cold, and poverty. Again, we have been speaking of Being as Being, and not of corporeal or animal Being. When you oppose, then, these definite Nothings to this definite Being, it is absurd to suppose that the results will be identical with those which issue from the opposition of abstract Being and abstract Nothing. Nothing, when abstract Being is concerned, is the abstraction from everything definite and particular, and abstract Being itself is the same abstraction; but the nothing of light is darkness, and it cannot be said that the eye is indifferent whether it be the one or the other definite Being is a complex of infinite rapports. But where is the use of your abstraction, then, may be urged in reply? Why, this ultimate generalisation Being-we are bound to make it, and it has always been considered a determination of the greatest consequence surely, then, it is worth while pointing out that this Being is identical with the abstract Nothing, that they are both abstractions, and that their truth is Werden. These are great poles of thought, subjective and objective; and it is important to know them, as they are, and in their relations. The incidental references illustrate this: the philosophy of Parmenides, for example, was centred in the thought abstract Being, while that of Heraclitus related simply to Becoming, and we see what vast effects may be produced by the contemplation of abstract Nothing in the case of Buddhism. Being is the first abstract thought, indeed, and, with the Eleatics, we find it as such in History; for the material principles and the numbers which preceded it are not pure thoughts.

The importance of our findings, too, is well shown in the impossibility of a creation and in the Pantheism, which result from the absolute separation of Being

and Nothing exhibited in the common dictum Ex nihilo nihil fit. A creation is impossible without the community of Nothing and Being; and if all that is, is just Being, or if all that is, is just Substance, then there results only the abstract Pantheism of Parmenides or of Spinoza. We may remark, however, that as used the dictum is safe from the attack of Hegel; for it is nothing else but the law of causality in another form; what it means is simply the à priori synthetic judgment of Kant-there is no change without a cause. It is this sense which prevents the reader from agreeing with Hegel in his attack. What Hegel wishes to hold up, however, is the essential importance in this universe of the distinction, Nothing: in effect, nega tivity, in the sense of distinctivity, is the creative power; and there is nowhere anything which does not confess its influence.

The errors of Kant, too, in reference to the Ontological argument spring from bluntness to the distinctions we signalise, and thus demonstrate the value of the latter: Kant, in fact, exhibits a similar confusion of the finite and the infinite, as well as a very imperfect perception of the nature and relations of Being, Non-being, and So-being (Daseyn).

The objections to the relative teaching of Hegel, then, arise from the untutored attitude of common sense, which means ever the blind instinctive employment of stereotyped abstractions of one's own, whence or how derived one knows not, asks not, cares not: in the case before us, for example, common-sense insists that its abstraction, a differentiated Nothing, is our abstraction, reference-less Nothing. We may add, that the practical lesson is to perceive that it is our duty, in view of the infinite affirmation in which we participate,

to entertain complete tranquillity in the presence of any finite Particular that may emerge.

REMARK 2.

There seems nothing very hard here; the chief object is to point out the difficulty of giving a true expression to speculative propositions, which are always dialectic. The form of the judgment is shown to be inadequate. Identity, unity, inseparability, are all imperfect expressions of the relation that subsists between Being and Nothing. The concluding illustration in regard to light and darkness speaks for itself.

Of terms, we may notice two-Abstract and Unterschied.

Abstract is one of the commonest words in Hegel, and is often used in such a manner as perplexes: it always implies that something is viewed in its absolute self-identity, and absolutely apart from all its concrete references. As regards Unterschied, it is worth while observing that it means inter-shed, or inter-part: the Unterschied of Seyn and Nichts may be profitably regarded as just a sort of abstract water-shed.

REMARK 3.

This is the most important of all the Remarks in this place, and the reader ought to make a point of dwelling by it long and studying it thoroughly. The rigour of thought in regard to a First, a Second, the transition between them, and the principles of progress in general, ought to improve the powers of every faculty which has been privileged to experience it. What is said in regard to crude Reflexion and the means of helping it, is also striking and suggestive. Then we are taught what a true synthesis is, and

what a false one. Again, we learn that it is the abstractions which are unreal, while their concrete union is fact. In truth, the general gist of the remark is, it is absurd to remain in abstract self-identity, and say movement, progress, is impossible to you; for synthesis must be possible, and is necessary just for this reason, that synthesis is-that is, there is this variegated empirical universe. The observations in regard to determinate nothings are very important, as well as those that bear on the necessity of our keeping strictly to the precise stage we have reached, without applying in its description or explanation characters which belong to later stages. The incidental notice of the Parmenides of Plato is exceedingly terse, full, and satisfactory.

Hegel remarks of Plato's critique of the Eleatic One: It is obvious that this path (method) has a presupposition, and is an external reflexion.' A cooperative reader, and every reader should be cooperative, ought to ask himself, where is the presupposition?' and where is the external reflexion?' Again, in the first Remark, the reader ought not to leave without understanding Metaphysic might tautologically maintain, that were a dust-atom destroyed, the whole universe would collapse.' Let the reader go back here, and study both for himself. The presupposition is, that variety is incompatible with unity: the external reflexion is, that the two forms are just externally counted: Hegel's universe is such, that the whole is not more each part than each part is the whole-to destroy a part and destroy the whole are thus tautological.

There is also expressed here such respect for the empirical world as helps us to see that the system of Hegel

is no chimera of abstraction, no cobweb of the brain, but that what it endeavours is just to think this universe, as it manifests itself around us, into its ultimate and universal principles.

As regards terms, we may just remark that Beziehung implies more than mere reference; it implies, as it were, connective reference: it is used pretty much, in fact, in its strict etymological meaning. Synthesis, as alluded to in a previous note, will be found fully explained here: the unphilosophical synthesis thinks it enough just to put together full-formed individuals from elsewhere, as God, a germ-cell, and space (say); while philosophical synthesis is immanent, and points to a transition of necessity with concrete union of differents. The allusion to ursprüngliche Urtheilen' leads one to think of Kant as the source of all that Hegel seems peculiarly to teach as regards the Ur-theil; at all events-leaving Apperception and the Categories out of sight Kant's transcendental doctrine of Urtheilskraft is wholly employed on the commediation of the inner unities with the outer multiples, and contains a great variety of matter which must have proved eminently suggestive in regard to the main positions assumed by Hegel.

REMARK 4.

This remark is still occupied with the Unity of Being and Nothing; but it is exceedingly terse, clear, and illustrative. The dialectic against the Beginning or Ending of the World is very happily shown to rest wholly on the separation of Being and Nothing; and the hit to ordinary understanding which believes against this dialectic-a Beginning and Ending of the World, and yet accepts with this dialectic-the