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HEGELIAN CATEGORIES IN THE HEGELIAN ARGUMENT. 333 system of related parts. But though he directs no specific argument against it, Hegel certainly rejects this conception of ultimate reality as a system of connected parts, and definitely adopts the hypothesis of ultimate reality as an Absolute One, or Individual the Notion manifesting itself in the parts and itself constituting their relation. " To understand," he says, " the relation of action and re-action, we must not let the two sides rest in their state of mere given facts, but must recognise them . . . for factors of a third and higher, which is the Notion and nothing else." The second section of book iii., miscalled " The Object," repeats the discussion of ultimate reality as composite of interdependent parts. The discussion in book iii. is, however, more convincing than that of the preceding book. Ultimate reality as plurality of independent parts, is described under the heading " Formal Mechanism " l as a " unity of differents, ... a composite, an aggregate," in which the relation is con- ceived as external and foreign to the individuals related, so that " [they] remain independent and . . . external to each other". 2 The inner contradiction of this conception is shown by the old argument : such independence is impossible, since all facts are causally related. That is to say, ultimate reality is not a Formal Mechanism, or plurality of independent parts, but rather a related composite in Hegel's terms, Mechanism with Affinity ; and this composite, to be ultimate, must be a Complete or Absolute Mechanism an ultimate unity or system of inter-related parts. Moreover, even this hypothesis, of ultimate reality as complete system, or mechanism, is rejected by Hegel. His arguments, however, affect only the old, discredited theory of Formal Mechanism,. the plurality of unrelated parts. He might readily, as we have seen, disprove the Absolute Mechanism theory, the hypothesis of a complete unity of inter-related parts, by closely analysing the conception. How, he might ask, can realities which are many be, at the same time, con- nected that is one ? It is impossible to reply that the causal or recipro- cal relation makes the many into one, for conceived as an independent reality the relation is itself one of the many and in need of unification. 3 The unity of the many is, therefore, possible only as they participate in a deeper reality, in a One which underlies and includes them, instead of being made up by them. The interdependence of the many, thus, is not ultimate reality, but is, rather, a relatively superficial aspect of the funda- mental unity of the Absolute Individual. II. ULTIMATE REALITY IS SELF. The conception of ultimate reality as Absolute One, leaves unanswered the question : What is the nature of this absolute individuality, this self-determining, self-differentiating One ; what is it really, actually, concretely? Hegel answers this question by the assertion : The Absolute is Idea that is Self. This conception is, indeed, inevitable, given the earlier conclusions of Hegel's argument. It is evident, first of all, that the Absolute One is consciousness ; for consciousness is the only reality immediately experienced a reality to which exposition follows the order of categories in the Encyclopedia,. and does not take into account the sections on " Chemism " and " Tele- ology" mere illustration from the domain of chemistry and of organic life of the inadequacy of the aggregation-theory of ultimate reality. 2 Encycl., 195; cf. Werke, v., 175. 3 6y. p. 328, above.