Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/348

"334 MABY WHITON CALKINS : even so-called material phenomena reduce. Therefore, con- sciousness is at least one form of reality, so that if, as Hegel has proved, ultimate reality is an absolute One, the nature of that Absolute must be consciousness. But an Absolute Consciousness is an Absolute Self. For the only alternative conception of the Absolute Consciousness is that of an organic unity of inter-related selves, and this theory is untenable because Hegel has shown that the Absolute is a One, an Individual, not a system. Thus, the absolute, self-centred, self-differentiating One, which is also consciousness, can be none other than Absolute Self, Absolute Personality in Hegel's term, Absolute Idea or Spirit. This is the underlying argument of the last division of Hegel's Logic. He neglects, as already discredited, the hypothesis of ultimate reality as identical with inorganic matter and proceeds at once, in the section on "Life," to show that ultimate reality cannot be conceived as organic nature. This conclusion leads, therefore, to the theory that reality is (or includes) consciousness. Hegel, therefore, considers, under the heading "Cognition in General," 1 the conception of ultimate reality as finite consciousness. He shows that the finite self is always confronted by a world external to it, so that ultimate reality, if the finite self were an ultimate part of it, would be a world of co-ordinate and related realities, whereas it has been found to be an abso- lute One. It follows, Hegel indicates, that ultimate reality, though of the nature of consciousness, lies deeper than the finite selves. Evidently it can be none other than the Absolute Idea or Self. Even from this bare outline of the closing section of the Logic, it appears that Hegel has virtually omitted certain essential portions of his argument. A careful reading of the text, especially in the less adequate version of the Encyclopedia, discloses wide digressions and frequent over- elaboration of unimportant details. As it stands, the clos- ing division of book iii. has indeed almost the force of an independent argument, rather awkwardly combined with what precedes ; and its essential teaching, that ultimate reality is a Self, certainly is not as logically developed or as rigorously treated as the doctrine that ultimate reality is an Absolute One, that is an Absolute Individual. From a historical standpoint, however, the disproportion may be readily understood. l Encyol., $ 223. The heading in the larger Logic is "Die Idee des Erkennens " ( Jrerke, v.. 255).