Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/255

No. 2.] works. Although Bacon drew from the whole field on ancient and modern literature, yet we must seek before all in the writers of his own country for the germs of those thoughts which have made his name illustrious.

Gerhardt gives an unpublished Latin letter of Leibnitz, Ad. R. P. Cosani Lectorem Theologiæ in Collegio Clementina urbis Romae, in which he refers to a conversation with the Herzogin Sophie von Hannover, which from the letter must have taken place before his great journey through Germany to Italy (1687-1690). The letter maintains that two things can never be found to differ from each other without differing not only by external but by internal marks; e.g. two eggs however like externally will be found to contain some internal differences; nor could two globes, placed on each other in imaginary space, be thought even by an angelic or divine intelligence to be exactly equal. This Leibnitz maintains is confirmed by experiments made in the Herrenhausen garden by the Princess. Also no two human minds, though not differing from each other's kind, could ever be thought to be perfectly similar to each other; the minds of Judas and Christ, e.g. looked at in themselves, could never be pronounced alike. No two things, then, either in mind or in matter are perfectly alike.

The method by which Hegel proceeds from one category to another changes as we pass from the earlier categories to the later. These changes can be reduced to a law from which important deductions can be made regarding the nature and validity of the dialectic, (1) The further the dialectic goes from its starting-point, the less self-centred and independent do the categories appear; and the more permanent becomes the process, until, finally, it is seen to be the only real meaning of the categories. (2) In the categories of Being the thesis and antithesis are neither of them superior to the other. An advance is first made by both being included in the synthesis. In the categories of Essence and the Notion there is no longer an opposition produced by two terms, and mediated by a third; but each term is a direct advance on the one before it. (3) Instead of sudden variations of method as we pass from one great division of the dialectic to another, these seem rather to be evidences of continuous development. (4) This change in method has not destroyed the validity of the process. (5) From this follows the