STUDIES IN THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC - Table of Contents
CHAPTER IV: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE METHOD
106. MY object in this chapter will be to show that the method, by which
Hegel proceeds from one category to another in his Logic, is not the same
throughout, but changes materially as the process advances. I shall endeavour
to show that this change may be reduced to a general law, and that from this
law we may derive important consequences with regard to the nature and
validity of the dialectic.
The exact relation of these corollaries to Hegel's own views is rather
uncertain. Some of them do not appear to be denied in any part of the Logic,
and, since they are apparently involved in some of his theories, may be
supposed to have been recognised and accepted by him. On the other hand, he
did not explicitly state and develope them anywhere, which, in the case of
doctrines of such importance, is some ground for supposing that he did not
hold them. Others, again, are certainly incompatible with his express
statements. I desire, therefore, in considering them, to leave on one side the
question of how far they were believed by Hegel, and merely to give reasons
for thinking that they are necessary consequences of his system and must be
accepted by those who hold it.
107. The passage in which Hegel sums up his position on this point most
plainly runs as follows: "The abstract form of the advance is, in Being, an
other and transition into an other; in Essence, showing a reflection in the
opposite; in notion, the distinction of individual from universality, which
continues itself as such into, and is as an identity with, what is distinguished
from it."<Note: Enc. Section 240.>
The difference between the procedure in the doctrine of Being and in the
doctrine of Essence is given in more detail earlier. "In the sphere of Essence
one category does not pass into another, but refers to another merely. In
Being the form of reference is simply due to our reflection on what takes
place; but this form is the special and proper characteristic of Essence. In
the sphere of Being, when somewhat becomes another, the somewhat has
vanished. Not so in Essence: here there is no real other, but only diversity,
reference of the one to its other. The transition of Essence is therefore at
the same time no transition; for in the passage of different into different,
the different does not vanish: the different terms remain in their relation.
When we speak of Being and Nought, Being is independent, so is Nought. The
case is otherwise with the Positive and the Negative. No doubt these possess
the characteristic of Being and Nought. But the positive by itself has no
sense; it is wholly in reference to the negative. And it is the same with the
negative. In the Sphere of Being the reference of one term to another is only
implicit; in Essence, on the contrary, it is explicit. And this in general isthe
distinction between the forms of Being and Essence: in Being everything is
immediate, in Essence everything is relative."<Note: Enc. Section 111, lecture
note.>
And again, in describing the transition from Essence to the Notion, he
says: "Transition into something else is the dialectical process within the
range of Being; reflection (bringing something else into light) in the range of
Essence. The movement of the Notion is development; by which that only is
explicitly affirmed which is already implicitly speaking present. In the world
of nature, it is organic life that corresponds to the grade of the notion.
Thus, e.g., the plant is developed from its germ. The germ virtually involves
the whole plant, but does so only ideally or in thought; and it would
therefore be a mistake to regard the development of the root, stem, leaves,
and other different parts of the plant as meaning that they were realiter
present, but in a very minute form, in the germ. That is the so-called `box-
within-box' hypothesis; a theory which commits the mistake of supposing an
actual existence of what is at first found only in the shape of an ideal. The
truth of the hypothesis on the other hand lies in its perceiving that, in the
process of development, the notion keeps to itself, and only gives rise to
alteration of form without making any addition in point of content. It is this
nature of the notion--this manifestation of itself in its process as a
development of its own self--which is chiefly in view by those who speak of
innate ideas, or who, like Plato, describe all learning as merely reminiscence. Of
course that again does not mean that everything which is embodied in a
mind, after that mind has been formed by instruction, had been present in
that mind beforehand in a definitely expanded shape.
"The movement of the notion is after all to be looked on only as a kind of
play. The other which it sets up is in reality not another. Or, as it is
expressed in the teaching, of Christianity, not merely has God created a world
which confronts Him as another; He has also from all eternity begotten a Son,
in whom He, a Spirit, is at home with Himself."<Note: Enc. Section 161,
lecture note.>
108. The result of this process may be summed up as follows: The further
the dialectic goes from its starting point the less prominent becomes the
apparent stability of the individual finite categories, and the less do they
seem to be self-centred and independent. On the other hand, the process itself
becomes more clearly self-evident, and is seen to be the only real meaning of
the lower categories. In Being each category appears, taken by itself, to be
permanent and exclusive of all others, and to have no principle of transition
in it. It is only outside reflection which examines and breaks down this
presence of stability, and shows us that the dialectic process is inevitable.
In Essence, however, each category by its own import refers to that which
follows it, and the transition is seen to be inherent in its nature. But it is
still felt to be, as it were, only an external effect of that nature. The
categories have still an inner nature, as contrasted with the outer relations
which they have with other categories. So far as they have this inner nature,
they are still conceived as independent and self-centred. But with the passage
into the notion things alter; that passage "is the very hardest, because it
proposes that independent actuality shall be thought as having all its
substantiality in the passing over and identity with the other independent
actuality."<Note: Enc. Section 159.> Not only is the transition now necessary
to the categories, but the transition is the categories. The reality in any
finite category, in this stage, consists only in its summing up those which
went before, and in leading on to those which come after.
109. Another change can be observed as the process continues. In the
categories of Being the typical form is a transition from a thesis to an
antithesis which is merely complementary to it, and is in no way superior to
it in value or comprehensiveness. Only when these two extremes are taken
together is there for the first time any advance to a higher notion. This
advance is a transition to a synthesis which comes as a consequence of the
thesis and antithesis jointly. It would be impossible to obtain the synthesis,
or to make any advance, from either of the two complementary terms without
the other. Neither is in any respect more advanced than the other, and neither
of them can be said to be more closely connected than the other with the
synthesis, in which both of them alike find their explanation and
reconciliation. But when we come to Essence the matter is changed. Here the
transition from thesis to antithesis is still indeed from positive to
negative, but it is more than merely this. The antithesis is not merely
complementary to the thesis, but is a correction of it. It is consequently
more concrete and true than the thesis, and represents a real advance. And the
transition to the synthesis is not now made so much from the comparison of
the other two terms as from the antithesis alone. For the antithesis does not
now merely oppose a contrary defect to the original defect of the thesis. It
corrects, to some degree, that original mistake, and therefore has--to use the
Hegelian phraseology--"the truth" of the thesis more or less within itself. As
the action of the synthesis is to reconcile the thesis and the antithesis it
can only be deduced from the comparison of the two. But if the antithesis has
--as it has in Essence--the thesis as part of its own significance, it will
present the whole of the data which the synthesis requires, and it will not be
necessary to recur to the thesis, before the step to the synthesis is taken.
But although the reconciliation can be inferred from the second term,
apart from the first, a reconciliation is still necessary. For, while the
antithesis is an advance upon the thesis, it is also opposed to it. It is not
simply a completion of it, but also a denial, though a denial which is already
an approximation to union. This element of opposition and negation tends to
disappear in the categories of the Notion. As these approach the end of the
whole process, the steps are indeed discriminated from one another, but they
can scarcely be said to be in opposition. For we have now arrived at a
consciousness more or less explicit that in each category all that have gone
before are summed up, and all that are to come after are contained
implicitly. "The movement of the Notion is after all to be looked on only as
a kind of play. The other which it sets up is in reality not another." And, as
a consequence, the third term merely completes the second, without correcting
one-sidedness in it, in the same way as the second term merely expands and
completes the first. As this type is realised, in fact, the distinctions of the
three terms gradually lose their meaning. There is no longer an opposition
produced between two terms and mediated by a third. Each term is a direct
advance on the one before it. The object of the process is not now to make
the one-sided complete, but the implicit explicit. For we have reached a stage
when each side carries in it already more or less consciousness of that unity
of the whole which is the synthesis, and requires development rather than
refutation.
110. It is natural that these changes should accompany the one first
mentioned. For, as it is gradually seen that each category, of its own nature,
and not by mere outside reflection on it, leads on to the next, that next will
have inherent in it its relation to the first. It will not only be the negation
and complement of the thesis, but will know that it is so. In so far as it
does this, it will be higher than the thesis. It is true that the thesis will
see in like manner that it must be connected with the category that succeeds
it. But this knowledge can only give a general character of transition to the
thesis, for it only knows that it is connected with something, but does not yet
know with what. But the antithesis does know with what it is connected,
since it is connected with a term which precedes it in the dialectic process.
And to see how it is inseparably connected with its opposite, and defined by
its relation to it, is an important step towards the reconciliation of the
opposition. A fortiori the greater clearness and ease of the transition will
have the same effect in the case of the Notion. For there we see that the
whole meaning of the category lies in its passage to another. The second
therefore has the whole meaning of the first in it, as well as the addition
that has been made in the transition, and must therefore be higher than the
first.
From this follows naturally the change in the relation of the terms to
their synthesis. We have seen that, in proportion as the meaning of the thesis
is completely included in the meaning of the antithesis, it becomes possible
to find all the data required for the synthesis in the antithesis alone. And
when each term has its meaning completely absorbed in the one which follows
it, the triple rhythm disappears altogether, in which case each term would be
a simple advance on the one below it, and would be deduced from that one
only.
111. While Hegel expressly notices, as we have seen, the increasing freedom
and directness of the dialectic movement, he makes no mention of the
different relation to one another assumed by the various members of the
process, which I have just indicated. Traces of the change may, however, be
observed in the detail of the dialectic. The three triads which it will be best
to examine for this purpose are the first in the doctrine of Being, the middle
one in the doctrine of Essence, and the last in the doctrine of the Notion.
For, if there is any change within each of these three great divisions (a point
we must presently consider), the special characteristics of each will be shown
most clearly at that point at which it is at the greatest distance from each
of the other divisions. The triads in question are those of Being, Not-Being,
and Becoming; of the World of Appearance, Content and Form, and Ratio;<Note:
I follow the divisions of Essence as given in the Encyclopaedia.> and of Life,
Cognition, and the Absolute Idea.<Note: Cognition is used by Hegel in two
senses. Here it is to be taken as Cognition in general, of which Cognition
proper and Volition are species.>
Now, in the first of these, thesis and antithesis are on an absolute level.
Not-Being is no higher than Being: it does not contain Being in any sense in
which Being does not contain it. We can pass as easily from Not-Being to Being
as vice versa. And Not-Being by itself is helpless to produce Becoming--as
helpless as Being is. The synthesis can only come from the conjunction of
both of them. On the other hand the idea of Content and Form, according to
Hegel, is a distinct advance on the idea of the World of Appearance, since in
Content and Form "the connection of the phenomenon with self is completely
stated." Ratio, again, although the synthesis of the two previous terms, is
deduced from the second of them alone, while it could not be deduced from the
first alone. It is the relation of Content and Form to one another which leads
us on to the other relation which is called ratio. The idea of Cognition, also,
is a distinct advance upon the idea of Life, since the defect in the latter,
from which Hegel explains the existence of death, is overcome as we pass to
Cognition. And it is from Cognition alone, without any reference back to Life,
that we reach the Absolute Idea.
112. Another point arises on which we shall find but little guidance in
Hegel's own writings. To each of the three great divisions of the dialectic he
has ascribed a particular variation of the method. Are we to understand that
one variety changes into another suddenly at the transition from division to
division, or is the change continuous, so that, while the typical forms of each
division are strongly characterised, the difference between the last step in
one and the first step in the next is no greater than the difference between
two consecutive steps in the same division? Shall we find the best analogy in
the distinction between water and steam--a qualitative change suddenly
brought about when a quantitative change has reached a certain degree--or in
the distinction between youth and manhood, which at their most characteristic
points are clearly distinct, but which pass into one another imperceptibly.
On this point Hegel says nothing. Possibly it had never presented itself to
his mind. But there are signs in the Logic which may lead us to believe that
the change of method is gradual and continuous.
In the first place we may notice that the absolutely pure type of the process,
in Being, is not to be met with in any triad of Quality or Quantity
except the first. Being and Not-Being are on a level. But if we compare Being
an sich with Being for another, the One with the Many, and mere Quantity with
Quantum, we observe that the second category is higher than the first in each
pair, and that it is not merely the complement of the first, but to a certain
degree transcends it. The inherent relation of thesis to antithesis seems to
develop more as we pass on, so that before Essence is reached its
characteristics are already visible to some extent, and the mere passivity and
finitude of Being is partly broken down.
If, again, we compare the first and last stages of Essence, we shall find
that the first approximates to the type of Being, while the last comes fairly
close to that of the Notion, by substituting the idea of development for the
idea of the reconciliation of contradictions. Difference, as treated by Hegel,
is certainly an advance on Identity, and not a mere opposite, but there is
still a good deal of opposition between the terms. The advance is shown by
the fact that Difference contains Likeness and Unlikeness within itself, while
the opposition of the two categories is clear, not only in common usage, but
from the fact that the synthesis has to reconcile them, and balance their
various deficiencies. But when we reach Substance and Causality we find that
the notion of contradiction is subordinated to that of development, nearly as
fully as if we were already at the beginning of the doctrine of the Notion.
So, finally, the special features of the doctrine of the Notion are not fully
exhibited until we have come to its last stage. In the transitions of the
Notion as Notion, of the Judgment, and of the Syllogism, we have not by any
means entirely rid ourselves of the elements of opposition and negation. It
is not until we reach the concluding triad of the Logic that we are able fully
to see the typical progress of the Notion. In the transition from Life to
Cognition, and from Cognition to the Absolute Idea, we perceive that the
movement is all but completely direct, that the whole is seen to be in each
part, and that there is no longer a contest, but only a development.
It is not safe, however, to place much weight on all this. In the first
place, while Hegel explicitly says that each of the three doctrines has its
special method, he says nothing about any development of method within each
doctrine. In the second place the difficulty and uncertainty of comparing,
quantitatively and exactly, shades of difference so slight and subtle, must
always be very great. And, so far as we can compare them, there seem to be
some exceptions to the rule of continuous development. We find some triads
which approximate more closely to the pure Being-type than others which
precede them, and we find some which approximate more closely to the pure
Notion-type than others which follow them. But that there are some traces of
continuous development cannot, I think, be denied, and this will become more
probable if we see reason to think that, in a correct dialectic, the
development would be continuous.
113. Before we consider this question we must first enquire whether the
existence of such a development of any sort, whether continuous or not, might
be expected from the nature of the case. We shall see that there are reasons
for supposing this to be so, when we remember what we must regard as the
essence of the dialectic. The motive power of all the categories is the
concrete absolute truth, from which all finite categories are mere
abstractions and to which they tend spontaneously to return. Again, two
contradictory ideas cannot be held to be true at the same time. If it ever
seems inevitable that they should be, this is a sign of error somewhere, and
we cannot feel satisfied with the result, until we have transcended and
synthesised the contradiction. It follows that in so far as the finite
categories announce themselves as permanent, and as opposed in pairs of
unsynthesised contradictories, they are expressing falsehood and not truth. We
gain the truth by transcending the contradictions of the categories and by
demonstrating their instability. Now the change in the method, of which we
are speaking, indicates a clearer perception of this truth. For we have seen
that the process becomes more spontaneous and more direct. As it becomes
more spontaneous, as each category is seen to lead on of its own nature to the
next, and to have its meaning only in the transition, it brings out more fully
what lies at the root of the whole dialectic--namely that the truth of the
opposed categories lies only in the synthesis. And as the process becomes
more direct and leaves the opposition and negation behind, it also brings out
more clearly what is an essential fact in every stage of the dialectic,--that
is, that the impulse of imperfect truth, as we have it, is not towards self-
contradiction as such, but towards self-completion. The essential nature of
the whole dialectic is thus more clearly seen in the later stages, which
approximate to the type of the Notion, than in the earlier stages which
approximate to the type of Being.
This is what we might expect à priori. For the content of each stage in the
dialectic is nearer to the truth than that of the stage before it. And each
stage forms the starting-point from which we go forward again to further
truth. At each step, therefore, in the forward process, we have a fuller
knowledge of the truth than at the one before, and it is only natural that
this fuller knowledge should react upon the manner in which the next step is
made. The dialectic is due to the relation between the concrete whole,
implicit in consciousness, and the abstract part of it which has become
explicit. Since the second element alters at every step, as the categories
approximate to the complete truth, it is clear that its relation to the
unchanging whole alters also, and this would naturally affect the method. And,
since the change in the relation will be one which will make that relation
more obvious and evident, we may expect that every step which we take towards
the full truth will render it possible to proceed more easily and directly to
the next step.
Even without considering the special circumstance that each step in the
process will give us this deeper insight into the meaning of the work we are
carrying on, we might find other reasons for supposing that the nature of the
dialectic process is modified by use. For the conception of an agent which is
purely active, acting on a material which is purely passive, is a mere
abstraction, and has a place nowhere in reality. Even in the case of matter, we
find that this is true. An axe has not the same effect at its second blow as at
its first, for it is more or less blunted. A violin has not the same tone the
second time it is played on, as it had the first. And it would be least of all
in the work of the mind that a rigid distinction could be kept up between
form and matter, between the tool and the materials.
114. Now these arguments for the existence of change in the method are
also arguments for supposing that the change will be continuous. There is
reason to expect a change in the method whenever we have advanced a step
towards truth. But we advance towards truth, not only when we pass from one
chief division of the Logic to another, but whenever we pass from category to
category, however minute a subdivision of the process they may represent. It
would therefore seem that it is to be expected that the method would change
after each category, and that no two transitions throughout the dialectic
would present quite the same type. However continuous the change of
conclusions can be made, it is likely that the change of method will be
equally continuous.
It may also be noted that the three doctrines themselves form a triad, and
that in the same way the three divisions of each doctrine, and the three
subdivisions of each division, form a triad. The similarity of constitution
which exists between the larger and smaller groups of categories may perhaps
be some additional reason for anticipating that the smaller transitions will
exert on the method an influence similar to that of the larger transitions,
although, of course, less in amount.
115. We may therefore, I think, fairly arrive at the conclusion, in the first
place, that the dialectic process does and must undergo a progressive change,
and, in the second place, that this change is as much continuous as the
process of the dialectic itself. Another question now arises. Has the change in
the method destroyed its validity? The ordinary proofs relate only to the
type characteristic of Being, which, as we have now found reason to believe, is
only found in its purity in the very first triad of all. Does the gradual
change to the types characteristic of Essence and the Notion make any
difference in the justification of the method as a whole?
This question must be answered in the negative. The process has lost none
of its cogency. It consisted, according to the earliest type, of a search for
completeness, and of a search for harmony between the elements of that
completeness, the two stages being separate. Later on we have the same search
for completeness and for harmony, but both objects are attained by a single
process. In Being, the inadequacy of the thesis led on to the antithesis. Each
of these ideas was regarded as an immediate and self-centred whole. On the
other hand each of them implied the other, since they were complementary and
opposite sides of the truth. This brought about a contradiction, which had to
be reconciled by the introduction of the synthesis. Now the change in the
process has the effect of gradually dropping the intermediate stage, in which
the two sides of the whole are regarded as incompatible and yet as inseparably
connected. In the stage of Essence, each category has a reference in its own
nature to those which come before and after it. When we reach the antithesis
therefore, we have already a sort of anticipation of the synthesis, since we
recognise that the two sides are connected by their own nature, and not
merely by external reasoning. Thus the same step by which we reach the idea
complementary to our starting-point, and so gain completeness, does
something towards joining the two extremes in the harmony which we require
of them. For, when we have seen that the categories are inherently connected,
we have gone a good way towards the perception that they are not
incompatible. The harmony thus attained in the antithesis is however only
partial, and leaves a good deal for the synthesis to do. In the Notion, the
change is carried further. Here we see that the whole meaning of the category
resides in the transition, and the whole thesis is really summed up in the
antithesis, for the meaning of the thesis is now only the production of the
antithesis, and it is absorbed and transcended in it. In fact the relation of
thesis, antithesis and synthesis would actually disappear in the typical form
of process belonging to the Notion, for each term would be the completion of
that which was immediately before it, since all the reality of the latter
would be seen to be in its transition to its successor. This never actually
happens, even in the final triad of the whole system. For the characteristic
type of the Notion represents the process as it would be when it started from
a perfectly adequate premise. When however the premise, the explicit idea in
the mind, became perfectly adequate and true, we should have rendered explicit
the whole concrete idea, and the object of the dialectic process would be
attained, so that it could go no further. The typical process of the Notion is
therefore an ideal, to which the actual process approximates more and more
closely throughout its course, but which it can only reach at the moment when
it stops completed.
116. The process always seeks for that idea which is logically required as
the completion of the idea from which it starts. At first the complementary
idea presents itself as incompatible with the starting-point, and has to be
independently harmonised with it. Afterwards the complementary idea is at
once presented as in harmony with the original idea in which it is implied.
All the change lies in the fact that two operations, at first distinct, are
fused into one. The argument of the dialectic all through is, If we start with
a valid idea, all that is implied in it is valid, and also everything is valid
that is required to avoid a contradiction between the starting-point and that
which we reach by means of the starting-point. As we approximate to the end
of the process, we are able to see, implied in the idea before us, not merely a
complementary and contradictory idea on the same level, but an idea which at
once complements and transcends the starting-point. The second idea is here
from the first in harmony with the idea which it complements. But its
justification is exactly the same as that of the antithesis in the Being-type
of the process--that is, that its truth is necessarily involved in the truth of
an idea which we have already admitted to be valid. And thus if we are
satisfied with the cogency of the earlier forms of the process, we shall have
no reason to modify our belief on account of the change of method.
117. We may draw several important conclusions with regard to the general
nature of the dialectic, from the manner in which the form changes as it
advances towards completion. The first of these is one which we may fairly
attribute to Hegel himself, since it is evident from the way in which he deals
with the categories, although it is not explicitly noticed by him. This is the
subordinate place held by negation in the whole process. We have already
observed that the importance of negation in the dialectic is by no means
primary.<Note: Chap. I. Section 9.> In the first place Hegel's Logic is very far
from resting, as is supposed by some critics, on the violation of the law of
contradiction. It rather rests on the impossibility of violating that law, and
on the necessity of finding, for every contradiction, a reconciliation in which
it vanishes. And not only is the idea of negation destined always to vanish in
the synthesis, but even its temporary introduction is an accident, though an
inevitable accident. The motive force of the process lies in the discrepancy
between the concrete and perfect idea implicitly in our minds, and the
abstract and imperfect idea explicitly in our minds, and the essential
characteristic of the process is in the search of this abstract and imperfect
idea, not after its negation as such, but after its complement as such. Its
complement is, indeed, its contrary, because a relatively concrete category
can be analysed into two direct contraries, and therefore the process does go
from an idea to its contrary. But it does not do so because it seeks denial,
but because it seeks completion.
But this can now be carried still further. Not only is the presence of
negation in the dialectic a mere accident, though a necessary one, of the
gradual completion of the idea. We are now led to consider it as an accident
which is necessary indeed in the lower stages of the dialectic, but which is
gradually eliminated in proportion as we proceed further, and in proportion
as the materials from which we start are of a concrete and adequate character.
For in so far as the process ceases to be from one extreme to another
extreme equally one-sided, both of which regard themselves as permanent, and
as standing in a relation of opposition towards one another, and in so far as
it becomes a process from one term to another which is recognised as in some
degree mediated by the first, and as transcending it--in so far the negation of
each category by the other disappears. For it is then recognised that in the
second category there is no contradiction to the first, because, in so far as
the change has been completed, the first is found to have its meaning in the
transition to the second. The presence of negation, therefore, is not only a mere
accident of the dialectic, but an accident whose importance continuously decreases
as the dialectic progresses, and as its subject-matter becomes more fully
understood.
118. We now come to a fresh question, of very great importance. We have
seen that in the dialectic the relation of the various finite ideas to one
another in different parts of the process is not the same--the three
categories of Being, Not-Being, and Becoming standing in different relations
among themselves to those which connect Life, Cognition, and the Absolute
Idea. Now the dialectic process professes to do more than merely describe the
stages by which we mount to the Absolute Idea--it also describes the nature
of that Idea itself. In addition to the information which we gain about the
latter by the definition given of it at the end of the dialectic, we also know
that it contains in itself as elements or aspects all the finite stages of
thought, through which the dialectic has passed before reaching its goal. It is
not something which is reached by the dialectic, and which then exists
independently of the manner in which it was reached. It does not reject all
the finite categories as absolutely false, but pronounces them to be partly
false and partly true, and it sums up in itself the truth of all of them. They
are thus contained in it as moments. What relation do these moments bear to
one another in the Absolute Idea?
We may, in the first place, adopt the easy and simple solution of saying
that the relation they bear to one another, as moments in the Absolute Idea,
is just the same as that which they bear to one another, as finite categories
in the dialectic process. In this case, to discover their position in the
Absolute Idea, it is only necessary to consider the dialectic process, not as
one which takes place in time, but as having a merely logical import The
process contemplated in this way will be a perfect and complete analysis of
the concrete idea which is its end, containing about it, the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth. And this, apparently, would have been Hegel's
answer, if the question had been explicitly proposed to him. For he
undoubtedly asserts that the dialectic expresses the deepest nature of
objective thought.
119. But this conclusion seems open to doubt. For the change of method
results, as we have seen, from a gradually growing perception of the truth
which is at the bottom of the whole dialectic--the unreality of any finite
category as against its synthesis, since the truth and reality of each category
consists only in its reference to the next, and in its passage onwards to it.
If this was not true all through the dialectic, there could be no dialectic at
all, for the justification of the whole process is that the truth of the thesis
and the antithesis is contained in the synthesis, and that in so far as they
are anything else but aspects of the synthesis they are false and deceptive.
This then must be the true nature of the process of thought, and must
constitute the real meaning and essence of the dialectic. Yet this is only
explicitly perceived in the Notion, and at the end of the Notion--or rather, as
I pointed out above, we never attain to complete perception of it, but only
approximate towards it as our grasp of the subject increases. Before this the
categories appear always as, in their own nature, permanent and self-centred,
and the breaking down of this self-assertion, and the substitution for it of
the knowledge that truth is only found in the synthesis, appears as opposed to
what went before, and as in contradiction to it, although a necessary and
inevitable consequence of it. But if this were really so, the dialectic process
would be impossible. If there really were any independent element in the
lower categories, or any externality in the reconciliation, that reconciliation
could never be complete and the dialectic could never claim, as it undoubtedly
does claim, to sum up all the lower elements of truth.
The very existence of the dialectic thus tends to prove that it is not in
every sense objectively correct. For it would be impossible for any transition
to be made, at any point in the process, unless the terms were really related
according to the type belonging to the Notion. But no transition in the
dialectic does take place exactly according to that type, and most of them
according to types substantially different. We must therefore suppose that the
dialectic does not exactly represent the truth, since if the truth were as it
represents it to be, the dialectic itself could not exist. There must be in the
process, besides that element which actually does express the real notion of
the transition, another element which is due to the inadequacy of our finite
thought to express the character of the reality which we are trying to
describe.
This agrees with what was said above--that the change of method is no real
change, but only a rearrangement of the elements of the transition. It is, in
fact, only a bringing out explicitly of what is implicitly involved all along.
In the lower categories our data, with their false appearance of independence,
obscure and confuse the true meaning of the dialectic. We can see that the
dialectic has this true meaning, even among these lower categories, by
reflecting on what is implied in its existence and success. But it is only in
the later categories that it becomes explicit. And it must follow that those
categories in which it is not yet explicit do not fully represent the true
nature of thought, and the essential character of the transition from less
perfect to more perfect forms.
120. The conclusion at which we are thus compelled to arrive must be
admitted, I think, to have no warrant in Hegel. Hegel would certainly have
admitted that the lower categories, regarded in themselves, gave views of
reality only approximating, and, in the case of the lowest, only very slightly
approximating, to truth. But the procession of the categories, with its
advance through oppositions and reconciliations, he apparently regarded as
presenting absolute truth--as fully expressing the deepest nature of pure
thought. From this, if I am right, we are forced, on his own premises, to
dissent. For the true process of thought is one in which each category springs
out of the one before it, not by contradicting it, but as an expression of its
truest significance, and finds its own truest significance, in turn, by passing
on to another category. There is no contradiction, no opposition, and,
consequently, no reconciliation. There is only development, the rendering
explicit what was implicit, the growth of the seed to the plant. In the actual
course of the dialectic this is never attained. It is an ideal which is never
quite realised, and from the nature of the case never can be quite realised. In
the dialectic there is always opposition, and therefore always reconciliation.
We do not go straight onward, but more or less from side to side. It seems
inevitable, therefore, to conclude that the dialectic does not completely and
perfectly express the nature of thought.
This conclusion is certainly startling and paradoxical. For the validity of
the dialectic method for any purpose, and its power of adequately expressing
the ultimate nature of thought, appear to be so closely bound up together,
that we may easily consider them inseparable. The dialectic process is a
distinctively Hegelian idea. Doubtless the germs of it are to be found in
Fichte and elsewhere; but it was only by Hegel that it was fully worked out
and made the central point of a philosophy. And in so far as it has been held
since, it has been held substantially in the manner in which he stated it. To
retain the doctrine, and to retain the idea that it is of cardinal importance
while denying that it adequately represents the nature of thought, looks like a
most unwarranted and gratuitous distinction between ideas which their author
held to be inseparable.
Yet I cannot see what alternative is left to us. For it is Hegel himself who
refutes his own doctrine. The state to which the dialectic, according to him,
gradually approximates, is one in which the terms thesis, antithesis, and
synthesis can have no meaning. For in this state there is no opposition to
create the relation of thesis and antithesis, and, therefore, no reconciliation
of that opposition to create a synthesis. "The elements distinguished are
without more ado at the same time declared to be identical with one another,
and with the whole. . . . The other which the notion sets up is in reality not
another."<Note: Enc. Section 161.> Now, nowhere in the dialectic do we
entirely get rid of the relation of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; even in
the final triad of the process there are traces of it. The inference seems
inevitable that the dialectic cannot fully represent, in any part of its
movement, the real and essential nature of pure thought. The only thing to be
done is to consider whether, with this important limitation, the process has
any longer a claim to any real significance, and, if so, to how much? I shall
endeavour to show that its importance can scarcely be said to have diminished
at all.
121. Since the dialectic, if the hypothesis I have advanced be correct, does
not adequately represent the nature of pure thought itself, although it does
represent the inevitable course our minds are logically bound to follow, when
they attempt to deal with pure thought, it follows that it must be in some
degree subjective. We have now to determine exactly the meaning in which we
are using this rather ambiguous word. On the one hand it is clear that the
dialectic is not subjective in that sense in which the word has been defined as
meaning "that which is mine or yours." It is no mere empirical description or
generalisation. For, whatever view we may hold with regard to the success or
failure of the dialectic in apprehending the true nature of thought, it will
not at all affect the question of its internal necessity, and of its cogency for
us. The dialectic is not an account of what men have thought, or may think. It
is a demonstration of what they must think, provided they wish to deal with
Hegel's problem at all, and to deal with it consistently and truly.
On the other hand, we must now pronounce the dialectic process to be
subjective in this sense--that it does not fully express the essential nature
of thought, but obscures it more or less under characteristics which are not
essential. It may not seem very clear at first sight how we can distinguish
between the necessary course of the mind when engaged in pure thought, which
the dialectic method, according to this hypothesis, is admitted to be, and the
essential nature of thought, which it is not allowed that it can adequately
express. What, it may be asked, is the essential nature of thought, except that
course which it must and does take, whenever we think?
We must remember, however, that according to Hegel thought can only exist
in its complete and concrete form--that is, as the Absolute Idea. The import
of our thought may be, and of course often is, a judgment under some lower
category, but our thought itself, as an existent fact, distinguished from the
meaning it conveys, must be concrete and complete. For to stop at any
category short of the complete whole involves a contradiction, and a
contradiction is a sign of error. Now our judgments can be, and often are,
erroneous. And so we can, and do, make judgments which involve a
contradiction. But there would be no meaning in saying that a fact is
erroneous, and therefore, if we find a contradiction in any judgment, we know
that it cannot be true of facts. It follows that, though it is unquestionably
true that we can predicate in thought categories other than the highest, and
even treat them as final, it is no less certain that we cannot, with complete
truth, explain thought, any more than any other aspect of reality, by any
category but the Absolute Idea.
This explains how it is possible for the actual and inevitable course of
thought not to express fully and adequately its own nature. For thought may
be erroneous or deceptive, when it is treating of thought, as much as when it
is treating of any other reality. And it is possible that under certain
circumstances the judgment expressed in our thoughts may be inevitably
erroneous or deceptive. If these judgments have thought as their subject-
matter we shall then have the position in question--that the necessary course
of thought will fail to express properly its own nature.
122. The mistake, as we have already noticed, comes from the fact that,
whereas the logical relations, which form the content of the Absolute Idea, and
express the true nature of thought, consist in a direct development in
which each term only exists in the transition to another, the actual process,
on the other hand, is one from contradictory to contradictory, each of which
is conceived as possessing some stability and independence. The reason of this
mistake lies in the nature of the process, which is one from error to truth.
For while error remains in our conclusions, it must naturally affect our
comprehension of the logical relations by which those conclusions are
connected, and induce us to suppose them other than they are. In particular,
the mistake may be traced to the circumstance that the dialectic starts with
the knowledge of the part, and from this works up to the knowledge of the
whole. This method of procedure is always inappropriate in anything of the
nature of an organism. Now the relation of the moments of the Absolute Idea
to the whole of which they are parts is still more close and intimate than is
the relation of the parts of a living organism to the organism itself. And
here, therefore, even more than with organisms, will it be inadequate and
deceptive to endeavour to comprehend the whole from the standpoint of the
part. And this is what the dialectic, as it progresses, must necessarily do.
Consequently, not only are the lower categories of the dialectic inadequate
when taken as ultimate, but their relation to each other is not the relation
which they have in the Absolute Idea, and consequently in all existence. These
relations, in the dialectic, represent more or less the error through which
the human mind is gradually attaining to the truth. They do not adequately
represent the relations existing in the truth itself. To this extent, then, the
dialectic is subjective.
123. And the dialectic is also to be called subjective because it not only
fails to show clearly the true nature of thought, but, as we noticed above,
does not fully express its own meaning--the meaning of the process forwards.
For the real meaning of the advance, if it is to have any objective reality at
all--if it is to be a necessary consequence of all attempt at thorough and
consistent thinking, must be the result of the nature of thought as it exists.
Our several judgments on the nature of thought have not in themselves any
power of leading us on from one of them to another. It is the relation of
these judgments to the concrete whole of thought, incarnate in our minds and
in all our experience, which creates the dialectic movement. Since this is so,
it would seem that the real heart and kernel of the process is the movement
of abstractions to rejoin the whole from which they have been separated, and
that the essential part of this movement is that by which we are carried from
the more abstract to the more concrete. This will be determined by the
relations in which the finite categories stand to the concrete idea, when they
are viewed as abstractions from it and aspects of it--the only sense in which
they have any truth. But the true relation of the abstractions to the concrete
idea is, as we have already seen, that to which the dialectic method gradually
approximates, but which it never reaches, and not that with which it starts,
and which it gradually, but never entirely, discards. And so the dialectic
advance has, mixed up with it, elements which do not really belong to the
advance, nor to the essence of pure thought, but are merely due to our
original ignorance about the latter, of which we only gradually get rid. For
all that part of the actual advance in the dialectic, which is different from
the advance according to the type characteristic of the Notion, has no share
in the real meaning and value of the process, since it does not contribute to
what alone makes that meaning and value, namely the restoration of the full
and complete idea. What this element is, we can learn by comparing the
movement of the dialectic which is typical of Being, with that which is
typical of the Notion. It is the opposition and contradiction, the immediacy
of the finite categories, and the way in which they negate their antitheses,
and resist, until forced into submission, the transition to their syntheses. It
is, so to speak, the transverse motion as opposed to the direct motion
forward. The dialectic always moves onwards at an angle to the straight line
which denotes advance in truth and concreteness. Starting unduly on one side
of the truth, it oscillates to the other, and then corrects itself. Once more
it finds that even in its corrected statement it is still one-sided, and again
swings to the opposite extreme. It is in this indirect way alone that it
advances. And the essence of the process is the direct part alone of the
advance. The whole point of the dialectic is that it gradually attains to the
Absolute Idea. In so far then as the process is not direct advance to the
absolute, it does not express the essence of the process only, but also the
inevitable inadequacies of the human mind when considering a subject-matter
which can only be fully understood when the consideration has been completed.
And, as was remarked above, it also fails to express its own meaning in
another way. For the imperfect type of transition, which is never fully
eliminated, represents the various categories as possessing some degree of
independence and self-subsistence. If they really possessed this, they could
not be completely absorbed in the syntheses, and the dialectic could not be
successful. The fact that it is successful proves that it has not given a
completely correct account of itself, and, for this reason also, it deserves to
be called subjective, since it does not fully express the objective reality of
thought.
124. Having decided that the dialectic is to this extent subjective, we have
to consider how far this will reduce its cardinal significance in philosophy,
or its practical utility. I do not see that it need do either. For all that
results from this new position is that the dialectic is a process through
error to truth. Now we knew this before. For on any theory of the dialectic it
remains true that it sets out with inadequate ideas of the universe and finally
reaches adequate ideas. We now go further and say that the relation of these
inadequate ideas to one another does not completely correspond to anything in
the nature of reality. But the general result is the same--that we gain the
truth by the dialectic, but that the steps by which we reach it contain
imperfections. We shall see that our new view does not destroy the value of
the dialectic, if we consider in more detail in what that value consists.
The importance of the dialectic is threefold. The first branch of it depends
chiefly on the end being reached, and the other two chiefly on the means by
which it is reached. The first of these lies in the conclusion that if we can
predicate any category whatever of a thing, we are thereby entitled to
predicate the Absolute Idea of it. Now we can predicate some category of
anything whatever, and the Absolute Idea is simply the description in abstract
terms of the human spirit, or, in other words, the human spirit is the
incarnation of the Absolute Idea. From this it follows that the mind could, if
it only saw clearly enough, see a nature like its own in everything. The
importance of this conclusion is obvious. It gives the assurance of that
harmony between ourselves and the world for which philosophy always seeks,
and by which alone science and religion can be ultimately justified.
Hegel was entitled, on his own premises, to reach this conclusion by means
of the dialectic. And the different view of the relation of the dialectic to
reality, which I have ventured to put forward, does not at all affect the
validity of the dialectic for this purpose. For the progress of the dialectic
remains as necessary as before. The progress is indirect, and we have come to
the conclusion that the indirectness of the advance is not in any way due to
the essential nature of pure thought, but entirely to our own imperfect
understanding of that nature. But the whole process is still necessary, and the
direct advance is still essential. And all that we want to know is that the
direct advance is necessary. We are only interested, for this particular
purpose, in proving that from any possible stand-point we are bound in
logical consistency to advance to the Absolute Idea. In this connection it is
not of the least importance what is the nature of the road we travel, provided
that we must travel it, nor whether the process expresses truth fully,
provided that the final conclusion does so. Now the theory propounded above
as to the dialectic process leaves the objectivity and adequacy of the result
of the dialectic unimpaired. And therefore for this function the system is as
well adapted as it ever was.
125. The second ground of the importance of the Hegelian logic consists in
the information which it is able to give us about the world as it is here and
now for us, who have not yet been able so clearly to interpret all phenomena
as only to find our own most fundamental nature manifesting itself in them.
As we see that certain categories are superior in concreteness and truth to
others, since they come later in the chain and have transcended the meaning
of their predecessors, we are able to say that certain methods of regarding
the universe are more correct and significant than others. We are able to see
that the idea of organism, for example, is a more fundamental explanation
than the idea of causality, and one which we should prefer whenever we can
apply it to the matter in hand.
Here also the value of the dialectic remains unimpaired. For whether it
does or does not express the true nature of thought with complete
correctness; it certainly, according to this theory, does show the necessary
and inevitable connection of our finite judgments with one another. The
utility which we are now considering lies in the guidance which the dialectic
can give us to the relative validity and usefulness of these finite judgments.
For it is only necessary to know their relations to one another, and to know
that as the series goes further, it goes nearer to the truth. Both these things
can be learnt from the dialectic. That it does not tell us the exact relations
which subsist in reality is unimportant. For we are not here judging reality,
but the judgments of reason about reality.
126. The third function of the dialectic process is certainly destroyed by
the view of it which I have explained above. The dialectic showed, for Hegel,
the relation of the categories to one another, as moments in the Absolute
Idea, and in reality. We are now forced to consider those moments as related
in a way which is inadequately expressed by the relation of the categories to
one another. We are not however deprived of anything essential to the
completeness of the system by this. In the first place, we are still able to
understand completely and adequately what the Absolute Idea is. For although
one definition was given of it by which "its true content is only the whole
system of which we have been hitherto studying the development," yet a more
direct and independent one may also be found.<Note: "Der Begriff der Idee, dem
die Idee als solche der Gegenstand, dem das Objekt sie ist."--Enc. Section 236.
The definition quoted in the text is in Section 237, lecture note.> Our
inability to regard the process any longer as an adequate analysis of the
Absolute Idea will not leave us in ignorance of what the Absolute Idea really
is.
And, in the second place, we are not altogether left in the dark even as
regards the analysis of the Absolute Idea. The dialectic, it is true, never
fully reveals the true nature of thought which forms its secret spring, but it
gives us data by which we can discount the necessary error. For the connection
of the categories resembles the true nature of thought (which is expressed in
the typical transition of the Notion), more and more closely as it goes on,
and at the end of the Logic it differs from it only infinitesimally. By
observing the type to which the dialectic method approximates throughout its
course, we are thus enabled to tell what element in it is that which is due to
the essential nature of thought. It is that element which alone is left when,
in the typical movement of the Notion, we see how the dialectic would act if
it could act with full self-consciousness. It is true that in the lower
categories we can never see the transition according to this type, owing to
the necessary confusion of the subject-matter in so low a stage, which hides
the true nature of the process to which the dialectic endeavours to
approximate. But we can regard the movement of all the categories as
compounded, in different proportions according to their positions in the
system, of two forces, the force of opposition and negation, and the force of
advance and completion, and we can say that the latter is due to the real
nature of thought, and the former to our misconceptions about it. In other
words, the element of imperfection in the dialectic is inevitable, but its
amount can be ascertained, and it need not therefore introduce any doubt or
scepticism into the conclusions to which the dialectic may lead us.
127. What then is this real and essential element in the advance of thought
which is revealed, though never completely, in the dialectic? In the first
place, it is an advance which is direct. The element of indirectness which is
introduced by the movement from thesis to antithesis, from opposite to
opposite, diminishes as the dialectic proceeds, and, in the ideal type, wholly
dies away. In that type each category is seen to carry in itself the
implication of the next beyond it, to which thought then proceeds. The lower
is only lower because part of its meaning is still implicit; it is no longer
one-sided, requiring to be corrected by an equal excess on the other side of
the truth. And, therefore, no idea stands in an attitude of opposition to any
other; there is nothing to break down, nothing to fight. All that aspect of
the process belongs to our misapprehension of the relation of the abstract to
the concrete. While looking up from the bottom, we may imagine the truth is
only to be attained by contest, but in looking down from the top--the only
true way of examining a process of this sort--we see that the contest is only
due to our misunderstanding, and that the growth of thought is really direct
and unopposed.
The movement of the dialectic may perhaps be compared to that of a ship
tacking against the wind. If we suppose that the wind blows exactly from the
point which the ship wishes to reach, and that, as the voyage continues, the
sailing powers of the ship improve so that it becomes able to sail closer and
closer to the wind, the analogy will be rather exact. It is impossible for the
ship to reach its destination by a direct course, as the wind is precisely
opposite to the line which that course would take, and in the same way it is
impossible for the dialectic to move forward without the triple relation of
its terms, and without some opposition between thesis and antithesis. But the
only object of the ship is to proceed towards the port, as the only object of
the dialectic process is to attain to the concrete and complete idea, and the
movement of the ship from side to side of the direct line is labour wasted, so
far as the end of the voyage is concerned, though necessarily wasted, since the
forward movement would, under the circumstances, be impossible without the
combination with it of a lateral movement. In the same way, the advance in
the dialectic is merely in the gradually increasing completeness of the ideas.
The opposition of one idea to another, and the consequent negation and
contradiction, do not mark any real step towards attaining the knowledge of
the essential nature of thought, although they are necessary accompaniments
of the process of gaining that knowledge. Again, the change in the ship's
sailing powers which allows it to go nearer to the wind, and so reduces the
distance which it is necessary to travel in order to accomplish the journey,
will correspond to the gradual subordination of the elements of negation and
opposition, which we have seen to take place as we approach the end of the
dialectic.
128. Not the whole, then, of each category represents the objective nature
of the dialectic, but only a certain element in it. And this is the element of
unity and continuity. The element which keeps the categories apart, and gives
them the appearance of distinction and stability, is just the element which
we are now led to believe is due to our incapacity to grasp the nature of
thought until we arrive at the end of the dialectic.
This would seem to render it probable that the dialectic may be looked on
primarily as continuous and not discrete. The categories, if this view is
right, should not be taken as ultimate units, which are combined in groups of
three, and these again in larger groups of three, till at last the whole
dialectic is in this manner built up. On the contrary the whole dialectic
should be looked on as primarily a unity, which can be analysed into three
members, each of which can again be analysed into three members, and so on,
as long as our interest and insight are sufficient to induce us to pursue the
division.
This theory is confirmed by two other characteristics of the dialectic. The
first of these is the great difference in the lengths to which the sub-division
of the categories is carried in different parts of the system. If, for example,
in the Smaller Logic, we take the first division of Essence, which is named
Essence as Ground, we find that its first two sub-divisions are called, respectively,
Primary Characteristics of Reflection, and Existence. In the
latter there is no trace of further sub-division, while the former is divided
again into Identity, Difference, and Ground, and in Difference, once more, we
find distinguished Diversity, Likeness and Unlikeness, and Positive and
Negative. Similar differences are to be found at other points of the system,
and also in the Greater Logic. If the individual categories were ultimate
units, such discrepancies in their size and importance would be strange and
inexplicable. But if we regard the whole of the dialectic as logically prior to
its parts, and the parts as produced by analysis, we have an easy and natural
explanation of the inequality--namely, that it is due to some circumstance
which rendered Hegel, or which perhaps renders all men, more interested or
more acute when dealing with one part of the process than when dealing with
another.
129. There is also a second characteristic of the dialectic which supports
this theory. It is not necessary to descend to the lowest sub-divisions which
Hegel gives, in order to observe the dialectic process. The larger divisions,
also, lead on to one another by the same necessity as the smaller ones do.
Reasons could be given, without going into greater detail, why Quality should
involve Quantity, and both of them Measure; or, again, why Notion must lead us
on to Judgment, and Judgment to Syllogism. An argument which confined itself
to so few steps would be far more obscure, and consequently more dangerous
and doubtful, than the argument which we actually have in the Logic. But still
such a chain of demonstrations could be formed, and in many places Hegel
gives us part of it.
Now this is incompatible with the view of the dialectic as ultimately
discrete. For then every larger division would be nothing but an aggregate of
smaller ones. No such division could then be used as a transition from the
one below it to the one above it, without descending into the lowest sub-
divisions. Being an aggregate of separate units, it could not be treated as a
coherent whole until all its separate parts had been demonstrated to be
linked together. And the fact that the dialectic process can go from one to
another of the larger divisions, ignoring their sub-divisions, will confirm us
in supposing that the dialectic is not a chain of links, but rather a
continuous flow of thought, which can be analysed into divisions and sub-
divisions.
130. The belief that the dialectic is continuous may have an important
influence on our position if we are led, on closer examination, to the
conclusion that any of Hegel's transitions are erroneous and cannot be
justified. On the hypothesis that the steps of the dialectic are discrete, one
such error would destroy the validity of the whole process, beyond the point
where it occurs, as completely as the two ends of a chain would be separated
by the breaking of a single link, even if all the rest held fast. Our only
reason for not considering the whole value of the process, beyond the faulty
link, as absolutely destroyed, would rest on a rough argument from analogy. It
might be said that, if there was a valid dialectic process up to a certain
point, and again from that point onwards, it was not probable that there
would, at that one point, be an absolute gulf, and we might therefore hope
that a fresh transition might be discovered at this point, instead of the one
which we had been compelled to reject. But such an analogy would not be very
strong.
On the other hand, the theory of the continuity of the dialectic will make
such a discovery much less serious. For if the larger division, in a sub-
division of which the fault occurs, forms itself a valid transition from the
division before it to the one which follows it, we shall be sure that to do
this it must be a coherent whole, and capable, therefore, of being analysed
into a coherent chain of sub-divisions. And therefore, though we cannot be
satisfied with the dialectic until we have replaced the defective member with
one that will stand criticism, we shall have good grounds for supposing that
such a change can be effected.
131. The gradual change in the method of the dialectic can be well
exemplified by examining the supreme and all-including triad, of which all
the others are moments. This triad is given by Hegel as Logic, Nature, and
Spirit.
If we enquire as to the form which the dialectic process is likely to
assume here, we find ourselves in a difficulty. For the form of transition in
any particular triad was determined by its place in the series. If it was
among the earlier categories, it approximated to the character given as
typical of Being; if it did not come till near the end, it showed more or less
resemblance to the type of the Notion. And we were able to see that this was
natural, because the later method, being more direct, and less encumbered
with irrelevant material, was only to be attained when the work previously
done had given us sufficient insight into the real nature of the subject-
matter. This principle, however, will not help us here. For the transition
which we are here considering is both the first and the last of its series, and
it is impossible, therefore, to determine its characteristic features by its
place in the order. The less direct method is necessary when we are dealing
with the abstract and imperfect categories with which our investigations must
begin, the more direct method comes with the more adequate categories. But
this triad covers the whole range, from the barest category of the Logic--that
of pure Being--to the culmination of human thought in Absolute Spirit.
Since it covers the whole range, in which all the types of the dialectic
method are displayed, the natural conclusion would seem to be that one of
them is as appropriate to it as another, that whichever form may be used will
be more or less helpful and significant, because the process does cover the
ground in which that form can appropriately be used; while, on the other hand,
every form will be more or less inadequate, because the process covers ground
on which it cannot appropriately be used. If we cast it in the form of the
Notion, we shall ignore the fact that it starts at a point too early for a
method so direct; if, on the other hand, we try the form of the categories of
Being, the process contains material for which such a method is inadequate.
132. And if we look at the facts we shall find that they confirm this view,
and that it is possible to state the relation of Logic, Nature, and Spirit to
one another, in two different ways. Hegel himself states it in the manner
characteristic of the Notion. It is not so much positive, negative, and
synthesis, as universal, particular, and individual that he points out. In the
Logic thought is to be found in pure abstraction from all particulars, (we
cannot, of course, think it as abstracted from particulars, but in the Logic we
attend only to the thought, and ignore the data it connects). In Nature we find
thought again, for Nature is part of experience, and more or less rational, and
this implies that it has thought in it. In Nature, however, thought is rather
buried under the mass of data which appear contingent and empirical; we see
the reason is there, but we do not see that everything is completely rational.
It is described by Hegel as the idea in a state of alienation from itself.
Nature is thus far from being the mere contrary and correlative of thought. It
is thought and something more, thought incarnate in the particulars of sense.
At the same time, while the transition indicates an advance, it does not
indicate a pure advance. For the thought is represented as more or less
overpowered by the new element which has been added, and not altogether
reconciled to and interpenetrating it. In going forward it has also gone to
one side, and this requires, therefore, the correction which is given to it in
the synthesis, when thought, in Spirit, completely masters the mass of
particulars which for a time had seemed to master it, and when we perceive
that the truth of the universe lies in the existence of thought as fact, the
incarnation of the Absolute Idea--in short, in Spirit.
Here we meet all the characteristics of the Notion-type. The second term,
to which we advance from the first, is to some extent its opposite, since the
particulars of sense, entirely wanting in the first, are in undue prominence in
the second. But it is to a much greater extent the completion of the first,
since the idea, which was taken in the Logic in unreal abstraction, is now
taken as embodied in facts, which is the way it really exists. The only defect
is that the embodiment is not yet quite complete and evident. And the
synthesis which removes this defect does not, as in earlier types of the
dialectic, stand impartially between thesis and antithesis, each as defective
as the other, but only completes the process already begun in the antithesis.
It is not necessary to compare the two lower terms, Logic and Nature, to be
able to proceed to Spirit. The consideration of Nature alone would be
sufficient to show that it postulated the existence of Spirit. For we have
already in Nature both the sides required for the synthesis, though their
connection is so far imperfect, and there is consequently no need to refer
back to the thesis, whose meaning has been incorporated and preserved in the
antithesis. The existence of the two sides, not completely reconciled, in the
antithesis, in itself postulates a synthesis, in which the reconciliation shall
be completed.
133. But it would also be possible to state the transition in the form
which is used in the Logic for the lower part of the dialectic. In this case we
should proceed from pure thought to its simple contrary, and from the two
together to a synthesis. This simple contrary will be the element which,
together with thought, forms the basis for the synthesis which is given in
Spirit. And as Nature, as we have seen, contains the same elements as Spirit,
though less perfectly developed, we shall find this contrary of thought to be
the element in experience, whether of Nature or Spirit, which cannot be
reduced to thought. Now of this element we know that it is immediate and that
it is particular--not in the sense in which Nature is particular, in the sense
of incompletely developed individuality, but of abstract particularity. It is
possible to conceive that in the long run all other characteristics of
experience except these might be reduced to a consequence of thought. But
however far the process of rationalisation might be carried, and however fully
we might be able to answer the question of why things are as they are and not
otherwise, it is impossible to get rid of a datum which is immediate and
therefore unaccounted for. For thought is only mediation, and therefore, taken
apart from immediacy, is a mere abstraction. If nothing existed but thought
itself, still the fact of its existence must be in the long run immediately
given, and something for which thought itself could not account. This
immediacy is the mark of the element which is essential to experience and
irreducible to thought.
If then we wished to display the process from Logic to Spirit according to
the Being-type of transition we should, starting from pure thought as our
thesis, put as its antithesis the element of immediacy and "givenness" in
experience. This element can never be properly or adequately described, since
all description consists in predicating categories of the subject, and is
therefore mediation; but by abstracting the element of mediation in
experience, as in Logic we abstract the element of immediacy, we can form
some idea of what it is like. Here we should have thought and immediacy as
exactly opposite and counterbalancing elements. They are each essential to
the truth, but present themselves as opposed to one another. Neither of them
has the other as a part of itself, though they can be seen to be closely and
intimately connected. But each of them negates the other as much as it
implies it, and the relation, without the synthesis, is one of opposition and
contradiction. We cannot see, as we can when a transition assumes the Notion-
form, that the whole meaning of the one category lies in its transition to
the other. The synthesis of our triad would be the notion of experience or
reality, in which we have the given immediate mediated. This would contain
both Nature and Spirit, the former as the more imperfect stage, the latter as
the more perfect, culminating in the completely satisfactory conception of
Absolute Spirit. Nature stands in this case in the same relation to Absolute
Spirit as do the lower forms of Spirit,--as less perfectly developed forms of
the concrete reality.
This triad could be proved as cogently as the other. It could be shown, in
the first place, that mere mediation is unmeaning, except in relation to the
merely immediate, since, without something to mediate, it could not act. In
the same way it could be shown that the merely given, without any action of
thought on it, could not exist, since any attempt to describe it, or even to
assert its existence, involves the use of some category, and therefore of
thought. And these two extremes, each of which negates the other, and at the
same time demands it, are reconciled in the synthesis of actual experience,
whether Nature or Spirit, in which the immediate is mediated, and both
extremes in this way gain for the first time reality and consistency.
134. The possibility of this alternative arrangement affords, as I
mentioned above, an additional argument in favour of the view that the change
of method is essential to the dialectic, and that it is due to the
progressively increasing insight into the subject which we gain as we pass to
the higher categories and approximate to the completely adequate result. For,
in this instance, when the whole ground from beginning to end of the dialectic
process is covered in a single triad we find that either method may be used,
--a fact which suggests of itself that the two methods are appropriate to the
two ends of the series, which are here, and here only, united by a single step.
Independently of this, however, it is also worth while to consider the
possibility of the double transition attentively, because it may help us to
explain the origin of some of the misapprehensions of Hegel's meaning which
are by no means uncommon.
135. We saw above that the dialectic represented the real nature of thought
more closely in the later categories, when it appeared comparatively direct
and spontaneous, than in the earlier stages, when it was still encumbered with
negations and contradictions. It would appear probable, therefore, beforehand,
that of the two possible methods of treating this particular triad, the one
which Hegel has in fact adopted would be the more expressive and significant.
On examination we shall find that this is actually the case. For there is no
real separation between thought and immediacy; neither can exist without the
other. Now, in the method adopted by Hegel, the element of immediacy comes
in first in Nature, and comes in, not as an element opposed to, though
necessarily connected with, pure thought, but as already bound up with it in a
unity. This expresses the truth better than a method which starts by
considering the two aspects as two self-centred and independent realities,
which have to be connected by reasoning external to themselves. For by this
second method, even when the two terms are finally reconciled in a synthesis,
it is done, so to speak, against their will, since their claims to independence
are only overcome by the reductio ad absurdum to which they are brought, when
they are seen, as independent, to be at once mutually contradictory and
mutually implied in each other. In this method the transitory nature of the
incomplete categories and the way in which their movement forward depends on
their own essential nature, are not sufficiently emphasised.
And we shall find that the subject-matter of the transition is too advanced
to bear stating according to the Being-type without showing that that type is
not fully appropriate to it. Logic and Immediacy are indeed as much on a
level as Being and Not-Being. There is no trace whatever in the former case,
any more than in the latter, of a rudimentary synthesis in the antithesis. But
the other characteristic of the lower type--that the thesis and the antithesis
should claim to be mutually exclusive and independent--cannot be fully
realised. Being and Nothing, although they may be shown by reasoning to be
mutually implicated, are at any rate primâ facie distinct and independent. But
mediation and immediacy, although opposed, are nevertheless connected, even
primâ facie. It is impossible even to define the two terms without suggesting
that each of them is, by itself, unstable, and that their only real existence
is as aspects of the concrete whole in which they are united. The method is
thus not sufficiently advanced for the matter it deals with.
136. It is, however, as I endeavoured to show above, probable à priori that
neither method would completely suit this particular case. And not only the
method which we have just discussed, but the one which Hegel preferred to it,
will be found to some extent inadequate to its task here. Hegel's is, no doubt,
the more correct and convenient of the two; yet its use alone, without the
knowledge that it does not in this case exclude the concurrent use of the
other as equally legitimate, may lead to grave miscomprehensions of the
system.
For the use of that method which Hegel does not adopt--the one in which
the terms are Logic, Immediacy, and Nature and Spirit taken together--has at
any rate this advantage, that it brings out the fact that Immediacy is as
important and ultimate a factor in reality as Logic is, and one which cannot
be reduced to Logic. The two terms are exactly on a level. We begin with the
Logic and go from that to Immediacy, because it is to the completed idea of
the Logic that we come if we start from the idea of pure Being, and we
naturally start from the idea of pure Being, because it alone, of all our ideas,
is the one whose denial carries with it, at once and clearly, self-
contradiction. But the transition from Immediacy to Logic is exactly the
same as that from Logic to Immediacy. And as the two terms are correlative
in this way, it would be comparatively easy to see, by observing them, that
neither of them derived its validity from the other, but both from the
synthesis.
137. This is not so clear when the argument takes the other form. The
element of Immediacy here never appears as a separate and independent term
at all. It appears in Nature for the first time, and here it is already in
combination with thought. And Nature and Logic are not correlative terms,
from either of which we can proceed to the other. The transition runs from
Logic to Nature--from thought by itself, to thought in union with immediacy.
It is not unnatural, therefore, to suppose that immediacy is dependent on pure
thought, and can be deduced from it, while the reverse process is not
possible. The pure reason is supposed to make for itself the material in
which it is embodied. "The logical bias of the Hegelian philosophy," says
Professor Seth, "tends . . . to reduce things to mere types or `concretions' of
abstract formulæ."<Note: Hegelianism and Personality, p. 126.> It might, I
think, be shown that other considerations conclusively prove this view to be
incorrect. In the first place, throughout the Logic there are continual
references which show that pure thought requires some material, other than
itself, in which to work. And, secondly, the spring of all movement in the
dialectic comes from the synthesis towards which the process is working, and
not from the thesis from which the start is made. Consequently, progress
from Logic to Nature could, in any case, prove, not that the additional
element in nature was derived from thought, but that it co-existed with
thought in the synthesis which is their goal. But although the mistake might
have been avoided, even under the actual circumstances, it could scarcely have
been made if the possibility of the alternative method of deduction had been
recognised. Immediacy would, in that case, have been treated as a separate
element in the process, and as one which was correlative with pure thought, so
that it could scarcely have been supposed to have been dependent on it.
138. The more developed method, again, tends rather to obscure the full
meaning and importance of the synthesis, unless we realise that, in this
method, part of the work of the synthesis is already done in the second term.
This is of great importance, because we have seen that it is in their synthesis
alone that the terms gain full reality and validity, which they did not
possess when considered in abstraction. In the earlier method we see clearly
that pure thought is one of these abstractions, as mere immediacy is the
other. It is, therefore, clear that each of these terms, taken by itself, is a
mere aspect, and could not possibly, out of its own nature, produce the other
aspect, and the reality from which they both come. From this standpoint it
would be impossible to suppose that out of pure thought were produced Nature
and Spirit.
Now, in the type characteristic of the Notion, the same element appears
both in thesis and antithesis, although in the latter it is in combination
with a fresh element. There is, therefore, a possibility of misunderstanding
the process. For an element which was both in thesis and antithesis might
appear not to be merely a one-sided abstraction, but to have the concreteness
which is to be found in the synthesis, since it appears in both the extremes
into which the synthesis may be separated. When, for example, we have Logic,
Nature, and Spirit, we might be tempted to argue that pure thought could not
be only one side of the truth, since it was found in each of the lower terms--
by itself in Logic and combined with immediacy in Nature--and hence to
attribute to it a greater self-sufficiency and importance than it really
possesses.
This mistake will disappear when we realise that the only reason that pure
thought appears again in the second term of the triad is that the synthesis,
in transitions of this type, has already begun in the second term. It is only
in the synthesis that thought appears in union with its opposite, and, apart
from the synthesis, it is as incomplete and unsubstantial as immediacy is.
But the change in the type of the process is not sufficiently emphasised in
Hegel, and there is a tendency on the part of observers to take the type
presented by the earliest categories as that which prevails all through the
dialectic. And as, in the earlier type, one of the extremes could not have been
found both in the first and second terms of a triad, it is supposed that pure
thought cannot be such an extreme, cannot stand in the same relation to
Spirit, as Being does to Becoming, and is rather to be looked on as the cause
of what follows it, than as an abstraction from it.
139. I have endeavoured to show that the view of the dialectic given in this
chapter, while we cannot suppose it to have been held by Hegel, is
nevertheless not unconnected with his system. The germs of it are to be found
in his exposition of the changes of method in the three great divisions of the
process, and the observation of the details of the system confirm this. But it
was not sufficiently emphasised, nor did Hegel draw from it the consequences,
particularly as regards the subjective element in the dialectic, which I have
tried to show are logically involved in it.
But there is, nevertheless, justification for our regarding this theory as a
development and not a contradiction of the Hegelian system, since it is only
by the aid of some such theory that we can regard that system as valid at all.
And we have seen that such a modification will not affect either of the great
objects which Absolute Idealism claims to have accomplished--the
demonstration, namely, that the real is rational and the rational is real, and
the classification, according to their necessary relations and intrinsic value,
of the various categories which we use in ordinary and finite thought.