STUDIES IN THE HEGELIAN DIALECTIC - Table of Contents
CHAPTER VI: THE FINAL RESULT OF THE DIALECTIC
179. FROM a practical point of view the chief interest in
Hegel's system must centre in the last stages of the Philosophy
of Spirit. Even if we hold that the pure thought of the Logic is
the logical prius of the whole dialectic, and that all Nature
and Spirit stand in a purely dependent relation, still our most
vital interest must be in that part of the system which touches
and interprets the concrete life of Spirit which we ourselves
share. And this interest will be yet stronger in those who hold
the view, which I have endeavoured to expound in previous
chapters, that the logical prius of the system is not pure
thought but Spirit. For then, in the highest forms of Spirit we
shall see reality in its truest and deepest meaning, from which
all other aspects of reality--whether in Logic, in Nature, or in
the lower forms of Spirit--are but abstractions, and to which
they must return as the only escape from the contradiction and
inadequacy which is manifested in them. Upon this view the
highest form, in which Spirit manifests itself, will be the
ultimate meaning of all things.
Many students must have experienced some disappointment
when, turning to the end of the Philosophy of Spirit, they found
that its final stage was simply Philosophy. It is true that any
thinker, who has the least sympathy with Hegel, must assign to
philosophy a sufficiently important place in the nature of
things. Hegel taught that the secrets of the universe opened
themselves to us, but only on condition of deep and systematic
thought, and the importance of philosophy was undiminished
either by scepticism or by appeals to the healthy instincts of
the plain man. But there is some difference between taking
philosophy as the supreme and completely adequate means, and
admitting it to be the supreme end. There is some difference
between holding that philosophy is the knowledge of the highest
form of reality, and holding that it is itself the highest form
of reality. It seems to me that Hegel has been untrue to the tendencies
of his own system in seeking the ultimate reality of Spirit in
philosophy alone, and that, on his own premises, he ought to
have looked for a more comprehensive explanation. What that
should have been, I shall not attempt to determine. I only wish
to show that it should have been something more than
philosophy.
180. Hegel does not give any very detailed account of
philosophy, considered as the highest expression of reality.
Most of the space devoted, in the Philosophy of Spirit, to
Philosophy is occupied in defending it against the charge of
pantheism--in Hegel's use of the word. The following are the
passages which appear most significant for our purpose.
571. "These three syllogisms" (i.e. of religion) "constituting
the one syllogism of the absolute self-mediation of spirit, are
the revelation of that spirit whose life is set out as a cycle of
concrete shapes in pictorial thought. From this its separation
into parts, with a temporal and external sequence, the
unfolding of the mediation contracts itself in the result--
where the spirit closes in unity with itself,--not merely to the
simplicity of faith and devotional feeling, but even to thought.
In the immanent simplicity of thought the unfolding still has
its expansion, yet is all the while known as an indivisible
coherence of the universal, simple, and eternal spirit in itself.
In this form of truth, truth is the object of philosophy." . . .
572. Philosophy "is the unity of Art and Religion. Whereas
the vision-method of Art, external in point of form, is but
subjective production and shivers the substantial content into
many separate shapes, and whereas Religion, with its separation
into parts, opens it out in mental picture, and mediates what
is thus opened out; Philosophy not merely keeps them together
to make a total, but even unifies them into the simple
spiritual vision, and then in that raises them to self-conscious
thought. Such consciousness is thus the intelligible unity
(cognised by thought) of art and religion, in which the diverse
elements in the content are cognised as necessary, and this
necessary as free."
573. "Philosophy thus characterises itself as a cognition of
the necessity in the content of the absolute picture-idea, as
also of the necessity in the two forms--on the one hand,
immediate vision and its poetry, and the objective and external
revelation presupposed by representation,--on the other hand,
first the subjective retreat inwards, then the subjective
movement of faith and its final identification with the
presupposed object. This cognition is thus the recognition of
this content and its form; it is the liberation from the one-
sidedness of the forms, elevation of them into the absolute
form, which determines itself to content, remains identical
with it, and is in that the cognition of that essential and
actual necessity. This movement, which philosophy is, finds
itself already accomplished, when at the close it seizes its own
notion,--i.e. only looks back on its knowledge." . . .
574. "This notion of philosophy is the self-thinking Idea, the
truth aware of itself (Section 236),--the logical system, but
with the signification that it is universality approved and
certified in concrete content as in its actuality. In this way
the science has gone back to its beginning: its result is the
logical system but as a spiritual principle: out of the
presupposing judgment, in which the notion was only implicit,
and the beginning an immediate,--and thus out of the
appearance which it had there--it has risen into its pure
principle, and thus also into its proper medium."
181. The word Philosophy, in its ordinary signification,
denotes a purely intellectual activity. No doubt, whenever we
philosophise we are acting, and we are also feeling either
pleasure or pain. But philosophy itself is knowledge, it is
neither action nor feeling. And there seems nothing in Hegel's
account of it to induce us to change the meaning of the word in
this respect. It is true that he speaks of philosophy as the
union of art and religion. Both art and religion are more than
mere knowledge, since they both present aspects of volition and
of feeling. But, if we look back on his treatment of art and
religion as separate stages, we shall see that he confines
himself almost entirely to the truth which lies in them, ignoring the
other elements. And when, in Section 572, he
points out how philosophy is the unity of these two, it is
merely as expressing the truth more completely than they do,
that he gives it this position. There is nothing said of a
higher or deeper ideal of good, nothing of any increased
harmony between our ideal and our surroundings, nothing of any
greater or deeper pleasure. Philosophy is "the intelligible
unity (cognised by thought) of art and religion, in which the
diverse elements in the content are cognised as necessary, and
this necessary as free."
We are thus, it would seem, bound down to the view that Hegel
considered the supreme nature of Spirit to be expressed as
knowledge, and as knowledge only. There are two senses in which
we might take this exaltation of philosophy. We might suppose
it to apply to philosophy as it exists at present, not covering
the whole field of human knowledge, but standing side by side
with the sciences and with the mass of unsystematised
knowledge, claiming indeed a supremacy over all other sources
of knowledge, but by no means able to dispense with their
assistance. Or we might suppose that this high position was
reserved for philosophy, when, as might conceivably happen, it
shall have absorbed all knowledge into itself, so that every
fact shall be seen as completely conditioned, and as united to
all the others by the nature of the Absolute Idea. Which of
these meanings Hegel intended to adopt does not seem to be
very clear, but neither appears, on closer examination, to be
acceptable as a complete and satisfactory account of the
deepest nature of Spirit.
182. Let us consider first philosophy as we have it at
present. In this form it can scarcely claim to be worthy of
this supreme place. It may, no doubt, reasonably consider
itself as the highest activity of Spirit--at any rate in the
department of cognition. But in order to stand at the end of
the development of Spirit it must be more than this. It must
not only be the highest activity of Spirit, but one in which all
the others are swallowed up and transcended. It must have
overcome and removed all the contradictions, all the
inadequacies, which belong to the lower forms in which Spirit
manifests itself.
Now all the knowledge which philosophy gives us is, from one
point of view, abstract, and so imperfect. It teaches us what
the fundamental nature of reality is, and what, therefore,
everything must be. But it does not pretend to show us how
everything partakes of that nature--to trace out in every detail
of the universe that rationality which, on general grounds, it
asserts to be in it. It could not, indeed, do this, for, in order
to trace the Notion in every detail, it would have first to
discover what every detail was. And this it cannot do. For what
the facts are in which the Notion manifests itself, we must
learn not from philosophy but from experience.
183. But, it may be said, Hegel did not accept this view. He
held that it was possible, from the nature of the pure Idea, to
deduce the nature of the facts in which it manifested itself,
and on this theory philosophy would cover the whole field of
knowledge, and our criticism would fall to the ground.
My object here, however, is to show that Hegel's view of the
ultimate nature of Spirit is inconsistent with the general
principles established in his Logic, and not that it is
inconsistent with the rest of his attempts to apply the Logic.
Even, therefore, if Hegel had attempted to deduce particular
facts from the Logic, it would be sufficient for my present
purpose to point out, as I have endeavoured to do above, that,
on his own premises, he had no right to make the attempt. But,
as I have also tried to show, he never does attempt to deduce
facts from the Logic, but only to interpret and explain them by
it.<Note: Chap. II. Sections 55-57.>
Moreover, whether we are to consider the applications of the
Logic as deductions or as explanations, it is perfectly clear
that they are limited in their scope. Hegel says, more than
once, that certain details are too insignificant and contingent
to permit us to trace their speculative meaning. Even in the
cases which he works out most fully, there is always a residuum
left unexplained. He may have pushed his desire to find
speculative meanings in biological details beyond the limits of
prudence, but he never attempted to find any significance in the
precise number of zoological species. He may have held that the
perfection of the Prussian constitution was philosophically
demonstrable, but he made no endeavour to explain, from the
nature of the Idea, the exact number of civil servants in the
employment of the Crown. And yet these are facts, which can be
learned by experience, which are links in chains of causes and
effects, and which, like everything else in the universe, the
dialectic declares on general grounds must rest on something,
which is rational because it is real.
Philosophy then must be contented with an abstract
demonstration that things must be rational, without being able
in all cases to show how they are rational. Part of our
knowledge will thus remain on an empirical basis, and the
sphere of philosophy will be doubly limited. Not only will it
be limited to knowledge, but to certain departments of
knowledge. An activity which leaves so much of the workings of
Spirit untouched cannot be accepted as adequately expressing by
itself the ultimate nature of Spirit. Indeed, taken by itself,
philosophy proclaims its own inadequacy. For it must assert
things to be completely rational, and therefore completely
explicable, which, all the same, it cannot succeed in
completely explaining.
184. It has been asserted that it is natural and right that
Hegel's system should end simply with philosophy, since it is
simply with philosophy that it begins. Thus Erdmann says: "It
is with intelligible sarcasm that Hegel was accustomed to
mention those who, when the exposition had reached this point,
supposed that now for the first time (as if in a philosophy of
philosophy) that which was peculiar and distinctive had been
reached. Rather has everything already been treated, and it only
remains to complete by a survey of it the circle of the system,
so that its presence becomes an Encyclopaedia. If, that is to
say, religion fallen into discord with thought (as, for that
matter, the Phenomenology of Spirit had already shown) leads
to speculative, free thought, while logic had begun with the
determination to realise such thought, then the end of the
Philosophy of Religion coincides with the beginning of the
Logic, and the requirement laid down by Fichte that the system
be a circle is fulfilled."<Note: History of Philosophy, Section 329, 9.>
This, however, scarcely disposes of the difficulty. The object
of philosophy is not simply to account for the existence of
philosophy. It aims at discovering the ultimate nature of all
reality. To start with philosophising, and to end by explaining
why we must philosophise, is indeed a circle, but a very limited
one, which leaves out of account most of our knowledge and
most of our action, unless we are prepared to prove
independently that all reality is synthesised in the conscious
spirit, and all the reality of the conscious spirit is
synthesised in philosophising. Without this proof philosophy
would leave vast provinces of experience completely outside its
influence--a position which may be modest, but is certainly not
Hegelian.
It is true that, on the way to Philosophy as it occurs at the
end of the Philosophy of Spirit, Hegel goes through many other
branches of human activity and experience. But since the
process is a dialectic, the whole meaning of the process must
be taken as summed up in the last term. Either then we must
make philosophy include all knowledge--to say nothing, for the
present, of anything besides knowledge--or else we must admit
at once that Hegel is wrong in making philosophy the highest
point of Spirit, since at that point we have to find something
which adequately expresses all reality, and philosophy, in the
ordinary sense of the word, does not even include all cognition
of reality.
185. Let us take then the second meaning of philosophy--that
in which we conceive it developed till all knowledge forms one
harmonious whole, so that no single fact remains contingent
and irrational.
This ideal may be conceived in two ways. Philosophy would, in
the first place, become equivalent to the whole of knowledge, if
pure thought could ever reach the goal, at which it has been
sometimes asserted that Hegel's dialectic was aiming, and
deduce all reality from its own nature, without the assistance
of any immediately given data. If this could ever happen, then,
no doubt, philosophy and knowledge would be coincident. The
only reality would be pure thought. The nature of that thought
would be given us by the dialectic, and so philosophy would be
able to explain completely the whole of reality.
But, as we have seen above,<Note: Chap. II. Sections 55-57.>
such a goal is impossible and contradictory. For thought is
only a mediating activity, and requires something to mediate.
This need not, indeed, be anything alien to it. The whole
content of the reality, which thought mediates, may itself be
nothing but thought. But whatever the nature of that reality, it
must be given to thought in each case from outside, as a datum.
Supposing nothing but thought existed, still in the fact that it
existed, that it was there, we should have an immediate
certainty, which could no more be deduced from the nature of
thought, than the reality of a hundred thalers could be deduced
from the idea of them.
It is thus impossible that any acquaintance with the nature
of thought could ever dispense us with the necessity of having
some immediate datum, which could not be deduced, but must be
accepted, and we have seen that there are reasons for believing
that Hegel never proposed to philosophy such an impossible and
suicidal end. There is, however, another sense in which it is
possible to suppose that philosophy may become coincident
with the whole of knowledge, and thereby make knowledge one
single, symmetrical, and perfectly rational system. And it may
be said that when philosophy has thus broadened itself to
include all knowledge, it may be taken as expressing adequately
the whole nature of spirit, and therefore, on Hegel's system, of
all reality. Let us examine more closely what would be the
nature of such a perfected knowledge.
186. All knowledge must have immediate data, which are not
deduced but given. But it does not follow that knowledge must
consequently be left imperfect, and with ragged edges. That
which indicates the defect of knowledge is not immediacy, but
contingency, in the Hegelian sense of the word, that is, the
necessity of explanation from outside. Now all data of
knowledge as originally given us, by the outer senses or through
introspection, are not only immediate but contingent. But the
two qualities do not necessarily go together, and we can
conceive a state of things, in which knowledge should rest on
data--or, rather, on a datum--which should be immediate,
without being contingent.
Supposing that the theory of the nature of reality, which
Hegel lays down in his Logic, is true, then, if knowledge were
perfect, the abstract certainty (Gewissheit) of what must be
would be transformed into complete knowledge (Erkennen) of
what is. We should then perceive all reality under the only
form which, according to Hegel, can be really adequate to it--
that is, as a unity of spirits, existing only in their connection
with one another. We should see that the whole nature of each
individual was expressed in these relations with others. And we
should see that that nature, which was what marked him out as
an individual, was not to be conceived as something merely
particular and exclusive, so that reality consisted of a crowd
or aggregate of separate individuals. On the contrary the nature
of each individual is to be taken as determined by his place in
a whole, which we must conceive on the analogy of an organism,
--a unity manifesting itself in multiplicity. The individual has
his entire nature in the manifestation of this whole, as the
whole, in turn, is nothing else but its manifestation in
individuals. Through this unity the parts will mutually
determine one another, so that from any one all the rest could,
with sufficient insight, be deduced, and so that no change could
be made in any without affecting all. This complete
interdependence is only approximately realised in the unity
which is found in a picture or a living being, but in the
Absolute the unity must be conceived as far closer than
aesthetic or organic unity, though we can only imagine it by aid
of the analogies which these afford us. And in this complete
interdependence and mutual determination each individual would
find his fullest self-development. For his relations with
others express his place in the whole, and it is this place in
the whole which expresses his deepest individuality.
If knowledge ever did fill out the sketch that the Hegelian
logic gives, it must be in some such form as this that it would
do so. For it is, I think, clear, from the category of the
Absolute Idea, that reality can only be found in selves, which
have their whole existence in finding themselves in harmony
with other selves. And this plurality of selves, again, must be
conceived, not as a mere aggregate, but as a unity whose
intimacy and strength is only inadequately represented by the
idea of Organism. For, if not, then the relations would be
merely external and secondary, as compared with the reality of
the individuals between whom the relations existed. And this
would be incompatible with Hegel's declaration that the
individuals have their existence for self only in their relation
to others.
187. Of course such an ideal of knowledge is indefinitely
remote as compared with our present condition. It would
require, in the first place, a knowledge of all the facts in the
universe--from which we are now separated by no inconsiderable
interval. And, at the same time, it would require a great
increase in the depth and keenness of view which we can bring
to bear in knowledge, if all that part of reality which we only
perceive at present under the lower categories of Being and
Essence, is to be brought under the Absolute Idea, and, in place
of the inorganic, the merely animal, and the imperfectly
spiritual, which now presents itself to us, we are to see the
universe as a whole of self-conscious selves, in perfect unity
with one another.
But that the ideal should be remote from our present state
need not surprise us. For it is the point at which the world-
process culminates, and whatever view we may hold as to the
ultimate reality of the conception of process, it is clear
enough that, from any point of view which admits of the
conception of process at all, we must have a long way still to
go before we reach a consummation which leaves the universe
perfectly rational and perfectly righteous. It would be more
suspicious if any ideal not greatly removed from our present
state should be held out to us as a complete and adequate
satisfaction. It is enough that this ideal is one which, if
Hegel's logic be true, must be attainable sub specie temporis,
because, sub specie aeternitatis, it is the only reality. And it
is an ideal which is not self-contradictory, for the immediacy
of the data is retained, although their contingency has
vanished. The immediacy is retained, because we should have, as a given
fact, to which reason mounts in the process of discovery, and
on which it bases its demonstrations in the process of
explanation, that there are such and such selves, and that they
are connected in such and such a way. On the other hand, the
contingency has vanished. For while everything is determined,
nothing is determined merely from outside. The universe
presents, indeed, an aspect of multiplicity, but then it is not a
mere multiplicity. The universe is a super-organic unity,<Note:
This expression is, I believe, new. I fear that it is very
barbarous. But there seems a necessity for some such phrase to
denote that supreme unity, which, just because it is perfect
unity, is compatible with, and indeed requires, the complete
differentiation and individuality of its parts. To call such
unity merely organic is dangerous. For in an organism the unity
is not complete, nor the parts fully individual (cp. Hegel's
treatment of the subject under the category of Life).> and
therefore, when one part of it is determined by another, it is
determined by the idea of the whole, which is also in itself, and the
determination is not dependent on something alien, but
on the essential nature of that which is determined. Hence
determination appears as self-development, and necessity, as
Hegel points out at the beginning of the Doctrine of the
Notion, reveals itself as in reality freedom.
188. Neither this, nor any other possible system of
knowledge, could give us any ground of determination for the
universe as a whole, since there is nothing outside it, by which
it could be determined. This, however, would not render our
knowledge defective. If we reached this point the only question
which would remain unanswered would be:--Why is the universe
as a whole what it is, and not something else? And this
question could not be answered. But we must not infer from this
the incomplete rationality of the universe. For the truth is
that the question ought never to have been asked. It is
unmeaning, since it applies a category, which has significance
only inside the universe, to the universe as a whole. Of any
part we are entitled and bound to ask Why, for by the very fact
that it is a part, it cannot be directly self-determined, and
must depend on other things.<Note: The parts of a super-organic
whole are, indeed, self-determined, but not directly. Their self-
determination comes through their determination by the other
parts.> But, when we speak of an all-embracing totality, then,
with the possibility of finding a cause, disappears also the
necessity for finding one. Independent and uncaused existence is
not in itself a contradictory or impossible idea. It is
contradictory when it is applied to anything in the universe,
for whatever is in the universe must be in connection with
other things. But this can of course be no reason for suspecting
a fallacy when we find ourselves obliged to use the idea in
reference to the universe as a whole, which has nothing outside
it with which it could stand in connection.
Indeed the suggestion, that it is possible that the universe
should have been different from what it is, would, in such a
state of knowledge, possess no meaning. For, from the complete
interdependence of all the parts, it would follow that if it was
different at all, it must be different completely. And a
possibility which has no common element with actuality, which
would be the case here, is a mere abstraction which is devoid of
all value.
This, then, is the highest point to which knowledge, as
knowledge, can attain, upon Hegel's principles. Everything is
known, and everything is known to be completely rational. And,
although our minds cannot help throwing a shadow of
contingency and irrationality over the symmetrical structure,
by asking, as it is always possible to ask, what determined the
whole to be what it is, and why it is not otherwise, yet
reflection convinces us that the question is unjustifiable, and
indeed unmeaning, and that the inability to answer it can be no
reason for doubting the completely satisfactory nature of the
result at which we have arrived.
189. But even when knowledge has reached this point, is it an
adequate expression of the complete nature of reality? This
question, I think, must be answered in the negative. We have, it
is true, come to the conclusion,--if we have gone so far with
Hegel--that Spirit is the only and the all-sufficient reality.
But knowledge does not exhaust the nature of Spirit. The
simplest introspection will show us that, besides knowledge, we
have also volition, and the feeling of pleasure and pain. These
are primâ facie different from knowledge, and it does not seem
possible that they should ever be reduced to it. Knowledge,
volition, and feeling remain, in spite of all such attempts,
distinct and independent. They are not, indeed, independent, in
the sense that any of them can exist without the others. Nor is
it impossible that they might be found to be aspects of a unity
which embraces and transcends them all. But they are
independent in so far that neither of the others can be reduced
to, or transcended by, knowledge.
Let us first consider volition. Volition and knowledge have
this common element, that they are activities which strive to
bring about a harmony between the conscious self and its
surroundings. But in the manner in which they do this they are
the direct antitheses of one another. In knowledge the self
endeavours to conform itself to its surroundings. In volition,
on the other hand, it demands that its surroundings shall
conform to itself. Of course the knowing mind is far from being
inactive in knowledge--it is only by means of its own activity
that it arrives at the objective truth which is its aim. Nor is
the self by any means purely active in volition. For it has
sometimes only to recognise and approve a harmony already
existing, and not to produce one by its action. And sometimes
the surroundings react on the self, and develop it or crush it
into acquiescence in facts against which it would previously
have protested.
But it remains true that in knowledge the aim of the self is
to render its own state a correct mirror of the objective
reality, and that, in so far as it fails to do this, it condemns
its own state as false and mistaken. In volition, on the
contrary, its aim is that objective reality shall carry out the
demands made by the inner nature of the self. In so far as
reality fails to do this, the self condemns it as wrong. Now
this is surely a fundamental difference. Starting with the aim,
which is common to both, that a harmony is to be established,
what greater difference can exist between two ways of carrying
out this aim, than that one way demands that the subject shall
conform to the object, while the other way demands that the
object shall conform to the subject?
190. We may put this in another way. The aim of knowledge is
the true. The aim of volition is the good (in the widest sense
of the word, in which it includes all that we desire, since all
that is desired at all, is desired sub specie boni). Now one of
these aims cannot be reduced to the other. There is no direct
transition from truth to goodness, nor from goodness to truth.
We may of course come to the conclusion, which Hegel has
attempted to demonstrate, that the content of the two ideas is
the same, that the deepest truth is the highest good, and the
highest good is the deepest truth, that whatever is real is
righteous, and whatever is righteous is real. But we can only do
this by finding out independently what is true and what is good,
and by proving that they coincide.
If we have come to this conclusion, and established it to our
own satisfaction as a general principle, we are entitled, no
doubt, to apply it in particular cases where the identity is not
evident. To those, for example, who have satisfied themselves
of the existence of a benevolent God, it is perfectly open to
argue that we must be immortal, because the absence of
immortality would make life a ghastly farce, or, by a converse
process, that toothache must be good because God sends it. But
if the harmony of the two sides has not been established by the
demonstration of the existence of a benevolent and omnipotent
power, or of some other ground for the same conclusion, such
an argument depends on an unjustifiable assumption.
There is nothing in the mere fact of a thing's existence to
make it desired or desirable by us. There is nothing in the
mere fact that a thing is desired or desirable by us to make it
exist. Two mental activities for which the test of validity is
respectively existence and desirability must surely, therefore,
be coordinate, without any possibility of reducing the one to a
case or application of the other. If indeed we considered
volition as merely that which leads to action, it might be
considered less fundamental than knowledge, since it would
inevitably disappear in a state of perfect harmony. But
volition must be taken to include all affirmations of an ideal
in relation to existence, including those which lead to no
action because they do not find reality to be discrepant with
them. And in this case we shall have to consider it as
fundamental an activity of Spirit as knowledge is, and one,
therefore, which cannot be ignored in favour of knowledge when
we are investigating the completely adequate form of Spirit.
191. No doubt the fact that knowledge and volition have the
same aim before them--a harmony between the self and its
surroundings--and that they effect it in ways which are directly
contrary to one another, suggests a possible union of the two.
The dialectic method will lead us to enquire whether, besides
being species of a wider genus, they are not also abstractions
from a deeper unity, which unity would reveal itself as the
really adequate form of Spirit. But although this may be a
Hegelian solution, it is not Hegel's. Whatever he may have
hinted in the Logic--a point to which we shall presently return
--in the Philosophy of Spirit he attempts to take knowledge by
itself as the ultimate form of Spirit. And such a result must,
if volition is really coordinate with knowledge, be erroneous.
192. There is yet a third element in the life of Spirit,
besides knowledge and volition. This is feeling proper--pleasure
and pain. And this too must rank as a separate element of
spiritual activity, independent of knowledge. This does not
involve the assertion that we could ever experience a state of
mind that was purely pleasure or pain. So far as our experience
reaches, on the contrary, we never do feel pleasure or pain,
without at the same time recognising the existence of some
fact, and finding ourselves to be or not to be in harmony with
it. Thus feeling is only found in company with knowledge and
volition. But although it is thus inseparable from knowledge, it
is independent of it in the sense that it cannot be reduced to
it. Knowledge is essentially and inevitably a judgment--an
assertion about matter of fact. Now in the feeling of pleasure
and pain there is no judgment and no assertion, but there is
something else to which no judgment can ever be equivalent.
Hegel's views as to feeling proper are rather obscure. He says
much indeed about Gefühl, but this does not mean pleasure and
pain. It appears rather to denote all immediate or intuitive
belief in a fact, as opposed to a reasoned demonstration of it.
The contents of Gefühl and of Philosophy, he says, may be the
same, but they differ in form. It is thus clear that he is
speaking of a form of knowledge, and not only of pleasure and
pain. But whatever he thinks about the latter, it seems certain
that they cannot, any more than volition, find a place in
philosophy. And in that case Hegel's highest form of Spirit is
defective on a second ground.
193. To this line of criticism an objection may possibly be
taken. It is true, it may be said, that philosophy includes
neither volition nor feeling. But it implies them both. You
cannot have knowledge without finding yourself, from the point
of view of volition, in or out of harmony with the objects of
pure knowledge, and without feeling pleasure or pain
accordingly. This is no doubt true. And we may go further, and
say that, on Hegel's principles, we should be entitled to
conclude that perfect knowledge must bring perfect acquiescence
in the universe, and also perfect happiness. For when our
knowledge becomes perfect, we should, as the Logic tells us, find
that in all our relations with that which was outside us,
we had gained the perfect realisation of our own natures.
Determination by another would have become, in the fullest and
deepest sense, determination by self. Since, therefore, in all
our relations with others, the demands of our own nature found
complete fulfilment, we should be in a state of perfect
acquiescence with the nature of all things round us. And from
this perfect harmony, complete happiness must result.
Hegel would, no doubt, have been justified in saying that in
reaching complete knowledge we should, at the same time, have
reached to the completeness of all activities of Spirit. But he
did say more than this. He said that complete knowledge would
be by itself the complete activity of Spirit. He tried, it would
seem, to ignore volition, and to ignore pleasure and pain. And a
view of Spirit which does this will be fatally one-sided.
194. But we must go further. We have seen that knowledge
cannot, by itself, be the full expression of the complete nature
of Spirit. But can it, we must now ask, be, as knowledge, even
part of that full expression? Can it attain its own goal? Or
does it carry about the strongest mark of its own imperfection
by postulating an ideal which it can never itself reach?
195. The ideal of knowledge may be said to be the
combination of complete unity of the subject and object with
complete differentiation between them. In so far as we have
knowledge there must be unity of the subject and object. Of the
elements into which knowledge can be analysed, one class--the
data of sensation--come to us from outside, and consequently
involve the unity of the subject and the object, without which
it is impossible that anything outside us could produce a
sensation inside us. On the other hand the categories are
notions of our own minds which are yet essential to objective
experience. And these, therefore, involve no less the unity of
the subject and the object, since otherwise we should not be
justified in ascribing to them, as we do ascribe, objective
validity.
Differentiation of the subject and object is no less
necessary to knowledge than is their unity. For it is of the
essence of knowledge that it shall refer to something not
itself, something which is independent of the subjective fancies
of the subject, something which exists whether he likes it or
not, which exists not only for him, but for others, something
in fact which is objective. Without this, knowledge changes into
dreams or delusions, and these, however interesting as objects
of knowledge, are totally different from knowledge itself. In so
far as knowledge becomes perfect, it has to apprehend the
object as it really is, and so in its full differentiation from
the subject.
All knowledge, in so far as it is complete, requires unity and
differentiation. Perfect knowledge will require perfect unity
and differentiation. And since the dialectic has taught us that
all knowledge, except that highest and most complete knowledge
which grasps reality under the Absolute Idea, is contradictory
and cannot stand except as a moment in some higher form--we
may conclude that all knowledge implies complete unity and
differentiation. For the lower knowledge implies the higher,
and the complete unity and differentiation are implied by the
higher knowledge. This is confirmed by the final results of the Logic. There we
find that the only ultimately satisfactory category is one in
which the self finds itself in relation with other selves and in
harmony with their nature. To be in harmony with other selves
implies that we are in unity with them, while to recognise
them as selves implies differentiation.
Knowledge requires, then, this combination of antithetical
qualities. Is it possible that this requirement can ever be
realised by knowledge itself?
196. The action of knowledge consists in ascribing predicates
to an object. All our knowledge of the object we owe to the
predicates which we ascribe to it. But our object is not a mere
assemblage of predicates. There is also the unity in which they
cohere, which may be called epistemologically the abstract
object, and logically the abstract subject.
Here,--as in most other places in the universe--we are met
by a paradox. The withdrawal of the abstract object leaves
nothing but a collection of predicates, and a collection of
predicates taken by itself is a mere unreality. Predicates
cannot exist without a central unity in which they can cohere.
But when we enquire what is this central unity which gives
reality to the object, we find that its unreality is as certain
as the unreality of the predicates, and perhaps even more
obvious. For if we attempt to make a single statement about
this abstract object--even to say that it exists--we find
ourselves merely adding to the number of predicates. This
cannot help us to attain our purpose, which was to know what
the substratum is in which all the predicates inhere. We get no
nearer to this by learning that another predicate inheres in it.
Thus the abstract object is an unreality, and yet, if it is
withdrawn, the residuum of the concrete object becomes an
unreality too. Such a relation is not uncommon in metaphysics.
All reality is concrete. All concrete ideas can be split up into
abstract elements. If we split up the concrete idea, which
corresponds to some real thing, into its constituent
abstractions, we shall have a group of ideas which in their
unity correspond to a reality, but when separated are self-
contradictory and unreal. The position of the abstract object
is thus similar to that of another abstraction which has
received more attention in metaphysics--the abstract subject.
Mr Bradley has given this abstract object the name of the
This, in opposition to the What, which consists of the
predicates which we have found to be applicable to the This.
While knowledge remains imperfect, the This has in it the
possibility of an indefinite number of other qualities, besides
the definite number which have been ascertained and embodied
in predicates. When knowledge becomes perfect--as perfect as it
is capable of becoming--this possibility would disappear, as it
seems to me, though Mr Bradley does not mention this point. In
perfect knowledge all qualities of the object would be known,
and the coherence of our knowledge as a systematic whole would
be the warrant for the completeness of the enumeration. But
even here the abstract This would still remain, and prove itself
irreducible to anything else. To attempt to know it is like
attempting to jump on the shadow of one's own head. For all
propositions are the assertion of a partial unity between the
subject and the predicate. The This on the other hand is just
what distinguishes the subject from its predicates.
197. It is the existence of the This which renders it
impossible to regard knowledge as a self-subsistent whole, and
makes it necessary to consider it merely as an approximation
to the complete activity of spirit for which we search. In the
This we have something which is at once within and without
knowledge, which it dares not neglect, and yet cannot deal with.
For when we say that the This cannot be known, we do not
mean, of course, that we cannot know of its existence. We know
of its existence, because we can perceive, by analysis, that it is
an essential element of the concrete object. But the very
definition which this analysis gives us shows that we can know
nothing about it but this--that there is indeed nothing more
about it to know, and that even so much cannot be put into
words without involving a contradiction. Now to know merely
that something exists is to present a problem to knowledge
which it must seek to answer. To know that a thing exists, is to
know it as immediate and contingent. Knowledge demands that
such a thing should be mediated and rationalised. This, as we
have seen, cannot be done here. This impossibility is no
reproach to the rationality of the universe, for reality is no
more mere mediation than it is mere immediacy, and the
immediacy of the This combines with the mediation of the What
to make up the concrete whole of Spirit. But it is a reproach
to the adequacy of knowledge as an activity of Spirit that it
should persist in demanding what cannot and should not be
obtained. Without immediacy, without the central unity of the
object, the mediation and the predicates which make up
knowledge would vanish as unmeaning. Yet knowledge is
compelled by its own nature to try and remove them, and to
feel itself baffled and thwarted when it cannot succeed. Surely
an activity with such a contradiction inherent in it can never
be a complete expression of the Absolute.
198. In the first place the existence of the This is
incompatible with the attainment of the ideal of unity in
knowledge. For here we have an element, whose existence in
reality we are forced to admit, but which is characterised by
the presence of that which is essentially alien to the nature of
the knowing consciousness in its activity. In so far as reality
contains a This, it cannot be brought into complete unison with
the knowing mind, which, as an object, has of course its aspect
of immediacy like any other object, but which, as the knowing
subject, finds all unresolvable immediacy to be fundamentally
opposed to its work of rationalisation. The real cannot be
completely expressed in the mind, and the unity of knowledge is
therefore defective.
And this brings with it a defective differentiation. For while
the This cannot be brought into the unity of knowledge, it is
unquestionably a part of reality. And so the failure of
knowledge to bring it into unity with itself involves that the
part of the object which is brought into unity with the subject
is only an abstraction from the full object. The individuality
of the object thus fails to be represented, and so its full
differentiation from the subject fails to be represented also.
The result is that we know objects, so to speak, from the
outside, whereas, to know them in their full truth, we ought to
know them from inside. That every object<Note: In saying
"every object" I do not necessarily mean every chair, every
crystal, or even every amoeba. Behind all appearance there is
reality. This reality we believe, on the authority of the
dialectic, to consist of individuals. But how many such centres
there may be behind a given mass of appearance we do not know.
Every self-conscious spirit is, no doubt, one object and no
more It is with regard to the reality behind what is called
inorganic matter and the lower forms of life that the
uncertainty arises.> has a real centre of its own appears from
the dialectic. For we have seen that the conclusion from the
dialectic is that all reality consists of spirits, which are
individuals. And, apart from this, the fact that the object is
more or less independent as against us--and without some
independence knowledge would be impossible, as has already been
pointed out--renders it certain that every object has an
individual unity to some extent. Now knowledge fails to give
this unity its rights. The meaning of the object is found in its
This, and its This is, to knowledge, something alien. Knowledge
sees it to be, in a sense, the centre of the object, but only a
dead centre, a mere residuum produced by abstracting all
possible predicates, not a living and unifying centre, such as we
know that the synthetic unity of apperception is to our own
lives, which we have the advantage of seeing from inside. And
since it thus views it from a standpoint which is merely
external, knowledge can never represent the object so
faithfully as to attain its own ideal.
199. And here we see the reason why knowledge can never
represent quite accurately that harmony of the universe which
knowledge itself proves. We saw above that when knowledge
should have reached the greatest perfection of which it is
capable there would still remain one question unanswered--Why
is the universe what it is and not something else? We may prove
the question unmeaning and absurd, but we cannot help asking
it. And the possibility of asking it depends on the existence of
the This, which knowledge is unable to bring into unity with the
knowing subject. The This is essential to the reality of the
object, and is that part of the object to which it owes its
independence of the subject. And the question naturally arises, Why
should not this core of objectivity have been clothed with
other qualities than those which it has, and with which the
subject finds itself in harmony?
The question arises because the existence of this harmony is
dependent on the This. The This alone gives reality to the
object. If it vanished, the harmony would not change into a
disharmony, but disappear altogether. And the This, as we have
seen, must always be for knowledge a something alien and
irrational, because it must always be an unresolved immediate.
Now a harmony which depends on something alien and irrational
must always appear contingent and defective. Why is there a
This at all? Why is it just those qualities which give a harmony
for us that the favour of the This has raised into reality? To
answer these questions would be to mediate the This, and that
would destroy it.
200. It may be urged, as against this argument, that we do
not stand in such a position of opposition and alienation
towards the This in knowledge. For we ourselves are objects of
knowledge as well as knowing subjects, and our abstract
personality, which is the centre of our knowledge, is also the
This of an object. Now it might be maintained that the
interconnection of the qualities of all different objects, which
would be perfect in perfect knowledge, would enable us to show
why all reality existed, and why it is what it is, if we could
only show it of a single fragment of reality. The difficulty, it
might be said, lies in reaching the abstract realness of the
real by means of knowledge at all. And if by means of our own
existence as objects we were able to establish a single
connection with the objective world, in which the immediate
would not mean the alien, it is possible that no other
connection would be required. The last remaining opposition of
the subject to the object would disappear.
The difficulty, however, cannot be escaped in this way. For
the self as the object of knowledge is as much opposed to the
self as the subject as any other object could be. We learn its
qualities by arguments from data based on the "internal sense,"
as we learn the qualities of other objects by arguments from
data given by the external senses. We are immediately certain
of the first, but we are immediately certain of the second. And
the central unity of our own nature can no more be known
directly in itself, apart from its qualities, than can the
central unities of other objects. We become aware of its
existence by analysing what is implied in having ourselves for
objects, and we become aware of the central unities of other
things by analysing what is implied in having them for objects.
We have no more direct knowledge of the one than of the other.
Of course nothing in our own selves is really alien to us,--not
even the element of immediacy which makes their This. But then
the existence of knowledge implies, as we have seen, that the
reality of other things is not really alien to us, although we
know it immediately. It is the defect of knowledge that it fails
to represent the immediate except as alien.
201. Here, then, we seem to have the reason why our minds
could never, in the most perfect state of knowledge possible,
get rid of the abstract idea of the contingency of the whole
system. We saw in the first part of this chapter that such an
idea was unmeaning, since it would be impossible for any
reality to be destroyed or altered, unless the same happened to
all reality, and the possibility of this, which has no common
ground with actuality, is an unmeaning phrase. And we have now
seen another reason why the possibility is unmeaning. For we
have traced it to the persistence of thought in considering its
essential condition as its essential enemy. The existence of
such a miscalled possibility, therefore, tells nothing against
the rationality of the universe. But it does tell against the
adequacy of knowledge as an expression of the universe. By
finding a flaw in perfection, where no flaw exists, it
pronounces its own condemnation. If the possibility is
unmeaning, knowledge is imperfect in being compelled to regard
it as a possibility.
It may seem at first sight absurd to talk of knowledge as
inadequate. If it were imperfect, how could we know it? What
right have we to condemn it as imperfect when the judge is of
necessity the same person as the culprit? This is, of course, so
far true, that if knowledge did not show us its own ideal, we
could never know that it did not realise it. But there is a great
difference between realising an ideal and indicating it. It is
possible, and I have endeavoured to show that it is actually the
case, that knowledge can do the one, and not the other. When we
ask about the abstract conditions of reality, it is able to
demonstrate that harmony must exist, and that immediacy is
compatible with it, and essential to it. But when it is asked to
show in detail how the harmony exists, which it has shown must
exist, it is unable to do so. There is here no contradiction in
our estimate of knowledge, but there is a contradiction in
knowledge, which prevents us from regarding it as adequate, and
which forces us to look further in search of the ultimate
activity of Spirit.
We saw before that this activity could not consist solely of
knowledge, but we have now reached the further conclusion that
knowledge, as knowledge, could not form even a part of that
activity. For it carries a mark of imperfection about it, in its
inability to completely attain the goal which it cannot cease
to strive for, and in its dependence on that which it must
consider an imperfection. We must therefore look for the
ultimate nature of Spirit in something which transcends and
surpasses cognition, including it indeed as a moment, but
transforming it and raising it into a higher sphere, where its
imperfections vanish.
202. In doing this we are compelled, of course, to reject
Hegel's own treatment of the subject, in the Philosophy of
Spirit. But we may, I think, find some support for our position
in the Logic. For there, as it seems to me, we find the sketch
of a more complete and adequate representation of Absolute
Reality, than the one which is worked out in the Philosophy of
Spirit.
We have in the Logic, immediately before the Absolute Idea, a
category called Cognition in general. This is again divided into
Cognition proper and Volition. These two categories are treated
by Hegel as a thesis and antithesis, and, according to the
method pursued in every other part of the Logic, the triad
should have been completed by a synthesis, before we pass out
of Cognition in general to the final synthesis--the Absolute
Idea. No such synthesis, however, is given by Hegel as a separate
term. According to his exposition, the Absolute Idea itself
forms the synthesis of the opposition of Cognition proper and
Volition, as it does also of the larger opposition of Life and
Cognition in general.
The significance of this part of the Logic for us lies in the
fact that Cognition proper requires to be synthesised with
Volition before we can reach the absolute reality. Of course
Hegel is not dealing, in the Logic, with the concrete activities
of cognition and volition, any more than he is dealing, rather
earlier in the Logic, with the concrete activities of mechanism
and chemistry. The Logic deals only with the element of pure
thought in reality, and when its categories bear the names of
concrete relations--this only means that the pure idea, which
is the category in question, is the idea which comes most
prominently forward in that concrete relation, and which
therefore can be usefully and significantly called by its name.
This, however, does not destroy the importance of the Logic
for our present purpose. Although the concrete activities are
not merely their own logical ideas, they must stand in the
same relation inter se as the logical ideas do inter se. For the
process in the Philosophy of Spirit, as in all the applications
of the dialectic, while it does not profess to be logical in the
sense that all its details can be logically deduced, certainly
professes to be logical in the sense that the relation of its
stages to one another can be logically explained.<Note: Cp.
Chap. VII. Sections 207, 210.> Indeed, if it did not do this, it
could no longer be called an application of the Logic at all,
but would be a mere empirical collection of facts. If then the
idea of cognition proper--that is, of knowledge as opposed to
volition--is by itself so imperfect and one-sided, that it must
be transcended, and must be synthesised with the idea of
volition, before the adequate and Absolute Idea can be reached,
it would seem to follow that a concrete application of this
philosophy is bound to regard cognition as an inadequate
expression of the full nature of reality, and to endeavour to
find some higher expression which shall unite cognition and
volition, preserving that which is true in each, while escaping
from their imperfections and one-sidedness.
203. It may be objected that the Cognition proper, which is
treated by Hegel as an inadequate category, denotes only that
knowledge which is found in ordinary experience and in science,
and that the place of knowledge in its highest shape--the shape
of philosophy--must be looked for under the Absolute Idea. This
view does not appear tenable on closer examination. At the end
of Cognition proper, Hegel tells us, the content of cognition is
seen to be necessary. This would indicate philosophic
knowledge, if "necessary" is taken as referring to the necessity
of freedom, which is its normal use in the Doctrine of the
Notion. There is certainly a good deal of discussion of
philosophic method under the head of the Absolute Idea But
this appears to be introduced, not because this category is the
one under which our philosophising comes but because it is the
last category of the philosophy, and it is therefore natural to
look back, at this point, on the method which has been pursued.
The most cogent argument, however, against this view is that
the Absolute Idea is defined as the union of Cognition proper
with Volition. Therefore the Absolute Idea must be an idea
richer and fuller than that of Cognition--richer and fuller by
the content of the idea of Volition. Now we can have no reason
to suppose that philosophic knowledge is the union of ordinary
knowledge with volition. For philosophy stands in just the
same relation to volition as ordinary knowledge does. We never
have knowledge without having volition, but neither can be
reduced to the other. The Absolute Idea then contains within
itself the idea of Knowledge only as a transcended moment. If
there is any difference between them, indeed, we must consider
the idea of Volition the higher of the two, since it is Volition
which forms the antithesis, and we have seen that, in the
Doctrine of the Notion, the antithesis may be expected to be
more adequate than the thesis to which it is opposed.<Note:
Chap. IV. Sections 109, 110.>
I am not attempting to argue from this that we ought to
take Hegel as putting anything more concrete than philosophy
into the nature of absolute reality. We are especially bound in
the case of so systematic a writer as Hegel, to look for the
authoritative exposition of his views on any subject in the part
of his work which professedly deals with that subject. And in
the Philosophy of Spirit it seems clear that Hegel means the
highest stage of Spirit to be nothing but philosophy. But, in
giving the abstract framework of absolute reality in the Logic,
he has given, as we have seen above, a framework for something
which, whatever it is, is more than any form of mere cognition.
And so, when saying that the conclusion of the Philosophy of
Spirit is inconsistent with the general tenor of Hegel's
philosophy, we can strengthen our position by adding that it is
inconsistent with the final result of the Logic.
204. Let us now turn to the Philosophy of Spirit, and
consider the way in which Hegel introduces Philosophy as the
culminating point of reality. The three terms which form the
triad of Absolute Spirit are Art, Revealed Religion, and
Philosophy. Of the relation of these three stages he speaks as
follows: "Whereas the vision-method of Art, external in point
of form, is but subjective production and shivers the
substantial content into many separate shapes, and whereas
Religion, with its separation into parts, opens it out in mental
picture, and mediates what is thus opened out; Philosophy not
merely keeps them together to make a total, but even unifies
them into the simple spiritual vision, and then in that raises
them to self-conscious thought. Such consciousness is thus the
intelligible unity (cognised by thought) of art and religion, in
which the diverse elements in the content are cognised as
necessary, and this necessity as free."<Note: Enc. Section 572.>
On examining this more closely, doubts present themselves.
Is Philosophy really capable of acting as a synthesis between
Art and Religion? Should it not rather form part of the
antithesis, together with Religion? All the stages in this triad
of Absolute Spirit are occupied in endeavouring to find a
harmony between the individual spirit--now developed into full
consciousness of his own nature--on the one hand, and the rest
of the universe on the other hand. Such a harmony is directly
and immediately presented in beauty. But the immediacy makes
the harmony contingent and defective. Where beauty is present,
the harmony exists; where it is not present--a case not
unfrequently occurring--the harmony disappears. It is necessary
to find some ground of harmony which is universal, and which
shall enable us to attribute rationality and righteousness to
all things, independently of their immediate and superficial
aspect.
This ground, according to Hegel, is afforded us by the
doctrines of Revealed Religion, which declares that all things
are dependent on and the manifestation of a reality in which we
recognise the fulfilment of our ideals of rationality and
righteousness. Thus Revealed Religion assures us that all things
must be in harmony, instead of showing us, as Art does, that
some things are in harmony.
205. Now Philosophy, it seems to me, can do no more than
this. It is true that it does it, in what, from Hegel's point of
view, is a higher and better way. It is true that it substitutes a
completely reasoned process for one which, in the last resort,
rests on authority. It is true that it changes the external
harmony, which Revealed Religion offers, into a harmony
inherent in the nature of things. It is true that the process,
which is known to Revealed Religion as "a cycle of concrete
shapes in pictorial thought," and as "a separation into parts,
with a temporal and external sequence," is in Philosophy
"known as an indivisible coherence of the universal, simple, and
eternal spirit in itself."<Note: Enc. Section 571.> But all this
does not avail to bring back the simplicity and directness of
Art, which must be brought back in the synthesis. Art shows us
that something is as we would have it. Its harmony with our
ideals is visible on the surface. But Philosophy, like Religion,
leaving the surface of things untouched, points to their inner
nature, and proves that, in spite of the superficial discord and
evil, the true reality is harmonious and good. To unite these we
should require a state of spirit which should present us with a
harmony direct and immediate on the one hand, and universal
and necessary on the other. Art gives the first and Philosophy
the second, but Philosophy can no more unite the two than Art
can.
This is clear of philosophy, as we have it now, and so long as
it has not absorbed into itself all other knowledge. For it is
the knowledge of the general conditions only of reality. As
such, it can lay down general laws for all reality. But it is not
able to show how they are carried out in detail. It may arrive
at the conclusion that all that is real is rational. This will
apply, among other things, to toothache or cowardice. Now we
are shown by the whole history of religion that optimism based
on general grounds may be of great importance to the lives of
those who believe it, and philosophy, if it can give us this,
will have given us no small gift. But philosophy will not be
able to show us how the rationality or the righteousness come
in, either in toothache or in cowardice. It can only convince us
that they are there, though we cannot see them. It is obvious
that we have as yet no synthesis with the directness and
immediacy of art.
If philosophy should ever, as was suggested in the earlier
part of this chapter, develop so as to include all knowledge in
one complete harmony, then, no doubt, we should not only know
of every fact in the universe that it was rational, but we should
also see how it was so. Even here, however, the required
synthesis would not be attained. Our knowledge would still be
only mediate knowledge, and thus could not be the synthesis for
two reasons. Firstly, because, as we have seen, it has to regard
the immediate element in reality as to some extent alien.
Secondly, because the synthesis must contain in itself, as a
transcended moment, the immediate harmony of art, and must
therefore be lifted above the distinction of mediate and
immediate.
Besides this, a merely intellectual activity could not be the
ultimate truth of which art and religion are lower stages. For
both of these involve not merely knowledge, but volition, and
also feeling. And so the highest stage of spirit would have to
include, not only the perception of the rationality of all
things, which is offered by philosophy, but also the complete
acquiescence which is the goal of successful volition, and the
pleasure which is the inevitable result of conscious harmony.
206. The result of all this would appear to be, that, in order
to render the highest form of Absolute Spirit capable, as it
must be on Hegel's theory, of transcending and summing up all
other aspects of reality, we shall have to recast the last steps
of the Philosophy of Spirit, so as to bring the result more in
accordance with the general outlines laid down at the end of
the Logic. Philosophy, together with Revealed Religion, will be
the antithesis to Art. And a place will be left vacant for a new
synthesis.
It forms no part of the object of this work to enquire what
this synthesis may be. My purpose has been only to give some
reasons for thinking that Hegel had not found an adequate
expression for the absolute reality, and I do not venture to
suggest one myself. But we can, within very wide and general
limits, say what the nature of such an expression must be. It
must be some state of conscious spirit in which the opposition
of cognition and volition is overcome--in which we neither
judge our ideas by the world, nor the world by our ideas, but
are aware that inner and outer are in such close and necessary
harmony that even the thought of possible discord has become
impossible. In its unity not only cognition and volition, but
feeling also, must be blended and united. In some way or
another it must have overcome the rift in discursive knowledge,
and the immediate must for it be no longer the alien. It must
be as direct as art, as certain and universal as philosophy.