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“With such barren forms of thought, that are always in a world beyond, Philosophy has nothing to do. Its object is always something concrete, and in the highest sense present.” — Hegel’s “Logic,” Wallace’s translation, p. 150.

will surprise many readers to be told that the words which I have quoted above embody the very essence of Hegelian thought. The Infinite, the supra-sensuous, the Divine, are so connected in our minds with futile rackings of the imagination about remote matters which only distract us from our duties, that a philosophy which designates its problems by such terms as these seems self-condemned as cloudy and inane. But, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, Hegel is faithful to the present and the concrete. In the study of his philosophy we are always dealing with human experience. “My stress lay,” says Mr. Browning, “on the incidents in the development of a soul; little else is worth study.” For “a soul” read “the mind,” and you have the subject-matter to which Hegel’s eighteen close-printed volumes are devoted.