until an ultimately intelligible point of view be reached. This general characteristic is exhibited by Hegel's method. But the latter has also a further and distinctive characteristic: the dialectical process is internally determined; the advance from thesis through antithesis to synthesis is due to the dialectic inherent in the process of thought itself; each step onward is determined by the preceding, and is a result of its very inadequacy; each inadequate conception not only shows its own inadequacy, but also produces the complementary factor by which this inadequacy is removed, and thus originates the more adequate conception which follows. This latter characteristic constitutes what may be called the intellectualist nature of Hegel's method. It is a movement of pure thought; and thought makes its own other. But, as the dialectic advances, it becomes increasingly difficult to regard each stage in the advance as logically derived from the preceding. What is really shown is rather the inadequacy of a certain conception to reality as experienced, and the necessity of supplementing the conception in a given way so that this inadequacy may be made good.
Whether this criticism be just to Hegel or not is a question which cannot be entered upon now. It is introduced not for the purpose of criticism, but in order to draw a distinction. It is possible to follow a method so far similar to his that it passes from less to more adequate conceptions for the understanding of reality, and which yet has not the distinguishing feature of maintaining the complete internal determination of the process. Thought need not be held to be creative; it has to understand experience, not to account for it or to produce it. And the transition to a greater adequacy in the way of conceiving reality may, at certain places, be accompanied by and dependent upon the recognition of fresh elements in the experience upon which all knowledge of reality is built.
To bring out this view more clearly, we may start with the mechanical conception of reality and consider its leading category, that of causality, as giving us the most comprehensive view of things,—a point of view from which we are able to regard each distinguishable event in the world-process as the effect of a pre-
