is here that practical absurdity shows the theoretical absurdity inherent in the system, and it is here that Hegel is found to recoil from the legitimate consequences of his own principles.

§ 199. Let the system be judged from the point of view of ordinary reasoning. Let it be tested by the possibility of reasoning itself. Does Hegel not seek to prove that which is to be proved, and not the contrary of it? He does not mean surely to say no, when he says yes. He proceeds as other people do, and as every one must, by the ordinary acknowledged canons of reasoning. Then has he established his peculiar system by this method? In that case, we must regard the foundation as utterly rotten. If he accepts the ordinary canons to any extent whatever, how is his system, which is wholly subversive of them, to be reconciled with them? On the other hand, if his system is based on the subversion of those canons, has he not at the outset assumed what he ought to have proved in the end? Is not thus the whole method a gigantic petitio principii?

§ 200. For the ordinary statement-viz., That a thing which is cannot be the contrary of that which it is, Hegel would substitute this:-That everything which is is also the contrary of that which it is. As grounds of a progressive development, neither formula is of use.

If we take the former principle, it is obvious that we cannot proceed by negation to a new idea-in other words, we cannot construct knowledge a priori. It is what is called an analytic principle-i.e., we can deduce from the notion of the subject any attribute involved in it; but we cannot in this way add to the notion of the subject, particularly, we cannot add incompatible attributes. From the notion, for example, of organisation we can draw out, as it were, the attributes of growth, and end or purpose, and living form conformed to this end, because we have already fixed these attributes as contained in the notion of organisation. The principle would keep us to these attributes and only to these-i.e., it would keep us consistent in our thinking about the object of thought.

But if you say that the object spoken of is also the opposite, or contrary, or contradictory of that which it is, you cannot add an attribute in this way. What would come of identifying, for example, organisation and its opposite? Or

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of negating organisation? Yet it is supposed that simply by denying the notion you begin with, you can add a new idea to the notion, and finally unite this idea and the original notion in a third term, which again is a new idea. No progress in knowledge can really be made in this way. It is, in fact, simply a suicidal process. And if this be so, the whole system of Hegel is sapped from the foundation.

$201. The illustration which is usually given of this process is that of the growth of a plant or tree. We are supposed to begin with the germ or seed. This develops into stem, branch, leaf, &c. And finally there is the union of all these in the plant or individual thing. The germ or seed is spoken of as the universal or possibility of the plant; the stem, branches, leaves, &c., as the particulars or differences or negations of the germ. The union of all these is regarded as the individual thing or plant itself. These three points, universality, particularity, individuality, are called moments, and it is said that in this way human knowledge is developed, developed from the bare abstraction of pure being or pure nothing. The whole process, including the universal, particular, and individual, is called the concept or Begriff. This is the type of human thought, and of all thought human and divine. But the whole illustration is fallacious. In the first place, it confounds the order of observation, or, if you choose, thought, with the order of production. My mere seeing or thinking this order of development does not make the development itself. If I say so, I have assumed here that the order of my thought is the same with the order of being or reality, that, in fact, my thought is not only observational but creative, that thought of this order is the divine creative power working in me. Now I do not admit this general assumption, and I hold further that merely to state the observed order of the development of the plant, and to ticket it with certain big words, is to leave out of account altogether the essential element in the process, the causal or productive power at work, the life within the germ, which, working long silent and unseen amid the chaos and the decay of matter, gathers, assimilates, and at length evolves the form of beauty, grace, and symmetry, that form which rooted in a darkness as of the tomb, yet spreads itself out in cheerful greeting to the light of heaven.

§ 202. But, further, this is no illustration or even analogy of the true concept of human thought, nor does it properly illustrate the so-called Begriff of Hegel. The seed or germ is said to pass into the root, stem, branches, leaves, and fruit. But how is this known? I cannot predict this from the knowledge merely of the germ or seed. I am not now dealing with a comprehensive or individual whole, but with a mere class or genus, which I have filled up by generalisation, and which I can unfold at pleasure. I never could tell how or in what way this germ would develop by any a priori process. No negation certainly of the germ would help me to this. This development is known through intuition or observation and generalisation. It is seen and followed by me, not made merely by my seeing it, far less by my thinking it out from the germ. If I associate the particulars, as they are called, of stem, branch, leaf, &c., with the germ, I do so not from an analysis of the notion of the germ, but from direct experience of what follows in certain circumstances. It is the germ in the soil and under atmospheric conditions whose development I follow,—not the germ as germ or seed in pure thought. The germ is here improperly described as a universal at all. It is not a genus or class embracing certain particulars, as organised embraces animal and plant. Organised can be predicated or affirmed of animal and plant. These are the species which it contains, and to which it is applicable. But stem, branch, leaf, &c., cannot be said to be kinds or species of germ or seed. You may say a plant is organised, or has organisation, but you cannot say that a leaf is a germ or seed. That would really be too absurd. And much less could you go the length of saying that the negation of the seed led you to the idea of the stem or branch, or gave you that idea in any way. The seed is not a universal, properly speaking; the stem, branch, leaf, &c., are not particulars, properly speaking. They do not stand to each other in the relation of genus and species. And as for the individual plant being the union of the genus and species, the thing is simply ridiculous. Genus and species are united in the individual. Animal and man are united in this man; but this man is not constituted by the union of these simply. Individuality is something higher than mere membership of a logical class. In this case, the colour red would be an indi

vidual, because it happened to unite the genus colour and the species red. But red, though numerically one colour, is not exactly the kind of indivisible unity which constitutes each of mankind, or even the unconscious plant or tree which lives and possesses its own individual being.

§ 203. It is said in regard to limit in thought that the consciousness of limit transcends limit, that there is only limit in natural or unconscious things, that the moment we reach consciousness of limit, limit itself is destroyed. My answer to this is that so far from consciousness of limit destroying limit, this consciousness of limit is essential to consciousness itself. I never could be conscious unless in so far as I set up limit, either a not-self against myself, or a negative against my affirmation. If in the act of consciousness, I transcend limit, I necessarily transcend consciousness itself, and if I do so I pass into the sphere of the meaningless. You can no more abolish the eternal yes and no in truth, than you can abolish by a mere consciousness of limit right and wrong, virtue and vice, beauty and deformity, in the ethical and æsthetical spheres. Nay, the very assertion is suicidal. How can I know that consciousness transcends limit, and unconsciousness does not, unless I affirm that consciousness is one thing, and unconsciousness another-i.e., unless I proceed on a principle of strict and definite limitation? I distinguish, define, and limit, in order to show that all limit is really impossible. I seek to show, in fact, that no gunpowder will explode, by using a train of gunpowder which explodes the whole magazine.

The truth is, that consciousness or knowledge, as we have it, is possible only under conscious limitation. Our thought is constituted by limitation; we may substitute one kind of limit for another; but we have no power of transcending limit absolutely, any more than the bird can outsoar the atmosphere.

PART II.

CONCEPTS AND TERMS.

CHAPTER XV.

CONCEPTS AS NAMED-TERMS-THEIR PRINCIPAL DISTINCTIONS.

§ 204. Term in the widest sense may indicate either the knowledge of an object (quality) apprehended by Outer or Inner Intuition, an object represented as in Memory or Simple Representation, or it may mark the concept of the Understanding, whether of an abstract quality, or of a subject (synthesis in one object) of a series of qualities. Term in the stricter sense of the word indicates the logical concept; and it is extended to individual qualities, or objects, only in so far as these typify a concept whether generalised or universal a priori; for it is essential to a term that what it signifies should be discriminated from what is signified by other terms, that is, it is only applicable where there is discrimination and distinction, therefore unity amid diversity, and this is a function of logical thinking.

§ 205. Simple Apprehension is wider than Conception, and has for its object individual quality, image, or concept, merely as a fact of consciousness. In every case, it involves a psychological or existential judgment; it affirms the reality of its object as a thing apprehended, as subjectively at least real. When Simple Apprehension realises the meaning of a