Benedetto Croce What Is Living and What Is Dead of The Philosophy of Hegel 1915

WHAT
AND WHAT
DEAD
OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
IS
LIVING
IS
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.
NEW YORK /RUSSELL & RUSSELL
FIRST PUBLISHED IN K)I$
REISSUED, 1969, BY RUSSELL & RUSSELL

A DIVISION
OF
ATHENEUM
PUBLISHERS, INC.
BY ARRANGEMENT WITH MACMILLAN &

L. C.
PRINTED
CO. LTD.,
LONDON
CATALOG CARD NO! 79-83845

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
IN
TRANSLATOR S NOTE
READERS
of this translation will observe that
have followed the
Italian in discarding
where the
original does so the use of capitals for the

idea, spirit
and so
forth.
words
true that they are
German
printed with capitals in

all
It is
but then, so are
other substantives, and by avoiding their use,
such words as
idea and spirit are better 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 para

"
phrase
theory
of
knowledge."
regularly formed from the Greek,
worthy a place
difficulty
identical,
in
This
seems
English, which has
word,
to
me
made no
about accepting an analogous, but not
term such as Epistemology.
When
vi
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
neologisms cover a new thought or

abbreviating, expression,
seems
it
are always legitimate, and
to
facilitate,
me
by
that they
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 writers, seems to

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

sufficiently subtle qualifications of philosophy.
AUTHOR S NOTE
THE
study,
What
the Philosophy
(Bari,
is
living
and what
of Hegel, was published
Laterza),
and
an
contained
since been increased in the
in
suppress altogether
as
any one
it,
will
if
But
it
the present
This has
has seemed
collection
the bibliographical
something extraneous
republish
on
German and French
need of not a few additions.

opportune
1906
volume and would now have
translations of that
me
in
essay
Hegelian bibliography as an appendix.
to
dead of
is
to
its
ever, separately.
nature,
And
to
portion
and
indeed,
to
if
give himself the trouble of looking
through, correcting, completing and keeping

to date for the use of students of
Hegel,
it
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
D. A.
selected for translation into English.
1
vii
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
viii
to present
him with
that
first
permission to exercise upon

utendi et abutendi.
critical
study of mine, with

it
most
fully the
jus
In this reimpression of the
study of 1906 will be found instead certain
elucidations of various
points of the
Hegelian
philosophy, which answer to censures and objec

tions that
have been made to
as a rule preferred, as
more
me
though
have
persuasive, objective
treatment or retreatment of disputed points to
polemic properly so
called.
B.
RAIANO (AQUILA),
September 1912.
CROCK.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I.
II.
THE DIALECTIC OR SYNTHESIS OF OPPOSITES
EXPLANATIONS RELATING TO THE HISTORY OF
THE DIALECTIC
III.
THE
DIALECTIC
....
THE
AND
-33
CONCEPTION
OF
REALITY
IV.
THE NEXUS OF THE DISTINCTS AND THE FALSE

APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC FORM
V.
THE
METAMORPHOSIS
OF
ERRORS
78
PAR
INTO
TICULAR CONCEPTS AND DEGREES OF TRUTH
(STRUCTURE OF THE LOGIC)

VI.
I.
.100
.120
Art and Language (Êsthetic).
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTICULAR CONCEPTS

INTO PHILOSOPHICAL ERRORS
II.
VIII.

INTO PHILOSOPHICAL ERRORS
VII.
.134
History (Idea of a Philosophy of History).

INTO PHILOSOPHICAL ERRORS.
III.
Nature (Idea of a Philosophy of Nature).

ix
.150
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
PAGE
IX.
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FALSE SCIENCES

AND THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC TO
THE INDIVIDUAL AND TO THE EMPIRICAL
X.
XI.
DUALISM NOT OVERCOME
THE
CRITICISM
AND
THOUGHT OF HEGEL
Conclusion.
CONTINUATION
174
192
OF
THE
203
TRANSLATOR S INTRODUCTION
THE
following lines were written before the out
break of war, but
no reason
see
to
qualify
The
any of the statements therein contained.
madness and immoralism of twentieth century
Germany has nothing
writers of a
has been
in
common
with her great
hundred years ago and more.
great
decline
of
There
German thought
coincident with material prosperity and aspiration

for universal
dominion.
Readers of the following pages, accustomed to

Hegel s Himalayan severity and ruggedness of
style and to the arid and difficult treatment of the
Hegelian philosophy, so long in vogue, both here
and in Germany, will probably be surprised at the
profound yet pellucid clarity of Croce s thought.
Hegel has
at last
found a
critic
equal to the task, in the thinker
and interpreter
who
has already
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
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
xii
back upon Hegel, to unravel the gorgeous

yet tangled skein of his system, and supply to all
to look
future students the clue of Ariadne.
Who
but Croce would have thought of recom
mending
Were
it
Hegel should be read like a poet?

not for his own work upon aesthetic, such
that
a statement would
seem absurd
but in the light
of the two degrees of theoretic
knowledge and
of the formation of logic from aesthetic intuitions,
such
remark
assumes
Rather, then, than
dwell
its
full
significance.
ever upon some
for
technical difficulty, such as that presented by the

first
he recommends us
triad of the Logic,
Hegel
"like
poet,"
that
is
to read
without paying undue
attention to the verbal form, the historical accident
of what he says, but
full
attention to
In reading a philosopher,
truth.
his inspiration in the
mazes of
its
poetic
we should seek
his text, without
paying undue attention to the pedantries and

formulae with which such a writer as Hegel is
(historically)
overlaid.
We
should
see
in
the
Hegelian triads the mighty effort of the philosopher

against Eleaticism and all forms of Nihilism, and
his attempt to create a
Heracliticism.
is
Croce
help
superior form of
cut-and-dried Hegel of the
thus to be avoided
schools
s
The
new and
we have scraped
and when with
the lichen of his
formulae from the thought of
beneath
that
is
The
we
find
the true philosopher, the hater of
it
abstract
that never
Hegel,
xiii
title
and motionless, of the should-be
of the ideal that
is,
all
of this
scope and object.
book
The
is
not
real.
sufficiently explains its
magnificent critique and
explanation of the dialectic
is
followed by the ex
Hegel s two great errors, the

confusion of distincts and opposites, and of its
position of one of
far-reaching evil consequences for a great part of
the
Hegeli an system.
appear
in
the
Hegel,
who
is
or blunder,
his system.
tions
from
That
itself
Logic
this
is
error should
characteristic
of
not guilty of any mere inadvertence
but errs grandly in a vital part of
One
of the most important deduc
this error
is
that of the death of art,
be merged, according to Hegel, in philosophy.

Croce s refutation of this fallacy and of the
to
application of the dialectic to the empirical world,
were they his sole contribution to philosophic

criticism and research, would suffice to 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
dialectic of
to
the
opposites to the
category of distincts that Hegel conceived so great

a contempt for the practical as compared with the
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
xiv
He
theoretic world.
was
led
by his theory to look

upon the former as one from which the thinker
freed himself
In
by the power of his thought.
Hegel, the poet and the sage look down from
their
He
tower of ivory upon the throng below.
conceived the dialectic as a temporal becoming,

a progressiis ad finitum, and once he had attained
to the contemplative
life,
the sage would naturally
no longer desire any sort of intercourse with the

There would thus be cessation of the
throng.
But becoming cannot negate
dialectic.
The
true
is
becoming
is
it is
the intelligence
same way
as the universal
ideal
of real becoming, in the
itself.
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
Outside ideal becoming

coming, are the same.
is not real becoming, but only temporal becoming,
that
is
to say, arithmetical time, a construction of
the abstract intellect
just as the real individual
is
not outside the universal, but only the empirical in

dividual, isolated, atomicized, monadized.
and
real
every instant and every instant
Hegel
rational
Eternity
time coincide, because the eternal
action of the
him
to
in
in the eternal.
and
the
support energetically
the
identification
led
is
is
of
State and of
the
all
real
great men, and
the ethical with the economic
his confusion of
led
to the
xv
creation of Nietzsche s Superman, a
The
being above the morality of the throng.
rationality of the real should, however, be closely
connected with the most rigid condemnation of
error and of evil, and the perpetuity of the dialectic
The
with the constancy of the true.
idea of finite
progress must therefore be looked upon as

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

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

pursuit of truth,
perpetual
identical,
history,
others.
by the
instant
and the
return.
as
in
static oriental idea of the
The
and history are

their turn are philosophy and
because neither
We
spirit
is
complete without the
possess the truth at every moment,
act of thinking,
changed
and
into will
this truth is at
every
and nature, and therefore
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
xvi
into a
new problem, which must be
added
to, if it
sacrifice all
to
is
he has
remain
truth.
for the truth,
even
constantly
A man
may
own
soul,
his
but he can never sacrifice morality, owing to the

contradiction that this would imply.
more than a good word

Hegel
in
Croce has
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
versions of his Aesthetic and Philosophy
of the Practical in the latter it seemed to melt

away. But the study of Hegel should receive a
new and vigorous impetus from this work, which
:
much
should do
to correct the widespread con
fusion of the data of empirical or natural science
with true science, which

of sciences.
is
philosophy, the science
Philosophy assigns
its
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
problems outside their com
man may be an excellent entomo
scientists to solve
petency.
logist,
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.
Discussing recently
in
London
xvii
the origins
of socialism with a leading statesman, he remarked

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

filtered down through Feuerbach and Marx, to
Sorel and the syndicalists of our day.
There
form
existed in the
first
seems
thought can arise

like a spark from tinder.
to exist the belief that
from psychical friction,

Reality is looked upon by many as the physical,
mind as an epiphenomenon. Without the philo
sophers above mentioned, there could have been
no
"social
The
more
as
question"
than
presents itself to-day.
Roman
days were settled

those of the modern world
labour troubles of
easily
it
because without the modern theoretic
basis.
could not, however, have existed without

theoretic basis,
They
some
however rudimentary. The French
Revolution broke out
first
in the brain of
Jean-
Jacques Rousseau.
Much
will, in
my
by the publication
lead our
men
opinion, have been achieved

in
English of this book,
of action
and as a nation the
English have the genius of practical action

respect
if it
to
Hegel as one of the greatest practical
forces the world has ever seen.
They
are not
xviii
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
likely to
for
here
become mere dreamers by so doing,
we run no
risk of underrating
those
elements of
empirical thought represented by

and
other automobiles. Matter changes
aeroplanes
place with far greater
but there
is
rapidity than
one thing that
"
is
never
heretofore,
in
hurry,"
yet supremely worthy of attention, and that, as
readers of Hegel know,
is
the idea.
DOUGLAS
THE ATHENAEUM,
PALL MALL, LONDON.
AINSLIE.
WHAT
AND WHAT
DEAD
OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
IS
LIVING
IS
THE DIALECTIC OR SYNTHESIS

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

particular problems and for the conception of life)
was the goal to which the main effort of his mind

was directed. It was there that he found or
brought to perfection and full value, principles of
high importance which had been unknown to or
hardly mentioned by previous philosophers, or
insufficiently
marked by them, and which may
therefore be considered as his true discoveries.
Strange
is
the aversion to this conception of a
logic of philosophy (for
it
and should be accepted as
is
really very simple
irresistibly evident).
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
2
It
the idea, in other words, that philosophy
is
proceeds by a method peculiar to
itself,
the theory
No
of which should be sought and formulated.
one doubts that mathematics has a method of

own, which
the
that
is
studied in the logic of mathematics
have
sciences
natural
from which arises the logic of

experiment, of abstraction
has
its
their
observation, of
that historiography
method
is
aesthetic
method,
economic
activity
that in
which
science
has
its
economic
is
activity
afterwards
and that
is
ethic (or logic of the will, as
it
art,
inherent
reflected
in
moral
finally the
method, which
reflected
is
and
that poetry
general give us the logic of poetry and
i.e.
method,
method, and that therefore there
logic of the historical

art in
its
in
has sometimes
But when we come to philosophy,

that it,
very many recoil from this conclusion
too, from the moment of its inception, must have
been
called).
method of
its
own, which must be determined.
Conversely, very few are surprised at the
much space
that treatises on logic, while giving

to
the consideration
mathematical
and
of the
natural
no special attention
philosophy, and often pass
give
silence.
disciplines
sciences,
to
it
the
fact
as
of the
a
rule
discipline
over altogether
of
in
THE DIALECTIC
It
very natural that a logic of philosophy
is
should be denied by those who, owing to lack of
deny philosophy
in
or
confusion
mental
or
reflection
For
general.
eccentricity,
it
cannot be
claimed that the theory of an object should be
recognized
when the
reality of the object itself
philosophy does not exist, then

the logic of philosophy does not exist.
Good-bye
to both
enjoy such a position if it satisfy you.
is
denied.
If
But
if
have called
because
we
this spectacle strange,
it
is
too often see those very philosophers
or philosophizers, as the case
may
be,
showing
themselves altogether devoid of the conscious

ness of this inevitable necessity.
assert that philosophy
Some
of them
must follow the abstractOthers see
deductive method of mathematics.
no other way of salvation than a rigorous

adherence to the experimental method. They
for
it
dream and extol a philosophy studied in the

laboratory and the clinic, an empirical metaphysic,
and so on.
Finally (and this
is
the latest fashion,
newly revived), we
are now commended to an individual and fantastic
which,
if
not new,
is
at least
philosophy, which produces itself like
from the compasses to the

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

consciousness of art and
reflective
mathematics and of the
researches
and moral
science, of the practical

fail
how
to see
it
it
to
is
were the
history, of
of
natural
activity,
we
can do this by conforming to
the
method of one of those
He
who, when studying a poem,
particular objects.
limits his study
to the
application of the poetical method, will
in
himself the creation of the poet, this or
feel
that particular
work of
attain to a philosophic
He who
art
but he will not thus
knowledge of the poem.
limits himself to
when studying
mathematical thinking,
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.
the objectf of philosophy
be not the production or the reproduction of art

and mathematics and of the various other
activities
of man, but the comprehension
understanding) of them
all,
this
(the
comprehension
is
proceeding by a method of its

own, infused or implicit, which it is important to
itself
an
make
explicit.
activity,
In any case the hope
of judging
the
of understanding and
work of Hegel
is
vain,
if
we
THE DIALECTIC
keep clearly before the mind

problem which we have just enunciated
do not
always
that this
main and principal problem, the central

problem of the Phenomenology of Spirit, and of
the new forms assumed by this book in the
was
his
Science of Logic and in the Encyclopaedia of Philo

sophical Sciences.
Almost
histories of philo
all
sophy, and even the special monographs concern

ing
Hegel
monograph by Kuno
ample
in a
example, the recent and most
(for
repetition of the contents of his
summary
books, so
consist
Fischer),
as
close
to
divisions
his
by
But a complete exposi
thought, an inward and critical
repeat
sections and chapters.

tion of
Hegel
exposition, should, in the

part,
place and in chief
first
be devoted to his doctrine of the nature
of philosophic
enquiry,
and
the differences
to
between such enquiry and other theoretic and nontheoretic forms.
Above
all,
what should be made
Hegel,
modes or
confused.
firstly,
relation
to
Philosophic
It
is
concept, that
or
is
it
the
for
universal
is
or
Hegel
thirdly,
to say
intuition,
spiritual
most readily
is
thought
secondly,
or rapture,
three
the
attitudes with which
concept
concrete.
feeling,
in
is
thought assumes
triple character that philosophic
in
clear
it
is
not
any other
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
similar alogical psychical state, incapable of exact
This distinguishes philosophy

from theories of mysticism and of immediate
demonstration.
knowledge
significance,
for these
so
in
have
at the
as
far
most a negative
they recognize
that
philosophy cannot be constructed by the method

of the empirical and natural sciences, i.e. of the
of the
sciences
but
profound,
Hegel
the
becomes
eyes
to
empty
its
its
you
will,
profundity."
satirical
ferociously
hands,
if
are,
"
its frenzies, its
heaven,
the
clasping
an
with
mysticism, with
They
finite.
sighings,
against
its
raising
the neck and
bowing
faintings,
its
prophetic
mysterious phrases of the initiates.

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

which are
instance, "house," "horse,"
"blue,"
usually
termed
concepts,
owing to a custom
This establishes the
which Hegel calls barbaric.

difference between philosophy and the empirical
or natural sciences, which are satisfied with types
and class-conceptions.
universal
is
concrete
Finally,
it
is
the philosophic
not the making of a
THE DIALECTIC
skeleton of reality, but the comprehension of

in its fulness
and richness.
Philosophic abstrac
and are
not arbitrary but necessary,
tions are
it
therefore adequate to the real, which they do not
mutilate
or
And
falsify.
this
establishes
the
between philosophy and the mathe

not
for these latter do
disciplines
difference
matical
justify their points of departure, but

them,"
and
command
to
we
must,
says
belief that this will
be
"
other hand, has for

;
and
it
its
obey
in
the
the
the con
Philosophy, on the
object that which really
must completely
justify itself,
admitting or allowing any presupposition.
And
in
lines,
opportune" for
duct of the demonstration.
is
Hegel,
draw such and such
command
"
without
1
order to elucidate this triple difference,
according to which the true concept,

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

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

against Kant), which maintains that in the
logical
See especially the introduction to the Phenomenology

liminaries to the Encyclopaedia.
and the pre
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
philosophic
as
concept,
and
distinct
different
from mere representations of particulars, essence

Another is the review of the
implies existence.
judgment as a con
nexion of subject and predicate. That doctrine
doctrine which regards the
"
"
based on something that is not clearly in

telligible to thought, and is therefore inadequate
to philosophy, of which the true form is the
is
"syllogism,"
in
so
character of reuniting
has
as that
far
itself
with
the
logical
itself;
others,
again, are the critique of the theory, which con

siders the concept to be a
compound of
true
mark of the super
"marks"
"
(which Hegel
ficiality
into
the
of ordinary logic); the critique of divisions
species
(which
calls
"
and
classes
the
demonstration
curative efficacy in our times)
may have
of the vanity of every
"logical
and
calculus";
not a few others besides.
But
it
is
not
my
intention to offer in these
pages a complete exposition of Hegel s system,

but rather
nor even of his logical doctrine
;
to
concentrate
all
attention
upon
the
most
upon the new

aspects of truth revealed by him, and upon the
errors which he allowed to persist or in which he
characteristic part of his thought,
became entangled.
For
this reason, then,
set
aside the various theses briefly mentioned above
THE DIALECTIC
(from which
I
although
it
seems
to
me
impossible to dissent,
how
recognize too
necessary
it
that
is
they should be studied, since they form the often
neglected
BC
of
and
philosophy),
come
without further ado to the point around which
all
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
defined
if
we wish
The
gravity and difficulty.

(which, as
has
whose
sulting
is
to
understand
its
philosophic concept
is
a concrete
concrete, does not
is
it
exclude distinctions, indeed

It
be
been mentioned,
universal), in so far as
itself.
must
terms
it
includes
the universal, distinct in
from
those
As
distinctions.
them
in
re
itself,
empirical
concepts are distinguished into classes and sub

classes, so the philosophic
particular forms, of which
it
concept possesses
is
its
not the mechanical
which every
form unites itself intimately with the others and
with the whole. For example, fancy and intellect,
aggregate, but the organic whole,
in
relation
to
in
the concept of spirit or spiritual
activity, are particular philosophic
they are not outside or beneath
indeed
is
the
spirit itself in
concepts
spirit,
but
they are
those particular forms
one separated from the other,
like
nor
two
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
io
entities each confined
the
fancy,
distinct
as
is
commonly
may be from
it
and external to
itself,
but the one passes into the other.
other,
Hence
to
intellect, is
of intellect and indispensable to
Our thought however,
however
said,
the foundation
it.
in investigating reality,
finds itself face to face, not only with distinct, but
also with opposed concepts.
These
cannot
latter
be identified with the former without more ado,

nor be considered as special cases of them, as
The
they were a sort of distinct concepts.

of distinction
category
category of opposition
said,
two
is
As
distinct concepts unite with
seem
to exclude
is
it
Where one
one another.
opposite concept
in the
is
saying, mors tua vita
mea
by
its
distinct
in its other,
sequence of
slain
has been
but two opposite con
presupposed by and lives
which follows
the
one another,
enters, the other totally disappears.
concept
logical
thing, and
another.
is
although they are distinct

cepts
one
if
opposite
applies here.
An
ideas.
:
the
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
do not constitute peaceable and friendly couples.

Such are the antitheses of true and false, ot good
and
beautiful and ugly, value and lack
evil,
value,
and
joy
and
positive
not-being,
life
and passivity,
and death, being and
It is
impossible to confuse
sorrow,
negative,
and so on.
activity
the two series, distincts and opposites
spicuously do they
Now,
it
if
of
so con
differ.
distinction
do not impede,
if
indeed
rather render possible the concrete unity of
the philosophic concept,

that
it
same should
the
Opposition gives
rise
does not seem possible
be
to
true
deep
of opposition.
fissures
in
the
bosom of the philosophic
universal and of each
of
and
its
particular
forms,
irreconcilable
to
Instead of finding the concrete uni
dualisms.
versal, the organic
whole of
reality
which
it
seeks,
thought seems everywhere to run against two

universals, opposing and menacing each other.
In
this
way,
impeded
the
fulfilment
and since an
of
activity
attain to its fulfilment, thereby
philosophy
is
which cannot
shows that
it
has
imposed an absurd task on itself, philosophy itself,

the whole of philosophy, is menaced with failure.
The
that the
seriousness of this impasse
is
the reason
human mind has always laboured
at this
problem of opposites, without, however, always
12
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
clearly
realizing
what
it
And
has been doing.
one of the solutions upon which
it
has relied
in
the course of centuries, has consisted in excluding
opposition from the philosophic concept, and in
maintaining the unreality of that perilous logical

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

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

Thought and truth appeared in
of mechanism, or
be termed.
them
in
turn,
effect of habit
of egoism
the ideal,
dream
as
doctrine.
systems,
to
virtue, a
mirage
some kind of voluptuous
or capricious
and so on.
centuries
first,
and association
beauty, a refinement of sensuality
Another
sition
of the brain, or an
a secretion
which posits oppo
logical doctrine,
fundamental
employed
It
is
its
found
category,
force
in
against
the various
has
for
this
first
dualistic
which reassert the antithesis that the
with a delicate sleight of hand, had caused
disappear.
These systems accentuate both
THE DIALECTIC
terms, being and not-being,
and
and
ideal
false,
real,
13
good and
evil,
true
of
the
one
those
series being at variance with those of the other.
Without doubt, the
view
dualistic
retains
its
value against abstract monism a polemical value

due to its denial of the other s negation. But
:
in itself,
because
it
is
the
if
as
little
satisfactory as the other,
first sacrifices
opposition to unity,
the second sacrifices unity to opposition.

In
both
thought
impossible,
that
we
these
sacrifices
continually see
are
so
who
those
maintain the one doctrine turning more or less
The
consciously into maintainers of the other.

Unitarians
introduce
surreptitiously
the
duality
of opposites, under the guise of the duality of

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

itself,
so that they sometimes even say that the
spring of
ists all
And
in illusion.
the opposition
admit some sort of identity or unity of
opposites
owing
life is
unattainable
by
the
human
mind,
to its imperfection, but necessary in order
In this way, both

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

that it still remains a problem.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
For
or
"
necessary
human
the
of
imperfection
illusion,"
words, to which, try as
We
any meaning.
relative
illusions,
perfections.
we
"
necessary
and
accidental
and
individual
mere
we cannot give
will,
know only
im
relative
other than
reality
are
mind,"
the
real,
mind beyond the human mind, we can neither

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

as they affirm the
far as
com
first,
in so
far
the oppositionists, in so
they affirm the second, are right in what
and
affirm
wrong
what
in
they deny.
of
never
weary
admiring the virile
Hegel
firmness of the materialists and sensationalists
they
is
and
monists
of
every
unity of the real, and
in
owing
the
asserting
to the historical
which his thought developed, he

the dualistic forms less, and indeed
conditions
admired
never
if,
sort
in
an
lost
opportunity
of
his
expressing
antipathy to them, on the other hand he never

forgot
equally
that
the consciousness
invincible
and equally
of opposition
justifiable
is
with
that of unity.
The
case, then,
desperate
is
seems desperate
and no
the case of desperation.
less
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
thought, that
to
is
The
of hope.
say,
favour of
in
observer of the history of philosophy
casual
sees
of dualism follow every affirmation
restoration
of monism, and vice versa
each unable wholly
to strangle the other, but able to hold

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

monism, he distracts himself with the variety of
dualism
when he
he plunges
again into monism, and alternates the two move
and,
thus
ments,
is
tired of this,
tempering
The
with the other.
the
hygienically
one
casual observer, at every
epidemic of materialism, says with a smile, Wait
now
will
come
spiritualism.
ism celebrates
the same
little
spiritual
chiefest triumphs, he smiles in
way and
return in a
or
its
And when
says,
while
soon vanishes,
Wait
materialism
But the smile
there
for
cheerful in the condition of
is
is
will
forced,
nothing really
him who
is
ceaselessly
tossed from one extreme to another, as by an

invincible force
beyond control.
Nevertheless, amid the difficulties which
made
a
conviction,
have
the bottom of our souls
clear, there is at
secret
that
this
unconquerable
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
16
insoluble
this
dualism,
dilemma,
conquerable and soluble

is
is
ultimately
that the idea of unity
not irreconcilable with that of opposition, and
we
that
form
can and should think opposition in the
of
which
concept,
is
supreme
unity.
Ingenuous thought (which is usually called nonphilosophical, but would perhaps be better called
or
naively,
philosophical)
potentially,
embarrassed at the
difficulty
it
is
not
thinks at once
Its motto is not

both unity and opposition.
mors tua vita mea, but concordia discors.
It
that
recognises
a
theless
is
life
harmony
that
against ourselves, but that

selves.
It
struggle,
virtue
it is
recognizes that,
but
never
combat
is
nevertheless our
when one
opposition
has been overcome, a new opposition springs

from the very bosom of the unity, so there must
be a new conquest, then a new opposition, and

so on
the
but
recognizes, too, that this
hoop and another to the
advice
now
with optimistic,
which
observations,
thought,
nothing.
just
It
life.
to the
another
is
knows nothing of exclusive

the wisdom of proverbs gives one blow
of
way
systems
it
in turn.
to
What
potential
And
so,
deny
is
barrel,
now
and
and gives
with pessimistic
complete
wanting
philosophy?
to
one
ingenuous
Implicitly,
amidst the smoke and the dust
THE DIALECTIC
we always
of the battles of science,
find
immediately
in himself,
sigh for the
each one can
sense, for the truth which
good
17
without recourse to
the labourings, the subtleties, and the exaggera
But the sigh

the battle has been joined, and there is
tions of professional philosophers.

is
vain
no way to peace save through victory.

thought
grounds of
its
every objection
dicts
Ingenuous
(and this is its defect) cannot give the

affirmations
it
it
becomes confused and contra
Its truths are not
itself.
vacillates before
complete truths,
because they are not found united, but merely

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

in
Such
itself.
through
is
it
we
are
to
complete and secure
indeed, though
truth,
welcome
it
differs
widely from the truth of ordinary and ingenuous
degree of elaboration, cannot but be

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

that may have cost the labours of centuries, they
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
i8
shrug their shoulders and remark that the

boasted discovery is indeed a very easy thing,
plain and known of all men.
Precisely the same
will
thing occurs in the case of the most inspired

of
creations
which
art,
are
with
developed
such simplicity and naturalness that every one
experiences the illusion of having achieved, or

of being able to achieve them himself.
If
ingenuous thought give the hope and the
indication of the possibility of the reconciliation
of unity and opposition, another form of spiritual
which
creation, of
The
a sort of model.
And
the poet.
all
have experience, provides

philosopher has at his side
the poet, too, seeks the
the poet, too, thirsts for the real
he
truth;
too, like the
from arbitrary abstractions,

because he strives towards the living and the
recoils
philosopher,
concrete
he
too,
abhors the mute ecstasies of
the mystics and the sentimentalists, because
what he
feels that
it
is
he utters and makes to ring

words, limpid and silvery.
in the ear in beautiful
But the poet is not condemned

able.
This very reality, torn
opposition,
is
and he makes
the object of his
to the unattain
and
rent
with
contemplation,
though throbbing with opposi

Cannot the philo
tion, yet one and undivided.
sopher do the same ? Is not philosophy, like
it,
THE DIALECTIC
this
Why should
knowledge
poetry,
19
this perfection,
power of solving and of representing unity

be wanting to the philosophic con
in opposition,
when
cept
aesthetic
in
is
it
all
expression?
analogous to
respects
It
true that philosophy
is
knowledge of the universal, and therefore

and that poetry is knowledge of the
thought
is
and therefore intuition and imagination.
individual,
But why should not the philosophic universal,

like the aesthetic expression, be both at once
and
difference
unity, discord
and concord, discrete
and continuous, permanent and ever-changing
Why
should reality lose
mind
rises
when
true character
its
from the contemplation of the particular

Does not
to the contemplation of the whole ?
the whole
particular
And
in
live
us
as
vividly
does
as
here
it
is
that
Hegel gives
his shout of
jubilation, the cry of the discoverer, the
his
principle
of
it
deserves to be placed
bolized
The
problem of
and so obvious
among
those
another,
sym
by the egg of Christopher Columbus.
opposites are not illusion, neither
illusion.
Eureka,
the
of
solution
opposites: a most simple principle,

that
the
The
opposites
but they are
are
not
For true and concrete unity
opposed
opposed
is
is
to
unity
to
one
unity.
nothing but the
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
20
or
unity,
immobility,
but
of
synthesis,
movement.
is
it
The
development.
a concrete
It
opposites.
It
is
philosophic
is
not
not
fixity,
concept
is
and therefore a thinking

once united and divided. Only
universal,
of reality as at
thus does philosophic truth correspond to poetic
and the pulse of thought beat with the
truth,
pulse of things.
It
indeed, the only possible solution.
is,
rejects
neither
have called
of the two preceding,
and
"monism"
but justifies both.
"dualism
of
It
which
opposites,"
regards them as one-sided
It
a third, in
which await their integration in

which the first and second, even the
third
itself,
disappear,
And
that truth
truths, fragments
opposed to
it,
is
merged
in the
unique truth.
that unity has not opposition
but holds
it
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
but the negative

far as negative.
is
also positive, positive in so
Were
it
not so, the fulness and
richness of the positive would be unintelligible.

If
the analogy between poetry and philosophy be
be not sufficiently clear what

is meant by a concrete concept, which as the
logical form of development corresponds to innot satisfactory,
if it
THE DIALECTIC
tuition as
its
from
chosen
we might
poetical form,
that comparisons
21
say,
now
and metaphors are more readily
the
natural
sciences
(sacrificing
exactitude of analogy to aptness of comparison),

that the concrete universal, with
life
opposites, expresses
life
it
the
synthesis of
its
and not the corpse of
gives the physiology, not the anatomy, of
real.
rejecting, as
the
liable to
cause misunderstandings,
formulae of unity and coincidence of
the other
because
opposites,
doctrine of opposites dialectic,
calls his
Hegel
in these stress is laid only
and not
unity,
opposition.
at
The two
upon
same time upon the
the
abstract elements, or the
opposites taken in and by themselves, he calls
moments, a figure taken from the moments of the
and the word
lever,
"moment"
is
sometimes also
applied to the third term, the synthesis.

lation of the
the
word
And
term
first
"solution"
that, as
moments
but
two
in
Hegel
their
preserved
in
to the third
or
(in
means
intimates,
re
expressed by
"overcoming"
(Aufkeben).
that the
two
separation are both negated,
the
The second
synthesis.
(in relation to the first)
and the third
is
The
relation
appears as negation,
to
the second) as a
negation of negation, or as absolute negativity,
which
is
also absolute affirmation.
If,
for conveni-
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
22
we apply numerical symbols

relation, we may call the dialectic
ence of exposition,
to this logical
a triad or trinity, because

of three terms
it
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 specula
And
tive truth.
indeed, to speak accurately, in
we do
the dialectic triad
but
one
single
universal, in
More than
concept, which
own
that, in
above
is
it
its
all
not think three concepts,

is
the
concrete
inner nature and structure.
order to obtain this synthesis
things
necessary to define the
And
opposition of the terms.
if
the
activity
which defines the opposition be called intellect,

and the activity which yields the synthesis reason,
it
evident that intellect
is
is
necessary to reason,
moment of it, is intrinsic to it and this,

indeed, is how Hegel sometimes considers it.
Whoever cannot rise to this method of think
ing opposites can make no philosophic affirmation
is
which
its
is
own
not self-contradictory and passes into

contrary.
This has already been ex
emplified in the discussion of the antithesis of
monism and
first
dualism.
triad of the
comprehends
in
And
it
can be seen in the
Hegelian Logic
itself all
the triad which
the others, and which,
THE DIALECTIC
as
23
known, is constituted by the terms

What is being
nothing, and becoming.
well
is
being,
without nothing
What
is
pure, indeterminate,
unqualified, indistinguishable, ineffable being,
not this or that particular being
in general,
being
How can
it
be distinguished from nothing
on the other hand, what

nothing conceived
i.e.
i.e.
is
And,
nothing without being,
in itself,
without determina
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
has
meaning only
Thus
itself, for
the one
and through the other.
in
to take the true without the false, or the
good without the
evil, is to
make
of the true
thing not thought (because thought
is
some
struggle
against the false), and therefore something that

is
And
not true.
similarly
it
is
to
make
of the
good something not willed (because to will the

good is to negate the evil), and therefore some
thing that
is
not good.
Outside the synthesis,
two terms taken abstractly pass into one

Truth is found only
another and change sides.
the
in the third
first
triad,
in
"
Hegel
says,
that
is
to say, in the case of the
becoming, which, therefore,
the
first
concrete
concept."
is,
as
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
24
Nevertheless, this
taking
the
which consists
error,
opposites outside
the
And
constantly reappearing.
in
is
synthesis,
there
it
against
must always be directed the polemic which shows,

as has just been shown, that outside the synthesis,
the opposites are unthinkable.
the dialectic in
But
sense.
it
its
This polemic
"
"
subjective
or
is
"negative"
must not be confused with the true
and proper meaning of the doctrine of dialectic

in its objective or positive sense, which
may also
be designated the logical doctrine of development.
In this negative dialectic the result
not the
is
synthesis, but the annulment, of the two opposite

terms, each on account of the other and there
;
fore the terminology,
which we have explained
above, also acquires, like the word

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

intellect, in this sense,
depreciatory term.
the eternal
is,
at
"It
enemy
becomes a derogatory and
It
is
the abstract
itself failing of its
not the fault of the
not proceed
intellect,
of philosophic speculation.
bottom, reason
is
truth,
further,
intellect
own
if
It
task.
we do
but a subjective impotence
THE DIALECTIC
which permits that determination to
of reason
continue in that
state."
The
place to a quatriad of terms
but
and
prepare
in
if,
negative
capacity,
it
the
positive
doctrine,
it
compel
it.
confusion between the merely negative

of
aspect
Hegel
and
dialectic
its
positive
has given rise to an objection to the
content
Hegelian doctrine of opposites,
which
mounted by
battle-charger so often
aries
as negative
this
neither produces nor states
The
two affirmations
bring confusion into the domain of
to
intellect
triad itself gives
Reason intervenes
and two negations.

reason,
25
is
the
his advers
Bayard so very old and

do not see how any one
a Brigliadoro or a
broken down that
It has
keeping his seat on it.
been said
If being and nothing are identical
(as Hegel proves or thinks he proves), how can
still
succeeds
in
they constitute becoming
identities,
being
Becoming, on Hegel
must be a synthesis of
theory,
a~a
not of
of which there can be no synthesis.
remains
is
opposites,
a,
and does not become
identical with nothing only
b.
But
when being
and nothing are thought badly, or are not thought

truly.
Only then does it happen that the one
equals
the
other,
1
not
as
Wissensch. der Logik,
a,
iii.
48.
but
rather
as
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
26
= 0.
For the thought which thinks them truly,

being and nothing are not identical, but pre
cisely opposite, and in conflict with one another.
And
two
this conflict
wrestlers, in
of one another
(which is also a union, since

order to wrestle, must lay hold
is
becoming.
added to or derived from the
!)
there
are
first
two taken
two
two unreal
abstractions,
shadows, being and nothing, each by

are, as such, united,
their
common
Another
in
unique concept, outside of
their separation, but a
which
not a concept
It is
which
itself,
not by their conflict, but by
vacuity.
which
objection,
has
seemed
also
triumphant, consists in observing that the concrete
with
universal,
very mark of
logical
synthesis of opposites,
its
concreteness
its
concept, because
the representation of
it
not
is
the
a pure
tacitly introduces in
movement and
ment an element of sense or
of develop
intuition.
But
if
the words are given their precise significance,
sense
and
particular,
is
intuition
should
individual, and
mean
historical.
something
And what
there in the Hegelian concept of the universal
which we can show to be

historical
an element,
we can
What
in
can
the
particular, individual, or
we
way
separate out as such
in which,
for
instance,
distinguish the particular, individual, or
THE DIALECTIC
element
historical
"oak,"
or of
Movement
concept of
the empirical
in
or of
"whale,"
"feudal
or development has about
of the particular
It
27
and contingent.
has no sense-element
It is
regime"?
it
nothing
a universal.
a thought, a concept,
it is
Its
the true concept exactly adequate to reality.
theory
logical
concrete
the
is
But
synthesis of opposites.
was
objection
intended
There
not
it
is
may be
it
against
which the concept possesses
universal,
in
the
character
s
logic.
not something empty and indifferent,
mere
"
ready to receive any
"
recipient
"
in
that this
Hegel
content, but the ideal form of reality

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

"
is
commanded,"
"
"
intuition
like that of
mathematics, and
taken to be the speculative concept,
is
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,"
when
above,
that
bosom
of
pulch* ior.
intuition
signifies,
philosophy
divine
as
"
intui
we showed
must spring from the
Poetry,
matre pule lira
filia
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
28
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,
them
ever, in so far as they philosophize, find

selves, without
knowing
Thus our Rosmini, aghast

it
move
to
it
deny
"
recur
always
What
itself?
condition.
being
And even were
that being can
is false,
the question would
same
at the dialectic of
and not being, exclaimed

as true, as
in the
it,
how
it
deny itself,
what could
reason could be
assigned for this alleged desire, on the part of

being, to deny itself and to ignore itself? why, in
short, should
it
make
this
mad
annul
to
effort
Hegel does nothing less

than make being go mad and introduce madness
Thus he claims to give them life,
into all things.
itself? for
the system of
movement,
know
if
world, to
1
mad."
that the
free
passage, becoming.
a similar effort was ever
make
the
1
made
do not
in
the
even being itself, go

Probably Rosmini did not remember
same
all
things,
description,
though certainly
better style, had been given

in the
in far
by Hegel himself
Phenomenology, when, having represented
movement
of reality,
Saggio storico-critico sidle categoric
(Turin, 1883), p. 371.
that process of
e la dialettica^
coming
posthumous work
THE DIALECTIC
29
and passing away which itself is with

he concluded
out beginning and without end
into being
with the words
is
when
is
the Bacchic de
and transparent
seems mad, because

mad, because
life
its
that delirium
the others withdraw,
also simple
that
true
components is not
and since each becomes immediately dis
solved
The
which not one of
lirium, in
drunk
"
Reality
repose."
is life
it
philosophy seems
breaks up abstractions and lives
it
in thought.
It
is
madness which
is
the highest wisdom, and the true and not meta
madmen
phorical
empty words
the
who become mad with
are they
who
of semi-philosophy,
formulas for reality,
who never succeed
take
in raising
themselves to that clear sky whence they can see

their
work
as
it
really
They
is.
their heads, unattainable

to call
it
by them, and are ready
a madhouse.
Another manifestation of
fear
is
this
same
the cry that, with such logic as
very base and rule of
him
see the sky above
man
thought
is
irrational
this,
the
taken from
the principle of identity and contradiction.
Proofs are cited in Hegel
frequent outbursts of
ill-humour against this principle and in his say

ing that
for
there should be substituted the
it
opposite principle
1
that everything
Phanom.
d.
Geistes? p. 37.
is
self-contra-
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
30
But things do not stand precisely in

Hegel does not deny the principle of
dictory.
this case.
identity, for
otherwise he would have been obliged
to admit that his logical theory
was
and not
that philosophic
true, true
and
false
at
once true
being and nothing could be thought in the

synthesis, and also, each in and for itself, outside
ally,
the
synthesis.
And
his
all
polemic,
his
all
philosophy, would no longer have any meaning
it would never have been

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

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

divided, as has been seen, into
it
is
the one,
the one,
it is
now
two
the other, and
not the other.
in this effort after exclusion, the
And
yet,
one passes into
the other and both are fused in nothingness.

is
these
is
truly
unthinkable
contradictions
It
that
ordinary thought claims to justify and embellish

If attention
by adducing the principle of identity.
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,
Hegel does not believe
we
see that what
in is the fallacious use
of
THE DIALECTIC
the use
the principle of identity
abstract thinkers
or
opposition,
unity;
who
retain
taken as a
made
of
it
by those
retain unity
by cancelling
opposition
by cancelling
as he says, the
or,
31
principle of identity
That
law of the abstract intellect/
"
because we are unwilling to
fallacious use exists,
recognize that opposition or contradiction
error of ours
but that
it is
far
less
a subjective
indeed the true being
All things are contradictory in
of things.
not a
which could
defect, or a stain, or an evil in things,
be eliminated from them,
is
them
and thought must think this contradiction.

This establishes truly and firmly the principle of
selves,
identity,
ing
it,
which triumphs over opposition
that
is
to say, in grasping
overcome precisely
identity.
in virtue of the principle of
Opposition unrecognized, or unity un
recognized,
is
but in effect
same
in its unity.
opposition overcome, and
is
Opposition thought
it
in think
apparent obedience to the principle,

is
real contradiction.
its
There
is
between Hegel s method of

thinking and the method of ordinary thought as
there is between him who confronts and conquers
the
difference
an enemy and him
who
closes his eyes in order
not to see him, and believing that he has thus got

rid of
him,
thought
becomes
consists
in
his
victim.
"
Speculative
determining opposition as
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
32
thought does, and

It does not,
itself.
allow
itself to
its
resolving
so
in
doing
it
determines
like representative thought,
be dominated by opposition into

own determinations only in other
l
determinations or in
Reality
nothingness."
a nexus of opposites, and
not rendered dis
is
sipated and discrete thereby.
Indeed,
and
reality
through
generates
supreme
opposition
or
but
discrete,
it
of
dialectic
grasps
of truth, does not
come
from their place,
but
The
them.
in
become
unity
in
discoveries
to drive preceding truths
to confirm
concrete
and
tinction
is
it.
like all
Hegel,
in
eternally
thought, which
opposition and logically synthesizes
The
is
it
the reality of reality,
reality,
dissipated
that
Nor does
itself.
is
and
to enrich
opposition,
is
the
dis
in
universal, unity
and
true
complete principle of identity, which allows no
rival
to
doctrines,
the
principle
because
principle into itself

its
own
flesh
1
as
either
existence,
separate
has
it
enunciated
absorbed
d.
Logik,
ii.
67-8.
or
in
older
the
older
and has transformed
and blood.
Wissensch.
complement
it
into
II
EXPLANATIONS RELATING TO THE

HISTORY OF THE DIALECTIC
SOME
historians of philosophy have thought that
the problem of opposites was the whole problem
Hence
of philosophy.
attempts
at
the history of the various
solution
sometimes been taken

philosophy, and
of the
place
for
the one
problem has
the whole history of
of
this
has been narrated
But the
other.
dialectic,
so
in
far
from being the whole of philosophy, is not even

the whole of logic
although it is a most
important part of it, and might be called its
;
crown.
The
evident
the
reason for this confusion will perhaps be
from what was said above.
intimate
connexion
between
It
the
lies
in
logical
problem of opposites and the great disputes of

the monists and the dualists, of the materialists
and the
spiritualists.
These disputes form the

33
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
34
part of the
principal
and histories of
treatises
philosophy, although they do
primary and fundamental
consider
that
construct
of
in
of logic,
that
dialectical
Were
thought.
this
philosophers
fact
it
in that
the solution, true or
false,
the solution, true or
impossible altogether
individual
it
another,
distinct
members
is
Doubtless, every
way.
can be discovered implicit
the others.
all
in
each one, and in
of one problem, there
false,
of
the
problems
also true that these
of the organic
all
whole,
idea of that whole
This principle we must bear

to
But
all.
to separate
philosophic
All
if it
is
histories
from
one
problems are
and we should not confuse the various
wish to lose
are
two
are
is
it
philosophic problem calls up
of
to
thought reality dialectically,

least given on the occasions when they
have thought
is
when
and
logically
given by the many
finally
who have
or at
But
thyself."
the Hegelian solution would have already
so,
been
better
is
will disappear,
theory
its
one thing to think

and another to have logical con
dialectically,
sciousness
know
think
to
logical
different things
not
"
apparent coincidence
we
which
task,
expressed by the phrase

this
not constitute
circumscribe
the
if
we do
not
itself.
in
enquiry
mind,
as
to
if
we
the
ii
35
development of the dialectic doctrine

of opposites, and thereby to recognize the place
historical
and originality that belong to the thought of

This enquiry, within these precise
Hegel.
has perhaps not yet been carried out in
a suitable way.
This is due also to the fact
limits,
the
that
general
cultivate
consciousness
of
who
not
been
has
studies
philosophic
those
persuaded of the importance and truth of the

doctrine, so that there have been wanting the
interest
necessary
research
for
into
and
its
the
directive
The
history.
has been collected on this theme,
is
criterion
best
that
to be found
the books of Hegel himself, especially in his
in
History of Philosophy^ and here
it
is
opportune
rapidly to review his scattered remarks, making,
where
necessary,
some
additions
and
some
comments.
Was Hegel
the
first
principle of the dialectic
Had
to formulate the logical
and of
he forerunners, and
if so,
its
development
who were they
Through what forms and through what approxi1
See also the historical introduction to the Logik u. Metaphysik ot

Fischer (2nd ed., 1865), and the Prohisione ed introduzione alle
Kuno
lezioni di filosofia of B.
with the
new
title
europea,
Bari,
dialectic
and
La
1908).
Spaventa (Napoli,
1862; reprinted by Gentile
Filosofia italiana nelle sue relazioni con la filosofia
For the immediate antecedents of the Hegelian
for the various
phases of its development, see preferably Al.

Schmid, Entwickelungsgeschicte der hegehchen Logik (Regensburg, 1858).
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
36
mations did that principle pass, prior to attain

ing in
him
The
to its perfection
doctrine
of
dialectic
work of
the
is
mature thought, the product of long philosophic
Zeno of Elea
the
motion,
Hellenic antiquity
In
incubation.
refutations
first
we
find,
in
of
of
the
reality
of
the
difficulties
perception
which the principle of opposites gives rise.

Motion is the very fact of development in the
to
form
which
in
And
reflexion.
in
very clear
by
denying
the
resolved
reality
the
In
to
are:
"
being
"
same,"
is,
is
contradiction
(His
and the
an
illusion of
one and immovable.
made
is
not-being
not,"
of
His
the true reality.
and
and also
is
Heraclitus
Zeno,
movement and becoming

all
to
difficulties
of Achilles
Motion
being, reality,
opposition
sayings
the
easily
movement.
of
arrow,
space and time.)
the senses
most
showed the contradictions involved
tortoise, etc.,
in
itself
Zeno, having set the
relief,
of
arguments
offers
it
are
the
"everything
His comparisons of things with a river,

of the opposite which is in its opposite as sweet
flows."
and
lyre
bitter are in honey, of the

;
his cosmological
bow and
of the
views of war and peace,
of discord and harmony,
show how profoundly
Heraclitus
as
felt
reality
contradiction
and
,i
Hegel used
development.
to
there
that
say
37
was not one affirmation of Heraclitus that he

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

the truth.
But we must not insist upon them
too
we
lest
much,
run
should
the
risk
of
and make a Post-Kantian
historical falsification,
of a Pre-Socratic.
The same remark

dialectic
of
the
Parmenides,
Philebus,
dialogues
historical
place
Hegel thought
are
whose
the
to
applies
the
Platonic
Sophist,
interpretation
much
matters of
the
and
dispute.
that they contained the essence
of the Platonic philosophy, the attempt,
pass from the universal,
still
i.e.
to
as yet abstract, to
the concrete universal, to posit the speculative
form
of
Questions
the
are
concept
as
discussed
unity
there
in
diversity.
concerning the
one and the many, identity and non-identity,

motion and rest, coming into being and passing
away, being and not being, finite and infinite,
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
38
The
the limited and the unlimited.

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

themselves and in distinction from
to
itself,
others are and are not, appear and do not appear.
And
of this indicates an attempt to overcome
all
a difficulty, which issues only in a negative result.
In any case, as Hegel noted, in Plato
find the
but not yet complete consciousness of
dialectic,
its
we
nature.
It is
a speculative
method of thinking,
greatly superior in value to the argumentations
of the Sophists or to the later ingenuities of the
Sceptics
logical
but
does not attain to the level of
it
Of
doctrine.
Aristotle,
that his logical consciousness
is
may be
it
in
with his speculative consciousness
said
disagreement
his logic
purely intellectualist, his metaphysic
is
a study
is
of the categories.
We
can
discover
of
nothing
more
than
an
or
perhaps a conscious
ness of helplessness and an indication of the
extremity
lacuna,
in
need,
the
doctrines
and of the Gnostics.

absolute
thought
being,
the
abyss where
is
of Plotinus, for
all
the
This
is
Jew
reality,
unattainable
inscrutable
negated.
whom
Philo
For them, true
considered
ineffable,
all is
of
God,
by
the
equally true
predicates are inadequate
ii
39
them expressing but a
to the Absolute, each of
developed an
idea that Plato had already mentioned
the idea
determination of
In Proclus
it.
is
of the trinity or the triad.
This
Absolute as
spirit,
idea
of
the
philosophic advance
idea,
and the
the
is
great
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,
where opposites
Cusan was the
the
and to
to
first
coincidence of opposites
is
raise itself to
perceive
in
And
coincide.
that
antithesis
this
to the
merely abstract logic of Aristotle, who conceived

contrariety as
and did not
difference,
perfect
admit that unity could contain contraries, since

he regarded each thing as the privation of its
Cusanus
opposite.
that unity
is
maintained
against
prior to duality, the coincidence of
opposites prior to their separation.

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

is
incomprehensible
to
either
man,
intellect,
mind.
by sense, or by reason, or by
which are the three forms of the human
It
1
remains a simple limit
IvavTibTys
t<rrl
and of God,
5ta0opd rAetos, Metaphys. 10553.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
40
who
is
a union of
is
ledge
all
no other know
contraries,
save an
permitted,
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
"
Bruno
Cusan."
also upholds the coincidence of opposites as the
best
of
principle
forgotten and must be resuscitated
an
eloquent
contraries,
description
of.
has been
philosophy that
the
of
the
and gives
of
unification
circle
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
and the plane, of the concave and the

convex, of wrath and patience, of pride and
spherical
humility, of avarice and liberality.
an echo of the Cusan
is
words:
"Whoever
least
and
draw the
of union.
thought,
1
On
the
memorable
him study and contemplate

greatest
Profound
opposites.
to
the
these
there
wishes to know the greatest
secrets of nature, let
the
in
And
is
of
contraries
the magic that
and
knows how
contrast, after having found the point
This was the direction of Aristotle
when he
Cusan,
see
posited
Fiorentino,
Quattrocento (Napoli, 1885), cap.
ii.
privation,
//
Risorgimento
conjoined
filosofico
nel
ii
41
with a determinate disposition, as the progenitrix,
parent and mother of form

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

a way that he failed to descend to the species of
even
fix
erred
at
his
the
eyes upon
Hence he
goal.
every step, through saying that the
come together
contraries could not truly
same
did not
so that he did not attain,
contrariety,
In his naturalistic intuition, the
subject."
becomes
principle of the coincidence of opposites
Bruno a kind of
to
We
"
templation
principle of con
aesthetic
delight in colour, not in one
whatever
specific colour,
in one,
in the
which weaves into
be, but chiefly
may
it
We
itself all colours.
delight in a voice, not in a single voice, but in
one
harmony
sensible,
in
sound
complex
itself
of
voices.
many
but chiefly
all
which
in
comprehends
itself
We
in
whole,
itself."
De
in
but chiefly
every knowable
The
that
principle
la causa principio
is
ed uno, Dialogue V.,
metafisici, ed. Gentile, Bari, Laterza),
in
an
can be
completes the
which
no
that
all
being which
in
in
comprehends
knowable which
apprehensible, which embraces
understood
delight
the
that which
in
sensibles
from
results
is
the whole
longer beyond
in
fine
1907, pp. 255-257.
(V.
Dialoghi
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
42
man
reach
it
is
power of the human mind
though not yet a rigorously

still
awaits
logical power.
It
justification in a doctrine of the
its
concept.
The
of
unity
is
opposites
also
earnestly
asserted
by the philosophus theutonicus,
Bohme.
He
force, says
posits the antitheses in
Hegel, but does not allow
to be arrested
their full
his
thought
by the strength of the differences,
and proceeds to posit unity.

is unknowable without the u
is in
Jacob
himself unknowable.
For him, the
yes
The One, God,
no."
If
"
"
he
is
to
be known,
he must distinguish himself from himself, the

Father must duplicate himself in the Son.
Bohme
sees
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
and
seventeenth
eighteenth centuries which developed under the

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

the form proper to thought.
For Descartes,
thought and extension unite
incomprehensible manner.
unite in Substance:
third
but
in
God, but
in
an
For Spinoza, they

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

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

an optimism of but
The
century resolves
all
and arrives
evil
is
at
philosophical value.
slight
of
philosophy
popular
43
the
eighteenth
antitheses in God,
who
thus
becomes an assemblage of contradictions, the

problem of problems. Only here and there do
we
find
in
suggestions
some
Vico,
who
the
of
example, there
solitary
is
thinker
dialectic
and
hints
For
solution.
the philosophus italicus, G. B.
not only actually thinks history and
from the logic of

Aristotle, and from that of Cartesian physics and
life
dialectically,
but recoils
mathematics, founding on the one hand a logic

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

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

dissatisfied with the principles of identity and
reason and attracted by that of the coincidentia
oppositorum.
in the
De
Hamann had met with this
triplici
minima
and he had carried
"
it
et
for
principle
mensura of Bruno
years
in
his
head
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
44
without being able either to forget it or to under

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

passed to Jacobi, who published
abstract thinkers.
of this principle
and
the extracts relating to
it
which are
to
be found
But Jacobi, hampered

by his theory of immediate knowledge, though
he indicated the lacuna, was not himself in
the works of Bruno.
in
a position to pass
beyond
it
strict
by
logical
thought.
The
reason for this
is,
that in order to arrive
a truly logical statement of the problem of
at
opposites, and to escape the mystical and agnostic
was no
solution (which indeed
necessary
Kantian
the
that
be
accomplished.
his
whole
Critique
Hamann much
less
pronouncement
of
It
solution),
revolution
was
Kant,
Bruno
coincidentiae oppositorum
on
was
should
although
seemed
of Pitre Reason
important
it
than
the
to
sole
the
principium
who was
precisely in
virtue of that critique, the true progenitor of the
new
1
principle
For Hamann,
of the
cf.
and the Essays collected
Hegel,
coincidence
Vermischte
in B. Croce,
of opposites,
Schriften,
Saggi fiL
iii.
ii.
36-37, 87-88,
ii
of
new
the
that
dialectic,
of
is,
the
45
logical
doctrine of dialectic.
It
true that Kant, like his immediate pre
is
cursors, from Descartes to Leibniz
and to Hume,
was under the influence of the prevailing intellectualism and of the ideal of a mathematical
Hence
his
agnosticism, the
thing-in-itself,
the abstractness
science of nature.
phantom of the
of the
imperative, and
categorical
But
for traditional logic.
at the
his
same
respect
time, he
maintains and renders more effective the differ
ence
between
and reason.
intellect
In
of Judgment he propounds a
thinking reality, which is no longer
Critique
the
mode
of
merely
mechanical, no longer either the external teleo
logy of the eighteenth century, but

internal teleology
genuine
he catches sight of the idea
beyond the abstract concept.

exposition
of the
is
Better
Antinomies,
still,
in his
Kant advances
the problem of opposites a stage further.
Antinomies
seem
certainly
insoluble,
The
but
the
contradictions spring directly from the necessities
of the
What
human mind.
is
more important
(what indeed is his true glory), he discovers the

a priori synthesis-, and that, as Hegel observed,
can be nothing
opposites."
but
"
an
With Kant
original
synthesis
this synthesis
of
does not
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
46
receive
its full
value.
is
it
contained in
itself.
had been brought
to
The
a priori synthesis
the source of transcendental logic, which exists
by the side of the old

it,
it
not developed in the
could not be slow to reveal the riches
it
which
is
But once
dialectic triad.
light,
It
at first parallel
to
but inevitably bound to end by destroying
it.
Kant
logic,
also throws into relief the form of triplicity,
and although he employs it in an altogether ex

trinsic manner, yet he does employ it constantly,
and almost with the presentiment of
its
near and
greater destinies.
The
task that awaited philosophy after
seems evident:
to create the
to
new
develop the a priori
Kant
synthesis,
philosophical logic, to solve the
problem of opposites, by destroying the dualisms

that had not only been left intact, but rendered
more powerful, by Kant. And if there be little

more in Fichte than there was in Kant, yet in
him everything becomes more simple and more
The thing-in-itself is denied. But
transparent.
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,
ness
and
in justifying
and ends,
in
faith.
like
Kant,
But
the
nature in relation
in
moral abstract-
idea
of
new
ii
Logic
and the form of

as
position,
so
that
conceived as a doctrine of science
is
philosophy
much
determined, so
better
is
47
triplicity
assumes a dominant
and
antithesis
thesis,
synthesis.
Schelling takes another step forward, in arriving

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

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

the Absolute
Its
principle of
indifference of subject
is
the
him
for
and
object.
are
differences
It
is
merely quantitative.
And his theory
not yet subject and spirit.
of knowledge is without logic, because for him
the instrument
of philosophy
This
templation.
deficiency
con
aesthetic
is
Schelling
never
overcoming, and the consequences

were so serious as to give rise to what has been
succeeded
in
called his second
manner, the metaphysic of the
irrational. __
Hegel, as
is
known, appeared
later
in
the
philosophical world than his
young contemporary
a
whose
in
certain sense he may
Schelling,
disciple
be called.
But what for Schelling was the point
of arrival,
what was
was
for
for
Hegel a point of
Schelling the
began the process of
Hegel
final
transition
phase,
his degeneration,
a juvenile phase.
He
too for
whence
was
for
some time
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
48
knew no other instrument

thetic contemplation,
knew
of philosophy than aes

intuition as intellectual
and knew no other philosophical system

than the work of art. He too (in the first sketch of
intuition,
his
system that has been preserved) placed
summit of
spiritual
at the
development, not philosophy,
But the profound scientific spirit

of Hegel led him gradually to recognize that
philosophy cannot have any other form than that
but religion.
of thought, in the precise sense in which thought

differs
from fancy and
was no longer thought

istic
sense
after
intuition.
Certainly,
it
in the old logico-natural-
Kant, Fichte and Schelling,
was no longer a possible meaning

the
intellectualism of the two preceding centuries
that
had been mortally wounded. There must be a

logical form, which should preserve and reinforce
a logical
conquests of philosophy
form, which should be the form of the real in its
the recent
integrity.
Everything urged
path of enquiry
Hegel
into
his admiration for the
of the Hellenic world
this
harmony
his participation in the
romantic movement, so rich in antitheses

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

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

no
a third unknown or unintelligible term
of opposites
in
no longer the intuition

of Schelling
but unity and diversity together,
movement and dialectic. The preface to the
longer motionless unity
Phenomenology has been called

to
"
Hegel
but the truth
Romanticism";
is
farewell
that
it
was
only because of his secession that Romanticism
was saved
had
in
a certain
could pluck
The
Only a romantic who

sense surpassed Romanticism
for philosophy.
its
philosophical
fruit.
logic of the dialectic
considered
true
and
is
therefore to be
original
discovery
of
Hegel, not only in comparison with his remote

predecessors, but also with those who are nearest
to him.
If a
proof of this be sought, one need
only consider his attitude towards these
Kant,
who
disclaimed Fichte, would have dis
claimed Hegel even more decisively.

philosophy
ditions
for
latter.
In
Kant
were not the necessary con

understanding Hegel, and therefore
there
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
50
there could be no true
who
combated
in
But Hegel,
criticism.
manner
definitive
the
erroneous tendencies and aspects of the Kantian
and
philosophy,
appeared
in
its
train,
views which
obsolete
the
all
was
showed what a new and
also
fruitful
man who
the
contribution
it
had made to philosophy. So true is this that it

has been possible to say that no one but Hegel
has understood Kant. 1 Schelling always remained
deaf and hostile to the conception of his former
and during the half century that he

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

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

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

1
"
For
my
to see, I have
except
Hegel,
part, I have to declare that, so far as it has been given me

no evidence that any man has thoroughly understood Kant
or
that
this
latter
himself remains
aught else than a
problem whose solution has been arrogated, but never effectuated

(J. H. Stirling, The Secret of Hegel, London, 1865, i. 14).
"
ii

If a superior
defects.
point of view
such by comprehending within

inferior
lie in its
tion
if
it
show
51
itself
those that are
the proof of the truth of a doctrine
power of furnishing
discovered
of truths
explication of their errors
at
once the
by
others
justifica
and
the
then this sort of proof
has not been wanting to the doctrine of Hegel.
Kant did not

into
fully
understand himself, and
the arms of the neocriticists,
fell
who turned
from his transcendental logic to merely natural

istic
logic
Schelling did
himself and ended with
not fully understand
little
credit as the second
Hegel, both ended in his

great mind, who was their spiritual son an end
more worthy than that of serving as an exercise
Schelling.
But
for
for little scholars, or of

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

His dialectical treatment of the ordinary
history.
conception of reality modifies
and changes
all
its
the fissures,
the rents and
general aspect.
all
it
in several parts
All the dualities,
the hiatus, and, so to speak,
wounds with which
reality
all
shows
be lacerated by the abstract intellect,

A complete unity
are filled, closed and healed.
itself to
52
DIALECTIC AND REALITY

the organic whole
life
realized
is
(gediegene Einheit]
the coherence of
re-established
is
again circulate within
And we must
53
blood and
it.
note above
that there dis
all
appears a series of dualisms, which are not true

not
opposites,
false opposites
even
and
true
false
They
distincts.
are
terms which
distincts,
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 here
Hegel (who,
and there
them and genuine
in his criticism,
to the difference
between
and opposites) exactly

determines their genesis, which is to be found in
distincts
the
phantasmagorias of abstraction. They are

dualities of terms, which have their origin in the
empirical sciences, in the perceptive and legislative
in
consciousness,
the
sciences
of
phenomena.
These sciences, just because they are immersed in
phenomena, whenever they attempt to rise to the
universal are compelled to break up reality into
appearance and
and
accident
and
finite
sensible,
Were
essence,
substance,
infinite,
external
spirit,
one, sensible
and such
these terms truly distinct (or
designated distincts),
internal,
manifestation and force,
many and
matter and
and
like terms.
if
they would give
and super
they truly
rise to the
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
54
problem of the conjunction of

concrete concept.
opposed
(or
if
in
the
Were they true opposites, really
they designated things truly and

1
really
distincts
opposed),
they would give
rise
to
the
But, since
problem of the synthesis of opposites.
they are not, since they assume their appearance
of distinction and opposition, only through the
arbitrary abstraction of the empiricists, naturalists
and mathematicians,
by a negative
criticism of them, achieved
dialectic,
different process
accomplished by a
is
from that which directs positive
dialectic.
They
in
are,
truth,
attempt to overcome
upon
either of the
distinction from the

into
the
unthinkable
the
other, ends
Materialism
other.
phenomenon, matter, the

external, etc.
finite,
but, since that
constituted as to require
appears again
finite
is
insisting
appears in
by changing
preserves
it
the
the sensible, the
term
is
naturally so
other, the
infinite
assuming the form

of a finite from which
born, then another
another, to infinity.
This
the false or bad infinite.

1
its
it
in that finite,
of a quantitative infinite,
another
by
duality,
two terms, as
and every
is
finite,
then
what Hegel called
Supernaturalism pre-
These and similar reservations are made necessary by the plurality

had in philosophical language.
of meanings which those words have

serves the other term as sole reality
without
the
appearance,
55
but essence
without
internal
external, the infinite without the finite,
the
become
Here
something inscrutable and unknowable.
appears the thing-in-itself, which would better be
called vacuity in itself
(Hegel says)
because not only
the great mystery, which
very easy thing to know
is
the thing-in-itself not outside
is
on the contrary is a product of

thought, of thought which has been pushed on to
pure abstraction, and which takes as its object
thought, but
identity with
empty
from
nomenon,
thing-in-itself,
back to the phe
very inanity, leads
its
to the finite, to the external, as alone
real
and thinkable
it is
phenomenon,
The
The
itself.
it
and precisely in as much as

is finite and external.
correction
positive
is
given
by
the
concrete concept, by that character of concreteness,
proper
differentiating
to
the
it
from
Hegelian
concept
and
and mathe
naturalistic
The real is neither of those

their sum
it
is the concrete
matical abstractions.
terms
nor
is
concept, which
itself
it
fills
the emptiness of the thing in
and annihilates the distance,
which had
separated that from the phenomenon.

absolute,
which
is
no
longer
It is
parallelism
attributes or an indifference to both
the
of
but which
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
56
accentuates and confers
new
of
in
the
which,
terms,
significance on one
virtue
new
of that
and brings the other within

substance becomes subject, the
significance, absorbs
Thus
itself.
absolute determines itself as spirit and idea
materialism
is
Thus
overcome.
and
too reality
is
no longer an internal confronting an external

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

nut nor
shell,
but
is
own) has neither

of a piece.
The one is
all
not beyond the many, but
not
beyond body, but
naturalism
With
is
overcome.
his
the
is
is
many
body.
spirit is
And
super-
the destruction of these false distinctions
and oppositions, which may

represented
by
appearance, there
the
is
duality
be summarily
of essence and
all
connected the purely dialectic
treatment (the positive dialectic) of true opposi

tions.
These may be summarily represented by the
antithetic duality of being
and not-being.
a dualism founded upon real opposition
This
;
for
one could think of denying the existence of
is
no
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.
1
For the criticism of these concepts, see especially the doctrine of
the Essence, which forms the second part of the Logic.
in
Nor does Hegel deny
But owing
it.
doctrine, which sees in
logical
57
to his
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
and separated from the other.

If the negative
term did not exist, development would not exist
to
and with
reality,
The
appear.
ment
The
and therefore of
but
but he
true
felicity,
is
manly,
find
pages
would
and imbecility
no place
where
that
is
is
:
a character
he who
with
acts,
evil.
human
truly
or
not a beatitude that knows no suffering.
Such a beatitude
fatuity
at grips
is
felicity
not thought
is
Innocence
acts
real.
the absence of thought,
is
truth.
who
of the
the very soul
is
not of action, but of inaction
istic,
errs
the spring of develop
is
contact with error
all
not truth
is
the positive term, would dis
negative
opposition
lack of
and
it,
strife is
in
be possible only to
and the conditions of
it
the history of a world which,

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

aphorisms, which
humanity, expressed
in
seem sometimes
be Hegelian phrases), the
relation
to
between the
many
ideal
and
the
real,
the
58
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
rational
and the
cannot be understood
real,
sense that these words bear

the schools
rational
which
is
What
rational.
rational
that
is real.
between a
conflict
not real and a real which

real
is
The
is
the
the philosophy of
in
as the
is,
in
is
not
and what
rational,
is
idea and the fact are the
What, for instance, do we call rational in

the domain of scientific thought, but thought
same.
itself?
An
thought
it is
irrational
not thought; as
is
thought
What da we
unreal.
the domain of artistic production

art itself:
an
artistic fact, if
not be artistic fact

"
reality,"
but
is,
it
then, the unreal
The work
were
it
ugly,
of
would
certainly no artistic
is
which includes the
artistic unreality.
call rational in
"
What
note
is
"
of ugliness
called irrational,
and cannot be considered
as a species or class of real objects.
doubt, even unreality has
its reality,
Without
but
it is
the
which belongs to
reality of unreality, the reality
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
and the
this
doctrine
rational,
of the
have applied
the term optimism to the. Hegelian conception of

reality
1
and of
life,
have grossly misunderstood
Preface to the Philosophy of Rights
and
cf.
Encycl.
6.
his
59
meaning.
Hegel cancels neither the evil nor the
vain nothing could be
ugly, nor the false nor the
:
more alien
and
conception of reality, so dramatic,
to his
What he
in a certain sense so tragic.
himself to do
and of error
error
is
is
to
and
sets
understand the function of

to
understand
it
as evil
evil
and as
deny it as such, but rather

To do this is not to close one s
surely not to
to strengthen
it.
eyes upon the sad spectacle, or to
falsify
it
with
the puerile justifications of the external teleology

of the eighteenth century
(as,
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre).
the
bottom
of
this
for
instance, did
But the truth
at
ascription
of
superficial
optimism to Hegel is that he cannot be called a

because pessimism is the negation of
pessimist
the positive term in the dyad of opposites, just as
;
optimism
And
is
the negation of the negative term.
indeed, have there ever been or can there
ever be self-consistent optimists or pessimists
No more
than
there
monists or dualists.
mistic side
method of
have been self-consistent
Every optimist has a
pessi
just as every pessimist proposes a
liberation
and therefore has
from
evil
and from
his optimistic side.
error,
Good and
opposed and correlative terms and the

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

overcome in the serenity of thought, as in the
concreteness of
Fact,
it
is
life.
reality,
always rational and ideal
is
always wisdom
always truth,
be
But,
goodness.
is
meant what
is
truly
is
reality.
really
The
but the absence of
most
to
it is
not
reality,
by
illogical,
it
fact,
demand
the
fact
is
what
the unpleasing,
nor
is
fact,
void, not-being
for true being, the

itself.
reality
fact
by
reality,
the capricious,
the ugly, the base,
and moral
well understood,
it
at
stimulus
never
Hegel
dreamed of accepting and justifying as fact what

is
and may this not
misplaced and perverted
;
be
his
justification
considers
unreality
it,
saying has
it,
tion,
Hegel
not of
considering
and void
as
he
the
old
it,
As
Nature abhors a void
most certainly does

death of his activity,
If
for
but
so,
because the void
i.e.
of his being as man.
man
is
the
philosophy furnishes the justifica

evil,
but
only of the
function
of
on the other hand he was never weary of

warning against the facility and superficiality
evil,
in
61
with which people are wont to declare irrational

that
which
in
which,
of
virtue
this
cannot be considered
enemy
those
sensitive
effective
irrational.
and
is,
existence,
the
Hegel
is
with
life,
discontented
of the
great
and
been
has
effectually
of
who perpetually declaim

name of reason and virtue,
souls
and agitate in the

and (to take an historical example) of Faustism,
which proclaims that theory is grey and the tree
of
green, which
life
rebels against the laws of
custom and of existence, which despises truth

and science, and instead of being possessed by
the celestial
earthly
He
spirit.
the
is
and
humanitarianism
the power of the
into
falls
spirit,
enemy
of
of encyclopaedic
which
Jacobinism,
opposes its own exquisite heart to hard reality,

and sees everywhere the tyranny and roguery
of priests and despots and of Kantian abstract;
ness,
of a duty which
feeling.
He
at
with
strife
the
them
is
course of the world
birth
which
human
always outside
hates that virtue, which
brings stones to
against
is
that
it
never
always
;
which
may dash
knows
just
itself
what
which certainly has a big head, but

big because it is swelled, and which, if it be
it
wishes
seriously
with
occupied
admiring
its
with
own
anything,
is
occupied
unapproachable
and
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
62
moving
He
perfection.
ought to
the
the
Sollen,
the impotence of the ideal, which
be,
always ought to be and

finds a reality
of
hates
never
adequate to
is
fact, all reality
which never
is,
when, as a matter
it,
adequate to the
The
ideal.
ought to be" is to become

wearisome, as do all the most beautiful words
of that
destiny
"
(Justice, Virtue,
mouths of those
in the
words,
in
resounding
who do
others act
the
Duty, Morality, Liberty,
whom
for
they are mere
barrenness, where
noisy
not fear to
soil
the purity of
by translating it into deed. In the

between this
between the ought to
idea
"
strife
vain
be,"
and the course of the world, the
virtue
For either
course of the world always wins.
world does not change and
the course of the

the
etc.),
demands
virtue
of
arbitrary and absurd,
virtuous
at the
reveal
themselves
and therefore as not
as
truly
most they are good intentions,
perhaps excellent intentions
but
"
the
laurels
good intentions are dry leaves, which have

never been green." Or else, the end of virtue
of
is
achieved,
the world
is
not
the
separated
it
enters into and
course
course
from
becomes part of
and what dies

of
the
the actual
world,
;
in this case
but
virtue,
unless indeed
it
willing to continue living, in order to sulk at
is
its
having been guilty of becoming real

illusion arises from the struggle, which is
ideal
for
The
real
certainly
but as the struggle
the world,
of the world with

itself.
of the world that
itself,
one
"Each
and
wills
better, only expresses
than others express
What
then
And
Individu
individuality?
becoming
if it
effective.
Nothing
does not become a passion

can
is
passion
done
be
without
which
activity,
is
toward particular interests and ends.
directed
So much
is
it
true
vehicle of the
universal.
For
that
particular interest
universal,
very pursuit of their

the
repugnance of the bearers
nothing great
passion.
the
world better
his
this
its
can be achieved
man
he
nothing but the vehicle of universality,
the process of
of
but
it."
universal towards
ality is
is
towards the actual, of the admirers of
of ideal
the
is
he
makes
himself
believes
better than the world in which

is
of the
but not as the struggle
individual with
who
63
own
men by
that
private ends
instance,
one
is
the
realize
man makes
a slave of another, and from the strife
between
slave and master, there arises in both the true

1
From
the aphorisms, to be found in the appendix of Rosenkranz s

For the satire on the Sollen see especially the
p. 550.
Hegel s Leben,
Phenomenology,
section
Philosophy of History.
Vernunft,
B,
and the
introduction
to
the
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
64
idea of liberty and of humanity.
more than
achieve
and
fulfil
conscious
their
immanent
the
Their actions
intentions,
intentions, the intentions
of reason, which avails
them
of
itself
this
is
the cunning of reason (die List der Vernunft].
This must not be understood
in a
The cunning
is
sense.
of reason
transcendental
the imaginative
phrase which denotes the rationality of
man
truly does (of
Thus
it.
that
any human work whatsoever),
whether or no he has
of
all
consciousness
reflective
the artist creates the work of art
and does not understand the completed work

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

spirit.
And
men
this
is
less heroic.
in
wants of their
the
time and people, and make of them their
"
it
the very will of reason, what
and substantial
individual
the
is
own
peculiar interest
of affairs
precisely
own
:
"
of the
the
world-
reason
why
in
who judge them
those
in
motives.
work
They
than
is
the
no man
true,
pleasure
as
is
never succeed
personal,
a hero
to
mean
but
anything
no other aspect
see
and thus they
essential;
that
them
in
discovering
superficially
65
of
that
although
justify the
his valet
their
proverb
and
is
this
Hegel observes (and Goethe takes
in
repeating
because the great

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

to great
men by
their contemporaries
they receive this satisfaction

the
at
public opinion of posterity.
them
is
not
the
nor do
hands of
What
falls
honour, but immortal glory
live in the spirit of those
with them, and
who
very people who
yet are
full
to
they
strove
of them.
This Hegelian manner of considering life,

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
government and of the bureaucratic ruling of

the state.
But without going into the question
of
of the greater or less truth in fact of these affirma-
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
66
tions,
it
is
historical
III
important to distinguish between the
Hegel and the philosopher
Hegel.
Hegel who took
The
historical
part,
under certain determinate conditions,
social
and
individual, the
problems of
political
in
the
time and of
his
Hegel who belongs to the bio

grapher and the political historian, must not be
his nation,
the
who
confused with the philosopher Hegel,
alone
belongs to the historian of philosophy. The

position from which a particular political attitude
can be deduced shows by that very
fact that
is
it
Philosophy should
not pure philosophical truth.
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
"
ing
way they should
and Fichte, of
"
carry
construct
a model police passport, which should be
not
with
furnished,
according
to
particulars
as
bearer, but also with
portrait.
to
Hegel
its
him,
conception
of
only
life
was so
philosophical that conservatism, revolution,

restoration, each in turn, finds
On
this point the socialist
H. Treitschke, Deutsche
Geschichte
and
its justification in
it.
Engels and the con
servative historian Treitschke

1
his
im
are in agreement
ig. Ja.hrhundert,
(1885), pp. 720-1 ; F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach,

klassischen deutschen Philosophic (Stuttgart, 1888).
imd
der
vol.
iii.
Ausgang der
67
both recognize that the formula of the identity

of the rational and the real could be invoked
for
equally by
all political
opinions and parties, which
formula, but in determining what
and
common
from one another, not as to this
differ
real,
and what the
irrational
the rational
is
and unreal
on
every occasion that a political party prepared for

war against an institution or class of society, it pro
claimed
and
its
adversary irrational,
real existence;
itself into
the
line
of
wings
and by
i.e.
devoid of solid
this declaration
the
school
Hegelian
participated in the revolution of the
even two Hegelians who wrote

vigorous Communist Manifesto.
it
to
variously
in that
ment
of
all
year the
of
"
Enlighten
were henceforth ended, and that
parties
was
But the formula
crude naturalism of the century of the

"
It
them was not an empty label

the fact that the Jacobinism and the
all
stood for
All
nineteenth
century, and especially in that of 1848.
common
brought
with Hegelian philosophy.
all
men
had learned from Hegel the meaning
The
of true political sense.
early work, in which,
examining the condition of Germany, he defined

it
as an
"
abstract state
reminded one of
Secretary
actual
and
his
his
conditions
of
"
(ein Gedankenstaat}, has

critics
of the
profound
the
Italy
Florentine
analysis
of the
of
the
Renais-
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
68
sance.
And Cavour and Bismarck seemed
to
appear as splendid embodiments of the Hegelian

theory, men in whom the rational and the real
were always fused and united, in whom they were

not estranged from one another, in the painful
and
futile
idealizers
conflict, characteristic of the
minds of
and dreamers.
The consequence
to
which
this
mediation of
opposites led, combined with the destruction of

false distincts
of history.
and opposites, was the exaltation
History
the
life
human
of the
race,
time ceases to be
which are developed
conceived as something separate from and in
in
facts
different to the essence of things, to the idea, or,
even worse, as something which weakens

and degrades the idea. Thus had history appeared
what
is
in the various dualistic
materialism,
which,
systems
since
not to speak of
denies
it
all
cannot admit the value even of history.
values,
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,
such as the philosophy of Descartes, which is
pre-eminently antihistorical
Oriental pantheism, as
1
Cf.
and Spinozism
Hegel
K. Fischer, Hegels Lebcn
ti.
called
Werke,
p.
it,
59.
(or
adding
69
was erroneously considered to be atheism,

and all
but should rather be called
acosmism
that
it
"
"),
the
and
sensationalism
the
of
intellectualism
But even among Hegel s

own contemporaries, history has no place in the
eighteenth century.
system of Herbart, who

idea of development
for
whom
the
life
altogether without the
is
nor in that of Schopenhauer,
of the
human
race does not
nor
in the positivist
present problems of progress
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
the very reality of the idea, spirit
outside
historical
is
nothing
in it, every
development
fact, precisely because it is a fact, is a fact of the
idea and belongs to the concrete organic whole
of the
its
For Hegel,
idea.
becomes sacred history.
be said that
agreement
On
in a certain
because
therefore, all history

this point, too,
sense there
is
it
may
general
attention
particular
and
always been accorded to the

great historical works, which were inspired by the
admiration
influence
has
of
Hegel
histories
of religions,
of
languages, of literatures, of rights, of economics,
and of philosophy.
But
historical studies has
been generally considered
Hegel
influence
in
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
70
an accident, due simply to the personality of the

master, who was a passionate student and a con
summate master
of historical knowledge.
not observed that
consequence
of
was
it
the
really
principle of the solution of opposites
opposites
Thus
dialectic
and of
or of the Hegelian logic in
characteristic aspect.
was
inevitable
much combated
that
It
its
false
most
the advancement of
study was recognized as a great benefit,

but the true reason of the advancement was
historical
ignored
the consequence was accepted, the pre
miss was rejected.
The
is
sacred
an aspect
assumed by
character,
the
of
history,
of immanence,
character
proper to Hegelian thought, to his negation of

all
transcendence.
it
Certainly,
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,
whose
a philosophy of activity, a philosophy
principle
naturalistic
and
is
spirit
and
materialistic
words were intended
idea,
ever
But when these
to signify the antireligious
character of Hegelian thought, there was

truth in the observation.
It
is
it
is
some
a philosophy
should say the only philosophy), which

irreligious, because
be
is
(I
radically
not content to oppose

itself to religion or to
but
for
And
it.
philosophy that
for
is
it
to satisfy in a rational
is
the
religion
highest
it
philosophy has
answer
in this, that they
since
its
manner the need
man
all
The
needs.
there
questions
have
answer
ought not
to be
is
to
their
asked."
perpetual youth of the Hegelian philo
indomitable vigour,
its
fecundity
in the
of
"
no
which
The
called the only
leaves nothing
remainder.
insoluble
sophy,
may be
supremely religious
Outside of reason
no
itself,
same reason, from
this
for
another point of view,
task
alongside of
it
resolves religion into itself and substitutes
it
itself
range
71
lie,
unexhausted
then, in the logical doctrine, and
thought effectively
doctrine.
its
And
its
in
conformity with that
vigour, fecundity, and youth are
increasingly apparent even in our
own
day, which
marked by a new efflorescence of neurotic

mysticism, and of insincere religiosity, by an anti^
is
barbarism engendered by ppsitiyism, and

the Jacobinism which frequently ensues in these
historical
conditions.
Whoever
feels the dignity of
man
and the dignity of thought can find satisfaction

in 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
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
72
be ranged with Hegel
can
G. B. Vico,
whom
in
this
respect,
is
have already referred to as
the precursor of the antischolastic logical doctrine,
an
aesthetician
Hegel, a
like
preromantic,
Hegel was a romantic, yet resembling him

in
as
closely
his
genuinely dialectic thinking.

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

if
philosopher.
For
Hegel, biographically speaking, was a very
ambiguous
Christian,
insufficiently
explicit
in
towards the Church, Vico,
stating his position
from the biographical point of view, was a most

sincere and unequivocal Catholic.
Nevertheless,
the whole thought of Vico
is
not only anticatholic,
For he explains how myths
but antireligious.
and religions are formed by a natural process

and his renunciation of this principle of explana
tion
in
the single case of
religion,
if,
from
Hebrew
history and
the subjective point of view,
be the idiosyncrasy of a believer, objectively it

assumes the value of unconscious irony, similar
it
to the conscious irony of Machiavelli,
forbore to enquire
how
the
when he
Papal States ever
subsisted beneath a very bad government, because
they are ruled by superior reasons,

to which the human mind cannot attain."
Vico
"
(he said)
establishes
that
the
true
is
identical
with
the
has done a thing can
Consequently he assigns to man

consciousness of the world of man, because
know
truly
full
it
who
only he
deed, that
73
his
is
it.
own work
and
to
God he
restores
knowledge of all the rest of the natural world,

because he alone, who made it, has knowledge
of
it
which forms but a
limitation,
slight
obstacle to the revolutionary principle which he
enunciated, and which, once established for the
human
world, must of necessity be extended to
the whole of reality.
pious Catholic, that
death
so profoundly irre
was the whole theory of knowledge of
ligious
this
And
it
immediately
after
was said that he had been obliged
his
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
of the historical epoch, which followed upon
his.
But the resemblances between Vico and Hegel

are far
more evident when we leave
of religion.
and
in
As Hegel was
conflict
in
this point
opposition
to
with the antihistoricism of the
Encyclopaedists and of the Aufklarung, so was
Vico against the antihistoricism of Descartes

and his school.
He showed that if philosophers
did not bring their reasonings into line with the
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
74
authority of philologists, and

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

their purpose.
As Hegel
set himself in opposi
Utopian preachers of abstractions

and champions of sentiment and enjoyment, so
tion
the
to
Vico refuted at once both Stoics and Epicureans,
and
learned
men who,
railed
web of reality
is
human
called
those
at
woven, dictated
rules for conduct, impossible or
the
he
forgetting the struggles and the
pains of which the

u
He
philosophers."
"political
whom
those
only
recognized
dangerous to
condition, such as the regulation of the

"
by the pleasures of the senses

and who gave laws and founded republics
duties of
life
"
shady
repose,"
which
in
well
that
the
liberty,
and
governed";
customs, and above
all
that
to
the
"native
the customs of natural
cannot be changed
but only
in a trice,
gradually, in the passage of

less than
He knew
learned."
must conform
"governments
nature of
no other habitation
"had
the minds of the
than
in
Vico, not
time."
Hegel, had the idea of the cunning of

He called it divine Providence
which,
"
"
reason."
upon
their
the sake of which
they
out of the passions of men,

private advantage,
for
all
intent
lived like wild beasts in solitudes, has created

by which men
civil order,
What
does
of what they
men
matter that
it
The
do?
Homo
"
less rational.
human
live in
fact
75
society."
are unconscious
not thereby the
is
non intelligendo
omnia,
fit
because by understanding man explains his

mind and understands things, but when he does
not understand he creates things of himself, and
doing becomes that into which he transforms

himself."
"And must we not say" (he exclaims
in so
"that
elsewhere)
wisdom
this is a counsel of
Without the
force
superhuman
of laws
but
making use precisely of the customs of men, of

those habits which are as unrestrained
natural
of
expressions
human
nature,
divinely regulates and guides them.

that
men have made
of nations
this
world
often
for
themselves
different
men had proposed
means
is
that
These narrow
for realizing
wider
mind has always adopted
order to preserve the race of
example,
and
world
outcome of a mind
to themselves.
ends, this greater
to their lusts
true
sometimes opposed, and

those particular ends, which
ends, transformed into
for
is
it
from,
always superior to
Thus,
...
this
but the profounder truth
certainly the
is
It
the
as
men wish
to
abandon
man upon
in
the earth.
to give free course

their offspring,
thereby they create the chastity of
and
marriage,
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
;6
whence
families
arise
heads of families wish
extreme their paternal power

over their dependants, and thereby cities arise.
to exercise to the
The
reigning classes of nobles desire to abuse
their feudal
power over the plebeians, and thereby
they are brought into subjection to the laws,

created by popular freedom free peoples wish to
;
loose themselves from the restraint of their laws
and thereby they become subject to monarchs.

Monarchs wish to strengthen their own positions
their subjects with
by debasing
dissoluteness,
the vices of
all
and thereby they reduce them
to
endure slavery from stronger nations

nations
wish to destroy themselves, and by going into
;
solitude to preserve
whence,
the phoenix, they arise again.
like
was Mind
what remains of themselves,
that achieved
all
this,
for
intelligence in the actions of men.
there was
It
was not
Fate, for there was choice in their actions
Chance,
for there
was continuity
metaphors,
Hegel.
1
The
And
this
is
the
same
turns of phrase as in
more wonderful,
quotations from Vico are in the Works, ed. Ferrari,
98, 117, 136, 143, 146-7, 183, 571-2;

of G. B. Vico, Bari, 1911.]
nor
results."
ideas, often with the
images, and
always from the
same actions there followed the same
These are the same
It
vi.
235.
[See
v.
since
96, 97,
now my Philosophy

the
German
philosopher
least
(at
77
during the
period that he was meditating his philosophy and
composing his Phenomenology of Spirit] does not

seem to have known the other phenomenology,"
"
meditated
title
in
of 7*he
Naples a century
New
Science.
It
earlier,
under the
almost seems as
if
the soul of the Italian Catholic philosopher had
migrated into the

in
German
thinker, reappearing
him, at the distance of a century,
and more self-conscious.
more mature
IV
THE CONNEXION OF DISTINCTS

AND THE FALSE APPLICATION
OF THE DIALECTIC FORM
How
then has
come about
it
that this system
of philosophical thought, established with such

logical
so
depth,
rich
in
irresistible
truth,
so
harmonious with and sympathetic towards concreteness, passion, fancy, and history, has appeared
some thinkers and has been condemned by

them as abstract, intellectualistic, full of arbitrari
to
ness and
artifice, at
and poetry,
it
means
to
reaction
successful
in a
be
word
How
against
and
variance with history, nature,
it,
as the opposite of
can
we
explain the violent
a reaction
definitive,
what
which
and which
would be
it
superficial (and little in the spirit of
seemed
Hegel) to
explain as entirely due to accidental motives, to

lack of intelligence and to ignorance
other hand,
how
has
it
78
come about
On
that
the
this
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 in

tended to combat and to surpass ? And how
comes
it
too
(if
may be permitted
a personal
instance, which perhaps does not relate exclus

ively to a personal case) that
now with such
writing
a feeling of complete agreement,
interpretation of and
this
who am
I,
commentary on the
Hegelian doctrine of the synthesis of opposites,

should for several years of my mental life have
a
felt
marked repugnance
especially as
with
it is
its tripartite
to the
presented
system of Hegel,
the Encyclopaedia,
in
division into Logic, Philosophy
of Nature and Philosophy of Spirit, both as
understood
myself, and as
it
saw
expounded
and advocated by Hegelians ? And how comes
it that even now, in
re-reading those works, I
sometimes
feel
arising within
this
the old
me?
must be sought.
the old repugnance,
Adam,
The inmost
Now
it
reason for
we have
that
cated the healthy part of the system,

point out the diseased part as well.
shown what
is
indi
we must
After having
living in the system of Hegel,
must show also what
is
dead
bones, which hinder the very
And we must
in
life
it,
all
we
the unburied
of the living.
not be too easily contented with
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
8o
a concession, which has often been offered by
orthodox Hegelians the recognition that

Hegel could and did err in many of his state
strictly
ments of
historical
and of the natural and
fact
mathematical sciences, owing to the limitations

both of the general state of knowledge of his
time and of his
own
Such
individual culture.
Hegelians admit all this part of the system

must be re-examined and corrected, or even
from top to bottom,
reconstructed
of the progress
study.
The
would be
only as historian and as

is
one who never founds

data,
he remains
intact.
remain unsatisfied with
that
naturalist that
and out of date
deficient
branches of
of those special
implication
the light
in
it
is
Hegel
as philosopher, as
his truth
upon empirical
His adversaries rightly
this concession
because
the source of the dissatisfaction with the system

of Hegel
is
not the quantity or the quality of
the erudition which
it
contains (most admirable,
and occasional archaisms),

I
have declined
but precisely the philosophy.
above to consider the influence of Hegel s
despite
its
deficiencies
thought upon historical studies as something

separate from and independent of the principles
of his system.
cannot
consent
Here,
to
for
the
consider
same reason,
the
cause of his
iv
errors
as
Those
principles.
seemed
or
for
the
of
and
historical
because
of
independent
most
his
philosophical
errors
his
81
have
which
naturalistic, are at bottom,
from
they spring
errors,
philosophical
part,
his
from
thought,
method of conceiving history and natural

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

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

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

with
thought
immortal
his
thereby to understand the
Hegelian system,
encounter,
rational grounds.
has already
was the
it
is
to
been
and
reaction against
the
in so far as this reaction
was
but
rested
on
all
original
evidently
And
since, according to
said,
the
special field of
Hegel
error,
what
logic of philosophy
s
mental
be presumed that there we
origin of the
the
Hegel
discovery,
not the usual obstructionism, which

truths
in
activity,
shall
which would
in
find
that
case be an error of logical theory.

It
in
is
therefore a just feeling of the direction
which
this search
should
be conducted that
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
82
has
led
the
neglect
the
particular
and
system,
the
of
error
criticism
anti- Hegelian
opposites
to
set
itself
of
details of
the
exhibit
to
the
to
general
and incidental
principle
itself,
in
IV
of
synthesis
on the ground, either that the two
terms are not opposed, or that their synthesis

is
of
not
or that
logical,
and
identity
it
destroys the principle
Yet we have seen
grounds.
none of these objections
similar
that substantially
well
is
on
or
contradiction,
founded, and
every other objection that can be thought out

satisfactorily proves to be equally unfounded
for
that principle resists
examination and assault.
and
will
The
resist
every
error of Hegel,
be sought in his logic

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

was made to the doctrine of the relation of
distincts, or, as
listic
it
logic, to the
doctrine must
because
it
is
would be expressed
That
theory of classification.
now be considered more
my
natura
in
firm
conviction
that
closely,
in
it
is
hidden the logical error committed by Hegel, so
weighty
in its
consequences.
iv
The
universal
the
or
distincts, just as
We
for
talk,
it
but
of
synthesis
the synthesis of opposites.
is
example, of
activity in general
the
is
Idea,
concrete
the
concept,
philosophical
83
spirit,
we
or of spiritual
also talk continually
of the particular forms of this spiritual activity.
And
we
while
consider
of these
all
particular
forms essential to complete spiritual achievement

(so that deficiency
any one of them offends

find a remedy, and its
in
and impels us to
total or partial absence shocks us as something
monstrous and absurd), we are also jealous and
us
no one of them should be confused
vigilant that
with
who judges
art
by moral
criteria,
artistic criteria, or truth
by
and so on.
Even
if
for
by
to
forget
the
would remind us of
shows the spheres of economic, of

and of moral activity almost externally
makes the same man appear
and
distinct,
specialist,
as
morality
life
scientific,
now
or
utilitarian criteria,
we were
distinction, a glance at life

it
we reprove him
Therefore
other.
any
now
as poet,
now
statesman,
itself
philosophy
distinction,
for
it
now
should
is
as
as
man
of business,
philosopher.
remind
not capable
us
of
And
the
of expression
without specialization into aesthetic, logic, ethic,
and the
like
all
of
them philosophy, yet each
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
84
them
of
from
distinct
philosophy
the
others.
These
examples and
which
are
not
of
capable
very clearly
the
of classification
theory
to
of
conception
is
this
combat
into
of empirical classification
the
one
saw
Hegel
explaining.
subordinate and co-ordinate.

fication
and
unity
and he never ceased
importation
philosophy,
once
at
connexion or a rhythm,
distinction, constitute a
which the ordinary
we have given
which
of
distincts,
concepts
as
In ordinary classi
taken as
foundation
concept
is
then another concept
is
introduced, extraneous
is
assumed
to the
and
first,
like the
of division,
a cake
this
(the
first
the
as
basis
knife with which one cuts
concept)
so
into
many
little
which remain separate one from another.

With such procedure, and with such a result,
pieces,
farewell to the unity of the universal.
breaks up
and
into a
indifferent to
thinking of unity,
Hegel
classification
Herbart
is
faculties
of
caused
this
of
external
philosophy, the
rendered impossible.
(incorrectly
statement
of
one another
abhorrence
Reality
number of elements,
the
of
him
this
to
of
prior
to
reject
credited
with
the
criticism)
soul,
method
to
the
first
conception
which
Kant
iv
adhered
5till
I8O2
in
the
and
that
feeling that
reject
"bag
we have
of
full
he
(as
which
psychology
as a
spirit
to
85
writes
represents
"
faculties."
The
of the living unity of the
he repeats in the Encyclopaedia ( 379,

and cfr.
445), and in all his other books, in
spirit,"
the most various forms and on the most various

"
is
up of the
spirit
or
activities,
independent
criticism
forces,
faculties,
with
was
far
able
greater
to
right
than
greater consistency
in
sollicitus
Hegel, always
spiritus,
succeeded
different
into
breaking
whatever they be, conceived as

And be it
another."
of one
observed that
unitatem
opposed to the
itself
occasions,
sevvandi
develop this
and with far
who never
Herbart,
his refutation of faculties
making
of the soul agree with his atomistic metaphysic,
and with
of
his ethic
catalogues
another and
of
aesthetic,
ideas,
without
But nevertheless,
of
and
psychological
in
which consisted
separated
relation
to
from
each
one
other.
the opinion of the writers
manuals
and
histories
of
Herbart passes for a revolutionary

view of the spirit, and Hegel almost as
philosophy,
in his
a reactionary,
who
should
old scholastic divisions

1
have preserved the
Verhdltnis d. Skeptizismus zur Philosophic (in Werke, xvi. 130).
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
86
If
concepts cannot be posited in
distinct"
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
not be cut
will
concept
in
by an
pieces
external force, but will divide itself by a
ment
internal to
itself,
of self-distinction
it
move
and throughout these acts
will
maintain
its
own
identity
the distincts will not be in a relation of mutual

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

of reality
the classificatory scheme by the scheme
of degrees.
And
the thought of Hegel set out on this
path, the only one that conformed to the principle
with which
The
he started, the concrete universal.
theory of degrees permeates
although
it
nowhere receives
full
his works,
all
and
explicitly
Here, too, he had his pre

we should investigate and here,
reasoned statement.
cursors,
too,
is
whom
most nearly akin to him

For Vico never distinguished
the philosopher
perhaps Vico.
spirit,
languages, governments, rights, customs,
religions, otherwise than as a series of

spirit as sense
degrees
imagination, and mind\ languages
as divine mental language, heroic language,
and
iv
language
articulate speech
for
governments
and democratic
theocratic, aristocratic,
87
as
rights as
divine right, established by the gods, heroic right,
established by force, and
human
right, established
and so on.
by fully developed human reason
For this reason, Vico too conceived philosophy,
;
not as a cabinet with separate pigeon-holes, but
upon which particular

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

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

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

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

system of identity, with the method of potentiality,
for which reality developed itself as a series of
his true
powers or degrees.
"
The
"
subject-object
(thus
did Schelling himself recall his juvenile concep-
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
IV
tion in his vindication of himself against
Hegel)
88
virtue of
"in
its
own
nature, objectifies
but from every objectification
and shows
power of
itself
returns victorious
it
on every occasion
hausted every one of
at a higher
when
until,
subjectivity,
it
its virtualities, it
subject triumphing over
itself,
has
ex
appears as
l
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
of
relation
the theory
of
theory of degrees, every concept
concept be a
to the concept
is
b,
In
the
and
let
the
opposites
both distinct from and united
which
is
superior to
it
in
degree
hence (beginning the exposition of the relation)

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

2
at
length
elsewhere,
that
of art
have
and
philosophy (or of poetry and prose, of language
and
and thought, and so on),

we see how an insoluble puzzle and enigma for
logic, of intuition
empirical and classificatory logic resolves itself

naturally
in
speculative
doctrine of degrees.
In
my
It
logic,
is
thanks
to
the
not possible to posit
1
In the preface to the Fragments of Cousin.
Êsthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic.
iv
art

and philosophy as two
89
and co-ordinate
distinct
genus (which might be e.g. the

cognitive form) to which both are subordinate,
so that the presence of the one excludes the
of a
species
the case
in
There
proof of this in the
is
members.
of co-ordinate
other, as
distinctions
many
and prose, which have been

given, and continue to be given, all of them most
vain, since they are founded upon arbitrary
between
poetry
But the knot
characteristics.
we
is
unravelled,
when
think of the relation as one of distinction and
union together
poetry can exist without prose
does not exclude
it
(although
never exist without poetry
but prose can
it),
does not include
art
philosophy, but philosophy directly includes
And
in
words,
fact,
no philosophy ever
images,
metaphors,
symbols, which are
forms
its artistic side,
and indispensable that, were

sophy itself would be wanting.
philosophy
speech.
is
not
exists
it
The same
unexpressed
be
thing can
speech,
wanting, philo
man
in
a side so real
An
conceivable
of
save
art.
thinks in
proved
by
adducing other dyads of philosophic concepts,

the transition from rights to morality, or from
the perceptive
consciousness
consciousness.
Thus
divided in
grows on
itself,
to
the
the real, which

itself,
legislative
is
one,
to use the
is
words
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
90
of Aristotle,
through
which gathers up
If
in
the
philosophy) and
in
the
all
preceding,
pass from the relation of the stages
(in
opposites
itself
passes
in the last stage,
complete or perfect form.
itself, in its
now we
and
and
ideal history
its
attains to
use those of Vico,
to
or,
the
to
pass
the synthesis,
relation
a,
/3,
and
art
chosen,
example
of
the
7 (employing
the example of being, not-being, and becoming),
we
be able to perceive the logical difference

between the two relations,
a and b are two
shall
concepts, the second of which would be abstract
and arbitrary without the first, but which, in

its
connexion with the first, is as real and
concrete as
it
On
is.
the other hand, a and
taken out of relation to

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

degrees,
we must
not lose sight of the fact that
one
dialectic
has a different process from
the
that of the other.
If
we wish
connexions the Hegelian terms
to apply to both
"moments"
and
iv
91
"
"overcoming,"
and
which
"
maintaining,"
at
is
once
in
moments
synthesis
the
of opposites
is
spirit
the two cases.
in
both
degrees,
both are
the
in the
abstract,
pure
In the nexus of degrees a
in b, that is to say, as
independent
suppressed and preserved as dependent

in passing from art to philosophy negates
:
and
art
these
that
are concrete, as has been noted
overcome
it
of
theory
being and not-being.

is
suppressing
we must note
terms bear different meanings

Indeed,
"
at
the same time maintains
as
of opposites, considered objectively, a and
mutual
their
suppressed
distinction,
and
both
are
maintained
but
/3,
in
them
of
meta
only
and
phorically, because they never exist as a

distinct
the
the nexus
In
expressive form of philosophy.
it
fi
from one another.
These
are profound differences, which
do not
permit that both modes of connexion should be

treated in the
the
nor
same
is
relation to \htfalse as
the
relation as
beautiful to
it
is
life
is
it
to philosophic truth.
whose truth
and death, of
truth without
true
is
itself
life,
life
not in
good
the same
Life with
are two opposed
which
and of
is
to the
the ugly in
out death and death without

falsities,
The
same manner.
its
is
a nexus of
opposite.
But
goodness and goodness without
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
92
are not
truth
in a third
term
two
:
which are annulled
falsities,
they are
which
false conceptions,
resolve themselves in a connexion of degrees,
which truth and goodness are
for
and united
since
is
it
thinking
only
in
goodness without truth
it
once distinct
at
is
impossible,
impossible to will the good without

;
truth without goodness
is
possible,
the sense in which that proposition co
incides with the philosophic thesis of the priority
of the
theoretic over the practical spirit,
theorems of the autonomy of
the
autonomy of science.
Without doubt, a, being
that
of
is,
its
and the
art
a concrete concept,
presenting the concrete concept

particularizations,
with
also
is
in
one
synthesis
of affirmation and negation, of being and not-
Thus, to return again to the same ex

ample, artistic fancy lives as fancy and therefore
being.
it
is
concrete,
it
is
activity
against
passivity,
beauty
against
ugliness.
And
become
particularized,
which affirms
which
being
affirms
and
consequently,
itself
itself
not-being
as
truth
beauty and ugliness, goodness and

But this contest does
wickedness, and so on.
and
falsity,
not take place for one degree in relation

for
to
another
those degrees, considered in their distinction,
are the concept of the spirit in
its
determinations,
iv
and not the universal concept of

in
considered
spirit
The
dialectic of synthesis of opposites.
its
organism
the struggle of
is
members
but the
life
against death
of the organism are not therefore
with one another, hand against
at strife
93
foot,
or
eye against hand. Spirit is development, history,

and therefore both being and not-being, be
coming
but
spirit
sub
specie
aeterni,
is
eternal
ideal
philosophy considers,
which
is
eternal
not in time.
It
is
is
history,
the series of the
forms of that coming into being and
passing away, which, as Hegel said,
comes
which
into being
itself
never
and never passes away.
an essential point
if
neglected
we
fall
This
into
the equivocation, to which Lotze (alluding per
haps to a passage of the Parmenides) referred

when he wrote, that because the servant takes
care of his master s boots
it
does not follow that
the concept of servant takes care of the boots

of the concept of master
When we
with
art,
and
say that the spirit

is
driven by
elevate itself to philosophy,
only
we must
by a metaphor.
its
is
not satisfied
dissatisfaction to
we speak
The
spirit,
which
is
satisfied with artistic contemplation, is
the artistic
correctly
not allow ourselves to be misled
spirit, it
is
no longer
no longer
already beyond that level
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
94
the incipient philosophic
is
it
same way the
the
spirit
which
and
for
determinate aesthetic
in love
spirit
feels
itself dis
in
no longer the
spirit, a single and
life,
philosophical but the aesthetic
And
philosophy and
satisfied with the universality of

thirsts for intuition
spirit.
is
which begins
to
fall
again with some determinate vision and
intuition.
antithesis
In the second, as in the
does not arise
in
the
first
case, the
bosom
of the
degree that has been surpassed. As philosophy

does not contradict itself as philosophy, so art
does not contradict
itself as art
and every one
knows the complete satisfaction, the profound

and untroubled pleasure, which springs from the
enjoyment of the work of
The
art.
individual
passes from art to philosophy and passes
spirit
again from philosophy to
art,
in
the same
way
passes from one form of art to another, or

from one problem of philosophy to another that
that
it
is,
not through contradictions intrinsic to each of
these forms in distinction from the others, but
through the contradiction that is inherent in the

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

nature, which is to be both art and philosophy,
theory and praxis, or however otherwise
it
may
iv
determine
So
itself.
true
is
that
this
if
95
this
were caused by a contradiction

which revealed itself as intrinsic to any determin
ideal
transition
would no longer be possible to

that degree, which had been recognized
ate degree,
return to
it
as self-contradictory
to return to
it
would be a
And who would
degeneration or a retrogression.
ever dare to consider
it
a retrogression to return
from philosophy to aesthetic contemplation ? Who

could ever judge to be contradictory or erroneous
either of the essential forms of the
That
transition of ideal history
or rather
this
it
is
Hegel did not make
clear,
which
is
a being.
most important dis

have endeavoured to make
He
conceived the connexion of these

,
triadic
the dialectic
opposites.
of opposites
it
manner of
and he applied to this connexion the

form, which is proper to the synthesis of
of opposites
in
not a transition,
this
degrees dialectically in the
so,
between the theory of opposites and theory
of distincts.
And
spirit
an eternal transition, which, from
view-point of eternity,
tinction,
is
human
The
theory of distincts and the theory
became
for
him one and the same.
was almost inevitable that
this
should be
owing to the peculiar psychological condition

which the discoverer of a new aspect of the
real finds himself (in this case, the synthesis of
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
96
He
opposites).
is
so tyrannized over by his
new wine
discovery, so inebriated with the

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

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

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

in the
former too, as
To
unity in diversity.
are overcome,
that
same time main
in the latter, there
discern the differences
between the two theories was reserved
when
historical period,
and
new wine was matured
settled.
We
can
distinction
absence
in
the
for a later
at
find
the
of
proofs
every step
in the
distinct
as
relation
presented
and synthesis.
anthropology
soul,
antithesis
psychology
spirit,
natural
real
theoretic
antithesis
free
concepts
Thus we
thesis
soul,
soul,
its
system of Hegel,
of
antithesis,
of this
and of the confusion caused by
which the relation
always
lack
of
spirit,
thesis
thesis,
find in the
sensitive
synthesis.
spirit,
is
In
the
practical
synthesis
and
iv
again
thesis
last
the
;
the state,
absolute
thesis
spirit
antithesis
logic
This
the
triadic
or
synthesis
idea,
thesis
is
that
in
thesis
is
anti
religion,
of
judgment,
and in the
knowledge,
And
synthesis.
so
the first case of that abuse jrf
is
and
Hegel,
has
been justly described
as
For who could ever persuade him

religion is the not-being of art, and
and
that art
synthesis
life
anti
society,
form which has offended and still

seriously all who approach the system
offends so
self that
absolute
on.
an abuse.
idea
this
in
In the sphere of
thesis
concept
again,
civil
is
syllogism,
of the
antithesis
of
art
or
synthesis.
philosophy,
subjective
logic
thesis
family,
anti
representation,
synthesis
ethicity,
thesis
thesis
intuition,
97
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
of intuition,
negation
civil
society
the
negation of the family, and morality the negation

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

the principle of division assumed as foundation.
On
the
occasions
other
mode
almost to be an imaginative
thoughts,
their substantial
truth.
an
interpretation
would
form
that
discrediting
in
in
But
its
the
in
On
opposites.
the other
would
be
to
wishes to win with

trufh
money
money
The
or
like
of
good
in the
error
incidentally,
is
an
has
been
in
fully
of
synthesis
to
defend the
arguments
advocate
who
rather than with
who
puts
order to
forward
pass
false
confusion,J
is
not such
nor
essential
may seem
in
must most
an
ingejiuity
alloy,
i.e.
extrinsic
swindler
logical value,
or
like
proceed
to
hand,
Hegel with
affirmations of
attain
tantamount
it
dialectic
not
to accept such
be
precisely the value which
maintain
of expressing
which of themselves do
to
seems
form
triadic
is
error,
the
given
it
an
as
can
error
be
of diction
it
which however small
it
which
it
summary formula
the
corrected
confusion
in
between
the
iv
99
theory of distincts and the theory of opposites,

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

PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
AND DEGREES OF TRUTH
(STRUCTURE OF THE LOGIC)
INTO
THE
application of the dialectic of opposites to
the relation
of distincts,
*
out
carried
with
full
to
be
""""
seriousness
logical
expected
from
the
mind of Hegel), was bound

are philosophical
and
vigorous
On
a double consequence.
was
indeed
(as
errors
systematic
to entail, as
it
did,
the one hand, what
came
to
the
acquire
dignity of partial or particular concepts, that

of distinct concepts
distinct
really
is,
and on the other, what are
concepts
were
lowered
the
to
level of simple attempts at truth, to incomplete
and
imperfect
truths
that
to
is
assumed the aspect of philosophical
The
first
the structure
Logic, as
100
they
errors.
of these consequences
of the
say,
we
determined
find
it,
at
METAMORPHOSIS OF ERRORS
least
in
and as
Phenomenology of
of Logic (1812-1816), and
Science
Spirit,
set forth later in detail in the great
is
it
the
in
germ,
101
in
the small
one of the Encyclopaedia (1817, 1827, 1830).

The second determined the character of
aesthetic
and
sophical
sciences of history and
they
may be
and
in
gave
origin
two
the
to
philo
of nature,
as
seen, chiefly in the Encyclopaedia,
the
courses
of
lectures
posthumously
published.
To
and
the
first
moments
of the concept (which
truth and concreteness
its
are
opposites)
naturally
one another
concepts
becoming
analogy,
for
are
and
being
in
the
to
two
are
two
practical
two errors?
of
related
that the lower
For
example,
in
relation
to
abstractions,
become,
by
in
the
and practical
activity.
abstractions,
separately, each
be
to
higher.
thought are stages
stage,
synthesis
in
sense
in
which,
the series of distinct concepts,
intuition, thought,
and
the
taken
which
two degrees,
in
is
same way
the
nothing,
example,
opposites
point,
being confused with one another,
distincts
the abstract
to
with
begin
in
being
O
itself,
Indeed,
the
activity, intuition
relative
to
the
third
But what are
those
and
taken
nothing,
<J
but
first
two
falsities,
of these
or
corre-
102
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
spends
for
allied
to
Hegel
Eleatic
the
as
but
whole of
the
simple
and God as nothing

the most real.
reality,
being,
all
The second corresponds

which
conceives
other
to
which conceive the
philosophical views,
absolute
or
to the Buddhistic view,
things, as the true absolute.
two opposite, yet
base
the
as
nothingness
of
are therefore
They
philosophical errors,
similar,
both of which claim to think the indeterminate
and abstract as supreme

on the other hand, are
whole
rise
The
to
Êsthetic
human
scientific
activity
two unreal
and
real concepts.
Once
and
thoiight
this
owing
to the
abstractly,
concepts,
truths.
is
crown of
the
and gives
rise to
all
the
They
are, therefore,
abstractions, but
two concrete
Logic.
has been posited^
to the confusion
opposites
science,
philosophical
second
the
not
of
and
intuition
first
particular
science of sciences
that
what,
term sums up the

imaginative activity of man and gives
two truths
but
And
reality.
and
the
it
becomes
between the
connexion
of
clear
dialectic
distincts
assumption that the opposites, taken

fulfil
the
same function
those errors
They become
as the distinct
become transmuted
particular
of a lower degree of spirit,
but
truths,
still
into
truths
necessary
forms of
spirit,
And when
or categories.
103
these
have been baptized truths of a certain
errors
there
kind,
error
in
is
nothing to hinder every error,

considered
being
general,
particular
The phenomenology of error thus assumes

appearance of an ideal history of truth.
truths.
the
This baptism, this transfiguration, has seemed,

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

than from many truths ? The Eleatics_ were
wrong
in
being
but
the
conceiving
that
error
of
absolute
as
simple
nevertheless
theirs
-*
..^=>
>
affirms
an
undeniable,
that the absolute
is
though
partial
truth,
Descartes and
also being.
were wrong in positing the parallelism

of mind and body, of thought and extension
Sjginoza
but
thanks
unless,
distinction
fixed
unity
insoluble
the
relief,
very error, the

terms had been
how
could
their
have been thought afterwards
Kant was wrong
recognize
that
between the two
and thrown into
concrete
as
to
in
but
presenting the antinomies

it
was
thus
he
came
to
necessity of the antinomies, the
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
io 4
of
basis
the
dialectic.
was
Schelling
wrong
the absolute as
in
conceiving
simlg_jdentjty_
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
transcendent,
how
conceived
could
the
Ideas
the
as
the
merely logical
have been changed
of Socrates jever
concept
into
had
Plato
Aristotelian concrete (awo\ov)
How
could the a priori synthesis of Kant ever have
without
appeared
the
negation of
wishes truth to be generated
He who
Hume?
without error wishes
He who
father.
is
son without the
the
truth
despises
incomprehensible
which
errors,
^...
eternal aspects.
for
despises error
antecedent
those
its
truth
for
itself,
sceptical
are
without
therefore
But here too we must
be careful
not
to
allow ourselves to be ledâstraj by metaphors

In
we must re-think the thing itself.
error, that
sive,
or
but
if
or
we
the
like,
consider
we may declare it
we consider it more
resolves
some
fruitful,
When
truth.
whole,
which may justly be called progres
itself
into
of which are
true
to
not error but
is
doctrine
be
false or true
in detail,
series
as
of
and some
a
;
the doctrine
affirmations,
false
and
its
and
progressiveness
fruitfulness
105
the
in
lie
affirmations which are true, not in those which
are
and which therefore cannot even be
false,
called
affirmations.
doctrine,
the
is
true
being,
The
"
truth,
is
what
Even
but being.
that
the
is false, is
that
affirmation
:
the
in
Thus,
in
absolute
is
it
,.is_
nothing
highest expression of
the
absolute
Eleatic
is
the
spirit,"
absolute
though not simple being. Similarly,

the Cartesian and Spinozist parallelism, the
being,
in
distinction of
extension,
but
mind from body, of thought from
is,
least in a certain sense,
at
remains
it
produced
what
which
theory,
be
to
explained
false is
is
it
is
the hasty metaphysical
two
those
explains
how
true
terms
by
making them two manifestations of God, or

two attributes of substance, and takes the
statement
of
the
Thus
in
Platonic transcendency, the truth
in
lies
too,
the value
the
from real
world
error
lies
things,
which
the
solution.
assigned to the idea, as
longer purely subjective,

real
for
problem
and
in
in
we cannot
but
as
objective and
separating
the
placing
them
think,
no
but can
ideas
in
only
thus
imagining them we
imagine
confuse them again with things real and finite.
It is the error in each of these doctrines that
;
and
in
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
io6
is
the incentive to progress
moment
the necessary
the not-being,
is
it
of development
without
contradiction and doubt, without perplexity and
we should
dissatisfaction,
Man would
would
not
cease
cease
altogether
henceforth
to
the
affirm
it
and
advance.
because
he
would
indeed
we know
So much
be.
the principle of the synthesis
been, expounded
But
above.
accepted
no
truth,
think,
which has
of opposites,
fully
conquer
to
is
it
make
principle
being and not-being,
of
synthesis
this
if
and
does not therefore possess the virtue of changing
not -being into
incentive
is
degree of
or
preserved
degree or aspect of
which is contained
call
the
erroneous.
true
error as
which the
light,
truth
in
it,
in
The
truth.
as
is
ligrrtjof
of
the
the
the
the
error,
particular
that aspect of truth
is
doctrines
These aspects of the
subject
error
into
into progress, error into
progress
truth
partial
which
to
darkness
being,
history
of
that
we
truth are
thought
hemisphere of darkness,
truth has not yet illuminated
and we write the history of successive illumina

tions, not of darkness, which is without history,
because
the
first
it
accompanies every history.
transmutation
of
errors
consequence
of
the
into
Therefore
truths,
transference
of
this
the
dialectic
of
distincts,
into which
be drawn,
is
opposites
the
to
107
connexion
Hegel allowed himself
of
to
be considered as fundamentally
*
to
erroneous.
have premised,
these canons of judgment which I have
If these explanations,
and
laid
if
which
down, be exact, we are now
in a position to
understand the problem and the structure of the

Hegelian Logic not indeed, be it well under
:
stood, the
Hegel
principle of the
logical
(the concrete concept)
and of
doctrines of
his various
particular doctrines (the theory of opposites, the
theory of distincts,
etc.)
of which
we have
already
preceding chapters but of that

determinate thought which led Hegel to conceive
discoursed
in
a fundamental science, which he called Logic or

the Science of logic,
and developed
in thrQe.secjtiQns,
the logic of Being^ the logic of Êssenê, and the

It is a science, which has,
logic of the Concept.
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
from the principal content of that book) is to

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

as spirit or idea.
same time
light
Further,
at
the
find their justification
has been the aspiration, of
it
human
efforts of
show
is
the
all
the
so that this philosophy
in this conception,
as
to
that the aspects of truth brought to
by other philosophies
result,
is
it
Hence
thought.
there pass before us,
in the
now sometimes
named, now sometimes
Logic
expressly
and reference,
in allusion
Oriental Emanationism, Buddhism, Pythagoreanism,
Atomism
the
Heracliteanism,
Eleaticism,
Platonism, Aristotelianism, the
of Democritus,
doctrines of the Pantheists, of the Sceptics and

of
the
Gnostics,
Scholasticism
Locke,
then,
too,
Wolff,
Leibniz,
Schelling,
Jacobi,
thought,"
it
is
the
to
it.
more or
Spinoza,
and
It
somewhat
is
the
other
Fichte,
philo
"
different
from mine
which every philosophy
polemic, by
affirms and maintains its
sophies,
Descartes,
pathologv_pf
has been called by an English
writer, in a sense
it
Anselm,
Hume, Kant,
Herder
sophical points of view.

as
Saint
Christianity,
life
against other philo
less discordant with,
and
hostile
109
This polemic, if we observe it well, can be

conducted in two distinct modes, one of which
presupposes the other as
its
The
basis.
different
philosophies, and their partially erroneous points
of view, can be studied

the
in
individuality,
they assumed
form that
definite
their
in
with
various thinkers at different times, in chronological
sequence
and we thus have the
is
Philosophy (which
like
History o/
both history and criticism,
Or we can study
every true history).
the
universal possibilities of philosophical errors, their

sources,
perpetual
confusion of philosophy
the
with the various other activities of the

spirit
is
and
the polemic against errors
in this case
philosophy
itself,
human
the whole system
for
it
is
only in the completely developed system that the

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

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

it
is
inseparable
because, as
Bacon
from
the
but logically
philosophy
said, as the straight
itself,
line
is
the measure both of itself and of the curve, so
verum index sui
et
falsi
every affirmation
is
also negation.
AvHich
is
or, as is
the entire system,
is
generally said,
This
criticism,
also the basis of
that other criticism, the history of philosophy.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
no
the
by
Hegel,
affirmative
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
him from seeing further
own system prevented
into the errors of others
but in any case with a breadth and richness such
no other
as
philosopher,
save
had
Aristotle,
Aristotle indeed stands to the
ever displayed.
of
Hellenic
thought in
the same relation as Hegel stands to the whole
previous development
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 Met aphysic 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
considered as the true founder of the history
of philosophy, no longer understood as literary
he
is
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
"
est la seule
metaphysique qui
Taine, in a letter of 1851

i.
162-3,
cf.
p.
145.
see
Sa
existe,
avec cclle d
Aristote."
H.
Vie ct sa correspondance (Paris, 1902),
METAMORPHOSIS OF ERRORS in
But
owing to the confusion between the

and the connexion of distincts, and to
dialectic
the consequent conception of errors as particular
Hegel was not
truths,
modes
that
with
Here
structure
are Jreated
errors
is,
the
in
as categories
to deduce, or to
\_
as
of
mode
the
distinct
Logic.
concepts^
and the attempt
develop errors,
two
the
indicated, but attempted a third
realized
that
satisfied
is
made
same way
in the
that the categories or the distinct concepts are
The method proper
deduced andf cTeveTopedT

truth
is
applieoVto non-truth JI
J
What was bound

attempt, this
to
happen in this desperate

violent and spasmodic, effort toward
the impossible?
est
to
impossible,
Sil
"
on
est difficile, cest
fait; sil
some
courtier-
le fera"
said
And he performed
anîenj^gime.
the impossible with a fiat of his will, leading the
minister of the
state
ruin
to
his
Similarly
structure that
beginning.
and
own
provoking
will
ruled
Hegel devised.
the
revolution.
supreme
He
in
the
begins at the
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
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
ii2
quite clearly that philosophy
is
and
"circle"
thereby implies the inconeivability of a necessary

starting-point.
point
and so
A
it
can be entered
circle
with philosophy.
is
begin with the concept of
at
any
We
can
spirit in general,
pro
that
or
we
can
from
by determinations,
ceeding
proceed by successive complications from the
most simple concept, or by discomposition, from

the most complex, or from some intermediary
concept, by going backwards and forwards
or,
and philosophicaMnfinally, from some problem

vestigation and criticism of errors, we can work
to
a complete system.
It
is
this
in
way
that
and here, at
every one begins to philosophize
each one has his beginning,
this point, is reality
;
TO TTpwrov TTpo?
sion there
is
no
â?, and
Trp&rov
at this stage of apprehen
The preference to be
(frvo-ei.
accorded to one beginning rather than to another
most a question of didactic convenience.

But if the problem of the beginning is of no
is
at
importance
in philosophy,
it
is
true,
on the other
hand, that philosophy, objectively considered, has

its
is
first
position,
its
also last, the first
example,
Idea.
in
But
Trp&rov fyvaei
which
is
first,
which
a circle, such as, for
the philosophy of Hegel, Spirit or

in
the Logic
in
>
so far as
it
examination of a series of errors, how can a
is
an
first
be thought that should be

Trpwrov
that
of necessity, a
first
Hegel began with pure being,
<f>vaei?
is,
113
with the examination of the philosophical
systems which define the Absolute as simple

and he repeatedly tried to justify this
being
;
beginning, but
in vain.
any other, equally

unjustifiable
only one.
if
Why
was a beginning
justified with
is
it
It
any other
claimed to justify
should
we
it
like
but
as the
commence with
not
the philosophies which place the root of things
one of the other of the cosmological elements,

the water of Thales or the air of Anaximenes ?
in
Or with
the sensationalis^philo_sophies, for which
the absoJ.ui-J^-_lhe_relative, and reality
this
point, has
that
laid
Or
the
Let the starting-point be pure

only, an examination which begins at
phenomenon
being
is
again,
down
the
"commanded"
in
a principle,
like
the mathematical disciplines.
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
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
n4
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.
It
arbitrary.
is
Triad follows triad
one
triad
the
method
but
itself to
links
it
does not appear that
another, triadically, as
After the
implies.
not-being, and becoming,
first triad,
comes the category of
the determinate being (Daseyn)

to
but
if
there
is
be a link between them, determinate being
should arise from becoming as

as
of being,
But the
not-becoming.
its antithesis, i.e.
fact
is
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 Logic
has been interpreted by some
critics,
not as a
great uninterrupted chain, but as a single funda
mental
which other triads are inserted
triad, into
and into which
still
well as that limited
others could be inserted, as
number which Hegel gave,
apparently by
way
of example.
interpretation,
the
necessary
But on
this
ascent
through
from pure being to the idea,
and that ascent was the purpose
different degrees,
is
made
illusory,
of the Logic.
So the book
is
thus reduced to a
congeries of criticisms directed against the affirma

tions of abstract terms, which are resolved in
And
115
would be necessary
add that the criticisms are concerned not only
dialectic syntheses.
to
with
abstract
opposites
but
opposites,
and therefore
it
it
is
also
with
false
not altogether an
erroneous view which has noted a certain change

of
method
the
in the Logic, as
it
gradually rises from
primary to the ulterior categories.
It
is
clear that the content of the criticism changes,
when we pass from

which
those
to
hence
concept;
being
Hegel himself says, that

have another and a passing
we
another
the errors concerning being

refer to essence and to the
in
and
opposite,
the
essence,
in
the
appearing
concept,
the
in
"in
into
the
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
If there
the
be no necessary connexion between
Hegel s Logic, there

on the other hand marks of the
successive
appear
in
distinct."
it
parts
of
tendencies which might be expected in a thought-
which has been compelled into those

schematic forms, as into a bed of Procrustes.
content,
That content,
only be
as has
already been said, could
developed, either
in
the form of the
exposition of a complete philosophic system (and
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
n6
philosophy of
spirit),
form of a history of philosophy.
And
in this case, as a
or in the
the treat
ment of the Logic approximates sometimes to

the one type, sometimes to the other.
For
we
instance,
an attempt
discover
of philosophy in the order of the
a history
at
first
categories,
which appear successively Parmenides, HeraDemocritus

and then again, in other
clitus,
in
of
Kant
Descartes, Spinoza,
parts,
the
doctrine
of
the
the
concept
first
part
contains
the
critique of the Aristotelian analytic

part, the criticism of the Leibnizian
And
again,
transform
it
into
itself
spirit,
necessary
monadology.
has an even stronger tendency to
and not empirical) of

forms of
philosophy (speculative
spirit, i.e.
of the particular
cognitive and practical, in their
relation.
Thus,
in
the
being (section on quantity) there

logy of arithmetical procedure
is
first
section, there
the third
is
section,
sophical logic.
the
concepts
elucidated,
of
the gnoseo-
the natural
In the doctrine of the concept, in the

the logic of the concept, of
the judgment, and of the syllogism

in
doctrine
in the doctrine of
essence, of the theory involved in

sciences.
the second
and
the
and then,
more properly
philo
In the parts relating to objectivity,

of
in
mechanism and chemism
are
those relating to teleology and
life,
there
117
a sketch of a philosophy of nature
is
while a practical philosophy appears in the section
on the Idea,
in
aesthetic
not
is
compendium of
the discussion of
excluded
altogether
logic,
which
will.
is
Finally,
be found
to
the
in
in the
Propaedeutic of 1808-1812, the category of the

"
is
Beautiful"
this
reason
united to that of
also,
For
desperate to attempt to
is
it
"Life."
keep the various parts of the system of Hegel

The Logic anticipates
distinct from one another.
the Philosophy of the Spirit, which takes up again
the themes of the Logic, the Philosophy of nature
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
whole system
in a first
sketch
(if
we do
not take
System der Sittlichkeit, which

Hegel did not publish, and which was the very
account of the
first
sketch).
concrete content, taken from the history of
philosophy, and in great measure from the Philo
sophy of
spirit,
a violent and arbitrary arrange
ment, imposed by thefalse^ idea of an a priori

deduction of errors
1
that
Philosophische Propiideutik, ed.
Werke,
xviii.
120).
is
how
the Hegelian
Rosenkranz, 2nd course,
10
(in
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
nS
Logic presents
injures the content.
The arrangement
me.
itself to
But
in
saying this and
in
condemning the undertaking of Hegel, as em

bodied in the Logic, I do not intend to condemn
to death
and
to oblivion that richest of all the
books which bear the

I
mean
to place
it
title
Logic
on the contrary,
in conditions favourable to its
and to the continued exercise of
life
influence
He who
upon the mind.
its
profound
takes up the
Logic of Hegel, with the intention of understand

ing its development and above all the reason of
the
commencement,
put down the book
it,
will
be obliged ere long to
in despair of
understanding
or persuaded that he finds himself face to face
with a mass of meaningless abstractions.
who,
like the
be_ast,"
"
jipjôjL&abîs,
But he
a philosophical
instead of leaving the bone alone, takes
now
here and
a bite at
it,
breaks
up and sucks
it
it,
now
will
there,
chews
it,
eventually nourish
himself with the substantial marrow.
Hegel and
have persistently pointed

to the door by which the Logic can be entered
pure being, from which we must gradually pass
his disciples after him,
by the vestibules and up the
stairs of nothing,
of becoming, of determinate being, of something,

of the limit of change, of being
>
in
for
self, etc. etc.
order to reach the sanctuary of the Goddess, or
the Idea.
But he who obstinately knocks
gate and believes the
at that
false information, that
and no other must be the door and the

vainly attempt to enter the palace.
sham
assault from
sides
all
door.
;
Take
such
stair, will
That door,
which has been indicated as the only one,

closed, indeed a
119
is
the palace by
thus alone will you reach
the interior, and penetrate to the very sanctuary.
And
it
of the
may be
that
Goddess
holding the
devotees.
lit
you
will
see the countenance
with a benevolent smile, be
"saintly
simplicity"
of
many
of her
VI
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTI

CULAR CONCEPTS INTO PHILO
SOPHICAL ERRORS
ART AND LANGUAGE
I.
THE
other
blow arising
consequence,
the
(ÊSTHETIC)
second
counter
from the confusion between the
synthesis of opposites and the relation of distincts,
was
not
less
to
Owing
grave.
this
Hegel deprived himself of the means

recognizing the autonomy and of attributing
confusion,
of
and proper value to the various forms

Error was confused with particular
of the spirit.
their just
truth, and, as philosophical errors
Hegel
bound
had become
particular truths, so particular truths

to be associated with errors
philosophical errors, to lose
all
and
to
intrinsic
for
were
become
measure,
to be brought to the level of speculative truth,

and to be treated as nothing but imperfect forms
of philosophy.
120
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
For
this
succeed
in
reason,
121
Hegel did not completely
recognizing the nature of the aesthetic,
or of the historical, or of the naturalistic activity

that
to say, of art,
is
or of history, or of the
physical and natural sciences.
Without doubt, the pages of Hegel concerning

aesthetic are animated with great artisticjeelingj
and on the whole there prevails in them the
tendency to make-art a primary element in human
life,
of knowledge and of spiritual_elevaL-
We are
tiojn.
and
mode
far
by these pages far beyond

above the vulgar view, for which art is
carried
a superfluous accident of real
life,
a pleasure, a
game, a pastime or a simple mode of instruction,

The constant contact
empirical and relative.
;
Hegelian speculation with taste and with

works of art, and the dignity which it assigned
of
to the artistic
fluence over
gave it an
minds and made
activity,
men
effective
it
a powerful
stimulus to the study of aesthetic problems.

is
a merit, which, in part,
is
in
common
to
This
all
the
Romantic period (the great

period of the fermentation and the renewal of the
philosophy of art and of literary and artistic criti
aesthetic theories of the
cism and history), and which,

to the
Hegelian
in part, is peculiar
aesthetic, in virtue of its
of ideas, of judgments and of problems.
wealth
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
122
But the elements of truth, scattered
in
plenty
in
the Hegelian eesthetic, are either too general, or
merely incidental, and are, in principle, divergent

from the fundamental concept of art, which Hegel
accepts, and which is erroneous.
It
is
erroneous, because Hegel, firm in
his
belief that every form of spirit (save the ultimate
and supreme form) is nothing but a provisional

and contradictory way of conceiving the Absolute,
could not discover that
form, which
and
in
is
has not yet

condition.
It
ingenuous theoretic
the lyric or the musicjof
which there
contradictory,
first
is
spirit,
nothing philosophically
because the philosophic problem
emerged.
is
This
first
form
is
its
the region of the intuition, of
pure fancy, of language, in its essential character,

as painting, music or song
in a word, it is the
:
region of
art.
When Hegel
begins his medita
upon the phases of spirit, he is already at

a point where that region is behind him, and
tion
yet he does not recognize that he has passed
The Phenomenology
takes
its
start
it.
from sensible
Hegel the simplest form

which (he says) we behave towards
certainty, according to
of
all
that in
immediate or receptive manner

changing nothing in it and abstaining from all
And he does not find
the labour of concepts.
reality
in
an
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
it
seems
The
and
here,
in a
something else
this, here,
now
not the
moment,
in
theoretic
first
sensible certainty,
is
it
it
after
form
is
It
he believes, immediate consciousness
not, as
already mingled with intellectual reflexion,
is
already contains the question as to what
(such
we have
as
is
In place of genuine sensible certainty
truly real.
where there
and
is
not genuine
pure and simple.
cuo-Orjo-t,?
is
But
Hegel speaks,
it
the abstract
is
everything else disappears.
the sensible certainty, of which
not the
moment
the here there
that survives,
all
is
on the
is,
and the poorest.
abstract
now, and
is
thing
is
most
the
which
that such contemplation,
be the richest and most true,
to
contrary,
it
show
difficult to
123
object,
in
aesthetic
contemplation,
no distinction between subject

no comparison of one thing to another,
is
no collocation
in
spatial
and temporal
series)
there has been substituted the first reflexion upon

sensible
first
knowledge
reflexion should
Hegel
surpassed.
subject
without
and
it
is
natural that that
seem imperfect and

often
predicate
resembles,
phenomenon, the thing without

thing in itself, an empty and
foundation
with the
it is
the concept in
predicate,
that
repeats
to
be
the
in
the
"
properties, the
indeterminate
itself,
which, only
receives differentiation and
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
i2 4
But
determination."
without predicate
art
that
is,
subject
precisely,
quite other than the
is
nothingness and void of the thing-in-itself and

of the thing without properties.
without intellectual relations
It
is
it
is
intuition
the emotion,
which a poem communicates, through which there

opens a view of a reality, which we cannot render
in intellectual
in
singing
creating
terms and which we possess only
or
in
Hegel
aesthetic activity
never
in his eyes,
him
it
sign
in
is
is
the
region
of
he does not succeed
Language,
the
Indeed,
work of memory, which he
because
explicitly
it
produces
"signs";
which represents a content

different from that which is its own."
By means
language the intelligence impresses

presentation upon an external element.
form of language, therefore,
is
grammar.
Owing
re
its
intellectual
the product of a logical instinct, which
logical
and
"altogether
of
in
calls
defined as an immediate
intuition,
wards theorized
in
becomes,
too,
an organized contradiction.
"productive,"
the
only
is,
and therein the theoretic form
explaining language.
for
reaches
truly primary, so
is
that
it.
Since
which
re-singing,
The
it
is
is
after
to
this
form, language tries to express the in
dividual, but cannot
do so
"
you wish to say
this
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
piece of paper, upon which
have written,
precisely this
What you
it.
am
is
say
125
writing, or rather
but you do not say
the
universal,
this!
Thus, according to Hegel, does language confute

attempting to express the individual, and,
itself,
on the contrary, always expressing the universal.

But for the omne individuum ineffabile of the
which Hegel here seems to repeat,
we must substitute the opposite solum individuum
scholastics,
addition
ever think that a
does not attain

an end that
dwell
in
escape
art
modis
logicis
ineffabile}.
human
activity,
end, that
its
it
with
How
is
Language
grasp individual
from which
it
itself
must
cannot
it
poetry and
we
artistic expression,
reality, that individual
spirit intuites
we
can
proposes to
essentially
by language, or by
the
such as language,
absurd and therefore that
is
self-deception,
which our
former
the
correct
(or -else
effabile
shading,
and renders, not
in
terms
of concepts, but in sounds, tones, colours, lines,
and so
on.
stood in
its
its
For
reason, language, under
this
true nature,
meaning,
is
and
adequate to
of inadequacy arises
when
in the full
reality.
whole
that fragment
to
which
it
is
The
illusion
the term language
is
meaning, and
separated from the organic
applied to a fragment of this
when
extent of
belongs.
full
Thus
paper,
this
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
126
paper, of which
pressed by the words

torn
is
ex
"
"
this
paper
in
themselves,
asunder from their context and rendered
abstract.
whole
it
not only what
is
speak,
It
spirit,
what
is
my
has present to
represents,
it
it
is
it
rather,
which
my
in so far as
can also render externally, with
sound, colour, and so on.

precisely,"
or
eyes,
because
If
have
say:
it
"this
before
am showing it to others the words that

my mouth obtain their full meaning
paper
me and
issue from
from the
whole psychical situation in which I 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
we have made them
so,
Hegel (who had no

condition
of
the
in
but that
is
because
But
by mutilating them.
clear idea of the
could
aesthetic
not
completely
he was obliged to think of
that mutilated and intellectualized manner,
spirit)
understand language
it
and therefore to declare
it
contradictory.
And
he passes from the language

of prose to consider the language of poetry, he
when,
in his Êsthetic,
back into the old rhetoric, after some attempt

to emerge from it.
Poetic language also, in the
falls
he regards as a mere
different from the lines and
end,
"sign,"
the
essentially
colours
of
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
127
sculpture and of painting, and from the tones

of music.
Thus Hegel
erroneous logical theory con
cerning distinct concepts conceals from him the

that
place
properly
belongs
the
to
aesthetic
and suggests to him a philosophy of

language, which leads him of necessity to consider
But it is not only language
language as an error.
activity
that
treated
is
this
in
function unrecognized,
mind
of
it,
fashion.
Art,
obtrudes
itself
true
its
upon
his
and since he does not know what to make
he transfers
to a place,
it
belong and where,
where
it
does not
language (which has first

been arbitrarily separated from the representative
and aesthetic activity, with which it altogether
coincides),
it
like
too ends by appearing as nothing
but imperfection and error.

pass
the
it
by
way
in silence
Hegel could neither
nor get rid of
it
lightly (as is
of naturalistic and positivist philosophers).
His time would not permit this, nor would his

individual disposition, in which interest in art was
so
prominent.
The
conception
to
which
attained was substantially that of his time.

in
he
Kant,
the third Critique, had studied the aesthetic
activity along with the teleological
judgment, as
one of the modes of representing nature, when

the mechanical conceptions of the exact sciences
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
28
are surpassed
Schiller
had indicated
VI
it
as the
ground of reconciliation in the struggle between

necessity and liberty, and Sqhelling conceived it
as the true organ of the Absolute.
was
later to consider
like
in
it
Schopenhauer
manner
as
the
contemplation of the Ideas and the freeing of the

will.
For Hegel
also,
this
which the
activity,
whole romantic period sometimes substituted for,

sometimes placed above, and sometimes placed
below religion and philosophy, became a mode of
apprehending the Absolute, of solving the great

In the Phenomenology, he
philosophical problem.
makes
a form of religion, superior to merely
it
natural religion (which adores material objects,

feUcJjes
and the
like),
because
of adoring spirit as subject
he makes
it,
mode
the Encyclopaedia
in
indeed a
it is
with but slight difference, the religion
of beauty, a
first
in relation
degree
to revealed
the latter, as this latter, in its

religion, inferior to
turn,
is
inferior to
philosophy.
The
history of
poetry and of art consequently appears
in
the
lectures on ^.sthetic^ as a history of philosophy,
of religion and of the moral

history of
of works
human
of
art,
ideals, in
that
is
aesthetic form, occupies a
life
of humanity
which the individuality

to
say,
the
properly
secondary place, or
referred to only incidentally.
is
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
If the
conception of
same problem
common
is
as
engaged upon the

and philosophy, is
as
art,
religion
to his time,
what
129
is
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 aesthetic
activity complementary to the philosophical activity,
solving in
its
the problems that were insoluble
way
to philosophy.
Still
less
make
could he
His
activity superior to the philosophical.
assumption was bound

of the
solution
dialectic,
The
distinct concepts.
him
to lead
in
its
it
an
logical
to the usual
application
to
artistic activity is distinct
from the philosophical only through its imperfec

tion, only because it apprehends the Absolute in
a sensible and immediate form, whereas philosophy
in
apprehends it
This means,
distinct
the pure
logically,
and that
for
that
medium
art
Hegel
it
is
is
of thought.
not
at
all
practically
reduced (whether he like it or not) to a philo

True
sophical error, or an illusory philosophy.
art would be philosophy, which addresses itself
again to the same problem upon which art has
worked
in
vain and attains a perfect solution of
That such
is
proved by the
the genuine thought of Hegel,
fact that
it.
is
he does not shrink from
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
130
When
the extreme consequence of this theory.

is
philosophy
because
disappear,
die,
completely developed,
and indeed
an error,
history of
is
it
is
superfluous
art
must
already quite dead.
which Hegel
art,
must
If
not necessary and eternal.
is
it
it
art
is
traces,
it
is
The
directed to
shewing the gradual dissolution of the artistic

form, which has no place, in modern times, in our
true and highest interests.
survival
of the
illuminates
It
is
a past, or the
This grandiose paradox
past.
the
everywhere
aesthetic
error
of
Hegel, and better perhaps than any other ex
ample makes clear the error of

tion.
In defence of Hegel,
the death of
art,
death, which
observe
in
is
it
his logical
assump
has been said that
of which he speaks,
an eternal^ rebirth
the spirit of man,
is
that eternal
such as
we
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^_colpur^
interpretation, there
of the death of
art,
is
But against
the fact that
this
Hegel speaks
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
Once he had assumed
separate from one another.
application of the dialectic,
this
Hegel had no
than one of two ways, either
choice
other
131
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
system of Hegel (whose twin principles

of the concrete concept and the dialectic, are of
that the
frankly aesthetic inspiration) has appeared to be

a cold intellectualjsm, irreconcilable to the artistic
And
consciousness.
the
misunderstanding
art leaves its traces in his
treatment of
all
of
the
problems into which the concept of art enters as

a necessary and proximate premiss.
Hegel is
usually considered an adversary of the Aristotelian
formal
logics;
but
it
would be better
to say, with
greater exactness, that he was the adversary of

classificatory
and naturalistic
logic, or, better
still,
tEat he limited himself to revealing the inadequacy
of classificatory and naturalistic logic to provide

a
principle
for
recognized this
on
merit
in
this subject could not

"
ing.
Aristotle
We
philosophy.
him and
have already
his
polemic
have a different mean
"
"
(he says)
is
the author of _jn^
Jtellectual logic (the logic of the abstract intellect),
whose forms concern only the
relation of finites
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
132
between themselves
be conceived
classification
in
the true, therefore, cannot
in
not what
is
is
most characteristic
the logic of Aristotle and of his school
tendency
classificatory
Baconian or inductive
of
But the method of
them."
the
Aristotelian
between
The
logic.
logic
logical_jthought
its
is
into
characteristic
or
syllogistic,
which
it
falls
and speech, and
its
while limiting
claim to establish logical forms,

itself to
the
also to be found in the
confusion
the
verbalism,
is
verbal forms.
*
Hegel did not and could not criticize this

error, because he was without the instrument of
criticism,
which can be furnished only by a valid
philosophy of language.
^distinguish
between
the
He
certainly tries to
proposition
and
the
but he cannot adduce good

reasons for this distinction, and he states that
logical
judgment
a proposition (for instance

a
"it
judgment only when with
is
it
hot")
becomes
we answer
the
doubt that may arise as to the truth of the

The exact distinction was beyond
affirmation.
his reach, for
it
pure proposition
consists in recognizing that the

is
nothing but speech
itself,
or
language as pure aesthetic fact, in which there

is no logic, though it is the necessary vehicle
1
Gesch. der Philos?
ii.
365-68.
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
of logical thought.
133
Indeed, not only does he re
tain the tripartition of concept, logical
judgment
between element
and syllogism, and the division

ary forms and methodology, between definition,
division, demonstration and proof, but he even
sets to
work
to distinguish
and define new classes
of judgments and of syllogisms.
VII
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTI

CULAR CONCEPTS INTO PHILO
SOPHICAL 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 (historio

But the truth is that Hegel was unable
graphy).
to
do
full
justice to this theoretic form, for the
same reason
we have
as in the case of the others,
already mentioned, because
formed
particular
errors.
From
errors have the
that
as
Hegel
measure
religion
it
to
as
into
as
he trans
philosophical
the logical point of view, the two
same
probable that the
second
concepts
i.e.
is
origin.
first
Psychologically,
prepared the way
also psychologically
it is
for the
probable
idea of religion contributed in
some
He regarded
produce the first.
an imaginative and more or less
134
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
form
imperfect
bound
to lead
of
him
philosophy
to assign an
and
135
this
was
analogous position
to art in relation to philosophy.
History, herein differing from

philosophical thought as
it
art,
its
is
but, like
always narration, and never
theory and system, though

its
presupposes
condition
finds its material in the intuitive element.
History, therefore,
at
art,
foundation.
So
it
has theory and system
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
upon those aspects of
life
to
It
treat
that
historically.
history
cannot
and especially
which they undertake
life,
has seemed
dispense
with
therefore
scientific
accuracy and yet remain always a work of

If all historical
art.
works be reduced to their simplest
expression, the historical judgment, or the pro
(for
"
something has happened

example, Caesar was killed, Alaric devastated
position affirming that
"
Rome, Dante composed the Comedy,
etc.),
we
upon analysing these propositions, that each

one of them is constituted of intuitive elements,
see,
which act as subject and of

which act as predicate. The
logical
first
for
elements,
instance
and speaking generally, will be Caesar, Rome,

Dante, the Comedy, and so on and the second,
;
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
136
the
concepts of slaughter,
composition, and such
From
that
this
devastation,
artistic
it
follows
like.
historical
gnoseology,
every progress of philosophic thought
is
translated into a progress of historical knowledge,

since
we understand
were truly the
far
historical
more adequately what

facts of Dante s com
poem, when we know better what

But we also
poetry and artistic creation are.
gather that the attempt would be vain to resolve
position of his
those historical affirmations into abstract philo
That would be
sophic affirmations.
the whole and complete fact in what

the condition of the
to
absorb
is
merely
History can give rise
fact.
to a conceptual science of an empirical character,
as
when we pass from
it
proceeds by types and classes

reason,
is
it
science, of
sociology
that
but for that very
absorbed by that conceptual
not
which
to
it
remains the presupposition or
Conversely, history can give rise to
the basis.
philosophy,
when we
sideration
of
the
pass from the historical con
particular
to
the
theoretical
elements, which are at the bottom of that con

sideration
but, for that very reason,
it
cannot be
said to be absorbed in that philosophy,

its
of
pre-supposition and
history,
its
basis,
which
is
^philosophy
understood not as the elaboration of
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
this abstract philosophy, but as history
degree,
abstract philosophy,
What
of history,
philosophy
ment of
a contradiction in terms.
is
the significance of such an idea of a
is
as
For
history.
of a
history
Neither more nor
degree?
of a second
by means of that
obtained
history
137
this
less
second
than the annul
second degree,
this
postulated philosophical consideration of historical

narrative, this philosophic history,
would be true
which the history of the

historians would be revealed as error, because it
history,
is
in
relation to
constructed according to a method which does
not lead to truth,
or,
what amounts
to the
On
thing, does not lead to complete truth.
appearance of the second form, the
would be dissolved
or rather,
solved, precisely because
but something formless.
sophy of history
is
made, one seems
form
first
would be
it
the
dis
would not be a form,
it
The
idea- of a philo
the non-recognition of the
autonomy of historiography,
abstract philosophy.
same
to the
advantage of
Whenever such
a claim
is
to hear the bells tolling for the
death of the history of historians.

usually so docile
when
The
historians
their attention
is
called
some progress in science or philosophy, which

may help to make clear some part of their work
to
as narrators
yet rebel with violence
when any
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
138
one
them of
talks to
some
of
sort
history, or
a philosophy of history, of
method
speculative
when the attempt
is
made
of
knowing
to
persuade
which they have
put all their powers, and of which every line and
every shade is dear to them, to the hands of
them
to consign the labour, into
who
philosophers
and complete
able.
It
were told
is
it.
just
to
are
not
historians,
to
revise
And
their rebellion
as
a painter or a musician
if
is
reason
consign to the philosophers his
picture or his score,
when he had completed
so that they might raise
it
it,
to the second power,
by introducing into it strokes of the philosophic

brush and philosophic harmonies>
TêpTliadTo~pastr-and"deposit the idea of

a philosophy of history and he had to negate,
;
as he did negate, the history of the historians,

for that
He
was required by
his logical presupposition.
divided philosophy into pure or formal philo
sophy (which should have been logic, and was

also metaphysics), and into applied and concrete
philosophy, comprising the two philosophies of
nature and of
the second of which the
spirit, into
philosophy of history entered again

together
composed
the
philosophical sciences.
his
own
the
traditional
the three
encyclopaedia
of
the
Thus Hegel adopted
as
division
of
Scholastic
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
philosophy into rational and
and
real,
139
this not as
formula and external scheme, but as
a simple
expressing
also
the
demand
for
philosophic
treatment of the contingent facts of nature and

of
human
All history, as
history.
viously
explained,
applied
philosophy
can
;
be
but
called
these
have pre
concrete
or
words did not
possess so innocent a meaning for Hegel as for
For him they implied the sharp
ourselves.
tinction
dis
of the history, contained in the philo
sophical encyclopaedia, from
all
the other histories,
which constitute the work of historians.

lectures
upon the philosophy of
tinction
is
In his
history, this dis
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 or philosophy of history.
affirms that
Hegel
this philosophic
historio
graphy should have its own method, different

from the method of ordinary historiography, and
he claims
for
struction.
seems
It
it
is
the character of an a priori con

true that by this he sometimes
mean, not a distinctive character, but

only the need for a better elaborated a priori.
He
to
notes
that
ordinary
historians
also
write
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
140
a priori history, for they proceed from certain

thoughts and representations of their own, which,
though defective and arbitrary, yet are always

a priori.
But the a priori that he introduces
is
not the logical element, the interpretation of
which has been recognized above
intuitive data,
as indispensable for
it
is
historical work.
all
Rather,
a history already complete, which needs only
to be clothed
names and
in
(writes
Hegel)
approaches history
is
the simple thought of reason
and therefore
that reason rules the world,
history of the
world
But there
process."
we
or rather,
learn
when we see him
there
also,
is far
more
liberty
is
its
in
it
in the
rational
than
really
this,
mean,
trace the necessary process of
The
history of
the progress in the consciousness of

single
moments
various national spirits
or degrees are the
Volksgeister), the various
each one of which
peoples,
is
what these words
reason in the historical world.

the world
The one
with which philosophy
"
thought"
"
dates.
is
destined to re
present one degree only, and to accomplish only
one task
the
in
whole achievement.
Before
Hegel seeks the data of facts, he knows what

they must be he knows them in anticipation, as
;
we know
its
own
philosophic truths, which spirit finds in

universal
being
and does not deduce
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
141
In the History of Philo

from contingent facts.
sophy, which is perhaps his principal historical
he knows a priori
work,
philosophy and
which
is
represented
medium
pure
externalities
of
of
history
in
in
same development,
the
is
the system itself in the

free
thought,
and
the
system of philosophy are
the
The theme
identical.
that
the
from historical
history
it
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
due to
respect
But we must first examine what value
actual fact.
these declarations can assume or retain.
there
rational
is
process
in
"That
the history of the
be shown by the con

sideration of history itself ... it should be a
"should
world"
(he says)
result
we must take
historically
and
history as
empirically"
extraneous to philosophy;
elsewhere)
should
lower
it is,
The
and proceed
accidental
is
and history (he says

the
universal
into
empirical individuality and into effectual reality

the idea is its essence but the appearance of the
idea
is
in
the sphere of accident and in the realm
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
M2
of arbitrary
if
we can know them
and
accident
truly extraneous
dividuality are
if
But
choice."
to
in
philosophy,
only empirically, there can
be no a priori philosophy of history, but only

And if a philosophy of history be
history itself.
created, then this accidental and individual, and
the
historical
and empirical
recognized and are refuted.
facts,
is
We
not
cannot escape
To recommend
from the dilemma.
are
method,
attention to
or to recognize that the study of documents
the indispensable point of departure for history,
are
mere words, when
in
consequence of the
adoption of certain principles,
what use
to
make
they
could
is
known
not
of those facts and documents.
Those of Hegel s
that
it
disciples,
save
both
who have
the
believed
and the
goat
cabbage by maintaining both the speculative and

the philological methods in history, have saved
neither
the
to
ingenuous
activity
methods
one nor
can
;
for
affirm
be
the
that
exercised
the
method
other.
It
one and
with
is
is
the
two
intrinsic
very
same
different
to
the
and a duplicity of methods means a

It is worse than
duplicity of activity.
ingenuous
to make the two methods alternate and come to
activity,
though they were two

friends and companions engaged in the same task.
one another
s assistance, as
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
At other
times,
Hegel seems
143
understand his
to
a priori scheme as nothing but a rough anticipa

tion of
what
"
thought
"
is
given by actual history:
may be
"It
(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
time
in
(im Ganzen) the order
the
is
At other
same."
times again he modifies his statement
way
that hardly anything remains of
"
the
The
the
history
of
of
result
all
in
last
is
preceding
time
but only if
the most
The
parenthesis
that
reservation
amounts
to
all
also
and
it
is
be truly a philosophy
and the most
developed, the richest
concrete."
tion,
it
is
philosophies,
should contain the principle of them

therefore
Thus,
it.
he observes
philosophy,
philosophy which
such a
in
the philosophic system
in affirming the identity of
and
Whole
but in the
in
implied
tautological
the
affirma
the most developed, the richest and
most concrete philosophy, is not the last in time,

but that which is truly a philosophy
since it
;
is
possible that a philosophic system which con
stitutes a
regression
What
we
are
may appear
to conclude
Hegel never had
in
from
all
last
this
in
time.
That
mind an a priori philosophy
of history, the idea of which
is,
however, closely
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
44
connected with his dialectic treatment of distincts
No, but rather that error
contradiction
is
and
erroneous thesis of a philosophy

of history (of an ideal history, which is not eternal,
that
Hegel
but in time] shows
be error, by the
to
itself
involuntary contradictions in which
comes involved.
Certainly,
Hegel be
we cannot conclude
that those admissions suffice to heal the defects of
the erroneous thesis and to change
That the philosophy of

should not suffer beside
itself
And
history properly
is
it,
probable inference, from Hegel
enough stated
into truth.
history, thus conceived,
so-called, but should negate
explicitly
it
not merely a
but
s principle,
is
in several propositions.
indeed, the very fact that he defines the
philosophy of history as
"the
thinking contem
"
plation of history
wards,
that
(recalling immediately after
thought
alone
confirmation that he regards
from the animal),
is
history as
either
such,
man
distinguishes
And
imperfect thought.
as
not
or
thought,
as
the attitude of antipathy
and depreciation, which he adopts toward pro

fessional historians,
is
likewise significant
almost
though a philosopher of art should quarrel

But most
with professional poets and painters.
as
instructive of
all
is
what he says of the
which are the material of the historian
facts
study.
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
The
145
only facts which, in his opinion, are valuable
for history are those
ment
which represent the move

All the
of spirit or the history of the State.
remain
particular facts that
mass which, when
"
are a superfluous
faithfully collected,
only oppress
and obscure the objects worthy of history the

essential characteristic of the spirit and of the
;
times
is
always contained
a
therefore,
is,
true
in
great
events.
It
sentiment that has led to
the handing over of such representations of the
romances (such as those of the cele

It is to be held a
brated Walter Scott^ etc.).
particular to
proof of good taste to unite pictures of unessen

tial
and particular
from private
mingle,
to a subject-matter equally
such as those that
unessential,
to
life
facts
in
the
extracts
fiction
and subjective passions.

interests
of so-called
But
truth,
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
is
that which
substantial, not the vacuity of external existence,
and of accident.
It is
perfectly indifferent
whether
such insignificant things are formally documented,

a characteristic
or, as in fiction, invented in
manner and
attributed to such
and such a name,
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
46
or to such and such
plainly the
kinds of
in
between
them most
historical facts
historical facts, essential facts
two
between
pernicious distinction
facts,
Whoever
circumstances."
meditates these words will find
VII
and non-
and unessential
facts,
which has often since reappeared among the dis

ciples of Hegel.
It
reappeared
first
in
Edwar<^
Cans, who, when publishing the lectures of the mast&r
upon the philosophy of
history, took occasion to
repeat that this discipline would lose in dignity

it
had
to
encumber
itself
if
with the micrology of
and that consequently its function was to

demonstrate the necessity, not of all facts, but
facts,
only of the great epochs of history and of great
groups of people, and to leave the

narrative history.
down
And
it
rest to
merely
has reappeared right
to that Italian Hegelian,
who maintained
some years ago, in a well-known polemic, that

documents were necessary, to establish in what
Thomas Campanella was successively

confined, and how many days and hours he
prisons
suffered torture
but were not necessary for the
determination of the historical meaning of his
thought and action. This second thing would

be deduced a priori from the ideas of the
Renaissance,
the
Catholic Church, the reforms
of Luther, and the Council of Trent.
Such
dis-
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
tinctions, so far
as
from preserving a class of facts
make
necessary for true history,

even
facts,
as
what
Indeed,
regarding the
it
notion of fact, are
the very
useless.
147
facts a, b,
c,
all
rejected
there
for
as unessential
and
reason
d, e
that
is
superfluous, other than that they are individual
and contingent ? And are not the facts/, g, h, i,

which it is wished to declare essential and
1$, /,
indispensable, equally contingent and individual
If
it
be a contingent
fact that
from cancer of the stomach,
Napoleon suffered
will
i8th
not the
Brumaire and the battle of Waterloo be also

contingent
Will not the whole epoch of the
Revolution and the Empire be contingent
And
thus (since individuality and contingency extend

to
all
facts),
the whole history of the world will
And, on the other hand,
be contingent.
the
if
French Revolution and the i8th Brumaire and

Waterloo were necessary
how
we do
not see
necessity can be denied to Bonaparte,
was an actor
just as
his
facts,
in
drama
the
he was constituted
strength
weaknesses
and
in
in
his
and to Bonaparte
in effective reality
his
who
mental
and
in
physical
resistance to fatigue in his
early years, which enabled
him
to
remain whole
days erect on horseback and to spend whole

nights bent over his
little
table of work,
and
in
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
148
As
the abdominal disease of his mature years.
neither kernel nor shell and comes
reality has
forth all in a jet, as the internal
are
all
and the external
one (and Hegel has taught
mass of
this),
so the
compact mass, it is not composed

of an essential kernel and an inessential shell, of
facts is a
facts that are intrinsically
necessary and facts that
When
are superfluous externalities.
these distinc
tions are adopted in ordinary language, there
is
always implied a reference to definite historical

representations, in relation to the
and
theme
of which,
only in relation to that definite theme, certain
masses of
tinction
is
facts
appear superfluous.
so evidently relative that,
if
The dis
we change
our point of view, and pass from one theme to
what before was superfluous becomes

necessary, and what before was necessary becomes
another,
superfluous.
But
more
that
all
to a
Hegel hands over
facts
form of
him
to
visional
the passage quoted there
be noted.
to
is,
seem
in
to
to romance,
the facts which do not
be historical
and
is
since
art
another
fate of history at the

is
one thing
we should
say
him a pro
form, which philosophy dissipates and
displaces, this
It
art,
is
was
way
for
of shewing the evil
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
nourished on history, Hegel
understanding that
And
it
for
history,
philosophy, without
did so, yet advocated fasting.
the contradiction blazed in the light of the
sun, before
the eyes of
all
the world
for,
as
there issued from the school of

of great writers of history,
Hegel a series
so there came forth
from the same school the most petulant and comic

depreciators of history and of fact that the world
has ever seen.
,-p*
VIII
THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTICU

LAR CONCEPTS INTO
SOPHICAL ERRORS
III.
PHILO
NATURE (!DEA OF A PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE)
IT was certainly a more difficult 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
rule
and science had come more and more
the
intellect,
even
sophical speculation gave

or received to
way
some extent
life
Philo
itself.
before exact science,
its
imprint, as
is
plain
from many parts of the systems of Descartes,

The sensationalism and
Spinoza, and Leibniz.
materialism of the eighteenth century had been
the ultimate consequence of that predominance
of the naturalistic ideal.

150
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
It
is
true that
when
movement
forming, a
the
151
mind of Hegel was

and of reaction
of doubt
had already commenced, and (not to speak of

Vico, who must again be mentioned here) it
being made clear
was
Germany
exact
that
adequate to attain
of things.
several
natural
quarters
was
science
to real reality, to the
mathematics
and
with
of
in
bottom
Philosophers like Kant, armed at
with
points
in
all
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
philosophers,
notable
and teleological
like
monument
Jac_dbi,
Other
intuition.
studying
of the application
most
the
of exact
science to speculative problems, the philosophy

of Spinoza,
showed
sciences
finite
and therefore
that with the
method of the
we cannot escape from the finite,

declared that God and the infinite
and moral problems belonged to the realm of

Poets,
feeling and of immediate knowledge.
artists
and men of
Sturm und Drang,

of the
like
felt
intellectualism
Goethe,
living
letters,
nature,
they
to
time of the
the cold and the void
of the
aspired
be
the
at
Aufklarung
to
revealed
vision
only
to
and
of
him
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
152
who should contemplate
with a sympathetic
it
soul.
this critical
Hegel accepted
it
gave
has
and
inheritance,
vigorous expression, by establishing, as
been
already
difference
the
mentioned,
between the method of philosophy and that of

the mathematical and natural disciplines.
Nevertheless, even
seems so
hostile to the ideal of the exact sciences,
the weight and
an effective
deny
power of
that ideal
is
makes
For example,
influence.-
if
itself
Kant
to exact science the possibility of solving
Trle~ttao!amental problems,
for
movement which
this
in
-hi fti ,"The
fbrfly science to
this
just
exact
is
it
science
also certain that,
which
man
can attain
and the solutions
which he proposes by another method, have not

that is, they
cognitive or thought value for him
;
have not
true
method of the
value.
finite
knowledge of God,
that, for
is
sciences in relation to the

it
the
is
none the
less certain
the other
is
is
that
not knowledge,
"
sentiment."
Hegel and
Schelling, things
form,
criticize
not translatable into the form of thought,
and remains
In
Jacobi
him, the only form of knowledge
of the finite sciences

it
If
in
his
immediate predecessor
would seem
to take a different
because both posited as true knowledge
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
153
the knowledge of the intellectual intuition and

But, on deeper investigation,
of the idea.
we
discover in both the same prepossession (which

could be called the specially
modern preposses
sion), in
favour of the exact sciences, though in
them
receives a
it
new
Instead of
statement.
excluding the exact sciences from philosophy,
and of considering philosophy as incapable of

scientific exactitude, Schelling and Hegel consider
the exact
sciences
as
insufficiently scientific
and
include them in philosophy, which elaborates them,
rendering them scientifically rigorous and supply
Kant and
ing them with an internal necessity.

Jacobi,
each
in
own way, made
his
the exact
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
solutions of a problem, but
assumptions.
And
for
different
both the same
the principal of these
is
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.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
154
So
the
as
long
methods were
taken
scientific
conflict
reason
truth,
already
activity has
Hence,
fall
versely,
was
philosophic
methods
two
first
determinate
own.
its
method were admitted
to
Con
method were admitted
the speculative
method of
to be the only
be
was shaken and was bound
philosophy had to be eliminated.

if
of
the
inevitable, for
that
recorded,
science, the second

to
be
to
but one intrinsic method,
the
if
and
naturalistic
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 naturalistic disciplines had
by philosophy, since they were a

mediocre philosophy, which could not maintain
to be replaced
itself
hand, the
Jacobi,
way
the
of escape, taken by
consigning
of
theoretical,
was
closed, once
shewn capable of the

reality,
The
Kant and by
i.e.
to
the
to the non-
thought had been
solution of the problems of
and philosophical
covered.
the other
philosophy
practical reason or to sentiment,
was
On
against a better philosophy.
only other
logic
way
to consign the naturalistic
had been
that
dis
was open
and mathematical
disciplines,/.^. exact science, to the non-theoretical,
that
is,
to
the practical.
This path has been
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
entered upon
it
in
our day, and
it
seems
must increasingly appear, not only
to
155
me
that
but
fruitful,
necessary.
cannot be said that Hegel had no notion of
It
the practical nature of the naturalistic and mathe

matical disciplines.
His books are
rich in analysis
and observations, which could be transplanted

without alteration into the books of the most
modern
Read
theorists of the
his
method of those
disciplines.
pages on the concept of law
empirical sciences.
Law
(he says)
is
the
in
nothing but
the constant image of the inconstant appearance

so that, in passing from the
more
particular to
the more general laws, in reducing them to unity,
we run
into
tautologies, in
which the
intellect
expresses not the reality of things, but only
own
necessity.
What
is
the postulate, that in a
uniformly accelerated
movement, the
are
the
proportionate
to
times,
but
definition of a uniformly accelerated
And what
are the
its
velocities
just
the
movement
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 ? Of the notion of centrifugal and
centripetal
forces,
Hegel observes
that
it
is
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
156
metaphysical monster, which
is
simply presup
posed and which we are forbidden
to
submit to
examination as to the mysterious

which it happens that these forces
intellectual
any
fashion
in
increase and decrease and each in turn

acquires
or loses its preponderance.
In the exact sciences,
what
it
is
called thinkable
isjajse.
is
"It
is
unthinkable, because
quite thinkable, as they say,
that a uniformly increasing
ment should take place
and decreasing move
in circles
but this think-
nothing but an abstract possibility of

representation, which neglects the determinate
ability
is
character
of what
which therefore
In
the
is
not only superficial, but
same way,
irrational
is
under consideration, and
is
in
applied
mathematics,
only to what
the
false."
name
the science
contains of reality and rationality.

In addition to these and to very
similar
observations,
profusion, both
which
are
many
other
scattered
in
through the Phenomenology and
the Logic, as well as through the Philosophy of
Nature, there recur frequently
Hegel the words

fiktionen],
in
intellectiial jutions
arbitrary^_coneptions
the pages of
(Verstandes-
(willkiirlicli),
to
indicate the constructions of the abstract intellect
and of the natural and mathematical
And
fiction
disciplines.
and arbitrariness appeal precisely
to
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
the voluntary and practical activity
157
and since
those acts of will have a secularjiistory and are

the result of most noble efforts and are held in
high esteem, even in enthusiastic admiration, on

account of the proved utility of the results
attained,
should be evident that
it
possible to speak of acts of will in

sense, or of practical acts, as
formed
the bidding
at
passions
if
a^
was im
it
depreciatory^
these were per
of capnc_e
and of
evil
Uut rather in the sense of acts of will
rationally justifiable or of legitimate practical acts.
But there
is
a case in which
shows that he recognizes the

character
legitimate
Hegel
explicitly
non-scientific,
of those
constructions,
they are and as they must remain.
It
is
yet
as
where
he
propounds to himself the question as to

whether philosophic mathematics are possible
which knows by concepts

what ordinary mathematical science deduces from
that
a science
"
is,
presupposed determinations
method of the
such a science
(he says)
tions
of
"is
it
His answer
"
is
impossible.
to
the
is
that
Mathematics
"
the science of the finite determina
magnitude,
have value
beyond
intellect."
according
must remain
which
in their finitude
and therefore
of the intellect.
Since
it is
it
and
and must not pass

essentially a science
has the capacity of
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
158
being a perfect intellectual science,

rather to preserve to
it
is
desirable
the advantage which
it
it
possesses over other sciences of the same kind,
than to disturb
which
cept,
ends"
is
it
by the admixture of the con
heterogeneous to
"If
259).
(JSnc.
it,
or of empirical
we desired
to treat
philosophically the configurations of space or of

"
unity
(he had said in the preceding edition of
the same book),
and
"they
their particular
would
form
would become a matter of

concrete
philosophical
He
concepts."
meaning
them
a philosophy of
logic or of
science,
more concrete meaning came

the
lose their
to
some other
according
as
be attributed to
knew, on the other hand,
does not contemplate numbers

and their figures, but operates (pperierf) with them
that
"arithmetic
for
number
is
indifferent
determinateness and
and must_j3e_set jn motion and placed in

Once a form of activity
relations, from without."
inert,
was admitted, which operates with thought-data

but does not think them, there should have been
no
difficulty in
attaching to
extending the observation and
it all
in
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.
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
Hegel
of
also
nature,
had very clearly

of
or
the
but
metaphysical,
in
mind
naturalistic
simply
method applicable not
a concept
method,
gnoseological,
the
only to
159
not
i.e.
so-called
inferior manifestations of reality (the three natural
kingdoms), but also to all the others (to the orbis

intellectualis}. Thus he considered Hugo Grotius s
theory of the external right of States as analogous
to the natural philosophy of
logic
istic
seemed
him
Newton
Aristotelian
be nothing but a natural

science of thought, in which the forms of
to
to
thought were described and placed alongside one

another, as is done in natural history with the
unicorn and the
and the
mammoth, with the black-beetle

mollusc and the same comparison was
suggested
by the doctrine of virtue

By this path, too, he should have
ethics
in
Tugendlehre\
been able to reach the conclusion that the content
of the so-called natural sciences

part of reality, but a
mode which
mode
arises
its
own
not indeed a
of treating
all
reality,
and persists side by side
with the philosophical, precisely

fined within
is
limits,
it
because, con
does not compete
with philosophy.
Another
characteristic observation of Hegel,
which would lead to the same

tion,
upon which he greatly
result, is the affirma

insists, that nature,
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
160
herein differing from humanity, has no history.
Now, if all reality be movement and development,

how can a part of reality ever be conceived, which
is
not, together with the whole, in process of
coming
is
be
But, in truth, that which has no history
nature in the naturalistic sense
mummified
and
nature
contracted
classes
and concepts.
And
modes
English
critic
to say,
is
abstract
in
another
this affords
ground against considering these

cepts as
that
classes
and con
of apprehending real reality.
An
has opportunely noted
the
that
philosophy of history, or the treatment of uni

versal political history, corresponds, in the Philo
sophy of the
in the
spirit,
spirit,
the section on objective
to
same way
that the histories of art,
of religion and of philosophy, which
Hegel has
specially treated elsewhere, correspond respect

to
ively
the
on absolute
section
spirit,
which
comprehends the three spheres of art, religion,

and philosophy. Thus in that philosophy of
spirit,
only the section on
subjective
spirit
or
psychology has no corresponding historical

no history is given of man, con
treatment
:
sidered psychologically.
cause
psychology
and
thus condemned
is
is
Why?
a
Precisely
science
naturalistic
to the
Mackintosh, Hegel and Hegdianism,
same
p.
236,
be
historical
n.
VIII
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
sterility
which has been recognized
in
161
nature
in general.
But notwithstanding these suggestions, not

withstanding the observations which he had
make and
occasion to
or less consciously
fell
the admissions which
from his
lips,
draw the conclusion which seems
He
more
Hegel did not

to us correct.
did not proclaim the philosophical indiffej:eric_
of the natural and mathematical disciplines and
he turned instead
complete autonomy
towards the solution which had already been
their
adopted by Schelling, when he had conceived a
The
philosophy of nature.
He
was driven
presupposition.
to his
mind
is
quite clear.
to that conclusion
As
art
by his logical
and history had appeared
as philosophical errors to be turned
into truths, the
one
in
pure philosophy, the other
the philosophy of history as he had conceived
in
it
reason
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
between physics and philosophy of nature

not that between a not-thinking and a thinking
"
says)
is
of nature.
A philosophy of nature means nothing
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
i6 2
but a thinking contemplation of nature
ordinary physics also

of forces, laws,
etc.,
is
those thoughts are formal and

"
this
determinations
for its
are thoughts
and
only, in physics
intellectualistic."
In the philosophy of nature there
no other
is
question than just the replacing of the categories

of the intellect by the relations of the speculative
concept and the understanding and the determin

ing of experience according to these
relations."
Not only must philosophy agree with

experience
but the
and
presupposition
that
the
in
has
science
philosophic
and
birth
formation
of
physics
as
empirical
He
condition."
natural
well
sees
natural sciences, classifications are
and their purpose is to give

clear and simple marks as aids to subjective
but he nevertheless believes that
knowledge
purely
artificial,
they can be replaced by
and
it
seems
to
"
"
natural
classifications,
him that he has discovered a kind
of beginning of such classifications in
the re
comparative anatomy and in the

division of animals into vertebrate and inverte
searches
of
and of plants into monocotyledons and

He
dicotyledons, and others similar to this.
brate,
often speaks elsewhere of an
which should manifest

physicists
and
"
itself in
naturalists, in
instinct of
reason,"
the theories of the
which the speculative
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
concept would be
in
some measure
163
anticipated.
And
this explains also why he defends against

the naturalistic and mathematical nominalism of
genera and of
mathematical concepts, and why he preserves
unshaken his faith in the "eternal laws of nature."
the
Locke,
reality
of
natural
show how unten
single remark suffices to
any one
wishes to apply philosophy to historical facts, he
cannot do otherwise than narrate history (which
able
in
this
is
equivocal
If
position.
order to be history must always be to some
extent philosophically ilkiminated) and

;
in
the
presence
of history,
is
if
any one,
seized with the
desire for a philosophical system, he cannot do
otherwise than abandon historical exposition and
expound
way,
if
abstract
any one,
philosophy
in
so,
in
the
same
the presence of the natural
by the need for philo

sophy, he has but two ways of satisfying it,
according as his need is for a concrete or for an
sciences,
is
disturbed
In the
abstract philosophy.
first
he must
case,
pass from the natural and mathematical disciplines
(and from their intellectualist and arbitrary con

cepts)
nature
to
the historical vision of the things of
and of man
in
the
second,
he must
simply and solely return to philosophy.
But a
philosophy of natiire, a philosophy which should
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
64
have the natural sciences as

on another
its
base, is also (as,
the philosophy of history
side,
contradiction in terms
because
it
is)
implies philo
sophic thought of those arbitrary concepts, which
and upon which
philoôphy^djQs_ji.QL_kaciLjv,
it
consequently has no hold, either to affirm or to
deny them.
Hegel
difference
called
repeatedly
between
his
attention
philosophy
the
to
nature
of
and Schelling s, criticizing the latter for being

founded upon the analogy between organic and
upon the comparison of one sphere

of nature with another, and developed by the
But Hegel s
application of a prearranged plan.
inorganic,
nature
philosophy of
is
equally
incapable
development, save by means of analogy.

only difference
is
that in
it
the analogy
is
of
The
taken
from the forms of the concept, and that he there

talks of
and the
judgment, syllogism, dialectic opposites,

like.
Hence
between
the divergence
the two philosophies, mother and daughter, has,

in
it
my
opinion, but slight importance.
seem
to
me
fitting
natural philosophy, with
Nor does
to
attribute to
its
concept of becoming
Hegel
and of evolution, the merit of being the precursor

of Darwin s discoveries.
The evolution and the
dialectic of the concepts, in
Hegel
philosophy
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
of nature,
purely ideal.
is
natural
leaves
It
165
species intact, and indeed proclaims their fixity.

"
It
been a clumsy representation on the
has
part of ancient as well as of
modern philosophy
of nature, to regard the progress and transition
from one natural form or sphere to a higher

as an actual product of external reality, which,
in
order that
may be made
it
clear,
has
been
Ex
driven back into the obscurity of the past.

is
ternality
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
them.
guides
immanent
in
Nebulous representations, which are
at
the degrees
in
their
bottom of sensible
progress,
is
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
from
philosophic
This
is
sheer
hostility
transformation and
from Hegel,
consideration
it
who does
is
to
"
(Enc.
the
249).
hypothesis
of
what might be expected
not recognize any historicity
in nature.
Certainly,
when we speak
of the
idea of a philosophy of nature and
mode
fallacious
condemn the
of treatment proposed by Hegel,
it
is
not
66
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
include
necessary to
the condemnation
in
whole book which bears that

is
not so ugly as he
book
contains
also
appended
is
The
title.
painted
devil
and Hegel
observations
in
(generally
the
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
which are really directed against

the metaphysic which they mingle with their
naturalists, but
teachings, or wrongfully deduce from them.

is
to say, they are directed against the
metaphysic,"
into realities
"
That
ineffable
which changes
these mathematical and naturalistic
as
calls
Hegel
abstractions, like forces, pores,
it,
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

bacLjpetaphysic, which Newton (although he had
uttered the warning
Physicists, beware of
"
introduced or suggested.
For
MetajDhysic
the rest, the invectives of Hegel are documents
"),
of the hostility towards naturalists and

maticians,
mathe
which the idea of a philosophy of
nature brought with
it
just
as the
idea of a
philosophy of history inspired a certain hostility
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
against professional historians.
we have
came rather from an excess
it
hostility, as
not arise from contempt for
said, did
those disciplines
His
167
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.
his
Nevertheless,
bete__noir^,
was
destined
to
become the greatest representative of modern

Hegel accumulated criticisms,
accusations and sarcasms against Newton, from
exact
science.
De
the dissertation
orbitis
planetarum to the
edition of the Encyclopaedia.
he deplores
"
illam,
In the dissertation,
quae Newtone incepta
et
physices confusionem
est,
and he
"
mathematices
last
remarks jestingly about the little story of the

apple, that this fruit was three times fatal to 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.
and
1
optics,
...
17).
he made bad observations and even
universae generis humani, deinde Troiae miseriae principiis
pomuni adfuisse
xvi.
In physics
malum
et
jam
scientiis philosophicis
omen
"
(in
IVerke,
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
68
From experience he passed

of view, made these fundamental,
worse syllogisms.
to general points
and from them constructed single facts. Such is

the nature of his theories.
He was a barbarian
in
use of concepts, and never bethought
the
himself that he was employing determinations
He
thought.
ojf
handled concepts as we handle
stones and pieces of wood.
The experiments
and reasonings of his Optics, which are adduced

as the most sublime example of such operations
study of nature, should really serve as an
in the
example of how one should not experiment or

reason.
Nature opposes these pretended ex
periments
mean
for
she
is
to the
idea of her entertained by any one
puts his faith in them.
culminate
faith
greatly superior
at
in the
who
Similar outbursts, which
hurling of an accusation of bad
Newton (whom he accuses
of having
knowingly altered the results of certain experi

ments), have caused scandal and have been
But while making

judged with great severity.
allowance for whatever small element of passion
may be mingled
with his criticisms, and without
attempting to excuse Hegel by recording

in
these criticisms and even
his language,
he was
in
how
in the violence of
accord with some of his
eminent contemporaries and chiefly with Goethe,
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
it
is
169
certain that, on the whole, his polemic, alike
and
in its justice
in
its
unjust exaggeration,
is
simply the logical consequence of the philosophic

position which Hegel took up in relation to the
intellectualism
In the philosophy of nature also, as in the
philosophy of history, Hegel never dared to declare
and positive method altogether

erroneous, so that it could be wholly replaced
the
empirical
by
the
empirical
and
their
For
method.
speculative
the
him,
by constructing their laws

concepts, come to meet (entgegenarbeiten)
sciences,
work of the philosopher, to whom they

the material ready and half elaborated
the
we have
offer
and
he recommended a^reement^
between physics and philosophy. And declara
tions of the same sort have been repeated
as
by the
seen,
disciples
Hegel, such as
Vera.
This last
of
and
Rosenkranz,
physicists to the labourers

to
the
architect,
rassemble
et
and
prepare
sophic vient ensuite
les
compares
and the philosopher
that
says
these are phrases, inspired by
content.
either
we
For
in truth,
think
that
"
la
physique
materiaux, que la philo
marquer de
towards physicists and
Michelet,
sa
forme"
But
much impertinence
any case empty of all

we do one of two things
in
the
empirical
method
is
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
i;o
capable of positing some laws, some genera, some

concepts, in a word,
case
some
truths
we cannot understand why
and
in
that
the other laws,
genera, truths and concepts, and the whole system

of them, should not be attainable with the same
For the
method.
which posits the
activity,
naturalistic concept, reveals in that act

for positing the others
poetry,
first
and
is
verse,
Or
whole poem.
method
capacity
just as in
the same activity and no other which
it is
forms the
and the whole
its
first
else
and which completes the
we
think that the empirical
not capable of any truth, however small
has no need of the other,
method not only

but can draw from it
To make
verbal concessions to
in that case the speculative
no assistance.
physics and
trifling,
and
to
the empirical
satisfies
nobody.
method,
Hegel,
is
mere
in consider
ing the exact sciences to be a semi-philosophy,
them altogether and absorbed them

philosophy which thus assumed all their rights
really denied
in
and
And
having thus placed so great a

burden upon the shoulders of philosophy, he had
no longer any right to lighten it by trying to
duties.
place part of
it
again upon the empirical sciences,
which were henceforth

existent.
for
him annulled and non
All the rights imply
all
the duties
it
was henceforth the business of philosophy, not
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 this must henceforth be admitted) simply
the spokesman of good sense, when he demanded
of the
philosophy of Schelling that it

should deduce the moon with its characteristics,
natural
or a rose, a horse, a dog, or even only the pen
with which he, Krug, was writing at that moment.
Hegel from first to last of his writings made fun

of him and represented him as a comical person,
and perhaps he may have been so

not prevent
Hegel
reply to
but this does
Krug
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
individual
kind,
individual),
facts
do not belong
(and
to
on the other, that the deduction

but that science has
far
all
facts
philosophy
is
the
physician,
1
See an
250
;/.
illustrious
Salvatore
article of
and
quite possible,
more urgent
tasks on
hand than the deduction of Mr. Krug
And
are
pen.
Neapolitan philologist and
Tommasi, was
1802, in Werke,
\\\.
57-59; and
cf.
also,
like
Encyclopaedia,
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
172
Krug,
in the right,
when he
persistent protagonist of
replied, not without
De
annoyance, to the Hegelian
VIII
some
Meis,
who was
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

medicine had been made by means of it
:
in
for
example, the direct cure of pneumonia.
The attempt
on
to hold
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
is
that
thesis
is
false.
It
make
it
true.
But the analogy
Hegel
the false nor
does not end here.
historical),
than to prove
does not heal
Hegel, despairing of ever
being able altogether to rationalize history, as

his
idea of a philosophy of history demanded,
ended
by
historical
away a part of
which seemed to him more em
cutting
arbitrarily
fact,
barrassing than the rest, and by consigning

fiction.
And he
sciences, in relation to
of natural
facts,
appearances of
same
did the
to
many
an
reality,
classes
infinite
and
for
to
it
to
the natural
and species
number
what are
of the
called
rare cases, exceptions, or extraordinary beings.
His discovery
is
delicious
it
is
of the impotence
PARTICULAR CONCEPTS
of Nature (die
173
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
himself that fact
is
we had
learned from Hegel
So
sacred.
here, in the realm
of nature, having learned from
reason
in
the world,
we
him
shall
believe that one part of reality

inert
towards reason.
And what
the impotence of nat2ire,
the
is
not
is
that there
is
consent to
rebellious or
has been called
clearly nothing but
impotence of the philosophy of nature, as

conceived by Schelling and Hegel, to keep faith
with
its
own programme.
IX
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FALSE

SCIENCES AND THE APPLICA
TION 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
and have done nothing else.

A
programme may be announced, and then it may
a thing which
be resolved not to carry it out
defended
it,
often happens, especially
dangerous.
when
There are not
the
programme
is
a few systems and
which have never gone beyond intro

ductions and preliminaries, even in contemporary
books,
literature,
and
in their
number
are
some
of those
announced with the greatest boasting. It would

almost be worth while making an instructive
catalogue of them.
But Hegel did not leave the

174
FALSE SCIENCES
175
philosophy of history and the philosophy of nature

as ideas in the air
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 dialectic to

these last, he was obliged to proceed to the
treatment
dialectic
of individual facts
and of
empirical concepts,
And
made
this is the second
great abuse that Hegel
of his dialectical discovery.
In order to
reach this second abuse, and to place ourselves

in
a position to give
its
exact formulation and
first,
was indispensable to pass through the

and to work out its manifold consequences.
For
this
genesis,
it
second abuse, that
is,
the
failure
to
recognize the autonomy of history and of the

positive sciences,
some
all
its
is in
its
turn a consequence of
Without following that path in

twists and turnings, we could not com
of these.
prehend how Hegel could ever have arrived

so strange a thought
reach, not only a
full
but by following
it,
comprehension of the
at
we
fact,
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 Pploniu^ would have

said.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
176
The second abuse

known
and
it
the
is
IX
most commonly
has contributed more than any
thing else to bring the Hegelian philosophy into

disrepute.
jured by the
If certain parts of
first,
historical studies
both
alike
philosophy were
the second injured or
menaced
and the positive sciences
reacted
energetically
in
in
their
and
own
defence.
But
make
in this
connexion,
we must
The
certain observations.
not neglect to
acquired con
method which Hegel
viction of the error of the
defended and strove to apply, has involved

general condemnation
all
Hegel
history of civilization and of
and of
religion,
disciplines.
art,
in
books on the
of philosophy
and on the various mathematical
If the
method
is
erroneous (so the
ingenuous reasoning runs) what value, or what

guarantee can attach to the results ? The books
beginning to end will be sophisticated
And for this reason, not
science and history.
from
only
is
the philosophy of nature never sought
and consulted by students of natural phenomena,

and some translators even omit it from their
versions of the Encyclopaedia
but even Hegel
upon historical subjects have themselves

been viewed with diffidence, almost with the fear
treatises
of being stained by contact with them.
Now,
FALSE SCIENCES
177
those books are to be examined, like
both
details
for
and
general execution
their
in
could
Hegel
all
books,
their
in
and on
act
many
occasions did act in them, either against or in
dependently of his programme.
same way, according to the

wished to adopt methods in
foreign to physics,
Goethe,
best
in the
authorities,
altogether
optics
which have drawn down upon
him the unanimous reproval of specialists in that

subject, and yet in other branches of natural
science, such as
botany and anatomy, he made
true and proper discoveries. 1

in general, the
and of
Indeed, speaking
value of Schelling
and of Hegel
books on the philosophy of

nature continually increases as we pass from the
more
their disciples
abstract to the
to
physics
more concrete
from
physiology,
organic world to the organic
the
so-called
and the reason
this is clearly that the utility of the
method decreases
In any case,
if
in
parts, from
obtain important results, nor
not,
make
for
mathematical
the more concrete
Hegel did
in
as
it
parts.
appears,
original obser
vations in the positive parts of his naturalistic

treatises
1
(such
See Helmholtz
Arbeiten,"
Ideen
and
"
two
we
find
"
lectures,
in
the
works of
Uber Goethes naturwissenschaftliche
Goethes Vorahnungen kommender naturwissenschaftlicher
"
(in
as
Vortrage
und
Rederi],
Braunschweig, 1896,
i.
23-47,
ii.
335-
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
i;8
Treviranus, of Oken, etc.)

offers
is
subject
properly versed
if
the best that he
pyschology and an
which he was more
in
perhaps always
thropology,
in
treatment of history, on
in the
the other hand, he stands on a level with the

historians
greatest
it
although
was
of the
nineteenth
century,
(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
and of the Sceptics, of

and in
the Neo-Platonists and of Christianity
Aristotle, of the Stoics
modern
times, of the
English empirical philo
sophy, of the critical-speculative period of
Kant
and of Schelling, of Jacobi and of the sentiment

In the study of ancient philo
alists and mystics.
sophy, he fully realized the profound difference
between
its
of presenting and of understand
way
ing problems and the
way
of
and the error of rendering
modern philosophy
its
propositions
in
terms of current philosophy, as did Brucker or

1
Compare with
pp. xv-xvi,
and
this,
on the other hand, a note by Engels, Antidiihring^,
which places
naturalist.
in relief certain merits of
Hegel
as a physicist
FALSE SCIENCES
His
Tiedmann.
political history
179
gives broad and
luminous views on the character and the con

nexions of the great historical epochs, of Greece,
of
Rome, of
the Middle Ages, of the Reformation
The
and of the French Revolution.

literature
and of the
history of
interspersed
arts,
in
his
and judg
ments (for example, on the Homeric epos, on
ancient tragedy, on the Shakespearean drama, on
lectures on aesthetics, contains views
Italian painting of the
painting), which
have
Renaissance and on Dutch

all
become
And
popular.
any one who makes a special study of

the historical ideas which were in vogue in the
in truth,
nineteenth century and have become part of the
patrimony of our culture, would be astonished at

the great number of them which derive from
Hegel
definite
as
their first
form
at
his
source, or which received
hands, although they have
been repeated and popularized by writers (like

Taine) who either did not know, or were in
error about their origin.
unfair
criticism,
Hegel of
(Sometimes
and
not
would be an
by making use of
errors,
discoveries
these
posterior
criticisms
doubtful discoveries, as
for
it
though often made, to accuse
historical
researches
Again,
have
him.
to
rested
on
when he has been blamed
having taken the
"
matriarchate
"
into
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
i8o
consideration, or for not having had a suspicion
of
the
theories
sociological
which
assign
the
origin of art to economic labour and industrial
decoration.)
No
historian,
however
withstand such an examination
great, could
neither
Thucy-
dides nor Polybius, nor Machiavelli, not even a
Niebuhr or a Mommsen.
And
equally
it
would
be unfair to make too heavy and personal a charge

of certain political and national prejudices, which
appear neither more nor less frequently in his

constructions of history than in so many other
and publicists
historians, philosophers
from the
"
of Gioberti to the contem

primacy
porary Germanist manias of Herr Chamberlain
Italian
or of
"
Herr Woltmann.
And
in discussing these historical errors,
which
were the consequence of philosophical errors, it

is necessary also to
distinguish between those
arising
from
erroneous
philosophical
and those which are connected with
The
former,
often has in
Hegel
other philosophers
or
with
the
concepts
his dialectic.
common
with
philosophy of
his time (for example, the treatment of the history
of poetry and of
an art
based upon the concept of

that should be substantially religion or
philosophy
construct
or
and
to
art,
also,
in
general,
reconstruct
the claim to
speculatively
the
FALSE SCIENCES
IX
course of history)
alone
But when
of
but
it
the latter which
is
concerns us to seek here.
it
made,
181
is
it
all
these
certain that
reservations
we do meet
Hegel examples of the
in
have been
the books
dialectic^ treatment
of the individual and empirical and that

to explain and in part to justify the
;
suffices
viojent.
reaction of historians and naturalists against the

dialectic itself.
For the reasons already given, there are

fewer examples in his historical expositions; in
deed, the history of philosophy
almost altogether exempt.
which
history
may be
considered
But the universal
Hegel developed,
is
conceived
in triadic form, as the Oriental worjd, the classi
world and the Germj.nic^world,

These are
thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, which receive
cal
concreteness for better or worse in the formula,

that the Orient
man
is
free
are .fzee
Hence
knew and knows
that only^jone
the Graeco- Roman world, that some,
the Germanic world, that all are free.
the character of the
first
is
despotism,
of the second democracy and aristocracy, of the

third monarchy.
In order to establish this triad,
Hegel is obliged to suppress many facts in space

In space, he altogether eliminates
and time.
the
fifth
part of the world.
Australia and the
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
182
other islands between Asia and America, seem

to
him
be affected with
to
"
physical
immaturity."
him nothing but an append

age of European civilization, and he refuses to
America
itself is for
take into consideration the very ancient civiliza
Mexico and of Peru, because from what

we know of them, "they were altogether natural
tions of
and bound
to perish at the
approach of
Spirit."
As
regards time, he maintains that history only

begins when there are historians, hence the
German word
"storia")
Geschichte
passed a long
is
history.
in
life
without a State
but
It
was with reference
to such limitations
down
of his note-books in the last year of his

universal history, the
in
use
among
1
same
the
division
Greeks
life
is
one
in
"In
valid
as
Greeks and
In this way, he sought to adapt
barbarians."
to his dialectic universal history as
the
this,
do with
their prehistory, has nothing to
time and space that Hegel put
was
subjecti
may have
Peoples
objecti.
word
Italian
means both history a parte
and history a parte

which
the
(or
books of the historians
it
appears
in
and he deluded
himself that he had found in the individual
point of departure which should have the pre

cision of the
1
Aphorism
first
a. d.
term of the
dialectic
Berliner Periods, in Rosenkranz,
p.
triad.
559.
FALSE SCIENCES
Such would be the
sun
the
with
where
spiritual Orient,
But the
of history.
such
183
totters
rises
conquered
triad,
at
every particular
which
Indeed,
Hegel attempts.
development
the
first
catch
which
those
to take only
eye, this
difficulty,
fundamental triad widens into a quatriad, the

Oriental
world,
and
Germanic world
the
Orient, China and

to
historical
of
which
Persia,
art
for
Hegel the
the
in
first
In like manner, the

a
to
rise
Greek or
Symbolical,
and
India are at once sacrificed

is
nation.
gives
Greek world, the Roman
the
world,
triad
of
Classical,
truly
history
Oriental
or
and Christian
whose very formulation

is unstable enough, deduced as it is from the
lack of equilibrium between content and form,
or Romantic, art
a triad
and of which the synthesis would

the second.
third term, but

to
refer to
a fourth artistic
the Romantic
and
also into a quatriad

is
meant
sophy.
in
this
;
be,
not the
Hegel seems
period,
would change
also
than
later
this triad
unless indeed the last phase
to be the dissolution of art into philo
The
history
three phases
of
religions
is
arranged
natural religion, the religion of
the duplication of consciousness in
itself,
and the
religion of the transition to the religion of liberty.
The two
last
are also determined triadically
the
184
religion
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
of
reduplication
into
the
religions
of
measure (the Chinese), of fancy (the Indian),

the religion
and of internality (the Buddhist)
;
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
the religions of light (the Persian), of pain (the

Syrian),
of
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).
Absolute
would then be Christianity. But one

of the most curious examples of the dialectic
religion
construction of the individual
is
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

either physically or spiritually
according
to
him,
developed division
presented
into
him mature,
to
the
an
"
new
world,"
incompletely
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 confined within himself

and obtuse), is mute spirit, which does not attain
FALSE SCIENCES
to
knowledge
the
second,
185
is
Asia,
splendid
bacchantic dissipation, the region of formless and

indeterminate generation, which cannot order
itself; and the third, Europe, represents conscious
ness,
earth,
and constitutes the rational part of the

with its equilibrium of rivers, valleys, and
mountains
The
and the centre of Europe
philosophy of nature, the

concepts.
In
runs
construction
dialectic
is
in
riot
the
the empirical
field of
positive part, that
its
Germany.
book
is
at
bottom nothing but a compendium of mathe

matical and naturalistic disciplines, divided into
geometry and mechanics,

second, astronomy, physics and chemistry tlîrd,
mineralogy, botany, zoology, geology and physio
three sections
first,
This compendium of different sorts of

knowledge is arranged in the fundamental triad
logy.
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
vergence and the

spirit,
history
final
result
point
of
con
the Germanic
is
so in thej:osmolo[caLconepUoti-ef Hegel,
the centre of the
Germany would be
least
the
according
to
universe
is
the
Earth (and
the centre of the earth, at
the
words
Naturphilosophie^
above quoted).
340 Zus.
PHILOSOPHY Of HEGEL
86
This only shows once more how a lofty philo

sophical intellect can now and then be sub
by sentiment and prejudice.
jugated
rather consider
some examples
of geometry and of physics.
Let us
of the dialectic
Besides the three
dimensions of space, Hegel posits three dimen

sions of time
but
past, present, and future
;
whereas he observes that the three dimensions

of time
not
are
seems
he
nature,
differentiated
existentially
admit
to
that
the
in
three
dimensions of space are so differentiated.
In
any case, these three would be founded upon

the
nature of the concept, although (he says)
the determinations of the concept, in this
first
form of externality, abstract quantity, are only

superficial and constitute differences which are
altogether empty.
are superficial, they are
They
empty, they are arbitrary
them
space
dialectically.
;
but
it
is
and so becomes a
negation
deduction
body
is
is
the
The
yet
point
is
Hegel deduces
the negation of
a negation essentially spatial

line
and the negation of the
surface
of the celestial
the thesis, the
And
bodies
moon and
the bodies of the antithesis
he offers the
the
central
the comets are
the synthesis, the
body of the concrete totality, is the planet.

Magnetism seems to him the demonstration ad
FALSE SCIENCES
187
oculos of the dialectic concept in nature, of the
complete
The two
syllogism.
poles
are
the
extremities of a real line existing in sense, yet
they do
reality,
not
possess
and
sensible
mechanical
but ideal reality, and shew themselves
be altogether inseparable. The point of in

difference, in which their substance finds place,
to
is
their unity as determinations of the concept,
such a way that they receive sense and exist

ence only in such a unity and polarity is only
in
the relation of such moments.
to the
Owing
Hegel combats
necessity of the dialectic form,
the identification of magnetism, electricity, and
chemistry, which physical science tries to effect
and wishes the three

distinct.
He
physiologists,
facts to
consider
The
cell
and the vegetable
disseminated
as
life
triadic
natural
theory too
preserving them
kingdoms
well
to
cell,
everywhere.
answered
"
three
"
to the
abolish the clear distinction
between the animal

or
be both united and
would be equally opposed
who
permit
of
his
his
not
in dialectic form, as geological,
In the first, life

vegetable and animal nature.
in the second,
posits to itself its own conditions
;
the individual
is still
external to
which are themselves individuals

the
members
own members,
its
exist essentially as
in the third,
members
of the
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
i88
individual,
The
and therefore the individual
is
subject.
dialectic applies also each of these forms of
nature
the process of the plant
three syllogisms, that
is
is
divided into
to say, into the process
of formation, into the process of opposition toward
inorganic nature, and into the process of reproduc
are five and not three,
five,
dia
reconstruction of the five senses, which
lectical
Hegel
The
two preceding.
tion, the unity of the
is
not dismayed.
yet they are three.
is
more
laborious.
But
For him the senses are
The
first
that which
is
belongs to the mechanical sphere, of weight and

cohesion and of their change, that is to say, the
sense of touch.
The second is the two senses
of the antithesis, that
and
is
to say that of particular
which comprehends the

neutrality of concrete water, and the antithesis
of the solution of concrete neutrality taste and
ized
aerity,
that
The
smell.
also
is
third
double
is
that
the sense of ideality, and
to say, the sense of ideality
is
as manifestation of the external
of light in general, and
determined
in
more
by the external,
precisely, of light
the concrete externality of colour
and the sense of the manifestation of

which makes
ternalization,
hearing
it
itself
known
by tone
that
as
is
such
internality,
its
ex-
to say, sight
and
in
FALSE SCIENCES
ix
189
Other examples of this dialectic of the empirical

are to be found in profusion in what for us is
also a philosophy of nature (in the gnoseological
sense), or a philosophy of the empirical
many
system of the arts
of
in
parts of the aesthetic, of the logic, and of
the philosophy of
first
i.e.
In the aesthetic, the
spirit.
is
developed
The
triadically.
of the arts, architecture, creates the temple
God
self;
the second, sculpture, creates
the
faithful
third
expresses
in colours, tones,
the
God him
feelings
and words, and
of the
is
sub
The
divided into painting, music, and poetry.
labour of condensing into three, what empirically

is
determined by another number (the
into three, the five senses into three)

to
him
in the fields of
poetry and of
five arts
is
spared
rhetoric, in
which he found ready the tripartition into lyric,

epic, and dramatic poetry, as in natural science
he found the three natural kingdoms.

his classification of the
terminology, word for
judgments is, with a new

word the same as that of
Kant, which has a quatriad as basis
ment of
quality
In logic,
becomes
the judg
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
;
subdivisions of these are preserved.
The
syl-
190
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
logism
(which
in
synthesis
to
relation
as antithesis, or the restoration of the
judgment
the judgment and so the unity and
in
concept
the
is
truth of both,
determinate
of
syllogism
also developed
is
triadically,
as
syllogism
of
being,
and syllogism of necessity.
reflexion,
philosophy
of
spirit,
Hegel
knows
the
In
well
that
psychology cannot serve as basis for philosophy

yet he treats it dialectically.
Subjective spirit is
;
in
developed
of
the three degrees of anthropology,
phenomenology and of psychology
the
includes the soul, natural, sentient, and real
second, consciousness, consciousness of
reason
first
the
self,
and
the third, theoretic, practical, and free
Objective
spirit.
spirit
has the three
of rights, morality, and ethics
moments
rights are sub
divided into rights of property, of contract, and
The
of rights against wrong.
subdivided into
State
the
external
family,
State,
rights,
civil
finally,
and
ethical sphere
society,
into
(a curious
and
internal
is
the
rights,
leap) universal
history.
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
FALSE SCIENCES
191
family patrimony, paternal authority, and the last
and testament, with the same rhythm with

which he had thought being, nothing, and becom
will
sometimes seems as
Hegel was not
ing.
It
in full
possession of his thought, so
he was obliged to
in
the
same way
interpretation of
if
much
assist himself with
so that
mythology
that (according to an ingenious
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 solu
tion
by imagination, the concept with the myth.
X
THE
panlogism, which has
been noted
in
the
system of Hegel, is 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
the other processes of the
spirit,
which must
acquire logical (philosophical) form and perish.
But
it
is
an error to consider panlogism as the
fundamental characteristic of the system, when

it
is
but a morbid excrescence, growing from
it.
no need to adduce as proof of Hegel s

panlogism his identification of logic and meta-
There
is
physic, in that for
him
metaphysic.
Because
had nothing
in
logic
for
common
is
at the
same time
Hegel Logic,
so-called,
with the logic of the
schools (nor, in general, with a science of logic

as a particular philosophical science).
was the doctrine of the
His
logic
categories, of which logic,

192
193
narrow sense, constituted only one, or only

one group. And since the categories embraced
in the
all
and
spirit
all
clear
is
it
reality,
the
that
of logic and metaphysic, of logic
identification
and philosophy, was
at
bottom nothing more than
the identification of metaphysic with metaphysic,
That
of philosophy with philosophy.
his
meta
physic and philosophy are developed, in part, as
panlogism,
The
is
true
but
it
is
a different question.
error lies exactly in the use of the principle,
not in the principle by
The
itself.
against the system of Hegel, that

or
it
is
more
masked dualism, would appear
less
made
has been
other accusation which
be
to
irreconcilable with the accusation of panlogism
but
itself
not
is
it
with the
full
coherence of truth, the error
of panlogism converts itself into

is,
into dualism.
the
The
field
its
contrary, that
of this conversion
there
appears
everywhere,
persistent, the old concept of nature,
by the physical and
natural
is
been
philosophy of nature, where, as has
shown,
Since error can never affirm
so.
solid
and
suggested
sciences.
Hegel
concept a philosophical value, thereby

making it the thought of a reality which should
gave
this
stand
opposed
spirit.
The
to,
critical
or
behind,
point
the
of this
reality
of
conversion,
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
194
or the revelation of the dualism, which
covered
conceal
the very
at
to
tries
the celebrated transition from the
is
it,
moment when he
dis
is
Hegel expressed him
idea to nature, on which
very briefly and obscurely, and on which
self
his disciples
have shed so many words, but so

The idea, which is for itself, con
"
little
light
sidered
according to
this
with
unity
But, as intuition, the idea
intuitive.
into the one-sided determination of
negation, by means of
or
absolute freedom of the idea
that
it
life
does not pass only into
to appear in
only as
it
finite
in the absolute truth of itself,
to
its
of
go
its
it
its
first
brought
immediacy
reflexion.
therefore
is
life,
nor allow
knowledge
but
resolves to allow
freely out of itself, as nature, the
particularity or of
is
extrinsic
The
is
itself,
moment
of
determination and
otherness, the immediate idea which
is its
"
reflexion
(Enc. par. 244).
This conversion and

dangerous,
Hegelian
that
this
many
thought
transition
interpretations
have
been
are
of
proposed
so
the
(and
others might be proposed) in order to avoid the
danger,
to
eliminate
serve to the system
the
its
and to pre
motive, which is
dualism
initial
absolute idealism, or substance as subject.
none of those interpretations seems to be
But
in

accordance
with
the
the
of
thought
genuine
195
philosopher.
Thus
the
may be convenient
it
to maintain that
from the idea to nature
transition
is,
for
Hegel, nothing but the transition from philosophy

to experience, from philosophy to natural science,
whose
and independence
side by side with philosophy, Hegel would never
have thought of denying. The system of Hegel
existence, subsistence,
would become
or of
to
spirit,
in this
way
a philosophy of
universal, extraneous, but not hostile
that
experience,
to
is,
the observation
study of particular historical and natural
But such an interpretation

that
consideration,
is
but from
science,
Tf~
the
facts.
Hegel does not pass from
logic or philosophy in general to the
as
and
met by the simple
philosophy to natural (empirical)
nature
mind
hilQ_$Qphy.sA
and therefore he understands nature, not

in
empirical concept
with
contrast
the
speculative, but as a speculative concept, which
has equal rights with every other.
This same
tion
difficulty confronts the interpreta
which declares that there
either logical or temporal,
is
no
transition,
between the idea and
nature, because the idea does not become nature,
but
is
already
universal,
nature
the
and the universal
individual
is
the
is
the
individual.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
196
way dualism would be avoided
Doubtless, in this
because
in
it
the universal alone which
is
philosophical
The
consideration.
(which, philosophically,
realized, in so far as
is
is
grasped
individual
the universal
itself) is
merely individual, by in
tuition, that is to say, by a level of spirit, which pre
cedes the philosophical level and is its condition.
it is
But Hegel has not abandoned the individual to

the poets or historians he thought the philosophy
:
of the individual,
when he thought
of nature and of history.
him
In order to interpret
manner proposed,
in the
the philosophy
it
would be neces
sary to cut out from his system, not
some few
incidental pages of digression, but to mutilate

it
by whole books and sections, and these from
among
the parts, which, to the author at least,
seemed
to
be
third
vital
organs of the whole structure.
interpretation
could
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
and
which
idea,
alienated from itself as nature, to return
is
to itself in spirit,
in
The
unity would be saved.
its
197
would be
spirit itself,
understood
concreteness, which includes the negative
its
moment.
The
Italian
thinker,
Spavenj, came
very near this interpretation, when he wrote that

the logos in itself is not reality, save in so far
:
"
as
it is
Logic, that
is,
spirit as
thought of thought
and nature, fixed as nature, is

not self-sufficient, and therefore it not only pre
(pure thought)
supposes ideally the logos, but has absolute spirit

as its real principle, precisely because it has it as
its
real
and absolute end.
"
Yet, side by side
with this meaning of the word nature as negation
and not-being (as side by side with the meaning

of the word nature as the individual and the
matter of intuition), Hegel maintains the idea of
nature understood as reality, as the other of
TO eVepoy Katf avro (the other in itself).
were
this not so,
spirit,
Indeed,
Hegel could never have thought
of constructing a philosophy of the negative, of
not being, of what
is
mere abstraction
whereas
he does write a philosophy of nature, and there

fore understands by the object of that philosophy
something positive.
Finally, some have attempted to interpret the
1
Principi di
etica, pp.
53-54.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
198
as
if
and
nature
concrete spirit
two parts
and
tripartition of logos, nature
Hegelian
spirit
itself,
spirit,
were nothing but the
divided only empirically into
and the logos would signify the true
reality that constitutes both, their identity in the
apparent division
versality,
it
would be
and not only as
separated from the
ally
impossible
to
appears in the world
it
human, when
called social or
cancel
in its uni
spirit
is
But
rest.
the
that
empiric
would be
it
distinction
profound
which Hegel makes between nature and spirit,

and which he affirms as the distinction between
an unconscious and a conscious
psychism was
far
from Hegel
logicity.
intention
for
Panhim,
thought belonged to man and was foreign to the

animal in nature, there is not thought, but only
;
which
determinations of thought,
there certainly
said (and
fied.
is
is
different
an intelligence, but, as Schelling
Hegel approved),
it is
intelligence petri
Therefore Hegel maintained that
in nature
the forms of spirit are not, as in the conscious

spirit,
resolved into one another, but have the
position
of
movement,
system
as
separate
for
Matter
existences.
example, exist as
and
facts in the solar
the determinations of the senses exist
a quality of bodies, and also separately,
elements, and so on (Enc. par. 380)
as
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
man
civilized
may be
is
distinguished from the savage,
a just conception
but
was altogether
His distinction
it
foreign to the intention of Hegel.
of nature and
contrary,
is
whatever may be said to the
spirit,
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,
then, two realities
spirit
and nature
are,
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
overcome
it
with
the
triadic
done such excellent service

dualism of opposites.
the necessity
him
form,
to try to
which had
overcoming the
But since nature and spirit
in
are not opposites in his thought, they are not

abstractions, but
triadic
two concrete
form was inapplicable.
to apply
realities
Nor was
two
and the
it
valid
the form of criticism which, also with
marvellous results, he had adopted
for the
con
cepts of reflexion, in the doctrine of the essence
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
200
and
since, for him, nature
the sense in
spirit, in
which he took them, were not concepts of re

flexion, difficult to distinguish,
tinct concepts, of quite
in his triad, the first,
is,
But, while the content of the second
the thesis.
term, the antithesis,
of
theories
The
determinate character.
third term, the Logos,
whole
but two quite dis
is
clearly nothing
mathematical,
and
physical,
but the
natural
and the content of the third term, the
synthesis,
is,
equally clearly, psychology on the
one hand, and on the other, the philosophies of

rights, of art, of religion, and of the absolute
spirit or
Idea
the
has no content of
the thesis, the Logos,
first,
its
own, but borrows
the other two parts, especially from the
mingles with
philosophies.
him who
spirit
it
a polemic against
The
fact
truly separates
and looks
it
from
last,
and
inadequate
that this Logos, for
is,
it
it
from nature and from
well in the face, reveals itself
but the dark foundation of the old
as nothing
God, in whom were united the two

metaphysic
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
or
the
von Hartmann, which,
201
Unconscious of Edward
also with
much
manifesta
tion of reason, gives a beginning to consciousness.
Hegel had reproached Schelling with conceiving

the Absolute as substance and not as subject.
But
his
Logos
is
indeed a subject, which cannot
be thought as subject, or rather, which cannot be

It is, as Hegel himself says,
thought at all.
"
God
in his eternal
essence before the creation
of nature and of the finite spirit

well think
Deus
in
God
in
nobis
et
and we can
"
nature and in the

nos,
finite spirit,
but certainly not a
God
The
triadic
expedient, and the term Logos, to which
Hegel
outside or prior to nature
and man.
has recourse, show that he

in
dualism
is
always entangled
that he struggles valiantly against
but does not escape from
it,
it.
This dualism wot overcome,
in
which Hegel
absolute idealism becomes entangled, owing to

the grave logical error he has committed,
reason of the division of the

a
into
right
and a
left,
and
wing interpreted Hegel
the
Hegelian school
for
the eventual
extension of the latter to an extreme

right
is
left.
theistically.
The
The
subject, the Logos of Hegel, was the personal
God
to
and the relation of the Hegelian philosophy

Christianity was not exhausted in the recog;
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
202
nition of the great philosophical element contained

in
Christian theology, but extended to a
more
substantial
The
much
left
wing
was opposed to all transcendence and to the
whole conception of a personal God.
It empha
agreement.
sized the character of
and
finally
came
immanence of the system,
to sympathize with philosophic
materialism, in so far as this in
its
own way
has
an immanent and not a transcendental character.
would be impossible to decide which of the

two interpretations was the more faithful to the
It
thought of Hegel
for
both of them were founded
upon Hegelian doctrines, and were opposed and

hostile to one another, precisely because those
doctrines were contradictory.
XI
THE CRITICISM AND CONTINUATION

OF THE THOUGHT OF HEGEL
CONCLUSION
WITH
the
philosophy of
have attempted in this essay,

have declared at the same time what, in my
Hegel, which
I
of the
interpretation
opinion,
is
the task that should
and to those who continue
part of
to preserve the vital
the
new concept
it.
to
fall
It
it,
its critics
was necessary
that
is
of the concept, the
to say,
concrete
universal, together with the dialectic of opposites
and the doctrine of degrees of

with the help of that
ing
it,
all
to refute
new concept and by develop
panlogism, and every speculative con
and of the empirical, of
struction of the individual
history
reality
and of nature
to recognize the
of the various forms of
spirit,
autonomy
while preserving
connexion and unity and finally,

to resolve the whole philosophy into a pure philotheir necessary
203
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
204
sophy
of spirit
(or
logic -metaphy sic,
as
it
It was necessary
might then have been called).
from the
to draw forth the Hegelian thought
"
sheath of
its members,"
that
is
to say, of
its
false
members, which had been badly attached to it

and to permit it to form its own members,
answering to the nature of the primitive germ.
The
task.
and
school of
It
Hegel
failed altogether in this
divided, as has been observed, into right
and subdivided into secondary fractions,

on the importance to be attached to the respective
left,
towards transcendence and towards
tendencies
immanence,
in the
wholly united
dialectical
in
and yet it remained

preserving and increasing the
system
entanglement, the confusion between
the dialectic of opposites

distincts,
the
between the
dialectic
of the
and the
dialectic
of
dialectic of the absolute
and
Michelet,
for
contingent.
example, the editor of the Philosophy of Nature,

amused himself with dialectically correcting
certain details
such as the place that belongs
to the fifth 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-
CONCLUSION
lectic
modes
205
of reasoning, Michelet replied that
the dialectic method, like artistic creation,
makes
no claim to universal acceptance, but must remain

"
a specific talent of the favourite of the
Gods."
from doing honour to the

master, who had affirmed so persistently and with
Truly
so
was
this
profoundly
must not be
far
human
a sense, that philosophy
esoteric, but exoteric.
Rosenkranz
(another of the principal representatives of the
he had
constructed
wing), after
Êsthetic of the Ugly, in a
right
way which
content myself with calling bizarre,
all
in
I
his
shall
the terms
of the coarsest and most vulgar psychology, also
proposed re-arrangements and corrections of the

His corrections concerned,
e.g.
the dignity of the fixed stars, which Hegel
was supposed to have slighted in favour of the

the division between
planets and of the earth
;
Hegel was supposed
physics and astronomy, which

to
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 assump

tion of the philosophy of nature
indeed, where
Hegel had lighted on a glimpse of the truth by

declaring
struction
the
impossibility
of a
dialectic
of mathematics, Rosenkranz
con
was ready
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
206
to contradict him.
he exclaims,
This cannot be
because
if
admitted,"
the dialectic method be
should mathematics be excluded
why
universal,
from
"
"
XI
Vera, the Italian champion of ortho
it?"
continued the exploits against Newton.

maintained that the science of nature is to
doxy,
He
be effected by three methods, the experimental,

the mathematical, and the speculative, which last
the crown of the three
is
other things
lumiere, et
"
Nous
disons quit
meme un temps
un
qui sont sentis, et
et
and he wrote, among
un
et
air,
un, air,
une
espace apparents
une lumiere,
etc.,
qui
"
n apparais sent point et qui sont simple ment penses.

Passing from the extreme right to the extreme
and dwelling
left,
who has
in
moment upon a writer,

times been much known and
for a
recent
discussed in Italy, Frederick Engels (the friend
and collaborator of Karl Marx), we can see how

he reduced philosophy^ hy_ equating it to the
positive sciences, and preserving of it only "the
formal (!)
doctrine of thought and of its laws
:
logic
"
and the
which was
dialectic."
nothing
general laws of the

of
human
societies
but
And
the
of this dialectic,
science
of
the
movement and development

and
of
thought,"
gave such examples as the following.
Engels
grain
of barley, put into the earth, sprouts, and becom-
CONCLUSION
207
negated but other grains come

from the plant and this is the negation of the
ing a plant,
is
The
negation.
chrysalis
comes out of
butterfly
the
reproduces
but,
a,
a=a
ax
butterfly
again
the
negation
the
is
is
negation,
negated
we have
to say, the first a raised
private pro
communism
primitive
the
effect
will
the
proprietorship of the soil
denies
perty
but
In history, civilization begins with
to a power.
common
that
negated when the
In arithmetic,
negating
2
it
chrysalis
of the negation.
by
is
negation
of
the
socialism
negation,
re
producing the primitive communism, but raised

In the history of philosophy,
to a higher power.
the
moment
first
is
original materialism
this
is
negated by idealism, which afterwards suffers the

negation of
negation, in dialectical material
Nor can
ism.
that
its
is
it
eating
it,
it
be objected (added Engels),
possible to negate a grain of barley by
or an insect by treading
positive magnitude a by cancelling
upon
it
it,
or the
because the
negation must be such as to render possible the

negation of the negation
otherwise (he remarks
ingenuously), there would not be a dialecticprocess.

1
Antiduhrin^
pp. 137-146.
of Labriola
pp. 168-178.
intr.
pp. 9-11,
This extract
is
and on the negation of the negation,
also to be found in Italian in the
book, Discorrendo di Socialismo
Appendix
di filosofia (Rome, 1897),
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
208
Who
wealth of amus
will narrate in all their
ing details the lamentable fortunes of the dialectic
method
at the
them
of
hands of Hegel
dialecticized
spirit
One
disciples?
as
masculine
the
and history as
Another found in the
principle, nature as the feminine,
the matrimonial union.
Oriental world, the category of

classical world, the
being
category of essence
the
in
and
in
modern world, the category of the concept.

For yet another, antiquity was the kingdom of
the modern world, that of philosophy the
art
the
was
future
to
be the kingdom of morality
in the ancient world,
Athens was made
and
to corre
spond with dynamic electricity, Sparta with static

electricity, Macedonia with electro- magnetism,
Persia with
light,
absorbent heat.
found
in profusion
Rome
These
those of the obscure
The
expansive
stupidities
and
are to be
books illustrium virorum
in
as well as obscurorum
with
men
nor can
it
be said that
are the least significant.
best of the school were those who, feeling
themselves unable to go beyond Hegel, or believ

ing that the time was not yet ripe for doing so,
limited themselves to preserving the doctrines of
1
These examples are taken from C. Knapp, from A.
etc., in
62.
v.
Cieszkowski,
P. Earth, Geschichtsphilosophie Hegels u. d. Hegelianer, pp. 29,
For other characteristic examples, see the
Esthetic,
c.
13.
historical
part
of
my
CONCLUSION
the master as a sacred trust,
emphasizing the
them, and refrain
profound elements of truth in

ing, as though through an instinct
from insisting upon the
209
for the truth,
difficult parts (the philo
sophy of nature, or the philosophy of

yet without refuting them explicitly.
showed
as
their cautious
and
history),
They
critical spirit, also, in,
were, reconducting Hegel to his Kantian
it
foundations, and in
transition
making the necessity of the

from Kant to Hegel the object of their
Such were Kuno Fischer
continuous study.
Germany,
to
whom we owe
the students
a lucid re-elaboration
Bertrando Spaventa in
Great Britain; 2 and several of
of the Hegelian logic;

Italy; Stirling in
in
whom
they formed in
the
three
Spaventa did not pass beyond or

transform Hegel, but he foresaw clearly that
countries.
In the
was necessary and had to happen.
philosophers (he remarked on this subject), in
"
this
the true philosophers, there
underneath, which
is
is
always something
more than they themselves
and of which they are not conscious

1
and
See his Logik zind Metaphysik. (1852), especially
in
this
is
the second
edition of 1865.
2
J. Stirling,
The Secret of Hegel London, 1865):

(
indicated at shortest thus
Plato
so
made
cf.
made
Hegel
p.
as Aristotle
That
secret
may
be
was implicit in Socrates,

from Fichte and Schelling
was implicit in Kant" (i. p. 1 1
explicit the abstract universal, that
with
less
considerable assistance
explicit the concrete universal, that
317).
"
with considerable assistance from
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
210
the
germ
new
of a
To
life.
to suffocate this germ,
is
sophers mechanically,
repeat the philo
impede its developing and becoming a new

and more perfect system."
to
Of
the adversaries of Hegel,
that they too failed of their duty
had they done
must be said
it
and indeed,
they would not have been the
it,
adversaries, but the disciples and continuers of
For
his thought.
served the
his fanatical followers pre
if
just as
dialectic,
it
stood,
with
confusions and false applications, they, on
other hand, rejected
it
altogether
the
thus falling
We
into an analogous but opposite error.

set aside the bizarre
its
may
who
belched
Schopenhauer,
contumelies against Hegel, but spoke of
forth
him by hearsay, without knowing anything pre

cise
about him. 2
never
rises
anecdotic.
Indeed
above the
Herbart,
recognized in Hegel
his
calumnious gossip
of the general or
level
far better balanced, at least

"
one of those rare
men born
"
and held that the Hegelian

philosophy, because of the clear relief in which
for
it
speculation
sets the contradictions, with
presents
itself to
thought,
Proluzione e introduzione
Such
is
pp. 330-31.
in the
reality, as
it
charged, constitutes
pp. 182-183.
also the opinion of the anti- Hegelian R.
on Schopenhauer (reprinted
cf.
cit.,
is
which
Gesammelte
Haym,
.4z;/5Yi/s,<?,
in his essay
Berlin, 1903)
CONCLUSION
XI
211
the best propaedeutic to metaphysic.
But
if
we
read the refutations of the dialectic by Trendelen-
Germany, by Rosmini in Italy, by Janet

France (to name only the most important), we
burg
in
in
cannot but experience a feeling of distrust
when we
easy,
tion
we
realize that a critic
makes
much more profound
in
for
his task too
divine from his very words of
and of depreciation that there
is
condemna
something
the question, which he
Doubtless those ingenious

confuters brought to light difficulties, and some
has failed Jo reach.
times errors
but they did not show the true
how they derived from the

new and great truth.
To
genesis of the errors,
exaggeration of a
"
confute a philosophy (Hegel himself said)
nothing but to surpass
its limits,
determinate principle, so as to
moment."
means
and to lower
make
of
it
its
an ideal
But with the new generation that reached

maturity after 1848, the philosophical adversaries
of
Hegel
were
soon
succeeded
These hated nothing
adversaries.
by
in
barbaric
Hegel but
which he represented in all its

grandiose seventy Philosophy, which is without
heart and without compassion for the feeblephilosophy
itself,
See his criticism of the Encyclopaedia, Werke, ed. Hartenstein,
670, 685.
2
Enc.
86 Zus.
xii.
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
212
minded and
for the
Philosophy, which
lazy_\
is
not to be placated with the specious offerings of
sentiment and of fancy, nor with the light foods
For
of half-science.
Hegel was the un
these,
avenged shade of the speculative need of the

human spirit a shade which seemed disposed
;
to take
its
own revenge
at
the fierce hatred of Hegel
any moment.
:
a hatred
Hence
composed
of fear and of remorse, and certainly not caused
Hegel had observed

Fichte philosophy had become too
by the errors of
that
after
his system.
and could no longer be an occupation for

the beau monde and for the cultured public, as it
subtle,
had been
Kant.
minds
in the
eighteenth century, previous to
But the
positivist
regression reduced
such an extremity,
to
that
they were
rendered blind to the distinction between the

concept and sensation, between speculation and
empiricism. How then could it have been possible
for
such an age, which lacked
all
the elementary
or
propaedeutic distinctions,
to
understand or
criticize
Hegel,
who assumes
the knowledge and
elementary problems, whose

thought revolves round the ultimate and most
solution
of
the
refined questions,
most
lofty
who
summits
1
breathes and lives on the
For such
Gesch. d. Phil*,
iii.
as these, to look
577-8.
._
CONCLUSION
upon him was
to
awake
in
213
themselves the sad
consciousness of impotence, with
and
"irritations,
of joys that
it
and
may
not taste.
our intellectual outlook.
himself.
is
It is
an improvement
more favourable
and more favourable to
to philosophy in general,
Hegel
agitations
ferocious condemnation
its
Happily, in our day, there

in
its
We are now beginning to possess
a philosophy of art and of language, a theory of

a gnoseology of the mathematical and
history,
which render impossible

the reappearance of those errors, in which Hegel
naturalistic disciplines,
became entangled.
In particular, the old concept
of nature, inherited from science, or rather from
the
philosophy of the seventeenth century,
in process of dissolution
clearer
how
every day
nature, as a concept,
the practical activity of
man
and
he forgets how he has acquired

it
is
becomes
a product of
it is
it,
it
is
only
that
when
he finds
opposed to him as something external, which
terrifies
mystery.
him with
On
its
aspect
of
impenetrable
the other hand, a certain philo
romanticism
is
everywhere appearing
a
condition
and
is
this
(though nothing
again,
more than a condition) for the true understanding
sophical
of
Hegel and
all
the philosophers of his time.
People are sighing again
for
mysticism and for
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
2i 4
immediate knowledge, after the manner of Jacob!

and they are setting up again the old Schellinghian
ideal of an aesthetic contemplation,
give to the
spirit a thirst
for truth
which should
and
for con-
creteness, something that (natural) science cannot
Thus, Bergson, one of the writers who

attached themselves to this movement,
give.
have
advocates as a metaphysic of the absolute, an

intuitive
ment
"
knowledge,
adopte la vie
et
not this just what
qui sinstalle dans
meme
des
mouve-
le
But was
choses."
Hegel demanded, and the
point from which he began
to
find a
mind, which should be mobile as the
form of
movement
of the real, which should participate in the

things,
which should
feel
the pulse of
"
life
reality,"
and should mentally reproduce the rhythm of

development, without breaking
making it rigid and falsifying it
But
for
have quoted, and
that the
xi. p.
"
it
is
for the writer
we
for others of like tendencies.
demand
in
to
have shown
of concrete knowledge
Introduction a la Metaphysiquc
29.
And
vain.
the form of thought,

1
into pieces or
renunciation of thought would have been
asked of Hegel
in
its
Hegel, such a view was only a starting-
point, not a conclusion, as
The
it
of
his great
is
"
in
is
satisfied
merit, his
Revue de mttaph.
et
de morale,
CONCLUSION
immortal
discovery.
studying
Hegel
Hence
critically,
215
the
and
necessity
of
sifting
of
the
intimate and vital elements of his thought from
The modern
the extrinsic and dead.
consciousness
can neither accept the whole of Hegel, nor wholly

refute him, as used to be
him
In relation to
Roman
years ago.
nee tecum vivere possum,
does not appear that we can now

critical revision of Hegelianism from
It
te.
obtain this
its
fifty
stands in the position of the
poet to his lady
nee sine
its
it
done
German
fatherland, which
great son that
it
is
so forgetful of
has not even reprinted his
works and frequently expresses judgments con

cerning him, which astound us who belong to
this remote fringe of Italy, for we have never
altogether forgotten him, and have in
made him our own,

with our Nolan
Parthenopean.
German
studies,
uniting him in brotherhood
Bruno and with our Vico, the

Far more important than the
are the studies on Hegelianism,
which have been carried on

in
England.
shown
is
itself to
clearly
criticized
some wise
over thirty years

There the work of Stirling has
be very
for
fruitful
for there
Hegel
expounded, truthfully interpreted and

reverently and with freedom of mind.
In return, the powerful spirit of
has for the
first
George Hegel
time awakened to the speculative
PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL
2i6
life
the minds of the English,
who have been
for
centuries the world purveyors of empirical philo
sophy and who even
the last century seemed
in
incapable of producing any philosophers better
than Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer.
any one were to ask me if he should

or should not be an
and if I am an
Hegelian,"
Now,
if
"
Hegelian,
with a reply.
might, after
Yet
here this question
all
have
wish as a corollary, to answer
way which
in
is
derived from that very philosophy.

believe
it
who
sophical spirit and philosophical

is
perhaps
am, and
necessary to be, an Hegelian
the same sense in which any one
time,
dispense
said,
and
feels himself to
be
at
but
in
has a philo
culture
once
our
in
Eleatic,
Heraclitean, Socratic, Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic,
tesian,
Spinozist, Leibnizian,
That
and so on.
is
to
pass
Vichian,
Car
Kantian;
to say, in the sense that
thinker and no historical
come
Buddhist,
Christian,
Neoplatonic,
Sceptic,
without
movement
bearing
no
of thought
fruit,
without
depositing an element of truth, which forms part,

consciously
Neither
or
no,
of
living
modern thought.
nor any sensible person would wish to
be an Hegelian,
obsequious
in the
follower,
sense of a servile and
who
professes
every word of the master, or
in the
to
accept
sense of a
CONCLUSION
xi
sectarian,
religipus
who
217
considers disagreement
Hegel too has discovered a

moment of the truth to this moment we must
In
a sin.
short,
That
accord recognition and value.

this
does not happen just
much
The Idea
matter.
at present,
is
it
If
all.
does not
not in a hurry, as
is
Hegel used to say. The same content of truth

must be reached, sooner or later, by a different
way
if
and,
direct
not availed ourselves of his
when we look back upon the

thought, we must still proclaim him,
help,
history of
with
we have
much
yet
marvel, a prophet.
But the
first
condition for resolving whether
to accept or to reject the doctrines
which Hegel
propounds (I am constrained to make explicit

what I should have preferred to leave to be
understood)
end
is
to
read his books
to the spectacle, half comical
gusting, of the accusation
philosopher by
who wage
critics
and
to put
and half
an
dis
and the abuse of a
who do
not
know him, and
created
by their
war with a ridiculous puppet

own imaginations, under the
ignoble
sway of
traditional
a foolish
tellectual laziness.
THE END
prejudice
and
in
CROCE, BENEDETTO
What is living and what is

dead of the philosophy of
wegel
.
29^8
.C75

Benedetto Croce What Is Living and What Is Dead of The Philosophy of Hegel 1915

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Benedetto Croce What Is Living and What Is Dead of The Philosophy of Hegel 1915

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WHAT

THE THIRD ITALIAN EDITION,

NEW YORK /RUSSELL & RUSSELL

FIRST PUBLISHED IN K)I$

REISSUED, 1969, BY RUSSELL & RUSSELL

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH MACMILLAN &

CATALOG CARD NO! 79-83845

of this translation will observe that

have followed the

original does so the use of capitals for the

true that they are

printed with capitals in

but then, so are

other substantives, and by avoiding their use,

idea and spirit are better under

stood as immanent rather than as transcendental

Philosophy of the Practical instead of the para

regularly formed from the Greek,

English, which has

about accepting an analogous, but not

term such as Epistemology.

neologisms cover a new thought or

are always legitimate, and

have not hesitated

introduce one or two other words thus employed.

the adoption of paraphrase, frequent in contem

porary English writers, seems to

rendering yet more

by the very common

ness of the words used as paraphrase the already

of Hegel, was published

since been increased in the

German and French

need of not a few additions.

volume and would now have

Hegelian bibliography as an appendix.

give himself the trouble of looking

through, correcting, completing and keeping

The Essay on Hegel is the first of a series of essays upon philo

permission to exercise upon

study of mine, with

In this reimpression of the

study of 1906 will be found instead certain

philosophy, which answer to censures and objec

have been made to

treatment or retreatment of disputed points to

THE DIALECTIC OR SYNTHESIS OF OPPOSITES

EXPLANATIONS RELATING TO THE HISTORY OF

THE NEXUS OF THE DISTINCTS AND THE FALSE

TICULAR CONCEPTS AND DEGREES OF TRUTH

(STRUCTURE OF THE LOGIC)

Art and Language (^Esthetic).

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTICULAR CONCEPTS

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTICULAR CONCEPTS

History (Idea of a Philosophy of History).

THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTICULAR CONCEPTS

Nature (Idea of a Philosophy of Nature).

THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FALSE SCIENCES

DUALISM NOT OVERCOME

following lines were written before the out

break of war, but

with her great

hundred years ago and more.