We have seen that the dialectic is the process by which the principles of knowledge pass for thought from abstractness to concreteness, and that the moving force of the development is the logical compulsion exercised by the whole system within each of its fragments. We must now look at some of the special stages of this development in order to be able to determine the logical nature and position of the main conceptions which we must use in ethics. For this purpose it is desirable to pay special attention to some of the categories of the second division of the Logic, viz. the sphere of essence. It is not possible, of course, to deal with them all in their proper order and succession, but we may gain sufficient for our purpose if we take a suitable selection. I propose to indicate the general division of the Logic and to refer very briefly to the general nature of the categories of the first section. In connexion with the categories of essence I shall begin with the conception of ‘thinghood’ because it throws some light on the relation of mind to nature, and is of importance in any discussion of the transparency or opaqueness of nature to moral purposes. I shall then pass to the conception of substance, which has to be examined carefully for two reasons; firstly, because it, together with its subdivisions, manifests the full nature of the non-spiritual world, and contains within it the principle of necessity and external determination, and secondly because it is the stepping stone to the notion. The notion is itself the key to mind and the spiritual world in general; it is the logical principle of which the free self is the concrete realization. We may, therefore, consider somewhat closely the development of the dialectic from substance through causality and reciprocity into the notion.
Hegel’s logic falls into three main divisions or stages: first, the categories of being; second, the categories of
