pendent upon what is not ourselves. If, however, we suppose cognition and volition, as finite activities, to have done their work, then the matter, which at first has the appearance of being extraneously received, will have been thoroughly intelligised and reduced to law; while, on the other hand, through volition, it will have become, in all its parts, the vehicle or expression of rational ends. In that case, it may be argued, the self-conscious. knower would recognise in the object nothing foreign, but only, as it were, the realisation of his own personality. This is Hegel's idea of perfected knowledge, or rather of an eternally complete self-consciousness, as reached at the end of the Logic. There is a passage in which Fichte describes what he calls "the Idea of the Ego in almost identical terms. But Fichte, as we saw, treated this Idea as an ideal incapable of realisation, and Hegel is constantly taunting the Fichtian Idealism with its mere Ought-tobe. In one sense Hegel is plainly right, for it is an impossible speculative position to found upon an ideal which is nowhere real. But if Fichte merely meant to say that this speculative ideal is not, and never will be, realised in the progress of human experience, then Hegel

is as plainly in the wrong if he intended to call this position in question. It may be granted to Hegel, as against Fichte, that the idea must be realised in the divine self-consciousnessthat, so far, it is not a mere Ought-to-be. But to us such realisation remains a belief or faith, not something which is attained in actual knowledge, even in the reflective knowledge of the absolute philosopher. It is one thing to assert the metaphysical necessity of an Absolute Selff consciousness, another to assert the present realisation of absolute knowledge in a philosophical system. But it will be seen in the sequel that it is a characteristic of the Hegelian system to bind up these two essentially different positions in such a way that it becomes impossible to say which is intended. At this stage it is enough to repeat that, however the Logic may seem in its conclusion to overleap the human consciousness altogether and transport us directly to the specular outlook of Deity, it comes no nearer converting faith into sight than any other system has done. The Absolute Idea is no more than an ideal drawn by Hegel from his sole datum, the human self-consciousness, and does not of itself lift us beyond our starting-point.

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LECTURE IV.

LOGIC AS METAPHYSIC: THOUGHT

AND REALITY.

HAVING thus indicated the relation in which the Hegelian Logic stands to experience, we must next consider the place it holds in the system. Although, as I have said, the centre. of Hegel's philosophising, it forms only the first part of the fully articulated theory. What, then, is its relation to the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Spirit which follow it?

This is a point of no little importance to realise clearly, first in understanding, and secondly in passing judgment upon the Hegelian system. For, at first sight, it is difficult to see any difference between the Absolute Idea in which the 'Logic' culminates and the Absolute Spirit with which Hegel closes the record of Phil

osophy in general. The Absolute Idea is defined as "the unity of the Notion and its reality," "the unity of the subjective and the objective Idea," "the Idea which thinks itself," "the Idea which is object to itself," "the eternal perception of itself in the other, the Notion which has achieved itself in its objectivity." It is "both in itself and for itself; it is the νόησις νοήσεως which Aristotle long ago termed the supreme form of the Idea." These designations-all in Hegel's own words-seem essentially identical with what is afterwards said of Mind, Self-consciousness, or Absolute Spirit, on its return out of Nature, when it gains "clear prospect o'er its being's whole." And the relation between the two is not made quite plain by Hegel's manner of treatment. A key will be found, however, if we remember that throughout the Logic (in spite of the experiential basis which we have claimed for it) Hegel has been nowhere in direct contact with facts or factual existences. The Logic moves, as he tells us himself, in a realm of shades—that is, in less metaphorical language, it deals from beginning to end with abstractions, with general notions, or, to use a technical term, with abstract universals. In place of

Kant's summary table, it professes to be an exhaustive system, of the categories. But this is literally all. In following the advance of thought it deals with the notion or conception of Being and the notion or conception of Becoming, but with no actual beings or processes. It considers the categories of substance and cause, but apart from any actual instance of substantial existence or causal agency. And finally, to come to the decisive point, it considers the notion of knowledge and the relative opposition of subject and object which it involves; but as yet there is, and can be, no question of any real knower who might serve as a concrete example of the notion or type. Here, then, we touch the

difference between the Absolute Idea and the Absolute Spirit. As the 'Logic' deals only with categories or logical abstractions, the Absolute Idea is merely the scheme or form of self-consciousness. In the other case-in the Philosophy of Spirit-we are dealing, or are supposed to be dealing, with realities, facts of existence. Hence the Absolute Spirit is, in the Hegelian system, the one ultimately real existence of which the supreme category of the Logic was a description or definition.