Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/181

 HEGEL'S TBEATMENT OF THE CATEGORIES OF THE IDEA. 167 the dialectic. The distinction between an idea before and after such a transition is the distinction, one may say, between looking backwards and looking forwards. As a Synthesis the idea is regarded as the solution of the difficulties already surmounted, as the Thesis of a new triad it is regarded as a challenge to difficulties yet to come. In the earlier stages of the dialectic this may make a considerable difference. For there each individual category resists, so to speak, the pro- gress of the dialectic, and has to be pushed on, by a negative and destructive line of argument, to the next category. But as we go on the nature of the advance changes. Each category begins to lead on to its successor rather positively by containing implicitly what the next is to develop than negatively, by breaking down, and requiring the aid of its successor to help it out. Each category, that is, exists less in isolation, and more in the passage onwards. This being so, the difference between the Synthesis and new Thesis will diminish in the later part of the dialectic, since it is the difference between the category as a result, and the category as a new starting-point. And here, as we are making the last transition of the whole dialectic, the difference will be at a minimum. Since there is no perceptible distinction between this cate- gory and the Absolute Idea, it is not wonderful that Hegel should have omitted to mention it separately. It is per- haps better, for the sake of clearness, to insert it. Its identity with the Absolute Idea renders it unnecessary, however, for us to treat it separately. It can be discussed when we reach that final term in the whole process. I have not ventured to suggest any name for it which would raise any controver- sial questions. If a descriptive name were given to it, it must be the name of some form of consciousness. For the unity is still for the individuals, and this idea can be found embodied in nothing else. And it would have to be some form of consciousness in which the distinction between the determining and determined sides of the harmony is over- come, and the harmony recognised as simple and ultimate. It might be held that emotion could be taken as this com- plement or rather this Synthesis of Cognition and Volition ; that the harmony of emotion was one in which neither sub- ject nor object was standard, but the agreement was absolute and ultimate immediate, because it had transcended all mediation. But to give reasons in support of this would be a long and difficult matter. And it is, after all, scarcely a question for a paper on the dialectic, to consider in detail what concrete state is the best example of a given category.