determined Causation resembles Formal
Causation in not involving Time, the points in which Deter-
mined Causation resembles the ordinary non-Hegelian concep-
tion of Causation are such as to leave a very fundamental
difference between Determined and Formal Causation — a
difference which, as I have said, Hegel does not recognise.

There are four such points. The first is that, as I said
above, Formal Causality does not connect what would usually
be called two things — each containing the elements of Surface
and Substratum united. It only connects two things one of
which is the Surface and the other the Substratum of what
would usually be called the same thing. It would not connect,
e.g., an axe with a tree, but only the Substance of the axe
viewed as one thing, with the Accidents of the axe, now
transformed into another thing — the original Substance being
Substratum and Cause, and the former Accidents being
Surface and Effect. As a consequence of this the content of
Cause and Effect in Formal Causality must be identical, since
the identity of content between Substance and Accidents is not
regarded by Hegel as lost when the Accidents gain a Substan-
tiality of their own.

The second point of difference is that Determined CausaKty
— like ordinary causality — unites the plurality of existence
into a system. Things which are different are connected by it\

^ Hegel, as we shall see, asserts that in Determined Causality Cause and
Effect are identical, but, as we shall also see, he qualifies this by admitting,
after all, a certain difference. And he certainly regards the plurality of
existence as related by Determined Causality.

176 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

But in Formal Causality there is no such union. Each Effect
has its own Cause — identical with it in content, a mere redupli-
cation of it on the level of the Substratum. The different
things are not united with one another. Each is split into two,
and these two are united by Causality. The other differences
— those united by Determined Causality — are not united at
all in Formal Causality.

The third point of difference is that in Determined
Causality, as Hegel expressly says, a Cause can be (and,
indeed, must be) also an Effect. This is impossible with
Formal Causality, since there all Causes are Substrata, and all
Effects are Surfaces. Now the same thing cannot be both a
Substratum and a Surface.

Fourthly, in ordinary Causation an Effect has a plurality of
Causes, and a Cause a plurality of Effects. In Determined
Causation Hegel admits, as we shall see, a plurality of remote
Causes, though not of immediate Causes. But in Formal
Causality there can be no plurality, whether of Causes or
Effects, since the Substratum has only one Surface, and the
Surface only one Substratum.

173. Hegel makes one attempt to remove these differences
in his well-known doctrine of the identity of Cause and Effect,
even in Determined Causation. He says, after the transition
to Determined Causation has been made, " Through this identity
of content this Causality is an analytic proposition. It is the
same Fact (Sache) which shows itself at one time as Cause, at
another time as Effect" (G. L. ii. 227). I shall endeavour to
show that Hegel is wrong in asserting this identity, while, even
if he had been right, it would by no means have removed the
differences between Formal and Determined Causation which
he ignores.

There is at any rate a presumption against the truth of this
doctrine. It is against the ordinary usage of language. In
ordinary empirical propositions about finite things we never
find ourselves asserting that A is the cause of A, but always
that A is the cause of B. The Cause and Effect are always
things which, irrespective of their being Cause and Effect, have
different names. The presumption is that there must be some
difference between things to which different names are generally
given. Let us see how Hegel meets it.

III. THE ABSOLUTE RELATION 177

He gives four examples of the asserted identity of Cause
and Effect. The first is that rain makes things wet, and that
the rain and the wetness are the same water. The second is
that the paint is the cause of the colour of a surface, and that
it is also the colour of the surface. Again, the cause of a deed
is the inner sentiment (Gesinnung) of the agent, and these have
the same content and value. Finally, when the cause of the
movement of a thing is its contact with another thing, the
" quantum of movement " which was the Cause has been trans-
ferred to the thing acted on, and is thus the movement which
is the Effect (G. L. ii. 227, 228).

We must notice, in the first place, that Hegel only gives
part of the Cause. For example, the rain-water, by itself, will
make nothing wet. Unless the clouds are driven over the house,
unless the meteorological conditions allow the rain to fall, the
roof will not be wet. Nor could the roof be wet if the house
had never been built. The wind, the air, the builders of the
house, are all part of the Cause, but they certainly are not
identical with the wetness of the roof.

In the second place, rain is not identical with the wetness
of a roof, in the sense required here. The rain is detached
drops of water falling through the air, the other may be a
uniform thin sheet of moisture. They are, from a scientific
point of view, different forms of the same matter. But the
form is part of the nature of the thing, and, if two things differ
in form, they are not identical.

The other examples show similar defects. And so there
are two fatal objections to Hegel's position. He only reaches
it, firstly, by taking only one Cause of each Effect, although
every Effect has many Causes. And, secondly, he only reaches
it by assuming that two things are identical if they are formed
of the same matter, or if they are of the same value, or have a
quantitative equality, ignoring the other aspects in which they
differ from one another.

174. Hegel does, indeed, admit {G. L. ii. 228) that the
Cause has a content which is not in the Effect, but says that
this content is a " zufalliges Beiwesen." But, in fact, much of
the content of the Cause which is not in the Effect is by no
means contingent and unessential, but is an essential part of

M'^T. 12

178 CH. Vir. ACTUALITY

the Cause, without which it would not produce the Effect.
The roof would not be wet except for the action of the wind
and the builder. But neither the wind nor the builder is a
part of the wetness of the roof.

Again, he admits that the identity is only between the
Effect and its immediate Cause, and not between the Effect
and its remote Cause (G. L. ii. 228). The reason that he gives
for this is that the Effect has a plurality of remote Causes.
But it is also the case that it has a plurality of immediate
Causes. Indeed, the fact that any Effect has a plurality of
remote Causes is sufficient to prove that some Effect has a
plurality of immediate Causes. If we go back from any Effect
along the chain of its Causes, there must be some point in the
chain where we pass from a single Cause to the admitted
plurality of remote Causes. In that case the last stage (in this
backward process) which is a unity will have the members of
the first stage which is a plurality as its immediate Causes.

And there is another difficulty. If A is the Cause of B,
and B of C, then, according to Hegel, A is identical with B, and
B with G, but A need not be identical wdth C. But, unless
the point in which B is the Effect of J. is a mere zufalliges
Beiwesen with regard to B's causality of C (and this cannot
always be the case) it would seem that A must be identical
■svith C. For surely things which are identical with the same
thing must be identical with one another.

Lastly Hegel has to admit that, with this interpretation of
Causality, it is impossible to apply Causality to the relations of
organic and spiritual life (G. L. ii. 229)^ His examples of
improper applications include the assertions that fever could be
caused by eating certain foods, and that Caesar's ambition was
the cause of the destruction of tlie republican constitution of
Rome. His meaning must therefore be, not merely that the
organic and the spiritual cannot enter into causal relations with
the inorganic and the material respectively, but that they cannot
enter into causal relations at all. But if this category is not
applicable to the whole of reality, how can it be derived from

^ This seems quite inconsistent with his previous assertion that the relation
hetween an act and the sentiments of the agent is an example of the identity of
Cause and Effect.

III. THE ABSOLUTE RELATION 179

earlier categories and lead on to later categories which certainly
apply to the whole of reality ? (Of course it is not completely
adequate to the organic and spiritual worlds, but Hegel's mean-
ing here must be more than this, since no category except the
Absolute Idea is completely adequate to any reality.)

Thus we must reject Hegel's theory of the identity of Cause
and Effect. It is curious that it should have proved one of the
most popular of his doctrines. It is often maintained by writers
whose works show little study of the detail of other parts of the
dialectic.

175. Even if Hegel had proved the identity of Cause and
Effect in the way in which he asserted it, the identity would
still be different from the identity in Formal Causality. For,
as we saw above, Hegel does admit some difference in the
empirical content of Cause and Effect in Determined Causality,
though he asserts it to be a " zufalliges Beiwesen." In Formal
Causality, on the other hand, it is impossible that there should
be any difference between Cause and Effect, except the fact
that they are respectively Cause and Effect. In other words,
as was said before. Formal Causation is a relation between two
aspects of what would commonly be called the same thing.
Determined Causality is a relation between what would com-
monly be called different things.

Hegel has thus failed to remove even the first of the four
differences between Formal and Determined Causality, which
were enumerated above (Section 172). He does not even
attempt to remove the other three — that Determined Causality
unites the plurality of the existent, that in it every Cause is
also an Effect, and every Effect a Cause, and that in it every
Effect has a plurality of Causes — at any rate of remote Causes.
None of these features is to be found in Formal Causality.

As Formal and Determined Causality are so different, a
valid transition would require a demonstration that, to remove
some inadequacy in the conception of Formal Causality, it
would be necessary to alter it in each of the four characteristics
in which it differs from Determined Causality. And it seems
clear to me that he has not succeeded in doing this. Nor does
it seem that he realised how much there was to do.

We must therefore reject this transition — one of the most

12—2

180 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

interesting in the dialectic, since it deals with a problem which
has been of such cardinal importance to many philosophies.

176. In the Encyclopaedia the treatment of Causality is
substantially the same. There is no separate category of
Formal Causality, but the transition from Substance to Cause
is clearly through the conception of Substance as Cause and
Accidents as Effect. {Enc. 153, "Substance is Cause, in so far
as Substance reflects into self as against its passage into
Accidentality, and so stands as the primary fact, but again no
less suspends this reflection-into-self (its bare possibility), lays
itself down as the negative of itself, and thus produces an Effect,
an actuality, which, though so far only assumed as a sequence,
is through the process that effectuates it at the same time
necessary.") This harmonizes with the fact that the Encyclo-
paedia, as well as the Greater Logic, maintains the identity of
Cause and Effect.

177. Hegel now remarks that, starting from any point, we
shall get an infinite series of Causes and Effects. If the
original Effect, as being a finite reality, wants a Cause, then
the Cause, which is equally a finite reality, wants another
Cause, which again will require another, and so on without end.
And the same will be true of the Effects.

We have an infinite series, then. But does its infinity
involve a contradiction ? For, as we have seen before, Hegel
does not regard an infinite series as ipso facto contradictory. I
do not see that there is a contradiction here. At first sight,
no doubt, our present series seems to resemble very closely the
Infinite Qualitative Series in the Encyclopaedia, which was
contradictory ^ But there is an important difference. There
the nature of each term was found in its Other, and not in
itself ^'s nature was only to be found in its other, B. But B
had no nature, except in its other, C. Thus J.'s nature must
be looked for in C. For the same reason it could not be found
there, but in D. And so on unendingly, ^'s nature could be
found nowhere, which was contradictory to the fact, already
established, that A had a nature.

^ The Infinite Qualitative Series in the Greater Logic took a different form,,
and does not resemble the Causal Series so closely. Cp. above, Sections .32.
and 35.

III. THE ABSOLUTE RELATION 181

Here it is different, ^'s nature is in itself, not in its Cause,
B. That it should be what it is is determined by B, but it
falls in A. And thus, as it seems to me, there is no contra-
diction in an infinite series of Causes. If there is such a series,
then A will have an infinite number of relations. It will be
related to B, and it will also be related to C, which, as the
immediate Cause of B, will be the remote Cause of A. And it
will be related in the same way to D, E, and so on infinitely.
But there is no contradiction in A's standing in an infinite
number of relations.

Again, it follows from the existence of such an infinite series
that no mind working in time could ever completely explain
anything. For A cannot be explained without reference to the
nature of its Cause B, which determines it. But this will not
be a complete explanation unless the nature of B is an ultimate
fact, neither admitting nor req>iiring an explanation. If B
requires explanation — as will be the case here — by its Cause C,
A will not be explained without a knowledge of G, and so on
through an infinite series of terms the end of which can never
be reached by a mind passing through them successively. But
a state of things is not impossible because it could never be
completely explained by a mind working in time.

Thus there is no contradiction in this infinite series. And
Hegel never says that there is. He calls it a False Infinite
(Schlecht-Unendliche) but this is the term which he applies to
all infinites of endless succession (as distinguished from the True
Infinite of self-determination) whether he regards them as con-
tradictory or not. And his transition to the next category does
not depend on any contradiction being found in the infinite
series, but developes from the nature of Causation in a point
quite independent of the infinite series.

178. To this transition we now proceed. That which is
acted on, Hegel tells us, must also itself act {G. L. ii. 237). In
the first place, the Effect which is worked on anything is also
the Effect of that thing {G. L. ii. 238). A determines the
Effect X in B. But that A should determine that precise Effect
is due not only to A's, nature but also to B'b. The stylus is
the cause of the impression made on the wax. But when we
consider what a different effect would have been produced by

182 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

pressing the stylus on a diamond or on water, we see that the
result produced in the wax is due to its own nature as much as
to the nature of the stylus.

What Hegel says is doubtless true, though he might find
some difficulty in reconciling it with his doctrine of the identity
of Cause and Effect. For the proof that B is also a Cause of
the Effect determined in it lies in the fact that A determines a
different Effect in B to what it would determine in C. Now if
A produces different Effects in different things, what becomes
of the identity of Cause and Effect ? A cannot be identical
with two things of different natures.

In this way we reach

(c) Action and Reaction

(G. L. ii. 235), where the thing in which the Effect is produced
is recognised as its joint Cause.

179. From this we proceed to the next category as follows ^
There is, Hegel tells us, a second sense in which that which is
acted on must also act {G. L. ii. 238). Not only does B co-
operate in determining the Effect x in itself, but B is also the
Cause of an Effect in A. A'?, exertion of Causality on B is just
as much a characteristic of A as the result of that exertion,
namely x, is a characteristic of B. But A cannot determine an
Effect unless there is something to determine it in, nor can it
determine the Effect x unless there is B to determine it in,
for it is only the co-operation of £'s nature which makes the
Effect to be x rather than anything else. Hence B is the Cause
in A of the characteristic " J.'s co-operation in determining
x!' (That is to say, B is the external Cause of it. A's nature
will of course co-operate.) Thus we reach

G. Reciprocity.

(G. L. ii. 239. Enc. 155.) Here "the Activity (Wirken)
which in finite Causality ran out into the process of the false
infinite becomes bent round and an infinite reciprocal Activity
returning into itself" {G. L. ii. 239).

^ As Hegel places both the transition from Determined Causality to Action
and Eeaction, and the transition from Action and Reaction to Reciprocity,
within the section headed Action and Reaction, the distinction between the
two may at first sight be missed, but becomes evident on closer examination.

III. THE ABSOLUTE RELATION 183

The question now arises at what points the line of Causality
bends round on itself. Hegel's demonstration indicates that
two things in immediate causal relation to one another may
by themselves form a unity of reciprocal action. At the
same time his treatment of this category, and his transition
from it by means of the idea of complete Necessity, clearly
indicate that the whole of existence is to be taken as forming a
single unity of reciprocal activity.

The' two positions, however, are quite harmonious. If the
principle of Reciprocity is admitted, we can begin with unities
as small as we choose but we shall be led on to an all-embracing
unity. Suppose we take two things only, A and B, as forming
such a unity. If they are the only things in the universe, then
the unity is already all-embracing. But, if not, the unity thus
formed will have other things outside it. Being thus finite, it
will have to be determined from outside. If we call its Cause
G, then (A and B) and C will form a larger reciprocal unity, which
must again be determined from outside, and so on, till we come
to a unity which embraces the whole of existence.

This assumes the truth of the principle that, if several
things are taken together as a unity, a Cause for that unity
must be found outside it, as if it were a single thing. Hegel
unquestionably does assume this, for without it he could not
arrive at the final result of this category — that all things are
bound in one system of Necessity. But he has not proved it.
It would be inapplicable in Formal Causality, and must spring,
if it is to be justified, from the special nature of Determined
Causality. This nature, we have already seen, Hegel has failed
to deduce from Formal Causality.

180. The unity of this reciprocal Activity is called by
Hegel, as we saw above, by the name of infinite. This does
not mean that the universe of existents is, in the ordinary
sense, infinitely large. He speaks here of what he calls the
True Infinite — the infinite of self-determination. Such a uni-
verse is infinite because it is determined only by its own nature,
and not by anything outside it. The absolutely True Infinite
will only be reached in the Absolute Idea. But the universe
as connected by Reciprocity is relatively a True Infinite as
compared with the finitude of a part of the universe or as

184 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

against the false infinite of endless chains of Causes and
Effects.

The system of such a universe as a whole is an ultimate
fact, which neither admits nor requires any explanation. And
in this consists its infinity, for it is determined by nothing
outside it. On the other hand each of the particulars in the
system is determined by others, and there is no particular part
which does not in this way find an explanation.

But while the infinity which Hegel ascribes to this system
is not a "false" infinity of number or magnitude, I do not see
that it is impossible for it also to possess a " false " infinity.
(On this point Hegel himself says nothing.) If the universe
were adequately expressed by the category of Determined
Causality, it would necessarily possess such a false infinity,
since beyond each thing there would be a fresh thing which
was its Cause. With Reciprocity it becomes possible to have a
complete system of determination with a finite number of
things, and so the number may be finite. But it would be
equally possible, I think, to have a complete system of deter-
mination with an infinite number of things, and so the number
may be infinite.

181. We have now reached the last category of Causality
and of Essence. (The transition into the Notion will be con-
sidered in the next Chapter.) We have found ourselves able
to accept very little of the treatment of the subject in the
Greater Logic. But the results at which we have arrived are
in closer agreement with the Encyclopaedia.

Our chief criticisms were two : that the two first subdivi-
sions (the Absolute, and Actuality in the narrower sense) were
unjustifiable, and that the treatment of Causality was erroneous.
Now the first of these does not apply to the Encyclopaedia.
Hegel there omits all the categories of the Absolute. Nor
does he introduce into the dialectic chain the conceptions
which, in the Greater Logic, fall within Actuality in the narrower
sense. He treats of them, indeed {Enc. 143 — 149), but only
in a preliminary discussion before he proceeds to consider the
developement of the categories. The result of these omissions
is that Substantiality, Causality, and Reciprocity are the three
immediate subdivisions of Actuality in the larger sense, instead

III. THE ABSOLUTE RELATION 185

of, as in the Greater Logic, subdivisions of its final subdivision.
Instead of being divisions of the fourth order, they are now
divisions of the third order.

Thus the Encyclopaedia escapes one of the two objections
to the Greater Logic. The introduction of the excursus on
Possibility, Contingency, and Necessity is quite justifiable,
so long as they are not treated as categories of the dialectic
process. For Necessity and Causality, as I pointed out above,
are really the same conception. And the relation of this
conception to Possibility and Contingency is well worth con-
sideration, although that consideration is not required, either
to reach the conception of Necessity, or to transcend it.

(The Encyclopaedia, however, with curious inconsistency,
makes the transition to Substantiality from Necessity. This
is clearly incompatible with the general line of argument which
the Encyclopaedia adopts. Since, for it, Possibility, Contin-
gency and Necessity are not a triad in the chain of categories,
if Substantiality were deduced from them it would have no
connexion with the earlier part of the chain, which would
therefore be hopelessly broken at this point. The category
immediately before Substantiality, according to the Encyclo-
paedia, is the category of Inner and Outer. It is, therefore,
from Inner and Outer that Substantiality must be deduced.
And, as I pointed out above, this can easily be done.)

But when we come to our second criticism on the Greater
Logic, its failure with the category of Cause, we find that the
Encyclopaedia is in no better position. It has no subdivisions
of Cause. But the transition from Substance to Causality is
still through the conception of the Substance as the Cause of
its Accidents. " Substance is Cause, in so far as Substance
reflects into self as against its passage into Accidentality, and
so stands as the primary fact, but again no less suspends this
reflection into self (its bare possibility), lays itself down as the
negation of itself, and thus produces an Effect, an Actuality,
which, though so far assumed only as a sequence, is through
the process that effectuates it at the same time necessary"
(Enc. 153). With this he holds himself to have arrived at
a Causality equivalent to the Determined Causality of the
Greater Logic. Thus the transition is really the same as in the

186 CH. VII. ACTUALITY

Greater Logic. The only result of the omission of Formal
Causality as a separate division is to render the argument more
obscure.

The Encyclopaedia also maintains the identity of Cause and |
Effect. " So far again as we can speak of a definite content,
there is no content in the Effect that is not in the Cause " i
{Em. 153).

«

CHAPTER VIII

SUBJECTIVITY

182. The last of the three main divisions of the dialectic
is called the Doctrine of the Notion (Begriff). Notion is not,
perhaps, a very satisfactory translation of BegrifF, but it would
be difficult to find a better, and it is the translation usually
adopted. The Doctrine of the Notion is divided into three
divisions — Subjectivity, Objectivity, and The Idea. (In the
Encyclopaedia the two first are called the Subjective Notion
and the Objective Notion.)

Subjectivity is divided as follows :

I. The Notion. (Der Begriff.)

A. The Universal Notion. (Der allgemeine Begriff.)

B. The Particular Notion. (Der besondere Begriff.)

C. The Individual. (Das Einzelne.)

II. The Judgment. (Das Urtheil.)

A. The Judgment of Inherence. (Das Urtheil des

Daseins.)

(a) The Positive Judgment. (Das positive Urtheil.)
(6) The Negative Judgment. (Das negative Urtheil.)
(c) The Infinite Judgment. (Das unendliche Urtheil.)

B. The Judgment of Subsumption. (Das Urtheil der

Reflexion.)

(a) The Singular Judgment. (Das singulare Urtheil.)
(6) The Particular Judgment. (Das partikulare
Urtheil.)

188 CH. VIII, SUBJECTIVITY

(c) The Universal Judgment. (Das universelle Ur-
theil.)

C. The Judgment of Necessity. (Das Urtheil der

Nothweudigkeit.)

(a) The Categorical Judgment. (Das kategorische

Urtheil.)

(b) The Hypothetical Judgment. (Das hypothetische

Urtheil.)

(c) The Disjunctive Judgment. (Das disjunktive

Urtheil.)

D. The Judgment of the Notion. (Das Urtheil des

Begriffs.)

(a) The Assertoric Judgment. (Das assertorische

Urtheil.)

(b) The Problematic Judgment. (Das problematische

Urtheil.)

(c) The Apodictic Judgment. (Das apodiktische

Urtheil.)

III. The Syllogism. (Der Schluss.)

A. The Qualitative Syllogism. (Der Schluss des

Daseins.)

(a) First Figure. (Erste Figur.)

(b) Second Figure. (Zweite Figur.)

(c) Third Figure. (Dritte Figur.)

(d) Fourth Figure. (Vierte Figur.)

B. The Syllogism of Reflection. (Der Schluss der

Reflexion.)

(a) The Syllogism of Allness. (Der Schluss der

Allheit.)
(6) The Syllogism of Induction. (Der Schluss der

Induktion.)
(c) The Syllogism of Analogy. (Der Schluss der

Analogic.)

C. The Syllogism of Necessity. (Der Schluss der

Nothweudigkeit.)

I. THE XOTION 189

(a) The Categorical Syllogism. (Der kategorische

Schluss.)

(b) The Hypothetical Syllogism. (Der hypothetische

Schluss.)

(c) The Disjunctive Syllogism. (Der disjunktive

Schluss.)

The only ambiguity in the nomenclature here is that
Notion is used both for the primary division of which Sub-
jectivity is a secondary division, and also for the first tertiary
division of Subjectivity. Judgment of Inherence and Judgment
of Subsumption are not, it will be seen, translations of the
titles given by Hegel, But he suggests Urtheil der Inharenz
and Urtheil der Subsumption as alternative names (G. L. iii. 94)
and, as these seem more expressive than the original titles,
I have thought it better to adopt them. In the same way
I have called the Schluss des Daseins by the simpler name of
Qualitative Syllogism, which is also given by Hegel {G. L.
iii. 133).

It will be noticed that Judgment and the Qualitative
Syllogism have each four divisions instead of three, though the
irregularity in the latter case will prove to be more apparent
than real.

183. The names of the categories of Subjectivity suggest
at first sight that this part of the dialectic deals only with the
workings of our minds, and not with all reality. This might
account, it would appear, for the name of Subjectivity, and for
such names as Judgment and Syllogism among the sub-
divisions.

But such a use of Subjectivity would not be Hegelian. For
Hegel Subjective does not mean mental. It means rather the
particular, contingent, and capricious, as opposed to the universal,
necessary, and reasonable \

1 The onlj' case, so far as I know, in which Hegel uses Subjective in any
other way occurs in the Greater Logic, when he calls the Doctrines of Being and
Essence by the name of Objective Logic, and the Doctrine of the Notion
(including Objectivity and the Idea as well as Subjectivity) by the name of
Subjective Logic. But he says {G. L. i. 51) that this use of Subjective and
Objective, though usual, is unsatisfactory.

190 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

And when we examine the categories which have the titles
of Notion, Judgment, and Syllogism, it is evident that, in spite
of their names, they do not apply only to the states of our
minds, but to all reality. They follow, by the dialectic process,
from the categories of Essence, and the categories of Objectivity
and then the categories of the Idea, in like manner, follow
from them. They must therefore, if there is to be any validity
in the process, apply to the same subject as the categories of
Essence and the Idea, which admittedly apply to all reality.

Hegel's own language, too, renders it clear that these cate-
gories are meant to apply to all reality. He says, for example,
"all things are a categorical judgment " {Enc. 177), and again,
"everything is a syllogism " {Enc. 181).

184. We must look, then, for another explanation of the
terminology. We can find it, I think, in the relation of this
part of the dialectic to formal logic. Formal logic owes its
existence to abstraction. When we take its standpoint we
make abstraction of all but certain qualities of reality. Now
these qualities, we shall find, are those which are demonstrated
to be valid in the categories of Subjectivity.

We find that formal logic assumes that we have the power
of ascribing general notions as predicates to subjects, and in
this way arriving at complete truth with regard to these
subjects. And it also assumes that we are in possession, in
some way or another, of various general truths of the type All
A is B, No A is C, Some A is D.

On the other hand we find that there are other characteristics
of reality of which formal logic takes no account. It makes no
distinction between trivial and important propositions. "No
man is wholly evil" and "No man has green hair" are, for
formal logic, assertions of exactly the same sort. And, in the
second place, it only concerns itself with the deduction of one
proposition from others. It does not enquire into the validity
of the ultimate propositions from which all deduction must
start.

Now we shall see that Hegel's Subjectivity begins with the
conception of universal notions, and that it soon proceeds to
the further conception of valid general propositions — the two
assumptions of formal logic. And we shall also see that among

I. THE NOTION 191

the defects which Hegel finds in the course of Subjectivity are,
in the first place, the inability to distinguish between the
importance of propositions equally true\ and, in the second
place, the failure to take account of ultimate general proposi-
tions, while the further failure to take account of ultimate
particular propositions, though not mentioned by Hegel, must
be taken into account if we are to justify his transition to
Objectivity.

This will enable us to explain why the divisions of
Subjectivity drew their names from formal logic. The reason
is not that these categories apply only to the subject-matter of
formal logic, but that the procedure of formal logic involves
the validity of these categories in a way in which it does not
involve those which come later in the chain. This is, of course,
the same principle of nomenclature which we have already
found in so many categories, from Repulsion onwards.

We can now understand, also, why the whole division is
called Subjectivity. The reason is that it is contingent, and
its contingency is the same which we find in formal logic — that
the principle of classifying which is adopted is entirely in-
different. For formal logic all universals are of the same
importance, and it sees no difference between a classification
which arranges pictures by their painters, and one which
arranges them by the size of their frames.

185. At the end of Essence we had attained to the idea of
completely necessary determination. The category of Recipro-
city asserts that everything is so connected with other things
that the existence and nature of the one is completely dependent
on the existence and nature of the other, and vice versa. And
the connexions of this nature, direct or indirect, which belong
to each thing, extend to everything else in the universe, so that
the universe forms a connected whole.

Hegel tells us that in this complete necessity we find
freedom. " Freedom shows itself as the truth of necessity "
{G. L. iii. 6. Enc. 158). In examining this apparent paradox,
we must remember that for Hegel freedom never means tlie
power to act without motives, or with an unmotived choice of

1 Cp. his attempt to demoustrate that particular sorts of predicates are
appropriate to particular forms of Judgment.

192 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

motives. For him freedom always means absence of external
restraint. That is free which is what its own nature prompts
it to be, however inevitable may be its possession of that nature
and its action in accordance with it.

If we say, then, that a thing is deficient in freedom, Ave
must mean that, while its inner nature, if unthwarted, would
lead it to be ABC, it is compelled by external influences to be
ABD instead. Now this appeared possible in the categories
of Essence. For there we conceived everything as having an
inner nature, which was connected, indeed, with its external
relations, but Avas not identical with them, which could be
either in or out of harmony with them, and, in the latter case,
would be constrained. But when we reach Reciprocity we
have transcended this view. The thing has no nature at all,
except in so far as it is determined by other things, and in its
turn determines them. What is thus determined is its inner
nature. And thus it reaches freedom. Since it has no inner
nature except the results of this external determination, it is
clear that its external determinations can never make it do
anything against its inner nature. This is, indeed, only a
negative freedom. But any more positive freedom requires
higher categories. In necessity w^e have gained all the freedom
which is possible at this stage.

This point is so important that, to prevent ambiguity, it
may be well to anticipate some considerations which belong
more properly to the Idea. In self-conscious beings, we can
distinguish between free and constrained states, even when Ave
recognise that both states are determined in the same Avay — as
an inner state determined from outside. A man feels himself
free if he can do Avhat he wants, and feels himself constrained
if he cannot. And yet his desire and its gratification are as
completely determined in the one case as his desire and its
disappointment are in the other.

This, hoAvever, does not contradict our previous result. For
an act of volition in a conscious being is not only an occurrence,
but an occurrence with a meaning — a characteristic which belongs
to no occurrences except mental acts. And while the occurrence
of the volition, like any other act, must be in complete harmony
with the rest of the universe, its meaning may not be in such a

I. THE NOTION 193

harmony. If a man in the Arctic Circle desires to see a palm-
tree, the occurrence of that desire in him will be in perfect
harmony with the rest of the universe, for it will be connected
with it by reciprocal causation. But the meaning of the act
will not be in harmony with the universe. The same nature of
the universe which determines his desire for a palm-tree will
determine the absence of palm-trees, and so there will, in this
sense, be want of harmony between the desire and the universe.
Hence there will arise constraint and absence of freedom.

This conflict will require a deeper reconciliation than that
which proved effectual in Reciprocity. For here there is some-
thing inner which, however it has arisen, deals with the world
around it as an independent power. The reconciliation could
only take place by a demonstration that the two independent
powers do in fact harmonize with one another.

The freedom which is attained by the establishment of
complete necessity is only a negative and imperfect freedom,
but it is all that can be attained at the point of the dialectic
where it is introduced. It is also all that is required, since it
removes all the constraint which is, at this point, possible.

186. The first division {G. L. iii. 35. Enc. 163) is

I. The Notion.

A. The Universal Notion.

(G. L. iii. 36. Enc. 163.) The deduction of this category
from the last is found at the end of Essence (G. L. ii. 242) and
is as follows: "The absolute Substance as absolute Form
separates itself from itself, and consequently no longer repels
itself from itself as Necessity, nor falls as Contingency
into Substances indifferent and external to each other, but
separates itself. On the one hand it separates itself into the
totality, previously the passive Substance, which is original as
the reflection into self out of determinateness (Bestimmtheit),
as the simple whole which contains its positing in itself, and is
posited as therein identical with itself — the Universal. On the
other hand it separates itself into the totality, previously the
causal Substance, which in its reflection out of its deter-
minateness in itself is negatively determined, and so, as the

194 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

determinateness which is identical with itself, is likewise the
whole, but is posited as the negativity which is identical with
itself — the Individual."

I must confess myself unable to follow this. Why is Deter-
minateness more negative in the Cause than in the Effect ?
The one is as definite as the other, aud would therefore, it
should seem, have the same element of negativity. And why
is the Effect more a simple whole than the Cause ? And
how could it be so, if the relations of Cause and Effect are
reciprocal ?

And, again, how does this deduction give us the Universal
and the Individual which Hegel jDroceeds to use? The Universal
has to be common to many Individuals, while the Individual
has to be determined by many Universals. I cannot see how a
passive aspect of Substance can be common to several active
aspects, or how one active aspect can be determined by several
passive aspects.

187. But, even if we cannot accept Hegel's own deduction,
it is not, I think, difficult to see why Subjectivity, and the
Universal Notion in particular, should succeed Reciprocity.

The Universal Notion is, as we shall see, a common quality
to be found in two or more things, which are united by their
participation in it. Things, again, are united by the reciprocal
determinations which have been established by the categor}^ of
Reciprocity. But these are clearl}' not the Universal Notions
for which we seek. The relation of things which are connected
by the same Notion is not a relation of reciprocal causation, but
a relation of similarity.

Nevertheless, we know that these things, whose nature is
determined by reciprocal causation, are determined by that
causation to similarit}^ with one another. For it w^as shown in
the category of Variety that everything is both like and unlike
every other thing. From Variety to Reciprocity there are
many categories, but in none of them is this particular conclu-
sion transcended. And at the present stage in the dialectic we
have the result that the various qualities in the reciprocally
determined things must be such that no thing is entirely like or
entirely unlike any other thing.

Things, then, are doubly connected — by similarity and by

I. THE NOTION 195

reciprocal causation. And it is obvious that a thing may be,
and generally is, connected by the one tie to things very
different from those to which it is connected by the other.
A sparrow in England resembles very closely a sparrow in New
Zealand, though the influence exerted by one on the other
may be as slight as can possibly exist between any two beings
on the same planet. On the other hand, the English sparrow's
state is largely determined by his relations — positive and
negative — to worms and to cats, although their resemblance to
him is not great.

Both these connexions have to be worked out further.
And this the dialectic proceeds to do. It first takes up the
relation of similarity, and works it out through the course of
Subjectivity. Then in Objectivity it proceeds to work out the
relation of determination — not going back arbitrarily to pick it
up, but led on to it again by dialectical necessity, since
Subjectivity, when fully worked out, shows itself to have a
defect which can only be remedied by the further development
of the relation of determination. Finally, the two are united
in the Idea as a Synthesis.

188. This, as we have seen, is not the way in which Hegel
makes the transition. But it seems to me that in this way it
is valid, and I can see no valid alternative. It might be
objected that such a transition would destroy the continuity of
the dialectic. The dialectic, for Hegel, is unquestionably
continuous. Each result must come from the one before it.
And here, it might be thought, we have dropped the result
gained in Reciprocity, put it aside till we shall have come to
Objectivity, and, in order to get started in Subjectivity, gone
back to a result which had been gained toward the beginning of
the Doctrine of Essence.

This, however, would be a mistake. For if, in one sense, we
now start with the conception gained in Variety, that idea has
been transformed, or we could not use it here. And it can only
be transformed by the application of the conception of complete
determination, which came for the first time with the category
of Reciprocity. Thus both accusations of want of continuity
are answered. We have not gone back to take up a long past
result, but are taking it the moment it has been transformed to

13—2

196 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

suit our present purpose. We have not dropped the result last
attained, since it is only through this that the transformation
has come about.

Before this point we could not have taken the like and
unlike qualities as Notions, because those qualities did not —
as the Notions do — express the whole nature of the thing.
The thing had these qualities, and they might be said to form
part of its nature, but there was also an inner core of Nature,
affected by these connexions with the outside, but not com-
pletely expressed by them. This is the characteristic position
of Essence.

But when, at the end of Essence, we come to Reciprocity,
this is changed. We saw there that a thing has no inner
nature distinct from its outer nature, but that the two are
identical. Thus the whole nature of the thing consists of the
qualities in which consist its likeness and unlikeness to every-
thing else. And thus the transition from Reciprocity is the
natural and proper transition to the Universal Notion, since it
is Reciprocity which first enables us to regard the like and
unlike qualities as Notions.

The transition may then be summed up as follows — the
whole nature of everything consists in its qualities, which are
determined by the relations of reciprocal causality which exist
between it and every thing else. And, as every thing has some
qualities in common with every other thing, the nature of any
thing may always be expressed in part by pointing out some
common quality which it shares with something else. These
common qualities are Universal Notions.

189. It is, however, evident that this is only one side of
the truth. If we found that every thing must have some
quality in common with every other thing, we also found that
no two things could have exactly the same qualities. And so,
if we express in part the nature of A and B by pointing out
that they have the common quality X, we are able to assert
that it must also be the case that A possesses some quality Y,
not shared by B, and that B possesses some quality Z, not
shared by A. These qualities which distinguish the two things,
united in their possession of Z, are what Hegel calls Particular
Notions.

I. THE NOTION 197

B. The Particular Notion.

(G. L. iii. 42. Enc. 163.) We see from this that a Notion
can be used both as Universal and as Particular. The quality Y
may be shared by A with other things, and could then be made
a Universal, with X as a Particular under it. For example, if
we decide to classify a gallery of pictures by their painters, we
may bring two pictures together as both painted by Raphael.
They may be distinguished from one another by having, one a
good frame and the other a bad frame. Here " painted by
Raphael " is the Universal, while " having a good frame " and
"having a bad frame" are the Particulars. But it would be
possible, from caprice or when deciding on repairs of frames,
to make the condition of the frames the primary principle of
classification. The first Raphael might then be separated from
its companion and classed with a Velasquez. Here the Universal
would be " having a good frame," and the Particulars would be
" painted by Raphael " and " painted by Velasquez."

This brings out the contingency which earns for this part
of the dialectic the name of Subjectivity. According to this
category, all of the innumerable classifications possible are
equally good. Any two things can be brought into the
same class, for no two things are destitute of some common
quality. Any two things can be separated, for no two things
are without some difference in their qualities. There is no
distinction made here between a classification based on deep
and fundamental similarities, and one based on similarities
merely trivial. One similarity is as good as another.

190. At the same time it must be noticed that, while many
Notions can be used either as Universals or as Particulars, yet
some can be used only as Universals and some, perhaps, only
as Particulars. A Universal is a Notion which unites existent
things, a Particular is a Notion which divides existent things.
Any Notion therefore which is true of all existent things can be
used as a Universal, and not as a Particular, since all things
are united by their possession of it, and nothing is discriminated,
by its possession of it, from anything else. And it is clear that
there is at least one Notion which is true of all existent things,
namely the Notion of Existence.

198 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

Again, while all Notions, being general, are applicable, so
far as their own meaning goes, to more things than one, yet it
might be the case that some Notion applied only to one existent
thing in the universe. Suppose, for example, the universe were
such that one being in it, and only one in its whole duration,
were yellow. Then the quality of being yellow would be a
Particular Notion, but not a Universal. It could be used to
discriminate that thing from other existent beings, but not to
unite it with any other existent being.

Hegel does not mention — perhaps he did not realise — this
three-fold division of Notions which could only be Universal,
Notions which could only be Particular, and Notions which
could be either. But there is nothing in his language incon-
sistent with it, nor is the point essential to the dialectic
process.

191. For there is no Notion which is neither Universal
nor Particular, and so, by a combination of Universal and
Particular Notions, we can get all the Notions which are
applicable to any thing, and so express its whole nature.
And thus we reach

C. The Individual.

(G. L. iii. 60. £Jnc. 1G4.) It must be noted that, while the
last two categories are the Universal and Particular Notions,
this is not the Individual Notion, but the Individual. In the
Thesis the conception was that the nature of each thing was
partially expressed by the Notions which joined it to others.
In the Antithesis the conception was that the nature of each
thing was partially expressed by the Notions which separated
it from others. Here in the Synthesis the conception is
that by combining both classes of Notions the nature of the
thing is completely determined. From this point onward the
thing is called an Individual.

192. We now pass to

II. The Judgment

(G. L. iii. 65. Enc. 166), and, in the first place {G. L. iii. 75.
Enc. 172) to

II. THE JUDGMENT 199

A. The Judgment of Inherence,
(a) The Positive Judgment.

(G. L. iii. 76. Enc. 172.) The reality of an Individual, we
have seen, was expressible only by a combination of Notions.
It must therefore be possible to assert some relation between
the Individual and each of these Notions. And this is what is
asserted in Judgment. The question which was implicit in the
categories of the Notion — how an Individual and a Notion can
be connected with each other — becomes explicit in the categories
of Judgment.

This problem, to begin with, takes the form that, starting
from the Individual, we endeavour to adjust a Notion to it.
This is the Judgment of Inherence, as distinguished from the
Judgment of Subsumption, in which we start with the Notion
and endeavour to connect the Individual with it. The Judgment
of Inherence comes first, because, in the preceding categories,
the problem was to determine the Individual. And so we start
here with the Individual as the datum, to which the Notion
has to be related. The only relation hitherto considered between
an Individual and a Notion has been an affirmative one, and so
we start with a Positive Judgment of Inherence.

Hegel expresses this Judgment as " the Individual is the
Universal" {G. L. iii. 77). If Universal were used here in the
same sense as in the categories of the Notion, this would be an
inadequate way of expressing the category. For a Notion which
can only be Particular is true of an Individual as much as any
other Notion, And with respect to one of those Notions which
can be either Universal or Particular, there is no reason to call
it one rather than the other unless we know whether it is being
used to unite or disunite this particular Individual from others.
And to determine this, we should have to determine what other
Individuals are being considered. Now in the Judgment which
we have at present reached, only one Individual is under con-
sideration.

But the fact is that in the course of the Doctrine of the
Notion the term Universal is used in very different senses.
This is a defect in nomenclature, but one which need not lead
to any error on the part of a careful student, as the changes

200 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

■made, and' the points at which Hegel makes them, are quite
definite. Throughout the categories of the Judgment, Uni-
versal means any general idea which is true of an existent
Individual.

Hegel takes as an example of this category " the rose is red,"
and not merely " this is red." This is quite legitimate, if we
use the example to remind ourselves that the Individual, which
is the subject of the Universal which we are considering, is also
the subject of many other Universals — in this case organic,
vegetable, and so forth. For we have seen that each Individual
must have more than one Universal (in the new sense of
Universal introduced in Judgment). But we must not, when
enquiring how the Universal can be connected with the
Individual, assume that the Individual is already determined
by other Universals, since that would beg the question at
issue — the nature and possibility of the connexion between
a Universal and an Individual.

193. How does this category break down, and compel us
to continue the dialectic process ? Hegel says (G. L. iii, 81.
JSnc. 172) that all statements of the form I is U are necessarily
false. If, for example, we say of a rose " this is red " there is
a double falsity. Red is not identical with the rose at which
we point, for, in the first place, there are many red things in
the world besides this rose^ And, in the second place, it is
not identical with it, because every Individual has more than one
quality. The rose will be organic, vegetable, etc., as well as red.

It seems at first sight as if this was a mere quibble. " Of
course," it might be answered, " no one supposed that the is here
was to be taken in the sense of absolute equivalence, as when
we say the sum of three and two is five. A change of language
will remove the difficulty. Say that the subject has the quality
of being red, and the criticism ceases to have any force." But
Hegel's objection, though I cannot regard it as valid, goes
deeper than this.

Hegel's reply would, I conceive, have been as follows. We
cannot say that the Individual has the Universal. In the

^ If the Universal was one of those predicates which belong only to a single
existent Individual, this would not apply. But even then the Universal would
not be identical with the Individual, though it would denote nothing else.

II. THE JUDGMENT 201

Doctrine of Essence, indeed, we were able to say that the Thing
had its Properties. But a difficulty has arisen since then.
Before anything can be said to have something else, it must
itself be real. If it is not real, it cannot possess anything.
And so, if we are to say that the Individual has the Universal,
we must previously assign to the Individual some nature other
than that Universal. Now in the case of a Thing and its
Properties, this was possible. For the Thing was conceived as
a Substratum, of which the Properties were the Surface, but
which had a nature in some way distinguished from them.
But this distinction has disappeared in the Notion. Our
Individual is completely expressed by its Universals. It has
nothing else in it. Where, then, can we find a nature for the
Individual which has the Universal ?

Each Individual, of course, has many Universals. But it is
not possible to determine the nature of the Individual which is
asserted to have one Universal, by means of the others which
are true of it. For the difficulty would recur. The Individual
is not identical with these Universals any more than with the
first. We should be compelled to say that it had them. And
so the difficulty would arise once more.

194. I do not think, however, that Hegel's argument can
be finally sustained. It is true, no doubt, that the Individual
has no nature except what can be expressed by Universals.
And this would be fatal if it were necessary that a thing, which
was related to its qualities as possessing them, should have a
nature logically prior to those qualities. But I do not see that
this is so. It was doubtless the position in the Doctrine of
Essence, but by this time Hegel regards it as transcended.
The nature of a thing is to be sought in its connexions with
other things — by Universals or by causal relations — and not in
some inner core of reality distinguished from them. This is
certainly Hegel's general position with regard to the difference
between Essence and the Notion, and he has therefore no right
to fall back, in a category of the Notion, on the transcended
conceptions of Essence, in order to demonstrate a contradiction.

Thus I see no contradiction in " the rose is red." We can
state it, to avoid the ambiguity of " is," in the form " the rose
has redness." If we ask what it is which has this redness, no

202 CH. YIIL SUBJECTIVITY

contradiction arises. Let us take redness, sweetness, and value
as standing for the whole infinite number of Universals which
are true of any particular rose. Then, if it is asked, " what is
the nature of this which has redness, sweetness, and value?" the
answer is " its nature is to have redness, sweetness, and value."
This involves no vicious circle. It does involve the rejection
of the principle that a thing must be logically prior to its
qualities. But this principle is not true, and is recognised by
Hegel not to be true. He has therefore no ground, that I can
see, for rejecting this solution.

195. He does, however, reject it, and passes on. The
Positive Judgment, he holds, has broken down because the
Individual and the Universal could not be made to coincide.
Now in a Negative Judgment the assertion is precisely that
they do not coincide. We thus reach

(6) The Negative Judgment.

(G. L. iii. 82. Enc. 172.) Since the Negative Judgment
is introduced in order to avoid the contradiction which Hegel
finds in the Positive Judgment, it is clear that the Negative
Judgment will have to replace the Positive Judgment altogether.
We must have Negative Judgments, then, which do not involve
any Positive Judgments.

Hegel now points out {G. L. iii. 87. Enc. 173) that if we
take a rose which is not red, it will nevertheless have some
colour, and so will fall within the wider class of coloured objects.
And thus we get the Positive Judgment that it is coloured.
Can we ever get a Negative Judgment without such a Positive
Judgment ? Only, he says, if we can deny of the Individual A
a Universal Z, such that no common Universal would be true
both of A and of all those Individuals of whom Z would be true.
If we could find a predicate so far removed from A as this, the
negative relation between it and A would form what Hegel
calls an Infinite Judgment, to which we now pass.

(c) The Infinite Judgment.

196. {G. L. iii. 89. Enc. 173.) He now tells us that,
besides this Infinite Judgment, which he also calls the Negative-

II. THE JUDGMENT 203

Infinite Judgment, there is also a Positive-Infinite Judgment,
the Judgment of Identity. This takes either the form " the
Individual is the Individual " or else the form " the Universal
is the Universal " {G. L. iii. 90).

It is quite true, of course, that if all Universals are denied
of Individuals, we shall still be able to assert these barren
tautologies, and they will be the only positive assertions which
we shall be able to make. But Hecjel's treatment of these
identities as if they were a subdivision of the Infinite Judgment
is misleading. The true Infinite Judgment — the Negative-
Infinite — denies the Universal of the Individual, and is in its
proper place in the chain of attempts to determine the relation
of the Individual to the Universal which runs right through
the Judgments of Inherence and Subsumption. The affirma-
tions that the Individual is the Individual, and the Universal
is the Universal, have no place in this chain. They are true
here, as they are true at every point after Individual and
Universal have been once introduced. But they do not form
a category at this point. The attempt to explain the nature of
existent reality by the affirmation that anything is itself belongs
to the category of Identity at the beginning of Essence.

Hegel appears to have intended to express the same view
in the Encyclopaedia on this point as he had already expressed
in the Greater Logic (Enc. 173). But he makes the whole
argument unintelligible by making the Positive-Infinite Judg-
ment (there called simplj^ Identical) precede the Negative-
Infinite Judgment (there called simply Infinite). By doing
this he throws the transition from Negative Judgment into
obscurity which can only be cleared up by comparison with the
Greater Logic. This obscurity is increased by the extreme con-
densation which prevails in the whole treatment of Subjectivity
in the Encyclopaedia.

197. Hegel's transition from Infinite Judgment is as
follows. He takes as examples of Infinite Judgments, " the
rose is not an elephant," " the understanding is not a table,"
and he says that, although correct or true (richtig oder wahr)
they are nonsensical and trivial (widersinnig und abgeschmackt)
{G. L. iii. 90. Enc. 173). And it certainly is true that such
Judgments are seldom, if ever, worth the trouble of asserting

204 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

A Negative Judgment is interesting in proportion as the
Individual of whom the Universal is denied, resembles those
Individuals of whom it could be affirmed. Thus "the elephant
is not carnivorous " is a more interesting and important pro-
position than "the oak is not carnivorous," while this, again, is
better worth asserting than the equally correct proposition "the
binomial theorem is not carnivorous."

But this would not be sufficient for Hegel's purpose. For
to pass from Infinite Judgment to the Judgment of Sub-
sumption it would be necessary to show that there is some
contradiction in Infinite Judgment. And this is not done by
showing that the propositions which, from the point of view of
Infinite Judgment, would describe the universe, are trivial and
unimportant. It would be necessary to show that they would
be, taken by themselves, contradictory, whereas Hegel admits
them to be correct and true.

The fact is that Hegel does not do justice to his own
position. The examples he gives are not contradictory, but
then they are not Infinite Judgments. " The understanding is
not a table" is not an Infinite Judgment. For an understanding
has certain Universals in common with tables. Tables and
understandings, for example, are both substances and both
existent. A real Infinite Judgment is impossible. In an
Infinite Judgment the Subject, of which the Predicate is
denied, must have no Universal in common with the Individuals
of whom the Predicate could be affirmed. This is clearly im-
possible, if all Individuals have any Universal common to all
of them. And all Individuals have, at any rate, the common
Universal of Individuality. There cannot, therefore, be any
Judgment which is really Infinite.

It seems to me that Hegel was mistaken in making Infinite
Judgment a separate category, and in making it the Synthesis
in the triad of Judgment of Inherence. For an Infinite Judg-
ment is only a Negative Judgment which can be true without
any Positive Judgment being true. If "A is not Z" is not
Infinite, then A has some Universal Y in common with the
Individuals which are Z, and this would be the basis of a
Positive Judgment. Now the transition from Positive to
Negative Judgments involved that no Positive Judgments are

II. THE JUDGMENT 205

true, and thus in reaching the category of Negative Judgment
we had ah-eady reached the position of Infinite Judgment which
should not, therefore, be a separate category.

Moreover, Infinite Judgment does not form a proper Syn-
thesis for the triad of Judgment of Inherence. As a Synthesis
it ought to transcend the opposition between Positive and
Negative Judgments, while in fact it merely developes it\

198. It would be easy, however, to recast the divisions, so
as to avoid this defect, without departing from the main line of
Hegel's argument. The category of Negative Judgment breaks
down because it requires that only Negative Judgments should
be true of Individuals, which is impossible, since at any rate
the Positive Judgment, " this is an Individual," is true of every
Individual. Then the argument by which Hegel passes to
Judgment of Subsumption from Infinite Judgment would take
us from Negative Judgment to a Synthesis which contains the
principle of Subsumption, and which, by the usual "collapse
into immediacy" will take us to the Singular Judgment, the
first subdivision of Subsumption.

That argument is as follows (G. L. iii. 93). In the Judg-
ment of Inherence "its movement showed itself in the predicate"'
while the subject was what was regarded as fundamental.
But in the Judgment of Subsumption the fundamental element
is the predicate "by which the subject is to be measured, and
in correspondence to which the subject is to be determined."

Both Positive and Negative Judgments of Inherence — this-
appears to be the line of Hegel's thought — have broken down.
The difficulty has arisen from the inevitable incompatibility of
the subject and the predicate in the Judgment of Inherence.
How can this be changed? So far we have started with the
subject and endeavoured to fit the predicate to it. And we
have failed. There remains the alternative of starting with the
predicate, and endeavouring to fit the subject to it. Instead,
that is, of asking what Universal is true of a given Individual,,
we shall ask of what Individuals a given Universal is true.
The last triad was called Judgment of Inherence because the
question was what Universals belonged to, or inhered in, an

1 This point is partially obscured by Hegel's treatment of Identical Judgment,,
which suggests that it is a subdivision of Infinite Judgment.

206 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

Individual. Here the question is what Individuals are brought
under a Universal, and our new triad is called

B. The Judgment of Subsumption,

{G.L. iii. 91. Enc. 174.) This introduces, for the first time,
the possibility of a distinction of Quantity in Judgment. When
we started with the Individual, all Judgments applied to one
Individual only. But the answer to our present question may
be either that the Universal applies to one Individual, or to
several. And these several can either be some of those who
possess a second Universal, or all of those who possess it. Our
Judgment may be " this is Z" or " some Y are Z," or " all Y
are Z^ It can be either Singular, Particular, or Universal.

199. Hegel gives another characteristic of this triad, which
apparently forms the ground for its other title of Judgment of
Keflection. " If examples are to be given of the predicates of
Judgments of Reflection, they must be of a different kind
than those of the Judgments of Determinate Being^ In the
Judgment of Reflection is given for the first time a really
determined content, that is, a content at all... In the Judgment
of Determinate Being the content is only something immediate,
abstract, undetermined. Thus the following can serve as
examples of Judgments of Reflection : man is mortal, things
are perishable, this thing is useful or hurtful. Hardness and
elasticity of bodies, happiness, etc., are characteristic predicates
of this sort. They express an essentiality, which however is a
determination by means of Relations, or a unifying (zusammen-
fassende) Universality" ((?. L. iii. 92. Enc. 174).

The point apparently is that a predicate must now assert
some relation of the subject with another subject. But all the
examples are not happily chosen. Useful and elastic, indeed,
assert a relation, but perishable and hajopy do not seem to
assert a relation any more than red does, which is taken by
Hegel as an example of a Judgment of Determined Being.

I do not think Hegel is justified in ascribing this second
characteristic to the new triad. He has now made it differ
from the former in two respects, (a) the predicates must express

^ It will be remembered that Judgments of Inherence are also called Judgments
of Determinate Being.

11. THE JUDGMENT 207

relations, (b) the predicate, and not the subject, is the datum
from which Ave start. If the new category is to have both
these characteristics, he is bound to show that they are some-
how connected, so that we are forced, if we modify our previous
conception in one respect; to modify it also in the other. So
far as I can see, he does not make any attempt to do this.
And it seems difficult to conceive how it could be done. What
is there in the fact that a predicate expresses a relation, that
should involve the fact that the predicate, rather than the
subject, should be taken as the datum ? Or what is there in the
fact that the predicate, rather than the subject, should be
taken as the datum, which should involve the fact that the
predicate taken should be one which expresses a relation ?

If the changes, then, are separate and unconnected, which
of them is really the characteristic idea of the new triad ?
It seems clear that it is Subsumption, and not Relational
Predicates which must be taken as the meaning of the new
stage, if the argument is to be considered valid. For we saw
above that the change to Subsumption was a real attempt
to remove the difficulty which Hegel found in Judgments of
Inherence — the impossibilit}'- of finding a predicate which
should coincide with the subject. Now a change to Relational
Predicates does nothing to remove this difficulty. If there
really were, as Hegel believed, a contradiction in " this rose is
red," owing to the want of coincidence between the subject and
the predicate, there would be just the same contradiction in
*' this rose is useful."

Again, it is clearly essential to the new triad that the
distinction of Quantity should be introduced. The subdivisions
of the triad turn entirely on Quantity, and without it we
should not reach the Universal Judgment, which is vital for the
rest of the argument of the dialectic. Now, as we have seen,
the change to Subsumption does involve the introduction of
Quantity into Judgments. But the change to Relational
Predicates would not. If we continued to take the subject as
the datum for starting, there would be no more reason to make
distinctions of Quantity in predicating utility than in predi-
cating redness.

For these reasons I think that we must regard Hegel as

208 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

having illegitimately added the change to Relational Predi-
cates, when he ought to have confined himself to the change to
Subsumption.

(a) The Singular Judgment.

200. {G. L. iii. 94. Enc. 175.) All Judgments of Inherence
are, as we have said, Singular in form. The Judgment of Sub-
sumption, which is derived from the Judgment of Inherence,
will consequently start as a Singular Judgment. Its outer
form, therefore, will be exactly the same as in a Positive
Judgment of Inherence — for example, " this is red " or " this is
useful." But the difference is that, in the former triad, the
singularity of the Judgment was an essential part of its nature
as a Judgment of Inherence. Here, on the other hand, it is
merely the form with which we start, which can be modified if
it is found not to be suitable.

201. This Hegel considers he has already shown, in his
criticism of the Positive Judgment. We must pass on to

(b) The Particular Judgment.

(G. L. iii. 94. Enc. 175.) The example Hegel gives of this
is " some men are happy." It will be noticed that the change
is more than a mere increase in the number of Individuals.
Our Singular Judgment had only one Universal — the Universal
in the predicate. For, as we saw above (Section 192), although,
even in Judgments of Inherence, we may speak of " this rose "
and not simply " this," it is only to remind us that the Individual
is, in point of fact, a concrete Individual with many qualities.
We did not make our assertion of redness in any way dependent
on the Individual being a rose. It would have been as good
an example of the category if we had only said "■ this is red."
Here, however, it is the nature of our Judgment to have a
Universal in the subject as well as in the predicate. The
subject is defined in relation to this Universal. It is "some
tnen."

It is necessary that the Particular Judgment should take
this form, if it is to remove the difficulty which Hegel finds in
the Singular Judgment. For if we merely took a plurality of
separate Individuals, instead of a single Individual, we should

II. THE JUDGMENT 209

leave the difficulty untouched. It would occur about each
Individual separately, and the only change would be that it
would be repeated many times over. It is not transcended till
we have grouped the Individuals under another Universal, and
so made the Judgment the expression of the relation between
two Universals.

The statement "some X is Y" is, however, ambiguous.
It may mean "some, but not all, X is Y," or it may leave it
doubtful whether there is any X which is not F. Hegel takes
it here in the former sense. " In the judgment 'some men are
happy ' is implied the immediate consequence ' some men are
not happy'" (G. L. iii. 95). In this, however, he seems to me
to be wrong. He has no right to put any more into this new
category than is required to avoid the inadequacy of the
previous category. Now all that is required for that purpose is
that the Individuals in the subject should be united by all
being A''. It would not be at all helped by the existence of
other X's which were not Y.

If we take the Particular Judgment in the second sense —
as leaving it doubtful if any X is not Y — then, apart from the
necessity of transcending the inadequacy of Singular Judg-
ments, we can see that, if Individuals have Universals at all.
Particular Judgments must be true. For the relation of any
number of Individuals, A,B, C, etc., to the Universal Z, which
they all possess, can be expressed in a Particular Judgment,
" some Y is Z," if any other Universal Y can be found which
also belongs to A, B, and G. And, whatever A, B, G, etc., are,
this is always the case. If there are at least two Universals
which are common to all Individuals, any two Individuals
which have one common Universal must also have another
common Universal. And the Universals of existence and
individuality — not to mention any others — are common to all
Individuals. So, when we have predicated a Universal of two
or more Individuals, however dissimilar in other respects those
Individuals may be, we know that some other Universal may
always be found, which they have in common, and can express
the fact in the form of a Particular Judgment.

Of course, the higher we have to go for the Universal in the
subject, the less information we get. "Some judges are

M«T. 1^

210 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

corrupt " gives us more information than " some functionaries
are corrupt," and the latter again gives us more information
than " some men are corrupt." But though the importance of
the proposition which we can obtain will vary, some proposition
of this form will always be true.

202. But while Particular Judgments are true, the category
of Particular Judgments developes a contradiction. By taking
it as a category we undertake to express the nature of the
existent by it. And this cannot be done. For if a Particular
Judgment is true, then something else must be true which is
not expressed in the Particular Judgment. The Particular
Judgment says of a certain class that some of its members have
a certain Universal. This leaves it possible that some have not
got it\ Thus of every member of the class we assert that it
may or may not have it. But this is not the whole truth.
For the truth about certain members of the class is that they
do have it. And the truth about certain members of the class
may be that they do not have it. Thus assertions of actual
possession or non-possession must be true about each member,
while all that the Particular Judgment gives us about each
member is an assertion of possible possession.

Now we cannot take them one by one, and, pointing to each
in turn, say that A has it, B has it not, and so on. For then
we should have got back to predicating Universals directly of
Individuals, and this has already been decided to be in-
admissible. Since the Individuals of the subject, then, are not
to be taken individually, they must be united by a Universal —
there is no other way. And it will not be sufficient to unite
them by a Universal which covers other Individuals besides
them, since this will give only a Particular Judgment. There
is only one course left. We must group our Individuals by
means of a Subject-Universal which just covers them, so that
we can say that wherever the Subject- Universal is found the
Predicate-Universal will be found too. In other words, we
must be able to make general propositions, and say " all X are
Z." It is not necessary, indeed, that all Z should also be X.

1 If we take the Particular Judgment as Hegel does himself ((?. L. iii. 95,
loc. cit.) this is not only possible, but necessary. The rest of the argument
would be unchanged.

II. THE JUDGMENT 211

The position may be that all Z are either X or W, and that
all X, and likewise all Tf, are Z. But every individual which
is Z must have some other Universal, which Universal is never
found in any case without Z.

(c) The Universal Judgment.

203. (O. L. iii. 96. Enc. 175.) The advance which is
made in this category is evident and striking. Here, for the
first time, we become entitled to assert general propositions,
other than the general propositions which make up the Logic
itself That is to say, for the first time science becomes
possible. However certain it might be that nothing happened
without a cause, and that everything was in relations of
reciprocal causality with everything else, this would not be
sufiicient for science. Unless the results of that determination
could be expressed in general propositions, so that we could
say that some Universals are always or never found in con-
junction with others, it would be impossible to classify, to
predict, or to explain.

This is the point at which scepticism of a certain type
stops. It will admit that there really are Universals shared by
more than one Individual, but it denies that there really are
any general laws connecting one Universal with another. It
does not merely assert that many general laws which we at
present accept may possibly be erroneous, which no one could,
in the present imperfect state of our knowledge, reasonably
deny. It asserts that there are no true general laws at all,
known or unknown, and that all inferences are erroneous
which conclude the presence or absence of one Universal
in an Individual from the presence or absence of another
Universal.

Hegel's answer would be that there must be true general
propositions, as this is the only way in which the contradiction
which appears in the Particular Judgment can be removed.
Let us recapitulate. The Individuals of which a certain
Universal is predicated must be either isolated or connected.
If they are connected, it can only be by a second Universal
introduced into the subject. And this Subject-Universal may
either include other Individuals, of which the Predicate-

14—2

212 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

Universal is not true, or it may include only those of which
the Predicate-Universal is true. We have thus three cases.
The first gives the Singular Judgment. The second gives the
Particular Judgment. We have seen that both of these, when
taken as categories, involve contradictions, and must therefore
be transcended. There remains only the third alternative,
and this gives us Universal Judgments.

In thus transcending the categories of Singular and
Particular Judgments we do not assert that no Singular or
Particular Judgments are true. It may be quite true to say
" this is red," or " some roses are red." What we have gained
in this triad is the knowledge that "this" (whatever it may be)
could not be red unless it possessed some other Universal,
which is never found except where redness is found also.
And the same will be true of each individual rose which is,
in fact, red.

The whole force of the argument for this category rests,
of course, on Hegel's view that there is a contradiction in the
category of Positive Judgment. Without that we could never
have proceeded to Negative Judgment, or passed over to
Subsumption. I have endeavoured to show that Hegel was
not justified in rejecting Positive Judgment for the reasons
given by him. In that case we must pronounce the transition
to Universal Judgment unsound, without raising the question
whether, if the contradiction in Positive Judgment could have
been justified, Hegel could finally have transcended it by the
course which he has taken.

It is possible that the gap which this leaves in the dialectic
process could be supplied. For example, it might be the case that
a consideration of what is involved in the complete reciprocal
determination established at the end of Essence might lead us
by a shorter path to the validity of the category of Universal
Judgment. But an attempt to consider this question would
take us too far from Hegel to permit its introduction here.

We now leave the direct consideration of the Individual for
the present, since our Judgment has become a relation between
Universals. This will develope a certain one-sidedness which
will be counterbalanced in Objectivity.

II. THE JUDGMENT 213

C. The Judgment of Necessity.

204. (G. L. iii. 101. Enc. 177.) It is to be noticed that
the Necessity is not in the connexion of Universals, but in the
determination of Individuals under them. The truth about
the universe is now taken as expressed in Judgments of the
type " all X are Z." This Judgment is not held as necessary,
for there is nothing given as yet to necessitate it. But what is
now necessary is the determination of the Individual. Of any
Individual which is X it can be said, not only that it is Z, but
that, since it is X, it must be Z. And here we get the con-
ception of Necessity.

(a) The Categorical Judgment.

205. {G. L. iii. 101. Enc. 177.) This, as is to be expected,
is a restatement of the Universal Judgment. When, in the
Universal Judgment, we found that all X were Z, that could
not mean only that, in point of fact, each Individual which was
X was also Z. For then the Universal Judgment would only
be the abbreviated expression of a series of Singular Judgments,
and could not, therefore, transcend the defects of Singular
Judgments. The Universal Judgment must mean that the
presence of the one Universal involves the presence of the other.
And the only difference which we find when we pass to the
Categorical Judgment is that the assertion of the connexion
between the Universals is rather more explicit. This is marked
by discarding the form of Subsumption which was still left in
the Universal Judgment. Instead of saying "all lions are
mammals," we now say " the lion is a mammal,"

Hegel tells us here, as he did before with Judgments of
Subsumption, that this form is only appropriate to certain
Universals. " The rose is a plant " is a legitimate Categorical
Judgment, but not "the rose is red" {G. L. iii. 102). Presum-
ably the Universals appropriate to Judgments of Reflection,
such as transitory or useful, would also be inappropriate here.
He does not in any way define the class of Universals appropriate
to Judgments of Necessity. The examples he gives are " the
rose is a plant," " this ring is gold," and (in the Encyclopaedia)
" gold is a metal."

214 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

It seems to me that this view, like the corresponding view
in Judgments of Subsumption, is unjustifiable. If Hegel
regards the change as first introduced in the passage from
Universal to Categorical Judgments, which his words seem to
suggest, this is inconsistent with the fact that he does not treat
this passage as involving any advance in the dialectic, but
merely as a restatement. If, on the other hand, he regards
it as first introduced in the transition from Particular to
Universal Judgments, he does not give any reason why this
change should accompany the change from Particularity to
Universality. He does show why we cannot be satisfied with
a category of Particularity, and why we must proceed to
Universality, but he gives no indication of any necessity
for changing, at the same time, the class of predicates
employed.

And, again, when we come to the Syllogism of Determinate.
Being, we find that any restriction on the character of Uni-
versal has disappeared, though it is difficult to imagine — and
we find nothing in Hegel to help us — how such a restriction,
when once made, could again be removed. On all these grounds
I think that the limitation to a special class of Universals must
be rejected.

206. Hegel now proceeds to

(b) The Hypothetical Judgment.

{0. L. iii. 103. Enc. 177.) If by this category had been
meant, as would naturally have been supposed, a view of
existence which could be expressed in the form "if anything
is X, then it is Z," there would have been no difiiiculty. It is
clear that if the lion is a mammal, then, if anything is a lion,
it is a mammal. The Categorical Judgment involves the
Hypothetical. The only possible criticism would be that the
Hypothetical Judgment is a mere restatement of the Categorical,
and that this relation, though appropriate between a Synthesis
and a new Thesis, is out of place between a Thesis and an
Antithesis in the same triad.

But this is not the Hypothetical Judgment which Hegel
has in view. His example, both in the Greater Logic and in
the Encyclopaedia, is, " if A is, B is." He expands this in the

II. THE JUDGMENT 215

Greater Logic, " the Being of ^ is not its own Being, but the
Being of another, of B."

Here, again, Hegel seems to me quite unjustified in his
procedure. The whole of Subjectivity is devoted to determin-
ing the natui'e of Individuals by means of Universals. This is
what was being done in Categorical Judgment. It is what is
done again, in the next category, in Disjunctive Judgment. Is
it possible that between these there should be inserted a cate-
gory which determines, not the nature, but the existence, of an
Individual, and which determines it, not by Universals, but by
another Individual ? It would at any rate require a very clear
deduction of the necessity of such a category before we could
accept it. Now all that Hegel says is "the Categorical Judg-
ment corresponds for the first time to its objective universality
by this necessity of its immediate being, and in this way passes
over to the Hypothetical Judgment " (G. L. iii. 103). This
might serve to explain the transition from " the X is F" to
" if anything is X, it is T" where X and Y are both Universals.
It entirely fails to justify the transition from "the X is Y"
to " if A is, B is," where A and B are Individuals. Nor would
the return from Individuals to Universals at the transition into
the Disjunctive Judgment be any more intelligible (cp. G. L.
iii. 105). The category must then, in my opinion, be rejected.

(c) The Disjunctive Judgment.

207. {G. L. iii. 10.5. Enc. 177.) Although Hegel's tran-
sition from Categorical to Disjunctive Judgments thus breaks
down, we can see that a transition from Categorical to Dis-
junctive Judgments is necessary.

We know that there are cases in which it is true that all X
are Z, while it is false that all Z are X. The proof of this is
as follows. Any two Individuals, as we have seen, will have
some Universals in common, and each of them will have some
Universals which the other has not. Let us take Z as standing
for a Universal common to some two Individuals, and Q and R
as two Univei'sals each of which belongs to one of them only.
The first Individual will be ZQ, and the second ZR. Now as
any predication of Universals of any Individual can only be
made by means of a Universal Judgment, there must be some

216 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

X such that all X will be ZQ. Then all X will be Z, but all Z
will not be X. For all X are Q, and all Z are not Q, since
there is the class ZR, of which our second Individual was an
example.

We know, therefore, that in some of our Universal (or
Categorical) Judgments the predicate will be wider than the
subject. All X will be Z, but there are some Z which are not X.
Now these Individuals, which are not X, cannot be Z as simply
isolated Individuals. This, according to Hegel, was proved
when we transcended Positive Judgments. Each of these
Individuals must have some Universal, with which Z is con-
nected by means of another Categorical Judgment. How many
of them there may be we do not know, but we do know that
every Individual which has Z, must have one of them. Thus
we arrive at the conclusion that all Z is either X, or W, or V,
where W and F represent an unknown number of Universals.

Of course this does not exclude the possibility that in some
cases the connexion of the Universals is reciprocal, so that not
only all X is Z, but all Z is X. This cannot, for the reasons
just given, be true in all cases, but it can in some. Thus we
may say that the category before us asserts that for every
Universal Z there may be found a group of Universals, X, W, V,
such that whatever is X, W, or V is Z, and that whatever is Z
is either X, W, or V, and asserts further that in some cases the
group X, W, V, may contain only a single Universal, bat that
it is impossible that this should be so in all cases.

The necessity of passing from Categorical Judgment to
Disjunctive Judgment applies, of course, to the nature of
existence and not to our knowledge about it. If Categorical
Judgments are true of existence, then Disjunctive Judgments
are true of existence. But if our knowledsie enables us to make
a Categoi^ical Judgment on any subject, it by no means follows
that it will enable us to make the corresponding Disjunctive.
I may know that the lion is a mammal, without knowing the
complete list of species, to one of which every mammal must
belong. In the same way a Positive Judgment can be known
without knowing the corresponding Universal. I may know-
that this Individual is red, without being able to determine
what Universal it possesses, the possession of which involves

II. THE JUDGMENT 217

redness, though, if Hegel is right, such a Universal must
exist.

208. The two sides of the Judgment are now, according to
Hegel, "identical" {G. L. iii. 110). By this he means that
they have the same denotation. Every Z is either X or W or
V, while all X, all W, and all V are Z. Thus the denotation
of Z is the same as the denotations of X, IT, and V added
together. " This Unity," he continues, " the Copula of this
Judgment, in which the extremes have come together through
their identity, is thereby the Notion itself, and, moreover, the
Notion as posited ; the mere Judgment of Necessity has thus
raised itself to the Judgment of the Notion."

D. The Judgment of the Notion.

209. {G. L. iii. 110. Enc. 178.) This transition appears
to relate exclusively to the relation of the Subject with the
Predicate. But here, as with Judgments of Subsumption and
Judgments of Necessity, Hegel introduces, along with this
distinction, the further distinction that only a special sort of
Predicates are appropriate for Judgments of this form. The
examples he gives are good, bad, true, beautiful and correct.
All these, as he remarks, have reference to some ideal (ein
Sollen). But he establishes no connexion between these
Predicates on the one hand, and, on the other, the closer
relation between Subject and Predicate which formed the
transition to Judgments of the Notion. Nor is there any
connexion between the use of such Predicates, and the three
subdivisions of Judgments of the Notion, of which the first is

(a.) The Assertoric Judgment.

(G. L. iii. 112. Enc. 178.) The example given of this is
"this deed is good." This does not appear to differ from a
Categorical Judgment, except in the sort of Predicate used.
But the Assertoric Judgment does differ from the Categorical
Judgment in another characteristic, thouorh this characteristic
does not seem to have any relation to the closer connexion of
Subject and Predicate which was given in the passage quoted
above as the characteristic of Judgments of the Notion.

The new difference concerns, not what is asserted, but the

218 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

justification which he who asserts it possesses for his assertion.
"Its proof is a subjective assurance" {G. L. iii. 113).

210. And this gives the transition to the next category,
for, as Hegel goes on to remark, " over against the assurance
of the Assertoric Judgment there stands with equal right the
assurance of its opposite." If the only ground for believing
this deed to be good is that the assertion is made, then we are
plunged in doubt. For it is equally possible to make the
assertion that this deed is not good, and one assertion is as
good as another. This doubt takes us to {G, L. iii. 114.
Enc. 178)

(b) The Problematic Judgment.

211. Hegel does not give any reason why we must pass
from this category to the next. He merely gives the transition
without justifying it. Instead of simply saying "the deed is
good," we must say " the deed of such and such a nature is
good." Here the nature of the deed is, in effect, given as a
reason why we should accept the Judgment that it is good
rather than the Judgment that it is not good. This is

(c) The Apodictic Judgment.

(G. L. iii. 116. Enc. 178.) The characteristic of the Sub-
ject, thus given as the reason why the Subject should have
the Predicate, is said by Hegel to be the Copula of the Judg-
ment become "completed or full of content (erflillte oder
inhaltsvolle) ; the unity of the Notion again restored out of
the Judgment, in the extremes of which it was lost." From
this Hegel makes his transition to Syllogism.

212. Is this triad of the Judgment of the Notion valid ?
I believe that it is not, and that the transition ought to go
direct from Disjunctive Judgment to Syllogism. In support of
this I would urge four considerations.

In the first place, grave suspicion is thrown upon the triad
by the fact that, if it is accepted, it gives Judgment as a whole
four subdivisions instead of the three which are essential to
Hegel's method. The excuse which he gives for this is that of
the " three chief kinds of Judgment parallel to the stages of
Being, Essence, and Notion," the second "as required by the

II, THE JUDGMENT 219

character of Essence, which is the stage of differentiation, must
be doubled" {Enc. 171). This however cannot be accepted as
a justification for Judgment having four subdivisions, when
other stages have only three. For, throughout the whole
dialectic, the second subdivision of the three in each stage
always corresponds to Essence, and, if this involved dividing
it into two, four subdivisions would be the invariable rule, and
not the exception.

The second difficulty is still more serious. The Assertoric,
Problematic, and Apodictic Judgments are distinguished from
one another, and from those which precede them, not by any
distinction in the propositions asserted, but by distinctions as
to the characteristics of mental states of those who assert the
propositions. An Assertoric Judgment is one believed firmly,
but without a reason. A Problematic Judgment is one which
is regarded as possibly, but not certainly, true. An Apodictic
Judgment is one which is believed firmly, with a reason for
believing it.

Hegel, indeed, denies {G. L. iii. Ill) that these categories
are thus subjective. But he does not explain what other
meaning they can have, and when he comes to treat them in
detail, as we have already seen, his treatment is inexplicable
except on the hypothesis that they have this meaning.

For the Assertoric Judgment clearly differs from those
which go before it in something else besides the sort of
Predicates applicable. This is evident both from the transition
to it, and from its name. And if this new feature is not " our
subjective assurance" of it, why does Hegel, on p. 113, give
that account of it ? And what else could that new feature be ?
And how, if it were not a question of beliefs rather than pro-
positions, could two be opposed to one another with equal
right, as Hegel in the transition to Problematic Judgments
asserts that they are ?

So, too, with the Problematic Judgment. This arises
because two incompatible Assertoric Judgments about the
same Subject are held with equal right. Now this cannot
possibly produce any new Judgment about the Subject, but
may very well produce a doubt and uncertainty about each of
them. It seems impossible to deduce anything else here, and

220 CH, VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

this makes the distinction relate entirely to the way in which
we believe the truth. And the name clearly indicates the same
fact. Problematic means doubtful, and no proposition is doubtful
except in relation to the knowledge of some particular knower.
I may be doubtful whether A is B, but A cannot be doubtfully
B. It is B or it is not.

The same is, I think, the case with the Apodictic Judgment.
The examples Hegel gives are not decisive. The nature of the
deed might be given either as the reason why it was good, or
as the reason why I believed it to be good. But it seems clear
to me that Hegel regarded the Apodictic Judgment as differing
from the Assertoric and Problematic in the same manner in
which the Assertoric and Problematic differ from one another.
In that case the Apodictic Judgment is also a category which
applies to beliefs only, and not to all realities, and the reason
given in it is not the reason of the fact believed, but the reason
of the belief

If Hegel has introduced either two or three categories of
this sort here, his treatment is clearly invalid. The whole
argument of the dialectic rests on the supposition that all the
categories are applicable to the same subject-matter — namely
all existent reality. Again, the Disjunctive Judgment clearly
applied to all existence, and not merely to beliefs. How could
we deduce from it a new category which applies merely to
beliefs ? It seems impossible to conceive how such a deduction
could be justified, and certainly Hegel does not attempt to
justify it. And, in the same way, how could he be justified in
passing back, from categories which deal merely with beliefs, to
categories which deal with all existence? And, by the time he
reaches Syllogism he has certainly done this.

213. In the third place, the transition to the Judgment of
the Notion seems to me erroneous. It is no doubt the case, as
was said above, that Judgments made according to Hegel's
category of Disjunctive Judgment have the same denotation
for their Subjects and their Predicates. But I cannot see how
this would enable us to pass to the Judgment of the Notion,
where the denotations are not identical, though the connotations
are said to be more closely connected. Nor can I see why
Assertoric, Problematic, and Apodictic Judgments should be

III. THE SYLLOGISM 221

the subdivisions of Judgment of the Notion, defined as Hegel
has defined it.

In the fourth place the Judgment of the Notion can be
removed without destroying the continuity of the dialectic.
For it is not difficult to see that Syllogism necessarily follows
from Disjunctive Judgment. Syllogism starts, as we shall see,
with the position that it is necessary to give some reason why
the two Universals in a general proposition are connected with
one another. Now this necessity will be seen so soon as we find
that two Universals are connected in such a way — that is, in
the Categorical Judgment. In the Disjunctive Judgment the
question becomes more pressing, since the alternative nature
of the connexion renders it more obvious that we must face the
problem. Z is in some cases X, in some cases W, and in some
cases V. Why, in each case, is it the one and not the other ?
Thus Syllogism could follow directly from Disjunctive Judgment.
For these four reasons I think that the Judgment of the Notion
must be rejected.

214. We now pass to

III. The Syllogism.

((t. L. iii. 118. Enc. 181.) The essential characteristic
here is the mediation of the connexion between two Universals.
The connexion, in the first place, is made by what was, in
Apodictic Judgment, the reason (cp. above, Section 211).
This is based on another Universal. The reason that the deed
was good was that its nature had a certain characteristic, and
such a characteristic is expressed by a Universal. Thus media-
tion is by a third Universal, which gives us

A. The Qualitative Syllogism.

{G. L. iii. 121. Em. 183.) This is again divided by Hegel,
the subdivisions being named after the Figures of formal logic.
We shall have to consider later whether this is valid, but there
is at any rate no doubt that, if we are to have these divisions,
we must begin with the First Figure. For the linking of
Universals gives Universal Propositions, some of which are
Affirmative. And Universal Affirmative Propositions can only
be proved by the First Figure.

222 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

(a) First Figure.

(G. L. iii. 122. Enc. 183.) Hegel says that this category
can be expressed as I P U. The Subject of the conclusion,
that is, is an Individual, the Predicate of the conclusion is a
Universal, and the Middle Term is a Particular.

This seems unjustifiable. The distinction between Particular
and Universal Notions at the beginning of Subjectivity(cp. above,
Section 190) does not apply to the Middle and Major terms
of a Syllogism of the First Figure, and if Hegel means anything
else here by Universal and Particular, he does not tell us what
it is.

Nor has he, I think, any right to bring in the Individual
here. In the Categorical Judgment the result reached was a
connexion of two Universals. In several places between that
and the present stage Hegel speaks as if the Subject of the
Judgment might or must be an Individual, but he never
expressly acknowledges this transition, or attempts to justify
it. We have no right here to deal with any connexion except
that between Universals.

Nor does the formal logic, of whose Figures he has availed
himself to provide names for his categories, offer any excuse for
the introduction of the Individual. For the Individual is not
recognised by formal logic, which treats "Caesar is mortal" as
a proposition of exactly the same type as "all Bishops are
mortal."

215. How is the inadequacy of the First Figure proved ?
Hegel makes two objections to its validity. The first is as
follows. The Subject has many characteristics which may be
used as Middle Terms, and each Middle Term, again, can
connect it with many Major Terms. Thus it is "con-
tingent and capricious" (zufallig und willkiirlich) with what
Major Term the Subject will be connected, and also what
Predicate will be given it in the conclusion {G. L. iii. 127.
Enc. 184).

This is quite true. All Cambridge Doctors of Divinity are
Anglican clergymen, and are graduates of the University.
From the first of these, as a Middle Term, we can conclude
either that they have been ordained, or that they are incapable

III. THE SYLLOGISM 223

of sitting in Parliament. From the second we can conclude,
either that the Graces for their degrees passed the Senate, or
that they were presented for their degrees by a member of the
University. All four conclusions are true, but it is quite
contingent and capricious which we shall take. There is
nothing in the idea of the Subject "all Cambridge Doctors
of Divinity " to decide which we shall prefer to the others.

But how does this produce a contradiction? The Subject
is united, by two Middle Terms, to four Predicates. But why
should this not be the case ? If, indeed, we had to choose one
in preference to others, a difficulty would arise, for no ground
of preference is given. But there is no necessity to choose.
For all these Judgments can be true of the Subject together.
The defect which Hegel thinks that he has found here is
like the defect which he says constitutes the inadequacy of the
category of Variety (cp. above, Section 116). But while it
was a defect there, it is not one here. There the whole point
of the category was to range things by their Likeness or
Unlikeness to one another. And no such arrangement was
possible, if everything was connected with everything else both
by Likeness and Unlikeness.

Here it is different. No doubt it is the case that Individuals,
or classes of Individuals, are Like or Unlike one another, by
reason of the Universals which can be predicated of them. But
the point here is not arrangement simply as Like or Unlike,
but arrangement as sharing or not sharing certain Universals.
Thus arrangement is possible though each Individual or class
should be Like or Unlike every other, because it would be in
virtue of different Universals.

There is thus no necessity to take one grouping rather than
another, because the different groupings are now compatible,
which was not the case in the category of Variety. And thus
the fact that the preference of one grouping to another Avould
be " contingent and capricious " while it is a valid objection to
the category of Variety, is not a valid objection here.

Hegel asserts (G. L. iii. 127) that this contingency involves
that contradictory Predicates must be held true of the same
Subject. He bases this on the statement that "Difference,
which is in the first place indifferent Variety, is just as

224 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

essentially Opposition (Entgegensetzung)." But he makes
no attempt to prove that the two different Predicates must
necessarily be incompatible Predicates, which is what his
sentence must mean if it is to bear out his assertion. And
his examples {G. L. iii. 128) do not help him. The first which
he gives — the rest are substantially similar — is " If from the
Middle Term that a stick was painted blue, it is concluded that
it therefore is blue, this is concluded correctly ; but the stick,
in spite of this conclusion, can be green, if it has also been
covered over with yellow paint, from which last circumstance,
taken by itself, would result that it was yellow."

It is true that a stick cannot at once be blue and green.
But the first conclusion — that it is blue — could only be reached
from the Minor Premise which Hegel gives, "this stick has
been painted blue," by the help of the Major Premise " what-
ever has ever been painted blue is now blue." And this Major
Premise is notoriously false, so that one of the contradictory
conclusions has not been proved. In each of the other examples
he gives the same fallacy is present. The contradictory con-
clusions do not follow legitimately from the diverse premises,
but only follow by the aid of other premises which are false.

216. But Hegel also gives another objection to this category,
and this, I think, must be accepted as valid. We reached the
category by taking the position that two Universals which are
connected with one another must have their connexion mediated
by a third. But the third Universal, being connected with the
first and the second, will, on the same principle, require a fourth
and a fifth Universal to mediate these connexions. The four
connexions so established will require four fresh Universals,
and so on infinitely (G. L. iii. 130. Enc. 185).

The Infinite Series thus established will involve a contra-
diction, for the earlier members are logically dependent on the
later, as no Universal can mediate till it is connected with the
Universals it mediates, and, to be connected, it must itself be
mediated by Universals given in later members. Thus Hegel
rejects the category, on this second ground also, as invalid.

217. Hegel considers that these defects require the altera-
tion of the Middle Term. The Individual is now become the
Middle Term, and the Syllogism will no longer be represented

III. THE SYLLOGISM 225

by I P U, but by P I U. And in this he finds a transition to
what he calls

(b) Second Figure.

(G. L. iii. 132. Enc. 186.) By this, however, he means, as
he explains in the Greater Logic (iii. 135), what is generally
called the Third Figure. (In the Encyclopaedia he also uses
the name in this unusual sense, without any warning that he
has departed from the common custom.)

The defect here, according to Hegel {G. L. iii. 134), is that
the new form "ought to correspond to the Species, that is, the
Universal Schema, I P U. But to this it does not correspond...
the Middle Term is on both occasions Subject, in which there-
fore the other two terms inhere." The fault is thus in the
position of the Middle Term — the same characteristic which, as
we see in formal logic, prevents a Syllogism in this Figure from
having any but a Particular conclusion.

218. Hegel then tells us that "the Individuality connects
the Particular and the Universal in so far as it transcends the
determination of the Particular ;... the extremes are not con-
nected through their determined relation which they had as
Middle Term ; it is therefore not their determined unity, and
the positive unity, which it still has, is only abstract Uni-
versality" {G. L. iii. 136). The Middle Term is thus U, and
the new form of the Syllogism is I U P. This, according to
Hegel, gives us

(c) Third Figure.

(G. L. iii. 137. Enc. 187.) This is what is usually called
the Second Figure. This leads only to negative conclusions.
Hegel mentions this {G. L. iii. 138), but does not regard it as
the ground of the inadequacy of the category. The inadequacy
lies in the fact that the Universal, which is the Middle Term,
has no inherent connexion with either of the extremes, and
would have to be connected with them by a fresh process,
independent of the original Syllogism, All this, he says, is
just as contingent as in the preceding forms of the Syllogism.

{d) Fourth Figure.

219. {G. L. iii. 139. Enc. 188.) This is not the Fourth
Figure of formal logic, which he rejects as useless {G. L. iii. 138.

M'=T. 15

226 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

Enc. 187). What he substitutes for it is what he calls the
Mathematical Syllogism, of which, he tells us, the formula is
U U U. Its principle, he also tells us, is " if two things are
equal to a third, they are equal to one another." The three
equal things are apparently taken as the three terms.

The relation between the three things in question, however,
is by no means the relation between the terms of a Syllogism.
The third thing, whose equality to each of the others is the
basis of the argument, may be said to mediate between them,
but not in the same way as the Middle Term of a Syllogism
does. And if we were to take this Fourth Figure seriously,
there would be the additional difficulty that it would disregard
the triadic movement of the dialectic.

Hegel, however, does not take it seriously. The Fourth
Figure is not a legitimate and necessary stage in the dialectic
process. It is only the result which would be reached if we
took the wrong track. This seems clear from the following
passage. " The merely negative result is the disappearance of
qualitative determinations of form in mere quantitative and
mathematical Syllogisms. But what we really get (was
wahrhaft vorhanden ist) is the positive result, that the media-
tion does not take place through an individual qualitative
determination of form, but through the concrete identity" of
the extremes. "The defect and the formalism of the three
Figures of the Syllogism consists just in this that such an
individual determination had to serve as their Middle Term.
The mediation has thus determined itself as the indifference of
immediate or abstract determinations of form, and as positive
Reflection of the one into the other. The immediate Qualitative
Syllogism is thus transferred into the Syllogism of Reflection "
{0. L. iii. 141). Thus the real movement of the dialectic is
from the Third Figure to the Syllogism of Reflection. Under
these circumstances it seems curious that Hegel should have
given the Fourth Figure as a separate heading, as if it were
a real category.

220. I have given the transitions from each Figure to the
next without criticising the validity of each transition taken by
itself, because I believe that the argument is invalid as a whole.
The Second and Third Figures appear to me to be unjustified.

III. THE SYLLOGISM 227

What Hegel calls the First Figure should, in my opinion, be
the whole of an undivided category of Qualitative Syllogism,
and from this the transition should be made directly to Syllogism
of Reflection.

Hegel gave, as we saw above, two objections to the validity
of the First Figure. The first was the contingency of the
Middle Term relatively to the Subject, and of the Predicate
relatively to the Middle Term. The second was the infinite
series of mediations which would be required. The first
objection, as I endeavoured to show, was unfounded. If this
is really the case, then any valid transition to the Second
Figure must be determined by the second objection.

Now this is not what happens. The Second and Third
Figures do not even profess to remove this defect, or to alter
it in any way. The infinite series of mediations would arise in
them just as inevitably, and exactly in the same way, as in the
First Figure. The transition, therefore, is invalid.

And not only do the Second and Third Figures fail to
remove the defects of the First, but they reintroduce defects
which had been long ago transcended. For the (Hegelian)
Second Figure can only prove Particular conclusions, and the
(Hegelian) Third Figure can only prove Negative conclusions,
and we saw, when we treated of Judgments of Inherence and
Subsumption, that no category could be possible according to
which only Negative, or only Particular, propositions were true.
These categories therefore, so far from being more adequate
than the First Figure, are less adequate,

Hegel seems more or less to realise this when he condemns
the Second Figure on the ground that it does not, as it should
do, " correspond to the Species, that is, the universal Schema,
I P U" (G. L. in. 134; cp. above. Section 217). For I P U
is, according to Hegel, the Schema of the First Figure. But
if the Second Figure is wrong because it is not the First, how
can it take its place in the dialectic series as the successor of
the First?

I have not thought it necessary to consider whether Hegel
was right in appropriating the Schema P I U to his Second
Figure, and I U P to his Third Figure. The enquiry is
superfluous if, as I have tried to show, the Second and Third

15—2

228 CH, VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

Figures have no rightful place in the dialectic at all. And again
any enquiry as to the particular appropriation is superfluous,
if, as I have also tried to show (cp. above, Section 214) Hegel was
wrong in introducing the conceptions of Individual and Particular
terms into any of the Figures of Qualitative Syllogism.

221. The omission of the Second and Third Figures will
not leave any gap in the dialectic process. For we can pass
quite legitimately from the First Figure to the Syllogism of
Reflection. If every connexion of Universals must be mediated
by a Universal, we are involved in a contradictory infinite
series. But this might be averted if Universals were mediated
by something else, for perhaps the connexions of this something
else with a Universal might not again require mediation. What
else could mediate the connexion of Universals, except Uni-
versals ? There is nothing left but Individuals \ We have seen
above (Section 202) that it is impossible that the Universal
Judgment should be equivalent to a series of Judgments about
mere Individuals. We have now to consider whether the
Universal Judgment can be based on such a series of Judg-
ments. This would take us direct to Hegel's Syllogism of
Reflection from his First Figure.

222. On all these grounds, therefore, I think the Second
and Third Figures should be rejected. We now arrive, whether
by the argument just given, or by Hegel's argument quoted
above, at

B. The Syllogism of Reflection.

(a) The Syllogism of Allness.

(G. L. iii. 149. Enc. 190.) In this category the fact that
all Z are X is held to be dependent on the facts that this, that,
and the other things which are Z are also in point of fact X.
" This, that, and the other " here include all the things which
are Z. Since each of them individually is X, it is certain that
all Z are X. If the House of Lords has a gallery for strangers,
and the House of Commons has a gallery for strangers, then
all houses of the British Parliament have galleries for straugers.

1 It will be remembered that both the Universal Notion and the Particular
Notion of the beginning of Subjectivity have, since the beginning of Judgment,
been classed together as Universals (cp. above, Section 192).

III. THE SYLLOGISM 229

This category corresponds to the logical process called
Perfect Induction, and not to any form of Syllogism. Hegel,
however, speaks of a Syllogism of Allness. His example is
" all men are mortal, Caius is a man, therefore Caius is mortal."
This differs, according to him, from the ordinary Syllogism of
the First Figure, because the Major Premise is reached by a
complete enumeration of Individuals — though, of course, in the
example he has taken, this could not be the case.

It seems to me, however, that Hegel is wrong here. No
doubt we can use the result of the Perfect Induction as the
Premise of a Syllogism. Bat what corresponds to the Syllogism
of previous categories is not the Syllogism which Hegel gives
here, but the proposition he takes as Major Premise. In
Qualitative Syllogism two Universals were mediated by a third
Universal, and this mediation made the Syllogism. Here two
Universals are mediated by an enumeration of Individuals, and
it is the proposition thus reached which corresponds to the
Syllogism in Qualitative Syllogism. The change is that while
in Qualitative Syllogism we reach the conclusion " all men are
mortal " by some such argument as " all men are animals, and
all animals are mortal," here we should reach it by an enumera-
tion of Individuals. What was done before by Syllogism is not
now done by Syllogism but by enumeration, and thus the name
of Syllogism here is incorrect.

223. Hegel's objection to this Syllogism {G. L. iii. 151.
Enc. 190) is that the conclusion presupposes the Major Premise.
We could not know, in this way, that all men were mortal,
unless, among others, we knew that Caius was mortal. Thus
we cannot prove the mortality of Caius from the mortality of
all men. This is, no doubt, correct, but, as was said above, the
category is exemplified in the assertion that all men are mortal,
not in the assertion that Caius is mortal, and the objection is
therefore irrelevant.

Hegel now proceeds to

(6) The Syllogism of Induction.

(G. L. iii. 152. Eyic. 190.) Here we have a category which
corresponds to ordinary Induction. The connexion between the
two Universals is mediated by the fact that they do occur

230 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

together in some of the Individuals included in the denotation
of the Subject, We conclude that all men are mortal, because
it is so as a matter of fact in those cases which we have
examined.

The transition to this category is not brought out very
clearly by Hegel, but we can see that it will remove the defect
which he found in the last. When we have established by
induction that all men are mortal, we may conclude that Caius
is mortal without necessarily arguing in a circle. For Caius
may not have been one of the men on whose mortality we
founded the general statement. He may, for example, be still
alive.

The defect which Hegel finds in this category is that our
enumeration of the Individuals can never be complete. {G. L.
iii. 154. Enc. 190.) It is not at first evident why we should
wish to have it complete, since then we should get back to the
previous category, which has already been abandoned as in-
adequate. But as he ends his criticism with the words " the
conclusion of Induction remains problematic" he appears to
have in his mind the fact that no general conclusion arrived at
by Induction can be more than probable, and that therefore we
can never, by means of such a conclusion, arrive at absolute
certainty as to any Individual. The only Individuals as to
whom we can be certain are those Avhose natures formed the
basis of our Induction. And these are not the whole number.

224. The defect of Induction compels us, according to
Hegel, to pass to

(c) The Syllogism of Analogy.

(G. L. iii. 1-55. Enc. 190.) The example which he gives of
this is " the earth has inhabitants, the moon is an earth, there-
fore the moon has inhabitants." If we remove the ambiguity
in the use of earth, it might be put as follows : " the planet on
which we live is an earth, and is inhabited ; the moon is an
earth, therefore it is inhabited." This is an Induction, based
on a single instance. It does not seem, however, that the fact
that there is only a single instance, is essential to the category.
Hegel says (G. L. iii. 157) that earth is taken here "as some-
thing concrete, which in its truth is just as much a universal

III. THE SYLLOGISM 231

nature or species, as it is an individual " ; and he continues
that the category breaks down because we cannot tell whether
the first Individual has the second quality because it has the
first quality, or for some other reason. We cannot, e.g., be sure
whether it is because it is an earth, or for some other reason,
that this planet is inhabited. If it were for some other reason,
we could not be sure that the moon shared the quality of being
inhabited.

It seems, therefore, that Analogy is Induction made explicit.
When, in Induction, we conclude that, since A,B, C, etc. are all
both X and F, therefore all things which are X are T, we also
implicitly conclude that there is some intrinsic connexion, direct
or indirect, between X and Y. If there is no such intrinsic
connexion, our conclusion would be illegitimate. And this
connexion between the qualities X and Y is made explicit in
Analogy. It is the impossibility of being certain of that
connexion, as has just been pointed out, which wrecks Analogy.
And it is this impossibility, also, which prevented us from ever
reaching an absolutely certain Induction.

225. From this category Hegel passes to the Syllogism of
Necessity as follows : " The Syllogism of Eeflection, taken as
a whole, comes under the Schema P I U : in it the Individual
as such still forms the essential determination of the Middle
Term ; but in so far as its immediacy has transcended itself,
and the Middle Term is determined as Universality in and for
itself, in so far the Syllogism has come under the formal
Schema I U P, and the Syllogism of Reflection has passed over
into the Syllogism of Necessity" {G. L. iii. 159).

This transition seems to me unconvincing. It is true that
there is a certain appropriateness in calling the Middle Term of
the explicit Induction of Analogy by the name of Universal.
And the nature of the Middle Term of the new category is
also such as to give some appropriateness to the description of
it as Universal. But in the two cases Universal is used in
different senses. It means much more in the Categorical
Syllogism, which is the first form of Syllogism of Necessity,
than it did in the Syllogism of Analogy.

It is natural that it should do this. For the Categorical
Syllogism is not, as we should expect from its position, a mere

■232 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

restatement of the Syllogism of Analogy after a collapse into
Immediacy. The Syllogism of Analogy has, according to
Hegel, broken down, and the transition to the Syllogism of
Necessity removes a contradiction. The new category must be
an advance, then, and not a mere restatement, and it is an
advance, for it contains, as we shall see, an entirely new
conception.

If this is the case, Hegel's account of the transition must
be wrong, for he speaks as if the Universality of the Middle
Term in Analogy had already brought us to the Syllogism of
Necessity, and as if, therefore, there was no real advance.

226. The criticism which I venture to suggest on the triad
of Syllogism of Reflection is that, here as in the Qualitative
Syllogism, the subdivisions are unjustified. The conception
which Hegel treats, under the Syllogism of Allness should have
been the sole content of an undivided Syllogism of Reflection.
No doubt Induction and Analogy, as processes of acquiring
knowledge, are quite different from so-called Perfect Induction.
But categories are descriptions of reality and not processes of
acquiring knowledge, and I cannot see that any separate
description of reality corresponds to these processes.

The category which we reached in the Syllogism of Allness
asserted that the validit}" of Universal Judgments depends on
the fact that every Individual, which possesses the Subject-
Universal, possesses, as a matter of fact, the Predicate-Universal
also. We have seen that this category corresponds to the
logical process of Perfect Induction. But how shall we find
a second category to correspond to the logical process of
Induction in the ordinary sense of the word ?

The difference between the processes of acquiring knowledge
is that in Perfect Induction the conclusion is based on an
examination of all the Individuals who possess the Subject-
Universal, while in ordinary Induction we examine only some
of them. Hegel's category of Induction would thus have to
mean that the validity of Universal Judgments depends on the
fact that some of the Individuals, which possess the Subject-
Universal, do, as a matter of fact, possess the Predicate-
Universal also.

What could be meant by this dependence on some of the

III. THE SYLLOGISM 233

Individuals ? In the case of the Judgment all X are F, it
is clear that it cannot mean that the rest of X (those which are
not included in the "some") are not-F, since the conclusion is
that they are all F. It could only mean that, while every X
was F, yet some of them were F in their own right, and
exercised some power which caused the other X's, to be F, and
so made the general proposition true.

This conception would not be in any way an advance on the
Syllogism of Allness, nor would it remove any of the difficulties
to which that category was exposed. On the contrary, it would
add to them by introducing a new complexity — the difference
between the " some " X's and the other X's — which had not
been deduced from the previous category, and could not be
justified.

The logical process of Induction can give a natural and
reasonable meaning to the " some " — namely that though, if the
law is true, every X is F, yet there are only some cases in
which this has been ascertained when the Induction is made.
But the distinction between known and unknown cases is
irrelevant to the metaphysical category.

Thus we must reject the category of Induction. And,
if Analogy is only explicit Induction, Analogy must go too.
This leaves Allness, as the sole form of the Syllogism of
Reflection.

Here, as with the Qualitative Syllogism, the error seems to
have arisen from Hegel's attempt to push a parallel too far.
There is one category which has a real resemblance to the
Syllogism of deductive logic, aud another which has a real
resemblance to induction as a whole. But the attempt to find
categories corresponding to the different figures and the
different varieties of induction has led to errors.

And here, as with Qualitative Syllogism, the dialectic process
goes all the better for the simplification. The undivided
Syllogism of Reflection is the Antithesis of which Qualitative
Syllogism was the Thesis. The transition from the one to the
other was shown above (Section 221).

And this new Antithesis, we can see, will break down. For
we saw, in dealing with Judgments of Inherence and Sub-
sumption, that a Judgment about an Individual could only be

234 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

valid when it was dependent upon a Universal Judgment.
Since all Individual Judgments must be based upon Universal
Judgments, it is obviously impossible that all Universal
Judgments should be based upon Individual Judgments.

It thus becomes evident that it is impossible that all
Universal Judgments should be mediated. Whether we
attempt to mediate them by Universals or by Individuals we
have found that insuperable difficulties presented themselves.
Only one alternative remains — to assert that some, at any rate,
among Universal Judgments, do not require mediation. And
this takes us on to Hegel's next category

C. The Syllogism of Necessity,
(a) The Categorical Syllogism.

227. (G. L. iii. 161. Enc. 191.) The first feature of the
Categorical Syllogism is that the Middle Term is the essential
nature of the Subject of the conclusion, and, in the same way,
the Predicate of the conclusion is the essential nature of the
Middle Term. And thus the contingency disappears, which
arose from the fact that the Subject might be taken as connected
with auy one of several Middle Terms, and each Middle Terra
as connected with any one of several Predicates {G. L. iii. 162).
This contingency, it will be remembered, was treated by Hegel
as a defect of the First Figure. He regards it as finally
removed here, making the assumption that a Term can only
have one " essential nature," so that there is here no alternative
Middle Term for a Subject, and no alternative Predicate for
a Middle Term.

" Since," he continues, " the connections of the extremes
with the Middle Terms have not that external immediacy
which they have in the Qualitative Syllogism, the demand for
a proof does not come in here in the same way as in the
Qualitative Syllogism, where it led to an Infinite Series"
{G. L. iii. 162). In this way the second defect of the First
Figure is removed. It is clear, therefore, that Hegel regards
the essential connections of the Categorical Syllogism as being
ultimate connections. They may be used to mediate, but they
do not themselves require mediation.

III. THE SYLLOGISM 235

Here, then, for the first time, Hegel regards the defects of
the First Figure as transcended. And this confirms my view
that the subdivisions of Qualitative Syllogism and Syllogism
of Reflection are mistaken. For the special defect of each
category should be cured when we reach the next Synthesis.
And, by the simplification I propose. Syllogism of Necessity is
the next Synthesis after these defects have manifested them-
selves.

The connexions in the new category are, according to Hegel,
" essential," so as to remove the first defect of the First Figure,
and ultimate, so as to remove its second defect. If I was
right in my previous contention that the first defect — the con-
tingency— has not been shown to involve the inadequacy of
the First Figure, and that the only real necessity for a transition
lay in the second defect, we shall have to take a somewhat
different view, since the " essentiality " of the connexions will
not have been deduced. We shall only be able to say that the
connexions are ultimate — that certain propositions of the form
"all X is Y" are true, without any mediation of the connexion
being either possible or necessary.

Whatever other characteristic the connexions may have,
they are certainly ultimate. And, therefore, I think Hegel is
wrong in calling this category by the name of Syllogism, for
reasons analogous to those which made me regard the name of
Syllogism as improper when applied to Allness, Induction,
and Analogy (cp. above. Section 222). The categories of
Qualitative Syllogism were called by the name of Syllogism
because, from the point of view of those categories, every pro-
position had to be mediated by two others, which were the
premises, while it was the conclusion. Now we have reached
a point where we see that all propositions need not be mediated
in this way, but that some do not require mediation. Thus the
characteristic which made the name appropriate is gone. That
characteristic was the fact that the truth of every proposition
depended on the truth of two others from which it followed
logically.

The Syllogism which Hegel gets here is one in which
a derivative and mediated conclusion follows from two ultimate
premises. And it is, of course, true that many propositions

236 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

have a derivative truth of this kind, dependent on the truth of
two ultimate propositions. But the essential characteristic
of this category — the characteristic which enables it to remove
the defects of the First Figure — is not that the ultimate
Judgments can mediate, but that they do not themselves
require mediation. In other words, the essential characteristic
is not that they can be the premises of Syllogisms, but that
they need not be the conclusions of Syllogisms. And this
logical priority of the ultimate Judgments to Syllogisms, makes
the name of Syllogism inappropriate here. A better name for
the category, I suggest, would have been Ultimate Laws.

(b) The Hypothetical Syllogism.

228. (G. L. iii. 164. Enc. 191.) Hegel's example of this
is " if A is, B is ; but A is, therefore B is." It seems to me
that Hegel has erred here in the same way as in the Hypo-
thetical Judgment (cp. above, Section 206). From the ultimate
Categorical Judgment "all A is B," it certainly follows that the
ultimate Hypothetical Judgment, " if anything is J., it is B," is
also true, and that this can be made, if we wish to do so, a pre-
mise in a Syllogism.

But, as we have just seen, Hegel's Hypothetical Syllogism is
not this, but something quite different. And how are we to
pass from " all A are B," where the same Individuals are A
and B, and " are " is only a copula, to " if A is, B is," where A
and B are different Individuals, and " is " seems to be an
assertion of existence ? Hejjel does not tell us how this can be
done — he does not seem indeed to realise the greatness of the
difference — and I fail to see how such a transition is to be
demonstrated. Nor do I see how we could make the further
transition from it to "A is either B, C, or D" of the Dis-
junctive Syllogism, since that takes us back again to the same
type of proposition as we found in Categorical Syllogism.

229. The transition to the Disjunctive Syllogism from the
Categorical Syllogism is, I think, valid, although it appears to
violate the triadic movement by moving directly without an
Antithesis. (The valid Hypothetical "if anything is A, it is
B " will scarcely serve as an Antithesis, since it is only a re-
statement of the Categorical.)

III. THE SYLLOGISM 237

The transition is as follows. We have seen that the nature
of Individuals must be based on Universal Judgments. And
we also saw (Section 207) that from the fact that every In-
dividual is Like and Unlike every other Individual it follows
that some of these Universal Judgments must be such that it
is true that all X is Z, when it is false that all Z is X.

If this is the case, it will follow that there are not only
true Judgments of this type, but true ultimate Judgments.
For we have now reached the conclusion that the whole content
of all Judgments must be found in ultimate Judgments. The
derivative Judgments only combine what is found in their
ultimate premises, and give no new truth. The nature of
Individuals is therefore based on ultimate Universal Judgments.
And as that nature requires for its expression Judgments that
all X is Z, while all Z is not X, there must be true ultimate
Judgments of this type.

Those Individuals which are Z without being X must be
connected with Z by one or more other Universals, whose
connexion with Z is ultimate. And thus we reach the con-
clusion that the nature of the universe is expressed by Universal
Judgments of the type that all Z is X, W, or V, where all X,
all W, and all V are Z, and where Fand TT represent a number
of Universals which may vary indefinitely from zero upwards,
though we know that in some cases it is greater than zero\
Thus we reach

(c) The Disjunctive Syllogism

{G. L. iii. 167. Enc. 191.), for this, as given by Hegel, is
a Syllogism of which the Major Premise is one of these
Judgments.

230. The position at which we have arrived is that the
nature of the universe is expressed by ultimate Universal
Judgments which are such that by their means is expressed
both the Likeness and the Unlikeness which every Individual
bears to every other Individual.

Hegel would regard all these ultimate Judgments as forming
a single hierarchy, without cross-classifications. For he says

1 It can be zero in some cases, because these are cases where it is true both
that all X are Z, and that all Z are X (cp. Section 207).

238 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

that, in the Syllogism of Necessity, every Subject has only one
possible Middle Term, and every Middle Term only one possible
Predicate. Thus everything has only one higher class to which
it can immediately be referred, and cross-classifications V70uld
be impossible.

Whether this single system of classification could possibly
explain the whole complex nature of existence is a difficult
problem which Hegel does not discuss. In the absence of any
treatment of the subject by him, it is sufficient to say here that
the conclusion that each Subject could only have one possible
Middle Term, and each Middle Term only one possible Predicate,
arose from the asserted necessity of removing the " contingency "
in the First Figure. If, as I have tried to show, that contingency
is not a defect, and need not be removed, the conclusion will
not be justified. In that case, the connexion of Universals,
expressed by the ultimate Judgments can be more complex, and
can admit of cross-classifications.

231. In the ultimate Disjunctive Judgments found in Dis-
junctive Syllogisms we have the conception of the Self-
Differentiating Notion. (So far as I know, the phrase is not
Hegel's own. At any rate he does not use it frequently. But
it is often used by commentators, and it expresses a conception
which has great importance for Hegel.) This conception is
simpler than the name would suggest. It means nothing but
a Notion, which is always accompanied by one of a certain
number of subordinate Notions, the connexion between the first
Notion and its subordinates being intrinsic — not due to any
outside circumstance, but to the nature of the terms — and also
being ultimate and not derivative. (In the case of the Notions
contemplated by the present category the subordinate Notions
are of less extent than the self-differentiating Notion, and they
are peculiar to it, so that no cross-classification is possible.)

Let us, for example, assume that it is true that all finite
spirits must be either angels, men, or brutes. Then if the
connexion between the terms is not external, but intrinsic, and
not derivative but ultimate, the Notion of a finite spirit would
be one which was said to differentiate itself into angels, men,
and brutes.

The conception of a self-diff'erentiating Notion has often

III. THE SYLLOGISM 239

been misunderstood. It has been supposed that by such a
Notion Hegel meant one from whose nature the nature of
the subordinate Notions could be deduced by pure thought.
We should only have to take the conception of the class, and
examine it with sufficient care, and it would proceed to develops
the conceptions of its sub-classes. The mythical German who
conducted his zoological studies by endeavouring to evolve the
idea of a camel from his inner consciousness was acting very
much in this manner.

Such a theory is obviously incorrect, nor do I believe that
there is the slightest evidence to support the view that Hegel
held it. The only case in which Hegel professes to evolve
anything by pure thought is in the dialectic. He there evolves
only categories, which are themselves forms of pure thought.
But most of the Notions which Hegel held to be self-differ-
entiating contain an empirical element. And there is nothing
to suggest that Hegel believed that a new empirical idea could
ever be produced by pure thought.

Nor, even in the dialectic, does Hegel give us a Notion
differentiating itself by pure thought. The lower (in the sense
of the less adequate) passes into the higher, but the higher
(in the sense of the more extensive) never splits itself up into
the lower. (This very important distinction has, I think,
sometimes escaped the notice both of disciples and of critics
of Hegel, and this has sometimes led to considerable con-
fusion.)

The self-differentiation of a Notion, then, does not imply
any inherent dialectic. It only means that it is an ultimate
and intrinsic characteristic of that Notion, that it is always
united with one of several others. What those others are must
be discovered by us through observation and experiment, and,
when they are found, the conjunction must be accepted by us
as an ultimate fact.

Some of the mistakes about the self-differentiating Notion
may be due to the name, which is rather misleading. The
active participle suggests a logical, if not a temporal process,
and so leads us to suppose that the unity is the agent which
produces the plurality, and is therefore prior to it. This
_might to some extent be remedied if we were also to use the

240 CH. VIII. SUBJECTIVITY

correlative phrase of a self-unifying multiplicity, which would
be as true a description of the same fact.

With tl]e Disjunctive Syllogism we reach the end of Sub-
jectivity. The treatment of Subjectivity in the Encyclopaedia
does not differ from that in the Greater Logic, though its
extreme condensation renders it more obscure.

CHAPTER IX

OBJECTIVITY
232. The divisions of Objectivity are as follows :

I. Mechanism. (Der Mechanismus.)

A. The Mechanical Object. (Das mechanische Objekt.)

B. The Mechanical Process. (Der mechanische Process.)
(a) The Formal Mechanical Process. (Der formale

mechanische Process.)

(6) The Real Mechanical Process. (Der reale me-
chanische Process.)

(c) The Product of the Mechanical Process. (Das
Produkt des mechanischen Processes.)

C. The Absolute Mechanism. (Der absolute Mechanis-

mus.)
(a) The Centre. (Das Centrum.)
(6) The Law. (Das Gesetz.)
(c) Transition from Mechanism. (Uebergang des

Mechanismus.)

II. Chemism. (Der Chemismus.)

A. The Chemical Object. (Das chemische Objekt.)

B. The Chemical Process. (Der chemische Process.)

C. Transition from Chemistry. (Uebergang des Che-

mismus.)

III. Teleology. (Die Teleologie.)

A. The Subjective End. (Der subjective Zweck.)

B. The Means. (Das Mittel.)

C. The Realised End. (Der ausgefiihrte Zweck.)

M<=T. 16

242 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

233. We saw reason in the last chapter to reject the view
that Subjectivity meant the inner as opposed to the outer. It
meant that which is contingent or capricious, as opposed to that
which is universal and inevitable. It is thus natural that the
next division should be called Objectivity. The contingent
and capricious character of the classification, which had been
present through the subdivisions of Notion and Judgment was
recognised, at the beginning of Syllogism, in the First Figure,
as a defect which proved the inadequacy of the category, and
was finally transcended in the Syllogism of Necessity, the
classific^atiou in which, according to Hegel, was no longer
contingent and capricious, but universal and necessar3\ It is
natural, therefore, that the next division, which preserves this
result, should be called Objectivity.

234. Hegel's account of the transition to Objectivity is as
follows. " The Syllogism is mediation, the complete Notion in
its position (Gesetztsein). Its movement is the transcending
of this mediation, in which nothing is in and for itself, but each
is only as it is mediated by another. The result is therefore an
Immediacy, which has arisen through transcending the media-
tion, a Being, that is just as much identical with the mediation
and with the Notion, which has restored itself out of and by
means of (aus und in) its Otherbeing. This Being is therefore
a fact, which is in and for itself — Objectivity" (G. L. iii. 170.
Cp. also Enc. 193).

I cannot regard this as satisfactory. The line of the argu-
ment appears to be that at the end of Subjectivity the
mediation is merged, that this produces immediacy, and that
this forms the transition to Objectivity. But how has this
mediation been merged ? Surely it has not been completely
merged. It is true that iu the Disjunctive Syllogism it is an
immediate fact that Z is either X, or W, or V, and that the
connexions of X, W, and V with Z require no mediation. But,
in any particular Individual, Z will be connected either with X,
or with W, or with V, and not with all three. Mediation will
therefore be necessary to determine with which of them it is
connected, and a transition based on the absence of mediation
is incorrect.

Moreover, when we consider the detail of Objectivity, we

I. MECHANISM 243

find that mediation is not dispensed with, but that there is
mediation, though of a different sort from that in Subjectivity —
the new sort of mediation being directed to the issue just
mentioned, the connexion of Z with X, e.g., rather than with W
or V.

235. I venture to suggest a line of argument which I
believe to be valid in itself, and also to lead, as Hegel's own
does not, to the mediation which he describes in the categories
of Mechanism.

In the last chapter (Section 187) I sketched this transition
in anticipation. In considering the transition from the last
categories of Essence to Subjectivity, I pointed out that
" things are doubly connected — by similarity and by reciprocal
causation. And it is obvious that a thing may be, and generally
is, connected by the one tie to things very different from those
to which it is connected by the other." And I submitted
that the dialectic " first takes up the relation of similarity, and
works it out through the course of Subjectivity. Then in
Objectivity it proceeds to work out the relation of determina-
tion— not going back arbitrarily to pick it up, but led on to it
again by dialectical necessity, since Subjectivity, when fully
worked out, shows itself to have a defect which can only be
remedied by the fuller development of the relation of determi-
nation."

We have now reached the end of Subjectivity, and we have
found that it does, in fact, possess such a defect. Our position
at the end of Subjectivity was that the nature of the univense
could be explained by judgments of the type " every Z is
either X or W" But such knowledge is necessarily incomplete.
For of any given Individual which is Z, we know it is either X or
W, but we do not know which it is. And yet it is certain that
it is one of them, and that it is not the other. How is this to
be determined ? Subjectivity cannot do it^ We require a

1 Hegel makes the ultimate Disjunctive Judgment the Major Premise of a
Syllogism, the conclusion of which determines the Individual. " Every Z is
either X or IF, this Z is not W, therefore it is A'." In this case however, he
has introduced a Minor Premise which is not a Universal Judgment, and has
thus gone beyond Subjectivity which has transcended, and never re-introduced.
Judgments other than Universal.

16—2

244 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

further determination of objects which their inner nature, as
we are able at this stage of the dialectic to understand it,
cannot give us. What can remain ? It can only be determi-
nation from outside. And thus we are naturally led back at
the end of Subjectivity to the conception of the reciprocal
connexion of Individuals by determination — that very con-
ception which we had temporarily ignored while dealing with
Subjectivity. Thus the argument takes the course that might
be anticipated from the nature of the dialectic. When we left
one element of Reciprocity behind, and, in the Thesis of the
Doctrine of the Notion, devoted ourselves to developing the
other side only, we could predict that the incompleteness thus
created would require us to develop the other element of
Reciprocity in the Antithesis. And this is exactly what has
happened. We are now on the point of beginning the Anti-
thesis— namely Objectivity — and the course of the argument
has led us back to the ignored element in Reciprocity.

I. Mechanism.

236. {G.L. iii. 180. Enc. 195.) In the first place, Hegel
says, the Individuals, now called Objects, are taken as merely
externally connected by this reciprocal determination. And
this is Mechanism, whose character, he tells us, is that " what-
ever relation takes place between the connected things, that
relation is alien (fremde) to them, does not belong to their
nature, and, although it unites them with the appearance of a
One, remains nothing more than a collocation, mixture, or heap
(Zusammensetzung, Vermischung, Haufen) " {G. L. iii. 180).

A. The Mechanical Object.

{G. L. iii. 181. Enc. 195.) The definition of this, as often
happens in the dialectic, is identical with that of the larger
division, of which it is the first subdivision. The other two
subdivisions modify and correct the characteristic idea of
Mechanism. But here it is given in its full extent. Each
Object enters into external relations of reciprocal determination
with all others outside it, but these external relations are not
affected by, and do not affect, the internal nature of the Objects
related. In the Encyclopaedia the category of the Mechanical

I. MECHANISM 245

Object is known as Formal Mechanism, and this expresses the
nature of the conception better than the title in the Greater
Logic.

When we are dealing with any subject-matter accessible to
our experience, so extreme a view as this can only be accepted
as a methodological expedient. It may sometimes be con-
venient, for some temporary and limited purpose, to consider
things as if their external relations had no influence on their
inner nature, or their inner nature on their external relations.
But experience teaches us, too plainly to be disregarded, that
every external relation which holds of any of the things which
we perceive does affect the inner nature of that thing, and that,
on the other hand, the external relations which hold of things
are largely determined by their inner nature. *

Atoms, however, cannot be directly perceived, and in their
case, therefore, empirical knowledge is powerless to check the
errors of theory. And the theory of Atoms has sometimes got
very near to the position of Formal Mechanism. It would not,
indeed, assert that the inner nature of the atoms was entirely a
matter of indifference to their outer relations. They could not,
for example, repel one another, except by some property of
impenetrability. But it has been asserted that a change in
their outer relations makes no change in their inner nature,
and that their inner nature has no influence in deciding which,
of various possible relations, should be the one into which they
should actually enter.

Hegel says that this is the standpoint of Determinism
{G. L. iii. 18.3). The expression does not, at first sight, seem
very appropriate, since one of the chief characteristics of the
category is that the inner nature of the Object is not determined
by its outer relations. But it is the determination of the outer
relations themselves to which Hegel refers here, and the signifi-
cance of the name is negative. It denotes the fact that, so far
as these reciprocal determinations are concerned, there is no
self-determination on the part of the Object. If we ask why it
is determined in this way rather than that, we can only attri-
bute it to determination by another Object. In no case can
the Object be self-determined in these reciprocal determinations,
for its inner nature has nothing to do with them.

246 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

237. This category, Hegel tells us, breaks down because of
the contradiction which arises between the indifference of the
Objects to one another, and their connexion with one another
(G. L. iii. 184). He takes the reciprocal determination of two
Objects as introducing an identical element in each of them.
This is to be expected, for, as we saw in Chapter VII., he regards
Cause and Effect as identical, and the reciprocal determination
which we have here is, of course, reciprocal causation. But
this error — if, as I have previously maintained, it is an error —
does not affect the validity of his position that there is a
contradiction between the indifference of the Objects and their
connexion by reciprocal determination.

In the earlier stages of Essence there would have been no
contradiction in such a case. For there the Surface and the
Substratum were conceived as having natures more or less
independent of each other, though more or less connected.
To determine the Surface would not necessarily involve the
determination of the Substratum. Thus, if the inner nature
of the thing were taken as Substratum, and its relations of
reciprocal determination with other things were taken as Sur-
face, the two might be as independent as this category requires.

But in the course of the Doctrine of Essence we learned that
the inner nature of a thing cannot be mei^ely inner, but that it,
and the whole of it, must be manifested by the external nature
of the thing. And, conversely, no outer nature can be entirely
outer. There can no more be anything in the Surface which
has not its root in the Substratum, than there can be anything
in the Substratum which does not manifest itself in the Surface.

And thus the category of the Mechanical Object contains a
contradiction. It demands that the inner nature of the Object
shall be indifferent to its external relations of reciprocal deter-
mination. But these external relations belong somehow, and
in some respects, to the Object, or there would be no meaning
in calling them the external relations of that Object. They
are not its inner nature. They must, therefore, be its outer
side, or part of its outer side. Thus the category of the
Mechanical Object demands an outer side which does not affect
the inner side. And this is just what was proved in the
Doctrine of Essence to be impossible.

I, MECHANISM 247

If then the outer relations and inner nature of the Object
are not absolutely independent, how do they stand to one
another ? The prima facie assumption, since they at any rate
profess to be different, is that they are two separate realities
acting on one another. The arguments given above, indeed,
suggest that the connexion is closer than this, but Hegel
prefers to approach the truth gradually, by stating and trans-
cending this view of the interaction of separate realities. This
forms the second subdivision of Mechanism, and he entitles it

B. The Mechanical Process.
{G. L. iii. 184. Erie. 196.) In the Encyclopaedia this
category is called " Differenter Mechanismus," which Wallace
translates Mechanism with Affinity. The significance of this
name appears to be that one Object is no longer as suitable as
another to enter into any particular relations. Since the inner
nature has some influence on the outer relations, only those
Objects can enter into any particular relations whose inner
nature possesses particular qualities.

238. Hegel divides this category into three subdivisions.
This seems to me mistaken, for the first subdivision, so far as
I can see, only repeats the conception of the Mechanical Object,
while the third is only the transition to Absolute Mechanism.
Thus the second subdivision gives the only conception peculiar
to the triad, and might have been taken as the undivided category
of Mechanical Process. (This course is taken by Hegel in the
Encyclopaedia.) The first subdivision is called (G. L. iii. 186)

(a) The Formal Mechanical Process.

239. Of this Hegel says {G. L. iii. 190) that the determi-
nation which the Object receives through it is merely external.
It is this which makes me think it identical with the last
category, the essential characteristic of which was the externality
of the determinations. If this is so, the same arguments which
carried us into Mechanical Process will carry us into its second
subdivision,

(b) The Real Mechanical Process
(G. L. iii. 190), where it is admitted that the reciprocal
determinations do affect the inner nature of the Object,

248 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

To this category, Hegel says (0. L. iii. 192), belongs the
idea of Fate — a blind Fate, conceived as crushing and ignoring
the Objects which are in its power. This conception of the
sacrifice of the Object to the order of things outside it could
not have arisen in the category of the Mechanical Object, since
there the interior of any Object was quite untouched by
external circumstances, and could not be sacrificed to them.
And in the next category, that of Absolute Mechanism, the
opposition of inner and outer is replaced by the perception of
their unity, and with it there vanishes the idea of Fate as an
alien and crushing power — to return again, on a higher level,
in the category of Life, but to be again transcended in the
category of Cognition. But, between the Mechanical Object
and Absolute Mechanism, our present category is precisely the
proper sphere of Fate. For outside and inside are connected
just so much that the former may act on the latter, just so
little that there is no harmony between them. Fate has the
individual Objects in its power, " subjectos tanquam suos, viles
tanquam alienos."

If we carry this line of thought one step backwards we may
say that if we looked at man under the category of the
Mechanical Object, we should get a morality not unlike that
of the Stoics. For morality is in the long run concerned only
with the inner states of people, which are the only things which
possess ultimate valued If everyone was happy, virtuous, and
otherwise good, all external relations would be quite indifferent
to morality, which only cares for external matters in so far as
they affect the goodness (in the widest sense) of conscious
beings. And if the inner nature of man, as of all other Objects,
were independent of his external relations, then, whatever his
circumstances, it would be in the power of each man to be
completely good. Such a view would, of course, tend to
produce absolute indifference to the affairs of the external
world.

But from such a view as this we are necessarily driven, if

^ The view that nothing but the states of conscious beings possesses value
as an end is not universal, but is maintained by almost all philosophers.
The arguments in the text would have no validity for those who denied
this view.

I. MECHANISM 249

we do not refuse to look facts in the face, to the Fatalism
which we have seen to be characteristic of the category of the
Mechanical Process. It is all very well to say that a man has
the power to be free, virtuous and happy under any circum-
stances. But the circumstances may include a badly trapped
sewer which sends him out of the world, or a blow on the head
which sends him into an asylum, or an education which leaves
him with a complete ignorance of virtue, or a lively distaste
for it. It is useless to try to escape from our circumstances.
Such an " escape from Fate is itself the most unhappy of
all Fates " as Hegel says elsewhere. For the attempt to
escape generally deprives us of much of our power over our
circumstances, while it by no means deprives them of their
power over us.

240. Hegel does not state explicitly the arguments which
lead from this category to the next, but we can easily supply
them, for they were really anticipated when we passed from the
Mechanical Object to the Mechanical Process. There is no
opposition between the inner and outer nature of an Object,
because there is no difference between them. They are only
the same thing seen from different points of view. The internal
nature of each Object consists of qualities. And all these
qualities are only in that Object because they are externally
determined to be so. The general laws which we dealt with in
Subjectivity can never by themselves assign any quality to any
Object. They can only say that if one quality is there, another
will, or will not, be there. They are only hypothetical. The
actual existence of any qualit}'^ in any Object is due to the
relations of reciprocal determination with other Objects which
form its outer nature.

Thus the internal qualities are only the expression of the
outer relations. But the outer relations are just as much only
an expression of the inner qualities. If A and B are related
by reciprocal determination, then J.'s qualities will be an
expression of its relation to B, and 5's qualities of its relation
to A. But again the relation of ^ to £ which determines 5's
qualities will be an expression of ^'s qualities. For if -d's
qualities had been different, it would have determined B
differentlv. And likewise the relation of -S to J. which

250 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

determines A's qualities will be an expression of 5's
qualities^

And so, to come back to Fatalism, we see that it is really
impossible for the inner nature of an Object to be crushed. If
the inner nature of an Object is said to be XYZ, then either
it has it, or it has it not. If it has it, it has it, and then
the inner nature is not crushed, but exists in its fulness. But
if it has it not, then XYZ is not the Object's inner nature at
all, and the Object is not in the least crushed or thwarted
because it is not XYZ. Why should it be XYZ, if in point of
fact it is not ?

Of course this would not be a solution of the problem of
Fate for self-conscious beings, but this is because the nature
of a self-conscious being cannot be adequately brought under
our present category. In the case of any being with a power
of conscious self-determination, the inner nature will include
volitions of some sort, and if outside circumstances prevent
those volitions from being realised, then we can intelligibly
speak of the inner nature being thwarted. For the inner nature
in such a case is not merely a fact, but it is a fact part of which
is a demand, and a demand can be real and yet unsatisfied.

Thus Hegel says " Only self-consciousness has a true
(eigentlich) fete ; for self-consciousness is free, in the indi-
viduality of its I it is in and for itself, and can place itself
over against its objective universality, and treat itself as alien
against it" {G. L. iii. 193). This true fate is not transcended
till we reach a higher category.

We thus reach {G. L. iii. 193)

(c) The Product of the Mechanical Process,

which Hegel treats as identical with the first subdivision of
Absolute Mechanism, to which we now proceed.

C. The Absolute Mechanism.

241. (G. L. iii. 194. Enc. 197.) This is divided in the
Greater Logic into three subdivisions, the first of which is

1 I venture to think that, if Hegel had worked this out further, it would
have provided a more satisfactory transition to Teleology than is afforded by
Chemism. But it would take us too far from Hegel's text to attempt to develope
this view.

I. MECHANISM 251

(a) The Centre.

(G. L. iii. 194.) According to this category, every Object is
the centre of a system composed of all the other Objects which
influence it. As everything in the universe stands in reci-
procal connexion with everything else, it follows that each of
these systems embraces the whole of existence, and that they
are distinguished from each other by the fact that each has
a different Centre.

Since Hegel has connected the Mechanical Object with
Determinism, and the Mechanical Process with Fatalism, we
may say that in Absolute Mechanism we return again to the
conception of Freedom, which we reached at the end of
Essence. For Freedom, according to that conception, only
consists in acting according to one's nature, and we now see
that there is no power in the universe which could possibly
make any Object do anything not in* accordance with its nature.
Freedom, in the higher sense in which it is applicable to
conscious beings, is not reached till the " true fate " has been
transcended, which Hegel speaks of above {G. L. iii. 193).

We have, then, the Central Object, the determining Objects,
and the relations between them. The surrounding Objects are
called by Hegel the Relative-Central Objects, while the re-
lations themselves are, somewhat curiously, called the Formal
Objects.

Each of these, Hegel points out, may be called the Universal.
He apparently means by the Universal that term which is taken
as uniting the other two. And any one of the three may occupy
that position. The Central Object may be taken as uniting
the other two, since those determining Objects could only have
those relations with just that Central Object. (If there were
a different Central Object they would determine it differently,
and so be in different relations to it.) But again we may
consider the determining Objects as the Universal. For that
Central Object could only have those relations with just those
determining Objects. And again the relations may be taken as
Universal. For that Central Object could only be connected
with those determining Objects by just those relations {G. L.
iii. 196. Enc. 198).

252 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

242. It should be noticed that the example of the category
given by Hegel in both Logics {G. L. iii. 197. Enc. 198) is
misleading. He makes either the State or the Government
take the place of the Central Object, while the citizens are the
determining Objects. Now the State and the Government
differ from the citizens, not only as one citizen does from
another, but in a more fundamental way. And thus the
example would suggest that there are some Objects Avhich are
by their nature fitted to be the Central Objects of systems,
while others are fitted only for the humbler position of de-
termining Objects. But this, as we have seen, would be a
mistake. For every possible Object is equally subjected to the
category of Mechanical Process, and we saw in the course of
the deduction that every Object to which the category of
Mechanical Process was applicable, became the centre of a
system of Absolute Mechanism.

Indeed, we may say that the example, in the form which it
takes in the Encyclopaedia, is not only misleading, but incorrect.
For there he speaks of the State as the Central Object. Now
the State is not an Object distinct from the citizens, which can
act and react on them, as each of them does on the rest. It is,
as no one realised more fully than Hegel, a unity of which the
individual citizens are the parts. It is, no doubt, for Hegel
a very close unity, and not a mere aggregate, but still it is
a unity which only exists in the citizens, and not side by side
with them. And thus the citizens cannot be determining
Objects with the State as their Central Object.

The example as given in the Greater Logic cannot be called
positively incorrect. For Hegel there speaks only of the
Regierung, and not, as in the Encyclopaedia, of the State also.
Now Hegel probably took Regierung to mean a separate class —
the king, civil servants, etc. — and, if so, it would form a separate
Object by the side of the citizens, which could enter into
relations of Mechanism with them. But the example would
still be misleading, as suggesting an intrinsic difference between
those Objects which were fitted to be Central Objects, and those
which were not.

243. We now enter on the course of argument which leads
to Chemism by the gradual obliteration of the independence of

I. MECHANISM 253

the Object. This is not fully attained in the Greater Logic till
the category of Chemical Process, between which and our
present category three others intervene. In the Encyclopaedia,
however, where Absolute Mechanism and Chemism are un-
divided categories, the whole movement is performed in a single
stage. It will, I think, be better to state and criticise the
argument in this simpler form, before tracing the more elaborate
course of the Greater Logic.

The statement of the Encyclopaedia is as follows (199).
" The immediacy of existence, which the objects have in
Absolute Mechanism, is implicitly negatived by the fact that
their independence is derived from, and due to, their connexions
with each other, and therefore to their own want of stability.
Thus the object must be explicitly stated as in its existence
having an Affinity (or a bias) towards its other — as not-in-
different."

I conceive that Hegel's meaning is this. The whole nature
of each Object depends on the relation between it and other
Objects. But each of these relations does not, of course, belong
exclusively to the one Object, but is shared by it with another.
The nature of a particular piece of wax consists, for example,
partly in the fact that it has been melted by a particular fire.
But this melting is just as much part of the nature of the fire.
The fact is shared between the wax and the fire, and cannot be
said to belong to one of them more than to the other. It
belongs to both of them jointly.

Thus the only subject of which the relation can be pre-
dicated will be the system which is formed by these two
Objects — Objects which are now said to be in Affinity with
(different gegen) one another. This, then, will be the true
unity determined by this relation. But two Objects cannot
form a closed system, since all Objects in the universe are
in reciprocal connexion. Our system of two Objects will have
relations with others, and will be merged with them, in the same
way in which the original Objects were merged in it, since the
relations, which alone give individuality, are found to be common
property, and so merge their terms, instead of keeping them
distinct. The system in which all the Objects, and all their
relations, are contained, becomes the only true Object, of which

254 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

all the relations contained in the system are adjectives. The
individual Objects disappear, and we reach the category of
Chemism.

I think that this is what Hegel means, and at any rate it is
quite clear that, when he has reached Chemism, he regards the
different Objects as having collapsed into one Object. But
I cannot see that this is justified. The conclusion from the
essentiality of the relations to the unreality of the terms could
only be valid if things lost their reality and stability in so far
as they were connected with others. But the reverse of this is
true. We have seen, with gradually increasing clearness as the
dialectic advanced, that it is to their relations with what is
outside them that all things owe their independence and
stability.

244. We now proceed to the argument of the Greater Logic,
whose elaboration does not introduce any really new factors,
thous^h it rather confuses the issue. At the end of his treatment
of the category of the Centre, Hegel says " the system, which
is the merely external determination of the Objects, has now
passed over into an immanent and objective determination ;
this is the Law" {G. L. iii. 198).

{h) The Law.

(G. L. iii. 198.) Of this he says on the same page "This
reality, which corresponds to the Notion, is an ideal reality,
different from the former reality which only strove ; the Differ-
ence, which was previously a plurality of Objects, is taken
up into its essentiality, and into the pure universality."

This, however, does not take us more than one step on the
way to Chemism, for the Objects are still possessed of a separate
existence. "The soul is still sunk in the body" (G. L. iii. 199).
The Law, apparently, is recognised as more important than
the Objects which it connects, but it has not removed their
stability.

245. Now, however, Hegel proceeds to prove their instability
by an argument similar to that employed in the Encyclopaedia.
" The Object has its essential stability only in its ideal centrality,
and in the law of the centrality ; it has therefore no power to
resist the judgment of the Notion, and to maintain itself in

II. CHEMISM 255

abstract undetermined stability and exclusion" (G. L. iii. 200.
The phrase "judgment of the Notion" has clearly no reference
to the particular division of Subjectivity which bore that name).
We thus reach {0. L. iii. 199)

(c) Transition from Mechanism.

246. Here we have the Object in its Chemical form, no
longer stable, but unstable by reason of its Affinity towards the
related Object. Thus we pass to

II. Chemism.

{G. L. iii. 200. Enc. 200.) Chemism is not further divided
in the Encyclopaedia, but in the Greater Logic it has three sub-
divisions, of which the first is

A. The Chemical Object

{G. L. iii. 200), which appears to be exactly the same as Transi-
tion from Mechanism ^ We have again Objects, still different
from one another, but unstable by means of their Affinity.

247. Now, however, he proceeds to argue, as in the En-
cyclopaedia, that " the Chemical Object is not comprehensible
by itself, and that the Being of one is the Being of the other "
{G. L. iii. 202). With this merging of the Objects into one, he
reaches

B. The Chemical Process.

{G. L. iii. 202.) Here the full conception of Chemism is
attained, and we have come to the same point which was
reached in the Encyclopaedia by the simpler argument given
above.

The Object produced by merging the other Objects into one
is called the Neutral Object. This name, and the expression
that the Object has "sunk back to immediacy" {Enc. 202)
suggest that the Neutral Object is undifferentiated. And we

^ This is not in accordance with the general method of the dialectic.
Transition from Mechanism is a subdivision of the fifth degree, while the
Chemical Object is a subdivision of the fourth degree. Thus they do not
stand to one another as Synthesis and new Thesis, and it is only categories
which do this which, according to the general method of the dialectic, are
identical in content.

256 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

can see that this would naturally be the case. For, in pro-
portion as the related Objects lost their several reality, the
relation between them would lose its reality. The relation of
melting only exists between a fire and a piece of wax, if they
are taken as different, though connected, Objects. If there
were no fire and no wax there would be no relation of meltingf.
Thus besides the separate Objects and their qualities, the
relations also have gone, and nothing remains which could
differentiate the Neutral Object.

248. The category now reached gives us, says Hegel, an
oscillation between the Neutral Object on the one hand, and,
on the other hand, two Extremes, distinct, but connected and
in a state of tension. It is, I think, clear that Hegel is
asserting a category of alternation and not an alternation
of categories. It is not, according to him, that we alternately
regard existence as a Neutral Object and as a tension of
Extremes, but that we hold throughout our treatment of the
Chemical Process a position which asserts that the existent
itself continually passes from one of these forms to the other.

The passage to Chemical Process — this appears to be Hegel's
meaning — gives us the Neutral Object. But the Neutral
Object is undifferentiated, "it has sunk back to immediacy."
It has therefore no true unity. So it splits up into the
Extremes, which are the old separate Objects. But the Ex-
tremes, being " biassed and strained " — that is, in connexion
with each other, fall back into the Neutral Object, and the
process goes on ad infinitum. This endless oscillation is
apparently Hegel's ground for rejecting the category as in-
adequate. (The account of this in the Encyclopaedia is clearer
than that in the Greater Logic, but the meaning of both is the
same.)

249. To the validity of this argument there appears to me
to be two objections.

In the first place, if such a Neutral Object were reached, it
would not split up into Extremes, as Hegel makes it do, but
would vanish altogether. Such a Neutral Object could have
nothing outside it, for it is to be co-extensive with a mechanical
system, and we have seen that every mechanical system is co-
extensive with the universe. And again the Neutral Object,

ir. CHEMiSM 257

being uudiffereutiated, could have nothing inside it. It would
have no determination left, external or internal. In other
words, it would have returned to Pure Being, which, as we
learned at the beginning of the Logic, is equivalent to nothing.
We should be back again where we started, and the dialectic
process could never pass this point, but would always return
back on itself in a circle which could never be transcended.

But even supposing that the Neutral Object did split up
into its Extremes, and that the perpetual oscillation between it
and them could be established, where is the contradiction in
this that could take us on to the next category? The continual
oscillation is, of course, what Hegel calls a False Infinite.
But a False Infinite, as we have seen, though always regarded
by Hegel as something valueless and unsatisfactory, is not
regarded by him as necessarily involving a contradiction. It is
only certain False Infinites which he regards as doing so. He
gives no reason why this one should be counted among them,
nor do I see what reason could be given. But, without some
demonstration that this particular False Infinite is contradictory,
we have no valid transition to the next category.

I submit, therefore, that the conception of Chemism is
unsatisfactory, alike as regards the transition to it, the con-
ception itself, and the transition from it, and that it must be
rejected. And, as I said above (Section 240, note), I believe
a more attentive consideration of the category of Absolute
Mechanism might very possibly yield a new category, which
would in its turn offer a valid transition to Teleology.

250. Hegel's transition to the next category is made by
arguing that this oscillation shows the inadequacy of the forms
— Neutral Object on the one hand, and Extremes on the other —
which succeed one another in the Chemical Process, and that
this inadequacy leaves the Notion which Avas (imperfectly)
shown in each of them, standing free from them (G. L. iii. 208.
Enc. 203). I quote the account in the Encyclopaedia, which
seems to me more clearly expressed than the corresponding
passage in the Greater Logic, though I do not think there is
any difference in meaning. Speaking of the processes from
Neutral Object to Extremes, and from Extremes to Neutral
Object, he says that each "goes its own way without hindrance

M'^T. 17

258 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

from the other. But that want of inner connexion shows that
they are finite, by their passage into products in which they
are merged and lost. Conversely the process exhibits the non-
entity of the pre-supposed immediacy of the not-indifferent
Objects. — By this negation of immediacy and of extei'nalism
in which the Notion as such was sunk, it is liberated and
invested with independent being in the face of that externalism
and immediacy."

This is Hegel's argument, and its meaning does not seem
to me doubtful. Its validity is not so clear. It is not evident
why the fact that each form gives place to another form, in
unending oscillation, should enable us to assert that the Notion,
which is the uniting principle of both, should be able to do
without either. It is still less evident why we should be
entitled to assert, as Hegel proceeds to do, that the Notion
thus freed embodies itself in the form of the category of
Teleology.

In this way Hegel passes to {G. L. iii. 206)

C. Transition from Chemism.

251. The question arises, with regard to the Notion of
which Hegel has just spoken (which we may conveniently
distinguish as the Chemical Notion), whether there are more
than one of such Notions in the universe, or whether there is
only one. The answer will be of considerable importance, not
only with reference to the present category, but throughout the
divisions of Teleology and Life. Hegel's language gives us no
reason for one answer rather than another, but it seems to
follow logically from his treatment of Chemism that there can
be only one Chemical Notion. For it seems clear that there
can be only one Chemical system. It is true that there were
many systems of Absolute Mechanism, and that the transition
to Chemism professed to show that each system of Absolute
Mechanism must now be regaided as a Chemical system. But
apparently they would have all to be regarded as the same
Chemical system.

It must be remembered that each system of Absolute
Mechanism contained all the Objects in the universe. The
systems were only differentiated from one another by the fact

III. TELEOLOGY 259

that each system had a different Object for its Centre. Now
this possibility of differentiation disappears in the Chemical
system. A Chemical system is made up of a Neutral Object
and Extremes. Two Chemical systems could not be dif-
ferentiated from each other by means of different Neutral
Objects, for the Neutral Object is the result of merging all the
Objects of the universe together, and therefore there could
only be one in the universe. Moreover, if the Neutral Object
is undifferentiated, there could be nothing to distinguish one
Neutral Object from another. And Hegel appears to regard
the Neutral Object as capable of splitting into Extremes in one
manner only, so that the Chemical systems could not be
differentiated from one another by the possession of different
Extremes. Thus we seem forced to the conclusion that there
is only one Chemical system, and, therefore, only one Chemical
Notion.

252. The category of Transition from Chemism, as a
Synthesis, is naturally identical with the Thesis of the new
triad. We pass at once, therefore, to this new triad, which is

III. Teleology.

(G. L. iii. 209. Enc. 204.) The Chemical Notion has now,
Hegel tells us, become the End. The End is the element of
unity in the categories of Teleology, and the correlative element
of plurality is the Means.

Hegel departs considerably from the common usage in the
meaning which he gives to the terms Teleology, End, and
Means. What is generally meant by Teleology is what Hegel
calls " finite and outward design," in which some independently
existing object is used by some self-conscious being as a means
for carrying out some plan which he has conceived. In " out-
ward design " the Means and the End can exist independently ;
for the End can exist in the mind of the designer, even if there
are no available Means to carry it out, while the object-s which
are used as Means do not derive their entire existence from
that use, but may have existed before the End was formed,
and might still have existed, if the End had never been
formed.

17—2

260 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

Hegel tells us that his use of these terms resembles Kant's,
of whose conception of Teleology the best example is to be
found in organic life (G. L. iii. 213. Enc. 204). By the help
of this, and of the indications given by Hegel in the discussion
of the subdivisions of the category, we can, I think, see what
Hegel means by a Teleological system. It is, on the one hand
a system the intrinsic nature of whose parts is dependent on
their place in the system. Not only their external relations,
but their whole nature, can only be explained, or even described,
by reference to the system, and, through the system, to the
other members of it. On the other hand the unity, the End,
can only be stated as the unity which does connect just those
parts. It cannot have a sejDarate description, as is the case
with the Ends of "finite design."

We can see that a living body offers the best possible
example of this, though not quite an adequate one\ For the
parts of an organism at any rate approximate to that degree of
close connexion in which none of them have any nature at all
which is not expressed in and dependent on their place in the
system. And, on the other hand, if we ask what is the nature
of the unity which holds together the parts of any organism,
we can only say that it is the unity which does express itself in
just those parts connected in that way. It is, it must be noted,
this organic unity which is the End of the organism, in Hegel's
and Kant's use of the word. The purpose of its creator or its
parent, in creating or begetting it, or the purposes which the
spiritual being connected with it uses it to fulfil, are only Ends
of finite design.

253. A similar unity to this may be found in a picture, in
so far as it possesses aesthetic merit. For then the explanation
and justification of each detail in the picture will be found in
its place in the scheme of the picture as a whole, and, through
that, in its relation to the other details. On the other hand,
if we ask what the scheme of the picture is, what is the unity
which makes it aesthetically meritorious, we can only say that
it is the unity which is expressed in just those parts, arranged
in just that manner. It admits of no separate statement.

The failure of organisms to afford an adequate example of Teleological
' will be discussed in the next chapter (Section 266).

unity will be d

III. TELEOLOGY 261

Here, again, we must distinguish this innei' unity of the picture,
which is its End in the Hegelian sense, from the purpose of the
artist to represent a particular scene in his picture, and from
the more fundamental purpose which led him to paint the
picture — desire for fame, for money, or the like. These are
only Ends of finite design, and they admit of statement in
other terms than simply that they are the End of this picture.

In ordinary language the tei'm Means may signify either
the material in which an End is embodied and realised or the
instruments by which that material is adapted. If I propose
as an End to make a statue, both the marble and the chisel
would be called Means to my End. But when Means is used
as the correlative to End in the Hegelian sense, there is no
question of instruments, and the Means are simply the plurality
in which the unity of the End is embodied. That this is the
case appears also from the two arguments by which Hegel
demonstrates the inadequacy of the category of Means (see
below, Sections 259, 260).

254. We can now see that Teleology is a Synthesis of
the positions of Mechanism and Chemism. In Mechanism the
unity of a system of Objects is one of themselves — the Central
Object. The unity is not yet a distinct moment in the system,
correlative to the plurality of Objects. In Chemism, on the
other hand, the unity of the system is regarded as more funda-
mental than the plurality, for the result of the category is that
the Chemical Notion is inadequately expressed by its mani-
festations. In Teleology the two sides are balanced. The
unity is a moment in the system distinct from the moment of
the plurality of the parts of the system, and as fundamental
as that plurality. On the other hand the unity is no more
fundamental than the plurality, for it has no separate nature,
but is just the unity which does unite that particular plurality
in that particular way.

The End may be called a Universal, and rightly, since it
unites the system, and is common to every part of it. But it
must be noticed that it is quite a different sort of Universal
from that which we had in Subjectivity. There the Universal
was a common quality. Here it is an organising principle.
The highest point of Subjectivity was the Ultimate Dis-

262 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

junctive Judgment which formed the Major Premise of the
Disjunctive Syllogism. Let us take as an example, "all finite
spirits must be angels, men, or brutes." Then the fact that a
certain existent Individual was a finite spirit and a man would
not in any way determine whether any other finite spirits
existed, or to Avhich of the three possible varieties they belonged.
But if there exists a living human stomach, then, in so far as a
living being is an adequate example of Hegelian Teleology, its
existence will determine the existence of other living human
organs which are not stomachs. For the living stomach could
only exist as a manifestation of the organic unity of a human
body, and such a unity must also manifest itself in other organs
which are not stomachs.

We have here, even more distinctly than at the end of
Subjectivity, the idea of a self-differentiating unity, by which
is to be understood, as I said above (Section 231), not a unity,
fi-om whose nature the nature of its differentiations can be
deduced by pure thought, but a unity which, not through some
external accident, but from inner necessity, is only to be found
in a particular multiplicity. This multiplicity, however, is as
ultimate and fundamental as the unity. It does not proceed
from the unity, and is only dependent on it in the same way
that the unity, in its turn, depends on the multiplicity —
namely that the existence of each involves the existence of the
other.

We saw, in treating of this conception in the last chapter,
that, although the existence of the unity involves that of the
differentiations, and conversely, yet it does not follow that, if
we know the nature of the unity, we should be able to deduce
from it what were the differentiations of that unity. To recur
to our previous example — a complete knowledge of what is
meant by a finite spirit will not necessarily enable us to deduce
that all finite spirits must be men, angels, or brutes. In
dealing with the self-differentiating Notion of Teleology we
may go further. We can be quite certain that we shall never
be able to deduce the nature of the differentiations from our
knowledge of the nature of the unity. For, as we have seen,
the End in Teleology does not admit of being stated except as
the unity which holds together just those differentiations in

III. TELEOLOGY 263

just that manner. And thus we cannot know the nature of the
unity except in so far as we know the nature of the differentia-
tions.

255. Hegel's use of the terms End and Means in this
category seems to me very unfortunate. For, in ordinary
language, the principal point in the significance of these terms
is that the Means, as Means, exist only for the sake of the End,
while the End exists for its own sake. The End has ultimate
value, the Means only derivative value. Now it is an essential
characteristic of Hegel's category, that the plurality, which he
calls the Means, is just as fundamental and important as the
unity, which he calls the End. But the contrary is almost
irresistibly suggested by the associations called up by the
words, and even Hegel himself seems sometimes to forget in
what a different sense from the common one he is professing
to use them.

Again, we must remember that, with the Hegelian use of
the words, there can be no such thing as an unrealised End, or
an inadequate Means. An End only exists at all in so far as it
is the unity which unites the Means — i.e. which is realised by
them, and, conversely, the Means only exist in so far as they
are unified by, and express, the End, and can therefore offer no
resistance to its realisation.

And with this use of the words the conception of a realised
End loses altogether that implication of value which it has
when the words are used in their ordinary significance. In the
latter case, to begin with, the assertion that an End is realised
is not a tautology. An End adopted is not necessarily realised,
and the realisation brings in a fresh element. And that fresh
element is the harmony between the purpose of a conscious
being on the one hand, and the surrounding reality on the
other. This certainly involves pleasure, and, if pleasure be
taken as a good, it also involves good. And thus, with " finite
and outward " Ends, their realisation takes us into the world of
values, since, at the lowest, the realisation implies that some
conscious being has got what he wanted.

But with Ends, in the Hegelian sense of the word, it is
quite different. In the first place, to say that an End is
realised, is now, as was explained above, a mere tautology.

264 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

And, in the second place, an End, in this sense, is only the
inner unity of existence. It has no necessary relation to the
purpose of any conscious being, and no implication of value.

256. The End, we have seen, is a unity as compared to the
plurality of the Means. But the question still remains whether
there is only one Teleological system and one End for the whole
universe, or whether there are a plurality of Ends. Hegel does
not make this clear.

Logically, it would seem, there ought only to be one End.
For there is no doubt that it is the Chemical Notion which
becomes the End, and we have seen above (Section 251) that
there can be only one Chemical Notion.

And there seem very grave difficulties in the way of the
assertion of a plurality of Ends. Have the separate Ends
separate Means or not ? If they have, then the universe — the
whole of existence — is broken up into different systems uncon-
nected with one another. For the principle of connexion,
according to this category, lies wholly in the End, and two
Ends could not be connected.

Such a view of the universe, at this point of the dialectic
process, would be completely unjustifiable. It is scarcely
possible that Hegel could have supposed it justifiable. At
any rate, if he had made so great and striking a change at
this point he would certainly have mentioned it explicitly, and
as he gives no indication whatever of it, the hypothesis of a
plurality of Ends, each with its distinct Means, must be rejected.

But it is equally impossible that a plurality of Ends should

all have the same Means. For the things which are the Means

will be related to one another in various ways, and these

various relations will unite them all into a single system.

Now, as we saw above, the unity which unites just those things

in just that way, will be an End to those Means. And they

can have none other than this. It is the unity of the system

in which they are, and they are not in more than one system,

for the system means all the relations which exist between them^

^ In Absolute Mechanism the same Objects formed many systems. But then
each system took the whole from the point of view of one Object as Centre, and
there were many of these points of view. Here, where the unity of the system
is not found in one of its parts, but is a distinct element, this source of plurality
has failed.

III. TELEOLOGY 265

Thus a plurality of Ends could neither have separate Means
nor the same Means, and thus the plurality of Ends is untenable.
No doubt minor systems might be discovered within the all-
embracing system, and the unity of each of these might be
taken as an End, but these systems would have relative Ends.
The systems would be parts of the all-embracing system, and
their Ends only Means to the one ultimate End.

On the other side, it must be admitted that the End is
transformed into the Organism, and that Hegel unquestionably
maintains a plurality of Organisms. But, in view of the argu-
ments given above, it seems that we must say that there is only
one End to the whole universe, and that the transition to the
plurality of Organisms was unjustifiable.

A. The Subjective End.

257. (G. L. iii. 217. Enc. 207.) The full unity between
Means and End is not attained till we reach the last division of
Teleology. At first they are only regarded as of equal import-
ance and as closely united. Each is still a separate entity with
a separate nature of its own, though it could not exist except
in conjunction with the other. This view dominates the two
first subdivisions of Teleology. Whether Hegel could have
avoided these, and could legitimately have proceeded direct
from Chemism to the final form of Teleology is a question
which it seems impossible to answer, on account of the difficulty
of seeing precisely how he does pass from Chemism to Teleology
as a whole.

The first subdivision of Teleology is called by Hegel the
Subjective End. It regards the Means as possessing no definite
quality of their own except that they are a plurality. One
Object is as good as another in any position in the system of
manifestations of the End. If the Object A fills the place X
in the manifestation of the End, that does not imply any special
fitness in A to manifest X. B, or any other Object, would
have done quite as well. All that the Objects are wanted for
is to provide a plurality.

258. The contradiction involved in this category is not
hard to discover. For, while it asserts the Means to have
separate natures, apart from that End which they carry out,

266 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

it defines the Means so as to reduce this separate nature, and
consequently the Means themselves, to nothing.

The interconnexions of the various Means with one another
form the End, which the Means carry out. The End is the
unity of the Means, and it is clearly to the End that these
interconnexions, which unite the Means to one another, must
be referred. Now the present category asserts that one Means
would always do as well as another in carrying out the End,
and, consequently, that the intrinsic nature of the Means has
no relation to the End. It follows that the intrinsic nature of
the different Means has no relation to the connexions between
them. These connexions, however, form the whole of the
external nature of the Objects which are considered as Means,
and we saw, when we were dealing with Absolute Mechanism,
that the inner nature is completely expressed in its outer
nature. To maintain that anything has a core of its own apart
from and unaffected by its relations to outer things would be to
go back to the earlier categories of Essence, Avhose insufficiency
has been demonstrated much earlier in the dialectic. Therefore
this intrinsic nature which the Means are asserted to possess
can neither be theu" outer nature nor their inner nature — and
what else is left for it to be ? Clearly nothing. And thus the
Means, having no nature, would be non-existent.

To suppose, then, that the Means have no intrinsic adapta-
tion to the End, is to destroy the possibility of their having a
nature at all, and so the possibility of their existing at all.
If, therefore, they are still to retain any externality whatever
to the End, that externality must be harmonious to the End.
The nature of each Means must consist in its fitness to carry
out the End — its fitness to fill one particular place in the
system of which the End is the unity. It thus ceases to be
indifferent which Means are employed in manifesting the End
in a particular way — that is, at a particular place in the system.
Only those Means can do so which are fitted for the task by
their own nature. We thus approach more closely in one
respect to the ordinary significance of the word Means, which
includes some special capability in the Object to carry out the
End. It is thus appropriate that the next category should be
called

III. TELEOLOGY 267

B. The Means.

(G. L. iii. 221. Enc. 208.) Here, as elsewhere, we must
remember the special meaning of End and Means as Hegel uses
them. Though the Means have a certain externality to the
End, and a certain distinction from it, yet it is not held that
they could exist apart from it. The position throughout
Teleology is that the Means could not exist if they did not
embody the End, nor the End if it were not embodied by the
Means. And so it may be misleading to speak here of the
Means as fitted to embody the End. The relation of the Means
to the End is not a mere potentiality, as when, in the non-
Hegelian sense of the terms, we say that a spade is a Means for
digging. For Hegel the Means only exist as embodying the
End, and when we speak of them as being fitted for it, we only
mean that their intrinsic nature co-operates in the manifestation,
and is no longer considered as indifferent to it.

259. This category, in its turn, is found to be inadequate.
Of this Hegel gives two demonstrations, the first of which is to
be found in the Greater Logic only, while the second occurs
both there and in the Encyclopaedia. They may be said to be
based on the same general principle, but raise perfectly distinct
points, and must be considered separately.

In the first {G. L. iii. 229) he says that if we accepted the
position of this category we should be forced to insert, between
the End and the Means, a second Means, and then, between the
End and this second Means, a third Means, and so on ad
infinitum, and that this involves a contradiction. Let us
expand this argument.

If the End and the Means are to be taken as distinguishable
entities, then it is clear that each of them must conform to all
the conditions which are necessary to the existence of any
entity. Now we have seen in the course of the dialectic that
no entity of any sort can be a blank or undifferentiated unity.
Therefore the End cannot be such a unity, but must be
differentiated. This, indeed, has already been admitted, and
the work of the Means is to differentiate it. But — and here
the root of the inadequacy appears — if the End has an existence
distinguishable from the Means, it must have a differentiation

268 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

distinguishable from the Means. Now the element of differ-
entiation in a differentiated iinity cannot be evolved from or
produced by the element of unity. It must be correlative with
it, and equally ultimate.

Within the End, therefore, and apart from the Means, there
must be such an element of differentiation. But the definition
of a Means, as we have seen, is just the plurality which
differentiates a unity in this way, and this element of differ-
entiation will therefore be a second Means, between the End
and the first 3Ieans. And, now that it is a Means, it will,
according to the present category, be a separate entity from the
End. By the same reasoning as before, the End will require
some differentiation independent of this new Means, and this
differentiation will become a third Means, between the End and
the second Means. And this process will go on ad infinitum.

Such an infinite process as this clearly involves a contra-
diction. By the hypothesis the End and the first Means are
united. But we now find that their union must be mediated.
It depends on the union between the End and the second
Means. But this union again requires mediation, and so on.
All mediated connexions must depend on some immediate
connexion. But in this chain every connexion requires
mediation, and there is no immediate connexion. Then there
can be no mediated connexion either, and so no connexion at
all. But, by the hypothesis, there is a connexion. And thus
we reach a contradiction.

260. Hegel's second argument {G. L. iii. 230. Enc. 211)
is that the Realised End will, according to the present category,
be nothing but a Means, that it will consequently require
another Realised End beyond it, which in turn will be nothing
but a Means, and so on ad infinitum. This also requires some
expansion.

When End and Means are taken in their common and un-
Hegelian sense, there is a clear distinction between the Means
and the Realised End. A block of marble and a chisel may be
taken as Means to the End of making a statue, but no one
could mistake either the block or the chisel for the statue which
is their Realised End. But it is different when the terms have
their Hegelian sense. For then the Means is not merely an

III. TELEOLOGY 269

Object which might be made to realise the End. It is an
Object which does realise it, and which realises it necessarily,
and by its intrinsic nature. The Means therefore is an Object
whose nature is such that it realises the End. (If we are
speaking of a single Object, it is better, except for the sake of
brevity, to say " which participates in realising the End," since
of course an End can only be realised in a plurality of Means.)

Now what is the Realised End ? Is it anything more than
this ? It can be nothing more. The only form a Realised End
can take is that of an Object whose nature is such that it
manifests the End. And therefore, for Hegelian Teleology,
there is no difference between the Means and the Realised
End.

This conclusion we shall find later on to be the truth. But
it is inconsistent with the position of the present category, and
the attempt to combine the two produces a contradiction. For
the Realised End is the union of the End and Means, and, if
these are taken as in any way distinguishable, it cannot be the
same as either of them. Hence when we find that our Realised
End is identical with the Means, we cannot regard it as really
the Realised End. If it is one extreme of the relation it cannot
be the union of both. We take it then, according to Hegel,
simply as the Means, aud look for another Realised End beyond
it. (It may be added, though Hegel does not mention it, that
it would have been equally correct to take it simply as the
Realised End, and then to look for another Means to mediate
between it and the End. The infinite series thus started would
lead to a contradiction, in the manner indicated in Section 2.59.)
But the new Realised End would also necessarily be identical
with the Means, for the same reasons as before, and our search
would have to be continued ad infinitum. Such an infinite
series would involve a contradiction, for there would be no term
in which the End was realised, and therefore it would not be
realised at all, while, by the hypothesis, it is realised.

261. The category which involves such contradictions must
be transcended. And the way to transcend it is clear. The
whole of the difficulty arose from the fact that End and Means
were taken as separate entities. It was this that forced us to
insert, between Means and End, an infinite series of new Means.

270 CH. IX. OBJECTIVITY

And it was this which gave us the choice, either to insert
another infinite series of Means between Means and Realised
End, or else to prolong the series of Means infinitely forward,
in the vain attempt to reach a Realised End which was different
from a Means. We can get rid of the contradictions only by
dropping our supposition that End and Means are in any way
separate entities. We know from the first category of Teleology
that they can only exist if they are connected. But now we
are driven to the conclusion that they are two aspects of the
same entity. Existence is a differentiated unity. The End
is the aspect of unity, the Means the aspect of differentiation.
The relation of the aspect of unity to the aspect of differentia-
tion, and the relation of the various differentiations to one
another were considered above (Sections 252 — 254). With
this we pass to the final subdivision, to which Hegel gives the
name of

C. The Realised End.

{G. L. iii. 224. Erie. 209.) The appropriateness of this
name lies in the fact that the Realised End is the unity of the
End and Means, and that we have come to the conclusion that
End and Means are not two realities connected with each other,
but two aspects distinguishable within a single reality. And
thus this category takes its name from the unity of the two
sides — that is to say, from the Realised End. (The unity of the
two sides with one another, must, of course, be carefully dis-
tinguished from the unity of the differentiations, which is one
of those two sides.)

Thus we learn that the universe is as much One as it
is Many. It is a reality in which the aspect of unity — the
End — which makes it One, is as fundamental, and no more
fundamental, than the aspect of plurality — the Means — which
makes it Many. This equipoise of unity and plurality may
not be reached here for the first time in the dialectic, but our
return to it when both unity and differentiation have been so
fully developed, has a greater significance than its previous
occurrence could have. And thus we reach the end of Objec-
tivity.

Ill, TELEOLOGY 271

The treatment of Objectivity in the Encyclopaedia only
varies in the fact that Mechanical Process, Absolute Mechanism,
and Chemism are not, as in the Greater Logic, further divided.
The first two, at any rate, of these changes, seem to be
improvements.

CHAPTER X

THE IDEA

262. The last section of the dialectic is divided as follows :

I. Life. (Das Leben.)

A. The Living Individual. (Das lebeudige Individuum.)

B. The Life-Process. (Das Lebens-Process.)

C. The Kind. (Die Gattimg.)

II. The Idea of Cognition. (Die Idee des Erkennen.)

A. The Idea of the True. (Die Idee des Wahren.)

(a) Analytic Cognition. (Das analytische Erkennen.)

(b) Synthetic Cognition. (Das synthetische Erken-

nen.)

B. The Idea of the Good. (Die Idee des Guten.)

III. The Absolute Idea. (Die absolute Idee.)

It should be noticed that Avithin II. there are only two
divisions, the Synthesis being absent, and that the same is the
case with the subdivisions of II. A. Cognition (Erkennen) has
its meaning so extended that, as will be seen later, it covers
Volition as well as Knowledge.

263. In the last division of Objectivity, Realised End, we
had reached the result that the whole of existence forms a
system of differentiated parts, the unity of the system being as
fundamental as the differentiation of the parts, and the differ-
entiation of the parts, again, being as fundamental as the unity
of the system. In this system the intrinsic nature of each part
is dependent on its place in the system. It can only be
explained, or even described, by reference to the system, and,

I. LIFE 273

through the system, to the other members of it. On the other
hand, the unity can only be described as the unity which does
connect these parts. It has no nature which can be stated
apart from them, just as they have no nature which can be
stated apart from the unity.

This conception, which formed the Synthesis of the last triad
of Objectivity, is naturally reproduced in the Thesis of the first
triad of the Idea. And this is the conception which we find in
the category of the Living Individual.

The genera] conception of the Idea is, according to Hegel,
the unity of the Subjective Notion and Objectivity. {G. L, iii.
240. He also calls it the unity of the Notion and Objectivity.
G. L. iii. 238. Eiic. 213. This phrase is less appropriate than
the other, since Objectivity is also part of the Notion.) In
Subjectivity the Individuals were connected by their similarities
and dissimilarities, which were realised as forming their inner
and intrinsic nature. In Objectivity there was added to this
connexion the further connexion of each Individual with other
Individuals by means of causal relations^ But this was con-
ceived at first as a species of connexion which was external to
the Individuals connected, and did not form part of their
natures. This externality was gradually eliminated, but did
not completely disappear until the final category of Realised
End. Then the determination of each Individual by others
was found to consist in their relation to one another in a Teleo-
logical System, while the inner nature of each is found to be an
expression of its place in the Teleological System. Thus in
Idea the connexion of Individuals is, as in Objectivity, inclusive
of the mutual determination of each Individual by every other
Individual, while, at the same time, the whole connexion of
Individuals is, as in Subjectivity, part of their inner nature.

Hegel, however, says that " in a more general sense " the
Idea is also " the unity of Notion and Reality (Realitat) "
(G. L. iii. 240). This seems incorrect. By Reality Hegel
appears to mean the plurality in which the Notion is expressed.
Now if he speaks of the conception of such a plurality in which

1 This connexion by causal relation was, of course, first reached in Re-
ciprocity, but its development was not taken up again until Objectivity had
been reached.

M'^T, 18

274 CH. X. THE IDEA

the Notion is expressed, that conception is not reached for the
first time in the Idea, since both in Subjectivit}^ and Objectivity
the Idea was recognised as having such a plurality. If, on the
other hand, he speaks of a detailed knowledge of that plurality,
or of the actual existent plurality itself, these are not reached
in the Idea. The whole dialectic deals only with a priori
conceptions, and we cannot acquire by it any knowledge of the
different characteristics of particular Individuals, which — for us
at any rate — can only be known empirically. Still less can the
actual Individuals themselves be part of the dialectic.

I. Life.

264. (G. L. in. 244. Eiic. 216.) We must, of course, bear
in mind here, as with other categories named from concrete
phenomena, the relation between those phenomena and the
category. The category of Life does not apply only to what
are commonly called living beings, but is equally true of all
reality. Nor does Hegel profess to deduce by the dialectic
process all the empirical characteristics of biological life. The
choice of the name is due to the fact that this is the category
of pure thought which is most usually and naturally employed
in dealing with the phenomena of life.

Hegel is, I think, clearly right in saying that it is this
category which is thus employed in dealing with the phenomena
of life. In so far as any matter is held to form a living organism,
it is held that the nature of each part of that whole is only
capable of explication or description by reference to the organism
as a whole, while that organism can only be described as the
unity which is the unity of just those parts\ (This is the case
when the organism is looked at by itself, and for itself. If the
organism is regarded as connected with a conscious Spirit, and
as used by that Spirit as a means to its own ends, more can be
said about the organism. But then we are considering some-
thing beyond biological life.)

1 We may compare Kant's account of an organised being. {Critique of
Judgment, Section 65.) "In the first place it is requisite that its parts (as
regards their presence and their form) are only possible through their reference
to the whole. ...It is requisite secondly that its parts should so combine in the
unity of a whole that they are reciprocally cause and effect of each other's
form."

I. LIFE 275

It is for this reason that he calls this category Life, and that
he calls the element of unity by the oarae of Seele, and the
element of plurality by the name of Body. It is not easy
to find an English equivalent for Seele, in the sense in which it
is used by Hegel, and I have therefore retained the German
word. Soul would be misleading, since the modern use of that
word is to designate what is otherwise called Spirit. But Seele
means for Hegel nothing but the unity of which the body
is the plurality — the element of unity in biological life.

In the case of Life Hegel makes it even more explicit than
he does when dealing with other categories with concrete names,
that he intends to keep strictly to pure thought, and to avoid
all empirical intermixture. For he expressly warns us against
supposing the Life spoken of in the dialectic to be identical
with the life of concrete experience, whether the latter be taken
by itself, or as a manifestation of Spirit {G. L. iii. 245 — 24-6).
But he fails to carry out his intentions. The categor}' of Life, as
treated by him, possesses two important features which are found
in the phenomena studied in biology, but which cannot, as it
seems to me, be legitimately deduced by the dialectic process, and
which ought not, therefore, to have been ascribed to the category.

265. In the first place, the question arises whether the
universe consists of one example of the category of Life, or of
many such examples. Each of these examples may be called
an Organism. Are there many such Organisms, or only one ?

It seems to me that the right answer to this would have
been that there is only one. The whole universe, as I have
maintained in the last chapter, forms one Teleological System,
and, as it is the Teleological System which, in the new Thesis,
is re-stated as the Organism, there should be only one Organism.
And in the next category, Cognition, the individual cognizing
Selves appear to correspond to the parts of the Organism, while
the cognized Whole — which embraces the whole universe —
corresponds to the Organism. This, also, indicates that the
universe ought to be conceived as one Organism.

But Hegel takes a different view. According to him the
universe, as seen under this category, consists of a plurality of
Organisms, each of which has a plurality of parts. The Organ-
isms are in relation to one another, and so may be said to form

18—2

276 CH. X. THE IDEA

a unity of some sort, but this larger unity — which does embrace
the whole universe — is not an Organic unity.

He seems to have been led into this error by the analogy
offered by biology, which deals with a multitude of living
beings, each of which is an organic unity, while they do not
together form an organic unity. And this error vitiates, I think,
his whole treatment of the categories of Life.

266. The second case in which, as it seems to me, Hegel
has been misled by biological analogies is in treating the living
Body^ as an inadequate manifestation of the Seele. On this, as
we shall see, he endeavours to base the transition to the next
category. Now there is nothing in the dialectic to warrant this
view. In the Teleological System the nature of the unity was
just that it was the unity which did connect those parts.
If Hegel had not demonstrated the validity of this conception,
he would have had no right to affirm the category of Teleology,
nor, consequently, the category of Life. But if he had demon-
strated its validity, how could he be justified in saying that the
parts are not an adequate manifestation of the unity ?

But the analogy of biology would suggest that the mani-
festation could be inadequate. For, although biological life
is the best example known to us of this category, it is not
a perfect example. The parts of a biological organism have
some existence independently of the organism of which they
form part, since the same matter which now forms part of
a living body, existed before that body was formed, and will
exist when it has decomposed. Its condition while in the body
is in some respects different from its condition outside the body,
but it retains certain characteristics unchanged.

Hegel quotes with approval (Enc. 216) Aristotle's remark
that a hand separated from the body is only a hand in name,
not in fact. But if this is given as a characteristic which is
confined to the parts of living beings, the statement cannot be
justified. A hand is changed more or less by being cut off —
but so is a piece of granite changed, when it is cut out of the
quarry. The granite remains more or less the same after the

1 Here, and wherever I write Body with a capital initial, I mean the element
of plurality in Hegel's category of Life. When I mean the body as known to
biology I write the word without a capital.

I. LIFE 277.

separation, and so does the hand. Even when the hand
eventually decays, the atoms, or other units, into which it is
resolved, are in many respects the same as they were before the
hand was cut off. Thus the difference here between the organic
and the inorganic is only a matter of degree.

And, on the other hand, the organism in biology is inde-
pendent, to a certain degree, of its parts. For during the life
of an organism, much matter is added to it, and much, which
previously belonged to it, is excluded from it, while the organism
is regarded as being the same through all these changes.

Since the biological organism and its jjarts are thus more or
less independent of one another, the possibility of an inadequate
manifestation of the organism by its parts would arise. But this
relative independence is not a characteristic of the category of
Life, as given in the dialectic, and Hegel is not justified in asserting
the possibility, under that category, of an imperfect manifestation.

The approval which Hegel gives to Aristotle's statement
about the hand, seems to indicate that he did not fully realise
the imperfect nature of biological unity, to which, as I submit,
the possibility of an inadequate manifestation is due. But the
fact that biological manifestations were sometimes inadequate —
and that so the organism died — was clearly before him. And it
was this, I think, which led him to suppose the possibility of
inadequate manifestation in his category of Life.

Hegel says that Life is the Idea in the form of immediacy
{G. L. iii. 249. Enc. 216). It appears from what he says later
with reference to the process by which this category is trans-
cended, that he connects the immediacy of Life with the
possibility of an inadequate manifestation. A particular arrange-
ment of parts, which in point of fact exists, may or may not
manifest the Seele adequately. If it does manifest it adequately
this is a mere fact, which can be recognised as true, but cannot
be demonstrated as necessary.

A. The Living Individual^.

267. {G. L. iii. 249. Enc. 218.) Three characteristics
of the Living Individual are given by Hegel — Sensibility,

1 Individual here stands for Das Individuum, and not, as elsewhere in this
book, for Das Einzelne.

278 CH. X. THE IDEA

Irritability, and Reproduction. These correspond, he says, to
the Universal, the Particular, and the Individual (Das Einzelne).
They are not divided off, either in the text or in the table of
contents, as separate subdivisions of the category of Life, but
it Avould seem that Hegel does regard them as such, since the
third seems to be taken as a Synthesis of the other two, and to
form the transition to the next category of the Life-Process.
The transition from the Thesis to the Antithesis, however, is
not very clear. It would seem that both are reached directly
from the general idea of Life, rather than the second from the
first. All three assume that there is something outside each
Organism. This naturally follows from Hegel's view that there
is a plurality of Organisms, for then each of them will have
other Organisms outside it.

In the first place, then, an Organism which is related to
other things outside it, Avill be affected by them, and will
receive impressions from them. By reason of the unity of the
Organism, these impressions will not only affect that part of
the Organism which first receives them, but will also affect the
Organism as a whole and in its unity. This affection of the
whole by what happens in any part is what Hegel calls Sensi-
bility {G. L. iii. 253. Enc. 218). (Here, as afterwards with
Irritability and Reproduction, the name, like the name of Life,
is only applied to the logical conception because that conception
is exemplified in what is commonly called Sensibility. It does
not imply that all existence has the empirical characteristic of
Sensibilitv.)

In the second place, the Organism wall in its turn affect
whatever is outside it. It Avill do this by means of the part of
its Body which is in immediate relation with the particular
outside thing in question. But this part of the Body will be
determined to its particular nature by the Seele, the unity of
the Organism. And this action of the whole Organism, through
its part, on what is outside it, is called Irritability {G. L. iii. 254.
Enc. 218).

The third stage is the maintenance of the Organism as a
whole, through, and by means of, its relation to what is external
to it. In the Greater Logic he says that this, on its theoretical
side, may be called Feeling (Gefilhl) and on its " real " side

I. LIFE 279

may be called Reproduction (Reproduktion) {G. L. iii. 254).
In the Encyclopaedia only the name Reproduction is used
{Enc. 218).

When Reproduction is found in a series of names which are
taken from biological science, we should naturally suppose it to
mean that the characteristic after which this category was
named was the power possessed by living beings of producing
other beings of their own species. But this is not the case.
Hegel's language, in both Logics, is clearly incompatible with
this, and moreover the propagation of the species is found later
on as an example of a more advanced stage of the category
of Life.

The Organism, then, preserves itself in its own identity
through its relation to what is outside it. Throughout this
triad of the Living Individual, it is assumed that each
Organism must enter into relation with what is outside it, and
that it is by means of these relations that it will maintain
and express its own nature. This necessarily follows, if it is
admitted that there is a plurality of Organisms, and that,
consequently, every Organism must have something outside it.
For the different parts of the universe cannot be unconnected,
nor can their connexion be anything merely external to them.
It must be a connexion in which the nature of those different
parts must be expressed. This results from previous stages of
the dialectic. The only illegitimate assumption is the primary
assumption that there is a plurality of Organisms.

268. With this conception of the relation of the Organism
to the outside world we reach

B. The Life-Process

(G. L. iii. 255. Enc. 219), which consists in just such a self-
maintenance of the Organism by means of its external relations.
The empirical characteristic of living beings which Hegel com-
pares to this category is the process of assimilation, by which
the animal or vegetable not only maintains itself by its relation
to what is external to its body, but, in that process of main-
tenance, actually converts it into a part of its body {G. L.
iii. 258. Enc. 219).

In this connexion Hegel says that the living being " stands

280 CH. X. THE IDEA

face to face with an inorganic nature" {Ejic. 219). This, taken
literally, could not apply to the relations of the Organism under
this category. All the universe is not, according to Hegel, one
Organism, but it consists of nothing but Organisms, and thus
no Organism could be in relation to anything inorganic, since
nothing inorganic exists.

This, however, does not affect the accuracy of the category.
For all that the category requires is that the Organism should
stand in relation to something with which it is not in organic
relation. And this condition, as we have seen, is satisfied
if the Organism stands in relation to other Organisms.

In speaking of this category in the Greater Logic Hegel
says that " the self-determination of the living being has the
form of objective externality, and since the living being is at
the same time identical with itself, it is the absolute contra-
diction (Widerspruch) " (G. L. iii. 256). I do not see why
he should have said this. Of course this category, like all
categories from Becoming onwards, contains, synthesised in its
unity, moments which if unsynthesised would contradict each
other. But they do not contradict each other when synthesised,
so that the name of Contradiction is not appropriate. And, if
it were appropriate to a category which synthesised moments
which contradict one another, it would be equally applicable to
all categories except Being and Nothing.

In connexion with this contradiction, and the division
(Entzweiung) which it involves, Hegel introduces Pain, It
may be doubted whether it is worth while to carry so far the
parallelism between the empirical characteristics known in
biology and the characteristics of the logical category. If it
were, it would seem as if Pain should rather be introduced in
connexion with the inadequacy of the manifestation — a point
not yet reached.

269. The transition to the next category appears to be by
the idea of Universality. In the Life-Process the Particularity
of the Organism is transcended, and it is elevated to Universality,
by reason of its connexion of itself with that which is external
to it, while it maintains its own nature in that connexion.
" Through the external Life-Process it has thus posited itself
as real, universal Life, as Kind" (G. L. iii. 259).

I. LIFE 281

a The Kind.

(G. L. iii. 259. Enc. 220.) Hegel's view is, apparently,
that the idea of the Kind is now the Seele, or principle of
unity, of each Organism. And it is the inadequacy of any
particular Body to manifest the general idea of the Kind, on
which he relies to demonstrate the inadequacy of all Organic
manifestation.

270. This view seems to me to be quite unjustified. It is
true that the Universal element in the Organism becomes more
explicit when we realise that it not only manifests itself in its
own Body, but maintains itself in and by means of its relation
to what is outside its Organism. And it is true that a Kind,
or species, is Universal as compared to the Individuals which
belong to it. But the transition from one to the other is quite
illegitimate, for they are two quite different Universals. The
Universal which constitutes a Kind is a Universal such as was
discussed under Subjectivity — a common quality, or group of
qualities, which can be shared by various Individuals. It was
because this sort of Universal proved inadequate as a description
of existence that the dialectic passed in Objectivity to the
Universals of Systems. The Universal throughout Objectivity,
and now in Life, has been the Universal which is the unity of
a System, a Universal which belongs to and unites certain
differentiations, so that each of them has its definite place in
the System, and, by means of this systematic connexion, the
existence of one differentiation determines the existence of
another. This is clearly quite a different notion from such a
Universal as " lion." The latter denotes a group of qualities
which may be, as in point of fact it is, shared by many beings,
but which does not unite them in any sort of system, since the
existence of one lion does not determine the existence of any
others — at least, does not determine it by virtue of their com-
mon Universal. If all lions but one were annihilated, the
survivor would not be any less a lion, while, on the other hand,
if all the organs of a living body but one were annihilated, the
one which remained would no longer be part of an organic unity.

Hegel has therefore no right to substitute one conception of
Universal for the other at this point as if they were equivalent

282

CH. X. THE IDEA

— especially as in doing so he substitutes a conception which
he had demonstrated to be defective for the higher conception
which had transcended the defect.

271. Since, according to Hegel's view, the Seele of the
Organism is its Kind-Universal, the Organism, as being only
a particular Individual, is unable to manifest this Seele ade-
quately. The inadequacy is displayed in two ways. Firstly,
the Individual propagates its Kind, by producing other Indi-
viduals which belong to the Kind (G. L. iii. 261. Enc. 220).
Secondly, the Individual dies {G. L. iii. 262. Enc. 221).

I cannot see that Hegel has justified his view that the
Body of the Organism will be inadequate to manifest its Seele.
He has transformed the System-Universal, with which Organism
started, to a Class-Universal, which is not the Seele of the
Organism. And there seems no reason whatever to say that a
particular Organism cannot manifest such a Class-Universal of
a Kind. The Class-Universal of the Kind of lions, for example,
consists of certain general qualities— the qualities of being
vertebrate, mammal, carnivorous, etc. There is no reason why
a particular Organism should not possess all these qualities,
and, if it does, it is an adequate manifestation of the Class-
Universal \

The statement that the inadequacy is shown in Propagation
also seems to me mistaken, because I cannot see what character-
istic of the category of Organism, as reached in the dialectic,
could possibly correspond to Propagation. The other biological
facts whose names have been used — Life, Seele, Body, Sensi-
bility, Irritability, Assimilation, are, as we have seen, examples
of certain characteristics of the category. But there has been
no demonstration in the dialectic that one of the Organisms of
a particular Kind would be produced by another Organism of

1 It is possible that Hegel may have vaguely conceived the Idea of the Kind
as including an Ideal of the way in which the Class-Universal should be pos-
sessed, so that a lion who was not a lion in the best sort of way was not an
adequate manifestation of the Idea of a lion. But he has not explicitly stated,
still less justified, the introduction of this fresh element into the Idea of a Kind.
And all that would follow would be the possibility that no lions were, in this
sense, adequate manifestations of the Idea of the Kind. It would not
follow that no lion could be an adequate manifestation, which is what Hegel
asserts.

I. LIFE 283

the same Kind, nor anything which even suggests that this
would be the case. And nothing but a production of one
Organism by another could appropriately be named after the
biological fact of propagation.

The biological fact of death could doubtless be taken as an
example of the change which would take place if an Organism,
as defined by the category, broke up so that the parts of its
Body ceased to be connected with one another by the Seele,
and so ceased to form an organic Body. Such a dissolution
would be incompatible with the conception of Organism, as
Hegel first deduced it, for according to that the parts would
have no nature apart from their connexion in the Organism,
and could not, therefore, exist when it was dissolved. But
Hegel, as we have seen, takes the Organism to be an imperfect
manifestation of its Seele, and so the parts, which do exist in
the Organism, might possibly exist otherwise.

But while the inadequacy of the manifestation would thus
alloio of the dissolution of the Organism, Hegel's attempt to
treat that dissolution as an expression of the inadequacy of the
Organism must be condemned as invalid. For the inadequacy
of the Organism to express its Seele is, according to Hegel,
necessary and invariable. If the inadequacy is inconsistent
with the existence of the Organism, the Organism can never
come into existence at all, and therefore can never dissolve.
If the inadequacy is not inconsistent with the existence of the
Organism, then the dissolution of the Organism cannot be
accounted for by the inadequacy \

272. Death and propagation, while they proclaim the
inadequacy of the manifestation, also, according to Hegel,
furnish the escape from the inadequacy. "The process of Kind,
in which the individual Individuals (die einzelnen Individuen)
lose in one another their indifferent immediate existence, and
die in this negative unity, has also for the other aspect of its
product the Realised Kind, which has posited itself as identical

1 There remains the possibility that the inadequacy, though not inconsistent
with the existence of the Organism, would cause such friction among its parts as
to wear it out after a time. But such a quantitative relation could never, I think,
be proved a priori, as it must be if it is to form part of the dialectic. And
certainly Hegel makes no attempt to prove it.

284 CH. X. THE IDEA

With the Notion. In the Kind-process the separated indi-
vidualities of the individual lives pass away; the negative
identity, in which the Kind returns to itself, while it is on one
side the production of individuality, is on the other side the
transcending of individuality, and thus is the Kind which
comes together with itself, the Universality of the Idea which
is becoming for itself" (G. L. iii. 262. Cp. Eiw. 221, 222).

Thus Hegel finds the solution of the inadequacy in the
conception of the Kind as a whole, which remains while its
members die. He reaches this conception by means of the
conception of Propagation, which, as I have endeavoured to
show above, is unjustified. But this need not invalidate the
present step, since we should have a right to conceive of the
Kind as a whole, even if its members were not connected by
any tie analogous to propagation in biology. And, again, while
Hegel was not justified in taking Death— the dissolution of the
Organism— as the expression of the inadequacy of the mani-
festation of the Seele, it is still possible that Organisms may
dissolve.

But, when we have reached the conception of the Realised
Kind, is the idea of the Kind manifested with less inadequacy
than it was before ? It seems to me that this is not the case.
The idea of the Kind, as we have seen, is simply that group of
Universals which are possessed by every member, actual or
possible, of the Kind. These are manifested in the separate
members of the Kind, or nowhere. It is, for example, the
individual lions who are carnivorous, not the species as a unity,
for the species as a unity cannot eat fiesh. Now Hegel has
arrived, rightly or wrongly, at the conclusion that the individual
Organisms cannot, in any case, adequately manifest the idea of
the Kind, which is their Seele. And, if that is correct, they
cannot manifest it adequately when we take them all together,
and call them the Realised Kind. The grouping them together
will make no difference to the inadequacy in the case of each
Organism, since the inadequacy, according to Hegel, is a
necessary characteristic of an Organism. And, if the mani-
festation is not adequate in the case of particular Organisms,
it cannot be adequate at all, for it only occurs in the particular
Organisms.

I. LIFE 285

273. It may be replied, possibly, that Hegel has, legiti-
mately or illegitimately, changed his conception of the idea
of a Kind, and that that idea is not, for him, a Class-Universal,
but a System-Universal, which can be realised in all the
members of the Kind taken together, though it cannot be
realised in any one of them separately.

There seem to me, however, three objections to this view.
In the first place, if Hegel had meant this, he would have held
that all the members of each Kind formed together one single
Organism, for an Organism, for him, means a system of parts
which manifests, as a whole, a unity which none of the parts
could manifest separately. Now there is nothing in Hegel's
language to suggest that the Kind is now to be regarded as
itself an Organism. He never assigns to it either Sensibility,
Irritability, or Reproduccion, all of which he considers as
essential for an Organism.

In the second place, if he had taken this view, he would
have departed very materially from the analogy of biology,
where a species, or other kind, does not mean an organic whole,
the existence of one member of which involves the existence of
all the rest, but a class composed of all the beings who have
certain common qualities. We have seen that, up to this point,
Hegel has been keeping very close to the biological analogy of
the category — much closer than he was justified in doing. Is
it probable that, at this point, while still using biological names
profusely, he should have so far departed from the biological
analogy, without a word of warning or justification ?

In the third place, if the Kind really were meant now to be
a System-Universal, which would only be manifested through
all the members of the Kind taken togethei', then, if Death
were brought in at all, it could only be on the view that Death
did not really remove the individual from the Kind, and so did
not destroy the totality required for the manifestation. But
this is certainly not Hegel's view. It is clear from the passage
last quoted that the adequacy of the manifestation in the
Realised Kind is not dependent on the irrelevancy of Death
to the question of manifestation. On the contrary, it is only
because " the separated individualities of the individual lives
pass away" that the manifestation can become adequate.

286 CH. X. THE IDEA

Those lives, therefore, cannot be members of an Organism in
which the adequate manifestation occurs, and as they are
members of the Kind, the Kind is not an Organism.

274. Thus we must, I think, take the Kind-Universal to
be, as is certainly suggested by its name, a Class-Universal and
not a System-Universal. And in that case, as I pointed out
above, the Realised Kind cannot give a more adequate mani-
festation than the separate members. Nor does the introduction
of Death help the matter, though Hegel seems to think that it
does so. The inadequate manifestations successively pass away,
in the successive dissolutions of Organisms, but they leave
nothing better behind them. So long as there are any
Organisms left, they are only inadequate manifestations of the
idea of the Kind. If, on the other hand, they all passed away,
there would not be a Realised Kind at all.

We must, therefore, I consider, reject as invalid the solution
which Hegel offers us in the conception of Realised Kind. And
there is a further objection. The next category to Kind is the
category of the Idea of the True. Since Realised Kind removes
according to Hegel the defects of the category of Kind, it would
follow that, when we have reached the conception of Realised
Kind, we should find ourselves already to have passed into
Cognition, and, more particularly, into the Idea of the True.
And this is apparently what Hegel thinks has now happened.
He says (continuing the passage quoted above, G. L. iii. 262)
"In propagation the immediacy of living individuality dies;
the death of this life is the emergence of Spirit. The Idea,
which as Kind is implicit (an sich) is now for itself, since it
transcends the particularity, which is produced by the living
generations (Geschlechter), and has thus given itself a reality,
which is simple universality. Thus it is the Idea which relates
itself to itself as Idea, the Universal, which has universality as
its determination and definite being (Bestimmtheit und Dasein),
the Idea of Cognition." This, however, does not seem justifiable.
But before considering this point we must determine exactly
what Hegel means by the Idea of Cognition.

II. THE IDEA OF COGNITION 287

II. The Idea of Cognition.

275. (G. L. iii. 263. Enc. 223.) He describes it as follows.
" The Notion is for itself as Notion, in so far as it exists freely
as abstract universality, or as Kind, So it is its pure identity
with itself, which so creates such a division in itself, that what
is separated is not an Objectivity, but liberates itself and takes
the form of Subjectivity, or of a simple equality with self, and
thus is the Object (Gegenstand) of the Notion, the Notion
itself.... The elevation of the Notion above Life consists in this,
that its Reality is the Notion-form, freed and in the form of
universality. Through this division (Urtheil) the Idea is
doubled, on the one hand the subjective Notion, of which it
itself is the Reality, and on the other hand, the objective
Notion, which it is as Life. — Thought, Spirit, Self-consciousness,
are determinations of the Idea, in so far as it has itself as an
Object, and its Determinate Being (Dasein), that is, the de-
termination of its Being (Bestimmtheit ihres Seins), is its own
difference from itself" {G. L. iii. 263).

This is not very clear, but, with the aid of the concrete
states vvhich Hegel takes as examples of this category, we can,
I think, see what the logical conception of the category must
be. Those examples are a complete system of correct knowledge,
and a complete system of gratified volition.

The conception, I believe, is as follows. The whole Universe
forms an Organic system. The parts can only be explained or
described by reference to the system, and, through the system,
to the other members of it, w^iile the unity of the system can
only be explained as the unity which does connect those
parts. But the fresh element is this — each of these f)arts,
which may now be called Individuals, has within it a system,
which corresponds to the larger system — the system of the
Universe.

But what sort of correspondence? It cannot be merely that
there is one part in each Individual-System for each part in
the Universe-System. For that correspondence would be equally
exemplified if the Individual judged about each part of the
Universe, but judged wrongly, or if the Individual willed about
each part of the Universe, but willed it to be other than it is.

288 CH. X. THE IDEA

And it is clear, as we shall see later, that Hegel would not
regard such a state as exemplifying the category.

But it is equally clear that the correspondence of the parts
does not mean identity of nature. If each part of an Individual-
System had the same content with the corresponding part of
the Universe-System, then the two systems would have exactly
the same nature. For if the parts were exactly the same in
the two systems, then the relations between the parts must also
be the same. And as the unity in each case is just the unity
which is formed by these parts in these relations, the unities
would have the same nature in each system. Thus the two
systems would be of exactly the same nature, which is im-
possible, since one is an Individual, which the other is not, and
one is the Universe, which the other is not.

The examples, moreover, show that correspondence here
does not mean exact similarity in nature. My correct know-
ledge that A is courageous does not resemble ^'s courage at all
closely. Nor, if my will approves the fact that A is modest,
does my gratified volition closely resemble his modesty.

276. If w^e try to state more positively what this cor-
respondence is, all that we can say, I think, is that each part of
the Individual corresponds with a part of the Universe, and
each part of the Universe with a part of the Individual ; that
the correspondence consists of a relation between the natures of
the two correspondent terms, which is not a relation of identity;
that the relation of a true belief to the fact in which it is a
belief is one example of such a correspondence; that the relation
of a volition to the fact which gratifies the volition is another
example ; and that no other example can be given.

For such a correspondence as this the expression "harmony"
suggests itself, and we shall, I think, do well to use it. But it
must be remembered that harmony does not here indicate the
co-operation of two beings for some purpose or design outside
themselves. Nor does it indicate any relation wdnch the two
harmonious beings jointly bear to a third — as when we say
that the sounds of two different instruments unite to form a
harmonious whole for the listener. The relation of harmony in
this category is simply a relation between the two harmonious
beings — the Uuiverse and the Individual — without reference

II. THE IDEA OF COGNITION 289

to anything else. (The different Individuals, indeed, are not
unconnected with each other, but it is only through their
relation with the Universe.)

Thus the advance on the last category consists in the fact
that the parts under the category of Cognition, not only, as
with Life, form a system which collectively expresses the idea
of the system, but, in addition, do this by means of the exist-
ence, in each part, of a system in harmony with the system of
the whole.

This gives a greater relative prominence, in the new
category, to the parts — i.e. the Individuals. For although,
since the Universe is an organic system, they only express
the idea of that system in so far as, taken together, they form
the system, yet it is also the case that each Individual by itself
may be said in another sense to be an expression of the
Universe, since it contains a system in harmony with the
system of the Universe ^ Whether these two characteristics
are compatible will be considered later. At present I merely
urge that they are both to be found in the category.

It is probably the greater prominence given to the parts
in this category, which causes Hegel to speak of it as an
Urtheil {G. L. iii. 262, 263. Enc. 223). For, while he generally
uses this word in its ordinary sense of Judgment, he always
lays great weight on the fact that etymologically it indicates
division.

In reaching the category of Cognition Hegel says that we
have left behind the Immediacy which characterised Life.
This Immediacy, apparently, consisted in the fact that par-
ticular parts might or might not be so arranged as to manifest
the Seele of an Organism. From the absence of any necessity
that it should be so, he apparently deduced the possibility of an
inadequate manifestation — though it would be impossible to
find in it the necessity, which he asserts, that the manifestation
should be inadequate.

If such an Immediacy did belong to the category of Life, I
do not see how it has been eliminated. But the truth seems
to be that there is no need to eliminate it, because it should

1 In this second sense it would be equally correct, as will be seen later, to
say that the Universe is an expression of each Individual.

M"^!. 19

290 CH. X. THE IDEA

never have been introduced. If Hegel had proved the validity
of the category of Life at all, he had proved that the parts not
only could, but must, be arranged in organic unity. That he
should have thought it only a possibility is connected with his
view of the possibility and necessity of inadequate manifesta-
tions, which we found reason above to reject as erroneous.

277. This, then, is the nature of the category to which
Hegel passes from the category of Life. Is he justified in the
transition ? I cannot see that he is justified. In the first
place, the whole of Existence appears, under this category, to
form a single organic system. Now in Teleology, as we have
seen, Hegel had taken all existence to form one organic system.
But he gave this up in Life — gave it up, as I have tried to
show above, illegitimately, and misled by biological analogies.
And having once given it up, he has no right to bring it back,
except by a fresh demonstration of it, which he does not profess
to give us.

Even if we supposed that the Realised Kind was held by
Hegel to be an organic unity (a theory which, as I explained
above, I think must be rejected) the difficulty would not be
removed. For it seems clear that Hegel meant by the Kind
something analogous to a biological species, of which there are
more than one in the Universe, so that the organic unity of a
Kind would not mean that the Universe formed one organic
unity. And, moreover, if Hegel had regarded the Realised
Kind as an organic unity, his position would have been illegiti-
mate, since the Kind when first introduced is not an organic
unity, and no demonstration is given of the validity of a
transition. Thus, by basing the organic unity of the Universe in
the category of Cognition on the organic unity of the Realised
Kind, we should not avoid an illegitimate transition, but merely
throw it a little earlier in the dialectic process.

In the second place, there is a still more fundamental
objection to the transition. So far as I can see, there is not
the slightest attempt to demonstrate the characteristic which
forms the essential difference of Cognition from Life — the
existence, in each part, of a system corresponding to the
system of the whole. The essential characteristic of Realised
Kind was the subordination of the particular Organisms to the

II. THE IDEA OF COGNITION 291

idea of the Kind. What the connexion is between this and the
existence of the systems within Individuals is left in complete
obscurity.

Hegel was no doubt justified in naming this category after
a concrete state of the human mind. For knowledge, in so far
as correct, and volition, in so far as gratified, do form systems
which correspond to the objects which are known or which
gratify the volition in the way defined above. Indeed, no
other examples of this category can, I think, be found.
Certainly Hegel does not give any other examples. Indeed,
it might be said that he has not coinpletely defined the new
category at all, but has left part of the definition implicit
in the statement that the correspondence in question is
the one of which true knowledge and gratified volition are
examples.

278. We have seen in earlier stages of the dialectic that,
when categories are named after concrete states, there is con-
siderable risk of falling into error by attributing to the categories
characteristics whicli are true of the concrete states, but which
have not been demonstrated of the categories. Here the
difficulty of avoiding this error is greater than elsewhere. In
Mechanism and Chemism Hegel is able to give other examples
of the category besides those drawn from Mechanics and
Chemistry. In Life he does not himself give any examples
besides those drawn from biology, but it is possible to supply
the deficiency. The unity which is expressed in the different
parts of a beautiful object — a Persian rug, for example, or an
Adam ceiling — is an example of what Hegel calls an organic
unity. And the distinction of the category from the biological
state is rendered easier by the fact, which we have remarked,
that the biological state is never a perfect example of the
category.

Here matters are different. No example of the category
has been given, by Hegel or anyone else, except that of a system,
each of whose parts is in relation, by knowledge or volition,
with all the other parts. And this would be a perfect example
if the knowledge and volition had reached that perfection
towards which all knowledge and volition are directed. And,
as mentioned above, it may be held that the category has not

19—2

292 CH. X. THE IDEA

been completely defined except by reference to these concrete
examples.

The danger of the error is therefore greater here than else-
where. I do not think, as I shall explain later, that Hegel has
entirely avoided it. But it has not affected his argument so
seriously as it did in the category of Life.

While it is certainly appropriate to name this category after
a state of the human mind, the actual name of Cognition seems
unfortunate. Volition, as well as knowledge, is an example of
this category, while, as we shall see, volition is the only example
of one of its subdivisions. Cognition, then, would only be
appropriate if it were possible to stretch its meaning to include
Volition, and this does not seem possible, either with the EngUsh
Cognition, or the German Erkennen. It seems to me that
some more general term — perhaps Consciousness — would have
been better.

279. Cognition has, according to Hegel, only two sub-
divisions, without any Synthesis being explicitly given. These
he calls the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good. In the
Encyclopaedia the first of these subdivisions is called Cognition,
and the second Volition, the name of Cognition being also used,
as in the Greater Logic, for the category as a whole.

Since there is to be a harmony between the Individual-
systems and the Universe-system the question naturally arises,
which side is active and which side passive. The alternatives,
as will be seen later, are not really exhaustive, and neither
answer to the question will be finally tenable. But it is,
according to Hegel, the natural way in which to begin regarding
the matter. If we find two things necessarily agreeing with
each other, the natural inference is that one is dependent on the
other, or else both on a third. Now here there is no third.
There is only the Universe-system on the one hand and the
Individual-systems on the other. We seem, therefore, bound to
conclude either that the harmony is produced by the nature of
the Individuals being dependent on the nature of the Universe,
or else by the nature of the Universe being dependent on the
nature of the Individuals.

Of these two alternatives we must start with the former.
If we took the latter, there would be no guarantee that the

II. THE IDEA OF COGNITION 293

Individual-systems, whose nature would then be taken as
ultimate, did not differ in such a way that the Universe-system
could not be in harmony with them all. In that case the
requirements of the category of Cognition, which Hegel regards
as already demonstrated, could not be complied with. But if
the single Universe-system is taken as ultimate, and the many
Individual-systems are taken as dependent on it, no such
difficulty arises.

Hegel therefore stai'ts with the conception of the Universe-
system as determining the Individual-systems, and this gives
him

A. The Idea of the True.

(G. L. iii. 274-. Enc. 226.) The category has this name
because the only example which can be given of it is a system
of knowledge in the Individual which truly represents the
Universe-system.

280. If we compare knowledge and volition, we find that
the object of each is to produce a harmony, and that they differ
in the fact that in the one the object, and in the other the
subject, is the determining side of the harmony. This can be
tested by looking at a case where the harmony is discovered to
be imperfect. In such a case, should it occur in knowledge, we
condemn the knowledge as being incorrect ; and we endeavour
to amend it by altering our beliefs till they harmonise with the
objects. With volition it is just the reverse. Here we condemn
the outside reality which does not accord with our desires, and
we endeavour to restore harmony by altering the objects so
that they may be as we desire them.

Thus in knowledge the aim of the knowing subject is that
its state should be a representation of the state of the world at
large. Of course this does not imply that the mind is purely
passive in the process, and has nothing to do but receive effects
from outside. The question is not about the way results are
produced, but about the test of them when they are produced.
However active the process of knowledge may be, the fact
remains that its correctness depends on its agreement with the
object known.

Thus knowledge is an example of this category, and it is
the only one which can be given, since volition — the only other

294 CH. X. THE IDEA

example of the wider category of Cognition — would not be
appropriate in this subdivision.

We must of course remember, here as elsewhere, that what
we are entitled to predicate of all existence is not the possession
of all the characteristics of knowledge which are empirically
known to us, but only those which are involved in the loo-ical
category.

It is further to be remembered that, according to the category,
each Individual-system has to harmonise with the whole of the
Universe-system, and that there is nothing in the Individual
except this system which harmonises with the Universal.
Accordingly, if we look at an actual knowing individual — such
as each of us is — we find that his nature, as it empirically
appears to us, fails to exemplify the category in two ways. It
is too large, and not large enough. On the one hand, I do not
know the whole universe perfectly. On the other hand, I am
not merely a knowing being, but have also volitions and
emotions.

The Encyclopaedia, as was mentioned above, calls this
category Cognition. It is inconvenient, of course, that the
same name should be used both for the wider category and for
its subdivision \ but otherwise the nomenclature of the En-
cyclopaedia seems better. For what exemplifies the category
is not truths or true propositions — non-existent realities,which
are just as real whether they are or are not ever known
by anyone. The category is exemplified by knowledge — by
existent states of existent conscious Individuals. And this
is expressed more clearly if the category is called Cognition
than if it is called the Idea of the True.

What have we gained by the establishment of this category?
We have not proved that there is some knowledge — that some
beliefs are true. The assertion that there is some knowledge
could never be proved, for any proof offered would consist of
assertions, which, if valid, would be knowledge. Thus the
proof would assume the conclusion to be proved. On the other
hand, any attempt to disprove it, or even to deny or doubt it,
would equally assume its truth.

^ Wallace, in his translation, avoids this inconvenience by calling the sub-
division Cognition Proper.

II. THE IDEA OF COGXITIOX 295

This then, could not be proved, and, moreover, the dialectic
is here concerned, not with knowledge itself, but with a category,
of which knowledge furnishes indeed the only example known
to us, but which must nevertheless be carefully distinguished
from that example.

What is really gained by this category is that we know
that the Universe is an organic system of Individuals, the
nature of each of which forms another system, in harmony with
the system of the Universe, and determined by it.

281. The Idea of the True is divided by Hegel into
Analytic Cognition and Synthetic Cognition. These appear to
be Thesis and Antithesis respectively, but the Synthesis is
lacking. It seems curious that he did not take Philosophical
Thought as the Synthesis, since he certainly regards this as
being both analytical and synthetical (cp. Enc. 238).

Hegel discusses Analytic and Synthetic Cognition at con-
siderable length {G. L. iii. 278—319. Enc. 227—232). What
he says about them is sufficiently simple and straightforward.
I omit it here because it seems entirely irrelevant to the
category which we are considering. Once more Hegel has been
misled by the concrete state which he has taken as an example
of his category.

The distinction which he draws here is not between analytic
and synthetic propositions, but that between knowledge obtained
by a process of analysis and knowledge obtained by a process
of synthesis. Both of these processes can yield synthetic
propositions.

Now the distinction between these two processes may be
very relevant when we consider the state of knowledge as
empirically known to us. But there is no corresponding dis-
tinction to be found in the category of the dialectic, with which
Hegel is dealing here. Indeed, we may go further. Not only
are we unable to see what distinction in the category should
correspond to the distinction between analytic and synthetic
knowledge, but we are able to see clearly that there can be no
such distinction.

For the distinction between analytic and synthetic know-
ledge relates wholly to the method of acquiring it. The
distinction does not exist in the nature of the knowledge, as

296 CH. X. THE IDEA

known. If I know that Caesar is mortal, I know the same
truth, whether I learn it by seeing him die, or by deduction
from the truth that all men are mortal. The other truths
acquired along with it by the same process may be different in
the two cases. In the first, I may learn along with the fact
that Caesar is mortal, the fact that Brutus stabbed him. In
the second, I may learn along with the fact that Caesar is
mortal, the fact that Brutus is mortal. But the knowledge
that Caesar is mortal will be the same, by whichever method it
is acquired.

This distinction can therefore have no place in the present
category, the example of which is not the acquisition of know-
ledge, but the possession of the knowledge when acquired.
When the dialectic passed from the lower categories of Teleology
to Realised End, it became clear that the application of the
category to any subject-matter involved, not that the Means
were becoming the manifestation of the End, but that they
tuere the manifestation of the End. Nothing that has happened
since that point has given us a right to change that conclusion.
The Means expressing the End have developed into the Indi-
vidual-systems which harmonise with the Universal-system, but
the relation between the w^hole and the parts has remained
a relation of manifestation, not a relation of a process towards
manifestation.

Nor is anything in Hegel's treatment of Life inconsistent
with this view. He takes the Body, indeed, as an inadequate
and temporary manifestation of the Seele, but still, such as the
manifestation is, it is always present when the category of Life
is present. The category does not deal with the gradual
production of Life.

Thus the principle on which these subdivisions, Analytic
and Synthetic Cognition, have been introduced seems unjustified.
And the mass of detail given under them, while applicable
enough to the concrete process of acquiring knowledge, contains
nothing which has any significance with regard to the category.
I therefore believe myself justified in omitting it.

282. Hegel's error in introducing these subdivisions does
not destroy the line of his argument, for we can go directly
from the undivided categforv of the Idea of the True to the

II. THE IDEA OF COGNITION 297

next category — the Idea of the Good. Hegel himself indeed
makes the transition from the subdivision of Synthetic Cognition,
but, if it was not for the error which led to the introduction of
the subdivisions, he could have made the transition just as well
from the undivided category.

The transition, according to Hegel, rests on the necessity of
Cognition (G. L. iii. 319. Enc. 232). As the account in the
Encyclopaedia is both clearer and shorter than the account in
the Greater Logic, I will quote the Encyclopaedia. The two
accounts do not, I think, differ in meaning. " The necessity,"
says Hegel, " which finite cognition produces in the Demonstra-
tion, is, in the first place, an external necessity, intended for
the subjective intelligence alone. But in necessity as such,
cognition itself has left behind its pre-supposition and starting-
point, which consisted in accepting its content as given or found.
Necessity qua necessity is implicitly the self-relating notion.
The subjective idea has thus implicitly reached an original and
objective determinateness — a something not-given, and for that
reason immanent in the subject. It has passed over into the
idea of Will."

It is obvious from this that Hegel regards the necessity of
the harmony of the Individuals with the Universe as giving so
much stability and self-centredness to the Individuals that we
must add to the statement that they harmonise with the Uni-
verse, the further statement that the Universe harmonises with
them. If the harmony of the Individuals with the Universe
were gradually attained, then the necessity of the harmony
would also be gradually attained. And since his comparison of
the harmony with the concrete state of knowledge has led him
to regard the harmony as gradually attained, he regards the
necessity as gradually attained also. He supposes it to be
attained by something analogous to the process of Demonstration,
which he treats under Synthetic Cognition, and therefore does
not find himself in a position to make the transition to the Idea
of the Good till he has reached the end of Synthetic Cognition.

If, however, we realise that the harmony must exist in its
full completeness if the category of the Idea of the True is
applicable at all, we shall see that in reaching the Idea of the
True we have reached the conception that the harmony is

298 CH. X. THE IDEA

necessary. If the category is valid, then the Individual-systems
are determined by the Universe-system to harmonise with it.
And therefore the harmony is necessary — which is, as Hegel
himself asserts, sufficient to allow us to pass to the Idea
of the Good.

283. Hegel is, I think, right in maintaining that the
necessity of the harmony, considered as determined from the
side of the Universe, entitles us to conceive it as being equally
determined from the side of the Individual. If a harmony is
imperfect, if it is only accidentally perfect, or if the necessity
of its perfection is due to some outside cause, there is some
meaning in saying that the harmony is determined by one side
rather than the other — by A and not by B. For in all these
three cases a want of a perfect harmony can be conceived, and
our assertion means that, in such a case, we should regard B,
and not A, as defective in harmony. We say that the actions
of a citizen are in harmony with the law, and not that the law
is in harmony with them. For we can conceive that the citizen
should cease to be law-abiding ; and, if he did, we should
condemn his actions, and not the law, for the discrepancy.

And, again, it might be that A could exist without being in
harmony with B, while B could not exist without being in
harmony with A. In this case, also, we might say that A
rather than B determined the harmony, on account of the
logical priority of A.

But it is not so here. The harmony between the Universal
and the Individual is perfect, necessary, and not due to any
outside cause, but to the intrinsic nature of the related terms.
The absence of the harmony is inconceivable. We cannot
therefore say that one term rather than the other is shown
to be defective by any possible discrepancy, and so declare the
other term to be the determinant.

Nor can we pronounce either term determinant on the other
possible ground — that it is independent of the harmony while
the other is not independent. For, if the category is correct,
the Universe depends on the harmony quite as much as the
Individual, They only exist in virtue of the harmony between
their systems and the system of the Universe. But the same is
true of the Universe. And therefore it is no truer to say that

II, THE IDEA OF COGNITION 299

the Universe determines the Individuals than it is to say that
the Individuals determine the Universe.

284. The first use that Hegel makes of this result is to
conclude that, as one is no truer than the other, we must say
both. To the statement that the Universe-system determines
the Individual-systems, we must add the statement that the
Individual-systems determine the Universe-system. So we
reach

B. The Idea of the Good
(G. L. iii. 320. Enc. 233), which is called in the Encyclo-
paedia by the name of Volition (Wollen). Volition mast not
be taken here as meaning the desire to change, or to resist
change, which is the form in which Volition usually shows
itself. If this were the case there would be nothing appropriate
in naming this category after it, since the category involves
a perfect harmony, and also a necessary harmony, so that there
can be no question either of promoting or of resisting change.
It is not this, however, which Hegel means by Volition here.
He means by it the judgment of the existent by the standard
of Good. Such a judgment, of course, leads us to desire action
if it reveals a difference between the fact and the ideal, but
involves no desire of action when the harmony between the
fact and the ideal is already perfect. Taken in this sense
Volition is an appropriate name for a category which asserts
that the Individual determines the nature of the Universe, since
in volition, as we said above, it is the object, and not the self,
which is regarded as defective if the harmony is imperfect.

The Idea of the Good is a better name for this category
than Volition in so far as it does not, like Volition, suggest the
idea of change. In other respects, however. Volition is the
better name, since the example Hegel means to take is clearly
a psychical state and not the ethical idea of Goodness.

It is, I think, evident that Hegel took the essence of the
psychical state of volition to be as described above, since the
category of Volition, as treated by him, includes a state of
perfect harmony, which could certainly not have as its example
a desire for changed

1 Lotze takes a similar view of the essence of Volition. Cp. Microcosmus,
Book IX, Chapter 5 (trans. Vol. 2, p. 706).

300 CH. X. THE IDEA

285. But it must be noticed that he fell into an error with
regard to this category analogous to that which he committed
with regard to the Idea of the True. He conceives the category
as dealing with the process of producing such a harmony, before
it deals with the established perfect harmony. This is erroneous.
For, in the first place, the reasons given above (Sections 281,
282) to show that the Idea of the True deals only with
a harmony inevitably and originally perfect, and not with the
production of such a harmony, are also applicable here.

In the second place, even if the production of the harmony
could have found a place in the Idea of the True, it could not
do so in the Idea of the Good. For at the end of the Idea of
the True, the harmony, Hegel says, has been established in its
necessity and perfection. Now it is from this point that his
treatment of the Idea of the Good begins. And since his
argument, as seen above, is that the necessary and perfect
harmony, under the earlier category, involves necessary and
perfect harmony under the later category, then the later category
must have the necessary and perfect harmony throughout, even
if the earlier did not.

The order of these two categories could not have been
inverted. It is impossible that the Universe-system should be
determined by the Individual-systems so as to be in harmony
with all of them, if the Individual-systems varied indefinitely
from one another in content (cp. above. Section 279). And
the possibility of this is only disproved by showing that
the Individual-systems are all determined by the Universe-
system, so as to be in harmony with it. Thus we could not
have the Idea of the Good, in which the Individuals are
determinant, until we have had the Idea of the True, in which
the Universe is determinant.

286. Hegel says of the Idea of the Good that it is higher
than the Idea of the True, " because it has not only the value
of the Universal, but also the value of the simply Actual "
{G. L. iii. 320). It would seem from this that the second
category — the Idea of the Good — has both values, that of the
Universal and that of the Actual. As the Universality is
regarded by Hegel as the characteristic of the Idea of the True,
it follows that the second category contains the first, besides

II. THE IDEA OF COGNITION 301

containing also fresh content. Its standpoint is one which
finds its example, not in gratified volition by itself, but in the
combination of true knowledge and gratified volition.

Hegel is entitled to take this position, for the argument
which led us on to the Idea of the Good did not do so by
showing that there was any contradiction in the harmony with
the Universe taken as the determinant, but that the validity of
that conception involved the validity of the harmony with the
Individuals taken as determinant. The second conception was
added to the first, and did not replace it.

This is not inconsistent with the general principle of the
dialectic method, for, though the two categories in question
stand, apparently^ in the relation of Thesis and Antithesis,
yet we are here so close to the end of the dialectic that
its movement, according to the law laid down by Hegel^
has become almost a direct advance from each category to
the next.

It is thus the combination of the two standpoints, exemplified
by knowledge and volition, which is regarded by Hegel as being
higher than the standpoint exemplified by knowledge. There
is nothing to suggest that he would consider the standpoint
exemplified by volition as being by itself higher than that
exemplified by knowledge. Indeed, his application of the
dialectic to concrete facts strongly suggests that he would not
consider the standpoint exemplified by volition as being higher.
For nothing is clearer about Hegel than that he does not
regard the concrete spiritual state of volition as higher than
that of knowledge, and that he does not regard virtue as
a higher excellence than wisdom.

287. Hegel clearly considers that the establishment of this
category gives us the right to assert that the Universe is com-
pletely good. Can this be legitimately deduced from the result
reached in the category — that the nature of the Universe
conforms to a description whose only example, known or
imaginable, includes gratified volition ? The question does

1 This is only an inference, as no third term is explicitly given. But I cannot
doubt that the term left to be supplied is the Synthesis, and that the two which
are given are the Thesis and Antithesis.

•^ Cp. e.g. my Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, Chapter iv.

302 CH. X. THE IDEA

not really belong to the dialectic itself, but to its cosmological
applications, and does not concern us here\

288. The transition from this category rests on the fact
that the complete harmony, with the Individual as determinant,
involves (as we have previously seen) the complete harmony,
with the Universe as determinant. " In this result Cognition
is restored, and united with the practical Idea, the given
Actuality is at the same time determined as the realised
absolute End, but not, as in the process of Cognition (im
suchenden Erkennen) simply as an objective world without the
subjectivity of the Notion, but as the objective world of which
the Notion is the inner ground and actual existence" (G. L. iii.
327. Cp. Enc. 235).

The argument is that it is impossible to adhere to the
position at which we now stand — that, in the harmony of the
Universe and the Individual, the Universe determines the
Individual, and the Individual also determines the Universe.

It will be remembered that the transition to the Idea of the
Good was effected by the argument that, since the harmony
between the Universe and the Individual was necessary, perfect,
and intrinsic, any question as to which would be pronounced
defective if the harmony were defective was absurd, and that,
since the harmony was essential to the existence of either term,
neither could be said to be logically prior to the other in the
harmony. From this the result was reached that it was no
truer to say that the Universe determines the Individuals than
to say that the Individuals determine the Universe. From this
Hegel starts by saying that, since one proposition is no truer
than the other, both are true. This gave us the category of
the Idea of the Good (cp. above, Section 284).

1 Even if the Universe were completely good, Hegel would not be justified
in bis corollary: "All unsatisfied endeavour ceases, wben we recognise tbat tbe
final purpose of tbe world is accomplished no less than ever accomplishing
itself" {Enc. 234). If the Universe is seen as it truly is, then, according to
Hegel, there could be no unsatisfied endeavour, or endeavour of any kind. And
so endeavour could not cease because of its superfiuity, since it never existed.
If, on the other hand, tbe Universe is looked at in such a partially illusory
manner that endeavour appears to exist, then tbe utility of the endeavour may
be as real as its existence. When Hegel came to apply bis philosophy to the
time-world, he realised this. He did not, for example, condemn the efforts of
Socrates, or of Luther, as useless.

III. THE ABSOLUTE IDEA 303

But this, Hegel now goes on, is inadequate, and must be
transcended. For the real result of what has been shown is to
put the two sides of the harmony on a level, not by making
them each determine the other, but by removing altogether the
conception of either side being determinant. That side is
determinant to which, in one way or the other, the other is
subordinate. We see now that neither side is subordinate
to the other, since neither is logically subsequent to the other,
and neither is to be condemned as defective for an actual or
possible want of harmony. The consequence of this is not that
each of them is determinant, but that neither is.

Thus we see that the harmony is ultimate. It is essential
to the nature of existence that it should form a Universe
composed of Individuals, that the Universe and that each
Individual should form an organic system, and that the
Universe-system and each of the Individual-systems should
be in perfect harmony with one another.

289. Hegel takes this as the transition to the Absolute
Idea. If the symmetry of the dialectic was to be preserved, he
should have first passed to a third subdivision of Cognition,
which should complete the triad of which the Idea of the True
and the Idea of the Good are the first two members, and then,
from this new category, have passed over to the Absolute Idea.

If the Absolute Idea, like Cognition, had been subdivided,
the last subdivision in Cognition would have been identical in
content with the first subdivision of the Absolute Idea. But
the Absolute Idea is not subdivided, and the last subdivision in
Cognition could not consistently with the general method of the
dialectic be identical in content with the Absolute Idea as
a whole. Hegel, apparently, could discover no intermediate
stage between the category of the Idea of the Good, and the
category of the Absolute Idea. And I can make no suggestion
to fill the gap. The transition remains unsymmetrical, but not,
I think, invalid.

III. The Absolute Idea.

290. (0. L. iii. 327. Enc. 236.) In this not only the Idea
of the True and the Idea of the Good are synthesised, but also
Life and Cognition. Cognition, as is natural so close to the

304 CH. X. THE IDEA

end of the dialectic, is so direct an advance upon Life, that we
do not find many characteristics of Life in the Absolute Idea
which were not also in Cognition, But in the Absolute Idea,
as we have seen, the harmony is recognised as ultimate — not as
due to the dependence of one side on the other. And in this
the Absolute Idea may be said to have returned to a character-
istic which belonged to the category of Life, when the expression
of the Seele in and by the Body was conceived as an ultimate
fact, not due to the subordination of either side to the other \

The transition, as I said above, seems to me valid, for the
Absolute Idea, to judge by Hegel's words, does just mean what
the category of Cognition would mean after the elimination
of the erroneous conception that one side is determined by the
other.

The nearest approach to a definition given in the Greater
Logic is as follows : " The Notion is not only Seele, but free
subjective Notion, which is for itself and therefore has Person-
ality; it is the practical objective Notion, determined in and
for itself, which, as a Person, is impenetrable, atomic Subjec-
tivity, but which is just as much not exclusive Individuality,
but Universality for itself, and Cognition, and which has in its
Other its own Objectivity as Object (Gegenstand). All else is
error, confusion, opinion, strife, caprice, and impermanence ; the
Absolute Idea alone is Being, permanent Life, Truth which
knows itself It is all Truth " {G. L. iii. 327). In the Encijclo-
jmedia he says, " The Idea, as unity of the Subjective and
Objective Idea, is the Notion of the Idea — a Notion for which
the Idea as such is Object (Gegenstand) and Object (Objekt) —
an Object (Objekt) in which all determinations have come
together" (Enc. 236).

291. What does Hegel mean by this ? We must first
/ consider a suggestion which he makes — as I think, erroneously.
We find it stated most clearly in the Encyclopaedia. The
content of the Absolute Idea he says " is the system of Logic.
All that is at this stage left as form for the Idea is the Method
of this content — the specific consciousness of the value and

^ Perhaps it should rather be said that this characteristic should have
belonged to the category of Life, since it scarcely seems consistent with Hegel's
treatment of the expression of the Seele by the Body as necessarily inadequate.

III. THE ABSOLUTE IDEA 305

currency of the moments in its development. To speak of the
Absolute Idea may suggest the conception that we are at length
reaching the right thing and the sum of the whole matter. It
is certainly possible to indulge in a vast amount of senseless
declamation about the Absolute Idea. But its true content
is only the whole system of which we have been hitherto
studying the development " {Enc. 237). And again in the
Greater Logic : " Thus what here still has to be observed is not
a Content as such, but the Universal of its Form — that is, the
Method " (G^. Z. iii. 329).

There is doubtless an element of truth in tliis. The step
we take in reaching the Absolute Idea is no different in
character from previous stages in the dialectic process, nor is
the advance we gain in it greater than in previous steps. We
have reached the absolute truth about reality now, but we had
very nearly reached it in the previous category. Hegel would
be perfectly justified if he merely wished to warn us against
expecting anything in the last stage of the dialectic which
should be much more mystical or wonderful than the stages
immediately preceding it.

But Hegel means more than this, and in doing so I think
he falls into error. The meaning of the Absolute Idea is not,
and cannot be, simply that it is the idea which is reached at
the end of the dialectic process. Each category in the process
asserts certain characteristics of existence, and has therefore
a meaning which cannot be reduced to its place in the dialectic.
In fact, it only has its place in the process by reason of the rela-
tion which the determination of existence given by it bears to
the determinations given by the other categories in the process.
r~ The Absolute Idea, therefore, has a content. And, although
much of its content is to be found also in previous categories,
it is not necessary to go back through the whole series of
previous categories whenever we wish to state the content of
the Absolute Idea — though of course the validity of the
Absolute Idea can only be proved by going through all these
previous stages. It is not necessary to go through them to
state the content of the Absolute Idea because that Idea
contains the truth of them all, not by containing the separate
categories as a process, but by containing that part of their
y M«i. 20

306 CH. X. THE IDEA

content which is true, synthesised into a single unity, the
false and inadequate part of the content of those lower
categories having been transcended. It is not, therefore,
necessary to go through the categories, nor would it be suffi-
cient, since, after all, the Absolute Idea is an advance, even on
the Idea of the Good, and so there is something in it which is
not in any of the other categories.

Besides, Hegel is here inconsistent. In the passagc^s quoted
above {G. L. iii. 327. Enc. 236. Cp. above, Section 290)
he has given accounts of the nature of the Absolute Idea
which are not in the least statements of the Method of the
dialectic, but, on the contrary, statements of what existence
is conceived to be, when it is taken under this category.

292. Returning to these two accounts, we find, I think,
that they are what Hegel is justly entitled to assert about the
Absolute Idea in consequence of the transition by which, as
he has demonstrated, it is reached from the Idea of the Good.
It will be, as was said above, the same in content with the Idea
of the Good, except that the two sides of the harmony are no
longer asserted each to determine the other. That is, in affirm-
ing it we assert that all that exists forms a Universe com-
posed of Individuals, that the Universe and that each Individual
is an organic system, and that the relation which exists between
the Universe-system and each of the Individual-systems is one
of perfect harmony.

This is what Hegel is entitled to assert as the content of
the Absolute Idea ; and this, I think, is what he does assert. In
both the Greater Logic and the Encyclopaedia, he states that
the Idea is its own Object. The use of tiie word Object
suggests that the relation in question is analogous to the
relation between a state of consciousness and its object, while
the statement that the Object of the Idea is the Idea itself
suggests that the whole of the content is to be found on both
sides of the relation. So far, then, his words support my view
of what he means by this category. The fact that he says that
it is the Idea which is its own Object — while, if I am right,
what he means is, that, according to the Idea, the Universe
is the Object — can be no objection to anyone familiar with
Hegel's methods of expression.

III. THE ABSOLUTE IDEA 307

According to the view I have put forward, indeed, there
are other characteristics which must be included in the Absolute
Idea. The Universe is differentiated. It consists of an organic
system of Individuals. And the Subject-Object relation of
which Hegel speaks is one where the Universe as a whole
is Object to each of the Individuals as Subjects. These further
characteristics are not mentioned by Hegel here. But there is
nothing in what he says which is inconsistent with them. And
as there is, I think, no doubt, that all of them are found in the
category of Cognition, and as there is nothing in the transition
from that category which could involve their removal, we are
entitled to hold that they are all found in the category of the
Absolute Idea.

293. We may add something which is not mentioned by
Hegel, but which seems a fair deduction from his position.
Each Individual, we liave seen, is in harmony with the Universe,
and the Universe is an organic unity consisting of all the
Individuals. From this it follows that each Individual is in
harmony with all the other Individuals. This statement would
not be an adequate substitute for the previous statement— that
the Universe and each Individual are in harmony. For, in
saying that the harmony is between the Universe and each
Individual, we bring out the fact that the harmony is between
the whole and its part — a fact which is essential to the category.
And this is not brought out when we say that each Individual
is in harmony with all other Individuals. But if one state-
ment is true the other will be. And, when the results of the
dialectic are to be applied to concrete problems, it may be a
matter of some importance to remember that each Individual's
harmony with the Universe implies his harmony with all other
Individuals.

It may be objected that the new statement ignores the
organic unity of the Universe. It is not the case that the
Universe is equivalent to the Individuals in isolation, or as
a mere aggregate, or as a mechanically determined system. It
is only equivalent to the Individuals when they are joined
in just this organic system. And, it might be said, this is
ignored if we treat the harmony of each Individual with the
Universe as involving its harmony with all other Individuals.

308 CH. X. THE IDEA

I should reply to this that it in the objection itself which
fails to do justice to the organic unity of the Universe, and so
falls into a kind of spiritual atomism. For it assumes that it
is at any rate conceivable that Individuals could exist as
isolated, or as merely aggregated, or as mechanically deter-
mined. Now this is just what fhe dialectic has disproved if it
has done anything at all. It has shown, not only that the
Individuals are in fact connected in an organic unity, but that
it is essential to their nature that they should be, and that
if they were not connected in this particular way they would
not be Individuals at all. Thus to speak of an Individual is to
speak of an Individual in organic unity with the others, just as
to speak of a triangle is to speak of a figure whose angles are
equal to two right angles. To object that, when the Individuals
are mentioned without mentioning the organic unity, that
unity is neglected, is to ignore this essentiality of the organic
unity to the Individuals, and it is thus the objection which is
unduly atomistic.

294. In this category the dialectic ends, and we reach,
according to Hegel, the absolute truth, so far as it can be
reached by pure thought. " All else," as he has told us, " is
error, confusion, opinion, strife, caprice, and impermanence."
There are, he asserts, no defects to be found in this conception,
which compel us to proceed to a higher category to remove
them. There is, indeed, one defect which reveals itself here, as
in every other case where pure thought is taken in abstraction
from the other elements of existence, and by means of which
Hegel's philosophy is driven on, beyond the Logic, to the
conception of Nature, and from that to the conception of
Spirit — the final and supreme truth about all existence. But
with the Absolute Idea we reach the highest and final form of
pure thought.

The proof that this is the final form of pure thought must
always remain negative. The reason why each previous category
was pronounced not to be final was that in each some in-
adequacy was discovered, which rendered it necessary, on pain
of contradiction, to go beyond it. Our belief in the finality of
the Absolute Idea rests on our inability to find such an
inadequacy. Hegel's position will hold good, unless some

III. THE ABSOLUTE IDEA 309

future philosopher shall discover some inadequacy in the
Absolute Idea which requires removal by means of another
category.

Most of the space devoted by Hegel to the Absolute Idea,
both in the Greater Logic and in the Encyclopaedia, is concerned
with questions relating to the dialectic method. That such
questions should be discussed here follows, of course, from the
position, discussed above, that the content of the Absolute Idea
is the dialectic method itself But, in any case, the end of the
dialectic would be a natural place for a review of the method
which had been followed. To discuss the dialectic method
would, however, be beyond the object I have proposed to
myself in this book.

295. Is the Absolute Idea exemplified in any concrete state
known to us, in the same way that the category of Cognition
was ? It seems clear to me that Hegel regarded it as exemplified
by consciousness of some sort. In the first place there are the
references to personality in the passage quoted above from the
Greater Logic (iii. 327). The Notion is here, "as a Person,
impenetrable atomic Subjectivity." This does not, I think,
indicate that the nature of the Universe as a whole is exemplified
by personality, since the Universe would never be described by
Heo-el as impenetrable or atomic. It is, I think, the parts of
the Universe which are to be regarded as having these character-
istics, and as therefore having a nature exemplified in personality.
In the second place, we have the statement that the Idea is its
own Object, and again that the Absolute Idea is the_truth
which knows itself. Moreover, the harmony in the Absolute
Idea is the same as the harmony in Cognition, except that
neither side is taken as determinant. Now Cognition was
regarded by Hegel as exemplified in states of consciousness.

But what sort of consciousness gives us an example of the
category of the Absolute Idea? It cannot be knowledge, or
volition. For knowledge, as we have seen, exemplifies the
Idea of the True — the category in which the Universe is the
determinant of the harmony. And volition exemplifies the
Idea of the Good — the category in which the Individual is also
the determinant of the harmony. In the Absolute Idea neither
side of the harmony is determinant.

310 CH. X. THE IDEA

Hegel does not, so far as I can see, consider this point at
all. I believe that the state of consciousness which would
exemplify the Absolute Idea is love, since in love we have
a state of harmony in which neither the subject nor the object
can be considered as determinant. To discuss this here, how-
ever, would take us beyond the sphere of the Logic, since love,
though it may exemplify the Absolute Idea, is not itself a
category, but a concrete state of spirits

Would Hegel have agreed with this ? As I have just said,
he does not consider the question in the Logic. On the other
hand, we are not left without means of judging what his
opinion would be. For, according to Hegel, the Absolute Idea
must be true of all that really exists, and Spirit really exists —
in fact, nothing but Spirit exists. If, therefore, among the
various forms under which Spirit appears to us, we can find
one which adequately expresses the nature of Spirit, while
none of the others do so, then that form will be an example of
the Absolute Idea (and, also, though this does not concern us
in tlie Logic, the only instance of it).
'^ There is no doubt, I think, that Hegel believes himself to
have, in the Philosophy of Spirit, a dialectic process such that
the last term, and the last term alone, gives us the truth about
Spirit. This then would seem to be the example of the Absolute
Idea. But this term is not love, but philosophy. Whether
Hegel was justified in holding this may be doubted-, but the
fact that he did hold it .seems to indicate that he would not
have accepted love as the state of consciousness which is an
[^ example of the Absolute Idea.

On the other hand, in the Philosophy of Religion, " the
kingdom of the Holy Ghost" is apparently taken as the
absolutely true description of Spirit. And that is represented
as a Community bound together by love. The question must,
I think, remain undecided.

296. A Commentary such as this necessarily throws more
ernpha.sis on points of difference than on points of agreement.

1 For a discussion of this question cp. e.g. my Studies in Hegelian Cosmology,
Chapter IX. especially Section 284.

- Cp. e.g. my Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic, Sections 204 — 206.

1

III. THE ABSOLUTE IDEA 311

I should wish, therefore, in concluding the exposition of Hegel's
philosophy which has been the chief object of my life for
twenty-one years, to express my conviction that Hegel has
penetrated further into the true nature of reality than any

' philosopher before or after him. It seems to me that the next
task of philosophy should be to make a fresh investigation of
that nature by a dialectic method substantially, though not

, entirely, the same as Hegel's. What results such an investi-
gation may produce cannot be known till it has been tried, but
much of Hegel's reasoning seems to me to vary so little from
the truth, where it varies at all, that I believe the results, like
the method, would have much resemblance to Hegel's own.

CAMBRIDGE : PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. AT THE TJNIVEHSITY PRESS.

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