Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 16.djvu/110

100 METAPHYSIC object only as it relates itself to the subject. It is this tension against each other of elements which yet are corre lated and indissolubly united, this self-surrender to each other of elements which yet are maintained in their distinc tion, which constitutes the organic unity of thought in itself, and separates it from the mere abstract unity of mysticism. When, however, the concrete or self-differen tiating character of the unity of self -consciousness is appre hended in this way, so that it is impossible to confuse its indivisible unity with the simplicity of that which is one merely because it has no differences in it, the problem of the relation of pure self-consciousness to the world in space and time ceases to be insoluble. Thought, as it is seen to have difference in itself, is no longer irreconcilable with the world of difference ; nor is it necessary to introduce a foreign v.rj to make their connexion intelligible. For, as thought is a principle of difference as well as of unity, of analysis as well as of synthesis, and as it cannot realize itself in its unity except through the utmost development of difference, abstract self-consciousness, with its transparent or merely ideal difference, cannot be its ultimate form. On the contrary, the consciousness of self is possible only in distinction from, and in relation to, a world of objects. In other words, the unity of the thinking subject pre supposes, not merely the opposition of the subjective and the objective self, but also the opposition of the self in its pure self-identity to a world of externality and difference. The pure intelligence, which is the^rt ws of all things, must not, therefore, be regarded as Aristotle regarded it as merely theoretical, but also as practical. It must be con ceived as a living principle, a principle which only in self- manifestation can be conscious of itself, and to the very nature of which, therefore, self-manifestation is essential. In this way Hegel just because he grasped the concrete character of the unity of thought in itself was enabled to understand the necessary unity of thought or self-conscious ness with the world, and to heal the division of physics from metaphysic, which Aristotle had admitted. Schelling and others who have raised objections to the Hegelian method have specially directed their criticisms against this transition from logic to the philosophy of nature, from pure self-consciousness to the external world in space and time. In doing so, they have practically fallen back upon the Aristotelian theory, with its opposition of God, as pure form, to the finite world. But this in effect is to deny that " the real is the rational " or intelligible, and to introduce into the world, as the ground of its distinction from reason, a purely irrational or contingent element. A modern follower of Schelling s later positive philosophy only draws the necessary consequence from this view when he teaches the pessimist creed that the highest good is the negation or extinction of the finite. Nor can we wonder that the same writer who denies that the absolute self-consciousness is essentially related to or manifested in the world should proceed to reduce this self-consciousness to a mystic identity which comes out of itself and becomes self-conscious only by an inscrutable act of will. The fact, indeed, that those who deny the possibility of a rational transition from self-consciousness to the world are forced by the logic of their position to reduce self-consciousness to an abstract identity may be regarded as a kind of indirect proof that the principle of self-consciousness, truly conceived, does involve that transi tion. Another step in the same direction may be made if we consider how the Cartesian philosophy treated the same opposition, which it also regarded as absolute. By Descartes mind and matter, thought and extension, are defined as abstract opposites, every quality of each finding its contradictory counterpart in a quality of the other. Mind is a pure self-determined unity, which is as it knows itself and knows itself as it is, which has no discretion of parts or capacity of division or determination from without. Matter is essentially discrete or infinitely divided ; it is a pure passivity ; and all its determination comes to it from without. The world is therefore, as it were, " cut in two with a hatchet," divided into two unrelated existences, which are held together only by the will of God. Spinoza cuts the knot, and avoids the arbitrariness of this solution, by treating extension and thought as two attributes separated only in respect of our intelligence, but each expressing fully the absolute substance. And something like the same view has been revived in recent times, by writers like Lewes and Mr Spencer, who speak of feelings and motions as two opposite " aspects " of the same fact. When we ask, however, for whom these attributes or aspects are a unity, it becomes clear that the intelligence which is regarded as standing on one side of the dualism must also be taken as transcending it, and relating the two sides to each other. Moreover, the correspondence of the two attributes upon which Spinoza insists and their contra riety upon which Descartes insists, when taken together, give us the idea of a correlative opposition, i.e., of an opposi tion of elements which yet are necessary to each other. If, therefore, they cannot be simply identified as Spinoza identifies them, yet they need no external bond such as Descartes introduces to combine them ; for they cannot exist apart from each other. Their opposition is held within the limits of their unity, and is no absolute con tradiction, but rather an opposition which exists only as it is transcended. In other words, it is an abstract opposi tion, i.e., it is an opposition of elements which seem to be irreconcilable till it is observed that they are correlative, that each exists or has a meaning only as it relates itself to, or passes out of itself into, the other, and that each, held in its abstraction and separation from the other, loses all the meaning that it seemed to have. For, as in an organic body each member or organ lives only in tension against the others, yet only as continually relating itself to the others, so the utmost opposition of mind to matter, of the intelligence to the intelligible world, presupposes their unity, and is only the realization of it. There is here, however, something more than an ordinary case of correlation, for in this unity of opposites mind appears twice, once as one of the opposites, and again as the unity which transcends the opposition. This ambiguity becomes most obvious in theories like that of Mr Spencer, who speaks of " two consciousnesses," which cannot be resolved into each other, but yet which strangely form inseparable parts of one and the same consciousness. What, however, is really involved in such a statement is that the external world, which in the first instance presents itself as absolutely opposed in nature to the subject whose object it is, is yet one with that subject, and that therefore the antagonism of mind to its object is only the last differentia tion through which it realizes its unity with itself. In Hegel s language, that which presents itself as other than mind is its other "an other which is not another," whose difference and opposition to itself it overreaches and over comes. We must, therefore, regard the independence and externality of nature, its indifference, and even, as it seems, opposition, to the development of the moral and intellectual life of man, as merely apparent. For man, in this point of view, is not merely one natural being among others, but the being in whom nature is at once completed and transcended. If, therefore, at first he appears to stand in merely accidental and external relations to the other existences among which he finds himself, yet the whole process of his life the process by which he comes to know the external world, and by which, reacting upon it, he

makes it the means to the realization of an individual and