Page:A Brief History of Modern Philosophy.djvu/189

186 Pure logic however is only the first part of the system. This follows from the fact that the pure forms of logic constitute the antithesis to real nature. We are led from logic to the philosophy of nature (likewise the profoundest problem in Hegel's system), i.e. to the doctrine of the phenomena which occur in time and space, by a dialectical necessity. As a matter of fact we have here to deal with Schelling's "Fall." Hegel's exposition of the philosophy of nature is, so far as particulars are concerned, quite as arbitrary and fantastic as that of Schelling. He likewise regards nature as a series of levels: we approach physics through mechanics, and thence to the organic sciences, but always under an "inherent necessity." Hegel has no more room for a real development in time than Schelling.—The philosophy of nature brings us to the philosophy of mind, the "higher unity" of the first two parts of the system. The struggle incident to the objective distraction of space and time matures the abstract idea and it now returns within itself. Dialectic likewise leads through a series of steps in this case. Subjective mind (in a series of steps known as soul, consciousness and reason), the mental life of the particular individual, leads to objective mind, which is manifested in the triad of right, individual morality (conscience) and social morality (social and political life). The higher unity of subjective and objective mind is absolute mind, the totality of mental life, in which the antithesis of subject and object is annulled. Absolute mind is revealed in art, religion and philosophy (Encydopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften, 1817).

c. We shall discuss two divisions of the philosophy of mind somewhat more in detail; the doctrine of objective mind, which Hegel elaborated in his Philosophie des Rechts (1821), and the Philosophy of Religion as treated in the