Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 12.djvu/336

 322 MARY WHITON CALKINS : cussed and two divisions of the third book of the Logic. It has two parts : first, the demonstration that the Ultimate Real is no single, isolated reality, one among others even if pre-eminent among them ; and second, the proof that this Ultimate Real is not the sum of such isolated realities. Hegel's treatment of the first of these hypotheses must next, therefore, be considered. a. Ultimate Reality is not one-among-others. Hegel's method here as everywhere is one of elimination and of self-refutation. Assuming the truth of the conclusion which he does not hold, he makes it disclose its own con- tradictions and show the insufficiency of its 'own claim to be final reality. Thus the examination of every possible case of a single, independent reality results in the discovery that this supposedly isolated reality inevitably implies the exist- ence of more than itself, and that it therefore is not truly isolated. Once more, Hegel's argument has two distinct parts, of which the first receives incomparably the stronger emphasis. He shows that : 1. Ultimate Reality is no single reality beside others, because every such reality is at least ' same' or ' like,' and thus implies other realities. It is of utmost importance for the student of Hegel to seize the full significance of this most characteristic teach- ing. Hegel is analysing the doctrine of pluralism in its most general form. Every pluralistic philosophy teaches that some one limited reality spirit or matter, for example, is ultimate, albeit not all-inclusive. Hegel aims to prove it impossible that any limited reality, whatever its nature, should be ultimate. To this end, he selects for analysis precisely those attributes of the limited reality which seem to speak most loudly for its isolation, its pre-eminent position and its ultimacy. These attributes are self-identity and distinctness : every limited reality is the same with itself and distinct from any other, as for example spirit is spirit and is entirely distinct from matter. Without this self- sufficiency and this differentiation it would indeed be im- possible to conceive of a limited reality as ultimate. What Hegel, however, teaches, is this : These very qualities of self-identity and distinctness testify to the relation of the single reality to others. To be different from others clearly implies the existence of these others ; and to be identical with oneself implies as certainly, though less directly, an opposition to others. The ' same ' is in fact the ' not-other ' : that is to say, relation to others is not a mere external