HEGELIAN CATEGORIES IN THE HEGELIAN ARGUMENT. 329 is the conception of an Absolute whose nature is manifested in the parts so that their relation is just the fact of its one- ness. It must be borne in mind that though Hegel does not employ this argument, he does most unequivocally and repeatedly affirm its conclusion. No assertion of Hegelian metaphysics seems to the writer more neglected and more significant than precisely this affirmation of the individuality of the Absolute Whole of Reality. If Hegel's Absolute be interpreted, as it so often is, as a mere system or whole, then Hegel's idealism advances upon Fichte's only in one par- ticular, the complete expulsion of the Ding-an-sich, and Hegel's Absolute is essentially no other than Fichte's Ego. But only an artificial interpretation of Hegel's unequivocal ^statements can in the opinion of the writer leave one in doubt of his own conviction that Ultimate Reality is no whole, or aggregate, or system, but a One. 1 The outline which follows groups together the arguments for this conception of ultimate reality, including for the .sake of completeness arguments which Hegel merely sug- gested but never explicitly used : Ultimate Reality is not a complete composite, but a One, for A complete composite is unknowable. A composite can not be ultimate, since it is either : A bare, un-related plurality (impossible, be- cause every single is like and dependent), or : A system (impossible, because the sum of likenesses is an Absolute One ,, ,, dependences ,, ,, ,, ). From this summary of Hegel's argument, we must turn to a closer
- study of Hegel's text. This text-commentary will indicate that the
argument, as just presented, does not at every point follow Hegel's THE GENERAL ARGUMENT IN BOOKS I. AND III., AGAINST THE THEORY OF ULTIMATE REALITY AS COMPOSITE. Hegel argues, in every Book of the Logic, for the absolute unity of reality. The most general discussion is found in book i., in the sections on "The One" and " Being for Self ". In these sections, the emphasis falls on the demonstration that an ultimate reality must be utterly 1 The best interpretation known to the writer, of Hegel's Absolute as an organic system of selves, is that of McTaggart. It is dangerous to differ from so close a student of the Hegelian text ; but where the question is of Hegel's meaning, there is no choice save to follow Hegel's words rather than those of the critic. Cf. a review, by the writer, of McTaggart's " Studies in Hegelian Cosmology," in the Philosophical Review, March, 1903.
