not gone on far enough. The two contradictory propositions — that the world was fundamentally perfect, and that imperfection did exist — would be harmonised and reconciled by a synthesis, in the same way that the contradictions within the dialectic itself are overcome. The two sides of the opposition would not so much be both false as both true. They would be taken up into a higher sphere where the truth of both is preserved.
Moreover, the solution in this case would be exactly what might be expected if the Hegelian dialectic were true. For, as has been said, the dialectic always advances by combining on a higher plane two things which were contradictory on a lower one. And so, if, in some way now inconceivable to us, the eternal realisation of the Absolute Idea were so synthesised with the existence of imperfection as to be reconciled with it, we should harmonise the two sides by a principle already expounded in one of them.
It must be noticed also that the contradiction before us satisfies at any rate one of the conditions which are necessary if a synthesis is to be effected. It is a case of contrary and not merely of contradictory opposition. The opposition would be contradictory if the one side merely denied the validity of the data, or the correctness of the inferences, of the other. For it would then not assert a different and incompatible conclusion, but simply deny the right of the other side to come to its own conclusion at all. But it is a contrary opposition, because neither side denies that the other is, in itself, coherent and valid, but sets up against it another line of argument, also coherent and valid, which leads to an opposite and incompatible conclusion. We have not reasons for and against a particular position, but reasons for two positions which deny one another.
If the opposition had been contradictory, there could have been no hope of a synthesis. We should have ended with two propositions, one of which was a mere denial of the other — the one, that the universe is eternally rational, the other, that this is not the case. And between two merely contradictory propositions, as Trendelenburg points out (Logische Untersuchungen, vol. i. p. 44), there can be no possible synthesis. One only affirms, and the other only denies. And between simple affirmation and simple negation we can find nothing which will succeed in reconciling them. For their whole meaning is summed up in their denial of one another, and if, with their reconciliation, the reciprocal denial vanished, the whole meaning would vanish also, leaving nothing but a blank. Instead of having equally strong grounds to believe
