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WHAT IS LIVING AND WHAT IS DEADOF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL


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WHAT IS LIVING ANDWHAT IS DEAD OF THEPHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL

BYBENEDETTO CROCE

TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL TEXT OFTHE THIRD ITALIAN EDITION, 1912

BYDOUGLAS AINSLIE

B.A. (OxoN.), M.R.A.S.

NEW YORK /RUSSELL & RUSSELL


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FIRST PUBLISHED IN K)I$REISSUED, 1969, BY RUSSELL & RUSSELLA DIVISION OF ATHENEUM PUBLISHERS, INC.

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH MACMILLAN & CO. LTD., LONDONL. C. CATALOG CARD NO! 79-83845

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


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TRANSLATOR S NOTEREADERS of this translation will observe that Ihave followed the Italian in discarding where theoriginal does so the use of capitals for the wordsidea, spirit and so forth. It is true that they areprinted with capitals in German ; but then, so areall other substantives, and by avoiding their use,such words as idea and spirit are better understood as immanent rather than as transcendental" things-in-themselves."

I used " gnoseology " in my translation of thePhilosophy of the Practical instead of the paraphrase " theory of knowledge." This word,regularly formed from the Greek, seems to meworthy a place in English, which has made nodifficulty about accepting an analogous, but notidentical, term such as Epistemology. When


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vi PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELneologisms cover a new thought or facilitate, byabbreviating, expression, it seems to me that theyare always legitimate, and I have not hesitated tointroduce one or two other words thus employed.The tendency to avoid neologism at all costs bythe adoption of paraphrase, frequent in contemporary English writers, seems to me to frustratethe very purpose which it is intended to serve,rendering yet more difficult by the very commonness of the words used as paraphrase the alreadysufficiently subtle qualifications of philosophy.


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AUTHOR S NOTETHE study, What is living and what is dead ofthe Philosophy of Hegel, was published in 1906(Bari, Laterza), and contained an essay onHegelian bibliography as an appendix. This hassince been increased in the German and Frenchtranslations of that volume and would now haveneed of not a few additions. But it has seemedto me opportune in the present J collection tosuppress altogether the bibliographical portionas something extraneous to its nature, and torepublish it, if ever, separately. And indeed, ifany one will give himself the trouble of lookingthrough, correcting, completing and keeping it upto date for the use of students of Hegel, I propose

1 The Essay on Hegel is the first of a series of essays upon philosophical subjects contained in the volume from which this essay has beenselected for translation into English. D. A.

vii


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viii PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELto present him with that first study of mine, withpermission to exercise upon it most fully the jusutendi et abutendi. In this reimpression of thecritical study of 1906 will be found instead certainelucidations of various points of the Hegelianphilosophy, which answer to censures and objections that have been made to me ; though I haveas a rule preferred, as more persuasive, objectivetreatment or retreatment of disputed points topolemic properly so called.

B. CROCK.RAIANO (AQUILA),September 1912.


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CONTENTSPAGE

I. THE DIALECTIC OR SYNTHESIS OF OPPOSITES . iII. EXPLANATIONS RELATING TO THE HISTORY OF

THE DIALECTIC .... -33III. THE DIALECTIC AND THE CONCEPTION OF

REALITY 5 2IV. THE NEXUS OF THE DISTINCTS AND THE FALSE

APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC FORM . . 78V. THE METAMORPHOSIS OF ERRORS INTO PAR

TICULAR CONCEPTS AND DEGREES OF TRUTH(STRUCTURE OF THE LOGIC) . . . .100

VI. THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTICULAR CONCEPTSINTO PHILOSOPHICAL ERRORS . . .120

I. Art and Language (^Esthetic).VII. THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTICULAR CONCEPTS

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

VIII. THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PARTICULAR CONCEPTSINTO PHILOSOPHICAL ERRORS. . . .150

III. Nature (Idea of a Philosophy of Nature).ix


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PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELPAGE

IX. THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE FALSE SCIENCESAND THE APPLICATION OF THE DIALECTIC TOTHE INDIVIDUAL AND TO THE EMPIRICAL . 174

X. DUALISM NOT OVERCOME 192XI. THE CRITICISM AND CONTINUATION OF THE

THOUGHT OF HEGEL 203Conclusion.


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TRANSLATOR S INTRODUCTION 1THE following lines were written before the outbreak of war, but I see no reason to qualifyany of the statements therein contained. Themadness and immoralism of twentieth centuryGermany has nothing in common with her greatwriters of a hundred years ago and more. Therehas been a great decline of German thoughtcoincident with material prosperity and aspirationfor universal dominion.

Readers of the following pages, accustomed toHegel s Himalayan severity and ruggedness ofstyle and to the arid and difficult treatment of theHegelian philosophy, so long in vogue, both hereand in Germany, will probably be surprised at theprofound yet pellucid clarity of Croce s thought.Hegel has at last found a critic and interpreterequal to the task, in the thinker who has alreadygiven us complete the Philosophy of the Spirit.Croce has passed beyond and therefore been able

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


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xii PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELto look back upon Hegel, to unravel the gorgeousyet tangled skein of his system, and supply to allfuture students the clue of Ariadne.Who but Croce would have thought of recom

mending that Hegel should be read like a poet?Were it not for his own work upon aesthetic, sucha statement would seem absurd ; but in the lightof the two degrees of theoretic knowledge andof the formation of logic from aesthetic intuitions,such a remark assumes its full significance.Rather, then, than dwell for ever upon sometechnical difficulty, such as that presented by thefirst triad of the Logic, he recommends us to readHegel "like a poet," that is without paying undueattention to the verbal form, the historical accidentof what he says, but full attention to its poetictruth. In reading a philosopher, we should seekhis inspiration in the mazes of his text, withoutpaying undue attention to the pedantries andformulae with which such a writer as Hegel is(historically) overlaid. We should see in theHegelian triads the mighty effort of the philosopheragainst Eleaticism and all forms of Nihilism, andhis attempt to create a new and superior form ofHeracliticism. The cut-and-dried Hegel of theschools is thus to be avoided ; and when withCroce s help we have scraped the lichen of his


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TRANSLATOR S INTRODUCTION xiiiformulae from the thought of Hegel, we findbeneath it the true philosopher, the hater of allthat is abstract and motionless, of the should-bethat never is, of the ideal that is not real.

The title of this book sufficiently explains itsscope and object. The magnificent critique andexplanation of the dialectic is followed by the exposition of one of Hegel s two great errors, theconfusion of distincts and opposites, and of itsfar-reaching evil consequences for a great part ofthe Hegelian system. That this error shouldappear in the Logic itself is characteristic ofHegel, who is not guilty of any mere inadvertenceor blunder, but errs grandly in a vital part ofhis system. One of the most important deductions from this error is that of the death of art,to be merged, according to Hegel, in philosophy.Croce s refutation of this fallacy and of theapplication of the dialectic to the empirical world,were they his sole contribution to philosophiccriticism and research, would suffice to lay allstudents of Hegel beneath an obligation of enlightened gratitude to the philosopher of Naples.Croce points out how it was owing to theapplication of the dialectic of opposites to thecategory of distincts that Hegel conceived so greata contempt for the practical as compared with the


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xiv PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELtheoretic world. He was led by his theory to lookupon the former as one from which the thinkerfreed himself by the power of his thought. InHegel, the poet and the sage look down fromtheir tower of ivory upon the throng below. Heconceived the dialectic as a temporal becoming,a progressiis ad finitum, and once he had attainedto the contemplative life, the sage would naturallyno longer desire any sort of intercourse with thethrong. There would thus be cessation of thedialectic. But becoming cannot negate itself.The true becoming is ideal ; it is the intelligenceof real becoming, in the same way as the universalis not divergent or indifferent in respect to theparticular, but is the intelligence of the particular ;so that universal and particular, ideal and real becoming, are the same. Outside ideal becomingis not real becoming, but only temporal becoming,that is to say, arithmetical time, a construction ofthe abstract intellect ; just as the real individual isnot outside the universal, but only the empirical individual, isolated, atomicized, monadized. Eternityand real time coincide, because the eternal is inevery instant and every instant is in the eternal.

Hegel s identification of the real and therational led him to support energetically theaction of the State and of all great men, and


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TRANSLATOR S INTRODUCTION xvhis confusion of the ethical with the economicled to the creation of Nietzsche s Superman, abeing above the morality of the throng. Therationality of the real should, however, be closelyconnected with the most rigid condemnation oferror and of evil, and the perpetuity of the dialecticwith the constancy of the true. The idea of finiteprogress must therefore be looked upon as incomplete, until it has been enriched by the dialecticwith the idea of infinite progress. This latter,taken by itself, is also void of content, for aneternal approximation and never attaining is notprogress : it does not matter to Tantalus if thesweet spring-water be a mile or an inch from hislips, if he is never to touch it with them. Thesymbol of humanity is neither God nor man, butthe God-man, Christ, Who is the eternal in thetemporal and the temporal in the eternal.Another way of stating the same thing is to combine the western idea of a perpetual breathlesspursuit of truth, and the static oriental idea of theperpetual return. The spirit and history areidentical, as in their turn are philosophy andhistory, because neither is complete without theothers. We possess the truth at every moment,by the act of thinking, and this truth is at everyinstant changed into will and nature, and therefore


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xvi PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELinto a new problem, which must be constantlyadded to, if it is to remain truth. A man maysacrifice all he has for the truth, even his own soul,but he can never sacrifice morality, owing to thecontradiction that this would imply. Croce hasmore than a good word to say of the study ofHegel in Great Britain, and indeed he recentlyobserved to the present writer that his own thoughtremained far more itself in the English than in theGerman versions of his Aesthetic and Philosophyof the Practical : in the latter it seemed to meltaway. But the study of Hegel should receive anew and vigorous impetus from this work, whichshould do much to correct the widespread confusion of the data of empirical or natural sciencewith true science, which is philosophy, the scienceof sciences. Philosophy assigns its sphere to eachof the empirical sciences, and in their sphere philosophy is not competent. Confusion has arisenfrom the attempts so often made by naturalscientists to solve problems outside their competency. A man may be an excellent entomologist, but his views upon the problem of knowledge will be devoid of interest, unless he be alsoa philosopher. The domination of empiricism inthis country has led to suspicion of thought whichis simply thought as yet untranslated into volitional


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TRANSLATOR S INTRODUCTION xviiact. Discussing recently in London the originsof socialism with a leading statesman, he remarkedto me that socialism was the result of moderneconomic conditions, factories, etc. He seemeddisinclined to admit that socialism in its theoreticform first existed in the mind of Hegel and thenfiltered down through Feuerbach and Marx, toSorel and the syndicalists of our day. Thereseems to exist the belief that thought can arisefrom psychical friction, like a spark from tinder.Reality is looked upon by many as the physical,mind as an epiphenomenon. Without the philosophers above mentioned, there could have beenno "social question" as it presents itself to-day.The labour troubles of Roman days were settledmore easily than those of the modern worldbecause without the modern theoretic basis. Theycould not, however, have existed without sometheoretic basis, however rudimentary. The FrenchRevolution broke out first in the brain of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Much will, in my opinion, have been achievedby the publication in English of this book, if itlead our men of action and as a nation theEnglish have the genius of practical action torespect Hegel as one of the greatest practicalforces the world has ever seen. They are not


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xviii PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELlikely to become mere dreamers by so doing,for here we run no risk of underrating thoseelements of empirical thought represented byaeroplanes and other automobiles. Matter changesplace with far greater rapidity than heretofore,but there is one thing that is " never in a hurry,"yet supremely worthy of attention, and that, asreaders of Hegel know, is the idea.

DOUGLAS AINSLIE.THE ATHENAEUM,

PALL MALL, LONDON.


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WHAT IS LIVING AND WHAT IS DEADOF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL


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2 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELIt is the idea, in other words, that philosophyproceeds by a method peculiar to itself, the theoryof which should be sought and formulated. Noone doubts that mathematics has a method of itsown, which is studied in the logic of mathematics ;that the natural sciences have their method,from which arises the logic of observation, ofexperiment, of abstraction ; that historiographyhas its method, and that therefore there is alogic of the historical method ; that poetry andart in general give us the logic of poetry and art,i.e. aesthetic ; that in economic activity is inherenta method, which is afterwards reflected ineconomic science ; and that finally the moralactivity has its method, which is reflected inethic (or logic of the will, as it has sometimesbeen called). But when we come to philosophy,very many recoil from this conclusion : that it,too, from the moment of its inception, must havea method of its own, which must be determined.Conversely, very few are surprised at the factthat treatises on logic, while giving much spaceto the consideration of the disciplines of themathematical and natural sciences, as a rulegive no special attention to the discipline ofphilosophy, and often pass it over altogether insilence.


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THE DIALECTIC 3It is very natural that a logic of philosophy

should be denied by those who, owing to lack ofreflection or mental confusion or eccentricity,deny philosophy in general. For it cannot beclaimed that the theory of an object should berecognized when the reality of the object itselfis denied. If philosophy does not exist, thenthe logic of philosophy does not exist. Good-byeto both ; enjoy such a position if it satisfy you.But if I have called this spectacle strange, it isbecause we too often see those very philosophersor philosophizers, as the case may be, showingthemselves altogether devoid of the consciousness of this inevitable necessity. Some of themassert that philosophy must follow the abstract-deductive method of mathematics. Others seefor it no other way of salvation than a rigorousadherence to the experimental method. Theydream and extol a philosophy studied in thelaboratory and the clinic, an empirical metaphysic,and so on. Finally (and this is the latest fashion,which, if not new, is at least newly revived), weare now commended to an individual and fantasticphilosophy, which produces itself like art. Thus,from the compasses to the bistouri, and from thatto the zither ! every method seems good forphilosophy, save the method of philosophy itself.


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4 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELOne single observation should suffice against

such views : namely, that if philosophy is toprovide the understanding, and be as it were thereflective consciousness of art and history, ofmathematics and of the researches of naturalscience, of the practical and moral activity, wefail to see how it can do this by conforming tothe method of one of those particular objects.He who, when studying a poem, limits his studyto the application of the poetical method, willfeel in himself the creation of the poet, this orthat particular work of art ; but he will not thusattain to a philosophic knowledge of the poem.He who limits himself to mathematical thinking,when studying a mathematical theory, will be thedisciple, the critic, the perfecter of that theory ;but he will not attain knowledge of the nature ofmathematical activity. I f the objectf of philosophybe not the production or the reproduction of artand mathematics and of the various otheractivities of man, but the comprehension (theunderstanding) of them all, this comprehension isitself an activity, proceeding by a method of itsown, infused or implicit, which it is important tomake explicit.

In any case the hope of understanding andof judging the work of Hegel is vain, if we


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THE DIALECTIC 5do not always keep clearly before the mindthat this problem which we have just enunciatedwas his main and principal problem, the centralproblem of the Phenomenology of Spirit, and ofthe new forms assumed by this book in theScience of Logic and in the Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences. Almost all histories of philosophy, and even the special monographs concerning Hegel (for example, the recent and mostample monograph by Kuno Fischer), consistin a summary repetition of the contents of hisbooks, so close as to repeat his divisions bysections and chapters. But a complete exposition of Hegel s thought, an inward and criticalexposition, should, in the first place and in chiefpart, be devoted to his doctrine of the natureof philosophic enquiry, and to the differencesbetween such enquiry and other theoretic and non-theoretic forms.

Above all, what should be made clear is thetriple character that philosophic thought assumesin Hegel, in relation to the three spiritualmodes or attitudes with which it is most readilyconfused. Philosophic thought is for Hegel :firstly, concept ; secondly, universal ; thirdly,concrete. It is concept, that is to say it is notfeeling, or rapture, or intuition, or any other


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6 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELsimilar alogical psychical state, incapable of exactdemonstration. This

distinguishes philosophyfrom theories of mysticism and of immediateknowledge ; for these have at the most a negativesignificance, in so far as they recognize thatphilosophy cannot be constructed by the methodof the empirical and natural sciences, i.e. of thesciences of the finite. They are, if you will,profound, but with an " empty profundity."Hegel becomes ferociously satirical againstmysticism, with its frenzies, its sighings, its raisingthe eyes to heaven, its bowing the neck andclasping the hands, its faintings, its propheticaccents, its mysterious phrases of the initiates.He always maintains that philosophy should havea rational and intelligible form ; that it should be,"not esoteric but exoteric," not a thing of sects,but of humanity. The philosophic concept isuniversal, not merely general. It is not to beconfounded with general representations, as forinstance, "house," "horse," "blue," which areusually termed concepts, owing to a customwhich Hegel calls barbaric. This establishes thedifference between philosophy and the empiricalor natural sciences, which are satisfied with typesand class-conceptions. Finally, the philosophicuniversal is concrete : it is not the making of a


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THE DIALECTIC 7skeleton of reality, but the comprehension of itin its fulness and richness. Philosophic abstractions are not arbitrary but necessary, and aretherefore adequate to the real, which they do notmutilate or falsify. And this establishes thedifference between philosophy and the mathematical disciplines ; for these latter do notjustify their points of departure, but " commandthem," and we must, says Hegel, obey thecommand to draw such and such lines, in thebelief that this will be " opportune" for the conduct of the demonstration. Philosophy, on theother hand, has for its object that which reallyis ; and it must completely justify itself, withoutadmitting or allowing any presupposition. 1And in order to elucidate this triple difference,according to which the true concept, i.e. thephilosophical concept, shows itself logical, universal, and concrete, it would be necessary toinclude in a complete exposition the minordoctrines, which are attached to the first andfundamental doctrine, some of which are of greatimportance, such as the resumption of the onto-logical argument (the defence of Saint Anselmagainst Kant), which maintains that in the

1 See especially the introduction to the Phenomenology and the preliminaries to the Encyclopaedia.


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8 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELphilosophic concept, as distinct and differentfrom mere representations of particulars, essenceimplies existence. Another is the review of thedoctrine which regards the " judgment " as a connexion of subject and predicate. That doctrineis based on something that is not clearly intelligible to thought, and is therefore inadequateto philosophy, of which the true form is the"syllogism," in so far as that has the logicalcharacter of reuniting itself with itself; others,again, are the critique of the theory, which considers the concept to be a compound of "marks"(which Hegel calls the true " mark " of the superficiality of ordinary logic); the critique of divisionsinto species and classes ; the demonstration(which may have curative efficacy in our times)of the vanity of every "logical calculus"; andnot a few others besides.

But it is not my intention to offer in thesepages a complete exposition of Hegel s system,nor even of his logical doctrine ; but ratherto concentrate all attention upon the mostcharacteristic part of his thought, upon the newaspects of truth revealed by him, and upon theerrors which he allowed to persist or in which hebecame entangled. For this reason, then, I setaside the various theses briefly mentioned above


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THE DIALECTIC 9(from which it seems to me impossible to dissent,although I recognize too how necessary it is thatthey should be studied, since they form the oftenneglected A B C of philosophy), and I comewithout further ado to the point around which allthe disputes have been kindled and against whichhis opponents have aimed their direct denialsthe treatment of the problem of opposites.

This is a problem whose terms must beclearly defined if we wish to understand itsgravity and difficulty. The philosophic concept(which, as has been mentioned, is a concreteuniversal), in so far as it is concrete, does notexclude distinctions, indeed it includes them initself. It is the universal, distinct in itself, resulting from those distinctions. As empiricalconcepts are distinguished into classes and subclasses, so the philosophic concept possesses itsparticular forms, of which it is not the mechanicalaggregate, but the organic whole, in which everyform unites itself intimately with the others andwith the whole. For example, fancy and intellect,in relation to the concept of spirit or spiritualactivity, are particular philosophic concepts ; butthey are not outside or beneath spirit, they areindeed spirit itself in those particular forms ; noris the one separated from the other, like two


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io PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELentities each confined to itself, and external tothe other, but the one passes into the other.Hence fancy, as is commonly said, howeverdistinct it may be from intellect, is the foundationof intellect and indispensable to it.

Our thought however, in investigating reality,finds itself face to face, not only with distinct, butalso with opposed concepts. These latter cannotbe identified with the former without more ado,nor be considered as special cases of them, as ifthey were a sort of distinct concepts. The logicalcategory of distinction is one thing, and thecategory of opposition is another. As has beensaid, two distinct concepts unite with one another,although they are distinct ; but two opposite concepts seem to exclude one another. Where oneenters, the other totally disappears. A distinctconcept is presupposed by and lives in its other,which follows it in the sequence of ideas. Anopposite concept is slain by its opposite : thesaying, mors tua vita mea applies here. Examplesof distinct concepts are those already mentioned,of fancy and intellect. And to these otherscould be added, such as rights, morality and thelike. But examples of opposite concepts aredrawn from those numerous couples of words, ofwhich our language is full and which certainly


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THE DIALECTIC ndo not constitute peaceable and friendly couples.Such are the antitheses of true and false, ot goodand evil, beautiful and ugly, value and lack ofvalue, joy and sorrow, activity and passivity,positive and negative, life and death, being andnot-being, and so on. It is impossible to confusethe two series, distincts and opposites : so conspicuously do they differ.

Now, if distinction do not impede, if indeedit rather render possible the concrete unity ofthe philosophic concept, it does not seem possiblethat the same should be true of opposition.Opposition gives rise to deep fissures in thebosom of the philosophic universal and of eachof its particular forms, and to irreconcilabledualisms. Instead of finding the concrete universal, the organic whole of reality which it seeks,thought seems everywhere to run against twouniversals, opposing and menacing each other.In this way, the fulfilment of philosophy isimpeded ; and since an activity which cannotattain to its fulfilment, thereby shows that it hasimposed an absurd task on itself, philosophy itself,the whole of philosophy, is menaced with failure.

The seriousness of this impasse is the reasonthat the human mind has always laboured at thisproblem of opposites, without, however, always


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12 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELclearly realizing what it has been doing. Andone of the solutions upon which it has relied inthe course of centuries, has consisted in excludingopposition from the philosophic concept, and inmaintaining the unreality of that perilous logicalcategory. The facts, to tell the truth, proved justthe opposite ; but the facts were denied and onlyone of the terms was accepted, the other beingdeclared " illusion" ; or, what comes to the samething, a merely quantitative difference was drawnbetween the two. This logical doctrine ofopposites is contained in the philosophic systemsof sensationalism, of empiricism, of materialism,of mechanism, or however otherwise they maybe termed. Thought and truth appeared inthem in turn, a secretion of the brain, or aneffect of habit and association ; virtue, a mirageof egoism ; beauty, a refinement of sensuality ;the ideal, some kind of voluptuous or capriciousdream ; and so on.

Another logical doctrine, which posits opposition as a fundamental category, has forcenturies employed its force against this firstdoctrine. It is found in the various dualisticsystems, which reassert the antithesis that thefirst, with a delicate sleight of hand, had causedto disappear. These systems accentuate both


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, THE DIALECTIC 13terms, being and not-being, good and evil, trueand false, ideal and real, those of the oneseries being at variance with those of the other.Without doubt, the dualistic view retains itsvalue against abstract monism : a polemical valuedue to its denial of the other s negation. Butin itself, it is as little satisfactory as the other,because if the first sacrifices opposition to unity,the second sacrifices unity to opposition.

In thought both these sacrifices are soimpossible, that we continually see those whomaintain the one doctrine turning more or lessconsciously into maintainers of the other. TheUnitarians surreptitiously introduce the dualityof opposites, under the guise of the duality ofreality and of illusion : an illusion with whichthey could no more dispense than with realityitself, so that they sometimes even say that thespring of life is in illusion. And the oppositionists all admit some sort of identity or unity ofopposites unattainable by the human mind,owing to its imperfection, but necessary in orderadequately to think reality. In this way, bothbecome involved in contradictions, and cometo recognize that they have not solved theproblem which they had set themselves, andthat it still remains a problem.


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i THE DIALECTIC 15declare the question insoluble would itself compelus to consider, whether, by that very declaration,we had not already cut the knot in favour ofthought, that is to say, of hope. The casualobserver of the history of philosophy sees arestoration of dualism follow every affirmationof monism, and vice versa : each unable whollyto strangle the other, but able to hold it in checkfor a time. It would seem almost as though, whenman has satiated himself with the uniformity ofmonism, he distracts himself with the variety ofdualism ; and, when he is tired of this, he plungesagain into monism, and alternates the two movements, thus tempering hygienically the onewith the other. The casual observer, at everyepidemic of materialism, says with a smile, Wait ;now will come spiritualism. And when spiritualism celebrates its chiefest triumphs, he smiles inthe same way and says, Wait ; materialism willreturn in a little while ! But the smile is forced,or soon vanishes, for there is nothing reallycheerful in the condition of him who is ceaselesslytossed from one extreme to another, as by aninvincible force beyond control.

Nevertheless, amid the difficulties which I havemade clear, there is at the bottom of our soulsa secret conviction, that this unconquerable


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16 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELdualism, this insoluble dilemma, is ultimatelyconquerable and soluble : that the idea of unityis not irreconcilable with that of opposition, andthat we can and should think opposition in theform of a concept, which is supreme unity.Ingenuous thought (which is usually called non-philosophical, but would perhaps be better callednaively, or potentially, philosophical) is notembarrassed at the difficulty : it thinks at onceboth unity and opposition. Its motto is notmors tua vita mea, but concordia discors. Itrecognises that life is a struggle, but nevertheless a harmony ; that virtue is a combatagainst ourselves, but that it is nevertheless ourselves. It recognizes that, when one oppositionhas been overcome, a new opposition springsfrom the very bosom of the unity, so there mustbe a new conquest, then a new opposition, andso on ; but it recognizes, too, that this is justthe way of life. It knows nothing of exclusivesystems : the wisdom of proverbs gives one blowto the hoop and another to the barrel, and givesadvice now with optimistic, now with pessimisticobservations, which deny and complete oneanother in turn. What is wanting to ingenuousthought, to potential philosophy? Implicitly,nothing. And so, amidst the smoke and the dust


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THE DIALECTIC 17of the battles of science, we always sigh for thegood sense, for the truth

which each one canfind immediately in himself, without recourse tothe labourings, the subtleties, and the exaggerations of professional philosophers. But the sighis vain ! the battle has been joined, and there isno way to peace save through victory. Ingenuousthought (and this is its defect) cannot give thegrounds of its affirmations : it vacillates beforeevery objection ; it becomes confused and contradicts itself. Its truths are not complete truths,because they are not found united, but merelyplaced alongside one another. It works onlywith juxtaposition, and fails in systematiccoherence. Contradictions and doubts and thepainful consciousness of antitheses are welcome ;welcome is all conflict if through it we are toattain to the truth that is complete and securein itself. Such truth, indeed, though it differswidely from the truth of ordinary and ingenuousthought in degree of elaboration, cannot but besubstantially the same ; and it is certainly a badsign when a philosophy is at variance with ingenuous consciousness. For this very reason itoften happens that when people meet a simpleand conclusive statement of philosophic truths,that may have cost the labours of centuries, they


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i8 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELwill shrug their shoulders and remark that theboasted discovery is indeed a very easy thing,plain and known of all men. Precisely the samething occurs in the case of the most inspiredcreations of art, which are developed withsuch simplicity and naturalness that every oneexperiences the illusion of having achieved, orof being able to achieve them himself.

If ingenuous thought give the hope and theindication of the possibility of the reconciliationof unity and opposition, another form of spiritualcreation, of which all have experience, providesa sort of model. The philosopher has at his sidethe poet. And the poet, too, seeks the truth;the poet, too, thirsts for the real ; he too, like thephilosopher, recoils from arbitrary abstractions,because he strives towards the living and theconcrete : he too, abhors the mute ecstasies ofthe mystics and the sentimentalists, because it iswhat he feels that he utters and makes to ringin the ear in beautiful words, limpid and silvery.But the poet is not condemned to the unattainable. This very reality, torn and rent withopposition, is the object of his contemplation,and he makes it, though throbbing with opposition, yet one and undivided. Cannot the philosopher do the same ? Is not philosophy, like


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THE DIALECTIC 19poetry, knowledge ? Why should this perfection,this power of solving and of representing unityin opposition, be wanting to the philosophic concept when it is in all respects analogous toaesthetic expression? It is true that philosophyis knowledge of the universal, and thereforethought ; and that poetry is knowledge of theindividual, and therefore intuition and imagination.But why should not the philosophic universal,like the aesthetic expression, be both at oncedifference and unity, discord and concord, discreteand continuous, permanent and ever-changing ?Why should reality lose its true character whenmind rises from the contemplation of the particularto the contemplation of the whole ? Does notthe whole live in us as vividly as does theparticular ?

And here it is that Hegel gives his shout ofjubilation, the cry of the discoverer, the Eureka,his principle of solution of the problem ofopposites: a most simple principle, and so obviousthat it deserves to be placed among those symbolized by the egg of Christopher Columbus.The opposites are not illusion, neither is unityillusion. The opposites are opposed to oneanother, but they are not opposed to unity.For true and concrete unity is nothing but the


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20 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELunity, or synthesis, of opposites. It is not

immobility,it is movement. It is not

fixity,but development. The philosophic concept isa concrete universal, and therefore a thinkingof reality as at once united and divided. Onlythus does philosophic truth correspond to poetictruth, and the pulse of thought beat with thepulse of things.

It is, indeed, the only possible solution. Itrejects neither of the two preceding, which Ihave called "monism" and "dualism of opposites,"but justifies both. It regards them as one-sidedtruths, fragments which await their integration ina third, in which the first and second, even thethird itself, disappear, merged in the unique truth.And that truth is that unity has not oppositionopposed to it, but holds it within itself; and that,without opposition, reality would not be reality,because it would not be development and life.Unity is the positive, opposition the negative ;but the negative is also positive, positive in sofar as negative. Were it not so, the fulness andrichness of the positive would be unintelligible.If the analogy between poetry and philosophy benot satisfactory, if it be not sufficiently clear whatis meant by a concrete concept, which as thelogical form of development corresponds to in-


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THE DIALECTIC 21tuition as its poetical form, we might say, nowthat comparisons and metaphors are more readilychosen from the natural sciences (sacrificingexactitude of analogy to aptness of comparison),that the concrete universal, with its synthesis ofopposites, expresses life and not the corpse oflife ; it gives the physiology, not the anatomy, ofthe real.

Hegel calls his doctrine of opposites dialectic,rejecting, as liable to cause misunderstandings,the other formulae of unity and coincidence ofopposites, because in these stress is laid only uponthe unity, and not at the same time upon theopposition. The two abstract elements, or theopposites taken in and by themselves, he callsmoments, a figure taken from the moments of thelever, and the word "moment" is sometimes alsoapplied to the third term, the synthesis. The relation of the two first to the third is expressed bythe word "solution" or "overcoming" (Aufkeben).And that, as Hegel intimates, means that the twomoments in their separation are both negated,but preserved in the synthesis. The secondterm (in relation to the first) appears as negation,and the third (in relation to the second) as anegation of negation, or as absolute negativity,which is also absolute affirmation. If, for conveni-


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22 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELence of exposition, we apply numerical symbolsto this logical relation, we may call the dialectica triad or trinity, because it appears as composedof three terms ; but Hegel never ceases puttingus on our guard against the extrinsic and arbitrarycharacter of this numerical symbolism, which isaltogether unsuited to the expression of speculative truth. And indeed, to speak accurately, inthe dialectic triad we do not think three concepts,but one single concept, which is the concreteuniversal, in its own inner nature and structure.More than that, in order to obtain this synthesisit is above all things necessary to define theopposition of the terms. And if the activitywhich defines the opposition be called intellect,and the activity which yields the synthesis reason,it is evident that intellect is necessary to reason,is a moment of it, is intrinsic to it ; and this,indeed, is how Hegel sometimes considers it.

Whoever cannot rise to this method of thinking opposites can make no philosophic affirmationwhich is not self-contradictory and passes intoits own contrary. This has already been exemplified in the discussion of the antithesis ofmonism and dualism. And it can be seen in thefirst triad of the Hegelian Logic : the triad whichcomprehends in itself all the others, and which,


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THE DIALECTIC 23as is well known, is constituted by the termsbeing, nothing, and becoming. What is beingwithout nothing ? What is pure, indeterminate,unqualified, indistinguishable, ineffable being, i.e.being in general, not this or that particular being ?How can it be distinguished from nothing ? And,on the other hand, what is nothing without being,i.e. nothing conceived in itself, without determination or qualification, nothing in general, not thenothing of this or that particular thing ? Inwhat way is this distinguished from being ? Totake one of the terms by itself comes to the samething as to take the other by itself, for the onehas meaning only in and through the other.Thus to take the true without the false, or thegood without the evil, is to make of the true something not thought (because thought is struggleagainst the false), and therefore something thatis not true. And similarly it is to make of thegood something not willed (because to will thegood is to negate the evil), and therefore something that is not good. Outside the synthesis,the two terms taken abstractly pass into oneanother and change sides. Truth is found onlyin the third ; that is to say, in the case of thefirst triad, in becoming, which, therefore, is, asHegel says, " the first concrete concept."


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24 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELNevertheless, this error, which consists in

taking the opposites outside the synthesis, isconstantly reappearing. And against it theremust always be directed the polemic which shows,as has just been shown, that outside the synthesis,the opposites are unthinkable. This polemic isthe dialectic in its " subjective " or "negative"sense. But it must not be confused with the trueand proper meaning of the doctrine of dialecticin its objective or positive sense, which may alsobe designated the logical doctrine of development.In this negative dialectic the result is not thesynthesis, but the annulment, of the two oppositeterms, each on account of the other ; and therefore the terminology, which we have explainedabove, also acquires, like the word "dialectic 3itself, a somewhat different meaning. Theintellect, in so far as it is not an intrinsic momentof reason and inseparable from it, but is, on thecontrary, the affirmation of the separate oppositeswhich claims to stand alone as ultimate truth,intellect, in this sense, becomes a derogatory anddepreciatory term. It is the abstract intellect,the eternal enemy of philosophic speculation. Itis, at bottom, reason itself failing of its own task."It is not the fault of the intellect if we donot proceed further, but a subjective impotence


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THE DIALECTIC 25of reason which permits that determination tocontinue in that state." 1 The triad itself givesplace to a quatriad of terms : two affirmationsand two negations. Reason intervenes as negativereason, to bring confusion into the domain ofintellect ; but if, in this negative capacity, itprepare and compel the positive doctrine, itneither produces nor states it.

The confusion between the merely negativeaspect of Hegel s dialectic and its positivecontent has given rise to an objection to theHegelian doctrine of opposites, which is thebattle-charger so often mounted by his adversaries : a Brigliadoro or a Bayard so very old andbroken down that I do not see how any onestill succeeds in keeping his seat on it. It hasbeen said : If being and nothing are identical(as Hegel proves or thinks he proves), how canthey constitute becoming ? Becoming, on Hegel stheory, must be a synthesis of opposites, not ofidentities, of which there can be no synthesis.a~a remains a, and does not become b. Butbeing is identical with nothing only when beingand nothing are thought badly, or are not thoughttruly. Only then does it happen that the oneequals the other, not as a a, but rather as

1 Wissensch. der Logik, iii. 48.


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26 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGEL= 0. For the thought which thinks them truly,

being and nothing are not identical, but precisely opposite, and in conflict with one another.And this conflict (which is also a union, sincetwo wrestlers, in order to wrestle, must lay holdof one another !) is becoming. It is not a conceptadded to or derived from the first two taken intheir separation, but a unique concept, outside ofwhich there are two abstractions, two unrealshadows, being and nothing, each by itself, whichare, as such, united, not by their conflict, but bytheir common vacuity.

Another objection, which has also seemedtriumphant, consists in observing that the concreteuniversal, with its synthesis of opposites, thevery mark of its concreteness is not a purelogical concept, because it tacitly introduces inthe representation of movement and of development an element of sense or intuition. But ifthe words are given their precise significance,sense and intuition should mean somethingparticular, individual, and historical. And whatis there in the Hegelian concept of the universalwhich we can show to be particular, individual, orhistorical ? What can we separate out as suchan element, in the way in which, for instance,we can distinguish the particular, individual, or


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THE DIALECTIC 27historical element in the empirical concept of"oak," or of "whale," or of "feudal regime"?Movement or development has about it nothingof the particular and contingent. It is a universal.It has no sense-element ; it is a thought, a concept,the true concept exactly adequate to reality. Itslogical theory is the concrete universal, thesynthesis of opposites. But it may be that thisobjection was intended against the characterwhich the concept possesses in Hegel s logic.There it is not something empty and indifferent,not a mere " recipient " ready to receive anycontent, but the ideal form of reality itself. Andif, in this objection, " logic " is taken to be onlyan inconceivable abstraction, an abstraction which" is commanded," like that of mathematics, and" intuition " is taken to be the speculative concept,the criticism reveals, not a defect in Hegel, buthis true glory. For it makes it clear that he hasdestroyed that false concept of a barren andformal logic as an arbitrary abstraction, and tothe true logical concept he has given a characterof concreteness, which can also be called

" intuition," when intuition signifies, as we showedabove, that philosophy must spring from thebosom of divine Poetry, matre pulelira filiapulch* ior.


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28 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELPhilosophy, thus set in friendly relations with

poetry, enters that state which in these days ofNietzschian phraseology is called " dionysiac."It is a state to terrify timid thinkers, who, however, in so far as they philosophize, find themselves, without knowing it, in the same condition.Thus our Rosmini, aghast at the dialectic of beingand not being, exclaimed : " And even were itas true, as it is false, that being can deny itself,the question would always recur : what couldmove it to deny itself? What reason could beassigned for this alleged desire, on the part ofbeing, to deny itself and to ignore itself? why, inshort, should it make this mad effort to annulitself? for the system of Hegel does nothing lessthan make being go mad and introduce madnessinto all things. Thus he claims to give them life,movement, free passage, becoming. I do notknow if a similar effort was ever made in theworld, to make all things, even being itself, gomad." 1 Probably Rosmini did not rememberthat the same description, though certainly in farbetter style, had been given by Hegel himselfin the Phenomenology, when, having representedthe movement of reality, that process of coming

1 Saggio storico-critico sidle categoric e la dialettica^ posthumous work(Turin, 1883), p. 371.


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THE DIALECTIC 29into being and passing away which itself is without beginning and without end he concludedwith the words : " The true is the Bacchic delirium, in which not one of its components is notdrunk ; and since each becomes immediately dissolved when the others withdraw, that deliriumis also simple and transparent repose." Realityseems mad, because it is life : philosophy seemsmad, because it breaks up abstractions and livesthat life in thought. It is a madness which isthe highest wisdom, and the true and not metaphorical madmen are they who become mad withthe empty words of semi-philosophy, who takeformulas for reality, who never succeed in raisingthemselves to that clear sky whence they can seetheir work as it really is. They see the sky abovetheir heads, unattainable by them, and are readyto call it a madhouse.

Another manifestation of this same irrationalfear is the cry that, with such logic as this, thevery base and rule of man s thought is taken fromhim the principle of identity and contradiction.Proofs are cited in Hegel s frequent outbursts ofill-humour against this principle and in his saying that for it there should be substituted theopposite principle : that everything is self-contra-

1 Phanom. d. Geistes? p. 37.


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30 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELdictory. But things do not stand precisely inthis case. Hegel does not deny the principle ofidentity, for otherwise he would have been obligedto admit that his logical theory was at once trueand not true, true and false ; that philosophically, being and nothing could be thought in thesynthesis, and also, each in and for itself, outsidethe synthesis. And all his polemic, all hisphilosophy, would no longer have any meaning ;it would never have been seriously accomplished ;whereas, obviously, it is most serious. So farfrom destroying the principle of identity, Hegelgives it new life and force, makes it what trulyit ought to be and what in ordinary thought it isnot. For in ordinary thought, in semi-philosophy,reality is left divided, as has been seen, into twoparts. Now it is the one, now the other, andwhen it is the one, it is not the other. And yet,in this effort after exclusion, the one passes intothe other and both are fused in nothingness. Itis these truly unthinkable contradictions thatordinary thought claims to justify and embellishby adducing the principle of identity. If attentionbe paid to the words of Hegel alone, we mightsay that he does not believe in the principle ofidentity ; but if we look closer, we see that whatHegel does not believe in is the fallacious use of


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THE DIALECTIC 31theprinciple of identity the use made of it by thoseabstract thinkers who retain unity by cancellingopposition, or retain opposition by cancellingunity; or, as he says, the principle of identitytaken as a " law of the abstract intellect/ Thatfallacious use exists, because we are unwilling torecognize that opposition or contradiction is not adefect, or a stain, or an evil in things, which couldbe eliminated from them, far less a subjectiveerror of ours ; but that it is indeed the true beingof things. All things are contradictory in themselves, and thought must think this contradiction.This establishes truly and firmly the principle ofidentity, which triumphs over opposition in thinking it, that is to say, in grasping it in its unity.Opposition thought is opposition overcome, andovercome precisely in virtue of the principle ofidentity. Opposition unrecognized, or unity unrecognized, is apparent obedience to the principle,but in effect is its real contradiction. There isthe same difference between Hegel s method ofthinking and the method of ordinary thought asthere is between him who confronts and conquersan enemy and him who closes his eyes in ordernot to see him, and believing that he has thus gotrid of him, becomes his victim. " Speculativethought consists in determining opposition as


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32 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELthought does, and in so doing it determinesitself. It does not, like representative thought,allow itself to be dominated by opposition intoresolving its own determinations only in otherdeterminations or in nothingness." l Reality isa nexus of opposites, and is not rendered dissipated and discrete thereby. Indeed, it is inand through opposition that reality eternallygenerates itself. Nor does thought, which issupreme reality, the reality of reality, becomedissipated or discrete, but it grasps unity inopposition and logically synthesizes it.

The dialectic of Hegel, like all discoveriesof truth, does not come to drive preceding truthsfrom their place, but to confirm and to enrichthem. The concrete universal, unity in distinction and in opposition, is the true andcomplete principle of identity, which allows noseparate existence, either as complement orrival to the principle enunciated in olderdoctrines, because it has absorbed the olderprinciple into itself and has transformed it intoits own flesh and blood.

1 Wissensch. d. Logik, ii. 67-8.


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II

EXPLANATIONS RELATING TO THEHISTORY OF THE DIALECTIC

SOME historians of philosophy have thought thatthe problem of opposites was the whole problemof philosophy. Hence the history of the variousattempts at a solution of this problem hassometimes been taken for the whole history ofphilosophy, and the one has been narrated inplace of the other. But the dialectic, so farfrom being the whole of philosophy, is not eventhe whole of logic ; although it is a mostimportant part of it, and might be called itscrown.

The reason for this confusion will perhaps beevident from what was said above. It lies inthe intimate connexion between the logicalproblem of opposites and the great disputes ofthe monists and the dualists, of the materialistsand the spiritualists. These disputes form the

33


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34 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELprincipal part of the treatises and histories ofphilosophy, although they do not constitute itsprimary and fundamental task, which is betterexpressed by the phrase " know thyself." Butthis apparent coincidence will disappear, whenwe consider that to think logically and toconstruct a logical theory of logic, are twodifferent things ; that it is one thing to thinkdialectically, and another to have logical consciousness of dialectical thought. Were thisnot so, the Hegelian solution would have alreadybeen finally given by the many philosopherswho have in fact thought reality dialectically,or at least given on the occasions when theyhave thought it in that way. Doubtless, everyphilosophic problem calls up all the others. Allcan be discovered implicit in each one, and inthe solution, true or false, of one problem, thereis the solution, true or false, of all. But if it isimpossible altogether to separate the historiesof individual philosophic problems from oneanother, it is also true that these problems aredistinct ; and we should not confuse the variousmembers of the organic whole, if we do notwish to lose all idea of that whole itself.

This principle we must bear in mind, if weare to circumscribe the enquiry as to the


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ii HISTORY OF THE DIALECTIC 35historical development of the dialectic doctrineof

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

Hegel. This enquiry, within these preciselimits, has perhaps not yet been carried out ina suitable way. This is due also to the factthat the general consciousness of those whocultivate philosophic studies has not beenpersuaded of the importance and truth of thedoctrine, so that there have been wanting thenecessary interest and the directive criterionfor research into its history. The best thathas been collected on this theme, is to be foundin the books of Hegel himself, especially in hisHistory of Philosophy^ and here it is opportunerapidly to review his scattered remarks, making,where necessary, some additions and somecomments.Was Hegel the first to formulate the logicalprinciple of the dialectic and of its development ?Had he forerunners, and if so, who were they ?Through what forms and through what approxi-

1 See also the historical introduction to the Logik u. Metaphysik otKuno Fischer (2nd ed., 1865), and the Prohisione ed introduzione allelezioni di filosofia of B. Spaventa (Napoli, 1862; reprinted by Gentilewith the new title : La Filosofia italiana nelle sue relazioni con la filosofiaeuropea, Bari, 1908). For the immediate antecedents of the Hegeliandialectic and for the various phases of its development, see preferably Al.Schmid, Entwickelungsgeschicte der hegehchen Logik (Regensburg, 1858).


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36 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELmations did that principle pass, prior to attaining in him to its perfection ?

The doctrine of dialectic is the work ofmature thought, the product of long philosophicincubation. In Hellenic antiquity we find, inZeno of Elea s refutations of the reality ofmotion, the first perception of the difficultiesto which the principle of opposites gives rise.Motion is the very fact of development in theform in which it offers itself most easily toreflexion. And Zeno, having set the difficultiesin very clear relief, resolved the contradictionby denying the reality of movement. (Hisarguments of the arrow, of Achilles and thetortoise, etc., showed the contradictions involvedin space and time.) Motion is an illusion ofthe senses ; being, reality, is one and immovable.In opposition to Zeno, Heraclitus made ofmovement and becoming the true reality. Hissayings are: " being and not-being are thesame,"

" all is, and also is not," "everythingflows." His comparisons of things with a river,of the opposite which is in its opposite as sweetand bitter are in honey, of the bow and of thelyre ; his cosmological views of war and peace,of discord and harmony, show how profoundlyHeraclitus felt reality as contradiction and


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,i HISTORY OF THE DIALECTIC 37development. Hegel used to say that therewas not one affirmation of Heraclitus that hehad not incorporated in his own logic. But itis to be observed, that by the very act ofincorporating them in his doctrine, he conferredupon these affirmations a far more precisesignification than they had possessed when theystood alone. Without doubt we must hold themin high esteem, just as they have been handeddown, an ingenuous and penetrating vision ofthe truth. But we must not insist upon themtoo much, lest we should run the risk ofhistorical falsification, and make a Post-Kantianof a Pre-Socratic.

The same remark applies to the Platonicdialectic of the Parmenides, the Sophist, thePhilebus, dialogues whose interpretation andhistorical place are matters of much dispute.Hegel thought that they contained the essenceof the Platonic philosophy, the attempt, i.e. topass from the universal, still as yet abstract, tothe concrete universal, to posit the speculativeform of the concept as unity in diversity.Questions are discussed there concerning theone and the many, identity and non-identity,motion and rest, coming into being and passingaway, being and not being, finite and infinite,


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38 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELthe limited and the unlimited. The conclusionof the Parmenides is, that the one is and is not,is itself and other than itself, and that things inrelation to themselves and in distinction fromothers are and are not, appear and do not appear.And all of this indicates an attempt to overcomea difficulty, which issues only in a negative result.In any case, as Hegel noted, in Plato we find thedialectic, but not yet complete consciousness ofits nature. It is a speculative method of thinking,greatly superior in value to the argumentationsof the Sophists or to the later ingenuities of theSceptics : but it does not attain to the level oflogical doctrine. Of Aristotle, it may be saidthat his logical consciousness is in disagreementwith his speculative consciousness : his logic ispurely intellectualist, his metaphysic is a studyof the categories.We can discover nothing more than anextremity of need, or perhaps a consciousness of helplessness and an indication of thelacuna, in the doctrines of Philo the Jewand of the Gnostics. For them, true reality,absolute being, is considered unattainable bythought the ineffable, inscrutable God, theabyss where all is negated. This is equally trueof Plotinus, for whom all predicates are inadequate


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ii HISTORY OF THE DIALECTIC 39to the Absolute, each of them expressing but adetermination of it. In Proclus is developed anidea that Plato had already mentioned the ideaof the trinity or the triad. This idea, and theidea of the Absolute as spirit, is the greatphilosophic advance implicit in Christianity.

Nicholas of Cusa, inheriting Neoplatonic andmystical traditions, was the thinker who, at thebeginning of the modern world, most energeticallyexpressed the need of the human spirit to emergefrom dualisms and conflicts, and to raise itself tothat simplicity where opposites coincide. Andthe Cusan was the first to perceive that thiscoincidence of opposites is in antithesis to themerely abstract logic of Aristotle, who conceivedcontrariety as perfect difference, 1 and did notadmit that unity could contain contraries, sincehe regarded each thing as the privation of itsopposite. Cusanus maintained against this,that unity is prior to duality, the coincidence ofopposites prior to their separation. But in hisview, that which unites the opposites, thoughtas simple coincidence, is incomprehensible toman, either by sense, or by reason, or byintellect, which are the three forms of the humanmind. It remains a simple limit ; and of God,

1 H IvavTibTys tT^epTliadTo~pastr-and"deposit the idea of

a philosophy of history ; and he had to negate,as he did negate, the history of the historians,for that was required by his logical presupposition.He divided philosophy into pure or formal philosophy (which should have been logic, and wasalso metaphysics), and into applied and concretephilosophy, comprising the two philosophies ofnature and of spirit, into the second of which thephilosophy of history entered again ; the threetogether composed the encyclopaedia of thephilosophical sciences. Thus Hegel adopted ashis own the traditional Scholastic division of


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PARTICULAR CONCEPTS 139philosophy into rational and real, and this not asa simple formula and external scheme, but asexpressing also the demand for a philosophictreatment of the contingent facts of nature andof human history. All history, as I have previously explained, can be called concrete orapplied philosophy ; but these words did notpossess so innocent a meaning for Hegel as forourselves. For him they implied the sharp distinction of the history, contained in the philosophical encyclopaedia, from all the other histories,which constitute the work of historians. In hislectures upon the philosophy of history, this distinction is very clearly drawn, for he places onthe one side original historiography and reflectivehistoriography (the second of these two beingsubdivided into general, pragmatic, critical andconceptual history), and on the other philosophichistoriography or philosophy of history.

Hegel affirms that this philosophic historiography should have its own method, differentfrom the method of ordinary historiography, andhe claims for it the character of an a priori construction. It is true that by this he sometimesseems to mean, not a distinctive character, butonly the need for a better elaborated a priori.He notes that ordinary historians also write


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140 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELa priori history, for they proceed from certainthoughts and representations of their own, which,though defective and arbitrary, yet are alwaysa priori. But the a priori that he introducesis not the logical element, the interpretation ofintuitive data, which has been recognized aboveas indispensable for all historical work. Rather,it is a history already complete, which needs onlyto be clothed in names and dates. " The onethought" (writes Hegel) " with which philosophyapproaches history is the simple thought of reason :that reason rules the world, and therefore in thehistory of the world also, there is a rationalprocess." But there is far more in it than this,or rather, we learn what these words really mean,when we see him trace the necessary process ofreason in the historical world. The history ofthe world is the progress in the consciousness ofliberty : its single moments or degrees are thevarious national spirits ( Volksgeister), the variouspeoples, each one of which is destined to represent one degree only, and to accomplish onlyone task in the whole achievement. BeforeHegel seeks the data of facts, he knows whatthey must be ; he knows them in anticipation, aswe know philosophic truths, which spirit finds inits own universal being and does not deduce


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PARTICULAR CONCEPTS 141from contingent facts. In the History of Philosophy,

which is perhaps his principal historicalwork, he knows a priori that the history ofphilosophy and the system of philosophy areidentical. The theme is the same development,which is represented in the system itself in thepure medium of thought, free from historicalexternalities ; and in the history it has theaddition of these externalities (names and dates).The first phases of Hellenic thought are the firstcategories of metaphysic and the phases followone another in the same order as the categories.

Against an interpretation of Hegel s theoryof the philosophy of history, might be set hisvarious declarations of the great respect due toactual fact. But we must first examine what valuethese declarations can assume or retain. "Thatthere is rational process in the history of theworld" (he says) "should be shown by the consideration of history itself ... it should be aresult : we must take history as it is, and proceedhistorically and empirically" The accidental isextraneous to philosophy; and history (he sayselsewhere) - should lower the universal intoempirical individuality and into effectual reality ;the idea is its essence but the appearance of theidea is in the sphere of accident and in the realm


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M2 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELof arbitrary choice." But if accident and individuality

aretruly

extraneous tophilosophy,

if we can know them only empirically, there canbe no a priori philosophy of history, but onlyhistory itself. And if a philosophy of history becreated, then this accidental and individual, andthe historical and empirical method, are notrecognized and are refuted. We cannot escapefrom the dilemma. To recommend attention tofacts, or to recognize that the study of documentsis the indispensable point of departure for history,are mere words, when in consequence of theadoption of certain principles, it is not knownwhat use to make of those facts and documents.Those of Hegel s disciples, who have believedthat they could save both the goat and thecabbage by maintaining both the speculative andthe philological methods in history, have savedneither the one nor the other. It is veryingenuous to affirm that one and the sameactivity can be exercised with two differentmethods ; for the method is intrinsic to theactivity, and a duplicity of methods means aduplicity of activity. It is worse than ingenuousto make the two methods alternate and come toone another s assistance, as though they were twofriends and companions engaged in the same task.


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PARTICULAR CONCEPTS 143At other times, Hegel seems to understand hisa priori scheme as nothing but a rough anticipation of what is given by actual history: "It may bethought " (he writes in the History of Philosophy"]" that the philosophic order of the degrees of theidea must be different from that of the conceptswhich are produced in time ; but in the Whole(im Ganzen) the order is the same." At othertimes again he modifies his statement in such away that hardly anything remains of it. Thus,in affirming the identity of the philosophic systemand the history of philosophy, he observes :" The philosophy which is last in time is alsothe result of all preceding philosophies, andshould contain the principle of them all : it istherefore but only if it be truly a philosophythe most developed, the richest and the mostconcrete." The reservation implied in theparenthesis amounts to a tautological affirmation, that the most developed, the richest andmost concrete philosophy, is not the last in time,but that which is truly a philosophy ; since itis possible that a philosophic system which constitutes a regression may appear last in time.What are we to conclude from all this ? ThatHegel never had in mind an a priori philosophyof history, the idea of which is, however, closely


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i 44 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELconnected with his dialectic treatment of distincts ?No, but rather that error is contradiction ; andthat Hegel s erroneous thesis of a philosophyof history (of an ideal history, which is not eternal,but in time] shows itself to be error, by theinvoluntary contradictions in which Hegel becomes involved. Certainly, we cannot concludethat those admissions suffice to heal the defects ofthe erroneous thesis and to change it into truth.

That the philosophy of history, thus conceived,should not suffer beside itself history properlyso-called, but should negate it, is not merely aprobable inference, from Hegel s principle, but isexplicitly enough stated in several propositions.And indeed, the very fact that he defines thephilosophy of history as "the thinking contemplation of history " (recalling immediately afterwards, that thought alone distinguishes manfrom the animal), is confirmation that he regardshistory as such, either as not thought, or asimperfect thought. And the attitude of antipathyand depreciation, which he adopts toward professional historians, is likewise significant ; almostas though a philosopher of art should quarrelwith professional poets and painters. But mostinstructive of all is what he says of the factswhich are the material of the historian s study.


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PARTICULAR CONCEPTS 145The only facts which, in his opinion, are valuablefor history are those which represent the movement of spirit or the history of the State. All theparticular facts that remain " are a superfluousmass which, when faithfully collected, only oppressand obscure the objects worthy of history ; theessential characteristic of the spirit and of thetimes is always contained in great events. Itis, therefore, a true sentiment that has led tothe handing over of such representations of theparticular to romances (such as those of the celebrated Walter Scott^ etc.). It is to be held aproof of good taste to unite pictures of unessential and particular life to a subject-matter equallyunessential, such as those that fiction extractsfrom private facts and subjective passions. Butto mingle, in the interests of so-called truth,individual trivialities of time and people with therepresentation of general interests is not onlycontrary to judgment and to taste, but contraryto the concept of objective truth. For, accordingto this concept, the truth for spirit is that whichis substantial, not the vacuity of external existence,and of accident. It is perfectly indifferent whethersuch insignificant things are formally documented,or, as in fiction, invented in a characteristicmanner and attributed to such and such a name,


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VII46 PHILOSOPHY OF HEGELor to such and such circumstances." Whoevermeditates these words will find in them mostplainly the pernicious distinction between twokinds of facts, between historical facts and non-historical facts, essential facts and unessential facts,which has often since reappeared among the disciples of Hegel. It reappeared first in Edwar

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