actual existence in space and time, and metaphysics identified with the science of such a reality, then logic is wider than metaphysics. But such is not the sense of metaphysics in which Hegel’s logic is metaphysical. Existence in space and time is part of a wider whole; and there are principles which are operative in things, but which cannot be said to have existence in this limited sense. This point may become clearer at a later stage of the argument; at present it is enough to note that from the present point of view the object of metaphysics is the entire scheme of things, the wholeness of the world, of which existence in nature is but one mode. Logic, as metaphysical, is the science of the principles of a thought whose content is the whole, the absolute, the real, or whatever else be its name.
Having found the standpoint of logic, we may refer briefly to its limitation. The known world, for Hegel, falls into two main divisions, viz., nature and mind. These are part of one world known by a single apprehending consciousness, and therefore subject to the fundamental laws which make knowledge and an object intelligible. But nevertheless each realm has forms and laws of its own; each has a character which cannot be attributed to the other, and it works out the basal principles of intelligible objects in its own way. For our present purpose it is perhaps better not to regard the special laws of these realms as new principles; they are rather more concrete developments of the fundamental forms of all knowledge, fresh and separate ways of exemplifying them, articulations of them, their expression in new media. This throws into relief the community of spheres, and it is to these underlying principles of both realms that logic is limited. The philosophy of nature is the account of the principles as they appear in the outward world; the philosophy of mind exposes them in the shapes which they take in conscious life; logic is the discussion of them by themselves, without reference to their higher special embodiments.
We may now consider briefly the historical development of Hegel’s position from that of Kant. Kant had inquired into the conditions of synthetic a priori judgements. Mathematics offered him a type of these judgements, and he raised the question, How is it possible for such knowledge to be universal and necessary and yet to apply to objects? Mere analysis
