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The system of Hegel frees the mind from the And when we are asked to believe the Hegelian dominion of abstract ideas. We acknowledge his to be the sole or universal logic, we naturally originality, and some of us delight to wander in reply that there are other ways in which our the mazes of thought which he has opened to us.
ideas may be connected. The triplets of Hegel, For Hegel has found admirers in England and Scot-the division into being, essence, and notion, are land when his popularity in Germany has departed, not the only or necessary modes in which the and he, like the philosophers whom he criticizes, world of thought can be conceived. There may is of the past. No other thinker has ever dissected be an evolution by degrees as well as by oppo-the human mind with equal patience and minute-sites. The word ‘continuity’ suggests the possi-ness. He has lightened the burden of thought be-bility of resolving all differences into differences cause he has shown us that the chains which we of quantity. Again, the opposites themselves may wear are of our own forging. To be able to place vary from the least degree of diversity up to con-ourselves not only above the opinions of men but tradictory opposition. They are not like numbers above their modes of thinking, is a great height of and figures, always and everywhere of the same philosophy. This dearly obtained freedom, however, value. And therefore the edifice which is con-we are not disposed to part with, or to allow him structed out of them has merely an imaginary to build up in a new form the ‘beggarly elements’
symmetry, and is really irregular and out of proof scholastic logic which he has thrown down. So portion. The spirit of Hegelian criticism should far as they are aids to reflection and expression, be applied to his own system, and the terms forms of thought are useful, but no further:—we Being, Not-being, existence, essence, notion, and may easily have too many of them.
the like challenged and defined. For if Hegel in-56
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troduces a great many distinctions, he obliter-to imagine that the meagre categories of the ates a great many others by the help of the uni-understanding, however ingeniously arranged or versal solvent ‘is not,’ which appears to be the displayed, are the image of God;—that what all simplest of negations, and yet admits of several religions were seeking after from the beginning meanings. Neither are we able to follow him in was the Hegelian philosophy which has been the play of metaphysical fancy which conducts revealed in the latter days. The great metaphy-him from one determination of thought to an-sician, like a prophet of old, was naturally in-other. But we begin to suspect that this vast sys-clined to believe that his own thoughts were di-tem is not God within us, or God immanent in vine realities. We may almost say that whatever the world, and may be only the invention of an came into his head seemed to him to be a neces-individual brain. The ‘beyond’ is always com-sary truth. He never appears to have criticized ing back upon us however often we expel it. We himself, or to have subjected his own ideas to do not easily believe that we have within the the process of analysis which he applies to every compass of the mind the form of universal knowl-other philosopher.
edge. We rather incline to think that the method Hegel would have insisted that his philosophy of knowledge is inseparable from actual knowl-should be accepted as a whole or not at all. He edge, and wait to see what new forms may be would have urged that the parts derived their developed out of our increasing experience and meaning from one another and from the whole.
observation of man and nature. We are conscious He thought that he had supplied an outline large of a Being who is without us as well as within us.
enough to contain all future knowledge, and a Even if inclined to Pantheism we are unwilling method to which all future philosophies must 57
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conform. His metaphysical genius is especially not get rid of by an assumption that we have shown in the construction of the categories—a already discovered the method to which all phi-work which was only begun by Kant, and elabo-losophy must conform. Hegel is right in prefer-rated to the utmost by himself. But is it really ring the concrete to the abstract, in setting ac-true that the part has no meaning when sepa-tuality before possibility, in excluding from the rated from the whole, or that knowledge to be philosopher’s vocabulary the word ‘inconceiv-knowledge at all must be universal? Do all ab-able.’ But he is too well satisfied with his own stractions shine only by the reflected light of system ever to consider the effect of what is other abstractions? May they not also find a unknown on the element which is known. To the nearer explanation in their relation to phenom-Hegelian all things are plain and clear, while he ena? If many of them are correlatives they are who is outside the charmed circle is in the mire not all so, and the relations which subsist be-of ignorance and ‘logical impurity’: he who is tween them vary from a mere association up to within is omniscient, or at least has all the ele-a necessary connexion. Nor is it easy to deter-ments of knowledge under his hand.
mine how far the unknown element affects the Hegelianism may be said to be a transcenden-known, whether, for example, new discoveries tal defense of the world as it is. There is no room may not one day supersede our most elemen-for aspiration and no need of any: ‘What is ac-tary notions about nature. To a certain extent tual is rational, what is rational is actual.’ But a all our knowledge is conditional upon what may good man will not readily acquiesce in this apho-be known in future ages of the world. We must rism. He knows of course that all things proceed admit this hypothetical element, which we can-according to law whether for good or evil. But 58
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when he sees the misery and ignorance of man-there is nothing to prevent the force of their in-kind he is convinced that without any interrup-dividuality breaking through the uniformity tion of the uniformity of nature the condition of which surrounds them. But such disturbers of the world may be indefinitely improved by hu-the order of thought Hegel is reluctant to ac-man effort. There is also an adaptation of per-knowledge.
sons to times and countries, but this is very far The doctrine of Hegel will to many seem the e from being the fulfillment of their higher natures.
xpression of an indolent conservatism, and will The man of the seventeenth century is unfitted at any rate be made an excuse for it. The mind for the eighteenth, and the man of the eigh-of the patriot rebels when he is told that the teenth for the nineteenth, and most of us would worst tyranny and oppression has a natural fit-be out of place in the world of a hundred years ness: he cannot be persuaded, for example, that hence. But all higher minds are much more akin the conquest of Prussia by Napoleon I. was ei-than they are different: genius is of all ages, and ther natural or necessary, or that any similar there is perhaps more uniformity in excellence calamity befalling a nation should be a matter than in mediocrity. The sublimer intelligences of indifference to the poet or philosopher. We may of mankind—Plato, Dante, Sir Thomas More—
need such a philosophy or religion to console us meet in a higher sphere above the ordinary ways under evils which are irremediable, but we see of men; they understand one another from afar, that it is fatal to the higher life of man. It seems notwithstanding the interval which separates to say to us, ‘The world is a vast system or mathem. They are ‘the spectators of all time and chine which can be conceived under the forms of all existence;’ their works live for ever; and of logic, but in which no single man can do any 59
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great good or any great harm. Even if it were a by the vibrations of a pendulum. Even in Aristotle thousand times worse than it is, it could be ar-and Plato, rightly understood, we cannot trace ranged in categories and explained by philoso-this law of action and reaction. They are both phers. And what more do we want?’
idealists, although to the one the idea is actual The philosophy of Hegel appeals to an histori-and immanent,—to the other only potential and cal criterion: the ideas of men have a succession transcendent, as Hegel himself has pointed out in time as well as an order of thought. But the (Wallace’s Hegel). The true meaning of Aristotle assumption that there is a correspondence behas been disguised from us by his own appeal to tween the succession of ideas in history and the fact and the opinions of mankind in his more natural order of philosophy is hardly true even popular works, and by the use made of his writ-of the beginnings of thought. And in later sys-ings in the Middle Ages. No book, except the tems forms of thought are too numerous and Scriptures, has been so much read, and so little complex to admit of our tracing in them a regu-understood. The Pre-Socratic philosophies are lar succession. They seem also to be in part re-simpler, and we may observe a progress in them; flections of the past, and it is difficult to sepa-but is there any regular succession? The ideas of rate in them what is original and what is bor-Being, change, number, seem to have sprung up rowed. Doubtless they have a relation to one contemporaneously in different parts of Greece another—the transition from Descartes to and we have no difficulty in constructing them Spinoza or from Locke to Berkeley is not a mat-out of one another—we can see that the union of ter of chance, but it can hardly be described as Being and Not-being gave birth to the idea of an alternation of opposites or figured to the mind change or Becoming and that one might be an-60
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other aspect of Being. Again, the Eleatics may futed, by those who succeed them. Once they be regarded as developing in one direction into reigned supreme, now they are subordinated to the Megarian school, in the other into the a power or idea greater or more comprehensive Atomists, but there is no necessary connection than their own. The thoughts of Socrates and between them. Nor is there any indication that Plato and Aristotle have certainly sunk deep into the deficiency which was felt in one school was the mind of the world, and have exercised an supplemented or compensated by another. They influence which will never pass away; but can were all efforts to supply the want which the we say that they have the same meaning in Greeks began to feel at the beginning of the sixth modern and ancient philosophy? Some of them, century before Christ,—the want of abstract as for example the words ‘Being,’ ‘essence,’
ideas. Nor must we forget the uncertainty of chro-
‘matter,’ ‘form,’ either have become obsolete, nology;—if, as Aristotle says, there were Atomists or are used in new senses, whereas ‘individual,’
before Leucippus, Eleatics before Xenophanes,
‘cause,’ ‘motive,’ have acquired an exagger-and perhaps ‘patrons of the flux’ before ated importance. Is the manner in which the logi-Heracleitus, Hegel’s order of thought in the his-cal determinations of thought, or ‘categories’
tory of philosophy would be as much disarranged as they may be termed, have been handed down as his order of religious thought by recent dis-to us, really different from that in which other coveries in the history of religion.
words have come down to us? Have they not been Hegel is fond of repeating that all philosophies equally subject to accident, and are they not of-still live and that the earlier are preserved in ten used by Hegel himself in senses which would the later; they are refuted, and they are not re-have been quite unintelligible to their original 61
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inventors—as for example, when he speaks of the have been equally placed in the second division
‘ground’ of Leibnitz (‘Everything has a suffi-of mediate or reflected ideas? The more we ana-cient ground’) as identical with his own doc-lyze them the less exact does the coincidence of trine of the ‘notion’ (Wallace’s Hegel), or the philosophy and the history of philosophy appear.
‘Being and Not-being’ of Heracleitus as the Many terms which were used absolutely in the same with his own ‘Becoming’?
beginning of philosophy, such as ‘Being,’ ‘mat-As the historical order of thought has been ter,’ ‘cause,’ and the like, became relative in adapted to the logical, so we have reason for the subsequent history of thought. But Hegel suspecting that the Hegelian logic has been in employs some of them absolutely, some relatively, some degree adapted to the order of thought in seemingly without any principle and without any history. There is unfortunately no criterion to regard to their original significance.
which either of them can be subjected, and not The divisions of the Hegelian logic bear a su-much forcing was required to bring either into perficial resemblance to the divisions of the scho-near relations with the other. We may fairly doubt lastic logic. The first part answers to the term, whether the division of the first and second parts the second to the proposition, the third to the of logic in the Hegelian system has not really syllogism. These are the grades of thought un-arisen from a desire to make them accord with der which we conceive the world, first, in the the first and second stages of the early Greek general terms of quality, quantity, measure; sec-philosophy. Is there any reason why the concep-ondly, under the relative forms of ‘ground’ and tion of measure in the first part, which is formed existence, substance and accidents, and the like; by the union of quality and quantity, should not thirdly in syllogistic forms of the individual me-62
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diated with the universal by the help of the parto have considered the forms of thought which ticular. Of syllogisms there are various kinds,—
are best adapted for the expression of facts. It qualitative, quantitative, inductive, mechanical, has never applied the categories to experience; teleological,—which are developed out of one it has not defined the differences in our ideas of another. But is there any meaning in reintroduc-opposition, or development, or cause and effect, ing the forms of the old logic? Who ever thinks in the different sciences which make use of these of the world as a syllogism? What connexion is terms. It rests on a knowledge which is not the there between the proposition and our ideas of result of exact or serious enquiry, but is floating reciprocity, cause and effect, and similar rela-in the air; the mind has been imperceptibly in-tions? It is difficult enough to conceive all the formed of some of the methods required in the powers of nature and mind gathered up in one.
sciences. Hegel boasts that the movement of dia-The difficulty is greatly increased when the new lectic is at once necessary and spontaneous: in is confused with the old, and the common logic reality it goes beyond experience and is unveri-is the Procrustes’ bed into which they are forced.
fied by it. Further, the Hegelian philosophy, while The Hegelian philosophy claims, as we have giving us the power of thinking a great deal more seen, to be based upon experience: it abrogates than we are able to fill up, seems to be wanting the distinction of a priori and a posteriori truth.
in some determinations of thought which we It also acknowledges that many differences of require. We cannot say that physical science, kind are resolvable into differences of degree. It which at present occupies so large a share of is familiar with the terms ‘evolution,’ ‘devel-popular attention, has been made easier or more opment,’ and the like. Yet it can hardly be said intelligible by the distinctions of Hegel. Nor can 63
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we deny that he has sometimes interpreted phys-been,’ the third to the words ‘has been’ and ics by metaphysics, and confused his own philo-
‘is’ combined. In other words, the first sphere sophical fancies with the laws of nature. The very is immediate, the second mediated by reflection, freedom of the movement is not without suspi-the third or highest returns into the first, and is cion, seeming to imply a state of the human mind both mediate and immediate. As Luther’s Bible which has entirely lost sight of facts. Nor can was written in the language of the common the necessity which is attributed to it be very people, so Hegel seems to have thought that he stringent, seeing that the successive categories gave his philosophy a truly German character or determinations of thought in different parts by the use of idiomatic German words. But it of his writings are arranged by the philosopher may be doubted whether the attempt has been in different ways. What is termed necessary evo-successful. First because such words as ‘in sich lution seems to be only the order in which a suc-seyn, ’ ‘an sich seyn, ’ ‘an und fur sich seyn, ’
cession of ideas presented themselves to the though the simplest combinations of nouns and mind of Hegel at a particular time.
verbs, require a difficult and elaborate explana-The nomenclature of Hegel has been made by tion. The simplicity of the words contrasts with himself out of the language of common life. He the hardness of their meaning. Secondly, the use uses a few words only which are borrowed from of technical phraseology necessarily separates his predecessors, or from the Greek philosophy, philosophy from general literature; the student and these generally in a sense peculiar to him-has to learn a new language of uncertain mean-self. The first stage of his philosophy answers to ing which he with difficulty remembers. No the word ‘is,’ the second to the word ‘has former philosopher had ever carried the use of 64
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technical terms to the same extent as Hegel. The speaks as if thought, instead of being identical language of Plato or even of Aristotle is but with language, was wholly independent of it. It slightly removed from that of common life, and is not the actual growth of the mind, but the was introduced naturally by a series of thinkers: imaginary growth of the Hegelian system, which the language of the scholastic logic has become is attractive to him.
technical to us, but in the Middle Ages was the Neither are we able to say why of the common vernacular Latin of priests and students. The forms of thought some are rejected by him, while higher spirit of philosophy, the spirit of Plato and others have an undue prominence given to them.
Socrates, rebels against the Hegelian use of lan-Some of them, such as ‘ground’ and ‘exist-guage as mechanical and technical.
ence,’ have hardly any basis either in language Hegel is fond of etymologies and often seems or philosophy, while others, such as ‘cause’ and to trifle with words. He gives etymologies which
‘effect,’ are but slightly considered. All abstrac-are bad, and never considers that the meaning tions are supposed by Hegel to derive their mean-of a word may have nothing to do with its deri-ing from one another. This is true of some, but vation. He lived before the days of Comparative not of all, and in different degrees. There is an Philology or of Comparative Mythology and Re-explanation of abstractions by the phenomena ligion, which would have opened a new world to which they represent, as well as by their rela-him. He makes no allowance for the element of tion to other abstractions. If the knowledge of chance either in language or thought; and per-all were necessary to the knowledge of any one haps there is no greater defect in his system than of them, the mind would sink under the load of the want of a sound theory of language. He thought. Again, in every process of reflection we 65
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seem to require a standing ground, and in the with a view to comprehensiveness in dropping attempt to obtain a complete analysis we lose individuals and their lives and actions. In all all fixedness. If, for example, the mind is viewed things, if we leave out details, a certain degree as the complex of ideas, or the difference be-of order begins to appear; at any rate we can tween things and persons denied, such an analy-make an order which, with a little exaggeration sis may be justified from the point of view of or disproportion in some of the parts, will cover Hegel: but we shall find that in the attempt to the whole field of philosophy. But are we there-criticize thought we have lost the power of think-fore justified in saying that ideas are the causes ing, and, like the Heracliteans of old, have no of the great movement of the world rather than words in which our meaning can be expressed.
the personalities which conceived them? The Such an analysis may be of value as a corrective great man is the expression of his time, and there of popular language or thought, but should still may be peculiar difficulties in his age which he allow us to retain the fundamental distinctions cannot overcome. He may be out of harmony of philosophy.
with his circumstances, too early or too late, and In the Hegelian system ideas supersede per-then all his thoughts perish; his genius passes sons. The world of thought, though sometimes away unknown. But not therefore is he to be re-described as Spirit or ‘Geist,’ is really imper-garded as a mere waif or stray in human history, sonal. The minds of men are to be regarded as any more than he is the mere creature or ex-one mind, or more correctly as a succession of pression of the age in which he lives. His ideas ideas. Any comprehensive view of the world must are inseparable from himself, and would have necessarily be general, and there may be a use been nothing without him. Through a thousand 66
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personal influences they have been brought greatest warriors, the five greatest poets, the five home to the minds of others. He starts from an-greatest founders or teachers of a religion, the tecedents, but he is great in proportion as he five greatest philosophers, the five greatest in-disengages himself from them or absorbs him-ventors,—where would have been all that we self in them. Moreover the types of greatness most value in knowledge or in life? And can that differ; while one man is the expression of the be a true theory of the history of philosophy influences of his age, another is in antagonism which, in Hegel’s own language, ‘does not al-to them. One man is borne on the surface of the low the individual to have his right’?
water; another is carried forward by the current Once more, while we readily admit that the which flows beneath. The character of an indi-world is relative to the mind, and the mind to vidual, whether he be independent of circum-the world, and that we must suppose a common stances or not, inspires others quite as much as or correlative growth in them, we shrink from his words. What is the teaching of Socrates apart saying that this complex nature can contain, from his personal history, or the doctrines of even in outline, all the endless forms of Being Christ apart from the Divine life in which they and knowledge. Are we not ‘seeking the living are embodied? Has not Hegel himself delineated among the dead’ and dignifying a mere logical the greatness of the life of Christ as consisting skeleton with the name of philosophy and almost in his ‘Schicksalslosigkeit’ or independence of of God? When we look far away into the prime-the destiny of his race? Do not persons become val sources of thought and belief, do we suppose ideas, and is there any distinction between them?
that the mere accident of our being the heirs of Take away the five greatest legislators, the five the Greek philosophers can give us a right to set 67
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ourselves up as having the true and only stan-by it; and we can dimly imagine how this univer-dard of reason in the world? Or when we consal frame may be animated by a divine intelli-template the infinite worlds in the expanse of gence. But we cannot conceive how all the heaven can we imagine that a few meagre cat-thoughts of men that ever were, which are them-egories derived from language and invented by selves subject to so many external conditions of the genius of one or two great thinkers contain climate, country, and the like, even if regarded the secret of the universe? Or, having regard to as the single thought of a Divine Being, can be the ages during which the human race may yet supposed to have made the world. We appear to endure, do we suppose that we can anticipate be only wrapping up ourselves in our own con-the proportions human knowledge may attain ceits—to be confusing cause and effect—to be los-even within the short space of one or two thou-ing the distinction between reflection and action, sand years?
between the human and divine.
Again, we have a difficulty in understanding These are some of the doubts and suspicions how ideas can be causes, which to us seems to which arise in the mind of a student of Hegel, be as much a figure of speech as the old notion when, after living for a time within the charmed of a creator artist, ‘who makes the world by the circle, he removes to a little distance and looks help of the demigods’ (Plato, Tim.), or with ‘a back upon what he has learnt, from the vantage-golden pair of compasses’ measures out the cir-ground of history and experience. The enthusi-cumference of the universe (Milton, P.L.). We can asm of his youth has passed away, the authority understand how the idea in the mind of an in-of the master no longer retains a hold upon him.
ventor is the cause of the work which is produced But he does not regret the time spent in the study 68
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of him. He finds that he has received from him a man mystics. And though he can be scarcely said real enlargement of mind, and much of the true to have mixed much in the affairs of men, for, as spirit of philosophy, even when he has ceased to his biographer tells us, ‘he lived for thirty years believe in him. He returns again and again to in a single room,’ yet he is far from being igno-his writings as to the recollections of a first love, rant of the world. No one can read his writings not undeserving of his admiration still. Perhaps without acquiring an insight into life. He loves if he were asked how he can admire without to touch with the spear of logic the follies and believing, or what value he can attribute to what self- deceptions of mankind, and make them ap-he knows to be erroneous, he might answer in pear in their natural form, stripped of the dis-some such manner as the following:—
guises of language and custom. He will not al-1. That in Hegel he finds glimpses of the ge-low men to defend themselves by an appeal to nius of the poet and of the common sense of the one-sided or abstract principles. In this age of man of the world. His system is not cast in a reason any one can too easily find a reason for poetic form, but neither has all this load of logic doing what he likes (Wallace). He is suspicious extinguished in him the feeling of poetry. He is of a distinction which is often made between a the true countryman of his contemporaries person’s character and his conduct. His spirit is Goethe and Schiller. Many fine expressions are the opposite of that of Jesuitism or casuistry scattered up and down in his writings, as when (Wallace). He affords an example of a remark he tells us that ‘the Crusaders went to the Sep-which has been often made, that in order to know ulchre but found it empty.’ He delights to find the world it is not necessary to have had a great vestiges of his own philosophy in the older Ger-experience of it.