Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/194

180 J. ELLIS MCTAGGABT : abstract in the dialectic. If we look on a collection of units say seventeen apples as a mere numerical aggregate, then no amount of knowledge of the nature of those apples will ever explain to us why the number was not eighteen or sixteen. But this is only because such a category abstracts from all the reciprocal influences of one thine; or another. Directly we come to the conception of the things as mechani- cally determined we see that the nature determines the number. For if there was one less or more, all the relations would have to be different, and, consequently, all the things themselves. Still more patent is this in the case of such a unity as we have in the Absolute Idea. Since the whole nature of each individual lies in its connexions with all the others, it is obvious that no individual could be added to the whole, or subtracted from it, unless all the others were com- pletely altered. There remains, then, the question as to the relation be- tween the fact of the unity and the special natures of the individuals which it unites. It is clear, in the first place, that, since the unity is not the ground or the explanation of the bare fact of the existence of some plurality, it can still less be the ground or the explanation of the fact that the plurality is precisely what it is. And again, it is clear that from the existence of this precise plurality we can infer the existence of the unity, since we can infer this from the existence of any plurality at all. But can we reverse the process, and, from the existence of the unity, infer the exis- tence of this particular plurality? So far as the present state of our knowledge goes this question must be answered in the negative. The nature of the unity is known to us by pure thought in the dialectic. But this knowledge will certainly not enable us to prove that the individuals, which form the plurality, must be precisely what they are, have (to put the thing in another form) the precise connexions that they have, and, consequently, be exactly the number that they are. If we were able to make such a proof then we could deduce all the particulars of Nature and Spirit from the Absolute Idea in the same way that we can deduce the existence of Nature and Spirit. We could demonstrate by pure thought, for example, that the sinking of the Merrimac or the precise shape of Cuba could not be otherwise if there was to be any experience or any reality at all. And our deductions could go beyond what is now empirically known. The philosopher could prove from the Absolute Idea how many times he should sneeze in his next cold, and the figure at which Consols would stand