Benedetto Croce, What Is Living and What Is Dead of The Philosophy of Hegel

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Cornell University Library
B2948.C93 C5 1915
What
is
living
and what is,,dead of the p
3
olin
1924 029 044 729
Cornell University Library
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tine
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bool<
is in
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the United States on the use of the
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029044729
By
BENEDETTO CROCE
ESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION AND GENERAL LINGUISTIC. Translated

by
Douglas
Ainslie, B.A.
8vo.
ios. net.
PHILOSOPHY OF THE PRACTICAL.

nomic AND Ethic.
Ainslie, B.A.
8vo.
Eco-
Translated
12s. net.
by Douglas
LONDON MACMILLAN AND

;
CO.
Ltd.
WHAT
DEAD OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL

IS
LIVING
AND WHAT
IS
MACMILLAN AND
LONDON
.
CO., LIMITED
BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE

BOSTON CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

NEW YORK
DALLAS
THE MACMILLAN
CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO
WHAT WHAT
LIVING AND IS DEAD OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL

IS
BY
BENEDETTO CROCE
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL TEXT OF THE THIRD ITALIAN EDITION, 1912
BY
DOUGLAS AINSLIE
B.A. (OxoN.), M.R.A.S.
MACMILLAN AND
ST.
CO.,
LIMITED
MARTIN'S STREET,
1915
LONDON
COPYRIGHT
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
Readers
of this translation will observe that
Italian in discarding
I
have followed the
where the
words
original does so the use of capitals for the

idea, spirit
and so
forth.
It is true
that they are
printed with capitals in

all
German
but then, so are
other substantives, and by avoiding their use,

spirit are better
such words as idea and
under-
stood as immanent rather than as transcendental

" things-in-themselves."
I
used "gnoseology"
in
my
translation of the
Philosophy of the Practical instead of the paraphrase
"theory of
knowledge."
This
word,
regularly formed from the Greek,
seems to
me
worthy a place
difficulty
in
English, which has
made no
about accepting an analogous, but not
identical,
term such as Epistemology.
When
vi
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
new thought
it
neologisms cover a
or facilitate, by
to
abbreviating, expression,
seems
I
me
that they
are always legitimate, and
have not hesitated to
introduce one or two other words thus employed.
The tendency
to avoid
neologism at
all
costs
by
the adoption of paraphrase, frequent in contem-
porary English writer^, seems to

the very purpose which
it
me
to frustrate
is
intended to serve,
rendering yet more
difficult
by the very common-
ness of the words used as paraphrase the already

sufficiently subtle qualifications of philosophy.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The
study,
What
is
living
and what
is
dead of
in
the Philosophy
(Bari,
of Hegel, was published and

contained
1906
Laterza),
an
essay
on
Hegelian bibliography as an appendix.

since been increased in the
translations of that
This has
German and French
volume and would now have

But
it
need of not a few additions.

to
has seemed
me
opportune
in
the present^ collection to

the bibliographical portion
to
its
suppress altogether
as
something extraneous
it,
nature,
and
to
if
republish
if
ever, separately.
And
indeed,
any one
will
give himself the trouble of looking

it
through, correcting, completing and keeping

to date for the use of students of Hegel,
1
up
propose
The Essay on Hegel
is
the
first
of a series of essays upon philo-
sophical subjects contained in the volume from which this essay has been
selected for translation into English.
D.
A.
vii
viii
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
him with
that
first
to present
study of mine, with

it
permission to exercise upon

utendi
critical
most
fully the
jus
et abutendi.
In this reimpression of the

will
study of 1906
be found instead certain

points of the
elucidations of various
Hegelian
philosophy, which answer to censures and objections that
have been made to
me
though
have
as a rule preferred, as
more persuasive, objective
treatment or retreatment of disputed points to
polemic properly so
called.
B.
CROCK.
Raiano (Aquila),
September 19 12.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I.
The Dialectic or Synthesis of
Opposites
II.
Explanations Relating to the History of
THE Dialectic
III.
33
The
Dialectic
.
.
and
the
Conception
Reality
IV.
....
.
of
5
The Nexus of the
Distincts and the False

.
Application of the Dialectic Form

V.
78
The
Metamorphosis of Errors
into
Par-
ticular Concepts and Degrees of Truth
(Structure of the Logic)

VI.
.100
The Metamorphosis of Particular Concepts

into Philosophical Errors
I.
. .
.120
Art and Language (Esthetic).
VII.

into Philosophical Errors
II.
. .
-134
History (Idea of a Philosophy of History).
VIII.

into Philosophical Errors.
III.
. .
.150
Nature (Idea of a Philosophy of Nature).
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
PAGE
IX.
The Construction of the False Sciences

AND THE Application of the Dialectic to
the Individual and to the Empirical
.
174
192
X.
Dualism not overcome
XI.
The
Criticism
and
Continuation
.
Thought of Hegel
Conclusion.
...
of
the
203
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
The
following lines were written before the outI
break of war, but
see
no reason
to
qualify-
any of the statements therein contained.
The
madness and immoralism of twentieth century
Germany has nothing

writers of a
in
common
with her great
hundred years ago and more.
There
has been a great decline of
German thought
coincident with material prosperity and aspiration

for universal dominion.
Readers of the following pages, accustomed

Hegel's
style
to
Himalayan severity and ruggedness of

to the arid
and
and
difficult
treatment of the
Hegelian philosophy, so long
in
vogue, both here
and
in
Germany,
will
probably be surprised at the

clarity of Croce's thought.
critic
profound yet pellucid
Hegel has
at last
found a
and interpreter
has already
equal to the task, in the thinker
who
given us complete the Philosophy of the Spirit.
Croce has passed beyond and therefore been able

1
Some
of these thoughts are taken from other essays of Croce.

xi
xii
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
back upon Hegel, to unravel the gorgeous
all
to look
yet tangled skein of his system, and supply to

future students the clue of Ariadne.
Who
Were
it
but Croce would have thought of recomlike a poet

?
mending that Hegel should be read

not for his
own work upon

seem absurd
;
aesthetic,
such
a statement would
but in the light
of the two degrees of theoretic knowledge and of the formation of logic from aesthetic intuitions,
such
remark
assumes
dwell
its
full
significance.
Rather, then, than
for
ever upon some
technical difficulty, such as that presented

first
by the
triad of the Logic,
he recommends us to read
is
Hegel
" like a poet," that
without paying undue
attention to the verbal form, the historical accident
of what he says, but

truth.
full
attention to
its
poetic
In reading a philosopher,
we should seek
without
his inspiration in the
mazes of
his text,
paying undue attention to the pedantries and

formulae, with
(historically)
which such a writer as

overlaid.
Hegel
in
is
We
all
should
see
the
Hegelian triads the mighty effort of the philosopher

against Eleaticism and
his attempt to create a
forms of Nihilism, and

superior form of
new and
Heracliticism.
The
cut-and-dried
;
Hegel of the
schools
is
thus to be avoided
and when with
Croce's help
we have
scraped the lichen of his
formulae from the thought of
xiii
Hegel,
we
find
all
beneath
that
is
it
the true philosopher, the hater of
abstract
is,
and motionless, of the should-be

is
that never
of the ideal that
not
real.
its
The
title
of this book sufficiently explains
scope and object.
The
magnificent critique and

is
explanation of the dialectic
followed by the ex-
position of one of Hegel's two great errors, the
confusion of distincts and opposites, and of
its
far-reaching evil consequences for a great part of
the
Hegelian system.
in
That
itself
is
this
error should
appear
Hegel;
the
is
Logic
characteristic
of
who
not guilty of any
mere inadvertence
or blunder,
his system.
but errs grandly in a vital part of
One
of the most important deducis
tions from this error
that of the death of art,
to be merged, according to Hegel, in philosophy.
Croce's
refutation
of
this
fallacy
and.
of the
application of the dialectic to the empirical world,
were they
criticism
his
sole
contribution
to
philosophic
to
and research, would
suffice
lay
all
students of Hegel beneath an obligation of en-
lightened gratitude to the philosopher of Naples.
Croce points out how

application of the
it
was owing
to
the
dialectic of
opposites to the
category of distincts that Hegel conceived so great

a contempt for the practical as compared with the
xiv
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
He
was
led
theoretic world.
by
his theory to look
upon the former as one from which the thinker

freed himself
by the power of
his thought.
In
Hegel, the poet and the sage look

their
down from
tower of ivory upon the throng below.
He
conceived the dialectic as a temporal becoming,

a progressus
ad finitwn, and once he had attained

life,
to the contemplative
the sage would naturally
no longer desire any sort of intercourse with the

throng.
dialectic.
There would thus be cessation of the

But becoming cannot negate
itself.
The
is
true
becoming
is
ideal
it is
the intelligence
as the universal
of real becoming, in the
same way
not divergent or indifferent in respect to the

;
particular, but is the intelligence of the particular
so that universal and particular, ideal
and
real be-
coming, are the same.

is
Outside ideal becoming
not real becoming, but only temporal becoming,

is
that
to say, arithmetical time, a construction of

;
the abstract intellect
just as the real individual
is
not outside the universal, but only the empirical individual, isolated, atomicized, monadized.
Eternity
is
and
real
time coincide, because the eternal

is
in
every instant and every instant

Hegel's
rational
identification
in the eternal.
of
the
real
and
the the
led
him
to
support energetically
all
action of the State and of
great men, and
his confusion of the
xv
ethical with
the economic
led to the creation of Nietzsche's
Superman, a
being above the morality of the throng.

rationality of the real should,
The
however, be closely
connected with the most rigid condemnation of

error
and of evil, and the perpetuity of the
dialectic
with the constancy of the true.
The
idea of finite
in-
progress must therefore be looked upon as

complete, until
it
has been enriched by the dialectic
with the idea of infinite progress.
This
latter,
taken by
itself,
is
also void of content, for
an
not
the
eternal approximation
and never attaining
is if
progress
it
does not matter to Tantalus
sweet spring- water be a mile or an inch from his

lips, if
he
is
never to touch
is
it
with them.
The
symbol of humanity
neither
God
in
nor man, but
the God-man, Christ,
Who
is
the eternal in the
temporal
and
the
temporal
the
is
eternal.
Another way of stating the same thing
to
com-
bine the western idea of a perpetual breathless

pursuit of truth,
and the
static oriental idea of
the
perpetual
identical,
return.
The
spirit
and history arej

philosophy and'
as
in
their
turn
is
are
history,
because neither
complete without the
others.
We
possess the truth at every moment,

this truth is at
by the act of thinking, and

instant
every
changed
into will
and nature, and therefore
xvi
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
new problem, which must be
to, if it
is
into a
constantly-
added
to
remain
truth.
A man
may
soul,
sacrifice all
he has
for the truth,
even his own
but he can never sacrifice morality, owing to the

contradiction that this would imply.
Croce has
more than a good word

Hegel
in
to say of the study of
Great Britain, and indeed he recently
observed to the present writer that his
own thought
remained
far
more
itself in
the English than in the
German
away.
versions of his Esthetic and Philosophy

in the latter
it
of the Practical:
seemed
to melt
But the study of Hegel should receive a

this
new and vigorous impetus from

should do
work, which
much
to correct the
widespread con-
fusion of the data of empirical or natural science
with true science, which

of sciences.
is
philosophy, the science

its
Philosophy assigns
sphere to each
of the empirical sciences, and in their sphere philo-
sophy
is
not competent.
Confusion has arisen
from the
attempts so often
made by
natural
scientists to solve
problems outside their comexcellent entomo-
petency.
logist,
man may be an
but his views upon the problem of know-
ledge will be devoid of interest, unless he be also

a philosopher.
this
is
The domination
of empiricism in
country has led to suspicion of thought which
simply thought as yet untranslated into volitional
act.
xvii
Discussing recently in London the origins
of socialism with a leading statesman, he remarked

to
me
that socialism
was the
result of
modern
seemed
theoretic
economic conditions,
factories, etc.
He
its
disinclined to admit that socialism in
form
first
existed in the
mind of Hegel and then

to
filtered
down through Feuerbach and Marx,

to exist the belief that
friction, like
Sorel and the syndicalists of our day.
There
seems
thought can arise
from psychical
Reality
is
a spark from tinder.

as the physical,
philo-
looked upon by
many
mind
as an epiphenomenon.
Without the
sophers above mentioned, there could have been
no "social question" as
it
presents
itself to-day.
The
more
labour troubles of
easily
Roman
days were settled
than
those of the
modern world
basis.
because without the modern theoretic
They
could not, however, have existed without some

theoretic basis,
however rudimentary. The French

first
Revolution broke out
in the brain of
Jean-
Jacques Rousseau.
Much
lead our
will, in
my
opinion, have been achieved

in
by the publication
English of
this book, if
it
men
of action
and
as
nation
the
English have the genius of practical action
to
respect Hegel as one of the greatest practical

forces the world has ever seen.
They
are not
xviii
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
become mere dreamers by so doing,
here
likely to
for
we run no
risk of underrating
those
elements of empirical
thought represented by
aeroplanes and other automobiles. Matter changes

place with far greater
rapidity than
is
heretofore,
in a hurry," that,
but there
is
one thing that
"never
yet supremely worthy of attention,
and
as
readers of Hegel know,
is
the idea.
DOUGLAS
The Athenûm,
Pall Mall, London.
AINSLIE.
THE DIALECTIC OR SYNTHESIS

OF OPPOSITES
Hegel
made
itself
is
one of those philosophers who have
not only immediate reality but philosophy the object of their thought, thus contributI
ing to elaborate a logic of philosophy.
believe,
therefore, that the logic of philosophy (with the
consequences ensuing from

particular problems
it
for the solution of
and
for the conception of life)

effort of his
was the goal to which the main
mind
was
directed.
It
was there
full
that
he found or
brought to perfection and
value, principles of
high importance which had been unknown to or

hardly mentioned by previous philosophers, or
insufficiently
marked by them, and which may

the aversion to this conception of a
it
therefore be considered as his true discoveries.
Strange
is
logic of philosophy (for
is
really very simple
and should be accepted as
irresistibly evident).
2
It is
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
the idea, in other words, that philosophy
itself,
proceeds by a method peculiar to
the theory
of which should be sought and formulated.
No
one doubts that mathematics has a method of its own, which is studied in the logic of mathematics
that
the
natural
sciences
have their method,
from which arises the logic of observation, of

experiment, of abstraction;
that historiography
is
has
its
method, and that therefore there
logic of the historical

art in
i.e.
method
that poetry
and
art,
general give us the logic of poetry and

;
aesthetic
that in
economic
is
activity
is
inherent
in
method,
which
;
afterwards
reflected
economic science
activity has
its
and that
finally the
is
moral
in
method, which
it
reflected
ethic (or logic of the will, as
has sometimes
been
very
too,
called).
But when we come to philosophy,

from
this conclusion
its
:
many
recoil
that
it,
from the
moment
its
of
inception,
must have
method of
own, which must be determined.
Conversely, very few are surprised at the fact

that treatises
to
on
logic,
while giving
of the
much space
of the
a
rule as
the consideration
disciplines
mathematical
and
natural
sciences,
give no special attention to the

philosophy, and often pass
silence.
it
discipline
of
in
over altogether
THE DIALECTIC
It is
very natural that a logic of philosophy
should be denied by those who, owing to lack of

reflection
or
mental
in
confusion or eccentricity,
general.
deny philosophy
For
it
cannot be
claimed that the theory of an object should be recognized

is
when the
If
reality of the object itself

exist,
denied.
philosophy does not
then
the logic of philosophy does not exist.

to both
;
Good-bye
satisfy you.
it
enjoy such a position
if it
But
if
have called
this spectacle strange,
is
because
we
too often see those very philosophers
or philosophizers, as the case
may
be,
showing
themselves altogether devoid of the consciousness of this inevitable necessity.

assert that philosophy
Some
of
them
must follow the
abstract-
deductive method of mathematics.

for
it
Others see
no other way of salvation than a rigorous
adherence to the experimental method.
They
dream and
extol
a philosophy
clinic,
studied in the
laboratory and the
an empirical metaphysic,
is
and so on.
which,
are
if
Finally (and this

is
the latest fashion,
not new,
at least
newly revived), we
fantastic
now commended
to
an individual and
art.
philosophy, which produces itself like
Thus,
from the compasses to the

to the
zither
!
bistouri,
and from that

for
every method seems good
philosophy, save the method of philosophy
itself.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
One
:
single observation should suffice against
such views
namely, that
if
philosophy
it
is
to
provide the understanding, and be as

reflective
were the
consciousness of art and

researches
history, of
mathematics and of the

science, of the practical
fail
of natural
activity,
and moral
we
to see
how
it
can do this by conforming to
the method of one of those particular objects.
He
who, when studying a poem, limits his study

application of the poetical method, will
to the
feel in
himself the creation of the poet, this or
that particular
work of
art
but he will not thus
attain to a philosophic
knowledge of the poem.

mathematical thinking,
He who
limits himself to
when studying
a mathematical theory, will
be the
disciple, the critic, the perfecter of that
theory
but he will not attain knowledge of the nature of
mathematical
activity.
If the object of philosophy
be not the production or the reproduction of art and mathematics and of the various other
activities
of man, but the comprehension

all,
(the
is
understanding) of them
itself
this
comprehension
an
activity,
proceeding by a method of
its
own, infused or
implicit,
which
it is
important to
make
explicit.
In any case the hope
of understanding and
is
of judging
the
work of Hegel
vain,
if
we
THE DIALECTIC
always
do not
that this
keep clearly before
the
mind
problem which we have
just enunciated
was
his
main and principal problem, the central

Spirit,
problem of the Phenomenology of

the
and of
in
new forms assumed by

Almost
this
book
the
Science of Logic and in the Encyclopaedia of Philo-
sophical Sciences.
all
histories of philo-
sophy, and even the special monographs concerning
Hegel
(for
example, the recent and most

Fischer),
consist
ample
in a
monograph by Kuno
summary
repetition of the contents of his
books, so
sections
close
as
to
repeat his
divisions
by
and chapters.
But a complete exposiand

critical
tion of Hegel's thought, an inward
exposition, should, in the

part,
first
place and in chief
be devoted to his doctrine of the nature
of philosophic enquiry,
and to the differences
between such enquiry and other theoretic and nontheoretic forms.
Above
in
all,
what should be made
clear
is
the
triple character that philosophic
thought assumes
three spiritual
is
is
Hegel,
in
relation
to
the
it
modes or
confused.
firstly,
attitudes with which
most readily
for
;
Philosophic
;
thought
Hegel
thirdly,
it
concept
secondly,
that
universal
is
concrete.
feeling,
It is concept,
to say
is
not
or rapture,
or
intuition,
or
any other
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
This distinguishes
philosophy
similar alogical psychical state, incapable of exact
demonstration.
from theories of mysticism and of immediate
knowledge
for these
in
have
as
at the
most a negative
that
significance,
so
far
they recognize
philosophy cannot be constructed by the method

of the empirical and natural sciences,
sciences
i.e.
of the
will,
of the
finite.
They
an
"
are,
if
you
profound,
but
with
empty
profundity."
against
raising
Hegel
becomes
ferociously
satirical
mysticism, with
its frenzies, its

its its
sighings,
its
the
eyes to heaven,
the
its
bowing the neck and

faintings,
its
clasping
accents,
hands,
prophetic
initiates.
mysterious phrases of the
He
always maintains that philosophy should have

;
a rational and intelligible form
that
it
should be,
" not esoteric but exoteric," not a thing of sects,
but of humanity.
universal, not
The
philosophic
It
is
concept
is
merely general.
not to be
for
confounded with general representations, as

instance,
"house,"
"horse," "blue," which are
usually
termed
concepts,
owing
to
custom
which Hegel
difference
calls barbaric.
This establishes the
between philosophy and the empirical
or natural sciences, which are satisfied with types
and class-conceptions.
universal
is
Finally,
it
the philosophic
concrete
is
not the making of a
THE DIALECTIC
and richness.
7
it
skeleton of reality, but the comprehension of

in its fulness
Philosophic abstrac-
tions
are
not arbitrary but necessary,
and are
therefore adequate to the real, which they do not
mutilate
difference
or
falsify.
And
;
this
establishes
the
between philosophy and the mathefor
matical
disciplines
these
latter
do
not
justify their points of departure, but "
command
obey
the
them," and
we
must,
says
Hegel,
command
to
draw such and such

be
"
lines, in
the
belief that this will
opportune"
for the con-
duct of the demonstration.
Philosophy, on the
other hand, has for

is
;
its
object that which really

justify itself, without
v
/
and
it
must completely
admitting or allowing any presupposition.-'
And
in order to elucidate this triple difference,

i.e.
according to which the true concept,

philosophical
versal,
the
unito
concept, shows
it
itself
logical,
and concrete,
in
would be necessary
exposition
include
complete
the
minor
doctrines,
which are attached to the
first
and
fundamental doctrine, some of which are of great

importance, such as the resumption of the ontological
argument (the defence of Saint Anselm

Kant),
against
I
which
maintains
to the
that
in
the
See especially the introduction
Phenomenology and the pre-
liminaries to the Encyclopaedia.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
concept,
as
distinct
philosophic
and
different
from mere representations of particulars, essence

implies existence.
Another
is
the review of the

"
doctrine which regards the
"judgment
as a con-
nexion of subject and predicate.

is
That doctrine
not clearly
in-
based on something that
is
telligible to thought,
and
is
therefore inadequate
true
to
philosophy,
of which
the
form
the
is
the
"syllogism," in so far as that

character of reuniting
itself
has
logical
with
itself; others,
again, are the critique of the theory, which considers the concept to be a
compound
mark
the
"
of "marks"
(which Hegel
ficiality
calls
the true "

;
of the super-
of ordinary logic)
the critique of divisions

;
into
species
and
classes
demonstration
(which
may have
curative efficacy in our times)

;
of the vanity of every " logical calculus "
and
not a few others besides.
But
it
is
not
my
intention to offer in these
pages a complete exposition of Hegel's system,

nor even of
to his
logical
doctrine
but rather
the
concentrate
all
attention
upon
most
characteristic part of his thought,
upon the new upon the

he
set
aspects of truth revealed by him, and
errors which he allowed to persist or in which
became entangled.
For
this reason, then,
aside the various theses briefly
mentioned above

THE DIALECTIC
(from which
it
seems
to
me
impossible to dissent,
although
recognize too
how
necessary
it
is
that
they should be studied, since they form the often
neglected
ABC
of
philosophy),
and
come
all
without further ado to the point around which
the disputes have been kindled and against which

his
opponents have aimed their direct denials
the treatment of the problem of opposites.
This
clearly
is
problem
if
whose
terms
must be
defined
gravity
we wish to understand its and difficulty. The philosophic concept

been mentioned,
it
(which, as has
is
a concrete
universal), in so far as
is
concrete, does not

it
exclude distinctions, indeed

itself.
includes
them
itself,
in
It
is
the universal, distinct in
re-
sulting
from
those
distinctions.
As
empirical
concepts are distinguished into classes and subclasses, so the philosophic
concept possesses
its
particular forms, of
which
it is
not the mechanical
aggregate, but the organic whole, in which every
form unites
itself
intimately with the others and

intellect,
with the whole.

in
For example, fancy and
relation to the concept of spirit or spiritual

;
activity, are particular philosophic concepts
but
they are not outside or beneath
spirit,
they are
;
indeed
is
spirit itself in
those particular forms
nor
the one separated from the other, like two
lo
entities
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
each confined to
the
as
is
itself,
and external to
the other, but
one passes into the other.
Hence
distinct
fancy,
it
commonly
intellect, is
it.
said,
however
may be from
the foundation
of intellect and indispensable to
Our thought however,
in investigating reality,
finds itself face to face, not only with distinct, but
also with opposed concepts.
These
latter
cannot
be identified with the former without more ado,

nor be considered as special cases of them, as
they were a sort of distinct concepts.
if
The
As
logical
category of distinction category of opposition

said,
is
is
one thing, and
the
another.
has been
two
distinct concepts unite

;
with one another,
although they are distinct

cepts
but two opposite con-
seem
to exclude
one another.
Where one
enters, the other totally disappears.
distinct
concept
is
presupposed by and lives

it
in its other,
which follows
in the
is
sequence of
ideas.
:
An
the
opposite concept
slain
by
its
opposite
saying, mors tua vita
mea
applies here.
Examples
of distinct concepts are those already mentioned, of

fancy
and
intellect.
And
to these
others
could be added, such as rights, morality and the

like.
But
examples of opposite concepts are
drawn from those numerous couples of words, of

which our language
is
full
and which certainly
THE DIALECTIC
ii
do not constitute peaceable and friendly couples. Such are the antitheses of true and false, of good
and
evil,
beautiful and ugly, value and lack of
value, joy
and
sorrow,
life
activity
and
passivity,
positive
and
negative,
and death, being and

impossible to confuse
:
not-being,
and so
on.
It is
the two series, distincts and opposites
so con-
spicuously do they
differ.
Now,
it
if
distinction
do not impede,
if
indeed
rather render possible the concrete unity of

it
the philosophic concept,

that
does not seem possible

true of opposition.
in
the
same should be
Opposition gives rise to deep fissures
the
bosom
of
its
of the philosophic universal and of each

particular
forms,
and
to
irreconcilable
dualisms.
Instead of finding the concrete uni-
versal, the organic
whole of
reality
which
it
seeks,
thought seems everywhere to run against two

universals,
opposing and menacing each other.

fulfilment
In
this
;
way, the
of philosophy
is
impeded
and since an
activity
which cannot
it
attain to its fulfilment, thereby
shows that
philosophy
has
imposed an absurd task on

the whole of philosophy,
is
itself,
itself,
menaced with
is
failure.
The
that the
seriousness of this impasse
the reason
at this
human mind has always laboured
problem of opposites, without, however, always
12
clearly
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
realizing
what
it
has been doing.

it
And
in
one of the solutions upon which
has relied
the course of centuries, has consisted in excluding opposition from the philosophic concept, and in
maintaining the unreality of that perilous logical

category.
The
;
facts, to tell
the truth, proved just
the opposite
but the facts were denied and only
one of the terms was accepted, the other being

declared " illusion"
;
or,
what comes
to the
same
thing, a merely quantitative difference
was drawn
of
between
opposites
the
is
two.
This
logical
doctrine
contained in the philosophic systems
of sensationalism, of empiricism, of materialism,

of mechanism, or
however otherwise they may

truth
be termed.
Thought and
appeared
in
them
in
turn,
a secretion of the brain, or an
effect of habit
and association
virtue, a
mirage
of egoism
beauty, a refinement of sensuality
the ideal,
some kind of voluptuous or capricious
dream
and so on.
logical doctrine,
Another
as
which posits oppocategory,
sition
fundamental
its
has
for
first
centuries
doctrine.
employed
It
is
force
in
against this
found
the various dualistic
systems,
first,
which reassert the antithesis that the
with a delicate sleight of hand, had caused
to
disappear.
These systems accentuate both
THE DIALECTIC
good and
those
of
evil,
false,
13
terms, being and not-being,
true
and
ideal
and
real,
the
one
series
being at variance with those of the other.

dualistic
Without doubt, the

value against abstract
view
:
retains
its
monism
a polemical value
due to
its
it
denial of the other's negation.

is
But
V
"^
in itself,
as
little
satisfactory as the other,
because
if
the
first sacrifices
opposition to unity,
the second sacrifices unity to opposition.
In
thought
that
both
these
sacrifices
are
so
impossible,
we
continually see
those
who
maintain the one doctrine turning more or less

consciously into maintainers of the other.
unitarians
surreptitiously
The
duality
introduce the
of opposites,
reality
under the guise of the duality of

illusion
:
and of
an
illusion with
which
they could no more dispense than with reality

itself,
so that they sometimes even say that the

life is
spring of
ists all
in illusion.
And
the
the opposition-^,
admit some sort of identity or unity of

unattainable
opposites
by
human
mind,
owing
to its
imperfection, but necessary in order

reality.
adequately to think
In this way, both
become involved
to
in
contradictions,
and come
the
recognize
that
they
have
set
not solved
problem which they had

that
it still
themselves, and
remains a problem.
14
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
For
" necessary
illusion,"
or
" necessary-
imperfection
of
the
words, to which, try
human mind," are mere as we will, we cannot give

know only
accidental
relative
any meaning.
relative
We
and
ima
illusions,
individual
and
perfections.
reality
other than the
real,
mind beyond the human mind, we can neither

conceive
parison.
nor constitute a term
in
any com-
Thus
reality
and mind show us both
unity and opposition.
And
(as
Leibniz said of
in so
far
philosophical systems) the unitarians,

as they affirm the
far as
first,
the oppositionists, in so
they affirm the second, are right in what

affirm
is
they
and wrong
in
what
they
deny,
virile
Hegel
never weary of admiring the

materialists
firmness of the
and sensationalists
in
and
monists
of
every
if,
sort
asserting
the
unity of the real, and

conditions in which
owing
to the historical
his
thought developed, he
less,
admired
never
the dualistic
forms
and indeed
his
lost
an
opportunity
of
expressing
antipathy to them, on the other hand he never

forgot
that
the consciousness
of opposition
justifiable
is
equally
invincible
and equally
with,
that of unity.
The
case, then,
is
seems desperate
and no
less
desperate
the case of desperation.
For, to
THE DIALECTIC
15
declare the question insoluble would itself compel
us to consider, whether, by that very declaration,
we had
not already cut the knot in favour of

is
thought, that
to
say,
of hope.
The
casual
observer of the history of philosophy sees a

restoration
of dualism follow every affirmation

:
of monism, and vice versa
each unable wholly

it
to strangle the other, but able to hold

for a time.
It
in
check
would seem almost as though, when
man
has satiated himself with the uniformity of

distracts himself with the variety of
monism, he
dualism
;
and,
when he
is
tired of this,
he plunges
again into monism, and alternates the two move-
ments,
thus
tempering
hygienically
the
one
with the other.
The
casual observer, at every

;
epidemic of materialism, says with a smile. Wait
now
will
come
spiritualism.
its
And when
spiritualin
ism celebrates
the same
chiefest triumphs,
says,
!
he smiles
way and
little
Wait
materialism will
is
return in a or soon
while
for
But the smile

there
is
forced,
vanishes,
nothing really
is
cheerful in the condition of
him who
ceaselessly
tossed from one extreme to another, as by an

invincible force
beyond
control.
I
Nevertheless, amid the difficulties which
have
made
a
clear,
there
is at
the bottom of our souls

this
secret
conviction,
that
unconquerable
i6
dualism,
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
this
insoluble
:
dilemma,
is
ultimately
V conquerable and soluble

is
that the idea of unity
not irreconcilable with that of opposition, and
that
we
of
can and should think opposition in the

a
form
concept,
which
is
is
supreme
unity.
Ingenuous thought (which

philosophical, but
naively,
usually called non-
would perhaps be better called

philosophical)
:
or
potentially,
is
not
embarrassed at the
difficulty
it
thinks at once
both unity and opposition.
Its
motto
is
not
It
mors
tua vita mea,

that
life
;
but concordia discors.

is
recognises
theless
a struggle,
virtue
it is
but
a
never-
harmony
that
is
combat
against ourselves, but that

selves.
It
nevertheless our-
recognizes that,
has
been overcome, a
when one opposition new opposition springs
from the very bosom of the unity, so there must
be a new conquest, then a

so on the
;
new
opposition, and
is
but
of
:
it
recognizes, too, that this

It
just
way
systems
to the
knows nothing of exclusive the wisdom of proverbs gives one blow

life.
hoop and another to the
barrel,
and gives
advice
now
with optimistic,
now with
and
pessimistic
observations,
which
deny
is
complete
one
another in turn.
thought,
nothing.
to
What
wanting to ingenuous
Implicitly,
potential
so,
philosophy?
And
amidst the smoke and the dust
THE DIALECTIC
of the battles of science,
17 sigh for the
we always
good
find
sense, for the truth which each
one can
immediately
in himself,
without recourse to
the labourings, the subtleties, and the exaggerations 'of professional philosophers.
is
But the sigh

is
vain
the battle has been joined, and there
no way
to peace save
is
through victory.
its
Ingenuous
thought (and this
defect) cannot give the

:
grounds of
its
affirmations
;
it
vacillates before
every objection
dicts itself
it
becomes confused and contracomplete truths,
Its truths are not
because they are not found united, but merely

placed
alongside
one another. and

fails
It
works only
systematic
with
juxtaposition,
in
coherence.
Contradictions and doubts and the
painful consciousness of antitheses are
welcome
are
welcome
is
all
conflict if
is
through
it
we
it
to
attain to the truth that

in itself.
complete and secure
Such
truth, indeed,
though
differs
widely from the truth of ordinary and ingenuous
thought in degree of elaboration, cannot but be

substantially the
same
and
is
it
is
certainly a bad
sign
when
a philosophy
at variance
with
init
genuous consciousness.
often happens that
For
this
very reason
when people meet
a simple
truths,
and conclusive statement of philosophic

that
may have
cost the labours of centuries, they
i8
will
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
shrug their shoulders and remark that the
is
boasted discovery
plain
indeed a very easy thing,
and known of
all
men.
Precisely the
same
with
thing occurs in the case of the most inspired

creations
of
art,
which
are
developed
such simplicity and naturalness that every one experiences the illusion of having achieved, or
of being able to achieve
If
them himself
ingenuous thought give the hope and the
indication of the possibility of the reconciliation
of unity and opposition, another form of spiritual

creation, of
which
all
have experience, provides

philosopher has at his side
truth;
a sort of model.
The
the poet.
And
the poet, too, seeks the

;
the poet, too, thirsts for the real

philosopher,
recoils
he
too, like the
from arbitrary abstractions,
because he strives towards the living and the

concrete
:
he
too,
abhors the mute ecstasies of

it
the mystics and the sentimentalists, because
is
what he
feels that
he utters and makes to ring
in the ear in beautiful words, limpid
and
silvery.
But the poet

able.
is
not condemned to the unattainreality,
This very
is
torn
and rent with

contemplation,
opposition,
the object of his

it,
and he makes
tion, yet
though throbbing with opposi-
one and undivided.

Is
Cannot the
philo-
sopher do the same?
not philosophy, like
THE DIALECTIC
poetry,
this
19
knowledge
Why should
this perfection,
power of solving and of representing unity

be wanting to the philosophic conis
in opposition,
cept
when
it
in
?
all
respects
analogous to
aesthetic expression
is
It is
true that philosophy
knowledge of the
;
universal,
is
and therefore
thought
and that poetry and therefore
knowledge of the
and imagination.
individual,
intuition
But why should not the philosophic universal,

like
the aesthetic expression,
be both
at
once
difference
and
unity, discord
and concord, discrete

?
and continuous, permanent and ever-changing
Why
mind
should reality lose

rises
its
true character
when
from the contemplation of the particular

?
to the contemplation of the whole
Does not
does
the
the whole
particular
?
live
in
us
as
vividly
as
And
his
here
it is
that
Hegel gives
his shout of
jubilation, the cry of the discoverer, the
Eureka,
of
principle
:
of
solution
of
the
problem
opposites
that
it
a most simple principle, and so obvious
deserves to be placed
among
those sym-
bolized
by the egg of Christopher Columbus.

is
The
opposites are not illusion, neither
unity
illusion.
The
opposites
are
opposed to one
to
unity.n
another,
but they are
not
opposed
is
For true and concrete unity
nothing but the
20
unity,
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
or
synthesis,
it
of
opposites.
It
is
It
is
not
immobility,
is
movement.
not
fixity,
is
but development.
a concrete
The
philosophic
concept
universal,
and therefore a thinking
of reality as at once united and divided.
Only
thus does philosophic truth correspond to poetic

truth,
and the pulse of thought beat with the
pulse of things.
It
is,
indeed, the only possible solution.
It
I
rejects
neither of the two preceding,
which
have called "monism" and "dualism of opposites,"

but justifies both.
truths, fragments
It
regards them as one-sided

in
which await their integration

first
a third, in which the

third
itself,
and second, even the

in the
disappear,
is
merged
unique truth.
And
that truth
it,
that unity has not opposition

it
opposed to
but holds
within itself; and that,
without opposition, reality would not be reality,
because
it
would not be development and
life.'
Unity
is
the positive, opposition the negative

is
but the negative

far as negative.
also positive, positive in so

it
Were
not so, the fulness and
richness of the positive would be unintelligible.

If the
analogy between poetry and philosophy be

if it
not satisfactory,
is
be not sufficiently clear what
meant by a concrete concept, which as the

form of development corresponds to
in-
logical
THE DIALECTIC
tuition as its poetical form,
21
say,
we might
sciences
now
that comparisons and metaphors are
more
readily-
chosen
from
the
natural
(sacrificing
exactitude of analogy to aptness of comparison),

that the concrete universal, with
opposites, expresses
life
;
its
synthesis of
l!
life
and not the corpse of
it
gives the physiology, not the anatomy, of
the
real.
Hegel
calls his
doctrine of opposites dialectic,
rejecting, as
liable to
cause misunderstandings,
the other
opposites,
formulae of unity and coincidence of

is
because in these stress
laid only
upon
the
unity,
and not
at
the
same time upon the
opposition.
The two
abstract elements, or the

calls
opposites taken in and by themselves, he
moments, a figure taken from the moments of the

lever,
and the word "moment"
is
sometimes also
applied to the third term, the synthesis.

lation of the
-
The
re-
two
first
to the third
is
expressed by
the word "solution" or "overcoming" [Aufheben).
And
that, as
Hegel
intimates,
means
that the
two
moments
term
in their
separation are both negated,
but preserved in the synthesis.

(in relation to
The second
^
the
first)
appears as negation,
and the third (in relation to the second) as a

^
negation of negation, or as absolute negativity,
which
is
also absolute affirmation.
If,
for conveni-
22
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
we apply numerical symbols relation, we may call the dialectic
it
ence of exposition,
to this logical
a triad or trinity, because

of three terms
;
appears as composed
but Hegel never ceases putting
us on our guard against the extrinsic and arbitrary

character of this numerical symbolism, which
is
altogether unsuited to the expression of speculative truth.
And
indeed, to speak accurately, in
the dialectic triad
we do not
think three concepts,

is
but one single concept, which

universal, in
its
the concrete
own
inner nature and structure.
More than
it
that, in
all
order to obtain this synthesis
is
above
things
necessary to define the
opposition of the terms.
And
if
the
activity
intellect,
which defines the opposition be called
and the
it is
activity
which yields the synthesis reason,

is
evident that intellect
necessary to reason,
;
is
moment of it, is intrinsic to it and this, indeed, is how Hegel sometimes considers it. Whoever cannot rise to this method of thinka
ing opposites can
make no philosophic affirmation

This has already been ex-
which
its
is
not self-contradictory and passes into

contrary.
own
emplified in the discussion of the antithesis of
monism and dualism.

first triad
And
it
can be seen in the

:
of the Hegelian Logic
the triad which
comprehends
in itself all the others,
and which.
THE DIALECTIC
as
is
23
well
known,
is
constituted by the terms
being,
nothing,
and becoming.
?
What
is
being
without nothing
What
is
pure, indeterminate,
i.e.
unqualified, indistinguishable, ineffable being,
being
in general,
it
not this or that particular being

?
How can
i.e.
be distinguished from nothing

is
And,
on the other hand, what

nothing conceived
nothing without being,

without determina-
in itself,
tion or qualification, nothing in general, not the
nothing of this or that particular thing
? ?
In
what way
is
this distinguished
from being
To
take one of the terms by itself comes to the same

thing as to take the other by
itself, for
the one
other.
has
meaning only
in
and through the
Thus
to take the true without the false, or the

evil, is to
good without the
make
of the true someis
thing not thought (because thought
struggle
against the false), and therefore something that

is
not true.
And
similarly
it
is
to
make
of the
good something not good

is
willed (because to will the
to negate the evil),

is
and therefore some-
thing that
the
not good.
Outside the synthesis,

into
two terms taken abstractly pass
one
another and change sides.

in the third
first
;
Truth
is
found only
that
is
to say, in the case of the

is,
triad,
in
becoming, which, therefore,
as
Hegel
says, " the first concrete concept."
"
24
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
Nevertheless, this
error,
which consists
the
synthesis,
it
in
is
taking
the
opposites
outside
constantly reappearing.
And
against
there
must always be directed the polemic which shows,

as has just
been shown, that outside the synthesis,

This polemic
is
the opposites are unthinkable. the dialectic in

sense.
its
" subjective " or
"negative"
But
it
must not be confused with the true

dialectic
and proper meaning of the doctrine of

in its objective or positive sense,
which
may
also
be designated the logical doctrine of development.

In this negative dialectic the result
synthesis, but the annulment, of the
is
not the
two opposite
;
terms, each on account of the other

fore the terminology,
and there-
which we have explained
above, also acquires, like the word " dialectic

itself,
somewhat
so far as
different
it is
meaning.
intellect, in
not an intrinsic
it,
The moment
on the
of reason and inseparable from
but
is,
contrary, the affirmation of the separate opposites
which claims to stand alone as ultimate truth,

intellect, in this sense,
becomes a derogatory and

is
depreciatory term.
the eternal
is,
It
the abstract
intellect,
It
enemy
of philosophic speculation.
at bottom, reason itself failing of its

is
"It
not the fault of the

further,
intellect
own task, if we do
not proceed
but a subjective impotence
THE DIALECTIC
continue in that state."
^
25
of reason which permits that determination to
The
:
triad itself gives
place to a quatriad of terms
two affirmations
and two negations.

reason,
intellect
Reason intervenes as negative
to
;
bring confusion into the domain of
but
if,
in
this
negative capacity,
positive
it.
it
prepare
and
compel
the
doctrine,
it
neither produces nor states
The
aspect
confusion between the merely negative

of
Hegel's
dialectic
and
its
positive
content has given rise to an objection to the
Hegelian doctrine of opposites, which

battle-charger so often
aries
:
is
the
mounted by
his advers-
a Brigliadoro or a Bayard so very old and

I
broken down that

still
do not see how any one

it.
succeeds
:
in
keeping his seat on
It
has
been said
(as
If
being and nothing are identical

proves),
Hegel proves or thinks he

?
how
can
they constitute becoming

theory,
Becoming, on Hegel's
opposites,
must be a synthesis of
not of
identities, of
which there can be no synthesis.

a,
a = a remains
being
is
and does not become
b.
But
identical with nothing only
when being
one
and nothing are thought badly, or are not thought

truly.
Only then does

the other,
'
it
happen
a
that the
equals
not
as
= a, but
iii.
rather as
Wissensch. der Logik,
48.
26
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
For the thought which thinks them
truly,
= 0.
being and nothing are not identical, but precisely opposite,
and
in conflict
is
with one another.
And
two
this conflict
(which
also a union, since
wrestlers, in order to wrestle,

!)
must
lay hold
of one another
is
becoming.
It is
first
not a concept
added
to or derived
from the
two taken
in
their separation, but a
unique concept, outside of
which
there
are
two abstractions, two unreal

itself,
shadows, being and nothing, each by

are, as such, united,
which
not by their conflict, but by
their
common
vacuity.
Another objection, which
has
also
seemed
triumphant, consists in observing that the concrete

universal,
with
its its
synthesis of opposites,
the
very mark of
logical
concreteness
it
is
not
a pure
concept, because
tacitly introduces in
the representation of
movement and
of develop-
ment an element of sense or
intuition.
But
if
the words are given their precise significance,
sense
and
intuition
should
mean
something
particular,
is
individual,
and
historical.
And what
there in the Hegelian concept of the universal
which we can show to be particular, individual, or

historical?
What
in
can
an element,
the
we separate out as such way in which, for instance,
we can
distinguish the particular, individual, or
THE DIALECTIC
historical
27 of
element
in
the empirical concept
"oak," or of "whale," or of "feudal regime"?
Movement
It
or development has about
it
nothing
of the particular
and contingent.
;
It is
a universal.
has no sense-element
it is
a thought, a concept,
Its
the true concept exactly adequate to reality.

logical
theory
is
the
concrete
universal,
the
synthesis of opposites.
objection
But
it
may be
the
in
that this
was intended
against
character
logic.
which the concept possesses
Hegel's
There
not
a
it
is
not something empty and indifferent,

" recipient "
mere
ready to receive any
content, but the ideal form of reality itself

if,
And
in
this objection, " logic " is
taken to be only
an inconceivable abstraction, an abstraction which

"
is
commanded,"
is
like that of mathematics,
and
" intuition "
taken to be the speculative concept,
the criticism reveals, not a defect in Hegel, but

his true glory.
For
it
makes
it
clear that he has
destroyed that false concept of a barren and

formal logic as an arbitrary abstraction, and to
the true logical concept he has given a character
of concreteness, which can also be called

tion,"
" intui-
when
that
intuition
signifies,
as
we showed
from the
filia
above,
philosophy must
divine
Poetry,
spring
bosom
of
matre pulchra
pulchrior.
28
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
Philosophy, thus set in friendly relations with
poetry, enters that state which in these days of
Nietzschian phraseology
It is
is
called
" dionysiac."
a state to terrify timid thinkers, who,
howthem-
ever, in so far as they philosophize, find

selves, without
knowing
it,
in the
same
condition.
Thus our Rosmini, aghast

and not being, exclaimed
as true, as
it
at the dialectic of
:
being
it
"
And even were

deny
is false,
that being can
itself,
the question would
always recur
what could
move
it
to
deny
itself?
What
reason could be
assigned for this alleged desire, on the part of

being, to deny itself and to ignore itself? why, in
short, should
itself? for
it
make
this
mad
effort
to
annul
the system of Hegel does nothing less
than make being go

into all things.
mad and
introduce madness
Thus he
claims to give
them
I
life,
movement,
free
passage, becoming.
do not
in
know
mad."
if
a similar effort was ever
made
the
world, to
^
make
same
all
things,
even being
itself,
go
Probably Rosmini did not remember

description,
that the
though certainly
in far
better style, had been given

in the
by Hegel himself
Phenomenology, when, having represented

of reality, that process of coming
the
1
movement
Saggio storico-critico suite categoric e la dialettica, posthumous work
(Turin, 1883), p. 371.
THE DIALECTIC
into being
29
itself is with-
and passing away which
out beginning and without end
he
concluded
with the words:

lirium, in
"The
true
its
is
the Bacchic deis
which not one of
components
not
dis-
drunk
solved
is
and since each becomes immediately
when
the others withdraw,
that
^
delirium
Reality
also simple
and transparent repose."

it
seems mad, because

mad, because
that
life
it
is life
philosophy seems
breaks up abstractions and lives

It
is
in thought.
a madness which
is
the highest wisdom, and the true and not metaphorical
who become mad with the empty words of semi-philosophy, who take formulas for reality, who never succeed in raising
are they
madmen
themselves to that clear sky whence they can see

their
work as
it
really
is.
They
see the sky above
their heads, unattainable

to call
it
by them, and are ready
a madhouse.
this
Another manifestation of
fear
is
same
irrational
this,
the cry that, with such logic as

is
the
very base and rule of man's thought
taken from
him ^the
principle of identity
and contradiction.
Proofs are cited in Hegel's frequent outbursts of

ill-humour against this principle and in his saying that
for
it
there should be substituted the

:
opposite principle
'
that everything
d.
is
self-contra-
Phdnom.
Geistes^ p. 37.
so
dictory.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
But things do not stand precisely
in
this case.
identity, for
Hegel does not deny the
principle of
otherwise he would have been obliged
to admit that his logical theory
was
at
once true
and not
ally,
true, true
and
false
that philosophic-
being and nothing could be thought in the
synthesis, and also, each in
and
his
for itself, outside
the
synthesis.
And
all
polemic,
all
his
philosophy, would no longer have any

it
meaning
;
would never have been seriously accomplished

it
whereas, obviously,
is
most
serious.
So
far
from destroying the principle of identity, Hegel

gives
it
it
new
in
life
and
force, in
makes
it
what
truly
it
ought to be and what
ordinary thought
is
not.
reality
parts.
For
ordinary thought, in semi-philosophy,

divided, as has
it
is left
been seen, into two
Now
it is
is
the one,
it is
now
the other, and
when
the one,
not the other.
And
yet,
in this effort after exclusion,
the one passes into

It
the other and both are fused in nothingness.

is
these
truly
unthinkable
contradictions
that
ordinary thought claims to justify and embellish
by adducing the principle of identity.
attention
be paid to the words of Hegel alone, we might

say that he does not believe in the principle of
identity
;
but
if
we
look closer,
in is
we
see that what
Hegel does not believe
the fallacious use of
THE DIALECTIC
the principle of identity
31
it
the use made of

retain unity
by those
abstract thinkers
who
by cancelling
opposition,
or
as
retain
opposition
by cancelling
unity;
or,
he says, the principle of identity
taken as a "law of the abstract intellect."

fallacious use exists,
That
because we are unwilling to

is
recognize that opposition or contradiction

defect, or a stain, or
not a
an
evil in things,
far
which could
a subjective
be eliminated from them,

error of ours
;
less
but that
it is
indeed the true being
of things.
selves,
All things are contradictory in themthis contradiction.
and thought must think
This establishes truly and firmly the principle of

identity,
which triumphs over opposition

is
in think-
ing
it,
that
to say, in grasping
is
it
in its unity.
Opposition thought
opposition overcome, and
overcome precisely
identity.
in virtue of the principle of
Opposition unrecognized, or unity unis
recognized,
apparent obedience to the principle,

is its
but in effect
the
real contradiction.
There
is
same
difference
between Hegel's method of
thinking and the method of ordinary thought as

there
is
between him who confronts and conquers
an enemy and him
who
closes his eyes in order
not to see him, and believing that he has thus got

rid of him,
becomes
his victim.
"
Speculative
thought consists in determining opposition as
32
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
and
in
thought does,
itself.
so
doing
it
determines
thought,
It
does not,
like representative
allow itself to be dominated by opposition into

resolving
its
own determinations only

^
in
other
is
determinations or in nothingness."
a nexus of opposites,
Reality
and
is
not rendered dis-
sipated and discrete thereby.
Indeed,
reality
it
is
in
and through
generates
opposition
that
eternally
is
itself
Nor does thought, which

the reality of reality,
supreme
dissipated
reality,
become
unity
in
or discrete,
but
it
grasps
it.
opposition and logically synthesizes
The
dialectic
of
Hegel,
like all
discoveries
of truth, does not
come
but
to drive preceding truths to confirm
from their place,

them.
tinction
and to enrich
in
dis-
The
and
concrete
in
universal, unity
is
opposition,
the
true
and
complete principle of identity, which allows no

separate
rival
existence,
either
as
complement
in
or
to
the
principle
it
enunciated
older
doctrines,
because
has
absorbed
the older
it
principle into itself

its
and has transformed
into
own
flesh
'
and blood.
Wissensch. d. Logik,
ii.
67-8.
II
EXPLANATIONS RELATING TO THE HISTORY OF THE DIALECTIC

Some
historians of philosophy
have thought that
the problem of opposites was the whole problem of philosophy.
Hence
a
the history of the various

of
this
attempts
at
solution
problem
has
sometimes been taken

philosophy, and
place
for the
whole history of
in
the one
has been narrated

dialectic,
is is
of the
other.
But the
so
far
from being the whole of philosophy,

the
not even a
whole
of
logic
although
it
most
its
important part of
crown.
it,
and might be
called
The
evident
the
reason for this confusion will perhaps be
from what was said above.
It
lies
in
intimate
connexion
between
the
logical
problem of opposites and the great disputes of

the monists and the dualists, of the materialists
and the
spiritualists.
These disputes form the D 33
34
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
part of the
treatises
principal
and histories of
not constitute
is
philosophy, although they do
its
primary and fundamental task, which

expressed by the phrase "
this
better
know
thyself"
But
apparent coincidence will disappear, when

consider
a
that
logical
;
,we
to
think
logically
and
are
to
construct
theory
it
of
logic,
two
different things
dialectically,
that
is
one thing to think

logical
and another to have

of
dialectical
conthis
sciousness
thought.
Were
not
so,
the Hegelian solution would have already
been
finally
in
given by the
fact
many
philosophers
dialectically,
who have
or at
least
thought reality
given on the occasions when they

it
have thought
in that
way.
all
Doubtless, every
the others.
All
philosophic problem calls up
can be discovered implicit

the solution, true or
is
in
each one, and in
false,
of one problem, there

all.
the solution, true or false, of
But
the
if it is
impossible altogether to separate

of
individual
it
histories
philosophic
problems
from
one
another,
distinct
;
is
also true that these
problems are
and we should not confuse the various

of the organic
all
members
whole,
if
we do
mind,
as
to
if
not
wish to lose
idea of that whole itself

in
This principle we must bear

are
to
we
the
circumscribe
the
enquiry
HISTORY OF THE DIALECTIC

development of the
dialectic
35
historical
doctrine
of opposites,
and thereby to recognize the place
and originality that belong to the thought of

Hegel.
limits,
This
enquiry,
within
these
precise
has perhaps not yet been carried out in
a suitable way.
that
This
is
due also to the

of
fact
the
general consciousness
philosophic
studies
those
not
who
been
cultivate
has
persuaded of the importance and truth of the

doctrine, so
that there
have been wanting the

the
directive
criterion
necessary
for
interest
into
and
its
research
history.
The
is
best
that
has been collected on this theme,

in the
to
be found
in his
books of Hegel himself, especially

-^
History of Philosophy
and here
it
is
opportune
rapidly to review his scattered remarks, making,
where
necessary,
some
additions
and
some
comments.
Was Hegel
Had he
the
first
to formulate the logical
principle of the dialectic
and of
if so,
its
development
they
? ?
forerunners, and
who were
Through what forms and through what approxi^
See also the historical introduction to the Logik
u.
Metaphysik ot
Kuno
Fischer (2nd ed., 1865), and the Prolusioiie ed introduziofie alle
lesioni di filosofia of B.
Spaventa (Napoli, 1862
reprinted by Gentile
with the
new
and
title
La
Filosofia italiana nelle sue relazioni con la filosofia
europea, Bari,
dialectic
1908).
For the immediate antecedents of the Hegelian

phases of
its
for the various
development, see preferably Al.
Schmid, Entwickelungsgeschicte der hegelschen Logik (Regensburg, 1858).
36
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
its
mations did that principle pass, prior to attaining in him to

perfection
?
The
doctrine
of dialectic
is
the
work of
mature thought, the product of long philosophic

incubation.
In
Hellenic antiquity
refutations
we
find,
in
Zeno of Elea's
motion,
to
of
of
the
the
reality
of
the
first
perception
difficulties
rise.
which the principle of opposites gives

is
Motion
form
in
the very fact of development in the

it
which
offers
itself
most
easily
to
reflexion.
in
And
Zeno, having set the

resolved
of
difficulties
very clear
relief,
the
contradiction
by
denying
the
reality
movement.
(His
arguments of the arrow, of Achilles and the

tortoise, etc.,
in
showed the contradictions involved

Motion
is is
space and time.)

;
an
illusion of
the senses
being, reality,
to
one and immovable.
In
opposition
Zeno,
Heraclitus
made
are
of
movement and becoming the

sayings
are:
is,
true reality.
His
the
"being
and
is
not-being
not,"
same," "all
flows."
and also
"everything
river,
His comparisons of things with a

is
of the opposite which
in its
opposite as sweet
and
lyre
bitter are in
;
honey, of the
bow and
of the
his cosmological
views of war and peace,
of discord and harmony,
show how profoundly

as
Heraclitus
felt
reality
contradiction
and
II

Hegel used
to
37
there
development.
say
that
was not one affirmation of Heraclitus that he

had not incorporated
is
in his
own
the
logic.
But
act
it
to
be observed,
that
by
very
of
incorporating
them
in his doctrine,
he conferred
upon
these
affirmations
far
more
precise
signification than they
had possessed when they
stood alone.
in
Without doubt we must hold them
high esteem, just as they have been handed
down, an ingenuous and penetrating vision of

the truth.
too
But we must not

lest
insist
upon them
the
risk
much,
we
should
run
of
historical falsification,
and make a Post-Kantian
of a Pre-Socratic.
The same remark

dialectic
applies
to
the
Platonic
of
the
Parmenides,
the
Sophist,
the
Philebus,
historical
dialogues
place
whose
interpretation
and
are
matters of
much
dispute.
Hegel thought
that they contained the essence

i.e.
of the Platonic philosophy, the attempt, pass from the universal,

still
to
as yet abstract, to
the concrete universal, to posit the speculative
form
of
the
concept
as
unity
there
in
diversity.
Questions are discussed
concerning the
one and the many, identity and non-identity,
motion and
rest,
coming
into being and passing

finite
away, being and not being,
and
infinite.
38
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
The
one
is
the limited and the unlimited.

of the Parmenides
is
is,
conclusion
that the
itself,
and
is
not,
in
itself
and other than
and that things

distinction
relation to themselves
and
in
from
others are and are not, appear and do not appear.
And
all
of this indicates an attempt to
overcome
a difficulty, which issues only in a negative result. In any case, as

dialectic,
its
Hegel noted,
in Plato
we
find the
but not yet complete consciousness of

It is a
nature.
speculative
method
of thinking,
greatly superior in value to the argumentations
of the Sophists or to the later ingenuities of the

Sceptics
logical
:
but
it
does not attain to the level of
doctrine.
Of
Aristotle,
is
it
may be
said
that his logical consciousness
in
:
disagreement
his logic
is
is
with his speculative consciousness
purely intellectualist, his metaphysic

of the categories.
a study
We
can
of
discover
nothing
or
more
a
than
an
extremity
need,
perhaps
an
of
conscious-
ness of helplessness and

lacuna,
in
indication
of the
the
doctrines
Philo
the
Jew
by
the
and of the Gnostics.

absolute
being,
is
For them, true
reality,
considered
unattainable
thought
the
ineffable,
inscrutable
God,
abyss where
all is
negated.
all
This
is
equally true
of Plotinus, for
whom
predicates are inadequate
II

it.
39
to the Absolute, each of
them expressing but a

is
determination of
In Proclus
developed an
idea that Plato had already mentioned of the trinity or the triad.
idea
the
the
idea
This
spirit,
idea,
is
and the
great
of
the
Absolute as
philosophic advance implicit in Christianity.
Nicholas of Cusa, inheriting Neoplatonic and

mystical traditions, was the thinker who, at the
beginning of the modern world, most energetically

expressed the need of the
human
spirit to
emerge
from dualisms and

that simplicity
conflicts,
and to
raise itself to
where opposites
first
coincide.
And
the
Cusan was the
to
is
perceive
in
that this
coincidence of opposites
antithesis to the
merely abstract logic of Aristotle, who conceived

contrariety as
perfect
difference,^
and did not
admit that unity could contain contraries, since he regarded each thing as the privation of
opposite.
that unity
is
its
Cusanus
maintained
against
this,
prior to duality, the coincidence of
opposites prior to their separation.

view, that which unites
as
But
in his
the opposites, thought

is
simple
coincidence,
incomprehensible to
man,
either
by sense,
or
by reason,
or
by
intellect,
which are the three forms of the human

remains a simple Hmit
ia-rl Sia<j>opk r^Xeios,
;
mind.
1
It
and of God,
a.
'H imvTi6T7is
Metaphys. 1055
40
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
is
who
ledge
a union of
is
all
contraries,
no other know-
permitted,
save an incomprehensible
comprehension, a learned ignorance.^
His thought seems to assume a more positive

function
in
Giordano
Bruno,
who
proclaims
himself a disciple of " the divine Cusan."
Bruno
also upholds the coincidence of opposites as the
best
principle
of
a philosophy
that
;
has been
forgotten and must be resuscitated
and gives
of
an
eloquent
description
of
the
circle
unification
contraries,
of
the
perfect
and
of
the
straight line, of the acute
and obtuse angle, of
heat and cold, of corruption and generation, of love and

hate,
of poison and antidote, of the
spherical and the plane, of the concave
and the
convex,
of wrath
and patience, of pride and

liberality.
humihty, of avarice and

is
And
there
an echo of the Cusan

:
in
these
memorable
the greatest
words
"
Whoever wishes
and
to
know
of
secrets of nature, let
him study and contemplate

contraries
the least
opposites.
to
the greatest
is
and
Profound
the magic that
knows how
draw the
contrast, after
having found the point
of union.
This was the direction of Aristotle's
thought,
1
when he
Cusan,
see
posited privation, conjoined

Fiorentino,
ii.
On
the
//
Rhorgimento
filosofico
nel
Quattrocento (Napoli, 1885), cap,

;
41
with a determinate disposition, as the progenitrix,
parent and mother of form

attain to
it.
but he could never
He
he
could not, because stopping at
the -enus of opposition, he was hampered in such

a
way
that
failed to
descend to the
species of
contrariety,
so that he did not attain, did not
even
erred
fix
his
eyes upon
the
goal.
Hence he
in the
at
every step, through saying that the
contraries could not truly
come together
same
subject."
In his naturalistic intuition, the
principle of the coincidence of opposites

to
becomes
Bruno a kind of
:
sesthetic
principle of con-
templation
"
We
delight in colour, not in one

it
specific colour,
in one,
whatever
may
be, but chiefly
which weaves into
itself all colours.
We
the
in
delight in a voice, not in a single voice, but in
one
complex
sound
which
voices.
results
from
harmony of many
We
a
delight
sensible, but chiefly in that

in
itself
all
which comprehends
sensibles
in
itself
in
knowable which
;
comprehends
every knowable
all
in
an
apprehensible, which embraces
that can be
understood
in
being which
completes the
is
whole, but chiefly in that

itself"
^
which
the whole
The
principle
is
no longer beyond
fine {V.
De
la causa principio
ed uno. Dialogue V., in
Dialoghi
metafisici, ed. Gentile, Bari, Laterza),
1907, pp. 255-257.
42
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
;
man's reach
it
is
power of the human mind

It
though not yet a rigorously logical power.

still
awaits
its
justification in a doctrine of the
concept.
The
asserted
unity
of
opposites
is
also
earnestly
by the philosophus theutonicus,
Jacob
Bohme.
force, says
He
posits the antitheses in
their full
Hegel, but does not allow his thought
to be arrested
by the strength of the
differences,
and proceeds
is
to posit unity.
For him, the
" yes
"
unknowable without the

in himself
" no."
The One, God,

is
is
unknowable.
If
he
to
be known,
he must distinguish himself from himself, the Father must duplicate himself in the Son.
sees
Bohme
the
triad
in
all
things,
and fathoms the
significance of the Christian trinity, but he too
does not succeed in putting his thoughts into

the form proper to thought.
The
philosophy
of
the
seventeenth
and
eighteenth centuries which developed under the

influence of the mathematical science of nature,
was not capable even of setting the problem

the form
in
proper to thought.
in
For Descartes,
God, but
in
thought and extension unite

incomprehensible manner.
unite in Substance
third
:
an
For Spinoza, they

is
but " mode," which
the
term after substance and attribute, does

Leibniz
evil
43
is
not constitute a dialectic synthesis.
wrecked on the problem of

an optimism of but
slight
and arrives
at
philosophical value.
The
popular
philosophy
all
of
the
eighteenth
century resolves
antitheses in God,
who
thus
becomes an assemblage of contradictions, the

problem of problems.
Only here and there do

thinker
hints
we
find
in
some
of
is
solitary
and
suggestions
the
dialectic
solution.
For
example, there
Vico,
life
the philosophus italicus, G. B.
who
not only actually thinks history and
dialectically,
but recoils
from the logic of
Aristotle,
and from that of Cartesian physics and
mathematics, founding on the one hand a logic

of fancy (poetic logic), and of history (logic of
certainty)
;
on the other he gives importance to

logic
the
inductive
of observation
and of ex-
periment, as presage of a more concrete logic.
Another
to Vico,
solitary figure, in
many
respects akin
said
John George
Hamann (who was
by
all
Jacobi to unite in himself in a high degree
extremes) showed himself from youth onwards

dissatisfied
with the principles of identity and
reason and attracted by that of the coincidentia

oppositorum.
in the
Hamann had met with this

minimo
it
principle
De
triplici
et
mensura of Bruno head
and he had carried
" for years in his
44
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
it
without being able either to forget

stand
sole
it."
or to underto
Yet
it
seemed
of
all
to
him
be "the
sufficient
reason
contradictions and
the true process of their solution and levelling,"
which would put an end to

abstract thinkers.^
all
the contests of the
of this principle
From Hamann knowledge passed to Jacobi, who pubHshed

it
the extracts relating to

in
which are to be found

But Jacobi, hampered
the works of Bruno.

his theory of
by
immediate knowledge, though

lacuna,
he indicated
the
was not himself

it
in
a position to pass beyond
by
strict
logical
thought.
The
at
reason for this
is,
that in order to arrive
a truly logical statement of the problem of
opposites,
and
to escape the mystical
and agnostic
it
solution (which indeed
was no
was
solution),
was
necessary that
the
Kantian
It
revolution
should
be
his
accomplished.
Kant, although
whole
Critiqiie
of Pure Reason seemed to

important
Hamann much
pronouncement
less
than
the
the
sole
of
Bruno
on
principium
in
coincidentiae oppositorum
who
was precisely
virtue of that critique, the true progenitor of the
new
principle of the
coincidence of opposites,
ii.
' For Hamann, cf. Hegel, Vermischte Schriften, and the Essays collected in B. Croce, Saggi fil. iii.
36-37, 87-88,
.1

the
45
of
new
dialectic,
that
is,
of
the
logical
doctrine of dialectic.
It
is
true that Kant, like his immediate pre-
cursors, from Descartes to Leibniz
and to Hume,
intel-
was under the influence of the prevailing

lectualism and
of the ideal
of a mathematical
science of nature.
Hence
his
agnosticism, the
phantom of the
of the
thing-in-itself,
the abstractness
his
categorical
imperative, and
respect
time, he
differ-
for traditional logic.
But
at the
same
maintains and renders more effective the
ence
between
intellect
and reason.
In
the
of
Critique
of Judgment he propounds a
reality,
mode
thinking
which
is
no
longer
merely
mechanical, no longer either the external teleo-
logy of the eighteenth century, but

internal teleology
;
is
genuine
he catches sight of the idea

Better
still,
beyond the abstract concept.

exposition
in his
of the
Antinomies,
Kant advances
the problem of opposites a stage further.
The
the
Antinomies
certainly
seem
insoluble,
but
contradictions spring directly from the necessities
of the
human mind.
is
What
is
more important
(what indeed
his true glory), he discovers the
a priori synthesis; and that, as Hegel observed,

can be nothing
opposites."
but " an original
synthesis
of
With Kant
this synthesis
does not
46
receive
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
its full
value..
It is
it
not developed in the
dialectic triad.
light,
it it
But once
had been brought to
could not be slow to reveal the riches
which
is
contained in
itself.
The
a priori synthesis
the source of transcendental logic, which exists

logic,
by the side of the old

it,
at first parallel to
it.
but inevitably bound to end by destroying
Kant
also throws into relief the form of triplicity,

it
and although he employs

trinsic
in
an altogether exit
manner, yet he does employ
constantly,
and almost with the presentiment of

greater destinies.
its
near and
The
task that awaited philosophy after

:
Kant
seems evident
to create the
to
develop the a priori
synthesis,
new
philosophical logic, to solve the
problem of opposites, by destroying the dualisms

that had not only
been
left intact,
but rendered
little
more powerful, by Kant.
And
if
there be
more
in
Fichte than there was in Kant, yet in
him everything becomes more simple and more

transparent.
The
thing-in-itself is denied.
But
on the other hand the concept of the Ego retains

a subjective significance, and does not accomplish
the true unity of subject and object, so that Fichte
does not succeed

to spirit,
in justifying
nature in relation
in
and ends,
in
faith.
like
Kant,
the
moral abstractof
a
ness
and
But
idea
new
II

is
47
Logic
better
is
determined, so much so that

;
philosophy
conceived as a doctrine of science

triplicity
and the form of

position,
assumes a dominant
as
thesis,
antithesis
and
synthesis.
Schelling takes another step forward, in arriving

at the conviction that
it
is
not possible to think
philosophically, except through the principle of

identity
of
opposites
for
he
conceives
the
Absolute as identity of opposites.

the Absolute
Its
is
But
for
him
indifference of subject
and
object.
It
is
differences
are
merely quantitative.
spirit.
not yet
subject
is
and
And
is
his
theory
of knowledge
without
logic,
because for him

aesthetic
the instrument
templation.
of philosophy
deficiency
con-
This
in
Schelling
never
succeeded
overcoming, and the consequences

rise to
were so serious as to give

called his
irrational.
what has been
second manner, the metaphysic of the
Hegel,
as
is
known, appeared
later
in
the
philosophical world than his

Schelling,
young contemporary
whose
disciple in a certain sense he

for Schelling
may
be called.
of arrival,
But what
was the point

transition
;
was
for
Hegel a point of
what was
for Schelling the final phase,
whence
was
for
began the process of
his degeneration,
Hegel a juvenile phase.
He
too for
some time
48
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
knew
knew no other instrument

thetic contemplation,
intuition,
of philosophy than aesintuition as intellectual
and knew no other philosophical system
than the work of art.

his
He
too (in the
first
sketch of
system that has been preserved) placed at the

spiritual
summit of
Hegel
development, not philosophy,

scientific -spirit
but religion.
of
led
But the profound
him gradually to recognize
that
philosophy cannot have any other form than that

of thought, in the precise sense in which thought
differs
from fancy and
intuition.
Certainly,
it
was no longer thought

istic
in the old logico-natural-
sense
after
Kant,
Fichte and Schelling,

:
that
was no longer a possible meaning

of the
the
intellectualism
two preceding centuries
had been mortally wounded.

logical form,
There must be
which should preserve and reinforce

conquests of philosophy
;
the recent
a logical
its
form, which should be the form of the real in

integrity.
Everything urged
;
Hegel
into
this
path of enquiry
his
admiration for the harmony

;
of the Hellenic world
his participation in the

;
romantic movement, so rich in antitheses

theological studies,
his
from which
it
seemed
to
him
that the Christian idea of the Trinity, attenuated
or rendered void by Protestant rationalism, should

find
its
refuge
and
its
true
meaning
in
the
II

;
49
new philosophy
his speculative studies on the
Kantian synthesis and antinomies.
And
with
the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), he detached
himself
from
the
philosophical
tendencies
to
which he had previously adhered, and brought

to light his principle of solution of the
problem
of opposites
in
no
longer a simple coincidence

or
;
a third
unknown
unintelligible term
no
longer motionless unity

of Schelling
;
no longer the
intuition
but unity and diversity together,

dialectic.
movement and
Romanticism
The
preface
to
the-
Phenomenology has been called " Hegel's farewell

to
"
;
but the truth
is
that
it
was
only because of his secession that Romanticism
was saved
had
in
for philosophy.
Only a romantic who
a certain sense surpassed Romanticism

its
could pluck
philosophical
fruit.
The
logic of the dialectic is therefore to
be
of
considered
true
in
and
original
discovery
Hegel, not only
comparison with his remote
predecessors, but also with those

to him.
If a
who
are nearest
proof of this be sought, one need

latter.
only consider his attitude towards these
Kant,
who
disclaimed Fichte, would have disIn Kant's
claimed Hegel even more decisively.
philosophy
ditions
for
there
were not the necessary con-
understanding Hegel, and therefore
50
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
criticism.
there could be no true
But Hegel,
who
combated
in
definitive
manner
the
erroneous tendencies and aspects of the Kantian

philosophy,
and
its
all
the
obsolete
also
views which
the
appeared
in
train,
was
man who
it it
showed what a new and

had made to philosophy.
fruitful
contribution
is
So
true
this that
has been possible to say that no one but Hegel

has understood Kant.^
Schelling always remained
deaf and hostile to the conception of his former

friend
;
and during
the
half
century that
it
he
survived, he obstinately opposed to

theory,
his
own
the
grown
(as
in
old and degenerate.
Sometimes,
to
indeed
the
celebrated
preface
Fragments of Cousin), while violently rejecting the

philosophy of Hegel, in the same breath he complained that he had been robbed by
him
without
however anywhere
clearly formulating either the
nature of the theft, or the error.
Hegel, on the
other hand, always venerated Schelling as " the

father of the
new philosophy."
dialectic that there
He
was
recognized
in him,
the
gleam of
and
always calmly pointed out his merits and his

1
" For
my
to see, I have
part, I have to declare that, so far as it has been given me no evidence that any man has thoroughly understood Kant
except
Hegel,
or
that
this
latter
himself remains
aught else than a never effectuated"
problem whose solution

(J.
has
been arrogated,
but
i.
H.
Stirling,
The Secret of Hegel, London, 1865,
14).
I.

If a
51
itself
defects.
superior point of view

it
show
such by comprehending within

inferior
;
those that are
if
the proof of the truth of a doctrine

at
lie in its
power of furnishing
discovered
;
once the
justifica-
tion
of truths
by others and the

then this sort of proof
explication of their errors
has not been wanting to the doctrine of Hegel.
Kant did not

into
fully
understand himself, and
fell
the arms of the neocriticists,
who turned
from his transcendental logic to merely naturalistic
logic
Schelling did
not fully understand

credit as the second
in
himself and ended with

Schelling.
little
But
for
Hegel, both ended

their spiritual son
:
his
great mind,
who was
an end
more worthy than
that of serving as an exercise
for little scholars, or of
surviving each by himself
in the failure to
know
himself.
Ill
THE DIALECTIC AND THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY

To
think dialectically, and to think the logical
theory of the dialectic, are, then, two distinct
mental
acts.
Yet
it
is
clear that the

it
second
act
strengthens the
itself
first,
it
by giving
consciousness of
and freeing
false
from the embarrassments that
arise from
ideas concerning the nature of
philosophic truth.
in
This
is
precisely
is
what occurs
the case of Hegel.
He
not only the great
theorist of the dialectic form of thought, but the
most complete dialectician who has appeared

history.
in
His
dialectical
treatment of the ordinary

it
conception of reality modifies
in several parts
and changes
all
its
general aspect.
all
All the dualities,

all
the fissures,
the hiatus, and, so to speak,

reality
the rents and

itself to
wounds with which
shows
be lacerated by the abstract

closed and healed.
52
intellect,
are
filled,
complete unity
DIALECTIC AND REALITY

is is
53
[gediegene Einheii)
realized
the coherence of
;
the organic whole

life
re-established
it.
blood and
again circulate within
And we must
opposites,
note above
all
that there dis-
appears a series of dualisms, which are not true

not
even
true
false
distincts. distincts,
They
are
false opposites
and
terms which
cannot be thought either as elements constitutive

of the concept as universal, or as
its
particular
forms, for the simple reason that, as formulated,
they do not exist.

refers
Hegel (who,
in his criticism,
here and there to the difference between

distincts
them and genuine
and opposites) exactly

is
determines their genesis, which

the
to be found in
phantasmagorias of abstraction.
They
in
are
dualities of terms,
which have their origin
the
empirical sciences, in the perceptive and legislative
consciousness,
in
the
sciences
of
phenomena.
immersed
in
These
sciences, just because they are
phenomena, whenever they attempt
to rise to the
universal are compelled to break up reality into
appearance and
accident
finite
essence,
external
and
internal,
and substance, manifestation and

infinite,
force,
and
many and
spirit,
one, sensible
and super-
sensible,
matter and
and such
like terms.
if
Were
these terms truly distinct (or
they truly
designated distincts), they would give rise to the
54
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
in
m
the
problem of the conjunction of distincts

concrete concept.
Were they true opposites, really

designated things truly and
give
rise
opposed
really
(or if they
opposed),^ they would
to
the
problem of the synthesis of opposites.
But, since
they are not, since they assume their appearance

of distinction and opposition, only through the
arbitrary abstraction of the empiricists, naturalists
and mathematicians, criticism of them, achieved by a negative

different process
dialectic.
dialectic,
is
accomplished by a
from that which directs positive
They
are,
in truth,
unthinkable
and every
attempt to overcome the duality, by insisting
upon either of the two terms, as

distinction from the
into
it
appears
in
it
other,
ends by changing
preserves
the
other.
Materialism
finite,
the
phenomenon, matter, the

external, etc.
;
the sensible, the

is
but, since that

its
term
naturally so
infinite
constituted as to require
other, the
appears again in that
finite,
assuming the form
of a quantitative infinite, of a finite from which
another
finite
is
born, then another
finite,
then
another, to infinity.
This
is
what Hegel
called
the false or bad infinite.

1
Supernaturalism pre-
of meanings which those words have
These and similar reservations are made necessary by the plurality had in philosophical language.

;
55
serves the other term as sole reaHty
but essence
without
appearance,
the
internal
without
the
external, the infinite
without the
finite,
become
something inscrutable and unknowable.
Here
which
appears the thing-in-itself, which would better be

called vacuity in itself: the great mystery,
(Hegel says)
is
a very easy thing to

is
know
of
because not only

thought, but
the thing-in-itself not outside

is
on the contrary
a product
thought, of thought which has been pushed on to
pure abstraction, and which takes as
its
object
empty identity with

from
its
itself
The
thing-in-itself,
very inanity, leads back to the pheto the finite, to the external, as alone
;
nomenon,
real
it is
and thinkable
and precisely
finite
in as
much
by
as
phenomenon,
positive
it is
and external.
is
The
ness,
correction
given
the
concrete concept, by that character of concrete-
proper
to
it
the
Hegelian
naturalistic
concept
and
differentiating
from
and mathe-
matical abstractions.
terms
nor
is
it
The real is neither of those it is the concrete their sum

:
concept, which
itself
fills
the emptiness of the thing in
and annihilates the distance, which had

It is
separated that from the phenomenon.

absolute,
the
which
is
no longer a parallelism of
;
attributes or an indifference to both
but which
56
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
new
in
m
new
the
accentuates and confers

of
the
terms,
significance on one
which,
virtue
of that
significance, absorbs
itself.
and brings the other within

subject,
;
Thus substance becomes

overcome.
absolute determines itself as spirit and idea
and
is
materialism
is
Thus
too reality
no longer an internal confronting an external

nature (according to the saying of Goethe, which
Hegel accepts and makes

nut nor
shell,
his
own) has neither
but
is
all
of a piece.
is
not beyond the many, but
the
The one many spirit

;
is
is
not
beyond body, but

is
is
body.
And
super-
naturalism
overcome.^
With
the destruction of these false distinctions

all
and oppositions, which may

represented
be summarily
essence
by
the
is
duality
of
and
appearance, there
connected the purely dialectic
treatment (the positive dialectic) of true oppositions.
These may be summarily represented bythe

being and not-being.
;
antithetic duality of
This
for
is
a dualism founded upon real opposition
no
one could think of denying the existence of
evil,
of the false, of the ugly, of the irrational, of death,
and the antithesis of these terms to the good, to the

true, to the beautiful, to the rational
and to
life.
For the
criticism of these concepts, see especially the doctrine of
the Essence, which forms the second part of the Logic.

Nor does Hegel deny
logical
it.
57
his
But owing to
in
doctrine,
which sees
the very act of
thinking opposites, the conception of reality itself

as development,
he cannot consider the negative
term, the side of not-being, as something opposed

to
and separated from the other.

exist,
it,
If
the negative
term did not

reality,
development would not exist

the positive term, would disis
and with
appear.
The
negative
is
the spring of developreal.
ment
opposition
all
the very soul of the

is
The
and
lack of
is
contact with error

;
not thought
not truth
but
is
the absence of thought,
and therefore of
istic,
truth.
Innocence
is
:
a characteracts,
not of action, but of inaction but he

felicity,
is
he who
errs
who
a
acts
is
at grips with evil.

is
A
or
true
felicity that
truly
human
manly,
not a beatitude that knows no suffering.
Such a beatitude
fatuity
would
;
be possible only to
it
and imbecility
in
and the conditions of
find
no place
strife is
the history of a world which,

"
where
wanting (says Hegel),
shows
its
pages blank."
If this
be true (as
it
doubtless
is,
in accord-
ance with the general and profound persuasion of

humanity, expressed in
many
aphorisms, which
seem sometimes
relation
to
be Hegelian phrases), the

ideal
between the
and
the
real,
the
58
rational
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
and the
real,
cannot be understood in the
sense that these words bear in the philosophy of

the schools;
rational
rational.
that
is
is,
as the conflict
between a
is
which
not real and a real which

is
not
is
What
is
real
is
rational,
and what
rational
real}
The
idea and the fact are the
same.
the
What,
for instance,
scientific
do we
call rational in
domain of
thought, but
is
thought
itself?
An
it is
irrational
thought
not thought; as
call rational in
thought
unreal.
What do we
?
the domain of artistic production

art itself:
The work
no
of
an
artistic fact, if
;
it
were ugly, would

artistic
;
not be artistic fact

" reality,"
it
is
certainly
"
which includes the " note
of ugliness
but
is,
artistic unreality.
What
is
called irrational,
then, the unreal
and cannot be considered
as a species or class of real objects.
Without
it is
doubt, even unreality has
its reality,
but
the
reality of unreality, the reality
which belongs to
not-being in the dialectic triad, to the nothing
which
is
not the
real,
but the stimulus of the
real,
the spring of development.
Those who, relying on

identity of the real
this
doctrine
of the
and the
rational,
have applied
the term optimism to the Hegelian conception of

reality
1
and of
life,
have grossly misunderstood his

;
Preface to the Philosophy of Rights
and
cf.
Encycl.
6.

Hegel cancels neither the
false evil
59
nor the
meaning.
ugly, nor the
nor the vain
nothing could be
so dramatic,
more alien
to his conception
of reality,
and
in a certain sense so tragic.

is
What
it
he sets
himself to do
to understand the function of evil

to
and of error
error
is
and
understand
as evil
and as
surely not to
it.
deny
it
as such, but rather
to strengthen
To do
this is not to close one's

falsify
it
eyes upon the sad spectacle, or to
with
the puerile justifications of the external teleology

of the eighteenth century (as, for
instance, did
at
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre).
the
But the truth

ascription
bottom
of
this
is
superficial
of
optimism to Hegel
pessimist
;
that he cannot be called a

is
because pessimism
the negation of
the positive term in the dyad of opposites, just as
optimism
is
the negation of the negative term.
And
indeed, have there ever been or can there

?
ever be self-consistent optimists or pessimists
No more
mistic side
than there have been self-consistent
monists or dualists.
;
Every optimist has a

and from
side.
pessi-
just as every pessimist proposes a
method of
liberation
from
evil
error,
and therefore has his optimistic

evil are
Good and
|
opposed and correlative terms

is
and the
affirmation of the one

other.
the affirmation of the
Hegel, who denies both, while preserving
6o
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
is
m
that
both in the dialectic synthesis,
beyond both
up
is
optimism
philosophic
and
pessimism,
high
on
Olympus, where
;
there
neither
laughter nor tears
for
laughter and tears have
become objects
overcome
in
for spirit,
and
their agitation
is
the serenity of thought, as in the

life.
concreteness of
Fact,
it
reality,
is
always rational and ideal

always wisdom
it
is
always truth,
But,
is
and moral
goodness.
is
is
be
well understood,
fact
;
by
fact
meant what
truly
reality.
really
by
reality,
what
The
fact,
illogical,
the unpleasing,
is
the ugly, the base,
the capricious,
it
not
fact,
;
but the absence of
is
void, not-being
at
most
to
it is
the
demand
for true being, the

itself
stimulus
reality,
not
reality
Hegel
as fact
never
dreamed of accepting and justifying

is
what
misplaced and perverted

justification
it,
and may
it,
this not
be his
for
considering
?
as
he
old
considers
unreality
and void
As the
;
saying has
it.
Nature abhors a void

so,
i.e.
but
is
man
the
most certainly does

death of his activity,
If
tion,
evil,
because the void
of his being as man.

justifica-
Hegel's philosophy furnishes the

not of
evil,
but only of the
function
of
on the other' hand he was never weary of

against
warning
the
facility
and
superficiality
Ill

which
in
6i
with which people are wont to declare irrational

that
effectually
has
this
been
and
is,
and
which,
virtue
of
effective
existence,
is
cannot be considered irrational.

great
those
Hegel
the
of
enemy
of the
souls
discontented with
Hfe,
sensitive
and agitate
and
in the
who perpetually declaim name of reason and virtue,

is
(to take
an historical example) of Faustism, grey and the tree
which proclaims that theory

of
life
green, which
rebels against the laws of
custom and of existence, which despises truth and science, and instead of being possessed by
the celestial
earthly spirit.
spirit,
falls
is
into
the power of the of encyclopaedic
He
the
enemy
of
hu-manitarianism
and
Jacobinism,
which
opposes
its
own
exquisite heart to hard reality,
and sees everywhere the tyranny and roguery

of priests and despots
ness,
;
and of Kantian
is
abstract-
of a duty which
always outside
is
;
human
always
feeling.
at
strife
He
hates that virtue, which
with the course of the world

birth
which
itself
brings stones to
against
it
that
it
may dash
knows
just
them
;
which
never
what
wishes
which certainly has a big head, but

it
big
because
is
swelled,
and which,
is
if
it
be
seriously
occupied with anything,

its
occupied
with
admiring
own
unapproachable
and
62
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
perfection.
be, the
m
the
moving
ought to
He
hates
the
Sollen,
ideal,
impotence of the
never
it,
which
always ought to be and

finds a reality
is,
which never
adequate to
when, as a matter
ideal.
of
fact, all reality is
adequate to the
"
is
The
destiny
of that
"
ought to be
all
to
become
wearisome, as do
(Justice, Virtue,
the
most beautiful words

etc.),
Duty, Morality, Liberty,

for
in the
mouths of those
resounding
in
whom
they are mere
words,
noisy barrenness, where

soil
others act
the
who do
not fear to
it
the purity of
In
idea by
translating
into
deed.
the
this
strife
between the " ought

virtue
to be,"
between
vain
and the course of the world, the
course of the world always wins.

the course of the the
For
either
world does not change and

virtue
demands of
at the
reveal
themselves
as
arbitrary
and absurd, and therefore as not

:
truly
virtuous
most they are good

;
intentions,
laurels
perhaps excellent intentions

of
but
leaves,
" the
good intentions are dry
which have
never been green."

is
Or
else,
the end of virtue
achieved,
it
enters into and

;
becomes part of
in this case
the world's course

is
and what dies

world,
;
not
the
course of the
but
virtue,
it
separated from the actual
unless indeed
is
willing to continue living, in order to sulk at
its
II.

for
63
real
is
ideal
having been guilty of becoming
The
illusion arises
;
from the struggle, which
certainly real
but not as the struggle of the

the world,
itself,
individual with
but as the struggle
of the world with

itself
of the world that
makes
himself
"Each one
wills
and
believes
better than the world in which
he
is
but he
who
is
better, only expresses

it,"
^
his world better
than others express
What
of ideal the
then
is
this
repugnance of the bearers
towards the actual, of the admirers of

individuality?
universal towards
Individu-
ality is
nothing but the vehicle of universality,

its
the process of
becoming
effective.
Nothing
can be achieved
of
if it
does not become a passion

can
is
man
nothing great
be
done
without
passion.
And
is
it
passion
activity,
which
is
directed
toward particular interests and ends.

true
that
particular interest
is
So much
the vehicle of the
universal,
that
men by
the
very pursuit of their

the
universal.
own
private ends
realize
For
instance,
one
man makes
between
a slave of another, slave

1
and from the
strife
and master, there
arises in both the true
From
the aphorisms, to be found in the appendix of Rosenkranz's
HegeVs Leben, p. 550. For the satire on the SoUen see especially the Phenomenology, section Vernunft, B, and the introduction to the
Philosophy of History,
: ;
64
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
their
idea of liberty and of humanity.
Their actions
intentions,
achieve more than
conscious
and
fulfil
the
immanent
intentions, the intentions

itself
of reason, which avails
of them
this
is
the cunning of reason {die List der Vernunft).
This must not be understood

sense.
in a transcendental
is
The cunning
of reason
the imaginative
all
phrase which denotes the rationality of
that
man
of
truly does (of
any human work whatsoever),

reflective
whether or no he has
it.
consciousness
Thus
the artist creates the
work of
art
and does not understand the completed work

yet,
is
though he
not
fail
to
for
understand
it
it,
his
work
irrational,
obeys
the
supreme
and
rationality
of
genius.
Thus
of
the
good
it
ingenuously heroic soul believes that
simply
obeys
the
;
impulse
it
its
own
of
individual
its
sentiment
in
is
not
conscious
the of
it
action
the
way
are
this
in
which
observer
later
;
and and
it
the
is
historian
conscious
not
for
reason
take
less
good and
less heroic.
Great
is
men
the very will of reason, what

in
real
and substantial
the wants
of
of their
their
time and people, and

individual
make
them
own
passion, their
"
own
peculiar interest
"
they are the

spirit.
men
is
of affairs
precisely
of the
world-
And
this
the
reason
why
in

who judge them
in
65
those
in
superficially never succeed
discovering
them
anything
but
of
mean
their
is
motives.
They
the
see
no other aspect
although
justify
work
than
;
personal,
that
essential
that
is
and thus they

is
the
;
proverb
no man
a hero
to
his valet
and
this
true, as
in
Hegel observes (and Goethe takes

repeating
the acute
is
pleasure
remark),
not
because the great
man
is
not a great man, but
because the valet
a valet.
For
this
reason,
honours and gratitude are not usually accorded

to great
men by
this
their contemporaries
satisfaction
at
nor do
they receive
the
the hands of
public opinion of posterity.

is
What
who
falls
;
to
them
not honour, but immortal glory
they
live in the spirit of
those very people

yet are
full
strove
with them, and
who
of them.
life,
This Hegelian manner of considering
translated into terms of current politics, has been
held to be a conservative
it
spirit.
For
this
reason
has been said that just as Rousseau was the
philosopher of the French Revolution, so Hegel
was
the
special
philosopher of
the
Prussian
Restoration, the philosopher of the secret council

of
government and of the bureaucratic ruling of

But without going
into the question
the state.
of the greater or less truth in fact of these affirmaF
66
tions,
it
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
is
important to distinguish between the
historical
Hegel and the philosopher Hegel.

individual, the
The
part,
social
historical
Hegel who took

in the
under certain determinate conditions,
and
political
problems of his time and of

to the bio-
his nation,
the
Hegel who belongs

political historian,
grapher and the
must
not be
alone
confused with the philosopher Hegel,
who
belongs to the historian of philosophy.
The
it
position from which a particular political attitude
can be deduced shows by that very fact that

not pure philosophical truth.
is
Philosophy should
not meddle (observed the same Hegel) with things

that
do not concern
it
and therefore Plato might
well have spared himself the trouble of giving
advice to nurses on the

children in their arms
;
way they should
carry
and
Fichte, of " construct-
ing
"
model police passport, which should be

according
as to
its
furnished,
particulars
portrait.
to
him,
not
only
with
bearer, but also with his
Hegel's
conception
of
life
was so
and
it.
-philosophical that conservatism, revolution,
restoration, each in turn, finds its justification in
On
1
this point the socialist
Engels and the con^
servative historian Treitschke

H.
Treitschke, Deutsche
;
are in agreement
ig.
Geschichie
im
Jahrhundert,
vol.
iii.
(1885), pp. 720-1
F.
Engels,
Ludwig Feuerbach, und
der Ausgang der
klassischen deutschen Philosophie (Stuttgart, 1888),

for
67
both recognize that the formula of the identity

could be invoked
of the rational and the real

equally by
differ
all political
opinions and parties, which
from one another, not as to this
common
on
formula, but in determining
what
is
the rational
:
and
real,
and what the
irrational
and unreal
every occasion that a political party prepared for
war against an institution or

claimed
its
class of society,
i.e.
it
pro-
adversary irrational,
devoid of solid
and
real existence;
and by
this declaration
brought
All
itself into
line with
Hegelian philosophy. Hegelian

school
the wings
of
the
variously
participated in the revolution of the nineteenth

century,
and especially
in that of 1848.
It
was
even two Hegelians
who wrote
in that year the
vigorous Communist Manifesto.
But the formula

label
;
common
it
to
all
of
them was not an empty
stood for the fact that the Jacobinism and the
crude naturalism of the century of the " Enlightenment'' were henceforth ended, and that
of
all
all
men
parties
had learned from Hegel the meaning
of true political sense.
The
early work, in which,
examining the condition of Germany, he defined

it
as an " abstract state " {ein Gedankenstaat), has

critics
reminded one of his

Secretary
actual
of the
Florentine
of the
and
his
profound
Italy
analysis
conditions
of the
of the Renais-
68
sance.^
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
And Cavour and Bismarck seemed
men
in
m
to
appear as splendid embodiments of the Hegelian

theory,
whom
the rational and the real

in
were always fused and united,
whom
they were
not estranged from one another, in the painful
and
futile
conflict, characteristic of
the minds of
idealizers
and dreamers.
to
The consequence
false distincts
which
this
mediation of
opposites led, combined with the destruction of
and opposites, was the exaltation
of history.
facts
History
the
life
of the
human
race,
which are developed
in
time
ceases
to
be
in-
conceived as something separate from and
different to the essence of things, to the idea, or,
what
is
even worse, as something which weakens

idea.
and degrades the
Thus had
systems
it
history appeared
;
in the various dualistic
not to speak of
all
materialism,
which,
since
denies
values,
cannot admit the value even of history.
And
between historians and philosophers there had

sprung up a profound disagreement, a mutual
misunderstanding.
the
This
is
not the place to recall
most
ancient
forms of this disagreement,

is
such as the philosophy of Descartes, which

pre-eminently antihistorical
Oriental pantheism, as
'
;
and Spinozism
called
Werke,
p.
(or
Hegel
<.
it,
adding
Cf.
K. Fischer, Hegels Lehen
59.
m
that
it

was erroneously considered
"),
69
to be atheism,
but should rather be called " acosmism

the
and
all
sensationalism
and
intellectualism
of the
eighteenth century.
But even among
Hegel's
own contemporaries,
system of Herbart,
idea of development
for
history has no place in the

is
who
;
altogether without the
nor in that of Schopenhauer,
whom
the
life
of the
human
;
race does not
present problems of progress
nor in the positivist
systems of
Comte and
of Spencer.
In the system of Hegel, on the contrary, where

the infinite and the finite are fused in one, and
good and
is
evil constitute a single process, history

is
the very reality of the idea, spirit

its
nothing
it,
outside
fact,
historical
development
it is
in
every
precisely because
fact, is
a fact of the
idea and belongs to the concrete organic whole

of the idea.
For Hegel,
therefore, all history

this point, too,
is
it
becomes sacred history.
On
may
and
the
be said that
in a certain
sense there
general
agreement
admiration
because
has
particular
attention
to
always
been
accorded
great historical works, which were inspired by the

influence
of
Hegel
histories
of religions,
of
languages, of literatures, of rights, of economics,
and of philosophy.
historical studies
But Hegel's influence
in
has been generally considered
70
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
who was
a passionate student
historical
it
an accident, due simply to the personality of the

master,
and a conIt
summate master of
not observed that
knowledge.
the
was
was
really
inevitable
dialectic
false
consequence
of
that
much combated
principle of the solution of opposites
and of
its
opposites
or of the Hegelian logic in
most
characteristic aspect.
historical
Thus
of the
the advancement of
study was recognized as a great benefit,
but the true reason
advancement was
ignored
the consequence was accepted, the pre-
miss was rejected.
The
is
sacred
character,
assumed by
history,
an aspect
of
the
character
of immanence,
proper to Hegelian thought, to his negation of

all
transcendence.
Certainly,
it
has been equally
an error to praise or to blame his thought as

materialism
and naturalism
for
how
could
philosophy, which reveals the genesis of these

illusions,
a philosophy of activity, a philosophy

is
whose
principle
spirit
and
idea,
ever
be
naturalistic
and materialistic?
But when these
words were intended to signify the antireligious

character of Hegelian thought, there was
truth in the observation.
It
is
some
(I
a philosophy
is
should say the only philosophy), which

irreligious,
radically
because
it
is
not content to oppose

itself to religion
71
itself,
or to range
it
alongside of
but
it
resolves religion into itself and substitutes

for
it.
itself
And
is
for
this
it
same reason, from

called the only
;
another point of view,
may be
philosophy that
task
for
is
supremely religious
since
its
to satisfy in a rational
manner the need

all
religion
the
highest
it
of
man's needs.
;
Outside of reason
leaves nothing
there
is
no insoluble
which
remainder.
"The
answer
questions
to
philosophy has
in this, that they
no
have
their
answer
ought not
to be asked."
The
sophy,
perpetual youth of the Hegelian philoits
indomitable vigour,
lie,
its
unexhausted
fecundity
in the
then, in the logical doctrine, and

in
thought effectively
conformity with that
doctrine.
And its vigour,
fecundity, and youth are
increasingly apparent even in our

is
own
day, which
marked by a new efflorescence of neurotic

barbarism engendered by positivism, and
mysticism, and of insincere religiosity, by an antihistorical
the Jacobinism which frequently ensues in these

conditions.
Whoever
feels the dignity of
man
and the dignity of thought can find

in
satisfaction
no other solution of
conflicts
and of dualisms
than in the dialectical, the solution
won by
the
genius of Hegel.
The one
philosopher,
who more
than others
72
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
be ranged with Hegel in this respect,
m
is
can
G. B. Vico,
whom
have already referred to as
the precursor of the antischolastic logical doctrine,
an
aesthetician
like
Hegel, a
preromantic,
as
Hegel was a romantic, yet resembling him

in
closely
his
genuinely dialectic thinking.

is
Certainly
less radical
the attitude of Vico toward religion
than that of the later

if
German
philosopher.
For
Hegel, biographically speaking, was a very

Christian,
insufficiently
explicit
in
ambiguous
stating his position towards the
Church, Vico,
from the biographical point of view, was a most

sincere and unequivocal Catholic.
Nevertheless,
the whole thought of Vico
is
not only anticatholic,
but antireligious.
For he explains how myths

;
and religions are formed by a natural process
and
tion
his renunciation of this principle of explanain
the single case of

if,
Hebrew
history and
religion,
it
from
the subjective point of view,

it
be the idiosyncrasy of a believer, objectively
assumes the value of unconscious irony, similar

to the conscious irony of MachiavelH,
when he
forbore to enquire
how
the Papal States ever
subsisted beneath a very bad government, because
(he said) "they are ruled by superior reasons,

to
which the human mind cannot attain."

that
Vico
the
establishes
the true
is
identical with
Ill

only he
it.
7^
deed, that
truly
full
it
who
has done a thing can

to
know
his
Consequently he assigns
man
consciousness of the world of man, because

is
own work
all
and
to
God he
it,
restores
knowledge of
the rest of the natural world,
because he alone,
of
it
:
who made
has knowledge
slight
limitation,
which forms but a
obstacle to the revolutionary principle which he
enunciated, and which, once established for the
human
ligious
this
world,
must of necessity be extended
to
the whole of reality.
And
so profoundly irre-
was the whole theory of knowledge of

immediately
after
pious Catholic, that

it
his
death
was said that he had been obliged to
conceal part of the thought in his books, by order

of the churchmen.
Rationalists
saw
in
Vico their
master, while zealous Catholics reproved him as

the fountain-head of the antireligious
movement
upon
his.
of the historical epoch, which followed
But the resemblances between Vico and Hegel

are far
more evident when we leave
this point
of religion.
As Hegel was
in
opposition
to
and
in
conflict
with the antihistoricism of the
Encyclopaedists and of the Aufkl'drung, so was
Vico against
the
antihistoricism
that
if
of Descartes
and his school.
He showed
philosophers
did not bring their reasonings into line with the
74
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
if
authority of philologists, and

to
criticize
philologists failed
their
authority
by the reasonings
of philosophers, both equally achieved only half

their purpose.
As Hegel
set himself in opposi-
tion
to
the
Utopian preachers of abstractions
and champions of sentiment and enjoyment, so

Vico refuted at once both Stoics and Epicureans,
and
recognized
only
those
whom
railed
he
at
called
"political
philosophers."
He
those
learned
men who,
for
forgetting the struggles and the
pains of which the

" rules
web of reality
is
woven, dictated
conduct, impossible or dangerous to

condition, such as the regulation of the
the
human
duties of
life
by the pleasures of the senses
"
and who gave laws and founded republics
" in
shady repose," which " had no other habitation

than in the minds of the learned."
well
that
He knew
to
"governments must conform

the
the
nature
of
governed";
all
and
that
"native
customs, and above

liberty,
the customs of natural

trice,
cannot be changed in a
but only
Vico, not
gradually, in the passage of time."

less
than Hegel, had the idea of the " cunning of
reason.''
He
called
it
divine Providence
all
"
which,
their
out of the passions of men,

private advantage, for
intent
upon
the sake of which
they
lived like wild beasts in solitudes, has created
Ill

by which men
it
75
civil order,
live in
human
society."
What
does
matter that
?
men
are unconscious
of what they do
less rational.
. . .
The
fact is
not thereby the

fit
"
Homo
nan intelligendo
omnia,
because by understanding
things,
mind and understands
man explains his but when he does
not understand he creates things of himself, and

in so
doing becomes that into which he transforms
himself."
"And
must we not say" (he exclaims

is
elsewhere) " that this
a counsel of superhuman
. . .
wisdom
Without the force of laws
but
making use precisely of the customs of men, of

those habits which are as unrestrained
natural
as
the
it
expressions
of
human
nature,
It
...
is
divinely regulates
that
and guides them.

for
true
men have made

;
. . .
themselves
this
world
is
of nations
this
but the profounder truth
that
world
is
certainly the
outcome of a mind
often
different
from,
sometimes opposed, and
always superior to those particular ends, which
men had proposed

ends, this greater
to themselves.
These narrow
wider
in
ends, transformed into
means
for realizing
mind has always adopted
order to preserve the race of
man upon
the earth.
Thus,
for
example,
men wish
abandon
to give free course

their offspring,
to their lusts
and
to
and
thereby they create the chastity of
marriage.
76
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
families
arise
;
whence
heads of families wish
to exercise to the
extreme their paternal power

cities arise.
over their dependants, and thereby
The
reigning classes of nobles desire to abuse
their feudal
power over the plebeians, and thereby

free peoples
they are brought into subjection to the laws,

created by popular freedom
;
wish to
loose themselves from the restraint of their laws
and thereby they become subject to monarchs.
Monarchs wish
by debasing
dissoluteness,
to strengthen their
own
positions
their subjects with all the vices of
and thereby they reduce them

;
to
endure slavery from stronger nations
nations
wish to destroy themselves, and by going into

solitude to preserve
what remains of themselves,

It
whence,
like
the phoenix, they arise again.

all
was Mind
that achieved
this,
for there
It
was
intelligence in the actions of
men.
was not
;
Fate, for there was choice in their actions
nor
Chance,
for there
was continuity
always from the

results."
^
same actions there followed the same

These are
metaphors,
the
same
ideas, often with the
same
images, and
this
is
turns of phrase as in
Hegel.
And
the
more wonderful,
since
'
The
quotations from Vice are in the Works, ed. Ferrari,

;
98, 117, 136, 143, 146-7, 183, 571-2
vi.
235.
[See
now my
v. 96, 97, Philosophy
of G. B. Vico, Bari, 191
1.]
Ill

German
his
^^
the
philosopher
(at
least
during the
period that he was meditating his philosophy and
composing
Phenomenology of Spirit) does not

"
seem
to
have known the other
phenomenology,"
earlier,
meditated in Naples a century

title
under the
if
of l^he
New
Science.
It
almost seems as
the soul of the Italian Catholic philosopher had
migrated into the

in him, at
German
thinker, reappearing
the distance of a century, more mature
and more self-conscious.
IV
THE CONNEXION OF DISTINCTS AND THE FALSE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC FORM
How
then has
it
come about
that this system
of philosophical thought, established with such

logical
depth,
so rich
in
irresistible
truth,
so
harmonious with and sympathetic towards concreteness, passion, fancy,

to
and history, has appeared
some thinkers and has been condemned by

as abstract, intellectualistic, full of arbitrariartifice, at
them
ness and
variance with history, nature,

as the opposite of
and poetry,
it
in a
word
what
means
to
be
How
it,
can
we
explain the violent
reaction
successful
against
a reaction
which
it
seemed
and
definitive,
and which
would be
superficial (and Httle in the spirit of
Hegel)
to
explain as entirely due to accidental motives, to

lack of intelligence
and to ignorance
it
On
that
the
this
other hand,
how
has
come about
78
IV
DISTINCTS & FALSE DIALECTIC
79
philosophical system has been invoked in support
of the most different schools, such as materialism
and theism, the very schools which Hegel

tended to combat and to surpass
?
in-
And how
comes
it
too
(if I
may be
permitted a personal
instance,
which perhaps does not relate exclusI,
ively to a personal case) that
who am
writing
now with such

this
a feeling of complete agreement,
interpretation of and
commentary on the
Hegelian doctrine of the synthesis of opposites,

should for several years of
felt
my
mental
life
have
a marked repugnance to the system of Hegel,

it is
especially as
presented
in the
Encyclopaedia,
with
its tripartite
division into Logic, Philosophy

I
of Nature and Philosophy of Spirit, both as
understood
it
myself, and as
saw
it
expounded
and advocated by Hegelians

it
And how comes

I
that
even now,
feel
in
re-reading those works,
sometimes
the old
Adam,
the old repugnance,

all
arising within
this
me ?
The
inmost reason for

that
must be sought.
Now
we have
indi-
cated the healthy part of the system,

point out the diseased part as well.
we must
After having
shown what
is
living in the system of Hegel,

is
we
must show also what
dead
in
life
it,
the unburied
bones, which hinder the very
of the living.
And we must
not be too easily contented with
8o
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
orthodox Hegelians
a concession, which has often been offered by

strictly
the recognition that

many
of his state-
Hegel could and did

ments of
historical
err in
fact
and of the natural and
mathematical sciences, owing to the limitations

both of the general state of knowledge of his
time and of his
own
all
individual culture.
this
Such
system
Hegelians admit
part
of
the
must be re-examined and corrected, or even

reconstructed
of the
study.
from top to bottom,

of those special
in
the light
progress
branches of
that
it
The
implication
would be
is
only as
is
historian
and as
naturalist that
;
Hegel
deficient
and out of date
as philosopher, as
one who never founds

data,
his truth
upon empirical
rightly
he remains
intact.
His adversaries
this concession
;
remain unsatisfied with
because
the source of the dissatisfaction with the system

of
Hegel
is
not
the quantity or the quaHty of

it
the erudition which
contains (most admirable,
despite
its
deficiencies
and occasional archaisms),

I
but precisely the philosophy.
have declined
of
above
to
consider
the
influence
studies as
Hegel's
thought upon
historical
something
separate from and independent of the principles

of his system.
Here,
to
for
the
same reason,
cannot
consent
consider
the
cause of his
IV

as
8i
errors
independent
of
his
his
philosophical
principles.
Those
most
of
errors
which
have
seemed
or
for
historical
and
naturalistic, are at bottom,
the
part,
philosophical
his
errors,
because
his
they spring
from
thought,
from
method of conceiving history and natural

Hegel
that
is
science.
his credit
all
of a piece
and
it
is
to
his
errors cannot in general be
explained as an accidental series of inconsequent

irrelevancies.
The problem,
the
then,
is
to
seek
out
what
might be the philosophical error or errors (or

fundamental error, and the others derived
it)
from
which fused and combined

with
his
in
Hegel's
thought
immortal
discovery,
and
thereby to understand the
reaction against the
Hegelian system,
in so far as this reaction

all
was
not the usual obstructionism, which

truths
original
encounter,
but
rested
on
evidently
rational grounds.
And
since, according to
what ^
has already been said, the logic of philosophy
was the
it
special field of Hegel's mental activity,
is
to
be presumed that there we

error,
shall
in
find
the origin of the
which would
that
case be an error of logical theory.

It
is
therefore a just feeling of the direction

this search should
in
which
be conducted that G
82
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
criticism
in
has led anti-Hegelian

neglect
the the
particular
general
to
and incidental
itself
details of
system,
of the
and
to
set
to
exhibit
the
of
error
principle
of
the
synthesis
opposites
itself,
on the ground, either that the two
terms are not opposed, or that their synthesis

is
not
logical,
or that
it
destroys the principle

or
of
identity
and
contradiction,
on
similar
grounds.
Yet we have seen

is
that substantially
none of these objections
well
founded, and
every other objection that can be thought out

satisfactorily
for
proves to be equally unfounded
that principle resists
and
will
resist
every
examination and assault.

then,
is
The
in
error of Hegel,
;
to
be sought
in
his logic
but, as
it
seems
to
me,
another part of his logic.
In the rapid
summary
of the various Hegelian
doctrines given at the beginning of this work,
when
it
was important
dialectic,
to
go
directly
to
the
problem of the
only passing reference

of the
relation
was made
to
the
it
doctrine
of
distincts, or, as
listic logic,
would be expressed
in natura-
to the theory of classification.
That
closely,
doctrine must
now be considered more
because
it
is
my
firm
conviction
that
in
it
is
hidden the logical error committed by Hegel, so
weighty
in its
consequences.
IV

The
philosophical
83
concept,
is
the
concrete
of
universal
or
the
it
Idea,
is
the
synthesis
distincts, just as
the synthesis of opposites.

spirit,
We
talk,
for
example, of
;
or of spiritual
activity in general
but
we
all
also talk continually
of the particular forms of this spiritual activity.
And
while
we
consider
of these
particular
forms essential to complete spiritual achievement

(so that deficiency
in
any one of them offends

find
us and
impels us to
remedy, and
its
total or partial
absence shocks us as something
monstrous and absurd), we are also jealous and

vigilant that
no one of them should be confused

Therefore
with
any
other.
art
we reprove him
or
who judges
by
and so on.
by moral
criteria,
morality
artistic criteria,
or truth by utilitarian criteria,

if
Even
we were
to
forget
the
distinction, a glance at life

it
:
would remind us of
for life
shows the spheres of economic, of

activity almost externally
scientific,
and of moral
distinct,
specialist,
and
makes the same man appear a

as poet,
now
now
as
statesman,
itself
now as man of business, now as philosopher. And

remind
us
of the
philosophy
distinction,
should
is
for
it
not capable of expression
without specialization into aesthetic, logic, ethic,
and the
like
all
of them philosophy, yet each
84
of
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
them
a
iv
philosophy
distinct
from
the
others.
These
distincts,
of
which
at
we have given
once
unity
examples and
which
are
and
distinction, constitute a
connexion or a rhythm,
is
which the ordinary

not
theory of classification
capable
;
of
explaining.
Hegel
saw
this
very clearly
,the
and he never ceased to combat

of empirical classification
into
as
importation
the
philosophy,
conception
of
concepts
subordinate and co-ordinate.

fication
In ordinary classi-
one
concept
is is is
taken as
foundation
then another concept

to the
first,
introduced, extraneous
and
this
assumed as the
basis
of division,
like the
first
knife with which

into
one cuts
little
a cake
pieces,
(the
concept)
so
many
which remain separate one from another.

result,
With such procedure, and with such a

farewell to the unity of the universal.
Reality
breaks up into a number of elements, external
and
indifferent to
one another
is
philosophy, the
thinking of unity,
rendered impossible.
of
to
this
Hegel's
classification
abhorrence
caused
method
prior
of
to
first
him
reject
Herbart
statement
of
(incorrectly
credited
criticism)
soul,
with
the
the
of
this
conception
faculties
of
the
to
which
Kant
IV

adhered
1802^)
spirit
;
85
still
and
to
reject
(as
he
writes
in
that
as a
"
psychology
which
represents
"
the
bag
full
of faculties."
The
feeling that
spirit,"
we have
and
of the living unity of the
he repeats
445),
in the in
Encyclopaedia ( 379,
his other books, in
and
cfr.
all
the most various forms and on the most various

occasions,
" is
spirit
itself
opposed to the
different
forces,
breaking
faculties,
up of the
or
into
activities,
whatever they be, conceived as

of
independent
observed that
unitatem
criticism
one
another."
And
be
it
Hegel, always
sollicitus
se?vandi
this
far
spiritus,
was
able
to
develop
with far greater right

consistency than
"
and with
greater
Herbart,
who never
succeeded
in
making
his refutation of faculties
of the soul agree with his atomistic metaphysic,
and with his ethic and

of
aesthetic,
which consisted
from
each
catalogues
of
ideas,
separated
to
one
another and
without
in
relation
other.
But nevertheless,
of
the opinion of the writers
psychological
manuals
and
histories
of
philosophy,
in his
Herbart passes
spirit,
for a revolutionary
view of the
and Hegel almost as

have preserved the
a reactionary,
who
should
old scholastic divisions

1
Verhdltnis d. Skeptizismus zur Philosophie (in Werke, xvi. 130).
86
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
If "distinct" concepts
iv
cannot be posited in
separation but must be unified in their distinction,

the logical theory of these distincts will not be
the theory of classification, but that of implication.
The
ment
concept will not be cut
in
pieces
by an
external force, but will divide itself by a

internal to
itself,
it
move-
and throughout these acts

maintain
its
of self-distinction
will
own
identity
the distincts will not be in a relation of mutual

indifference,
but of lower and higher degree.
The
classification of reality
must be replaced by
the conception of degrees of Spirit, or in general of reality

:
the classificatory scheme by the scheme
oi degrees.
And
the thought of Hegel set out on this
path, the only one that conformed to the principle
with which he started, the concrete universal.
The
theory of degrees permeates

it
all
his works,
explicitly
his pre-
although
nowhere receives
Here,
full
and
reasoned statement.
cursors,
too,
is
too,
he had
;
whom we
should investigate
nearly
and here,
the
philosopher most
akin to him
perhaps Vico.
For Vico never distinguished

than as a series of degrees
spirit,
languages, governments, rights, customs,
religions, otherwise
spirit as sense,
imagination, and mind; languages
as divine mental language, heroic language,
and
IV

for articulate speech
:
87
language
governments as
;
theocratic, aristocratic,
and democratic
rights as
divine right, established
by the gods,
heroic right,
established by force, and
by
fully
human right, established developed human reason and so on.

;
For
this reason,
Vico too conceived philosophy,
not as a cabinet with separate pigeon-holes, but

as ''eternal ideal history,
histories
upon which
But
if
particular
appear
in time."
Hegel did not
know
the
work of Vico, he had other incentives
toward the solution which he sought.
The very
sensualism of the eighteenth century, especially

the
doctrine of Condillac,
its
notwithstanding the
its
poverty of
tions,
categories and of
to
presupposifar
seemed
him
valuable, in so
as
it
contained the attempt to render comprehensible

the variety of forms
in
the unity of
spirit,
by
of
demonstrating
their
genesis.
His
criticism
Kant
for
having simply enumerated the

in his tables
faculties
and the categories
was supplemented
having affirmed
by his appreciation of Fichte,
for
the necessity of the " deduction " of the categories.
But his true and proper precursor was Schelling's

system of identity, with the method of potentiality,
for
which reality developed

"
itself as
a series of
powers or degrees.
The
subject-object " (thus
did Schelling himself recall his juvenile concep-
88
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
virtue of
its
iv
tion in his vindication of himself against

" in
Hegel)
itself,
own
nature, objectifies
it
but from every objectification
returns victorious
at a higher
it
and shows
itself
on every occasion
until,
power of
subjectivity,
when
has ex-
hausted every one of
its virtualities, it
appears as
subject triumphing over
all."
What does the theory of degrees mean? What are its terms, and what is their relation? What difference does it present to the terms and
relation
of
the theory
of
opposites
In
let
the
the
theory of degrees, every concept
and
it
concept be a
to the
b,
is
both distinct from and united

is
concept
which
superior to
in
degree
hence (beginning the exposition of the relation)

if
a be posited without
a.
b,
cannot be posited
without
Again, taking as an example the
relation of
two concepts, a case which

length
elsewhere,^
that
have
and
studied
at
of art
philosophy (or of poetry and prose, of language
and
logic, of intuition
and thought, and so
on),
for
we
see
how an
in
insoluble puzzle
and enigma
empirical and classificatory logic resolves itself

naturally
speculative
It
logic,
is
thanks
to
the
doctrine of degrees.
'
not possible to posit
In the preface to the Fragments of Cousin.
In
my
Êsthetic as Science of Expression
and General
Linguistic.
IV

and philosophy as two
of a
distinct
89
art
and co-ordinate
e.g.
species
genus (which might be
the
cognitive form) to which

so
that the
in
both are subordinate,
presence of the one excludes the

the case
of co-ordinate
other, as
members.
distinctions
There
is
proof of this in the
many
which
all
between
poetry and
prose,
have been
given, and continue to be given,

vain,
of
them most
arbitrary
since
they
are
founded
is
upon
characteristics.
But the knot
unravelled,
when
we
think of the relation as one of distinction and

:
union together
(although
it
poetry can exist without prose

it),
does not exclude

;
but prose can
never exist without poetry
art
does not include

art.
philosophy, but philosophy directly includes
And
in fact,
no philosophy ever
metaphors,
exists
save
in
words,
images,
forms
of
speech,
symbols, which are
its artistic side,
a side so real
and indispensable
sophy
itself
that,
were
it
wanting, philo-
would be wanting.
is
An
:
unexpressed
thinks in
philosophy
speech.
not
conceivable
thing
man
be
The same
can
proved by
adducing other dyads of philosophic concepts,

the transition from rights to morality, or from the perceptive
consciousness
to
the
legislative
is
consciousness.
Thus
the real, which

itself,
one,
is
divided in
itself,
grows on
to use the
words
90
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
or,
iv
of Aristotle,
to use those
of Vico,
passes
through
its
ideal history
in
and
all
in the last stage,
which gathers up
attains to
If
itself
the preceding,
itself, in its
complete or perfect form.
now we
b
pass from the relation of the stages

the
and
(in
example
to
chosen,
relation
/3,
art
and
the
philosophy) and
opposites
in
pass
the
a,
of
the synthesis,
7 (employing
the example of being, not-being, and becoming),
we
shall
be able to perceive the logical difference

relations.
between the two
a and i are two
concepts, the second of which would be abstract
and arbitrary without the

its
first,
is
but
as
which, in
real
connexion with
it is.
the
first,
and
/S,
concrete as
On
;
the other hand, a and

7,
taken out of relation to

but two abstractions
is 7,
are not
two concepts,
the only concrete concept
we apply arithmetical symbols to the two connexions, we have in the first a dyad, in the second a unity, or, if we prefer it, a triad, which is triunity. If we wish to give the name
becoming.
If
(objective)
dialectic
both to
the
synthesis
of
opposites and to the connexion of the different

degrees,
we must
dialectic
not lose sight of the fact that
the
one
has a different process from

If
that of the other.
we wish
to apply to both
connexions the Hegelian terms
"moments" and
IV

is
91
"overcoming," which
at
once "suppressing"
note that
in the
and " maintaining," we must

terms bear different meanings
Indeed,
in
these
cases.
two
the
theory
of
degrees,
both
;
the
moments
synthesis
are concrete, as has been noted
in the
of opposites
both are abstract, pure

In the nexus of degrees a
being and not-being.

is
it
overcome
is
in b, that is to say, as
independent
suppressed and preserved as dependent

passing from art to philosophy negates
at
spirit in
art
and
the same time maintains

In
it
as the
expressive form of philosophy.
the nexus
/3,
of opposites, considered objectively, a and

their
in
mutual
distinction,
are
;
both
but
of
them
meta-
suppressed
and
maintained
only
phorically, because they never exist as a

distinct
and ^
from one another.

differences,
These are profound
which do not
permit that both modes of connexion should be

treated in the
same manner.
The
it
true
is
is
not in
the
same
is
relation to \h^ false as
to the g-ood;
nor
the
beautiful to
it
the ugly in the same

Life with-
relation as
is
to philosophic truth.
life
out death and death without

falsities,
life
are two opposed

is
whose truth
is
life,
which
its
a nexus of
and death, of
itself
and of
opposite.
But
truth without
goodness and goodness without
92
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
two
:
iv
truth are not

in a third
falsities,
which are annulled

which
term
they are
false conceptions,
resolve themselves in a connexion of degrees,

for
which truth and goodness are

:
at
once distinct
is
and united
since
it
goodness without truth
impossible,
is
it
impossible to will the good without

;
thinking
truth without
goodness
is
possible,
only in the sense in which that proposition coincides with the philosophic thesis of the priority
of the the
theoretic over the practical spirit,

art
with
theorems of the autonomy of

science.
a,
and the
autonomy of
Without doubt,
that
is,
being a concrete concept,
presenting the concrete concept in one

particularizations,
is
of
its
also
synthesis
of affirmation and negation, of being and notbeing.
Thus, to return again to the same exartistic
ample,
it
fancy lives as fancy

it
and therefore
itself itself
is
concrete,
is
activity
which affirms
affirms
against against
passivity,
beauty
which
being
ugliness.
And
and
not-being
as truth
become
and
particularized,
consequently,
falsity,
beauty and ugliness, goodness and
wickedness, and so on.
But
this contest
does
not take place /tr one degree in relation

for
to another;
those degrees, considered in their distinction,

its
are the concept of the spirit in
determinations.
IV

spirit
93
and not the universal concept of

in its
considered
dialectic of synthesis of opposites.

is
The
;
organism
but the
the struggle of
life
against death
members of the organism

Spirit
are not therefore

foot,
at strife
with one another, hand against

is
or
eye against hand.
development, history,
and
therefore
;
both being
spirit
and not-being, bespecie
coming
but
sub
is
aeterni,
which
history,
philosophy considers,
eternal
It
is
ideal
which
eternal
is
not in time.
the series of the
forms of that coming into being and
passing away, which, as Hegel said, itself never
comes into being and never passes away.

is
This
into
an essential point
if
neglected
we
fall
the equivocation, to which Lotze (alluding per-
haps to a passage of the Parmenides) referred
when he wrote,
that because the servant takes

it
care of his master's boots
does not follow that
the concept of servant takes care of the boots

of the concept of master
!
When we
with
art,
say that the

is
spirit is
its
not satisfied
and
driven by
dissatisfaction to
elevate itself to philosophy,
we speak
which
is is
correctly
only
we must
with
not allow ourselves to be misled
by a metaphor.
satisfied
The
spirit,
no longer
artistic
contemplation,
no longer
the artistic
spirit, it is
already beyond that level
94
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
it
is
the incipient philosophic spirit.

spirit
And
in
the
same way the
which
feels
itself dis-
satisfied with the universality of

thirsts for intuition
philosophy and
and
for
life, is
no longer the
philosophical but the aesthetic spirit, a single and
determinate aesthetic
in love
spirit
which begins to
fall
again with some determinate vision and

In the second, as in the
in
first
intuition.
case, the
antithesis does not arise
the
bosom
of the
degree that has been surpassed.

does not contradict does not contradict
itself as
As
philosophy
philosophy, so art
;
itself as art
and every one

the profound
knows the complete
satisfaction,
and untroubled pleasure, which springs from the

enjoyment of the work of
spirit
art.
The
in the
individual
passes from art to philosophy and passes

art,
again from philosophy to

that
it
same way
passes from one form of art to another, or

:
from one problem of philosophy to another

is,
that
not through contradictions intrinsic to each of
these forms in distinction from the others, but
through the contradiction that

real,
is
inherent in the
the
b to
which
is
becoming.
b,
And
universal
spirit
passes from a to
and from
a through
eternal
no other necessity than that of

nature, which
is
its
own
to be both art
and philosophy,
it
theory and praxis, or however otherwise
may
IV

itself.
95
determine
ideal
So
true
is
this
that
if
this
transition
were caused by a contradiction

itself as intrinsic to
which revealed
ate degree,
it
any determinto
would no longer be possible
return to that degree, which had been recognized

as self-contradictory
:
to return to
it
would be a
degeneration or a retrogression.
ever dare to consider
it
And who would

?
a retrogression to return
from philosophy to aesthetic contemplation
Who
spirit
.?
could ever judge to be contradictory or erroneous

either of the essential forms of the
human
That
transition of ideal history

it
is
not a transition,
.
or rather
this
is
an eternal transition, which, from

is
view-point of eternity,
a being.
Hegel did not make

tinction,
clear,
this
most important
to
dis-
which
have endeavoured
make
between the theory of opposites and theory
of distincts.
He
;
conceived the connexion of these
degrees dialectically, in the
manner of
to this
the dialectic
of opposites
and he applied
which
is
connexion the
triadic form,
proper to the synthesis of

of distincts and the theory
opposites.
The theory
became
of opposites
for
him one and the same.

that this should be
And
so,
it
was almost inevitable
owing
to the peculiar psychological condition
in
which the discoverer of a new aspect of the

himself (in this case, the synthesis of
real finds
96
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
He
is
iv
opposites).
so tyrannized over by his
own
of
discovery, so inebriated with the

that truth, as to see
it
new wine
everywhere before him,
and
to
be led to conceive everything according
to the
new
formula.
It
was
also almost inevitto the relations,
able that this should be so,

close as they are subtle,
owing
which unite the theory
of distincts to that of opposites, and both to the
theory of the concrete universal or idea.
There
are also in the theory of degrees, as in that of

opposites, various
that
is,
moments
that are overcome,
are negated, and at the

in the
same time mainlatter,
tained
is
former too, as in the
there
unity in diversity.
To
the
discern the differences

for a later
between the two theories was reserved

historical period,
when
new wine was matured

of the
lack
and
settled.
We
absence
in
can
find
proofs
of this
its
distinction
at
and of the confusion caused by

every step
in the
system of Hegel,
concepts
of
is
which the relation

presented
as
of a
distinct
always
relation
thesis,
antithesis,
and synthesis.
:
Thus we
soul,
find in the
;
anthropology
soul,
natural
;
thesis
sensitive
antithesis
:
real
soul,
spirit,
synthesis.
thesis
;
In
the
psychology
spirit,
theoretic
;
practical
;
antithesis
free
spirit,
synthesis
and
IV

:
97
again
thesis
last
:
intuition,
;
thesis
representation,
;
anti-
ethicity,
synthesis
thesis
;
or
civil
again,
in
this
anti-
the
;
family,
society,
thesis
the state,
spirit
:
synthesis.
art
is
In the sphere of
;
absolute
thesis
;
thesis
;
religion,
anti-
philosophy,
logic
;
:
synthesis
is
or
;
in
that
of
subjective
antithesis
logic
concept
thesis
;
judgment,
in
syllogism,
synthesis
is
and
;
the
of the
;
idea
life
thesis
knowledge,
antithesis
on.
the
absolute
is
idea,
synthesis.
And
so
This
triadic
the first case of that abuse of
offends so
form which has offended and still seriously all who approach the system
and
has
of Hegel,
been justly described
as
an abuse.
For who could ever persuade himis
self that religion
the
not-being of
art,
and
that art
and
religion are
two abstractions which
possess truth only in philosophy, the synthesis

of both
;
or
that
the
practical
spirit
is
the
negation of the theoretical, that representation

is
the
negation of intuition,
civil
society
the
negation of the family, and morality the negation

of
rights
;
and
that
all
these
concepts
are
unthinkable outside their synthesis,

thought, the
as
in state,
free
true
spirit,
ethicity,
in
the same
way
only
being and not-being,
which are
becoming
Certainly Hegel was not always
98
faithful
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
to
in
the
triadic
form
(and
indeed
essays
he
that
;
declared
one
of
his
juvenile
quadratum
and
often,
est lex
naturae, triangulum
particular
mentis)
in
developing
cases,
;
he
but
minimized the error of the triadic form
no such particular determination can suppress

the principle of division assumed as foundation.
On
other
occasions
the
triadic
form
seems
almost to be an imaginative
thoughts,
to
mode
of expressing
which of themselves do
truth.
not attain
their substantial
But to accept such

be tantamount
to
i.e.
an
interpretation
that
would
form
discrediting
in its logical value,

it
in precisely the
value which
dialectic
must most
or
fully
maintain
opposites.
in
the
synthesis
to
of
On
to
the other hand,
defend the
affirmations of
Hegel with
proceed
like
extrinsic
arguments
would
be
an
advocate
who
wishes to win with

truth
;
ingenuity rather than with
or
of
like
swindler
in
who
puts
forward
false
money money
good
alloy,
order to
pass
in the confusion.
The
is
error
is
not such
is
it
as
can be corrected
:
incidentally,
nor
an error of diction
it it it
an
essential
in
error,
which however small

in
may seem
has
the
summary formula
confusion
which
been
given
the
between
the

IV

produces
the
arises,
99
theory of distincts and the theory of opposites,

yet
say,
gravest
if
I
results
that
is
to
all
from
is
it
am
not mistaken,
that
philosophically erroneous in the system
of
Hegel.
This
we must now examine
in
detail.
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF ERRORS

INTO
PARTICULAR
CONCEPTS
OF TRUTH (STRUCTURE OF THE LOGIC)
AND
DEGREES
The
application of the dialectic of opposites to

of distincts,
(as
the relation
logical
carried
out
with
to
full
seriousness
indeed
was
be
expected
from
the
vigorous
and
systematic
it
mind of Hegel), was bound

a double consequence.
to entail, as
did,
On
the one hand, what

to
are philosophical
errors
came
acquire
the
is,
dignity of partial or particular concepts, that

of distinct concepts
really
distinct
;
and on the other, what are
concepts
were
lowered
to
the
level of simple attempts at truth, to incomplete
and
imperfect
truths
that
is
to
say,
they
assumed the aspect oi philosophical errors.
The
first
of these consequences of the
determined
find
it,
the structure
Logic, as
100
we
at
METAMORPHOSIS OF ERRORS
germ,
is
loi
least in
in
the Phenomenology of Spirit,
and as
Science
it
set forth later in detail in the great

in the small
of Logic (1812-1816), and
one of the Encyclopaedia (18 17,
1827,
1830).
The
second
determined
the
to
character
of
sesthetic
and
gave origin
the
two
philo-
sophical
sciences of history and
of nature,
as
they
may be
in
seen, chiefly in the Encyclopaedia,
and
the
courses
of
lectures
posthumously
published.
To
begin
with
the
first
point,
opposites
and distincts being confused with one another,

the abstract
its
moments
are
of the concept (which

is
in
truth
and concreteness
naturally
in the
the
synthesis
of
opposites)
to
taken to
be
related
one another
are
same way
higher.
that the lower
concepts
to
the
For
in
example,
to
being
and
nothing,
are
which
relation
becoming
two
abstractions,
in
become,
in
by
analogy, two degrees,

for
the
sense
which,
example,
in
the series of distinct concepts,
intuition,
thought, and practical activity, intuition

relative
and
thought are stages

practical
activity.
to
the
third
stage,
But what are
those
two
abstractions,
in
being
itself,
and
nothing,
taken
or
separately, each
but two
first
falsities,
two errors?
Indeed,
the
of these
corre-
I02
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
for
spends
allied
Hegel
to
the
Eleatic
or to
other
philosophical views,
as
which conceive the
absolute
simple
being,
all
and God as nothing

the
but
the
whole of
reality,
most
real.
The second
which
corresponds to the Buddhistic view,
conceives
nothingness
as
the
base
of
things, as the true absolute.
They
are therefore
two opposite, yet
similar,
philosophical errors,
both of which claim to think the indeterminate
and abstract as supreme
reality.
And
what,
on the other hand, are intuition and thought

but two truths?
The
first
term sums up the

of
whole
rise
imaginative
to
activity
man and
the
gives
a
;
particular
philosophical
is
science,
all
Esthetic
human
not two
the
second
crown of
rise to
scientific activity
and gives
the
science of sciences
Logic.
They
are, therefore,
unreal
abstractions, but
two concrete
and
real concepts.
this
Once
that
has been posited,
it
becomes
clear
owing
to the confusion
between the
of
dialectic
of
opposites
to the
and
the
connexion
distincts
and
assumption that the opposites, taken

fulfil
abstractly,
.
the
same function
as the distinct
into
concepts,
truths.
those errors
become transmuted
particular
truths,
still
They become
truths
of a lower degree of spirit,
but
necessary
spirit,
103
forms of
errors
kind,
or categories.
And when
these
have been baptized truths of a certain

there
in
is
nothing to hinder every error,

being
considered
particular
error
truths.
general,
The phenomenology of error thus assumes an ideal history of truth.

this transfiguration, has
the appearance of
This baptism,
and
will still
seemed,
seem
as
to
some, to be the recognition

it
of a principle
important as
is
profound.
Do we
not frequently speak,
even
in ordinary
language, of progressive errors, of errors which
open the way to truth?
Do we
?
not say that
humanity has learned more from certain errors

than
from many
in
truths
The
Eleatics
as
were
simple
wrong
being;
affirms
conceiving
that
the
of
absolute
theirs
but
error
nevertheless
partial
an
undeniable,
is
though
truth,
that the absolute
also being.
Descartes and
Spinoza were wrong

of
in positing the parallelism

;
mind and body, of thought and extension

unless,
but
thanks
to
that
very
error,
the
distinction
fixed
between the two

relief,
terms had
been
their
and thrown into

unity
how
could
concrete
have been thought afterwards?

in
Kant was wrong

as
presenting the antinomies

it
insoluble
but
was
thus
he
came
to
recognize
the
necessity of the antinomies, the
;; ;
I04
basis
in
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
of
the
dialectic.
Schelling
was wrong
identity
conceiving
the absolute as
simple
but that error of his was the bridge which had

to
be crossed to reach the conception of the
absolute as unity in opposition and distinction.
Unless
Plato
had
conceived
could
the
the
Ideas
as
transcendent,
how
merely
logical
concept of Socrates
into
ever have been changed

?
the
Aristotelian concrete [awoKov)
How
of
could the a priori synthesis of
Kant ever have

negation
appeared
without
the
sceptical
Hume?
father.
itself,
He who
He who
for
wishes truth to be generated
without error wishes for the son without the

despises error despises
is
truth
truth
incomprehensible
without
therefore
those
its
antecedent
errors,
which
are
eternal aspects.
But here too we must
be careful
not
to
allow ourselves to be led astray by metaphors
we
sive,
must
re -think
the
thing
itself.
In
error, that
which may justly be called progresor
or
fruitful,
the
like,
is
not error but

doctrine
as
truth.
When we
we may we
itself
consider
it
whole,
declare
it
to
be
false or true
but
if
consider
more
a true
in detail,
the doctrine
affirmations,
false
;
resolves
into
series
of
some
of which are
and some
and
V
its
progressiveness and
fruitfulness
lie
105 the
in
affirmations which are true, not in those which
are false, and which therefore cannot even be

called
affirmations.
Thus,
that
in
the
Eleatic
is
doctrine,
the
true
:
affirmation
the
that
absolute
it
being,
is
what
is false, is
is
nothing
but being.
truth,
is
"
Even in the The absolute is
highest expression of
spirit,"
the
absolute
Similarly,
being,
though not simple being.
in
the Cartesian and Spinozist parallelism,
the
distinction of
mind from body, of thought from

at
least in a certain sense, true
;
extension,
is,
but
it
remains
:
to
be
explained
how
it
is
produced
theory,
what
is false is
the hasty metaphysical
which
explains
those
two
terms
by
or
making them
two
attributes
two manifestations of God,

of
substance,
and
for
takes
the
statement
of
in
the
problem
the
solution.
Thus
lies
too,
Platonic transcendency, the truth
in
the value
assigned to the idea, as no but as objective and

separating
in
longer purely subjective,

real
:
the
error
things,
lies
in
the
ideas
in
from real
and
placing
think,
them
them
world
which
;
we cannot
in
but can only
imagine
and
thus
imagining
we
confuse them again with things real and

It
is
finite.
the error in each of these doctrines that
io6
is
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
:
the incentive to progress
it
is
the not-being,
;
the necessary
moment
of development
without
contradiction and doubt, without perplexity and

dissatisfaction,
we should make no
not
to
advance.
Man would
would
cease
altogether
conquer
think, to
be.
truth,
because
he
and
indeed
would
cease
:
So much we know
been expounded and
But
if
henceforth
it
is
the principle of the synthesis
of opposites,
fully
which has
above.
of
accepted
the
this
principle
affirm
it
synthesis
being and not -being,
does not therefore possess the virtue of changing

being,
not -being into
darkness
into
light,
the
incentive
partial
to
progress
or
into progress, error into
truth
is
degree of truth.
in
it,
The
a
error,
which
preserved
truth
is
as
particular
degree or aspect of
>
that aspect of truth
which
call
is
contained
in
the
doctrines
that
we
erroneous.
true
These aspects of the truth are

of
the
subject
error
is
the
history
of
thought
error as
the
hemisphere of darkness,
;
which the
light of truth has not yet illuminated
and we
write the history of successive illumina-
tions, not of darkness,
which
is
without history,
because
it
accompanies every history.

of
errors
into
Therefore
truths,
this
the transmutation
first
consequence
of
the
transference
of
the
of
107
of
to
dialectic
distincts,
opposites
to
the
connexion
into which
is
Hegel allowed himself
be drawn,
erroneous.
to
be considered as fundamentally-
If these explanations,
which
have premised,
I
and
laid
if
these canons of judgment which
have
down, be exact, we are now
in a position to
understand the problem and the structure of the
Hegelian Logic
stood, the
not indeed, be
it
well under-
principle of the logical doctrines of
Hegel
(the concrete concept) and of his various
particular doctrines (the theory of opposites, the
theory of distincts, etc.)

discoursed
in
of which we have already preceding chapters but of that
determinate thought which led Hegel to conceive

a fundamental science, which he called Logic or
tê Science
of logic, and developed in three sections,
the logic of Being, the logic of Essence, and the

logic of the Concept.
It
is
a science, which has,
not without reason, seemed strange and obscure,
rigorous in appearance, but arbitrary in fact and

at
every step; something unseizable, because
it
provides no secure point to take hold of or to

lean upon.
The problem
of the Hegelian Logic (as appears

is
from the principal content of that book)
to
submit to examination the various definitions of
io8
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
is,
the Absolute, that
to
review
critically all
forms
of philosophy, in order to demonstrate,
by means
of their difficulties and contradictions, the truth
of that philosophy which considers the Absolute

as spirit or idea.
Further,
it
is
to
show
at
the
same time
light
that the aspects of truth brought to

find their justification
is
by other philosophies
in this
conception, so that this philosophy

as
it
the
result,
has been the aspiration, of

thought.
all
the
efforts of
human
Hence
in the
Logic
there pass before us,
now sometimes
in allusion
expressly
named, now sometimes
and reference.
Oriental Emanationism, Buddhism, Pythagoreanism,
Eleaticism,
Heracliteanism,
the
Atomism
of Democritus,
Platonism, Aristotelianism, the
doctrines of the Pantheists, of the Sceptics and

of
the
Gnostics,
;
Christianity,
too,
Saint
Anselm,
Spinoza,
Fichte,
philo-
Scholasticism
then,
Descartes,
Locke,
Leibniz,
Jacobi,
Wolff",
Hume, Kant,
;
Schelling,
Herder
and
other
sophical points of view.
It is
the "pathology of
thought," as
it
has been called by an English
writer, in a sense
it
somewhat
different
from mine
is
the polemic, by which
every philosophy
affirms
and maintains
its
life
against other philo-
sophies,
to
it.
more or
less discordant with,
and
hostile
This polemic,
if
109
we observe
its basis.
it
well, can
be
conducted in two distinct modes, one of which

presupposes the other as
The
different
philosophies, and their partially erroneous points
of view, can be studied in their individuality,

in
the
definite
form that they assumed
with
various thinkers at different times, in chronological
sequence
and we thus have the History of

is
Philosophy (which
like
both history and criticism,
every true history).
Or we can study
the
universal possibilities of philosophical errors, their
perpetual
sources,
the
confusion of philosophy
with the various other activities of the

spirit
is
;
human
and
in this case the

itself,
polemic against errors

;
philosophy
the whole system
for
it
is
only in the completely developed system that the

causes of errors
become
clear.
A polemic against
now and now at
logically
itself,
is
errors can be placed, for convenience' sake,

at the
beginning,
now
in the middle,
the
it
end of a philosophic theory; but

is
inseparable
from
the
philosophy
because, as Bacon said, as the straight line
the measure both of itself and of the curve, so
verum index sui

every affirmation
et
is
falsi
or, as is
generally said,
also negation.
is
This
criticism,
which
is
the entire system,
also the basis of
that other criticism, the history of philosophy.
no
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
by
the
affirmative
Hegel,
theses
of
his
philosophy, discharged magnificently the task of

criticizing philosophical errors
:
certainly, within
the limits of his system, or up to the point at
which the errors of his own system prevented
him from seeing further into the errors of others
but in any case with a breadth and richness such

as
no other philosopher, save
Aristotle,
had
ever displayed.
previous
Aristotle indeed stands to the
development of
Hellenic thought in
the same relation as Hegel stands to the whole

philosophical development up to his
own
time,
from the Hellenic, even from the Oriental world.
Hence
the Logic of
Hegel has on several occasions
been compared with and placed beside the Metaphysic of Aristotle.^
And
for this reason, in the
History of Philo-
sophy also, Hegel attained to heights never reached previously to him and rarely since, so
much
so that
he
is
considered as the true founder of the history
of philosophy, no longer understood as literary

history or as a collection of erudite matter, but
as internal history, as an exposition
which philo-
sophy
itself
makes of
its
own
genesis in time, as
the great autobiography of philosophic thought.

1
" C'est
la seule
m^taphysique qui
:
existe,
avec celle d'Aristote."
H.
Taine, in a letter of 1S51

i.
see
Sa Vie
et sa corj-espondance (Paris,
1902),
162-3,
of.
p.
145.
But
iii
owing
to
the
confusion
between
and
the
to
dialectic
and the connexion of
distincts,
the consequent conception of errors as particular

truths,
Hegel was not
satisfied
with the
two
modes
that
indicated, but attempted a third

in
mode
realized
the
structure
as
of
the
Logic.
Here
that
errors
are
treated
;
distinct
concepts,
is
is,
as categories
and the attempt
made
to deduce, or to develop errors, in the
same way
that the categories or the distinct concepts are
deduced and developed.

truth
is
The method
happen
in this
proper to
applied to non-truth.
to
What was bound

the impossible.''
est
desperate
attempt, this violent and spasmodic effort toward

"
Sil
le
est difficile, c est
fait; sil
courtier-
impossible,
on
fera," said
some
minister of the ancien regime.

the impossible with a
state
fiat
And
he performed
leading the
revolution.
in
of his
will,
to
ruin
-his
and
provoking
will
the
Similarly
own
ruled
supreme
the
structure that
Hegel devised.
He
begins
at the
beginning.
Hegel always gave himself great
trouble over this problem of the beginning, not

less
than over that of the introduction to be
provided to philosophy (the senseless dispute as

to the place that the Phenomenology has in the
system
is
well known).
Yet he himself recognizes
112
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
is
quite clearly that philosophy
a "circle" and
thereby implies the inconceivability of a necessary

starting-point.
A
it
circle
is
can be entered at any
point
and so
with philosophy.
We
can
begin with the concept of
spirit in general, pro-
ceeding from that by determinations, or proceed
we can
by successive complications from the
most simple concept, or by discomposition, from

the most complex, or from
concept,
finally,
some intermediary
;
by going backwards and forwards
or,
from some problem and philosophical
in-
vestigation and criticism of errors,

to
we can work way

that
at
a complete system.
It
is
in
;
this
every one begins to philosophize

this point, is reality
TO irpwTov irpo^
ri/jid<;,
:
and here,
each one has his beginning,
and
at this stage of apprehen-
sion there
is
no
Trp&Tov
(f>iiai.
The preference to be
accorded to one beginning rather than to another

is
at
most a question of didactic convenience.

if
But
the problem of the beginning

it
is
of no
importance in philosophy,
is
true,
on the other
hand, that philosophy, objectively considered, has

its
is
first
position, its Trparov
j>vaei,
first,
which
as, for
also last, the first
which
is
circle,
such
example, in the philosophy of Hegel, Spirit or

Idea.
But
in the Logic,
in so far as
it
is
an
examination of a series of errors,
how
can a
first
first
<j)V(Tei?
113
be thought that should be

TTpSiTov
of necessity, a
Hegel began with pure being,
that
is,
with the examination of the philosophical
systems which define the Absolute as simple

being
;
and he repeatedly
It
tried
to justify this
like
beginning, but in vain.
was a beginning
any other
it
;
any other, equally

unjustifiable
if
it
justified with
is
but
claimed to justify
as the
only one.
Why
should
we
not
commence with
the philosophies which place the root of things

in
one of the other of the cosmological elements,
the water of Thales or the air of
Anaximenes
Or with
the sensationalist philosophies, for which

is
?
the absolute
the relative, and reality
is
the
phenomenon
being
this
:
Let the starting-point be pure

an examination which begins at
only,
point, has
laid
"commanded"
in
a principle,
like
that
down
the
the mathematical disciplines.
Or
again,
course of the argument has a
purely biographical, autobiographical, or aesthetic

value.
Indeed, the Phenomenology, which begins
from sensible certainty, and the Logic, which

begins from pure being, follow here and there a
course,
which
recalls
some
philosophic romance
Emile, perhaps, or the journey of the Irishman

in
search of the best of religions.
The beginning was
arbitrary
and the sequel
114
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
arbitrary.
It
is
was
not easy to hold Hegel's
Logic in one's mind, unless recourse be had to

learning
it
mechanically
for there is
no necessary
generation of its successive parts from one another.

}
Triad follows triad
but
it
does not appear that
one
the
triad
links
itself to
another, triadically, as
first triad,
method
implies.
After the
of being,
not-being, and becoming,
comes the category of

:
the determinate being [Daseyn)

to
but
if
there
is
be a link between them, determinate being

its antithesis, i.e.
is
should arise from becoming as

as not-becoming.
But the
fact
that
Hegel
himself says, that determinate being corresponds

to pure being in the preceding triad.
For
this
reason, the series of triads of the Hegelian Loîc

-
has been interpreted by some
critics,
not as a
great uninterrupted chain, but as a single fundai

'
mental
triad, into
which other triads are inserted
and into which
still
others could be inserted, as
'
well as that limited
number which Hegel gave,

of example.
apparently by
interpretation,
.
way
the
But on
this
necessary
ascent
through
different degrees,
is
from pure being to the idea,
1/1
made
illusory,
and that ascent was the purpose

is
of the Logic.
So the book
thus reduced to a
congeries of criticisms directed against the affirmations of abstract
terms, which are resolved
in
And
it
115
dialectic syntheses.
to
would be necessary
add that the criticisms are concerned not only

abstract
;
with
opposites,
but
it
also
with
false
opposites
and therefore
is
not altogether an
erroneous view which has noted a certain change

of
method
in the Logic, as
it
gradually rises from

It
is
the
primary to the ulterior categories.
clear that the content of the criticism changes,
when we pass from the

to
errors concerning being

to
those
which refer
essence
and
to
the
concept;
hence Hegel himself
says,
that
"in
into
being
we have another and

;
passing
in
another
in
essence,
in
the
appearing
the
the
opposite,
and
the
concept,
distinction
between the particular and universality, which

continues as such in that which
is
distinct
from
it,
^
and
is
in a relation of identity
with the distinct."
If there
be no necessary connexion between

parts
of
the successive
Hegel's
Logic,
there
appear in
it
on the other hand marks of the
tendencies which might be expected in a thoughtcontent,
which has been compelled into those
schematic forms, as into a bed of Procrustes.
That content, as has already been

only be developed, either
in
said,
could
the form of the
exposition of a complete philosophic system (and

1
Enc.
240.
ii6
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
philosophy of
spirit),
in this case, as a
or in the
form of a history of philosophy.
And
the treat-
ment of the Logic approximates sometimes to For the one type, sometimes to the other.
instance,
we
discover
an attempt at a history
first
of philosophy in the order of the

in
categories,
which appear successively Parmenides, Hera-
clitus,
Democritus
and
then again,
in
first
other
part
parts,
Descartes, Spinoza,
doctrine
of
Kant
the
of
the
the
concept
contains
;
the
critique of the Aristotelian analytic

part, the criticism of the Leibnizian
the second
monadology.
And
again,
it
has an even stronger tendency to

into
transform
itself
a philosophy
spirit, i.e.
(speculative
and not empirical) of

forms of
spirit,
of the particular
cognitive and practical, in their
necessary relation.
Thus,
in
the
is
doctrine
of
being (section on quantity) there

logy of arithmetical procedure
essence,
sciences.
first
;
the gnoseo-
in the doctrine of
of the theory involved in the natural
In the doctrine of the concept, in the

is
section, there
the logic of the concept, of

;
the judgment, and of the syllogism

in
and then,
the third
section,
the more properly philo-
sophical logic.
In the parts relating to objectivity,

of
in
the concepts
elucidated,
mechanism and chemism are

those relating to teleology and
and
V
life,
there
is
117
a sketch of a philosophy of nature
while a practical philosophy appears in the section
on the Idea,
sesthetic
is
in
the discussion of
altogether
will.
:
Finally,
in
not
excluded
is
the
compendium of
"Beautiful"
this
logic,
which
to
be found
in the
Propaedeutic of 1808-18 12, the category of the

is
united to that of "Life."^

it
For
reason also,
is
desperate to attempt to
keep the various parts of the system of Hegel

distinct
from one another.
The Logic
anticipates
the Philosophy of the Spirit, which takes up again the themes of the Logic, the Philosophy of future
,
develops the doctrines of being and of the essence
the parts of the Logic relating to mechanism, to
chemism and
nature
:
to
life,
anticipate the Philosophy of
the Phenomenology of Spirit contains the

in a first sketch (if
whole system
we do
not take
account of the
System der
Sittlichkeit,
which
Hegel did not publish, and which was the very

first
sketch).
concrete content, taken from the history of
philosophy, and in great measure from the Philo-
sophy of
spirit,
a violent and arbitrary arrangefalse idea of

is
ment, imposed by the

deduction of errors
'
:
an a priori
that
how
the Hegelian
Philosophische Propddetitik, ed.

xviii.
Rosenkranz, 2nd course,
10
(in
Werke,
120).
ii8
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
itself to
Logic presents
me.
in
The arrangement
saying this and in
as
injures the content.
But
condemning the undertaking of Hegel,

bodied in the Logic,
to death
I
em-
do not intend to condemn
and
to oblivion that richest of all the

title
books which bear the

I
Logic
on the contrary,
mean
and
to place
it
in conditions favourable to its
life
to the continued exercise of its
profound
influence
upon the mind.
He who
all
takes up the
Logic of Hegel, with the intention of understanding the

its
development and above

will
the reason of
commencement,
be obliged ere long to
put
it,
down
the book in despair of understanding
or persuaded that he finds himself face to face
with a mass of meaningless abstractions.
But he
who,
like the
dog of Rabelais, "a philosophical

bone alone, takes
there,
beast," instead of leaving the
a bite at
it,
now here and now

it,
chews
it,
breaks
it
up and sucks
will
eventually nourish
himself with the substantial marrow.

his disciples after him,
Hegel and
have persistently pointed
to the
door by which the Logic can be entered
pure being, from which
we must
gradually pass
by the vestibules and up the
stairs of nothing,
of becoming, of determinate being, of something,

of the limit, of change, of being for
in
self, etc. etc.
:
order to reach the sanctuary of the Goddess, or
But he who obstinately knocks
119
the Idea,
at that
gate and believes the false information, that such
and no other must be the door and the

vainly attempt to enter the palace.
stair, will
That door,
is
which has been indicated as the only one,

closed, indeed a
sham
sides
;
door.
Take the
palace by
assault from
all
thus alone will you reach
the interior, and penetrate to the very sanctuary.
And
it
may be
that
lit
you
will
see the countenance
of the
Goddess
with a benevolent smile, be"
holding the " saintly simplicity

devotees.
of
many
of her
VI
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTICULAR CONCEPTS INTO PHILOSOPHICAL ERRORS

I.
Art and Language

consequence,
the
(yEsxHETic)
The
other
second
counter-
blow arising
from the confusion between the
synthesis of opposites and the relation of distincts,
was
not
less
grave.
Owing
to
this
confusion,
Hegel deprived himself of the means
of recognizing the
their just
autonomy and of
attributing
and proper value to the various forms

Error was confused with particular
of the
spirit.
truth, and, as philosophical errors
had become
for
Hegel bound
particular truths, so particular truths

to
were
be associated with errors and to become

all
philosophical errors, to lose
intrinsic measure,
to be brought to the level of speculative truth,
and
to
be treated as nothing but imperfect forms
ofphilosophy.
VI
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
For
this
121
reason,
Hegel did not completely

aesthetic,
;
succeed in recognizing the nature of the
or of the historical, or of the naturalistic activity

that
is
to say, of art,
or of history, or of the
physical and natural sciences.
Without doubt, the pages of Hegel concerning

aesthetic are
animated with great
artistic feeling
and on the whole there prevails

tendency to make
life,
in
them the
in
art a
primary element
human
mode
of knowledge and of spiritual eleva-
tion.
We
far
are carried by these pages far beyond

for
and
above the vulgar view,
which
art is
a superfluous accident of real
life,
a pleasure, a
game, a pastime
empirical
of
or a simple
and
relative.
mode of instruction, The constant contact

taste
it
Hegelian speculation with

art,
and with
assigned
in-
works of
and the dignity which

activity,
to the artistic
gave
it
an effective
it
fluence over men's
minds and made
a powerful
stimulus to the study of esthetic problems.

is
This
a merit, which, in part,
is
common
to all the
aesthetic theories of the
Romantic period (the great
period of the fermentation and the renewal of the
philosophy of art and of literary and
artistic critiis
cism and history), and which, in part,

to the
peculiar
Hegelian
aesthetic, in virtue of its
wealth
of ideas, of
judgments and of problems.
122
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
in
But the elements of truth, scattered
plenty in
the Hegelian aesthetic, are either too general, or
merely incidental, and
are, in principle,
art,
divergent
from the fundamental concept of

accepts,
It
is
which Hegel
and which
is
erroneous.
his
erroneous, because Hegel, firm in
belief that every
form of
is
spirit
(save the ultimate
and supreme form)
nothing but a provisional
and contradictory way of conceiving the Absolute,

could not discover that
form, which
is
first
ingenuous theoretic
spirit,
the lyric or the music of

is
and
in
which there
nothing philosophically
contradictory,
because the philosophic problem
has not yet

condition.
It
emerged.
is
This
first
form
is
its
the region of the intuition, of

in its essential character,
:
pure fancy, of language,

as painting, music or
song
in a
word,
it is
the
region of
tion
art.
When Hegel
begins his medita-
upon the phases of
spirit,
is
he
is
already at
point
where that region
behind him, and

it.
yet he does not recognize that he has passed
The Phenomenology
of
all
takes
its
start
from
sensible
certainty, according to
:
Hegel the simplest form
that in which (he says)

in
we behave towards
reality
an immediate or receptive manner

in
it
changing nothing
and abstaining from
all
the labour of concepts.
And he
does not find
VI
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
difficult to
123
it
show
that such contemplation,
which
seems
to be the richest
and most
true,
is,
on the
contrary,
the
is
most
abstract
is
and the poorest.

;
The
it
thing
here,
now, and
in a
;
not the moment after

in
is
and
moment,
the here there

is
is
something else
this, here,
all
that survives,
the abstract
now
everything else disappears.
But
is
the sensible certainty, of which Hegel speaks, not the

first
theoretic form
ato-^Tjo-t?
it
is
not genuine
It
sensible certainty,
is
it
pure and simple.
not, as
is
he believes, immediate consciousness
already mingled with intellectual reflexion,

is
it
already contains the question as to what
truly real.
In place of genuine sensible certainty
(such
as
we have
is
in
aesthetic
contemplation,
where there
no distinction between subject

to another,
and object, no comparison of one thing
no collocation
in
spatial
and temporal
series)
there has been substituted the first reflexion upon

sensible
first
knowledge
and
it
is
natural that that

to
"
reflexion should
seem imperfect and

often
be
the
surpassed.
subject
Hegel
repeats
that
without
predicate
resembles,
in
the
phenomenon, the thing without

thing
-
properties, the
in
itself,
;
an
empty
and
indeterminate
which, only
foundation
it is
the concept in
itself,
with the predicate, receives differentiation and
124
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
But
;
determination."
art
is
is,
precisely,
subject
without predicate
that
quite other than the
nothingness and void of the thing-in-itself and

of the thing without properties.
It
is is
intuition
without intellectual relations
it
the emotion,
which a poem communicates, through which there

opens a view of a
in intellectual in
reality,
which we cannot render
terms and which we possess only

in
singing or
it.
re -singing,
that
is,
only
in
creating
Since
Hegel
never
reaches
the
region of
aesthetic activity
and therein the theoretic form

he does not succeed
too,
in
which
is
truly primary, so
explaining language.
in his eyes, for
Language,
becomes,
Indeed,
calls
an organized contradiction.
the work of
it
him
it
is
memory, which he
"productive," because
the
sign
is
produces "signs"; and

as an immediate
explicitly defined
intuition,
which represents a content "altogether

which
is its
different from that
own."
By means
its
of
language the intelligence impresses
re-
presentation
upon an external
is
element.
;
The
it
form of language, therefore,
intellectual
is
is
the product of a logical instinct, which
after-
wards theorized
logical
in
grammar.
Owing
to
this
form, language tries to express the in-
dividual, but cannot
do so
"
you wish to say
this
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
piece of paper,
125
upon which
am
;
writing, or rather
have written,
it.
precisely
say
is
this
but you do not say

the
this."
What you
universal,
Thus, according to Hegel, does language confute

îtself,
attempting to express the individual, and,
on the contrary, always expressing the universal.
But
effabile
for the
omne individuum
ineffabile of the
scholastics,
which Hegel here seems
to repeat,
we must
addition
substitute the opposite solum individuum

(or
:
else
correct
the
former
with
the
logicis
modis
ineffabile).
How
can
we
ever think that a
human
its
activity,
it
such as language,
does not attain
end, that
proposes to
it
itself
an end that
dwell in
is
absurd and therefore that
must
self-deception,
from which
essentially
it
cannot
escape
art
:
Language
is
poetry and
by language, or by
artistic expression,
we
grasp individual reality, that individual shading,
which our
spirit intuites
and renders, not
in
terms
of concepts, but in sounds, tones, colours, Hnes,
and so on.
stood in
its
For
this
reason, language, under-
its
true nature,
is
and
in the full extent of

reality.
meaning,
adequate to
The
illusion
is
of inadequacy arises
when the term language

full
applied to a fragment of this
meaning, and
when
that fragment
it
is
separated from the organic
whole to which
belongs.
Thus
paper,
this
126
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
I
paper, of which
speak,
is
not only what
is
ex-
pressed by the words
" this
paper
" in
themselves,
torn asunder from their context

abstract.
It
is
and rendered
or
rather,
what
my
eyes,
it
;
my
whole
it
spirit,
has present to
it
which
in so far as
represents,
can also render externally, with

If
I
sound, colour, and so on.

precisely,"
it is
say: "this paper

it
because
:
have
before
me
and
am showing it to others the words that my mouth obtain their full meaning
whole psychical situation
in
issue from
from the
which
find myself,
and so from the intention, intonation, and gesture,

with which
I
pronounce them.
If
we
abstract
them from
that situation, certainly they will appear

:
inadequate to that individual
but that
is
because
we have made them

condition
so,
by mutilating them.
But
Hegel (who had no

of
the
clear idea of the aesthetic
spirit)
;
could
not completely
understand language
it
he was obliged to think of
in that
mutilated and intellectualized manner,

it
and therefore to declare

when,
in his
contradictory.
And
Esthetic, he passes from the language
of prose to consider the language of poetry, he

falls
back into the old rhetoric, after some attempt

it.
to
emerge from
Poetic language also, in the

a mere
lines
end, he regards as
different
"sign," essentially
the
colours
from
the
and
of
VI
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
127
sculpture and of painting, and from the tones

of music.
Thus Hegel's erroneous

place
that
;
logical
theory con-
cerning distinct concepts conceals from him the
properly
belongs
to
to
the
aesthetic
activity
and suggests
him a philosophy of
language, which leads him of necessity to consider
language as an error.
that
is
But
this
it is
not only language

Art,
itself
its
treated
in
fashion.
true
his
function unrecognized,
obtrudes
upon
mind
of
it,
and since he does not know what to make

it
he transfers
to a place,
where
it
does not
first
belong and where, like language (which has
been
and
arbitrarily separated
aesthetic
it
from the representative

it
activity,
with which
altogether
.-coincides),
too ends by appearing as nothing
but imperfection and error.

pass
the
it
Hegel could neither

it
by
in silence
nor get rid of
lightly (as is
way
of naturalistic and positivist philosophers).

this,
His time would not permit
nor would his
individual disposition, in which interest in art
was
he
so
prominent.
The
conception
to
which
attained
was substantially that of

Critique,
his time.
Kant,
aesthetic
in the third
had studied the
activity along with the teleological
judgment, as
one of the modes of representing nature, when

the mechanical conceptions of the exact sciences
128
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
;
are surpassed
Schiller
had indicated
in the struggle
it
as the
ground of reconciliation
between
it
necessity and liberty, and Schelling conceived

as the true organ of the Absolute.
Schopenhauer
was
later to consider
it
in like
manner
as
the
contemplation of the Ideas and the freeing of the

will.
For Hegel
also,
this
activity,
which the
for,
whole romantic period sometimes substituted
sometimes placed above, and sometimes placed

below religion and philosophy, became a mode of
apprehending the Absolute, of solving the greatphilosophical problem.
In the Phenomenology, he
makes
it
a form of religion, superior to merely
natural religion (which adores material objects,

fetiches
and the
like),
because
;
it is
indeed a
mode
of adoring spirit as subject
in the
Encyclopaedia
he makes
it,
with,but slight difference, the religion

first
of beauty, a
degree
in relation
to revealed
religion, inferior to the latter, as this latter, in its
turn,
is
inferior to philosophy.
The
history of
in
poetry and of art consequently appears
the
lectures on Esthetic, as a history of philosophy,
of religion and of the moral

history of
life
of humanity
human
art,
ideals, in
which the individuality

to
say,
of works of
that
is
the properly
is
aesthetic form, occupies a secondary place, or
referred to only incidentally.
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
If the conception of art, as
129
engaged upon the

philosophy,
is
same problem
as
religion
and
is
common
is
to his time,
what
peculiar to
Hegel
the relation which he establishes between those

:
three forms
the distinctive character, which he
assigns to art in relation to religion and philosophy.
Hegel could
not, as others did,
make
the sesthetic
activity complementary to the philosophical activity,
solving in
its
way
the problems that were insoluble

Still
to philosophy.
less
could he
make
His
it
an
activity superior to the philosophical.
logical
assumption was bound to lead him to the usual

solution
of the
dialectic,
in
its
application
to
distinct concepts.
The
it
artistic activity is distinct

its
from the philosophical only through

tion,
imperfecin
only because
apprehends the Absolute
a sensible
and immediate form, whereas philosophy

it
apprehends
This means,
distinct
;
in the
pure medium of thought.

that
art
it
logically,
is is
not
at
all
and that
for
Hegel
it
practically
^-reduced (whether he like
or not) to a philo-
sophical error, or an illusory philosophy.

art
True
itself
would be philosophy, which addresses
again to the same problem upon which art has
worked
in vain
is
and attains a perfect solution of

the genuine thought of Hegel,
it.
That such
is
proved by the
fact that
he does not shrink from K
I30
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
When
must
must
it
the extreme consequence of this theory.
philosophy
is
completely developed,
it
art
disappear, because
die,
is
superfluous
art
and indeed
it
it
is
already quite dead.
If
is
an error,
is
not necessary and eternal.
The
artistic
history of art, which
Hegel
traces, is directed to
shewing the gradual dissolution of the

form, which has no place, in
true and highest interests.
survival
modern times,
It
is
in
our
a past, or the
of the past.
This grandiose paradox

the
sesthetic
illuminates
everywhere
error
of
Hegel, and better perhaps than any other ex-
ample makes clear the error of

tion.
his logical
assump-
In defence of Hegel,
art,
is
it
has been said that

is
:
the death of
of which he speaks,
that eternal
death, which
an eternal rebirth
such as
we
observe
in
the spirit of man,
when he
passes
from poetry to philosophy, rising from the intuition

to the universal, so that in his eyes, the world
of intuition loses
its
is
colour.
But against
this
interpretation, there
the fact that
Hegel speaks
of the death of
art,
not in the sense of perpetually
renewing
itself,
but as actually about to happen
and as having happened, of a death of art in the

historical world.
This
is in
complete agreement
with his treatment of the degrees of reality as a

series
of opposites, difficult to abstract and to
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
separate from one another.
this
131
Once he had assumed

Hegel had no
application of the dialectic,
other
choice than one of two ways, either to
suppress art by means of that grandiose paradox,

or
to
preserve
it
with a not
less
grandiose
inconsistency.
For
this reason,
it
is
not altogether wrongly
that the
system of Hegel (whose twin principles
of the concrete concept
and the
dialectic, are of
frankly aesthetic inspiration) has appeared to be

" a cold intellectualism, irreconcilable to the artisticj
consciousness.
And
the
misunderstanding
treatment of
all
of
art leaves its traces in his
the
problems into which the concept of

a necessary
art enters as
and proximate premiss.
Hegel
is
usually considered an adversary of the Aristotelian
formal logic
but
it
would be better
to say, with
greater exactness, that he

classificatory
was the adversary of

still,
and
naturalistic logic, or, better
that
he limited himself to revealing the inadequacy
of classificatory and naturalistic logic to provide

a
principle
for
philosophy.
We
have already
recognized this merit in him and his polemic
on
this subject
could not have a different meanin-
ing.
"Aristotle" (he says) "is the author of
tellectual logic (the logic of the abstract intellect),
whose forms concern only the
relation of finites
132
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
;
between themselves
the true, therefore, cannot

^
be conceived in them."
classification
is
But the method of

is
not what
most characteristic
his school
:
in the logic of Aristotle
and of
the
classificatory
tendency
is
also to be found in the
Baconian or inductive
of
logic.
is
The
its
characteristic
the
Aristotelian
logic
syllogistic,
or
verbalism,
the
logical
confusion
into
which
it
falls
its
between
thought and speech,
and
claim to establish logical forms,

itself to
while limiting
verbal forms.
criticize
Hegel did not and could not

error,
this
because he was without the instrument of
criticism,
which can be furnished only by a valid
philosophy of language.
distinguish
logical
He
certainly tries to
between
;
the
proposition
and
the
judgment
but he cannot adduce good
reasons for this distinction, and he states that

a proposition (for instance "it
a
is
it
hot") becomes
judgment only when with
we answer
the
doubt that
affirmation.
may arise as to the truth of the The exact distinction was beyond
it
his reach, for
consists in recognizing that the

is
pure proposition
nothing but speech

fact,
itself,
or
language as pure aesthetic

is
in
which there
no
logic,
though
'
it
is
the necessary vehicle

ii.
Gesc/t. der
Pkilos^
365-68.
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
of logical thought.
tain the tripartition of concept, logical
133
Indeed, not only does he re-
judgment
and syllogism, and the division between elementary forms and methodology, between definition,
division,
sets to
demonstration and proof, but he even

to distinguish
work
and define new classes
of judgments and of syllogisms.
VII
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTICULAR CONCEPTS INTO PHILOSOPHICAL ERRORS

II.
History (Idea of a Philosophy of History)
It might be said that the failure to understand
the autonomy of art also prevented Hegel from
understanding the character of history (historiography).

to
But the truth
is
that
Hegel was unable
do
full
justice to this theoretic form, for the
same reason
as in the case of the others,
i.e.
as
vwe have
formed
errors.
already mentioned, because

particular
he trans-
concepts
into
philosophical
From
the logical point of view, the two
errors have the
same
origin.
Psychologically,
it is
probable that the
first
prepared the way
for the
second
as
it
is
also psychologically
probable
that Hegel's idea of religion contributed in
some
measure
religion
to as
produce
an
the
first.
He
more
regarded
or
less
imaginative and
134
vii
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
form
of
135
imperfect
philosophy
and
this
was
bound
to lead
him
to assign
an analogous position
to art in relation to philosophy.
History, herein differing from

philosophical thought as
art, it finds its
its
art,
presupposes
;
condition
but, like
material in the intuitive element.

is
History, therefore,
always narration, and never

it
theory and system, though

at
its
has theory and system
foundation.
So
that,
on the one hand,
historians are trained to the scrupulous study of
documents, and on the other to the formation of

clear ideas
upon
reality
and
life,
and especially
upon those aspects of

to
life
which they undertake

has seemed therefore with
scientific
art.
treat
historically.
It
that
history
cannot
dispense
accuracy and yet remain always a work of

If all historical
works be reduced to
their simplest
expression, the historical judgment, or the proposition affirming that " something has
(for
happened
"
example, Caesar was
killed, Alaric
devastated
etc.),
Rome, Dante composed the Comedy,

see,
we
upon analysing these propositions,

is
that each
one of them
constituted of intuitive elements,

logical
first
which act as subject and of

which act as predicate.
elements,
instance
The
will
for
and speaking generally,
be Caesar, Rome,
;
Dante, the Comedy, and so on
and the second.
136
the
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
concepts of slaughter,
like.
devastation,
artistic
composition, and such
From
this
historical
gnoseology,
it
follows
is
that every
progress of philosophic
thought
translated into a progress of historical knowledge,^

since
we understand
far
more adequately what

facts of
were truly the

position of his
historical
Dante's com-
poem, when we know better what

creation are.
poetry and
artistic
But we also
gather that the attempt would be vain to resolve

those historical affirmations into abstract philosophic affirmations.
That would be
to absorb
is
the whole and complete fact in what the condition of the

fact.
merely
rise
History can give
to a conceptual science of an empirical character,
as
when we pass from

not
it
it
to
;
a sociology
that
proceeds by types and classes

reason,
it
but for that very
is
absorbed by that conceptual

remains the presupposition or
science, of
which
the basis.
Conversely, history can give rise to
philosophy,
sideration
when we pass from the

of the
particular
to
historical con-
the
theoretical
elements, which are at the bottom of that consideration

;
but, for that very reason,
it
cannot be
said to be absorbed in that philosophy,

its
which
is
pre-supposition and
history,
its
basis.
K philosophy
of
understood not as the elaboration of
vn
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
a
137
this abstract philosophy, but as history
of a second
degree,
history
obtained
is
by means of that
abstract philosophy,
a contradiction in terms.
What
degree?
is
the significance of such an idea of a

as
philosophy of history,
history
less
of a second
Neither more nor

history.
than the annulthis
ment of
For
this
second degree,
postulated philosophical consideration of historical

narrative, this philosophic history,
history, in
would be true
relation to
which the history of the

error,
historians
is
would be revealed as
because
it
constructed according to a method which does
not lead to truth, or, what amounts to the

thing, does not lead to complete truth.
same
the
On
first
appearance of the second form, the
form
dis-
would be dissolved
or rather,
it
it
would be
solved, precisely because
would not be a form,
but something formless.
The
idea of a philo-
sophy of history
is
the non-recognition of the

to the advantage of
autonomy of historiography,
abstract philosophy.
Whenever such
a claim
is
made, one seems to hear the
bells tolling for the
death of the history of historians.
The
historians
is
usually so docile when

to
their attention
called
some progress
help to
in science or philosophy,
which
may
make
clear
some
part of their
work
as narrators
yet
rebel with violence
when any
138
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
talks to
one
them of a philosophy of
speculative
history, of
some
them
put
sort
of
method of knowing
is
history, or
when the attempt
made
to persuade
to consign the labour, into
which they have

line
all
their powers,
is
and of which every
and
every shade
philosophers
dear to them, to the hands of

are
who
it.
not historians, to revise

their rebellion
is
and complete
able.
It
is
And
if
reason-
just as
to
a painter or a musician
were told
consign to the philosophers his
picture or his score,
when he had completed

it
it,
so that they might raise
to the second power,
by introducing into
it
strokes of the philosophic
brush and philosophic harmonies.
Hegel had
to posit
and did posit the idea of

;
a philosophy of history
and he had to negate,
as he did negate, the history of the historians,

for that
was required by his
logical presupposition.
He
divided philosophy into pure ox formal philologic,
sophy (which should have been

also metaphysics),
and was
concrete
and into applied and
philosophy, comprising the two philosophies of
nature and of
spirit, into
the second of which the

;
philosophy of history entered again

together
the three
of
the
as
composed
the
encyclopaedia
philosophical sciences.
his
Thus Hegel adopted

Scholastic
division
own
the
traditional
of
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
139
philosophy into rational and real, and this not as

a simple formula and external scheme, but as
expressing also the
demand
for
a philosophic
treatment of the contingent facts of nature and

of
human
history.
All history, as
have preor
viously
explained,
can
;
be
called
concrete
applied
philosophy
but
these words did not
possess so innocent a meaning for Hegel as for

ourselves.
tinction
For him they implied the sharp
dis-
of the history, contained in the philoall
sophical encyclopaedia, from
the other histories, In his
which constitute the work of historians.

lectures
upon the philosophy of
history, this dis-
tinction is very clearly drawn, for
he places on
the one side original historiography and reflective
historiography (the second of these two being
subdivided into general, pragmatic,
critical
and
conceptual history), and on the other philosophic

historiography ox philosophy of history.
Hegel
affirms
that this philosophic historioits
graphy should have
own method,
different
from the method of ordinary historiography, and
he claims
struction.
for
It
it
the character of an a priori contrue that by this he sometimes
is
seems
to
mean, not a distinctive character, but
only the need for a better elaborated a priori.
He
notes
that
ordinary historians
also
write
I40
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
for
a priori history,
they proceed from certain
thoughts and representations of their own, which,
though defective and arbitrary, yet are always

a priori.
is
But the a priori that he introduces
not the logical element, the interpretation of
intuitive data,
which has been recognized above

all
as indispensable for
it
historical work.
Rather,
is
a history already complete, which needs only
to be clothed in
names and
Hegel)
is
dates.
"
The one
thought
"
(writes
" with
which philosophy
:
approaches history
the simple thought of reason
that reason rules the world,
and therefore
there
is
it
in the
history of the
process."
or rather,
world
also,
is far
rational
this,
But there
more
in
than
we
learn
what these words
really
mean,
when we see him

the world
liberty
:
trace the necessary process of
reason in the historical world.

is
The
history of
the progress in the consciousness of

single
its
moments
(
or degrees are the
various national spirits
Volksgeister), the various

is
peoples, each one of which
destined to re-
present one degree only, and to accomplish only
one task
in
the
whole achievement.
facts,
Before
Hegel seeks the data of

they must be
;
he knows what
he knows them
in anticipation, as
we know
its
philosophic truths, which spirit finds in

universal
own
being and does not deduce
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
from contingent
sophy,
facts.
141
,
In the History of Philohistorical
which
is
perhaps his principal

the
work,
he knows a priori that

the
history
of
philosophy and
identical.
system of philosophy are

is
The theme
of
the
same development,
itself in
which
pure
is
represented in the system

thought,
in
the
medium
;
free
from historical
it
externalities
and
the
history
has
the
addition of these externalities (names and dates).
The
first
phases of Hellenic thought are the
first
categories of metaphysic and the phases follow
one another
in the
same order
as the categories.
Against an interpretation of Hegel's theory

of the philosophy of history,
might be
set his
various declarations of the great respect due to

actual fact.
But we must
first
examine what value
these declarations can assume or retain. there

is
"That
rational
process in the history of the
world" (he says) "should be shown by the consideration of history itself

result
:
...
it
should be a
we must
take history as
it is,
and proceed
accidental
is
historically
and empirically."
;
The
the
extraneous to philosophy
elsewhere)
and history (he says

universal
into
;
"should
lower
empirical individuality and into effectual reality
the idea idea
is its
essence but the appearance of the
is in
the sphere of accident and in the realm
142
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
But
if
of arbitrary choice."
dividuality are
if
accident
to
and
in-
truly extraneous
philosophy,
we can know them
only empirically, there can
be no a priori philosophy of history, but only

history itself
And
if
a philosophy of history be
created, then this accidental
and individual, and

method,
are
the
historical
and empirical
not
recognized and are refuted.
We
cannot escape
attention to
from the dilemma.

facts,
is
To recommend
or to recognize that the study of documents
the indispensable point of departure for history,
are
mere words, when
in
consequence of the
it
adoption of certain principles,
is
not
known
what use
to
make
of those facts and documents.

disciples,
Those of Hegel's
that
who have
the goat
believed
they could save
both
and the
cabbage by maintaining both the speculative and

the philological methods in history, have saved
neither
the
one nor
to
the
that
other.
It
is
very
ingenuous
activity can
affirm
one and
with
is
the
same
be
exercised
two
different
methods
activity,
for
the
method
intrinsic
to
the
and a duplicity of methods means a

It is
duplicity of activity.
to
worse than ingenuous
make
the two methods alternate and
come
to
one another's assistance, as though they were two

friends and
companions engaged
in the
same
task.

vn
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
times,
143
At other
Hegel seems
to understand his
a priori scheme as nothing but a rough anticipation of
what
"
is
given by actual history: "It
may be
thought
(he writes in the History of Philosophy)
" that the philosophic
order of the degrees of the
idea must be different from that of the concepts
which are produced
in
time
is
but in the Whole
{im Ganzen) the order
the same."
At other
Thus,
times again he modifies his statement in such a
way
in
that hardly anything remains of
it.
affirming the identity of the philosophic system
and
"
the
history
of
philosophy,
is
he observes
in
The
philosophy which
of
all
last
time
is
also
the
result
preceding
philosophies,
all
:
and
it
should contain the principle of them

therefore
is
but only if
it
be truly
a philosophy
the most
concrete."
developed, the richest and the most
The
reservation
to
implied
in
the
parenthesis
tion,
amounts
tautological
affirma-
that the
most developed, the

is
richest
and
most concrete philosophy,

but that which
is
not the
last in time,
is
truly a philosophy;
since
it
possible that a philosophic system which con-
stitutes a
regression
may appear
last
in
time.
What
are
we
to conclude from all this?

in
That
Hegel never had
mind an a priori philosophy

is,
of history, the idea of which
however, closely
144
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
is
connected with his dialectic treatment of distincts ?
No, but rather that error

that
contradiction
and
Hegel's erroneous thesis of a philosophy

is
of history (of an ideal history, which
not eternal,
but in
ti7ne)
shows
itself
to
be error, by the
involuntary contradictions in which
Hegel be-
comes involved.
Certainly,
we cannot conclude
into truth.
that those admissions suffice to heal the defects of
the erroneous thesis and to change
it
That the philosophy of

should not suffer beside
so-called, but should
history, thus conceived,

itself
it,
history properly
is
negate
not merely a
is
probable inference, from Hegel's principle, but

explicitly
enough stated
in several propositions.
And
indeed, the very fact that he defines the
philosophy of history as "the thinking contemplation of history " (recalling immediately after-
wards,
that
thought
is
alone
distinguishes
man
or
as
from the animal),

history as such,
confirmation that he regards

as
either
not
thought,
imperfect thought.
And
is
the attitude of antipathy
and depreciation, which he adopts toward professional historians,
likewise significant
art
almost
as
though a philosopher of
should quarrel
with professional poets and painters.

instructive of
all
is
But most
facts
what he says of the
which are the material of the historian's study.
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
The only
.for
145
facts which, in his opinion, are valuable
history are those which represent the

spirit or
moveAll the
ment of
the history of the State.
particular facts that
remain "are a superfluous

oppress
;
mass which, when
faithfully collected, only
and obscure the objects worthy of history

essential
the
characteristic of the spirit
and of the
It
times
is,
is
always contained in great events.

a
true
therefore,
sentiment that has led to
the handing over of such representations of the

particular to
romances (such as those of the

etc.). It
is
cele-
brated Walter Scott,
to
be held a
proof of good taste to unite pictures of unessential
and particular
life
to a subject-matter equally
fiction
unessential,
such as those that

facts
extracts
from private
to
and subjective passions.

interests
But
truth,
mingle, in
the
of so-called
individual trivialities of time and people with the
representation of general
interests
is
not only
contrary to judgment and to taste, but contrary

to the
concept of objective truth.
For, according
to this concept, the truth for spirit is that

is
which
substantial, not the vacuity of external existence,

It is perfectly indifferent
and of accident.
whether
such insignificant things are formally documented,

or,
as
in
fiction,
invented
in
characteristic
manner and attributed
to such
and such a name.
"
146
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
Whoever
them most
two
in
or to such and such circumstances."
meditates these words will find

plainly the
pernicious distinction
between
kinds of
facts,
between
historical facts
and nonfacts,
historical facts, essential facts
and unessential
which has often since reappeared among the

ciples of Hegel.
It
dis-
reappeared
first
in
Edward
Cans, who, when publishingthelecturesofthemaster
upon the philosophy of
history, took occasion to

if
repeat that this discipline would lose in dignity

it
had
to
encumber
itself
with the micrology of

its
facts,
and that consequently
function was to
all
demonstrate the necessity, not of
facts,
but
only of the great epochs of history and of great
groups of people, and to leave the

narrative history.
rest to
merely
And
in a
it
has reappeared right
down
to that Italian Hegelian,
who
maintained
some years ago,
well-known polemic, that

to establish in
documents were necessary,

prisons
what
Thomas Campanella was successively confined, and how many days and hours he
suffered torture
:
but were not necessary for the
determination of the historical meaning of his
thought and action.
This second thing would

the
ideas
be deduced
Renaissance,
priori from
of
the
the
Catholic Church, the reforms
of Luther, and the Council of Trent.
Such
dis-
vn
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
make
it
147
tinctions, so far
from preserving a class of facts

that all
rejected
for
as necessary for true history,

facts,
even
the very
notion of fact, are
as useless.
Indeed,
what reason
is
there
regarding the facts
a, b, c, d, e as
unessential and
superfluous, other than that they are individual
and contingent
k,
I,
And
are not the facts yj g,
h,
i,
which
it
is
wished to declare essential and

?
indispensable, equally contingent and individual

If
it
be a contingent
fact that
Napoleon suffered
will
from cancer of the stomach,
not the
i8th
Brumaire and the battle of Waterloo be also

contingent?
Will not the whole epoch of the

?
Revolution and the Empire be contingent
And
will
thus (since individuality and contingency extend

to all facts), the
whole history of the world
be contingent.
And, on the other hand,
if
the
French Revolution and the i8th Brumaire and

Waterloo were necessary
facts,
we do
not see
how
necessity can be denied to Bonaparte,

in the
who
in
was an actor
just as
drama;
and to Bonaparte
:
he was constituted
in effective reality
his
strength
;
and
in
in
his
mental and
physical
weaknesses
early years,
his resistance to fatigue in his
which enabled him to remain whole
days erect on horseback and to spend whole

nights bent over his
little
table of work,
and
in
148
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
As
the abdominal disease of his mature years.
reaHty has neither kernel nor shell and comes

forth all in a jet, as the internal
and the external

this),
are
all
one (and Hegel has taught

facts is a
so the
mass of
compact mass,
it is
not composed
of an essential kernel and an inessential shell, of

facts that are intrinsically
necessary and facts that
are superfluous externalities.
When
these distincis
'
tions are adopted in ordinary language, there
always implied a reference to definite historical

representations, in relation to the
theme
of which,
and
only in relation to that definite theme, certain

facts
masses of
tinction
is
appear superfluous.
if
so evidently relative that,
The diswe change
our point of view, and pass from one theme to

another, what
before was
superfluous becomes
necessary, and what before was necessary becomes

superfluous.
But
in the
passage quoted there
is
one thing
more
that
to be noted.
to a
Hegel hands over

art,
to romance,
is,
form of
to
the facts which do not
seem
all
to
;
him
and
be historical
art
we
for
should
say
facts
since
was
him a pro-
visional
form, which
is
philosophy dissipates and
displaces, this
another
way
of shewing the evil
fate of history at the

It
is
hands of Hegelian philosophy.
a strange fate that the
same philosophy.
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
which, in virtue of one of
its
149
logical doctrines,
had so effectively vindicated the value of history,

of the res gestae, found, as the result of another of
its logical
doctrines, that
it
could not recognize
the value of the historia rerum gestarum and so

of the
same
res gestae.
Famished
for
history,
nourished on history, Hegel's philosophy, without
understanding that
it
did so, yet advocated fasting.
And
the contradiction blazed in the light of the
sun, before
the eyes of
all
the world
for,
as
there issued from the school of
Hegel
a series
forth
of great writers of history, so there
came
from the same school the most petulant and comic

depredators of history and of
has ever seen.
fact that the
world
VIII
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTICUCONCEPTS INTO SOPHICAL ERRORS

III.
LAR
PHILO-
Nature (Idea of a Philosophy of Nature)

more
difficult
It was certainly a
task to under-
stand the true
limits, or
the true nature, of the
natural and mathematical disciplines.
From
the
Renaissance onward, there had taken place a

continual enlargement of what was called experi-
mental and mathematical science, the exact science

of nature
to
;
and science had come more and more

intellect,
rule
the
even
life
itself.
Philoscience,
is
sophical speculation
gave way before exact

its
or received to
some extent
imprint, as
plain
from many parts of the systems of Descartes,

Spinoza, and Leibniz.
The
sensationalism and
materialism of the eighteenth century had been

the ultimate consequence of that predominance of the naturalistic ideal.
150
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
It is
151
true that
when
the
mind of Hegel was

and of reaction
forming, a
movement
of doubt
had already commenced, and (not to speak of
who must was being made

Vico,
again
clear
be mentioned here)
in
it
several
quarters
of
in-
Germany
of things.
points
that
exact
natural
science
was
adequate to attain to real
reality, to
the bottom
all
Philosophers like Kant, armed at
with
mathematics
and
with
empirical
knowledge, analysing the methods of the exact

sciences and drawing their conclusions, proclaimed
the limits of scientific knowledge, and assigned the fundamental problems to the practical reason
and to
aesthetic
and teleological
Jacobi,
intuition.
Other
most
philosophers,
like
studying
the
notable
monument
showed
of the application of exact
science to speculative problems, the philosophy

of Spinoza,
finite
that with the
method of the
sciences
and therefore
we cannot escape from the finite, declared that God and the infinite
to
and moral problems belonged

feeling
artists
the realm of
Poets,
and of immediate knowledge.

and men of
unci
letters,
felt
at
the
time of the
Sturm
of the
like
Drang,
the cold and the void
intellectualism
of the Aufkldrung; and

to
Goethe,
nature,
they
to
aspired
vision
of
living
be
revealed
only
to
him
152
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
should contemplate
it
who
soul.
with a sympathetic
Hegel accepted
gave
has
it
this critical
inheritance,
and
vigorous expression, by establishing, as
already
been
mentioned,
the
difference
between the method of philosophy and that of

the mathematical and natural disciplines.
Nevertheless, even in this
movement which
makes
if
seems so
hostile to the ideal of the exact sciences,
the weight and
power of
that ideal
itself
an effective influence.
For example,
Kant
denyj, to exact science the possibility of solving
the fundamental problems,

for him, the
is
it
is
also certain that,
only science to which

exact
science
;
man
can attain
just
this
and the solutions
which he proposes by another method, have not

cognitive or thought value for
him
that
is,
they
the
have not
true
value.
finite
If Jacobi
criticize
method of the
sciences in relation to the

it
knowledge of God,
that, for him, the
is
none the
less certain
is
only form of knowledge

;
that
of the finite sciences

it
the other
is
not knowledge,
is
not translatable into the form of thought,
and remains "sentiment."

In
Hegel and
in
his
immediate predecessor
different
Schelling, things
would seem to take a
form,
because both posited as true knowledge
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
of the idea.
153
the knowledge of the intellectual intuition and

But, on deeper investigation,
we
discover in both the same prepossession (which

could be called the specially
sion), in
modern preposses-
favour of the exact sciences, though in

receives a
them
it
new
statement.
Instead of
excluding the exact sciences from philosophy,
and of considering philosophy as incapable of

scientific exactitude,
Schelling and Hegel consider

insufficiently scientific
the exact
sciences as
and
include
them in philosophy, which
elaborates them,
rendering them scientifically rigorous and supplying them with an internal necessity.
Jacobi,
Kant and
the exact
each
in
his
own way, made
sciences non-philosophical in character, and philo-
sophy non-scientific
Schelling and Hegel
make
the exact sciences a semi-philosophy, and philo-
*sophy the true science.
These are two

for
different
solutions of a problem, but
both the same

is
assumptions.
And
the principal of these
the
persuasion that the exact sciences have theoretic

value, or
that their concepts are
more or
less
perfect logical formulations.
Now,
in
order definitely to settle the dispute
between exact science and philosophy, and to

recognize the respective rights of both,
it
was
necessary to adopt an altogether different method.
154
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
long
as
So
the
naturalistic to
and
philosophic
methods were
scientific
taken
conflict
be
two
methods
for
of the
truth,
was inevitable,
that
reason
already
recorded,
determinate
its
activity has
but one intrinsic method,

first
own.
to
Hence,
if
the
method were admitted
be
science, the second

to
fall
;
was shaken and was bound

Con-
philosophy had to be eliminated.

if
M versely,
to
the speculative
method were admitted
be the only method of truth, the other was a
mere clumsy and contradictory tentative on the

lines of the first
method and had
to yield before the
complete development of the speculative method.
The mathematical and

to be replaced
naturalistic disciplines
had
by philosophy, since they were a
mediocre philosophy, which could not maintain

itself
against a better philosophy.
On
the other
hand, the
Jacobi,
way
of escape, taken
by Kant and by
to
the
consigning
of
philosophy
i.e.
the
practical reason or to sentiment,

theoretical,
to the non-
was
closed,
once thought had been
shewn capable of the

reality,
solution of the problems of

logic
and philosophical
had been
that
dis-
covered.
The
only other
way
was open
was
to consign the naturalistic
and mathematical
disciplines, z.e. exact science, to the non-theoretical,
that
is,
to the practical.
This path has been
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
entered upon
it
155
in
our day, and
it
seems
to
me
that
must increasingly appear, not only
fruitful,
but
necessary.
It
cannot be said that Hegel had no notion of
the practical nature of the naturalistic and mathematical disciplines.
His books are
rich in analysis
and observations, which could be transplanted

without alteration
into the books of the
most
modern
theorists of the
method of those
disciplines.
in
Read
his
pages on the concept of law
the
empirical sciences.
Law
(he says)
is
nothing but
;
the constant image of the inconstant appearance

so that, in passing from the
more
particular to
the
more general
into
laws, in reducing
them
to unity,
intellect
its
we run
tautologies, in
which the
expresses not the reality of things, but only
own
are
necessity.
What
to
is
the postulate, that in a
uniformly accelerated movement, the velocities

proportionate
the times,
but
just
the
definition of a uniformly accelerated
movement ?
And what
are the
numerous hypotheses worked
out by the physicists but assertions, which corre-
spond neither to empirical
reality
nor to the
philosophic concept, as, for example, the pores, of
which we speak, without their being demonstrated
by experience
centripetal
Of
the notion of centrifugal and

that
it
forces,
Hegel observes
is
156
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
is
vm
metaphysical monster, which
simply presup-
posed and which we are forbidden to submit to
any
intellectual
in
examination as to the mysterious

it
fashion
which
happens that these forces
increase and decrease and each in turn acquires
or loses
its
preponderance.
is
In the exact sciences,
what
it
is
called thinkable
unthinkable, because
is
false.
" It is quite thinkable, as
they say,
that a uniformly increasing
and decreasing move;
ment should take place

ability is
in circles
but this think-
nothing but an abstract possibility of
representation, which neglects the determinate
character
of what
is
is
under consideration, and
which therefore
In
not only superficial, but false."

in
the
same way,
is
mathematics,
the
name
irrational
applied
only to what
the science
contains of reality and rationality.
In addition to these and to very

similar
many
other
in
observations,
which
are
scattered
profusion, both
through the Phenomenology and
the Logic, as well as through the Philosophy of
Nature, there recur frequently
in the
pages of
Hegel the words

fiktionen),
intellectual fictions {Verstandes{willkiirlich),
arbitrary conceptions
to
indicate the constructions of the abstract intellect
and of the natural and mathematical
disciplines.
And
fiction
and arbitrariness appeal precisely to
vni
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
;
157
the voluntary and practical activity
and since
those acts of will have a secular history and are

the result of most noble efforts and are held in
high esteem, even in enthusiastic admiration, on account of the

attained,
it
proved
utility
of
the
it
results
should be evident that
was im-
possible to speak of acts of will in a depreciatory

sense, or of practical acts, as
if
these were per-
formed
passions
at
;
the bidding
of caprice
and of
evil
but rather in the sense of acts of will
rationally justifiable or of legitimate practical acts.
But there
is
a case in which
Hegel
explicitly
shows that he recognizes the

legitimate
non-scientific, yet
character
of those constructions,
It is
as
they are and as they must remain.
where
as
to
he
propounds
to
himself the
question
are
whether philosophic
that
is,
mathematics
possible
"a
science which
knows by concepts
according
what ordinary mathematical science deduces from

presupposed determinations
*
to
is
the
that
"
method of the
such a science
intellect."
is
His answer
"
impossible.
Mathematics
(he says) "is the science of the finite determinations
of
magnitude,
which
must remain
and
have value
in their finitude
and must not pass

essentially a science
beyond
it
and therefore
Since
it is
it
of the intellect.
has the capacity of
158
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
it
being a perfect intellectual science,

rather to preserve to
it
is
desirable
it
the advantage vs^hich
possesses over other sciences of the same kind,
than to disturb
cept,
it
by the admixture of the conit,
which
"
is
heterogeneous to
or of empirical
to treat
ends
{Ênc.
259).
" If
we desired
philosophically the configurations of space or of
unity
"
(he had said in the preceding edition of
the same book), "they would lose their meaning
and
their particular
form
a philosophy of them
would become a matter of logic or of some other

concrete
philosophical
science,
to
according as a
more concrete meaning came

the concepts."
that " arithmetic
be attributed
to
He
knew, on the other hand,
does not contemplate numbers
and their
for
figures, but operates [operieri) with

is
them
number
indifferent
set in
determinateness and
inert,
and must be
motion and placed
in
relations,
from without."
Once
a form of activity
was admitted, which operates with thought-data

but does not think them, there should have been
no
difficulty in
extending the observation and
in
attaching to
it all
the other scattered observations
on the non-theoretical procedure of the natural
and mathematical
disciplines,
and thereby
attain-
ing a truer theory of the genuine nature of exact

science.
vm
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
Hegel
also
159
had very clearly

of
in
mind a concept
method,
of
nature,
or
the
naturalistic
not
a
metaphysical,
but
simply
gnoseological,
i.e.
method applicable not
only to
the
so-called
inferior manifestations of reality (the three natural
kingdoms), but also to

intellectualis).
all
the others (to the orbis

Grotius's
Thus he considered Hugo
theory of the external right of States as analogous

to the natural philosophy of
logic
istic
Newton
Aristotelian
seemed
to
him
to be nothing but a naturalin
science of thought,
which the forms of
thought were described and placed alongside one

another, as
is
done
in natural
history with the

black-beetle
unicorn and the
mammoth, with the
and the mollusc; and the same comparison was

suggested in ethics by the doctrine of virtue
(
Tugendlehre).
By
this path, too,
he should have
been able to reach the conclusion that the content

of the so-called natural sciences
is
not indeed a
all reality,
part of reality, but a
mode
of treating
mode which
arises
and persists side by side
with the philosophical, precisely because, confined within

its
own
limits,
it
does not compete
with philosophy.
Another
characteristic observation of Hegel,

result, is the affirmainsists, that nature.
which would lead to the same

tion,
upon which he greatly
i6o
^y'
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
<
herein dififering from humanity, has no history.
Now,
if all
reality
be movement and development,
how can
is not,
a part of reality ever be conceived, which
together with the whole, in process of be?
coming
is
But, in truth, that which has

;
no history
is
nature in the naturalistic sense
that
in
to say,
nature contracted
classes
and
mummified
abstract
and concepts.
And
this affords
another
ground against considering these classes and concepts as
modes
critic
of apprehending real reality.
An
English
has opportunely noted that the
philosophy of history, or the treatment of universal political history, corresponds, in the Philo-
sophy of the
spirit,
spirit,
to the section
on objective
in the
same way
that the histories of art,
of religion and of philosophy, which
Hegel has
specially treated elsewhere, correspond respectively
to
the
section
on absolute
spirit,
which
comprehends the three spheres of

and
philosophy.
art, religion,
Thus
no
in
that
philosophy
spirit
of or
spirit,
only the section on
subjective
psychology
treatment
:
has
corresponding
is
historical
no history
given of man, con-
sidered psychologically.^
Why?
a
to
Precisely
be-
cause
psychology
is
naturalistic
science
historical
and
is
thus condemned
'
the
same
p.
Mackintosh, Hegel and Hegelianism,
236, n.
vm
sterility
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
which has been recognized
in
i6i
nature
in general.
But notwithstanding these suggestions, notwithstanding

occasion to
the
observations
which
he
had
make and
fell
the admissions which more
or less consciously
from his
lips,
Hegel did not

correct.
draw the conclusion which seems to us
He
did not proclaim the philosophical indifference
of the natural
their
and mathematical
;
disciplines
and
complete autonomy
he
turned
instead
towards the solution
which had already been
adopted by Schelling, when he had conceived a

philosophy of nature.
The
art
reason
is
quite clear.
He was
to his
driven to that conclusion by his logical
presupposition.
As
one
and history had appeared
mind
as philosophical errors to be turned

in
into truths, the

in
it
;
pure philosophy, the other
the philosophy of history as he had conceived

so analogically, the natural and mathematical
disciplines could not retain their relative

as practical
autonomy
formulations of reality and of ex-
perience,
and had to be treated as philosophic
attempts and partial errors, to be turned to truth

in a
"
The
antithesis " (he
says) "
is
between physics and philosophy of nature
not that between a not-thinking and a thinking
of nature.
A philosophy of nature means nothing

M
i62
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
;
but a thinking contemplation of nature
and
this
ordinary physics also

of forces, laws,
etc.,
is
for its
;
determinations
only, in physics
are thoughts
those thoughts are formal and intellectualistic."

" In the
philosophy of nature there
is
no other
question than just the replacing of the categories

of the intellect by the relations of the speculative
concept and the understanding and the determining of experience according to these relations."
Not only must philosophy agree with

experience
,
natural
but
the
birth
and
formation
physics
well
of
as
philosophic
science
has
empirical
presupposition
that
in
and condition."
He
sees
the
natural sciences, classifications are
purely
clear
artificial,
and
their
purpose
is
to
give
'
and simple marks as aids to subjective

;
knowledge
but
he nevertheless believes that

" classifications,
they can be replaced by " natural
and
it
seems
to
him that he has discovered a kind

the rein
of beginning of such classifications in
searches
of
comparative anatomy and
the
division of animals into vertebrate

brate,
and inverte-
and of plants into monocotyledons and

and others similar to
this.
dicotyledons,
He
often speaks elsewhere of an " instinct of reason,"
which should manifest

physicists
itself in
the theories of the
and
naturalists, in
which the speculative
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
And
this explains also
163
concept would be in some measure anticipated.
why he
natural
defends against
the naturalistic and mathematical nominalism of
Locke,
the reality of
genera and
of
mathematical concepts, and
why he
preserves
unshaken
his faith in the "eternal laws of nature."
A
able
single
is
remark
suffices to
show how untenIf
this
equivocal position.
any one
facts,
wishes to apply philosophy to historical
he
cannot do otherwise than narrate history (which

in
order to be history must always be to some

if
extent philosophically illuminated); and

in
any one,
the presence
of history,
is
seized with the
desire for a philosophical system, he cannot do
otherwise than abandon historical exposition and
expound abstract philosophy

way,
if
so, in
the same
any one,
is
in the
presence of the natural
sciences,
disturbed
by the need
for
philoit,
sophy,
he has but two ways of satisfying

is
according as his need

abstract philosophy.
for a concrete'or for

first
an
In the
case,
he must
pass from the natural and mathematical disciplines
(and from their intellectualist and arbitrary concepts) to
the historical vision of the things of

;
nature
and of man
in
the
second,
he must
simply and solely return to philosophy.
But a
philosophy of nature, a philosophy which should
i64
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
its
vm
have the natural sciences as on another

\j
base, is also (as,

is)
side,
the philosophy of history

;
a
.
contradiction in terms
because
it
implies philo-
sophic thought of those arbitrary concepts, which
philosophy does not know, and
upon which
it
consequently has no hold, either to affirm or to
deny them.
Hegel
difference
repeatedly
called
his
attention
to
the
between
philosophy
of
nature
and Schelling's,
criticizing
the latter for being
founded upon the analogy between organic and

inorganic,
upon the comparison of one sphere

and developed by the
of nature with another,
application of a prearranged plan.
But Hegel's
incapable
of
philosophy of
nature
is
equally
development, save by means of analogy.

only difference
is
The
taken
that in
it
the analogy
is
from the forms of the concept, and that he there

talks of judgment, syllogism, dialectic opposites,
and the
like.
Hence
the divergence
between
has,
the two philosophies,

in
it
mother and daughter,
my
opinion, but slight importance.

to
Nor does
to
seem
me
fitting
to attribute
its
Hegel's
natural philosophy, with
concept of becoming
and of evolution, the merit of being the precursor

of Darwin's discoveries.
The
evolution and the
dialectic of the concepts, in
Hegel's philosophy
vm
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
is
165
natural
fixity.
of nature,
purely ideal.
It
leaves
species intact, and indeed proclaims their

" It has
been a clumsy representation on the
part of ancient as well as of
modern philosophy
and transition
of nature, to regard the progress
from one natural form or sphere to a higher

as an actual product of external reality, which,
in
order that
it
may be made
dear, has
been
driven back into the obscurity of the past.

ternality is
Ex-
the special characteristic of nature,
by means of which she permits differences to

assert themselves
and
to
appear as indifferent
existences
the dialectic concept, which guides

their
the degrees in
progress,
is
immanent
in
them.
Nebulous representations, which are
at
bottom of sensible origin,
like those of the birth
of plants and of animals from water and of the
most highly developed animal organisms from

the
lowest,
etc.,
must be altogether excluded

consideration "
to
(Ênc.
from
philosophic
is
249).
This
sheer
hostility
it
the
hypothesis
of
transformation and
'
is
what might be expected
from Hegel,
in nature.
who does
not recognize any historicity^
Certainly,
'
when we speak
of the
fallacious
idea of a philosophy of nature and
condemn the
it
mode
of treatment proposed by Hegel,
is
not
i66
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
in
necessary to include
the condemnation
title.
;
the
whole book which bears that

is
The
devil
not so ugly as he
contains
is
painted
and Hegel's
observations
book also
(generally
in
appended
to his paragraphs, these
forming the
greater part of the book) a host of most just

criticisms,
which seem
at
first
glance
to
be
directed against mathematicians, physicists and

naturalists, but
which are really directed against
the
metaphysic which they mingle with their
teachings, or wrongfully deduce from them.

is
That
to say, they are directed against the " ineffable

calls
it,
metaphysic," as Hegel
which changes
into realities these mathematical
and
naturalistic
abstractions, like forces, pores,
atoms and so on.
Here Hegel
is
quite right and
we cannot
with-
hold from him our lively agreement.
This polemic
is
also the only just part of the
violent invective against
Newton, or against the

" Physicists,
bad metaphysic, which Newton (although he had

uttered
the
warning
beware of
Metaphysic"),
introduced or
suggested.
For
the rest, the invectives of
Hegel are documents

and mathe
of the hostility towards naturalists maticians,
which the idea of a philosophy of

it
;
nature brought with
just as the
idea of a
philosophy of history inspired a certain hostility
"
vni
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
His
said, did
;
167
against professional historians.
hostility, as
we have
not arise from contempt for

it
those disciplines
came rather from an excess
of love, from the too lofty and philosophical idea,
which Hegel
still
had of them and which made
him severe towards those who cultivated them.

Nevertheless,
his
Mte
noire
was
destined
to
become the greatest representative of modern

exact
science.
Hegel accumulated
criticisms,
accusations and sarcasms against
Newton, from
last
the dissertation
De
orbitis
planetarum to the
edition of the Encyclopaedia.
In the dissertation,
est,
he deplores " illam, quae Newtone incepta

mathematices
et
physices confusionem
little
and he
remarks jestingly about the

apple, that this fruit
story of the
fatal to
was three times
the
human
race, causing first the sin of
Adam, then
the destruction of Troy, and finally by falling
upon the head of Newton, the ruin of natural

philosophy
^
!
Newton
(he says, summarizing, in
the History of Philosophy) was the chief contributor

to the introduction into science of the reflective
determinations of forces, by substituting the laws

of forces for the laws of
phenomena.
In physics
and
'
.
optics,
. .
he made bad observations and even
fomam
xvi.
adfuisse,
universae generis humani, deinde Troiae miseriae principiis malum et jam scientiis philosophicis omen " (in Werke,
17).
i68
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
From experience he passed of view, made these fundamental,
facts.
worse syllogisms.
to general points
and from them constructed single

the nature of his theories.
in
Such
is
He was
a barbarian
the use
of concepts, and
never bethought
himself that he was employing determinations of

thought.
He
handled concepts as
we handle
stones and pieces of wood.
The experiments
which are adduced
and reasonings of
as the
in the
his Optics,
most sublime example of such operations

study of nature, should really serve as an
example of how one should not experiment or

reason.
Nature opposes these pretended ex;
periments
for
she
is
greatly superior
to the
mean
idea of her entertained by any one
who
puts his faith in them.
Similar outbursts, which
culminate in the hurling of an accusation of bad

faith
at
Newton (whom he accuses

have caused
scandal
of having
knowingly altered the results of certain experiments),
and
have
been
judged with great severity.
But while making
allowance for whatever small element of passion
may be mingled
in
with his criticisms, and without
attempting to excuse Hegel by recording
how
these criticisms and even in the violence of
his language,
he was in accord with some of his
eminent contemporaries and chiefly with Goethe,
vm
it is
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
certain that,
169
on
in
tlie
its
whole, his polemic, alike

unjust exaggeration,
is
in its justice
and
simply the logical consequence of the philosophic

position which
Hegel took up
in relation to the
intellectualism of exact science.
In the philosophy of nature also, as in the
philosophy of history, Hegel never dared to declare

the
empirical
and positive method altogether

it
erroneous, so that
could be wholly replaced
by
the
speculative
sciences,
method.
For
him,
their
the
empirical
by constructing
laws
and their concepts, come to meet {entgegenarbeiteii)

the the
as
work of the philosopher,

material
to
whom
they offer
;
ready and half

seen,
elaborated
and
we have
of
he recommended agreement
between physics and philosophy.

tions
And
been
declara-
the
same
sort
have
repeated
by the disciples of Hegel, such as Michelet,

Rosenkranz,
and
Vera.
This
last
compares
physicists to the labourers

to
and the philosopher

that
the
architect,
and says
les
"/a physiqtte
rassemble et prepare
sophie vient ensuite
matdriaux, que la philo-
marquer de sa forme."
But
these are phrases, inspired by
much impertinence
all
:
towards physicists and in any case empty of

content.
either
For
in truth,
we do one
of two things
we
think that the empirical
method
is
I70
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
some
truths
;
vm
capable of positing some laws,

concepts, in a word,
some genera, some

and
in
that
case
we cannot understand why
the other laws,
genera, truths and concepts, and the whole system
of them, should not be attainable with the same
method.
For the
activity,
which posits the

its
first
naturalistic concept, reveals in that act

for positing the others
capacity
and the whole
just as in
poetry,
it
is
the same activity and no other which

verse,
forms the
first
and which completes the
whole poem.
Or
else
we
think that the empirical
method
and
is
not capable of any truth,
however small
in that case the speculative
method not only

it
has no need of the other, but can draw from
no assistance.
physics and
trifling,
To make
to
verbal concessions to
the empirical
method,
is
mere
and
satisfies
nobody.
Hegel, in consider-
ing the exact sciences to be a semi-philosophy,

really denied
in
them altogether and absorbed them

;
philosophy
duties.
which thus assumed
all
their rights
and
And
having thus placed so great a
burden upon the shoulders of philosophy, he had
no longer any right to lighten

place part of
it
it
by trying
to
again upon the empirical sciences,

for
which were henceforth

existent.
him annulled and nonall
All the rights imply
the duties
it
was henceforth the business of philosophy, not
vin
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
171
of empirical science, to prove and to justify the

,
existence of this or that particular fact of nature
to discover stars, physical forces, chemical bodies,
physiological elements,
unknown
species of animals
and vegetables.
That poor
devil
Krug was
(it
seems
the
this
must henceforth be admitted) simply

sense,
spokesman of good
natural
when he demanded
it
of the
philosophy of Schelling that
should deduce the
moon
with
its
characteristics,
or a rose, a horse, a dog, or even only the pen
with which he, Krug, was writing at that moment.
Hegel from
of
first to last
of his writings
made
fun
him and represented him
as a comical person,^
and perhaps he
may have been
so
but this does
not prevent Hegel's reply to Krug's objection
from being embarrassed and ambiguous beneath an appearance of careless ease.
For
Hegel
seemed
that
to say
on the one hand that things of

facts
kind,
individual
(and
to
all
facts
;
are
individual),
do not belong
philosophy
is
and
on the other, that the deduction
quite possible,
but that science has far more urgent tasks on
hand than the deduction of Mr. Krug's pen.
And
the
illustrious
Neapolitan philologist and
physician,
1
Salvatore
Tommasi, was
xvi.
also,
like
See an
n.
article of
1802, in Werke,
57-59
and
cf.
Encyclopaedia,
250
172
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
in the right,
Krug,
when he
replied, not without
annoyance, to the Hegelian

persistent protagonist of
De
Meis,
who was
some
sort of speculative
physiology and pathology, that he would be dis-
posed to turn his attention to the method recom-
mended, only when some
sort of discovery in
it
:
medicine had been made by means of

example, the direct cure of pneumonia.
for
The attempt
to hold
on to the
coat-tails of the
empirical sciences, after having dismissed them,
has then no other meaning, as has been said
above with regard to history {and the basis of

the natural sciences
that
is is
it
historical),
false.
It
than to prove
Hegel's thesis
does not heal
the false nor
make
true.
But the analogy
does not end here.
Hegel, despairing of ever
being able altogether to rationalize history, as

his
idea of a philosophy of history demanded,
ended
by
arbitrarily
fact,
cutting
away a
part
of
historical
which seemed to him more emit
barrassing than the rest, and by consigning

fiction.
to
And
he did the same
for
the natural
sciences, in relation to
many
classes
and species
of the
called
of natural
facts,
to
an
infinite
number
appearances of
reality,
and to what are
rare cases, exceptions, or extraordinary beings.
His discovery
is
delicious
it
is
of the impotence
vin
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
173
of Nature {die
Ohnmacht der Natur), of her
weakness, her swoonings and faintings, during

the difficult task of achieving the rationality of
the concept
!
But
in the
realm of history we did
not allow ourselves to be persuaded to abandon

a part of the facts, for
we had
learned from Hegel

here, in the realm
himself that fact
is
sacred.
So
of nature, having learned from
him
not
is
that there
is
reason in the world,
we
shall
consent to
rebellious or
believe that one part of reality

inert
towards reason.
And what
is
has been called
the impotence of nature,
clearly nothing but
the impotence
of the philosophy of nature, as

faith
conceived by Schelling and Hegel, to keep

with
its
own programme.
IX
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FALSE SCIENCES AND THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO THE INDIVIDUAL AND TO THE
EMPIRICAL
Hegel might have
posited the idea of a philo;
sophy of history and of a philosophy of nature

he might have desired
it,
have inculcated and

else.
it
defended
it,
and have done nothing
A
may
is
programme may be announced, and then

be resolved not to carry
often happens, especially
it
out
a thing which
when
the
programme
dangerous.
books,
There are not a few systems and

intro-
which have never gone beyond
ductions and preliminaries, even in contemporary

literature,
and
in their
number
are
some
of those
It
announced with the greatest boasting.

almost be worth while
catalogue of them.
would
making an
instructive
But Hegel did not leave the

174
FALSE SCIENCES
as ideas in the air
;
175
philosophy of history and the philosophy of nature
he constructed both
effectively.
In this passage to actualization, he
had
to force
himself to
treat individual
facts
and empirical
concepts like particular philosophical concepts
and since he had already applied the

these
last,
dialectic to
to
he was obliged to proceed

of individual facts
the
dialectic
treatment
and of
empirical concepts.
And
made
this is the second
great abuse that Hegel

In order to
of his dialectical discovery.
reach this second abuse, and to place ourselves

in
a position to give
it
its
exact formulation and

to pass through the
genesis,
first,
was indispensable
its
and to work out

this
manifold consequences.
is,
For
second abuse, that
the
failure
to
recognize the
autonomy of history and of the

Without following that path
positive sciences, is in its turn a consequence of
some of
all
these.
in
its
twists
and turnings, we could not comcould ever have arrived at

:
prehend
how Hegel
so strange a thought
reach, not only a full
but by following
it,
we
fact,
comprehension of the
but a kind of feeling of admiration for the in-
genuity of that closely-knit
web
of errors, for the
method of that madness, as Polonius would have

said.
176
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
:
ix
The second abuse is the most commonly known and it has contributed more than anything else to bring the Hegelian philosophy into
disrepute.
If certain parts of
first,
philosophy were
in-
jured by the
the second injured or
menaced
;
historical studies
and the positive sciences

energetically
in
and
both
alike
reacted
their
own
defence.
But
in this
make
certain
we must The observations.

connexion,
not neglect to
acquired con-
viction of the error of the
method which Hegel

in a
defended and strove to apply, has involved

general condemnation
all
Hegel's books on the

art,
history of civilization and of
of philosophy
and of
religion,
and on the various mathematical
disciplines.
If the
method
is
erroneous (so the
ingenuous reasoning runs) what value, or what

guarantee can attach to the results
?
The books
reason,
from
beginning
to
end
will
be sophisticated
this
science and history.
And
for
not
only
is
the philosophy of nature never sought
and consulted by students of natural phenomena, and some translators even omit
versions of the Encyclopaedia
treatises
;
it
from their
but even Hegel's
upon
historical subjects
have themselves
been viewed with diffidence, almost with the fear

of being stained by contact with them.
Now,
FALSE SCIENCES
those books are to be examined, like
all
177
books,
their
both
details
in
;
their
for
general execution
and
in
Hegel
could
act
and on many
occasions did act in them, either against or in-
dependently of his programme.
Goethe,
best
optics
in the
same way, according
to
the
in
authorities,
wished to adopt methods
altogether
foreign to physics, which have
drawn down upon

specialists in that
him the unanimous reproval of

subject,
science,
and yet
in
other branches of natural
such as botany and anatomy, he made

Indeed, speaking
true
and proper discoveries.^
in general, the
value of Schelling's and of Hegel's
and of their
disciples'
books on the philosophy of
nature continually increases as
we
the
pass from the

parts,
more
abstract to the
to
more concrete
from
;
from
in-
physics
physiology,
so-called
organic world to the organic

this is clearly that
and the reason
for
the utility of the mathematical

in
method decreases
In
the
more concrete
not,
parts.
any
case,
if
Hegel did
as
it
appears,
obtain important results, nor
make
in
original obser-
vations in the positive parts of his naturalistic

treatises
(such
as
we
find
the works
of
' See Helmholtz's two lectures, " tjber Goethes naturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten," and " Goethes Vorahnungen kommender naturwissenschaftlicher
Ideen"
361.
(in
Vortrdge
und
Reden), Braunschweig, l8g6,
i.
23-47,
ii.
335-
; ,
178
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
if
Treviranus, of Oken, etc.)\offers

is
the best that he
perhaps always
a
subject
;
in
pyschology and an-
thropology,
in
which he was more
properly versed
in the
treatment of history, on
the other hand, he stands on a level with the

greatest
historians
it
of the
nineteenth
century,
although
was
(partly thanks to
him) the century
of historical writing.
In the history of philosophy
(of which, as has already
been noted, he may be
considered almost the creator) his observations

are as
full
of truth as they are original.
This
'
applies to his characterizations of the Presocratics
(and particularly of Parmenides, Heraclitus and

of the Sophists), of Socrates himself, of Plato, of
Aristotle, of the Stoics
and of the Sceptics,

;
of
in
the Neo-Platonists and of Christianity
and
modern
times,
of the English empirical philo-
sophy, of the critical-speculative period of
Kant
and of Schelling, of Jacobi and of the sentimentalists
and mystics.
In the study of ancient philo-
sophy, he fully realized the profound difference
between
its
way
of presenting and of understand-
ing problems and the
way
of
modern philosophy
its
and the error of rendering
propositions
in
terms of current philosophy, as did Brucker or

'
Compare with
naturalist.
this,
on the other hand, a note by Engels, AntidUhring^
pp. xv-xvi, which places in relief certain merits of Hegel as a physicist
and
FALSE SCIENCES
Tiedmann. His
political history gives
179
broad and
luminous views on the character and the connexions of the great historical epochs, of Greece,
of
Rome, of
the Middle Ages, of the Reformation
and of the French Revolution,

literature
The
history of
in
and of the
arts,
interspersed
his
lectures
on
aesthetics, contains
views and judg-
ments
(for
example, on the Homeric epos, on
ancient tragedy, on the Shakespearean drama, on

Italian painting of the
Renaissance and on Dutch

all
painting),
in truth,
which have
become
popular.
And
in the
any one who makes a special study of
the historical ideas which were in
vogue
nineteenth century and have become part of the
patrimony of our culture, would be astonished

the great
at.
number
of
them which derive from

source, or which received
Hegel as their
definite
first
form
at
his hands, although they
have
(like
been repeated and popularized by writers

Taine)
who
either
did
not
know, or were
it
in
error about their origin.

unfair
criticism,
Again,
would be an
though often made, to accuse

errors,
Hegel of
researches
historical
by making use of
posterior
to
and
discoveries
criticisms
him,
(Sometimes
these
have
rested
on
doubtful discoveries, as
for
when he has been blamed

" matriarchate "
not having taken the
into
i8o
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
had a suspicion
assign
consideration, or for not having
of
the
sociological
theories
which
the
origin of art to economic labour and industrial

decoration.)
No
historian,
however
:
great, could
withstand such an examination
neither Thucy-
dides nor Polybius, nor Machiavelli, not even a
Niebuhr or a Mommsen.
be unfair to
And
equally
it
would
make
too heavy and personal a charge
of certain political and national prejudices, which
appear neither more nor less frequently

constructions of history than in so
historians, philosophers
Italian
in
his
many
:
other
and publicists
to
from the
"primacy" of Gioberti
the contem-
porary Germanist manias of Herr Chamberlain

or of Herr
Woltmann.
these historical errors, which
errors,
it
And
is
in discussing
were the consequence of philosophical
necessary also to distinguish between those
arising
from erroneous
philosophical
concepts
and those which are connected with
his dialectic.
The
former,
Hegel often has

or
in
common
with
other philosophers
with
the
philosophy of
his time (for example, the
treatment of the history
of poetry and of art, based
upon the concept of
an
art
that should be substantially religion or

;
philosophy
construct
and
to
also,
in
general,
the claim to
the
or
reconstruct
speculatively
IX
FALSE SCIENCES
;
i8i
course of history)
alone
it
but
it
is
the latter which
concerns us to seek here.

all
But when
made,
of
it
these
reservations
have been
books
is
certain that
we do meet
in the
Hegel examples of the
dialectic
;
treatment
suffices
of the individual and empirical

*to
and that
explain
and
in
part
to
justify the
violent
reaction of historians and naturalists against the

dialectic itself
For the reasons already given, there are

fewer examples in his historical expositions;
deed, the history of philosophy
in-
may be
is
considered
almost altogether exempt.

history
But the universal

conceived
which
Hegel developed,
in triadic form, as
cal
the Oriental world, the classi-
world and the Germanic world.

antithesis,
These are
thesis,
and synthesis, which receive
concreteness for better or worse in the formula,

that the Orient
knew and knows
that only one
man
is
free
;
the Graeco- Roman world, that some
are free
the Germanic world, that all are free.

character of the
first
is
Hence the
third
despotism,
of the second
democracy and
aristocracy, of the
monarchy.
is
In order to establish this triad,
Hegel
and
the
obliged to suppress
In
space,
many
facts in space
time.
fifth
he altogether eliminates
Australia and the
part of the world.
i82
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
ix
other islands between Asia and America, seem

to
him
to be affected with "physical immaturity."

itself is for
America
him nothing but an appendand he refuses

to
age of European
civilization,
take into consideration the very ancient

tions of
civiliza-
Mexico and of Peru, because from what

of them, " they were altogether natural
at
we know
and bound to perish
the approach of Spirit."
As
regards time, he maintains that history only
begins
when
there
are
historians,
hence
the
German word
" storia ")
Geschichte
(or
the
Italian
word
means both history a parte

objecti.
subjecti
and history a parte

passed a long
life
Peoples
;
may have
but
this,
without a State
which
is
their prehistory, has nothing to

It
do with
history.
in
was with reference
to such limitations
time and space that Hegel put
down
in
:
one
" In
of his note-books in the last year of his

universal history, the
life
same
the
division
:
is
valid as
was
in
use
among
Greeks
Greeks
it
and
barbarians."^
In this way, he sought to adapt
to his dialectic universal history as
appears
in
the
books of the historians
and he deluded
a
.
himself that he had found in the individual
point of departure which should have the precision

'
of the
Aphorism,
first
a. d.
term of the
dialectic
p.
triad.
Berliner Periode, in Rosenkranz,
559.
FALSE SCIENCES
Such would be the
the
spiritual Orient,
183
where
rises
sun of history.
such
difficulty,
But the
totters
at
triad,
conquered
with
every particular
Indeed,
development which
to take only those
Hegel attempts.
first
which
catch the eye, this
fundamental triad widens into a quatriad, the

Oriental
world,
world,
and
Greek world, the Roman the Germanic world and in the

the
;
Orient, China and

to
India are at once sacrificed

is
Persia,
which
nation.
rise
for
Hegel the
first
truly
historical
In
to
like
manner, the history

of
Oriental
or
of art
gives
triad
Symbolical,
Greek or
:
Classical,
and Christian
or Romantic, art
is
a triad
whose very formulation

it
unstable enough, deduced as
is
from the
lack of equilibrium
between content and form,

be,
and of which the synthesis would

third term, but the second.
to
not the
also
Hegel seems
period,
later
refer to a fourth
:
artistic
than
the Romantic
and
;
this
would change
this triad
also into a quatriad

is
unless indeed the last phase

art into philois
meant to be the dissolution of
sophy.
in
The
history
:
of
religions
arranged
three phases
natural religion, the religion of

itself,
the duplication of consciousness in
and the
religion of the transition to the religion of liberty.
The two
last
are also determined triadically
the
i84
religion
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
of
reduplication
into
the
religions
of
measure (the Chinese), of fancy (the

and of internality (the Buddhist);
Indian),
the religion
of the transition into the religions of nature, of

spiritual liberty, religion.
triads.
and of absoluteness or absolute
And these are subdivided into new The religion of nature is subdivided into
of
the religions of light (the Persian), of pain (the

Syrian),
the
enigma
(the
Egyptian)
the
religion of spiritual liberty, into the religions of
sublimity (the Jewish), of beauty (the Greek), of

the intellect or of finality (the Roman).
religion
Absolute
would then be Christianity.

curious
But one
dialectic
of the most
examples of the
is
construction of the individual
furnished by the
characterization of the three parts of the world.
Hegel, as has been
said,
got rid of the two others
by saying that they did not seem to him mature,

either physically or spiritually: the
"new
world,"
according
to
him,
presented
an
incompletely
developed division into a northern part and a

southern part, in the manner of the magnet
!
But
the ancient world exhibited the complete division

into three parts
;
of which the
first,
Africa (the
region of metal, of the lunar element, hardened
by
heat, in
which man
is
is
confined within himself
and obtuse),
mute
spirit,
which does not attain
IX
FALSE SCIENCES
knowledge
;
185
is
to
the
second,
Asia,
splendid
bacchantic dissipation, the region of formless and
indeterminate
itself;
generation,
third,
which cannot
order
and the
Europe, represents conscious-
ness,,
and constitutes the rational part of the

and
earth, with its equilibrium of rivers, valleys,
mountains
and the centre of Europe

construction
is
Germany.^
in
The
dialectic
runs
riot
the
philosophy of nature, the

concepts.
field of
the empirical
In
its
positive part, that
book
is
at
bottom nothing but a compendium of mathematical and naturalistic disciplines, divided into
three sections
first,
geometry and mechanics,;
second, astronomy, physics and chemistry
third,
mineralogy, botany, zoology, geology and physiology.
This compendium of different sorts of

is
knowledge
arranged
in the
fundamental triad
of mechanics, physics and organic physics and
the whole
is
subdivided into minor
triads.
We
need not concern ourselves with the idea that

since
in
universal
history
final
the
is
point
of con-
vergence and the

spirit,
result
the Germanic
so in the cosmological conception of Hegel,
the centre of the
universe
is
the Earth (and
Germany would be
least
the centre of the earth, at
according
1
to
the
words
above quoted).
Naturphilosophie, 340 Zus.
i86
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
lofty philointellect
This only shows once more how a

sophical
can
now and then be
sub-
jugated
by sentiment and prejudice.
Let us
dialectic
rather consider
some examples of the
of geometry and of physics.
Besides the three
dimensions of space, Hegel posits three dimensions of time

;
past,
present, and
future
but
whereas he observes that the three dimensions

of time
nature,
are
not existentially differentiated in
he
seems
to
admit
that
the
three
dimensions of space are so differentiated.
In
any case, these three would be founded upon

the
nature of the concept, although (he says)

first
the determinations of the concept, in this
form of externality, abstract quantity, are only

superficial
and constitute differences which are
altogether empty.
They
are superficial, they are

;
empty, they are arbitrary
yet
is
Hegel deduces
the negation of
them
space
dialectically.
;
The
line
point
but
it
is
a negation essentially spatial

;
and so becomes a
negation
is
and the negation of the

!
the
surface
And
bodies
he offers the
;
deduction
of the celestial
the central
body
is
the thesis, the
moon and
;
the comets are
the bodies of the antithesis
the synthesis, the

is
body of the concrete
totality,
the
planet.
Magnetism seems
to
him the demonstration ad
IX
FALSE SCIENCES
syllogism.
187
oculos of the dialectic concept in nature, of the
complete
The two
sensible
poles
are
the
extremities of a real line existing in sense, yet
they do not
reality,
possess
and
mechanical
but ideal
reality,
and shew themselves
to
be altogether inseparable.
in
The
point of inplace,
difference,
is
which their substance finds
their unity as determinations of the concept,
in
such a way that they receive sense and exist;
ence only in such a unity
and polarity
is
only
the relation of such moments.

necessity of the dialectic form,
Owing
to the
Hegel combats
and
;
the identification of magnetism, electricity,
chemistry, which physical science tries to effect
and wishes the three

distinct.
facts to
be both united and

to the
He
would be equally opposed
physiologists,
who
life
abolish the clear distinction

cell
between the animal

or
and the vegetable
cell,
consider
as
disseminated
everywhere.
The
three
"
natural
kingdoms
to
"
answered his
of his
not
triadic
theory too well
permit
preserving them in dialectic form, as geological,
vegetable and animal nature.

posits to itself its
In the
;
first,
life
own
conditions
in the second,
the individual
is still
external to
its
;
own members,
in the third,
which are themselves individuals

the
members
exist essentially as
members
of the
i88
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
and therefore the individual
is
individual,
subject.
The
dialectic applies also each of these forms of

:
nature
the process of the plant

is
is
divided into
three syllogisms, that
to say, into the process
of formation, into the process of opposition toward

inorganic nature, and into the process of reproduction, the unity of the
lectical
two preceding.
The
dia-
reconstruction of the five senses, which

is
are five and not three,
more
laborious.
But
are
Hegel
five,
is
not dismayed.
For him the senses
yet they are three.
The
first is
that which
belongs to the mechanical sphere, of weight and

cohesion and of their change, that
is
to say, the
sense of touch.
The second
is
is
the two senses
of the antithesis, that

ized
aerity,
to say that of particular-
and
that
which comprehends the
neutrality of concrete water,
and the antithesis

:
of the solution of concrete neutrality

smell.
taste
and
it
The
third
:
is
the sense of ideality, and

is
also
is
double
that
to say, the sense of ideality
as manifestation of the external
by the external,
of light in general, and
more
precisely, of light
;
determined
in the concrete externality of colour
and the sense of the manifestation of

which makes
ternalization,
itself
internality,
in
its
known
;
as
is
such
ex-
by tone
that
to say, sight
and
hearing
FALSE SCIENCES
Other examples of
189
this dialectic of the empirical

is
are to be found in profusion in what for us
also a philosophy of nature (in the gnoseological
sense), or a philosophy of the empirical
i.e.
in
many
parts of the aesthetic, of the logic, and

spirit.
is
of
the philosophy of
In the eesthetic, the

triadically.
system of the arts

first
developed
The
him-
of the arts, architecture, creates the temple

:
of
God
the second, sculpture, creates

third
God
is
self;
the
expresses the feelings of the
faithful in colours, tones,
and words, and
sub-
divided into painting, music, and poetry.
The
labour of condensing into three, what empirically

is
determined by another number (the
five arts
is
into three, the five senses into three)

to
spared
in
him
in the fields of
poetry and of rhetoric,
which he found ready the

epic,
tripartition into lyric,

in
and dramatic poetry, as
natural science
he found the three natural kingdoms.

his classification of the
In logic,
judgments
is,
with a
new
terminology, word for word the same as that of
Kant, which has a quatriad as basis
the judg-
ment of
quality
becomes
that of existence, the
judgment of quantity
that of reflexion, the judg-
ment
of relation that of necessity, the judgment

;
of modality that of the concept
and the
triadic
syl-
subdivisions of these are preserved.
The
I90
logism
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
(which
is
the synthesis
in
relation
to
judgment
as antithesis, or the restoration of the
concept in the judgment and so the unity and

truth of both,
is
also
developed
being,
triadically,
as
syllogism
reflexion,
of
determinate
syllogism
of the
and syllogism of necessity.

of
spirit,
In
well
philosophy
Hegel
knows
for
that
;
psychology cannot serve as basis

yet he treats
it
philosophy
dialectically.
Subjective
spirit is
developed
of
in the three
degrees of anthropology,
;
phenomenology and of psychology
the
;
first
includes the soul, natural, sentient, and real
the
second, consciousness, consciousness of
self,
and
reason
spirit.
the third, theoretic, practical, and free
Objective
spirit
has the three moments

:
of rights, morality, and ethics
rights are sub-
divided into rights of property, of contract, and

of rights against wrong.
The
civil
ethical sphere
is
subdivided
State
;
into
family,
society,
and
the
the
State,
finally,
into
internal
leap)
rights,
external
history.
rights,
and
(a
curious
universal
The Hegelian
satirized,
dialectic
has so often
been
but no satire can compare with that
which the author himself unconsciously gives

of
it,
when he
tries to think Africa,
Asia,
and
Europe, or the hand, the nose, and the
ear, or
IX
FALSE SCIENCES
191
family patrimony, paternal authority, and the last

will
and testament, with the same rhythm with
which he had thought being, nothing, and becoming. in full

It
sometimes seems as
if
Hegel was not
possession of his thought, so
much
so that
:
he was obliged to assist himself with mythology

in
the same
way
that (according to an ingenious
interpretation of
Hegel himself)
Plato,
when
his
thought failed to master certain arduous problems
which
in his
time were not yet ripe
for solution,
replaced the solution by thought with the solution
by imagination, the concept with the myth.
X
DUALISM NOT OVERCOME
The
panlogism, which has been noted in the
is
system of Hegel,
nothing but the
sum
of the
errors arising from the misuse of the dialectic,
which
It
all
all is
have analyzed and exposed one by one.
the substitution of philosophic thought for

spirit,
the other processes of the
which must
acquire logical (philosophical) form and perish.

it
But
is
an error to consider panlogism as the
fundamental characteristic of the system, when

it
is
but a morbid excrescence, growing from

is
it.
There
no need to adduce as proof of Hegel's
panlogism his identification of logic and metaphysic, in that for
him
logic
for
is
at the
same time
so-called,
metaphysic.
Because
in
Hegel Logic,
had nothing
common
with the logic of the
schools (nor, in general, with a science of logic

as a particular philosophical science).
His
logic
logic,
was the doctrine of the categories, of which

192
X in the

And
all
193
narrow sense, constituted only one, or only

since the categories embraced
reality,
it
one group.
all
spirit
and
is
clear
that
the
logic
identification of logic
and metaphysic, of
and philosophy, was at bottom nothing more than

the identification of metaphysic with metaphysic,
of philosophy with philosophy.
That
his
meta-
physic and philosophy are developed, in part, as
panlogism,
is
true
but
it
is
a different question.
The
error lies exactly in the use of the principle,

itself.
not in the principle by
The
or
less
other accusation which
has been
it
made
more
to
against the system of Hegel, that
is
masked dualism, would appear
be
;
irreconcilable with the accusation of panlogism
but
it
is
not
so.
full
Since error can never affirm
itself
with the
coherence of truth, the error

its
of panlogism converts itself into

is,
contrary, that
is
into dualism.
The
appears
field
of this conversion
the philosophy of nature, where, as
has been
solid
shown,
there
everywhere,
and
persistent, the old concept of nature,
suggested
by the physical and natural sciences.

gave
this
it
Hegel
concept a philosophical value, thereby

the thought of a reality which should
to,
making
'Stand
spirit.
opposed
or
behind,
the
reality
of
The
critical
point
of this
conversion,
194
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
is
or the revelation of the dualism, which
dis-
covered at the very

conceal
it,
moment when he
tries
to
is
the celebrated transition from the
idea to nature, on which

self
Hegel expressed him-
very briefly and obscurely, and on which
his disciples
little
have shed so many words, but so

"
light
The
idea,
which
is
for itself, con-
sidered
intuitive.
according to this
unity
with
is
itself,
is
But, as intuition, the idea
brought
into the one-sided determination of
immediacy
reflexion.
or
negation,
by means of extrinsic
is
The
that
life
absolute freedom of the idea

it
therefore
does not pass only into

it
life,
nor allow
;
to appear in
only as
finite
it
knowledge
but
in the absolute truth of itself,
resolves to allow
to
its
go
freely out of
itself,
as nature, the
first
moment
of
particularity or of
its
its
determination and
is its
of
otherness, the immediate idea which
reflexion " {Ênc. par. 244).
This conversion and

dangerous,
that
this
transition
are
so
many
have
interpretations
of
the
Hegelian
thought
been
proposed
(and
others might be proposed) in order to avoid the
danger,
to
eliminate
the
its
dualism and to premotive, which

is
serve to the system
initial
absolute idealism, or substance as subject.
But
'be
in
none of those interpretations seems to

accordance
philosopher.
195
of
with the
genuine
thought
the
Thus
the
^
it
may be
convenient to maintain that

is,
transition
from the idea to nature
for
Hegel, nothing but the transition from philosophy

to experience,
from philosophy to natural science,
whose existence, subsistence, and independence

side
by side with philosophy, Hegel would never
have thought of denying.
The system
of
Hegel
would become
in this
way
to
a philosophy of
mind
and
facts.
or of spirit, universal, extraneous, but not hostile

to experience,
that
is,
the observation
study of particular historical and natural
But such an interpretation

consideration,
that
is
met by the simple
Hegel does not pass from

science,
philosophy to natural (empirical)

^
but from
logic or philosophy in general to Xh.^ philosophy of
nature
as
and therefore he understands nature, not

empirical concept
in
the
contrast
with
the
speculative, but as a speculative concept, which
has equal rights with every other.
This same
tion
difficulty confronts the interpretais
which declares that there
no
transition,
either logical or temporal,
between the idea and
nature, because the idea does not become nature,
but
is
already
nature
the individual
is
is
the
universal,
and the universal
the
individual.
196
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
way dualism would be avoided
is
;
Doubtless, in this
because
in
it
is
the universal alone which

consideration.
is
grasped
philosophical
The
individual
itself) is
(which, philosophically,
realized, in so far as
tuition, that is to say,
it is
the universal
merely individual, by
spirit,
is its
in-
by a level of
which precondition.
to
cedes the philosophical level and
But Hegel has not abandoned the individual

the poets or historians
of the individual,
:
he thought the philosophy

the philosophy
when he thought
of nature and of history.
In order to interpret
it
him
in the
manner proposed,
would be neces-
sary to cut out from his system, not

incidental pages of digression, but
it
some few
mutilate
to
by whole books and
sections,
and these from
among
seemed
the parts, which, to the author at least,

to
be
vital
organs of the whole structure.

could
third
interpretation
be elaborated,
founded upon a meaning of the word "nature,"

of which there are traces in Hegel, as the negative
moment
of
spirit, as
passivity opposed to activity,
the mechanical opposed to the teleological, as not-
being opposed to being.
In this case, spirit and
nature would not be two distinct concepts, concepts

of two realities, or of two forms of reality
;
but
one unique concept of the unique

is
reality,
which
synthesis of opposites, dialectic and develop-

ment
;
197
idea,
and
is
its
unity would be saved.
The
which
alienated from itself as nature, to return
to itself in spirit,
would be
spirit itself,
understood
in its concreteness,
which includes the negative

thinker, Spaventa,
moment.
The
Italian
came
very near this interpretation, when he wrote that

"
the logos in itself

it is
is
not reality, save in so
far
as
Logic, that
;
is,
spirit as
thought of thought
is
(pure thought)
and nature, fixed as nature,

it
not self-sufficient, and therefore
not only prespirit

it
supposes ideally the logos, but has absolute

as
its
its
real principle, precisely
because
it
has
as
real
and absolute end.
"
Yet, side by side
with this meaning of the word nature as negation
and not-being
of the
(as side
by side with the meaning

and the
word nature
as the individual
matter of intuition), Hegel maintains the idea of

nature understood as reality, as the other of
TO hepov Kaff avTo {the other in itself).
spirit,
Indeed,
were
this not so,
Hegel could never have thought

mere abstraction
whereas
of constructing a philosophy of the negative, of
not being, of what
is
he does write a philosophy of nature, and therefore understands
by the object of that philosophy
something positive.
Finally,
some have attempted

1
to interpret the
Princift di
etica, pp.
53-54'
198
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
tripartition of logos, nature
spirit
Hegelian
as
if
and
spirit,
nature and
were nothing but the
concrete spirit
itself,
divided only empirically into
two parts
and the logos would signify the true
reality that constitutes both, their identity in the
apparent division
versality,
it
would be
it
spirit in its uni-
and not only as
appears in the world

is
it
called social or
ally
human, when that

rest.
empiric-
separated from the

to
But
would be
distinction
spirit,
impossible
cancel
the
profound
which Hegel makes between nature and
and which he affirms as the distinction between

an unconscious and a conscious psychism was
far logicity.
;
Panhim,
from Hegel's intention
for
thought belonged to
animal
;
man and was

which
foreign to the
in nature, there is not thought,

is
but only
different
determinations of thought,
there certainly
said (and
fied.
is
an intelligence, but, as Schelling

it is
Hegel approved),
intelligence petriin nature
Therefore Hegel maintained that
the forms of spirit are not, as in the conscious

spirit,
resolved into one another, but have the

of
position
separate
for
existences.
Matter
and
movement,
system
;
example, exist as
facts in the solar
the determinations of the senses exist
as a quality of bodies,
and also separately, as

:
elements, and so on iÊnc. par. 380)
the dialectic

nature of the concept stands as a natural
199
fact, in
the positive and negative poles of the magnet.
To
regard nature and
spirit as a single series,
distinguishable into two only by a convention, as

civilized
man
is
distinguished from the savage,

;
may be
a just conception
but
it
was altogether His

distinction
foreign to the intention of Hegel.
of nature and
contrary,
is
spirit,
whatever may be said to the

;
qualitative
if
the difference between
unconscious and conscious beings, between things
and thinkers,
is
qualitative.
In the genuine thought of Hegel, as found in

his
philosophy of nature,
spirit
and nature
are,
then,
two
realities
the one opposed to the other,
or the
one the
basis of the other, but, in
any
case,
each distinct from the other.
Therefore he had
:
recourse to a third term, the logos

of overcoming the dualism drove
the necessity
him
to try to
overcome
it
with the triadic form, which had

in
done such excellent service

dualism of opposites.
overcoming the
spirit
But since nature and
are not opposites in his thought, they are not

abstractions, but
triadic
two
two concrete
realities
and the
it
form was inapplicable.
Nor was
valid
to apply
the form of criticism which, also with

for the con;
marvellous results, he had adopted
cepts of reflexion, in the doctrine of the essence
200
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
and
spirit, in
since, for him, nature
the sense in
re-
which he took them, were not concepts of

flexion, difficult to distinguish,
tinct concepts, of quite
but two quite dis-
determinate character.
is,
The
third term, the Logos,
in his triad, the first,
the thesis.
But, while the content of the second

is
term, the antithesis,
clearly nothing
but the
natural
whole
of
;
mathematical,
physical,
and
theories
and the content of the third term, the

is,
synthesis,
equally clearly, psychology on the
one hand, and on the other, the philosophies of

rights,
spirit
of art, of religion, or
and of the absolute
Idea
the
first,
the thesis, the Logos,
has no content of
its
o^vn, but
borrows
it
from
the other two parts, especially from the
last,
and
mingles with
philosophies.
it
polemic against inadequate

fact
is, it
The
it
that this Logos, for
him who
spirit
truly separates
from nature and from
and looks
well in the face, reveals itself
as nothing
but the dark foundation of the old

:
metaphysic
God,
in
whom were
united the two
substances of Descartes, the substantia sive Deus,

which, in Spinoza, supported the two attributes of thought and of extension.
It is
the Absolute
of Schelling, indifference of nature and of spirit

or the blind (but not too blind) Will of Scho-
penhauer, from
which
come
forth
nature
and

consciousness
;
201
or
the
Unconscious of Edward
also with
von Hartmann, which,
much
manifesta-
tion of reason, gives a beginning to consciousness.
Hegel had reproached Schelling with conceiving

the
Absolute as substance and not as subject.

his
.But
Logos
is
indeed a subject, which cannot
be thought as subject, or rather, which cannot be
thought at
'.'
all.
It
is,
as
Hegel himself
says,
God
in his eternal essence before the creation

;
of nature and of the finite spirit "

well think
and we can
finite spirit,
God
nobis
in
et
nature and in the

nos,
Deus
in
but certainly not a
God
outside or prior to nature
and man.
The
triadic
expedient, and the term Logos, to which Hegel
has recourse, show that he

in
is
always entangled
it,
dualism
that he struggles valiantly against

it.
but does not escape from
This dualism not overcome,
in
which Hegel's
absolute idealism becomes entangled, owing to

the grave logical error he has committed,
is
the
reason of the division of the

into
Hegelian school
for
right
and a
left,
and
the eventual
left.
extension of the latter to an extreme

right
wing interpreted Hegel
theistically.
The The
subject, the
*
Logos of Hegel, was the personal

relation of the
God
and the
Hegelian philosophy
in
to Christianity
was not exhausted
the recog-
202
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
nition of the great philosophical element contained

in
Christian theology, but extended to a

substantial
to
much
wing
more
agreement.
all
The
left
was opposed
transcendence and to the

It
whole conception of a personal God.

sized the character of
empha-
immanence of the system,
and
finally
came
to sympathize with philosophic

its
materialism, in so far as this in
own way
has
an immanent and not a transcendental character.

It
would be impossible
to decide
which of the
two interpretations was the more

thought of Hegel
;
faithful to the
for
both of them were founded
upon Hegelian
hostile
to
doctrines,
and were opposed and
one another, precisely because those
doctrines were contradictory.
XI
THE CRITICISM AND CONTINUATION OF THE THOUGHT OF HEGEL

Conclusion
With
I
the
interpretation
I
of the
philosophy of
in
Hegel, which
have attempted
at the
this
essay,
in
have declared
is
same time what,

fall
my
opinion,
the task that should

it.
to
its critics
and to those who continue

to preserve the vital
It
it,
was necessary
that
is
part of
to say,
the
new concept
of the concept, the
concrete
universal, together with the dialectic of opposites
and the doctrine of degrees of

with the help of that
ing
it,
reality
to refute
new concept and by
develop-
all
panlogism, and every speculative con-
struction of the individual
and of the empirical, of
history
and of nature
to recognize the
spirit,
autonomy
of the various forms of

their necessary
while preserving
;
connexion and unity
and
finally,
to resolve the
whole philosophy into a pure pkilo-
204
sophy
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
of spirit
(or
logic -metaphysic,
called).
It
as
it
might then have been

to
was necessary
draw
forth
its
the Hegelian thought

is
"from the
its
sheath of
members," that
to say, of
false
members, which had been badly attached

and
to
to
it
permit
it
to
form
its
own members,
answering to the nature of the primitive germ.
The
task.
school of
It
Hegel
failed altogether in this
divided, as has
been observed, into right

fractions,
and
left,
and subdivided into secondary

to
on the importance
be attached to the respective

towards
tendencies towards transcendence and
immanence,
in
the system
and yet
it
remained
wholly united in preserving and increasing the

dialectical
entanglement, the confusion between
the dialectic of opposites

distincts,
and the
dialectic
of
between the
of the
dialectic of the absolute
and
the
dialectic
contingent.
Michelet, for
example, the editor of the Philosophy of Nature,
amused
himself
;
with
dialectically
correcting
certain details
to the
fifth
such as the place that belongs
part of the world in the dialectic of
geography, which we have already mentioned.
He
believed that the islands of Oceania represent
the ultimate future of the
human
race, the ex-
treme development of democratic self-government.
And
to those
who
did not see clearly into dia-
XI
CONCLUSION
modes of reasoning, Michelet
205
replied that
lectic
the dialectic method, like artistic creation,
makes
no claim to universal acceptance, but must remain

" a specific talent of the favourite of the Gods."
Truly
master,
so
this
was
far
from doing honour to the

so persistently and with
sense, that philosophy
who had affirmed profoundly human a
must not be
esoteric, but exoteric.
Rosenkranz
(another of the principal representatives of the

right
wing),
after
he had
constructed
in
I
his
shall
/Esthetic of the Ugly, in a
way which
all
content myself with calling bizarre,
the terms
of the coarsest and most vulgar psychology, also
proposed re-arrangements and corrections of the

e.g.
H is corrections concerned,
in
the dignity of the fixed stars, which Hegel

to
was supposed
have slighted
;
favour of the
planets and of the earth
the division between
physics and astronomy, which

to
Hegel was supposed

;
have wrongfully confused
the transference of
the process of crystallization from the physical to

the organic
;
and the
like.
But on the other
hand, he never abandoned the Hegelian assumption of the philosophy of nature

;
indeed, where
truth
Hegel had lighted on a glimpse of the

declaring
struction
by
the
impossibility
of a
dialectic
con-
of mathematics, Rosenkranz
was ready
2o6
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
"
to contradict him.
This cannot be admitted,"

if
he exclaims,
universal,
"
because
the dialectic
method be
why
should mathematics be excluded
from it?"
doxy,
Vera, the Italian champion of ortho-
continued the exploits against
Newton.
is
He
maintained that the science of nature
to
be effected by three methods, the experimental,

the mathematical, and the speculative, which last
is
the crown of the three

:
and he wrote, among
other things
lumiere, et
et
Nous disons quil y a un air, une mime un temps et un espace apparents

"
sentis, et
qui sont
un
et
air,
une lumiere,
etc.,
qui
n apparaissent point
qui sont simplement pensds."
Passing from the extreme right to the extreme

left,
and dwelling
in recent
for a
who has
moment upon a writer, times been much known and
discussed in Italy, Frederick Engels (the friend
and collaborator of Karl Marx), we can see how
he reduced philosophy, by equating

positive sciences,
it
to the
and preserving of
its
it
only " the

formal
(!)
doctrine of thought and of

logic
laws
and the
dialectic."
And
of this dialectic,
"which was nothing but the science of the

general laws of the
of
movement and development

and
of thought,"
human
societies
Engels
gave such examples as the following.
grain
of barley, put into the earth, sprouts, and becom-
XI
CONCLUSION
is
:
207
ing a plant,
negated
but other grains come

is is
it
;
from the plant

negation.
butterfly
and
this
the negation of the
The
the
chrysalis
negated when the

but
the the
is
comes out of
chrysalis
butterfly
reproduces
again
negation
of the negation.
In arithmetic, a
negated
by
a, but, negating the negation, we have

;
-aX =a^
to a power.
that
is
to say, the first a raised
In history, civilization begins with

;
common
perty
will
proprietorship of the soil

primitive
private pro;
denies
effect
communism
socialism
re-
the
negation of the negation,
producing the primitive communism, but raised

to a higher power.
In the history of philosophy,

is
the
first
moment
its
original materialism
this
is
negated by idealism, which afterwards suffers the

negation of
ism.
negation, in dialectical materialit
Nor can
it
be objected (added Engels),
that
is
it,
possible to negate a grain of barley by
eating
or an insect by treading upon

it
;
it,
or the
positive
magnitude a by cancelling
because the
negation must be such as to render possible the

negation of the negation
:
otherwise (he remarks
ingenuously), there would not be a dialectic process.'

'
Antidiihrin^, intr. , pp. 9-1
1,
pp. 137-146.
This extract
is
also to be found in Italian in the

e
and on the negation of the negation, Appendix

di filosofia (Rome, 1897),
of Labriola's book, Discorrendo di Socialismo

pp. 168-178.
2o8
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
will narrate in all their
Who
method
of
wealth of amus-
ing details the lamentable fortunes of the dialectic

at the
hands of Hegel's disciples?

spirit
One
them
dialecticized
as
the
masculine
principle, nature as the feminine,
and history as
in in
the matrimonial union.
Another found
being
;
the
the
in
Oriental world, the category of

classical world, the
category of essence
and
the modern world, the category of the concept.
For yet another, antiquity was the kingdom of

art
;
the
modern world,
to be the
that of philosophy
the
future
was
kingdom of morality
Sparta with
and
in the ancient world,
Athens was made to correelectricity,
spond with dynamic

electricity,
static
Macedonia with
light,
electro- magnetism,
Persia with
Rome
These
in
;
with
expansive
and
absorbent heat.^
stupidities
are to be
found
in profusion
books illustrium virorum

nor can
it
as well as obscurorum
be said that
those of the obscure
men
are the least significant.
The
best of the school were those who, feeling
themselves unable to go beyond Hegel, or believing that the time was not yet ripe for doing
so,
limited themselves to preserving the doctrines of

'
These examples are taken from C. Knapp, from A.

Hegels u.
d.
v.
Cieszkowski,
etc., in P. Earth, Geschichtsphilosophie
Hegelianer, pp. 29,

part of
62.
For other
c.
characteristic
examples, see the historical
my
Esthetic,
13.
XI
CONCLUSION
in
209
the master as a sacred trust, emphasizing the
profound elements of truth

ing, as
them, and refrain-
though through an
instinct for the truth,
from insisting upon the
difficult parts (the philo-
sophy of nature, or the philosophy of

yet
history),
without
refuting
them
and
explicitly.
They
showed
as
it
their cautious
critical
spirit, also, in,
were, reconducting Hegel to his Kantian
foundations, and in
transition from
making the necessity of the

to
Kant
Hegel the object of
their
in
continuous study.
Such were Kuno Fischer

Bertrando Spaventa
Germany,
to
whom we owe
;^
a lucid re-elaboration
in
of the Hegelian logic

Italy; Stirling in
Great Britain;^ and several of

they formed
in
the students
countries.
whom
the three
Spaventa did not pass beyond or

Hegel, but he foresaw clearly that
to happen.
transform
this
was necessary and had
"In the
in
philosophers (he remarked on this subject),

the true philosophers, there
is
always something
underneath, which
is
more than they themselves

;
and of which they are not conscious

'
and
in
this is
See his Logik

J. Stirling,
und Metaphysik
Secret of Hegel
:
(1852),
especially
the second
edition of 1865.
^
The
{X-'^^^'^'^':
indicated at shortest thus
Plato
so
Hegel
made explicit the abstract that was implicit with considerable assistance from Fichte and Schelling
ttniversal,
i)i
as Aristotle
with
was
1865)- " That
secret
may
be
considerable assistance from

Socrates^
less
made
cf.
explicit the concrete universal^ that
implicit in
Kant"
(i.
p.
11
p. 317).
2IO
the
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
germ
of a
xi
new
life.
To
repeat the philo-
sophers mechanically,
to
is
to suffocate this germ,
impede
its
developing and becoming a

^
new
said
and more perfect system."
Of
the adversaries of Hegel,
it
must be
;
that they too failed of their duty
and indeed,
had they done
it,
they would not have been the
adversaries, but the disciples

his thought.
and continuers of
For
if
his fanatical followers pre-
served the
dialectic,
just as
it
stood,
with
its
confusions and false applications, they, on the
other hand, rejected
it
altogether
thus falling
into an analogous but opposite error.

set aside the bizarre
We
may
Schopenhauer,
who
belched
forth
contumelies against Hegel, but spoke of
him by hearsay, without knowing anything precise
about him.^
rises
Indeed his calumnious gossip
never
above the level of the general or

Herbart, far better balanced, at least
anecdotic.
recognized in Hegel " one of those rare

for
men
born
speculation
"
and held that the Hegelian
philosophy, because of the clear relief in which

it
sets the contradictions, with

is
which
reality, as
it
presents itself to thought,

'
charged, constitutes
Proliilione e introduzione
cit.,
pp. 182-183.
Such is also the opinion of the anti-Hegelian R, Haym, in his essay on Schopenhauer (reprinted in the Gesammelte Aufsdtze, Berlin, 1903)
2
cf.
pp. 330-31.
CONCLUSION
the best propaedeutic to metaphysic/
211
But
if
we
read the refutations of the dialectic by Trendelen-
burg
in
in
Germany, by Rosmini
(to
in Italy,
by Janet
France
name
only the most important),

;
we
for
cannot but experience a feeling of distrust
when we
easy,
tion
realize that a critic
makes
his task too
we
divine from his very words of condemnais
and of depreciation that there

in
something
much more profound

has failed to reach.
the question, which he
Doubtless those ingenious
confuters brought to light difficulties, and some-
times errors
but they did not show the true
genesis of the errors,
exaggeration of a
how they derived from the new and great truth. "To^
means
its
its limits,
confute a philosophy (Hegel himself said)
nothing but to surpass
and to lower
of
it
determinate principle, so as to
make
an ideal
moment."
But with the new generation that reached

maturity after 1848, the philosophical adversaries
of
Hegel
were
soon
succeeded
by
in
barbaric
adversaries.
These hated nothing

itself,
Hegel but
in all its
is
philosophy
which he represented
:
grandiose severity
heart
1
Philosophy, which
for
without
feeblexii.
and without compassion
the
See his criticism of the Encyclopaedia, Werke, ed. Hartenstein,
670, 685.
2
Enc. % 86 Zus.
212
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
for
minded and
the lazy:
Philosophy, which
is
not to be placated with the specious offerings of
sentiment and of fancy, nor with the light foods

of half-science.
For
these,
Hegel was the unseemed disposed
avenged shade of the speculative need of the
human
spirit
a shade which
at
to take its
own revenge
any moment.
:
Hence
the fierce hatred of Hegel
a hatred
composed
of fear and of remorse, and certainly not caused
by the errors of
that
after
his system.
Hegel had observed

had become too
for
it
Fichte philosophy
subtle,
and could no longer be an occupation
the beau monde and for the cultured public, as
had been
Kant.^
in the
eighteenth century, previous to

positivist
But the
to
regression reduced
that
minds
such an extremity,
they were
rendered blind to the distinction between the

concept and sensation, between speculation and
empiricism.
for
How then could it have been possible

all
such an age, which lacked
the elementary
or propaedeutic distinctions,
criticize
to
understand or
Hegel,
of
who assumes
elementary
the knowledge and
solution
the
problems,
whose
thought revolves round the ultimate and most

refined questions,
who
?
breathes and lives on the
most
lofty
summits
'
For such
iii.
as these, to look
Gesch. d. Phil.-,
577-S.
XI
CONCLUSION
to
213
upon him was
awake
in
themselves the sad

its
consciousness of impotence, with
agitations
and
irritations,
it
and
its
ferocious condemnation
of joys that
may
not taste.
is
Happily, in our day, there

in our intellectual outlook.
an improvement
It is
more favourable
to philosophy in general,
and more favourable to
Hegel
himself.
We are now beginning to possess

and of language, a theory of
a philosophy of art
history,
a gnoseology of the mathematical and
naturalistic disciplines,
which render impossible
the reappearance of those errors, in which
Hegel
became entangled.
In particular, the old concept
of nature, inherited from science, or rather from
the philosophy of the

in process of dissolution
seventeenth century,
:
is
every day
is
it
becomes
clearer
how
nature, as a concept,
a product of
the practical activity of
man
and
it is
only
when
he forgets
it
how he
has acquired
it,
that he finds
opposed to him as something external, which
terrifies
him with
its
aspect
of
impenetrable
mystery.
sophical
again,
On
the other hand, a certain philois
romanticism
this
is
everywhere appearing
and
a condition (though nothing
more than
of
a condition) for the true understanding

all
Hegel and
the philosophers of his time.

for
People are sighing again
mysticism and for
214
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
after the
immediate knowledge,
manner
of Jacobi
and they are setting up again the old Schellinghian

ideal of an eesthetic contemplation,
which should
give to the
spirit a thirst
for truth
and
for con-
creteness, something that (natural) science cannot

give.
Thus, Bergson, one of the writers who

attached
have
themselves
to
this
movement,
advocates as a metaphysic of the absolute, an

intuitive
knowledge, ''qui sinstalle dans
le
mouve-
ment
et
adopte la vie
meme
des ckoses."
But was
not this just what
Hegel demanded, and the
point from which he began
to
find a form of
mind, which should be mobile as the
movement
life
of the real, which should participate in the

things,
of
which should
feel "
the pulse of reality,"

its
and should mentally reproduce the rhythm of

development, without breaking
it
into pieces or
making
But
it
rigid
and
falsifying
it ?
for
Hegel, such a view was only a startingit
point, not a conclusion, as
is
for the writer
we
have quoted, and
for others of like tendencies.
The
renunciation of thought would have been

in
asked of Hegel
that the
in
vain.
And
is
to
have shown
is
demand
of concrete knowledge
his great
satisfied
the form of thought,

'
merit, his
et de
" Introduction a
la
M(5taphysique " in Revue de niHaph.
morale,
xi.
p. 29.
XI
CONCLUSION
discovery.
215
necessity
sifting
immortal
studying
Hence
the
of
Hegel
critically,
and of
the
intimate and vital elements of his thought from

the extrinsic and dead.
J
The modern consciousness

done
fifty
can neither accept the whole of Hegel, nor wholly

refute him, as used to be
years ago.
In relation to
him
it
stands in the position of the

:
Roman
nee sine
poet to his lady

te.
nee tecum vivere possum,
It
does not appear that we can now
obtain this critical revision of Hegelianism from

its
German
fatherland, which
it
is
so forgetful of
its
great son that
has not even reprinted his
works and frequently expresses judgments concerning him, which astound us

this
remote fringe of
Italy,
for
who belong to we have never

some wise
in
altogether forgotten him, and have in
made him our own,

with our Nolan
uniting
him
brotherhood
Bruno and with our Vico, the Far more important than the
on Hegelianism,
over thirty years
Stirling
Parthenopean.
German
in
studies, are the studies

for
which have been carried on

England.
itself to
There the work of

be very
fruitful
;
has
shown
is
for
there Hegel
clearly
expounded, truthfully interpreted and
criticized reverently
and with freedom of mind.
In return, the powerful spirit of
George Hegel
has for the
first
time awakened to the speculative
2i6
life
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
the minds of the English,
who have been
for
centuries the world purveyors of empirical philo-
sophy and who even
in
the last century seemed
incapable of producing any philosophers better
than Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer.
Now,
if
any one were to ask

"
me
if
he should
if
I
or should not be an
Hegelian," and
all
I
am
an
Hegelian,
might, after
have
said,
dispense
with a reply.
Yet
wish as a corollary, to answer
here this question in a
way which
is
I
perhaps
am, and
;
derived from that very philosophy.

believe
it
necessary to be, an Hegelian

in
but in
the
same sense
and
which any one who has a philoculture

:
sophical spirit and philosophical

time,
is
in
our
feels himself to
be at once
Eleatic,
Heraclitean, Socratic, Platottic, Aristotelian, Stoic,

Sceptic,
tesian,
Neoplatonic,
Christian,
Buddhist,
Car-
Spinozist, Leibnizian,
Vichian, Kantian;
and so on.
That
is
to say, in the sense that
no
thinker and no historical
movement
bearing
of thought
come
to
pass
without
fruit,
without
depositing an element of truth, which forms part,

consciously or
no,
of
living
modern thought.
Neither
nor any sensible person would wish to
be an Hegelian, in the sense of a servile and

obsequious
follower,
who
professes
in the
to
accept
every word of the master, or
sense of a
XI
CONCLUSION
sectarian,
217
religious
who
considers disagreement
a sin.
In
short,
Hegel too has discovered a

;
moment
this
of the truth
to this
moment we must
That
is
it
accord recognition and value.
all.
If
does not happen just

matter.
at present,
is
does not
much
The Idea
not in a hurry, as
Hegel used
to say.
The same
content of truth
must be reached, sooner or
later,
by a
different
we have not availed ourselves of his direct help, yet when we look back upon the history of thought, we must still proclaim him, with much marvel, a prophet.
way
;
and,
if
But the
first
condition for resolving whether
to accept or to reject the doctrines
which Hegel
propounds
(I
am
constrained to
make
explicit
what
should have preferred to leave to be

is
understood)
to read his books
and to put an
dis-
end to the spectacle, half comical and half

gusting, of the accusation
and the abuse of a

not
philosopher by
critics
who do
know
him, and
who wage
created
a foolish war with a ridiculous puppet

their
by
own
imaginations, under the prejudice
ignoble
sway of
traditional
and
in-
tellectual laziness.
THE END
Printed by R.
&
R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh.
'
i^sthetic as Science of Expression
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BY
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to
A word on the and we are very sensible
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force.
we owe
Mr.
Ainslie.
is
Mr. Douglas Ainslie
to be
his translation of the
Philosophy of the Practical, which

Croce's English dress
is
clearness
is
as
warmly congratulated on is marked by singular well-fitting and appropriate
as Bergson's, which
THE TIMES. " In picking out for consideration what seem to us the most important questions raised in this work, we have been compelled to pass All these will well repay over a number of interesting discussions. reading, even when they fail to win assent, and in Mr. Ainslie's beautifully
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good deal."
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mensely impressed us
is
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we
are eager to read the third
promised by the translator, and we feel that comparable only to Henri Bergson, who deserves the
English
critics."
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closest attention of
OF THEOLOGY PHILOSOPHY. Mr. Ainslie is an enthusiast for his subject, and he makes high claims for the Italian philoWhatever we may think of the book as a whole, it is one with sopher. which every future thinker will have to reckon, and on the score of originality
and
incisive criticism at least the translator's praise
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MANCHESTER GUARDIAN
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By
far the
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MACMILLAN AND
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OBSERVER. "The
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author has a distinct sense of rhythm, and writes
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MORNING LEADER. 'His

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is
poetry has tremendous vigour, and

it
its
a notable quality
never lacks point and definiteness.
THE SONG OF THE STEWARTS

The
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I.
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TRUTH, A charming little

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ears to
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In this day of snippety
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a welcome change to
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Long
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Ainslie writes easily
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His diction
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lures the reader along
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HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE

11 1975 Ax /uC/^ //'JU>-7i

Cornell University Library

and what is,,dead of the p

1924 029 044 729

Cornell University Library

Cornell University Library.

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ESTHETIC AS SCIENCE OF EXPRESSION AND GENERAL LINGUISTIC. Translated

PHILOSOPHY OF THE PRACTICAL.

LONDON MACMILLAN AND

DEAD OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL

BOMBAY CALCUTTA MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO

LIVING AND IS DEAD OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL

have followed the

original does so the use of capitals for the

that they are

printed with capitals in

but then, so are

other substantives, and by avoiding their use,

such words as idea and

stood as immanent rather than as transcendental

Philosophy of the Practical instead of the paraphrase

regularly formed from the Greek,

English, which has

about accepting an analogous, but not

term such as Epistemology.

are always legitimate, and

have not hesitated to

introduce one or two other words thus employed.

the adoption of paraphrase, frequent in contem-

porary English writer^, seems to

rendering yet more

by the very common-

ness of the words used as paraphrase the already

of Hegel, was published and

Hegelian bibliography as an appendix.

German and French

volume and would now have

need of not a few additions.

the present^ collection to

give himself the trouble of looking

through, correcting, completing and keeping

The Essay on Hegel

of a series of essays upon philo-

study of mine, with

permission to exercise upon

In this reimpression of the

be found instead certain

philosophy, which answer to censures and objections that

have been made to

more persuasive, objective

treatment or retreatment of disputed points to

The Dialectic or Synthesis of

Explanations Relating to the History of

The Nexus of the

Distincts and the False

Application of the Dialectic Form