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174 though particularity is involved in them throughout, just as the physicist speaks of the laws and phenomena of Nature in abstract terms, though all of them are particular. Whether Hegel's philosophy actually solves all the problems raised by thought or not, it at least furnishes a clue to their solution. For him, at least, the difficulty of converting feelings into felt things does not exist. The dialectical method of Hegel is the most valuable of his contributions to philosophy, and it is a pity that Green, under the influence of Lotze, it is supposed, should have regarded Hegel's dialectical method as the source of his aberrations. In reviewing Dr. John Caird's book, he distinctly says that the dialectical method must be discarded. To discard the dialectical method, however, is to discard Idealism itself. The problem of philosophy at the present time is an exhaustive criticism of the categories, and to this end the assertion, however emphatic, that realities are constituted by relations and relations imply a relating mind, is not sufficient. "The intelligence," says Professor Caird, "when it once begins to define an object for itself, finds itself launched upon a movement of self-asserting synthesis in which it cannot stop till it has recognized that the unity of the object with itself involves its unity with all .other objects and with the mind that knows it. Hence, whatever we begin by saying, we must ultimately say 'mind.' All this must be proved and not merely asserted, and the dialectical method alone is competent to prove it.

In thus vindicating the claims of the Hegelian philosophy to our acceptance, I do not mean to deny that it is necessary to remodel it so as to meet the requirements of the present time. The categories are not, as some readers of Hegel suppose, the arbitrary inventions of the mind. They are the most fundamental principles of connection between the objects of Nature, and can, therefore, be discovered only after Science has made considerable progress in its interpretation of the world. Now the advance of Science, since Hegel's death, has been wonderful, and could he come to life again he would certainly see the need of making large additions to his categories