Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/167

 HEGEL'S TREATMENT OF THE CATEGORIES OF THE IDEA. 153 how strictly reciprocal the dependence is which exists be- tween the unity and the individuals. I believe, however, that this view is mistaken, and that, while the unity is for the individuals, the individuals are not for the unity. In more concrete language, we cannot imagine the individuals ex- cept as conscious (because consciousness is the only example of the existence of A for B that we know or can imagine). On the other hand, the Logic does not compel us to imagine the unity as conscious. I shall endeavour to show farther on that the Logic, taken by itself, cannot forbid us to think of the unity as conscious. In the first place, there is no necessity of thought which compels us to regard the individuals as existing for the unity. We were driven to regard the unity as existing for the individuals, because we found it to be necessary that the unity should be in each individual. Now, in the ordinary sense of inclusion, it was clearly impossible for the unity to be in each of the individuals which are parts of it, and the only alternative was that it should be in each of them, in the sense of being for each of them. It is as necessary, no doubt, to regard the individuals as being in the unity, as to regard the unity as being in the individuals. But then there is no difficulty in regarding the individuals as being in the unity in the ordinary sense of inclusion. So far from this being difficult it is part of the definition of a unity of individuals that it includes them. And therefore we have no right to say that the individuals are for the unity. They are in it -that is proved. But the further step that they can only be in it by being for it is wanting. And I think we may go farther than this, and say that it is impossible that the individuals should be for the unity in the sense in which we are using the phrase in this cate- gory. For the whole significance of one being for the other was that there was some difference between them. If there was no difference, the one would be the other, and the whole conception (as we have got it in this category) of one being for the other would collapse. All the meaning we gave to the expression that A was for B was that the content of the one was also the content of the other. If A and B are different, this means something. But if A and B are iden- tical, then it would only mean that a thing's content was its content which is not a new category, but a useless tautology. Let us apply this. The unity and the individuals are identical the unity has no nature except to be the indi-