Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/498

HEGEL'S CONCEPTION OF NATURE. 497 material for discovering how the idea of the state develops. A metaphysic of ethics presupposes a scientifically arranged description of the facts of ethics. Metaphysics itself must be preceded by the reflection performed by the understanding upon the ordinary facts of knowledge. Science provides everywhere the material of philosophy. To quote a sentence of Hegel which has often been quoted, " The philosophical method is not a mere whim, of walking once in a way for change upon your head, when you are tired of walking on your legs, or of painting up for once your everyday face. It is because the method of natural science does not satisfy the Notion that the step to philosophy is taken " (p. 18). Let us then explain how it is that science leads on to the philosophy of nature. 1 We begin the study of nature with (1) Observation. Guided by the instinct that the world is rational, observation transforms the isolated individuals into universals, by discovering their marks or general character. On this process are founded the classificatory sciences. The next step is (2) the Discovery of Laws, which is the business of rational natural science. Observation leaves objects in their repose, with permanent general characteristics which distinguish them from other objects : science takes account of the inner negation of things by which they violate this illusory quiescence, negate themselves and other things and place themselves in a process of restless connexion with one another. In discovering what are these active relations science rises a step further above sense, for the sensible facts are transformed into vehicles of a law in which their sensuous character is obliterated, or, as Hegel puts it, " Sense is not in and for itself, but for the law ". 2 In neither of these processes is there a blind subservience to nature, but a mutual helpfulness of nature and spirit which is a prescience of their affinity. It is through this instinct of reason that these laws are regarded as true : not until their defects are observed do we hesitate and regard them as merely probable. Thus science thinks nature, permeates it with reason, epitomises nature by thought, which is the great epitomiser. 3 It thinks nature even in the distinction which in observation it draws between essential and unes- sential marks : still more in the notion of law. The phy- sicists often imagine they do but follow nature, but they are .better than they imagine (p. 6) : if they were not, Hegel 1 Phanomenologie (Werke, ii.), pp. 184 ff. 2 Werke, ii., p. 189. 3 Cp. JVerke, ix., p. 8 (Philosophic der Geschichte).