principles of his rational mind are also those of that which he apprehends. Thus it is true that in unfolding the nature of mind Hegel is analysing or remaking for knowledge the principles of things; but it is no less true that the evolution of an arbitrary scheme in the mind is not the analysis of reality—it is not the analysis of mind itself. By bringing the world and mind into harmony Hegel has made metaphysics possible, but at the same time he has made logic, the key, more difficult by extending its content and forcing it to wait on the nature of things. Sometimes Hegel’s argument seems capricious and fine-spun, but in general there is no reasonable doubt of his conviction that, in the order of learning, experience is prior to rational thought.[1] We live before we reflect on life, and a wide experience is necessary for the ingathering of the meaning of experience. Indeed, one of the more striking characteristics of Hegel’s own thought is its persistence and perseverance; and his contempt for fanciful speculation and for formalism is unbounded.[2] Experience, or fact, is the basis of all thought and all science; and a philosophy which cannot cover life and is built in abstraction from the considerations of practice is a futility of the understanding.
But experience is only the beginning. What is given is not the final truth, not the finished perfect work which alone deserves the name of the real; it is rather a problem, a vague we-know-not-what. Thought has to interpret the datum, and solve the problem; and the succession of general principles by means of which we attempt this interpretation is the content of logic. One of the most fruitful ways of regarding Hegel’s Logic is to look upon it as a protracted and thorough study of the relations of unity and difference, or of universal and particular. Each category, or determination, is a general principle by which we seek to make experience a consistent whole and render it a concrete universal; and each has its own way of relating the two root factors, viz., unity and difference.
Before discussing any of the categories themselves, however, it is necessary to glance at three preliminary points; the connexion of the categories, the order of their exposition, and the motive power of the development.
