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HEGEL'S TREATMENT OF THE CATEGORIES OF THE IDEA. 165 of transition. As we approach the end of the process the Antithesis of each triad tends more and more to lose the position of a simple contrary, and to partake of the nature of a Synthesis, so as to be a definite advance on the cate- gory before it. But we must remember that it is only because the category of Volition asserts equally both ideas that it is higher than the category of Cognition Proper, which asserts only one. The idea introduced for the first time in the category of Volition the reproduction by the unity of the nature of the individual has nothing in it higher than the previously gained idea of the reproduction by the individuals of the nature of the unity. The two ideas are strictly correlative, and neither of them has a right to be preferred to the other. This has an important bearing on Hegel's consistency. For when we come to the applications of the Logic it is obvious beyond all doubt that Hegel has no sympathy with the doctrine which places will above knowledge, and which can see nothing in the universe so fine as virtue. He might almost have reversed Kant's saying, and declared that he found the moral ideal as trivial and unimportant as the starry heavens. This would perhaps have been an exaggeration, but there is no question that Hegel had very little admiration to spare for will, or any manifestation of will. If his Logic had placed the abstract nature of Volition above that of Cognition, he might have been fairly condemned as incon- sistent for his more practical opinions. But there is nothing in those opinions inconsistent with the superiority of a category which recognises both Cognition and Volition over one which recognises Cognition only. But the category of Volition, if it recognises both sides, does not succeed in reconciling them completely. And it is its failure to do this which supplies us with the transition to the next category. It cannot be strictly speaking the case that each side reproduces the other. One of two alternatives present themselves. Either we do not conceive the perfection of the harmony to be absolutely necessary. In that case either one of the two propositions might have an intelligible meaning, but not both. For we have seen that the only way in which we can distinguish between the reproducing and the reproduced side of the relation lies in the fact that, in case of disharmony, it is the reproducing side which ought to change, and is condemned if it does not. And this becomes unmeaning if it may be said of each side that it reproduces the other. Or on the other hand, if we take the other supposition, which is the correct one, that the perfection