B. The Idea of the Good.

(G. L. iii. 320. Enc. 233), which is called in the Encyclopaedia by the name of Volition. (Wollen). Volition must not be taken here as meaning the desire to change, or to resist change, which is the form in which Volition usually shows itself. If this were the case there would be nothing appropriate in naming this category after it, since the category involves a perfect harmony, and also a necessary harmony so that there can be no question either of promoting or of resisting change.

It is not this, however, which Hegel means by Volition here. He means by it the judgment of the existent by the standard of Good. Such a Judgment, of course, leads us to desire action if it reveals a difference between the fact and the ideal, but involves no desire of action when the harmony between the fact and the ideal is already perfect. Taken in this sense Volition is an appropriate name for a category which asserts that the Individual determines the nature of the Universe, since in volition, as we said above. it is the object, and not the self, which is regarded as defective if the harmony is imperfect.

The Idea of the Good is a better name for this category than Volition in so far as it does riot, like Volition, suggest the idea of change. In other respects, however, Volition is the better name, since the example Hegel means to take is clearly a psychical state and not the ethical idea of Goodness.

It is, I think, evident that Hegel took the essence of the psychical state of volition to be as described above, since the category of Volition, as treated by him, includes a state of perfect harmony, which could certainly not have as its example a desire for change.

285. But it must be noticed that lie fell into an error with regard to this category analogous to that which he committed with regard to the Idea of the True. He conceives the category as dealing with the process of producing such a harmony, before it deals with the established perfect harmony. This is erroneous. For, in the first place, the reasons given above (Sections 281, 282) to show that the Idea of the True deals only with a harmony inevitably and originally perfect, and not with the production of such a harmony, are also applicable here.

In the second place, even if the production of the harmony could have found a place in the Idea of the True, it could not do so in the Idea of the Good. Fur at the end of the Idea of the True, the harmony, Hegel says, has been established in its necessity and perfection. Now it is from this point that his treatment of the Idea of the Good begins. And since his argument, as seen above, is that the necessary and perfect harmony, under the earlier category, involves necessary and perfect harmony under the later category, then the later category must have the necessary and perfect harmony throughout, even if the earlier did not.

The order of these two categories could not have been inverted. It is impossible that the Universe-system should be determined by the Individual-systems so as to be in harmony with all of them, if the Individual-systems varied indefinitely from one another in content (cp. above, Section 279). And the possibility of this is only disproved by showing that the Individual-systems are all determined by the Universe-system, so as to be in harmony with it. Thus we could not have the Idea of the Good, in which the Individuals are determinant, until we have had the Idea of the True, in which the Universe is determinant.

286. Hegel says of the Idea of the Good that it is higher than the Idea of the True, “ because it has not only the value of the Universal, but also the value of the simply Actual “ (G. L. iii. 320). It would seem from this that the second category — the Idea of the Good — has both values, that of the Universal and that of the Actual. As the Universality is regarded by Hegel as the characteristic of the Idea of the True, it follows that the second category contains the first, besides containing also fresh content. Its standpoint is one which finds its example, not in gratified volition by itself, but in the combination of true knowledge and gratified volition.

Hegel is entitled to take this position, for the argument which led us on to the Idea of the Good did not do so by showing that there was any contradiction in the harmony with the Universe taken as the determinant, but that the validity of that conception involved the validity of the harmony with the Individuals taken as determinant. The second conception was added to the first, and did not replace it.

This is not inconsistent with the general principle of the dialectic method, for, though the two categories question stand, apparently, in the relation of Thesis and Antithesis, yet we are here so close to the end of the dialectic that its movement, according to the law laid down by Hegel, has become almost a direct advance from each category to the next.

It is thus the combination of the two standpoints, exemplified by knowledge and volition, which is regarded by Hegel as being higher than the standpoint exemplified by knowledge. There is nothing to suggest that he would consider the standpoint exemplified by volition as being by itself higher than that exemplified by knowledge. Indeed, his application of the dialectic to concrete facts strongly suggests that he would not consider the standpoint exemplified by volition as being higher.

For nothing is clearer about Hegel than that he does not regard the concrete spiritual state of volition as higher than that of knowledge, and that he does not regard virtue as a higher excellence than wisdom.

287. Hegel clearly considers that the establishment of this category gives us the right to assert that the Universe is completely good. Can this be legitimately deduced from the result reached in the category — that the nature of the Universe conforms to a description whose only example, known or imaginable, includes gratified volition? The question does not really belong to the dialectic itself, but to its cosmological applications, and does not concern us here.

288. The transition from this category rests on the fact that the complete harmony, with the Individual as determinant, involves (as we have previously seen) the complete harmony, with the Universe as determinant. “In this result Cognition is restored, and united with the practical Idea, the given Actuality is at the same time determined as the realised absolute End, but not, as in the process of Cognition (im suchenden Erkennen) simply as an objective world without the subjectivity of the Notion, but as the objective world of which the Notion is the inner ground and actual existence” (G. L. iii. 327. Cp. Enc. 235).

The argument is that it is impossible to adhere to the position at which we now stand — that, in the harmony of the Universe and the Individual, the Universe determines the Individual, and the Individual also determines the Universe.

It will be remembered that the transition to the Idea, of the Good was effected by the argument that, since the harmony between the Universe and the Individual was necessary, perfect, and intrinsic, any question as to which would be pronounced defective if the harmony were defective was absurd, and that, since the harmony was essential to the existence of either term, neither could be said to be logically prior to the other in the harmony. From this the result was reached that it was no truer to say that the Universe determines the Individuals than to say that the Individuals determine the Universe. From this Hegel starts by saying that, since one proposition is no truer than the other, both are true. This gave us the category of the Idea of the Good (cp. above, Section 284),

But this, Hegel now goes on, is inade quate, and must be transcended. For the real result of what has been shown is to put the two sides of the harmony on a level, not by making them each determine the other, but by removing altogether the conception of either side being determinant. That side is determinant to which, in one way or the other, the other is subordinate. We see now that neither side is subordinate to the other, since neither is logically subsequent to the other, and neither is to be condemned as defective for an actual or possible want of harmony. The consequence of this is not that each of them is determinant, but that neither is.

Thus we see that the harmony is ultimate. It is essential to the nature of existence that it should form a Universe composed of Individuals, that the Universe and that each Individual should form an organic system, anti that the Universe-system and each of the Individual-systems should be in perfect harmony with one another.

289. Hegel takes this as the transition to the Absolute Idea. If the symmetry of the dialectic was to be preserved, he should have first passed to a third subdivision of Cognition, which should complete the triad of which the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good are the first two Members, and then, from this new category, have passed over to the Absolute Idea.

If the Absolute Idea, like Cognition, had been subdivided, the last subdivision in Cognition would have been identical in. content with the first subdivision of the Absolute Idea. But the Absolute Idea is not subdivided, and the last subdivision in Cognition could riot consistently with the general method of the dialectic be identical in content with the Absolute Idea as a whole. Hegel, apparently, could discover no intermediate stage between the category of the Idea of the Good, and the category of the Absolute Idea. And I can make no suggestion to fill the gap. The transition remains unsymmetrical, but not, I think, invalid.

290. (G. L. iii. 327. Enc. 236.) In this not only the Idea of the True and the Idea of the Good are synthesised, but also Life and Cognition. Cognition, as is natural so close to the end of the dialectic, is so direct an advance upon Life, that we do not find many characteristics of Life in the Absolute Idea which were not also in Cognition. But in the Absolute Idea, as we have seen, the harmony is recognised as ultimate — not as due to the dependence of one side on the other. And in this the Absolute Idea may be said to have returned to a characteristic which belonged to the category of Life, when the expression of the Seele in and by the Body was conceived as an ultimate fact, not due to the subordination of either side to the other.

The transition, as I said above, seems to me valid, for the Absolute Idea, to judge by Hegel’s words, does just mean what the category of Cognition would mean after the elimination of the erroneous conception that one side is determined by the other.

The nearest approach to a definition given in the Greater Logic is as follows: “The Notion is not only Seele, but free subjective Notion, which is for itself and therefore has Personality — it is the practical objective Notion, determined in and for itself, which, as a Person, is impenetrable, atomic Subjectivity, but which is just as much not exclusive Individuality, but Universality for itself, and Cognition, and which has in its Other its own Objectivity as Object (Gegenstand). All else is error, confusion, opinion, strife, caprice, and impermanence; the Absolute Idea alone is Being, permanent Life, Truth which knows itself. It is all Truth “ (G. L. iii. 327). In the Encyclopaedia he says, “The Idea, as unity of the Subjective and Objective Idea, is the Notion of the Idea — a Notion for which the Idea as such is Object (Gegenstand) and Object (Objekt) — an Object (Objekt) in which all determinations have come together” (Enc. 236).

291. What does Hegel mean by this? We must first consider a suggestion which he makes — as I think, erroneously. We find it stated most clearly in the Encyclopaedia. The content of the Absolute Idea he says “ is the system of Logic. All that is at this stage left as form for the Idea is the Method of this content — the specific consciousness of the value and currency of the moments in its development. To speak of the Absolute Idea may suggest the conception that we are at length reaching the right thing and the sum of the whole matter. It is certainly possible to indulge in a vast amount of senseless declamation about the Absolute Idea. But its true content is only the whole system of which we have been hitherto studying the development “ (Enc. 237). And again in the Greater Logic: “Thus what here still has to be observed is not a Content m such, but the Universal of its Form — that is, the Method” (G. L. iii. 329).

There is doubtless an element of truth in this. The step we take in reaching the Absolute Idea is no different in character from previous stages in the dialectic, process, nor is the advance we gain in it greater than in previous steps. We have reached the absolute truth about reality now, but we had very nearly reached it in the previous category, Hegel would be perfectly Justified if he merely wished to warn us against expecting anything in the last stage of the dialectic which should be much more mystical or wonderful than the stages immediately preceding it.

But, Hegel means more than this, and in doing so I think lie falls into error. The meaning of the Absolute Idea is not, and cannot be, simply that it is the idea which is reached at the end of the dialectic prop . Each category in the process asserts certain characteristics of existence, and has therefore a, meaning which cannot be reduced to its place in the dialectic. In fact, it only has its place In the process by reason of the relation which the determination of existence given by it bears to the determinations given by the other categories in the process.

The Absolute Idea, therefore, has a content. And, although much of its content is to be found also in previous categories, it is not necessary to go back through the whole series of previous categories whenever we wish to state the content of the Absolute Idea — though of course the validity of the Absolute Idea can only be proved by going through all these previous stages. it is not necessary to go through them to state the content of the Absolute Idea because that Idea contains the truth of them all, not by containing the separate categories as a process, but by containing that part of their content which is true, synthesised into a single unity, the false and inadequate part of the content of those lower categories having been transcended. It is not, therefore, necessary to go through the categories, nor would it be sufficient, since, after all, the Absolute Idea is an advance, even 01) the Idea of the Good, and so there is something in it which is not in any of the other categories.

Besides, Hegel is here inconsistent. In the passages quoted above (G. L. iii. 327. Enc. 236. Cp. above, Section 290) he has given accounts of the nature of the Absolute Idea which are not in the least statements of the Method of the dialectic, but, on the contrary, statements of what existence is conceived to be, when it is taken tinder this category.

292. Returning to these two accounts, we find, I think, that they are what Hegel is justly entitled to assert about the Absolute Idea in consequence of the transition by which, as he has demonstrated, it is reached from the Idea of the Good. It will be, as was said above, the same in content with tile Idea of the Good, except that the two sides of the harmony are no longer asserted each to determine the other. That is, in affirming it we assert that all that exists forms a Universe composed of Individuals, that the Universe and that each Individual is an organic system, and that the relation which exists between the. Universe-system and each of the Individual-systems is one of perfect harmony.

This is what Hegel is entitled to assert as the content of the Absolute Idea.. and this, I think, is what he does assert. In both the Greater Logic and the Encyclopaedia, he states that the Idea is Its own Object. The use of the word Object suggests that the relation in question is analogous to the relation between a state of consciousness and its object, while the statement that the Object of the Idea is the Idea itself suggests that the whole of the content is to be found on both sides of the relation. So far, then, his words support my view of what he means by this category. The fact that he says that it is the Idea which is its own Object — while, if I am right, what he means is, that, according to the idea, the Universe is the Object — can be no objection to anyone familiar with Hegel’s methods of expression.

According to the view I have put forward, indeed, there are other characteristics which must be included in the Absolute Idea. The Universe is differentiated. It consists of an organic system of Individuals. And the Subject-Object relation of which Hegel speaks is one where the Universe as a whole is Object to each of the Individuals as Subjects. These further characteristics are not mentioned by Hegel here. But there is nothing in what he says which is inconsistent with them. And as there is, I think, no doubt. that all of them are found in the category of Cognition, and it’s there nothing in the transition from that category which could involve their removal, we are entitled to hold that they are all found in the category of the Absolute Idea.

293. We may add something which not mentioned by Hegel, but which seems a fair deduction from his position. Each Individual, we have seen, is in harmony with the Universe, and the Universe is an organic unity consisting of all the Individuals. From this it follows that each Individual is in harmony with all. the other Individuals. This statement would riot be an adequate substitute for the previous statement — that the Universe and each Individual are in harmony For, in saying that the harmony is between the Universe and each Individual, we bring out the fact that the harmony is between the whole and its part — a fact which is essential to the category. And this is not brought out when we say that each Individual is in harmony with all other Individuals, But if one statement is true the other will. be. And, when the results of the dialectic are to be applied to concrete problems, it may be a matter of some importance to remember that each Individual’s harmony with the Universe implies his harmony with all other Individuals.

It may be objected that the new statement ignores the organic unity of the, Universe. It is not the case that the Universe is equivalent to the Individuals in isolation, or as a mere aggregate, or as a mechanically determined system. It .is only equivalent to the Individuals when they are joined in just this organic system. And, it might be said, this is ignored if we treat the harmony of each Individual with the Universe as involving its harmony with all other Individuals.

I should reply to this that it is the objection itself which falls to do justice to the organic unity of the Universe, and so falls into a kind of spiritual atomism. For it assumes that it is at any rate conceivable that Individuals could exist as isolated, or as merely aggregated, or as mechanically determined. Now this is just what the dialectic has disproved if it has done anything at all. It has shown, not only that the Individuals are in fact connected in an organic unity, but that it is essential to their nature that they should be, and that if they were not connected in this particular way they would not be Individuals at all. Thus to speak of an Individual is to speak of an Individual in organic unity with the others, just as to speak of a triangle is to speak of a figure whose angles are equal to two right angles. To object that, when the Individuals are mentioned without mentioning the organic unity, that unity is neglected, is to ignore this essentiality of the organic unity to the Individuals, and it is thus the objection which is unduly atomistic.

294. In this category the dialectic ends, and we reach, according to Hegel, the absolute truth, so far as it can be reached by pure thought. “All else,” as he has told us, “is error, confusion, opinion, strife, caprice, and impermanence.” There are, he asserts, no defects to be found in this conception, which compel us to proceed to a higher category to remove them. There is, indeed, one defect which reveals itself here, as in every other case where pure thought is taken in abstraction from the other elements of existence, and by means of which Hegel’s philosophy is driven on, beyond the Logic, to the conception of Nature, and from that to, the conception of Spirit — the final and supreme truth about all existence. But with the Absolute Idea we reach the highest and final form of pure thought.

The proof that this is the final form of pure thought must always remain negative. The reason why each previous category was pronounced not to be final was that in each some inadequacy was discovered, which rendered it necessary, on pain of contradiction, to go beyond it. Our belief in the finality of the Absolute Idea rests on our inability to find such an inadequacy. Hegel’s position will. hold good, unless some future philosopher shall discover some inadequacy it, the Absolute Idea which requires removal by means of another category.

Most of the space devoted by Hegel to the Absolute Idea, both in the Greater Logic and in the Encyclopaedia, is concerned with questions relating. to the dialectic method. That such questions should be discussed here follows, of course, from the Position, discussed above that the content of the Absolute Idea is the dialectic method itself. But, in any case, the end of the dialectic would be a natural place for a review of the method which had been followed. To discuss the dialectic method would, however, be beyond the object I have proposed to myself in this book.

295. Is the Absolute tied in any concrete state known to us, in the same way that, the category of Cognition was? It seems clear to me that Hegel regarded it as exemplified by consciousness of some sort. In the first place there are the references to personality iii the quoted above from the Greater Logic (iii. 327). The Notion is here, “as a Person, impenetrable atomic Subjectivity.” This does not, I think, indicate that the nature of the Universe as a whole is exemplified by personality, since the would never be described by Hegel as impenetrable or atomic. It is, I think, the parts of the Universe which are to be, as having these characteristics, and as therefore, having a nature exemplified in personality. In the second place, we have the statement that the Idea is it’s own Object, and again that the Absolute Idea is the truth which knows itself. Moreover, the harmony in the Absolute Idea is the same as the harmony in Cognition, except that neither side is taken as determinant. Now Cognition was regarded by Hegel as exemplified in states of consciousness.

But what sort of consciousness gives us an example of the category of. the Absolute Idea?’ It cannot be knowledge, or volition. For knowledge, as we have seen, exemplifies the Idea of the True — the category in which the Universe is the determinant of the harmony. And volition exemplifies the Idea of the Good — the category in which the Individual is also the determinant of the harmony. In the Absolute Idea neither side of the harmony is determinant.

Hegel does not, so far as I can see, consider this point at I believe that the state of. consciousness which would exemplify the Absolute Idea is since in love we have a state of harmony — which neither the subject nor the object can be considered as determinant. To discuss this here, however, would take us beyond the sphere of the Logic, since love, though it may exemplify the Absolute Idea, is not itself a category, but a concrete state of spirit.

Would Hegel hay agreed with this? As I have just said, the question in the Logic. On the other he does not consider hand, we are not left without means of judging what his opinion would be. For, according to Hegel, the Absolute Idea must be true of all that really exists, and Spirit really exists in fact, nothing but Spirit exists. If, therefore, among the various forms under which Spirit appears to us, we can find one which adequately expresses the nature of Spirit, while none of the others do so, then that form will be an example of tile Absolute Idea (awl, also, though this does not concern us in the Logic, the only instance of it).

There is no doubt, I think, that Hegel believes himself to have, in the Philosophy a dialectic process such that the last term, and the term alone, gives us the truth about Spirit. This then would seem to be the example of the Absolute Idea. But this term is not love, but philosophy. Whether Hegel was justified in holding this may be doubted, but the fact that he did hold it seems to indicate that he would not have accepted love as the state of consciousness which is an example of the Absolute Idea.

On the other hand, in the Philosophy of Religion, the, kingdom of the Holy Ghost” is apparently taken as the absolutely true description of Spirit. And that is represented as a Community bound together by love. The question must, I think, remain undecided.

296. A Commentary such as this necessarily throws more emphasis on points of difference than on points of agreement. I should wish, therefore, in concluding the exposition of Hegel’s philosophy which has been the chief object of my life for twenty-one years, to express my conviction that Hegel has penetrated further into the true nature of reality than any philosopher before or after him. It seems to me that the next task of philosophy should be to make a fresh investigation of that nature by a dialectic method substantially, though not entirely, the same as Hegel’s. What results such an investigation may produce cannot be known till it has been tried, but much of Hegel’s reasoning seems to me to vary so little from the truth, where it varies at all, that I believe the results, like the method, would have much resemblance to Hegel’s own.