Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/335

 HEGELIAN CATEGORIES IN THE HEGELIAN ARGUMENT. 321 In book i. In book ii. Thesis Antithesis Thesis Antithesis / = Thesis = Antithesis. Synthesis = New Thesis Antithesis = Thesis = Antithesis. / etc. etc. v / Synthesis / = New Thesis Synthesis etc. Ground and Consequence, Matter and Form, Force and Expression, Inward and Outward, and even Substance and Accidents, are virtually variants of the expression Essence and Appearance, though each set of terms is meant to show more clearly than the last the actual relatedness of the Inner and the Outer, and the consequent impossibility of denning ultimate reality in the terms of the Inner only. 1 B. THE NATURE OF ULTIMATE EEALITY. I. ULTIMATE REALITY IS AN ABSOLUTE ONE. Hegel vindicates the possibility of metaphysics, by show- ing the inner contradictions of the two doctrines which would invalidate it. As against the theory of an Utterly Undetermined Absolute, he shows that such an Absolute would be positive unreality and that it is therefore incon- sistent with the certainties of immediate experience. It follows, that the supposed Undetermined Keality must always, and of necessity, be conceived as in some way determined. Similarly, Hegel shows that the so-called Unknowable Ultimate does, in fact, stand in essential rela- tion to the known phenomenon. Hegel thus establishes his right to enter upon the metaphysical quest : in other words, to investigate the nature of an absolute reality which is both determined and knowable. Hegel's conception of this absolute reality is well known : he teaches that ultimate reality is One and is Self (Idea). He lays equal stress on these predicates of reality ; but his argument to the absolute one-ness of ultimate reality is more acute, more elaborate and, as it stands, more con- vincing than his proof that the Absolute One is Self. The doctrine of the unity of reality occupies all the first two books excepting those introductory sections already dis- 1 Cf. Encycl., 136 ; Phanomenologie, A. iii., " Kraft und Verstand ". Compare also Hutchinson Stirling's criticism : " ' The manifestation,' he says, 'depends on the essence and yet, no less, the essence depends on the manifestation.' This is a simple idea, but with this, and this only, Hegel contrives to wash over page after page " (Secret of Hegel, ch. 2^ C. 3). 21