The Logic of Hegel · Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

A.--THE SUBJECTIVE NOTION.

Gold is a metal: silver is a metal: so is copper, lead, &c. This is the major premiss. Then comes the minor premiss: All these bodies conduct electricity; and hence results the conclusion, that all metals conduct electricity. The point which brings about a combination here is individuality in the shape of allness. But this syllogism once more hands us over to another syllogism. Its mean is constituted by the complete list of the individuals. That pre-supposes that over a certain region observation and experience are completed. But the things in question here are individuals; and so again we are landed in the progression _ad infinitum_ (i, i, i, &c.). In other words, in no Induction can we ever exhaust the individuals. The 'all metals,' 'all plants,' of our statements, mean only all the metals, all the plants, which we have hitherto become acquainted with. Every Induction is consequently imperfect. One and the other observation, many it may be, have been made: but all the cases, all the individuals, have not been observed. By this defect of Induction we are led on to Analogy. In the syllogism of Analogy we conclude from the fact that some things of a certain kind possess a certain quality, that the same quality is possessed by other things of the same kind.

It would be a syllogism of Analogy, for example, if we said: In all planets hitherto discovered this has been found to be the law of motion, consequently a newly discovered planet will probably move according to the same law. In the experiential sciences Analogy deservedly occupies a high place, and has led to results of the highest importance. Analogy is the instinct of reason, creating an anticipation that this or that characteristic, which experience has discovered, has its root in the inner nature or kind of an object, and arguing on the faith of that anticipation. Analogy it should be added may be superficial or it may be thorough. It would certainly be a very bad analogy to argue that since the man Caius is a scholar, and Titus also is a man, Titus will probably be a scholar too: and it would be bad because a man's learning is not an unconditional consequence of his manhood. Superficial analogies of this kind however are very frequently met with. It is often argued, for example: The earth is a celestial body, so is the moon, and it is therefore in all probability inhabited as well as the earth. The analogy is not one whit better than that previously mentioned. That the earth is inhabited does not depend on its being a celestial body, but in other conditions, such as the presence of an atmosphere, and of water in connexion with the atmosphere, &c.: and these are precisely the conditions which the moon, so far as we know, does not possess. What has in modern times been called the Philosophy of Nature consists principally in a frivolous play with empty and external analogies, which, however, claim to be considered profound results. The natural consequence has been to discredit the philosophical study of nature.

In the common logic, the doctrine of syllogism is supposed to conclude the first part, or what is called the 'elementary' theory. It is followed by the second part, the doctrine of Method, which proposes to show how a body of scientific knowledge is created by applying to existing objects the forms of thought discussed in the elementary part. Whence these objects originate, and what the thought of objectivity generally speaking implies, are questions to which the Logic of Understanding vouchsafes no further answer. It believes thought to be a mere subjective and formal activity, and the objective fact, which confronts thought, to have a separate and permanent being. But this dualism is a half-truth: and there is a want of intelligence in the procedure which at once accepts, without inquiring into their origin, the categories of subjectivity and objectivity. Both of them, subjectivity as well as objectivity, are certainly thoughts--even specific thoughts: which must show themselves founded on the universal and self-determining thought. This has here been done--at least for subjectivity. We have recognised it, or the notion subjective (which includes the notion proper, the judgment, and the syllogism) as the dialectical result of the first two main stages of the Logical Idea, Being and Essence. To say that the notion is subjective and subjective only, is so far quite correct: for the notion certainly is subjectivity itself. Not less subjective than the notion are also the judgment and syllogism: and these forms, together with the so-called Laws of Thought (the Laws of Identity, Difference, and Sufficient Ground), make up the contents of what is called the 'Elements' in the common logic. But we may go a step further. This subjectivity, with its functions of notion, judgment, and syllogism, is not like a set of empty compartments which has to get filled from without by separately-existing objects. It would be truer to say that it is subjectivity itself which, as dialectical, breaks through its own barriers and opens out into objectivity by means of the syllogism.

193.] This 'realisation' of the notion,--a realisation in which the universal is this one totality withdrawn back into itself (of which the different members are no less the whole, and) which has given itself a character of 'immediate' unity by merging the mediation:--this realisation of the notion is the Object. I his transition from the Subject, the notion in general, and especially the syllogism, to the Object, may, at the first glance, appear strange, particularly if we look only at the Syllogism of Understanding, and suppose syllogising to be only an act of consciousness. But that strangeness imposes on us no obligation to seek to make the transition plausible to the image-loving conception. The only question which can be considered is, whether our usual conception of what is called an 'object' approximately corresponds to the object as here described. By 'object' is commonly understood not an abstract being, or an existing thing merely, or any sort of actuality, but something independent, concrete, and self-complete, this completeness being the totality of the notion. That the object (_Objekt_) is also an object to us (_Gegenstand_) and is external to something else, will be more precisely seen, when it puts itself in contrast with the subjective. At present, as that into which the notion has passed from its mediation, it is only immediate object and nothing more, just as the notion is not describable as subjective, previous to the subsequent contrast with objectivity.

Further, the Object in general is the one total, in itself still unspecified, the Objective World as a whole, God, the Absolute Object. The object, however, has also difference attaching to it: it falls into pieces, indefinite in their multiplicity (making an objective world); and each of these individualised parts is also an object, an intrinsically concrete, complete, and independent existence. Objectivity has been compared with being, existence, and actuality; and so too the transition to existence and actuality (not to being, for _it_ is the primary and quite abstract immediate) maybe compared with the transition to objectivity. The ground from which existence proceeds, and the reflective correlation which is merged in actuality, are nothing but the as yet imperfectly realised notion. They are only abstract aspects of it,--the ground being its merely essence-bred unity, and the correlation only the connexion of real sides which are supposed to have only self-reflected being. The notion is the unity of the two; and the object is not a merely essence-like, but inherently universal unity, not only containing real distinctions, but containing them as totalities in itself.

It is evident that in all these transitions there is a further purpose than merely to show the indissoluble connexion between the notion or thought and being. It has been more than once remarked that being is nothing more than simple self-relation, and this meagre category is certainly implied in the notion, or even in thought. But the meaning of these transitions is not to accept characteristics or categories, as only implied;--a fault which mars even the Ontological argument for God's existence, when it is stated that being is one among realities. What such a transition does, is to take the notion, as it ought to be primarily characterised _per se_ as a notion, with which this remote abstraction of being, or eve of objectivity, has as yet nothing to do, and looking at its specific character as a notional character alone, to see when and whether it passes over into a form which is different from the character as it belongs to the notion and appears in it.

If the Object, the product of this transition, be brought into relation with the notion, which, so far as its special form is concerned, has vanished in it, we may give a correct expression to the result, by saying that notion or, if it be preferred, subjectivity and object are _implicitly_ the same. But it is equally correct to say that they are different. In short, the two modes of expression are equally correct and incorrect. The true state of the case can be presented in no expressions of this kind. The 'implicit' is an abstraction, still more partial and inadequate than the notion itself, of which the inadequacy is upon the whole suspended, by suspending itself to the object with its opposite inadequacy. Hence that implicitness also must, by its negation, give itself the character of explicitness. As in every case, speculative identity is not the above-mentioned triviality of an _implicit_ identity of subject and object. This has been said often enough. Yet it could not be too often repeated, if the intention were really to put an end to the stale and purely malicious misconception in regard to this identity:--of which however there can be no reasonable expectation.

Looking at that unity in a quite general way, and raising no objection to the one-sided form of its implicitness, we find it as the well-known pre-supposition of the ontological proof for the existence of God. There, it appears as supreme perfection. Anselm, in whom the notable suggestion of this proof first occurs, no doubt originally restricted himself to the question whether a certain content was in our thinking only. His words are briefly these: '_Certe id quo majus cogitari nequit, non potest esse in intellectu solo. Si enim vel in solo intellectu est, potest cogitari esse_ et in re: _quod majus est. Si ergo id quo majus cogitari non potest, est in solo intellectu; id ipsum quo majus cogitari non potest, est quo majus cogitari potest. Sed certe hoc esse non potest._' (Certainly that, than which nothing greater can be thought, cannot be in the intellect alone. For even if it is in the intellect alone, it can also be thought to exist in fact: and that is greater. If then that, than which nothing greater can be thought, is in the intellect alone; then the very thing, which is greater than anything which can be thought, can be exceeded in thought. But certainly this is impossible.)

The same unity received a more objective expression in Descartes, Spinoza and others: while the theory of immediate certitude or faith presents it, on the contrary, in somewhat the same subjective aspect as Anselm. These Intuitionalists hold that _in our consciousness_ the attribute of being is indissolubly associated with the conception of God. The theory of faith brings even the conception of external finite things under the same inseparable nexus between the consciousness and the being of them, on the ground that _perception_ presents them conjoined with the attribute of existence: and in so saying, it is no doubt correct. It would be utterly absurd, however, to suppose that the association in consciousness between existence and our conception of finite things is of the same description as the association between existence and the conception of God. To do so would be to forget that finite things are changeable and transient, _i.e._ that existence is associated with them for a season, but that the association is neither eternal nor inseparable. Speaking in the phraseology of the categories before us, we may say that, to call a thing finite, means that its objective existence is not in harmony with the thought of it, with its universal calling, its kind and its end. Anselm, consequently, neglecting any such conjunction as occurs in finite things, has with good reason pronounced that only to be the Perfect which exists not merely in a subjective, but also in an objective mode. It does no good to put on airs against the Ontological proof, as it is called, and against Anselm thus denning the Perfect. The argument is one latent in every unsophisticated mind, and it recurs in every philosophy, even against its wish and without its knowledge--as may be seen in the theory of immediate belief.

The real fault in the argumentation of Anselm is one which is chargeable on Descartes and Spinoza, as well as on the theory of immediate knowledge. It is this. This unity which is enunciated as the supreme perfection or, it may be, subjectively, as the true knowledge, is pre-supposed, _i.e._ it is assumed only as potential. This identity, abstract as it thus appears, between the two categories may be at once met and opposed by their diversity; and this was the very answer given to Anselm long ago. In short, the conception and existence of the finite is set in antagonism to the infinite; for, as previously remarked, the finite possesses objectivity of such a kind as is at once incongruous with and different from the end or aim, its essence and notion. Or, the finite is such a conception and in such a way subjective, that it does not involve existence. This objection and this antithesis are got over, only by showing the finite to be untrue and these categories in their separation to be inadequate and null. Their identity is thus seen to be one into which they spontaneously pass over, and in which they are reconciled.

Ideas discussed in this chapter

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