Non-existence of subdivisions of the concept as a logic at form.
Logically, the concept does not give rise to distinctions, for there are not several forms of concept, but one only. This is a perfectly analogous result in Logic to that which we reached in Æsthetic, when we established the uniqueness of intuition or expression, and the non-existence of special modes or classes of expressions (except in theempirical sense, in which we can always establish as many classes as we wish). In distinguishing the forms of the spirit, the two principal forms, theoretic and practical, having been divided, and the theoretic having been subdivided into intuition and concept, there is no place for a further subdivision of the theoretic forms, since intuition and concept are each of them indivisible forms. The reason for this indivisibility cannot be clearly understood, save by the complete development of the Philosophy of the spirit; and it is only to be remarked here in passing, that the division of intuition and concept has as its foundation the distinction between individual and universal. And since in this distinction there is nomedium quidnor anulterius,a third or fourth intermediate form, so there is no subdivision; since we pass from the concept of individuality to single individuality, which is not a concept, and from the concept of the concept to the single act of thought, which is no longer the simple definition of logical thinking, but effective logical thinking itself.
The distinctions of the concept not logical, but real.
Since all subdivision of the logical form of the concept has been excluded, the multiplicity of concepts can be referred only to the variety of the objects, which are thought in the logical form of the concept. The concept ofgoodnessis not that ofbeauty; or rather, both are logically the same thing, since both are logical form; but the aspect of reality designated by the first is not the same aspect of reality as is designated by the second.
Multiplicity of the concepts, and the logical difficulty arising therefrom. Necessity of overcoming it.
But here arises the difficulty. How can it be that since in the concept we deal with reality, in its universal aspect, we yet obtain so many various forms of reality, that is, so many distinct concepts (for example, passion, will, morality, imagination, thought, and so on), so manyuniversals,whereas the concept should give usthe universal.If this variety were not overcome or capable of being overcome by the concept, we should have to conclude that the true universal is not attainable by thought, and to return to scepticism, or at least to that peculiar form of logical scepticism which makes the consciousness of unity an act of the inner life, which cannot be stated in terms of logic; that is, mysticism. The distinction of the concepts, one from another, in the absence of unity, is separation and atomism; and it would certainly not be worth while getting out of the multiplicity of representations if we were then to fall into that of the concepts. For this, no less than the other, would issue in aprogressus ad infinitum,for who would ever be able to affirm that the concepts which were discovered and enumerated were all the concepts? If they be ten, why should they not be, if better observed, twenty, a hundred, or fifty thousand? Why, indeed, should they not be just as numerous as the representations, that is to say, infinite? Spinoza, who counted, without mediating between them, two attributes of substance, thought and extension, admitted, with perfect coherence, that two are known to us, but that the attributes of Substance must in reality be considered infinite in number.
Impossibility of eliminating it.
The concept, then, demands that this multiplicity be denied; and we can affirm that the real is one, because the concept, by means of which alone we know it, is one; the content is one, because the form of thought is one. But in accepting this claim, we run into another difficulty. If we jettison distinction, the unity that we attain is an empty unity, deprived of organic character, a whole without parts, a simplebeyondthe representations, and therefore inexpressible so that we should return to mysticism by another route. A whole is a whole, only because and in so far as it has parts, indeedisparts; an organism is such, because it has and is organs and functions; a unity is thinkable onlyin so far as it has distinctions in itself, and is the unity of the distinctions. Unity without distinction is as repugnant to thought as distinction without unity.
Unify as distinction.
It follows, therefore, that both terms are reciprocally indispensable, and that the distinctions of the concept are not the negation of the concept, nor something outside the concept, but the concept itself, understood in its truth; theone-distinct;one, only because distinct, and distinct only because one. Unity and distinction are correlative and therefore inseparable.
Inadequateness of the numerical concept of multiplicity.
The distinct concepts, constituting in their distinction unity, cannot, above all, be infinite in number, for in that case they would be equivalent to the representations. Not indeed that they are finite in number, as if they were all alike equally arranged upon one and the same plane, and capable of being placed in any other sort of order, without alteration in their being. TheBeautiful,theTrue,theUseful,theGood,are not the first steps in a numerical series, nor do they permit themselves to be arranged at pleasure, so that we may place the beautiful after the true, or the good before the useful, or the useful before the true, and so on. They have a necessary order, and mutually implyone another; and from this we learn that they are not to be described as finite in number, since number is altogether incapable of expressing such a relation. To count implies having objects separate from one another before us; and here, on the contrary, we have terms that are distinct, but inseparable, of which the second is not only second, but, in a certain sense, also first, and the first not only first, but, in a certain way, also second. We cannot dispense with numbers, when treating of these concepts of the spirit, owing to their convenience for handling the subject; hence we talk, for example, of thetencategories, or of thethreeterms of the concept, or of thefourforms of the spirit. But in this case the numbers are meresymbols; and we must beware of understanding the objects which they enumerate, as though they were ten sheep, three oxen, and four cows.
Relation of the distinct concepts as ideal history.
This relation of the distinct concepts in the unity which they constitute, can be compared to the spectacle of life, in which every fact is in relation with all other facts, and the fact which comes after is certainly different from that which precedes, but is also the same; since the consequent fact contains in itself the preceding, as, in a certain sense, the preceding virtuallycontained the consequent, and was what it was, just because it possessed the power of producing the consequent. This is calledhistory; and therefore (continuing to develop the comparison) the relation of the concepts, which are distinct in the unity of the concept, can be called and has been calledideal history; and the logical theory of such ideal history has been regarded as the theory of thedegrees of the concept,just as real history is conceived as a series ofdegrees of civilization.And since the theory of the degrees of the concept is the theory of its distinction, and its distinction is not different from its unity, it is clear that this theory can be separated from the general doctrine of the concept with which it is substantially one, only with a view to greater facility of exposition.
Distinction between ideal and real history.
Metaphors and comparisons are metaphors and comparisons and (like all forms of language) their effectiveness for the purposes of dissertation is accompanied, as we know, by the danger of misunderstanding. In order to avoid this, without at the same time renouncing the convenience of such modes of expression, it will be well to insist that the historical series, where the distinct concepts appear connected, isideal,and therefore outside space and time, and eternal; so that itwould be erroneous to conceive that in any smallest fragment of reality, or in any most fugitive instant of it, one degree is found without the other, the first without the second, or the first and the second without the third. Here too, we must allow for the exigencies of exposition, whereby, sometimes, when we intend to emphasize the distinction, we are led to speak of the relation of one degree to another, as if they were distinct existences; as if the practical man really existed side by side with the theoretic man, or the poet side by side with the philosopher, or as if the work of Art stood separate from the labour of reflection, and so on. But if a particular historical fact can in a certain sense be considered as essentially distinct in time and space, the grades of the concept are not existentially, temporally, and spatially distinct.
Ideal and abstract distinction.
An opposite, but not less serious error, would be to conceive the grades of the concept as distinct onlyabstractly,thus making abstract concepts of distinct concepts. The abstract distinction is unreal; and that of the concept is real; and the reality of the distinction (since here we are dealing with the concept) is preciselyideality,notabstraction.The universal, and therefore also all the forms of the universal, arefound in every minutest fragment of life, in the so-called physical atom of the physicists, or in the psychical atom of the psychologists; the concept is therefore all distinct concepts. Buteach one of them is, as it were, distinct in that union; and in the same way as man is man, in so far as he affirms all his activities and his entire humanity, and yet cannot do this, save by specializing as a scientific man, a politician, a poet, and so on. In the same way the thinker, when thinking reality, can think it only in its distinct aspects, and in this way only he thinks it in its unity. A work of Art and a philosophical work, an act of thought or of will, cannot be taken up in the hand or pointed out with the finger; and it can be affirmed only in a practical and approximate sense that this book is poetry, and that philosophy, that this movement is a theoretic or practical, a utilitarian or a moral act. It is well understood that this book is also philosophy; and that it is also a practical act; just as that useful act is also moral, and also theoretic; andvice versa.But to think a certain intuitive datum and to recognize it as an affirmation of the whole spirit, is not possible save by thinking its different aspects distinctly. This renders possible, for example, a criticism of Art,conducted exclusively from the point of view of Art; or a philosophical criticism, from the exclusive point of view of philosophy; or a moral judgment, which considers exclusively the moral initiative of the individual, and so on. And therefore, here as in the preceding case, it is needful to guard against forcing the comparison with history too far, and conceiving, in history, the possibility of divisions as rigorous as in the concept. If distinct concepts be notexistences,existences are notdistinctconcepts; a fact cannot be placed in the same relation to another fact, as one grade of the concept to another, precisely because in every fact there are all the determinations of the concept, and a fact in relation to another fact is not a conceptual determination.
Certainlydistinctconcepts can becomesimple abstractions; but this only happens when they are taken in an abstract way, and so separated from one another, co-ordinated and made parallel, by means of an arbitrary operation, which can be applied even to the pure concepts. The distinct concepts then become changed intopseudoconcepts,and the character of abstraction belongs to these last, not to the distinct concepts as such, which are always at once distinct and united.
Other usual distinctions of the concept, and their meaning, identicals, disparates, primitives, and derivatives, etc.
This is not the place to dwell upon the other forms of concepts met with in Logic, known asidenticalconcepts, which cannot be anything but synonyms, or words;—or upondisparateconcepts, which are simply distinct concepts, in so far as they are taken in a relation, which is not that given in the distinction, and is therefore arbitrary, so that the concepts, thus presented without the necessary intermediaries, appear disparate;—orprimitive and derived concepts, or simple and compound concepts; a distinction which does not exist for the pure concepts, since they are always simple and primitive, never compound or derived.
Universals, particulars, and singulars. Intension and extension.
But the distinction of concepts intouniversal, particular,andsingulardeserves elucidation, for the reason that we are now giving. Concepts, which are only universal, or only particular, or only singular, or to which any one of these determinations is wanting, are not conceivable. Indeed, universality only means that the distinct concept is also the unique concept, of which it is a distinction and which is composed of such distinctions; particularity means that the distinct concept is in a determinate! relation with another distinct concept; and singularity that in this particularity and in that universality it is alsoitself. Thus the distinct concept is always singular, and therefore universal and particular; and the universal concept would be abstract were it not also particular and singular. In every concept there is the whole concept, and all other concepts; but there is also one determinate concept. For example, beauty is spirit (universality), theoretic spirit (particularity), and intuitive spirit (singularity); that is to say, the whole spirit, in so far as it is intuition. Owing to this distinction into universal, particular, and singular, it is self-evident that intension and extension are, as the phrase is, in inverse ratio, since this amounts to repeating that the universal is universal, the particular particular, and the singular singular.
Logical definition.
The interest of this distinction of universality, particularity, and singularity lies in this, that upon it is founded the doctrine ofdefinition,since it is not possible to define, that is, to think a concept, save by thinking itssingularity(peculiarity), nor to think this, save by determining it asparticularity(relation with the other distinct concepts) anduniversality(relation with the whole). Conversely, it is not possible to think universality without determining its particularity and singularity; otherwise that universal would be empty.The distinct concepts are defined by means of the one, and the one by means of the distinct. This doctrine, thus made clear, is also in harmony with that of the nature of the concepts.
Unity, distinction as circle.
But the theory of the distinct concepts and that of their unity still present something irrational and give rise to a new difficulty. Because, if it be true that the distinct concepts constitute an ideal history or series of grades, it is also true that in such a history and series there is afirstandlast,the concepta,which opens the series, and, let us say, the conceptd,which concludes it. Commencement and end thus remain both without motive. But in order that the concept be unity in distinction and that it may be compared to an organism, it is necessary that it have no other commencement save itself, and that none of its single distinct terms be an absolute commencement. For, in fact, in the organism no member has priority over the others; but each is reciprocally first and last. Now this means that the symbol oflinear seriesis inadequate to the concept; and that its true symbol is thecircle,in whichaanddfunction, in turn, as first and last. And indeed the distinct concepts, as eternal ideal history, are an eternal going and returning, in whicha, b, c, darisefromd,without possibility of pause or stay, and in which each one, whetheraorborcord,being unable to change its place, is to be designated, in turn, as first or as last. For example, in the Philosophy of Spirit it can be said with equal truth or error that the end or final goal of the spirit is to know or to act, art or philosophy; in truth, neither in particular, but only their totality is the end; or only the Spirit is the end of the Spirit. Thus is eliminated the rational difficulty, which might be urged in relation to this part.
Distinction in the pseudoconcepts.
It is still better eliminated, and the whole doctrine of the pure concepts which we have been expounding is thereby illumined and thrown into clearer outline when we observe the transformation (which we will not call either inversion or perversion), to which it is submitted in the doctrine of the pseudoconcepts. It is therefore expedient to refer rapidly to this for the sake of contrast and emphasis.
Above all, certain distinctions, which in the doctrine of the pure concepts have been seen to be without significance or importance, find their significance in the doctrine of the pseudoconcepts. We understand, for instance, how and whyidenticalconcepts can be discussed; since, in the field of caprice, one and the same thing, or oneand the same not-thing, can be defined in different ways and give rise to two or more concepts which, owing to the identity of their matter, are thus identical. The concept of a figure having three angles, or that of a figure having three sides, are identical concepts, alike applicable to the triangle; the concept of 3 x 4 and that of 6 x 2 are identical, since both are definitions of the number 12; the concept of a feline domestic animal and that of a domestic animal that eats mice are identical, both being definitions of the cat. It is likewise clear how and whyprimaryandderived, simpleandcompoundconcepts are discussed; for our arbitrary choice, by forming certain concepts and making use of these to form others, comes to posit the first as simple and primitive in relation to the second, which are, in their turn, to be considered as compound or secondary.
The subordination and co-ordination of the empirical concepts.
We have already seen that the arbitrary concept differs from the pure concept in that, of necessity, it produces two forms by the two acts of empiricism and emptiness and thereby gives rise to two different types of formations, empirical and abstract concepts. Empirical concepts have this property, that in them unity is outside distinction and distinction outside unity. And it is natural: for if it were the case that thesetwo determinations penetrated one another, the concepts would be, as we have already noted, not arbitrary, but necessary and true. If the distinction is placed outside the unity, every division that is given of it is, like the concepts themselves, arbitrary; and every enumeration is also arbitrary, because those concepts can be infinitely multiplied. In exchange for the rationally determined and completely unified distinctions of the pure concepts, the pseudoconcepts offer multiple groups, arbitrarily formed, and sometimes also unified in a single group, which embraces the entire field of the knowable, but in such a way as not to exclude an infinite number of other ways of apprehending it.
In these groups the empirical concepts simulate the arrangement of the pure concepts, reducing the particular to the universal, that is to say, a certain number of concepts beneath another concept. But it is impossible in any way to think these subordinate concepts, as actualizations of the fundamental concept, which are developed from one another and return into themselves; hence we are compelled to leave them external to one another, simply co-ordinated. The scheme ofsubordinationandco-ordination,and its relative spatial symbol (the symbol ofclassification),which is a right line, on the upper side of which falls perpendicularly another right line, and from whose lower side descend other perpendicular and therefore parallel right lines, is opposed to the circle and is the most evident ocular demonstration of the profound diversity of the two procedures. It will always be impossible to dispose a nexus of pure concepts in that classificatory scheme without falsifying them; it will always be impossible to transform empirical concepts into a series of grades without destroying them.
The definition in the empirical concepts, and the notes of the concept.
In consequence of the scheme of classification, the definition which, in the case of pure concepts, has the three moments of universality, particularity, and singularity, in the case of empirical concepts has only two, which are calledgenusandspecies; and is applied according to the rule, by means of theproximate genusand thespecific difference.Its object indeed is simply to record, not to understand and to think, a given empirical formation; and this is fully attained when its position is determined by means of the indication of what is above and what is beside it. In order to determine it yet more accurately, the doctrine of the definition has been gradually enriched with othermarksorpredicables,which,in traditional Logic, are five:genus, species, differentia, property, accident.But it is a question of caprice upon caprice, of which it is not advisable to take too much account. And as it would be barbaric to apply the classificatory scheme to the pure concepts, so it would be equally barbaric to define the pure concepts by means ofmarks,that is, by means of characteristics mechanically arranged.
Series in the abstract concepts.
Where the thinker forgets the true function of the empirical concepts and is seized with the desire to develop them rationally, and thus to overcome the atomism of the scheme of classification and of extrinsic definition, he is led to refine them into abstract concepts, in which that scheme and that method of definition are overcome: the classification becomes aseries(numerical series, series of geometrical forms, etc.), and the definition becomesgenetic.But this improvement not only makes the empirical concepts disappear, and is therefore not improvement but death (like the death which the empirical concepts find in true knowledge when they return or mount up again to pure thought); but such improvement substitutes for empiricism emptiness. Series and genetic definitions answer without doubt to demands of the practical spirit; but, as we know,they do not yield truth, not even the truth which lies at the bottom of an empirical concept or of a falsified and mutilated representation. Hence, here as elsewhere, empirical concepts and abstract concepts reveal their double one-sidedness, and exhibit more significantly the value of the unity which they break up; the distinction, which is not classification, but circle and unity; the definition, which is not an aggregate of intuitive data; the series, which is a complete series; the genesis, which is not abstract but ideal.
Opposite or contrary concepts.
By what has been said, we have made sufficiently clear the nature of distinct concepts, that is to say, unity in distinction and distinction in unity, and we have left no doubt as to the kind of unity which the concept affirms, that it is notin spite ofbutby means ofdistinction. But another difficulty seems to arise, due to another order of concepts, which are calledoppositesorcontraries.
Their difference from distincts.
It is indubitable that opposite concepts neither are nor can be reduced to distincts; and this becomes evident so soon as instances of both are recalled to mind. In the system of the spirit, for instance, the practical activity will be distinct from the theoretic, and within the practical activity the utilitarian and ethical activities will be distinct. But the contrary of the practical activity is practical inactivity, the contrary of utility, harmfulness, the contrary of morality, immorality. Beauty, truth, utility, moralgood are distinct concepts; but it is easy to see that ugliness, falsehood, uselessness, evil cannot be added to or inserted among them. Nor is this all: upon closer inspection we perceive that the second series cannot be added to or mingled with the first, because each of the contrary terms is already inherent in its contrary, or accompanies it, as shadow accompanies light. Beauty is such, because it denies ugliness; good, because it denies evil, and so on. The opposite is not positive, but negative, and as such is accompanied by the positive.
Confirmation of this given by the Logic of empiria.
This difference of nature between opposite concepts and distinct concepts is also reflected in empirical Logic, that is, in the theory of pseudoconcepts; because this Logic, while it reduces the distinct concepts tospecies,refuses to treat the opposites in like manner. Hence one does not say that the genusdogis divided into the specieslivedogs anddeaddogs; or that the genusmoral manis divided into the speciesmoralandimmoralman; and if such has sometimes been affirmed, an impropriety—even for this kind of Logic—has been committed, since thespeciescan never be thenegationof thegenus.So this empirical Logic confirms in its own way that opposite concepts are different from distinct.
Difficulty arising from the double type of concepts, opposites, and distincts.
It is, however, equally evident that we cannot content ourselves with enumerating the opposite, side by side with the distinct concepts; because we should thus be adopting non-philosophical methods in place of philosophical, and in the philosophical theory of Logic should be lapsing into illogicality or empiricism. If the unity of the concept be at the same time itsself-distinction,how can that same unity have another parallel sort of division or self-distinction, which isself-opposition!If it is inconceivable to resolve the one into the other, and to make of the opposites distinct concepts, or of the distincts opposite concepts, then it is not less inconceivable to leave both distincts and opposites within the unity of the concept unmediated and unexplained.
Nature of the opposites; and their identity with the distincts when distinguished from them.
It will possibly serve towards a solution of this difficulty—undoubtedly a very grave one—to go deeply into the nature of the difference between opposite and distinct concepts. These latter are distinguishable in unity; reality is their unity and also their distinction. Man is thought and action; indivisible but distinguishable forms; so much so that in so far as we think we deny action, and in so far as we act we deny thought. But the opposites are not distinguishable in this way: the man who commits an evil action,if hereally does something,does not commit an evil action, but an action which is useful to him; the man who thinks a false thought,if he does something real,does not think the false thought, indeed does not think at all, but, on the contrary, lives and provides for his own convenience and in general for a good which at that instant he desires. Hence we see that the opposites, when taken as distinct moments, are no longer opposites, but distincts; and in that case they retain negative denominations only metaphorically, whereas, strictly speaking, they would merit positive. In order, therefore, that the consideration of opposition be not changed when superficially regarded into that of distinction, it is desirable not to make of it a distinction in the bosom of the concept, that is to say, to combat every distinction by opposition, by declaring it to bemerely abstract.
Impossibility of distinguishing one opposite from another, as concept from concept.
So true is this, that no sooner are opposite terms taken as distincts than the one becomes the other, that is to say, both evaporate into emptiness. The disputes caused by the opposition ofbeingtonot-beingand the unity of both inbecomingare celebrated in this connection. And we know that being, thought as pure being, is the same as not-being or nothing; and nothing, thought as pure nothingness, is the same as purebeing. Thus, the truth is neither the one nor the other, but is becoming, in which both are, but as opposites, and, therefore, indistinguishable: becoming is being itself, which has in it not-being, and so is also not-being. We cannot think the relation of being to not-being as the relation of one form of the spirit, or of reality, to another form. In the latter case we have unity in distinction: in the former, rectified orrestoredunity, that is to say, reaffirmed againstemptiness;against the empty unity of mere being, or of mere not-being; or against the mere sum of being and of not-being.
The dialectic.
The two moments should certainly be synthesized, when we attack the abstract thought, which divides them: taken in themselves, they are, not two moments united in a third, but one only, the third (in this case also the number is a symbol), that is to say, the indistinguishability of the moments. It thus happens (be it said in passing) that Hegel, to whom we owe the polemic against empty being, was content for this purpose neither with the wordsunityandidentity,nor withsynthesis,nor withtriad,and preferred to call this indistinguishable opposition in unity the objectivedialecticof the real. But whatever be the words that we chose to employ, the thingis what has been said. The opposite is not the distinct of its opposite, but the abstraction of the true reality.
The opposites are not concepts, but the unique concept itself.
If this be the fact, the duality and parallelism of distinct and opposite concepts no longer exist. The opposites are the concept itself, and therefore the concepts themselves, each one in itself, in so far as it is determination of the concept, and in so far as it is conceived in its true reality. Reality, of which logical thought elaborates the concept, means, not motionless being or pure being, but opposition: the forms of reality, which the concept thinks in order to think reality in its fullness, are opposed in themselves; otherwise, they would not be forms of reality, or would not be at all.Fair is foul and foul is fair: beauty is such, because it has within it ugliness, the true is such because it has in it the false, the good is such because it has within it evil. If the negative term be removed, as is usually done in abstract thought, the positive also disappears; but precisely because, with the negative, the positive itself has been removed. When we talk of negative terms, or of non-values and so of not-beings as existing, existence really means that to theestablishmentof the fact we add theexpression of the desirethat another existenceshould arise upon that existence. "You are dishonest" means "You are a man that seeks your own pleasure" (a theoretic judgment); "but youought to be" (no longer a judgment, but the expression of a desire) "something else, and so serve the universal ends of Reality." "You have written an ugly verse" will mean, for example, "You have provided for your own convenience and repose, and so have accomplished an economic act" (a theoretic judgment); "but youought toaccomplish an æsthetic act" (no longer judgment, but the expression of a wish). Examples can be multiplied. But every one has in him evil, because he has good: Satan is not a creature extraneous to God, nor the Minister of God, called Satan, but God himself. If God had not Satan in himself, he would be like food without salt, an abstract ideal, a simpleought to bewhich is not, and therefore impotent and useless. The Italian poet who had sung of Satan, as "rebellion" and "the avenging force of reason," had a profound meaning when he concluded by exalting God: as "the most lofty vision to which peoples attain in the force of their youth," "the Sun of sublime minds and of ardent hearts." He corrected and integrated the one abstractionwith the other, and thus unconsciously attained to the fullness of truth.
Affirmation and negation.
Thought, in so far as it is itself life (that is to say, the life which is thought, and therefore life of life), and in so far as it is reality (that is to say, the reality which is thought, and therefore reality of reality) has in itself opposition; and for this reason it is alsoaffirmation and negation; it does not affirm save by denying, and does not deny save by affirming. But it does not affirm and deny save by distinguishing, because thought is distinction, and we cannot distinguish (truly distinguishi.e.,which is a different thing from the rough and ready separations made by the pseudoconcepts) save by unifying. He who meditates upon the connections of affirmation-negation and unity-distinction has before him the problem of the nature of thought, and so of the nature of reality; and he ends by seeing that those two connections are not parallel nor disparate, but are in their turn unified in unity-distinction understood as effective reality, and not as simple abstract possibility, or desire, or mere ought to be.
The principle of identity and contradiction; its true meaning and false interpretation.
If we now wish to state the nature of thought as reality in the form oflaw(a form which we know to be one with that of the concept, thoughthe first term be adopted by preference for the pseudoconcepts), we can only say that the law of thought is the law of unity and distinction, and therefore that it is expressed in the two formulæ A is A (unity) and A is not B (distinction), which are precisely what is called the law orprinciple of identity and contradiction.It is a very improper, or, rather, a very equivocal formula, chiefly because it allows it to be supposed that the law or principle is outside or above thought, like a bridle and guide, whereas it is thought itself; and it has the further inconvenience of not placing in clear relief the unity of identity and distinction. But these are not too great evils, because misunderstandings can be made clear, and because—what we will not tire of repeating—all, all words indeed, are exposed to misunderstandings.
Another false interpretation; struggle with the principle of opposition. False application of this principle.
We have a much greater evil, when the principle of identity and contradiction is formulated and understood, not in the sense that A is not B, but in that of A is A only and not also not A, or its opposite; because, understood in this way, it leads directly to placing the negative moment outside the positive, not-being outside or opposite to being, and so, to the absurd conception of reality as motionless and empty being.In opposition to this degeneration of the principle of identity and contradiction, another law or principle has been conceived and made prominent, whose formula is: "A is also not A," or "everything is self-contradicting." This is a necessary and provident reaction against the one-sided way in which the preceding principle was interpreted. But it too brings in its turn the inconvenience of all reactions, because it seems to rise up against the first law, like an irreconcilable rival destined to supplant it. In the first formula we have a duality of principles, which, as has been said, cannot logically be maintained; in the second, a degeneration in the opposite sense, the total loss of the criterion of distinction. To the false application of the principle of identity and contradiction succeedsthe false application of the dialectic principle.
This false application has also been manifested in a form which could be called doubly arbitrary; that is to say, when it has attempted to treat dialectically neither more nor less than empirical and abstract concepts, whereas in any case it could not be applied to anything but the pure concepts. The dialectic belongs to opposed categories (or, rather, it is the thinking of the one category of opposition), not at all torepresentative and abstract fictions, which are based either upon mere representation or upon nothing. As the result of that arbitrary form, we have seen vegetable opposed to mineral, society opposed to the family, or even Rome opposed to Greece, and Napoleon to Rome; or the superficies actually opposed to the line, time to space, and the number two to the number one. But this error belongs to another more general error, which we shall deal with in its place, when discussing philosophism.
Errors of the dialectic applied to the relation of the distincts.
Here it is important to indicate only that false application of the dialectic which tends to resolve in itself and so to destroy distinct concepts, by treating them as opposites. The distinct concepts are distinct and not opposite; and they cannot be opposite, precisely because they already have opposition in themselves. Fancy has its opposite in itself, fanciful passivity, or æsthetic ugliness, and therefore it is not the opposite of thought, which in its turn has its opposite in itself, logical passivity, antithought, or the false. Certainly (as has been said), he who does not make the beautiful (in so far as he does anything, and he cannot but do something) effectively produces another value, for example the useful, and he who does not think, if he does anything,produces another value, the fanciful for instance, and creates a work of art. But in this way we issue from those determinations considered in themselves, from the opposition which is in them andwhich constitutes them; and from the consideration of effectual opposition we pass to the consideration of distinction. Considered as real, the opposite cannot be anything but the distinct; but the opposite is precisely the unreal in the real, and not a form or grade of reality. It will be said that unless one distinct concept is opposed to another, it is not clear how there can be a transition from one to the other. But this is a confusion between concept and fact, betweenidealand therefore eternal moments of the real and theirexistentialmanifestations. Existentially, a poet does not become a philosopher, save when in his spirit there arises a contradiction to his poetry, that is to say, when he is no longer satisfied with the individual and with the individual intuition: in that moment, he does not pass into but is a philosopher, because to pass, to be effectual, and to become are synonyms. In the same way, a poet does not pass from one intuition to another, or from one work of art to another, save through the formation of an internal contradiction, owing to which his previous workno longer satisfies him; and he passes into, that is to say he becomes and truly is,anotherpoet. Transition is the law of the whole of life; and therefore it is in all the existential and contingent determinations of each of these forms. We pass from one verse of a poem to another because the first verse satisfies, and also does not satisfy. The ideal moments, on the contrary, do not pass into one another, because they are eternally in each other, distinct, and one with each other.
Its reductio ad absurdum.
Moreover, the violent application of the dialectic to the distincts, and their illegitimate distortion into opposites, due to an elevated but ill-directed tendency to unity, is punished where it sins; that is to say, in not attaining to that unity to which it aspired. The connection of distinct is circular, and therefore true unity; the application of opposites to the forms of the spirit and of reality would produce, on the contrary, not the circle, which is true infinity, but theprogressif ad infinitum,which is false or bad infinity. Indeed, if opposition determine the transition from one ideal grade to the other, from one form to the other, and is the sole character and supreme law of the real, by what right can a final form be established, in which that transitionshould no longer take place? By what right, for instance, should the spirit, which moves from the impression or emotion and passes dialectically to the intuition, and by a new dialectic transition to logical thought, remain calm and satisfied there? Why (as is the contention of such philosophies) should the thought of the Absolute or of the Idea be the end of Life? In obedience to the law of opposition, it would be necessary that thought, which denies intuition, should be in its turn denied; and the denial again denied; and so on, to infinity. This negation to infinity exists, certainly, and it is life itself, seen in representation; but precisely for this reason we do not escape from this evil infinite of representation save through the true infinite, which places the infinite in every moment, the first in the last and the last in the first, that is to say, places in every moment unity, which is distinction.
We must, however, recognize that the false application of the dialectic has had,per accidens,the excellent result of demonstrating the instability of a crowd of ill-distinguished concepts; as we must take advantage of the devastation and overturning of secular prejudices which it has brought about. But that erroneous dialectic has also promoted the habit of lack of precisionin the concepts, and sometimes encouraged the charlatanism of superficial thinkers; though this too,per accidens,so far as concerns the initial motive of dialectical polemic is rich with profound truth.
The Improper form of logical principles or laws. The principle of sufficient reason.
The form oflawgiven to the concept of the concept has led to this confusion; for it is an improper form, all saturated with empirical usage. Given the law of identity and contradiction, and given side by side with it that of opposition or dialectic, there inevitably arises a seeming duality; whereas the two laws are nothing but two inopportune forms of expressing the unique nature of the concept, or, rather, of reality itself. The peculiar nature of the concept may rather be said to be expressed in another law or principle, namely that ofsufficient reason.This principle is ordinarily used as referring to the concept of cause, or to the pseudoconcepts, but (both in its peculiar tendency and in its historical origin) it truly belonged to the concept of end or reason. That is to say, it was desired to establish that things cannot be said to be known, when any sort of cause for them is adduced, but on the contrary, that cause must be adduced, which is also the end, and which is, therefore, thesufficientreason. But what else does seeking the sufficientreason of things mean but thinking them in their truth, conceiving them in their universality, and stating their concept? This is logical thought, as distinct from representation or intuition, which offers things but not reasons, individuality but not universality.
It is not worth while talking about the other so-called logical principles; because, either they have been already implicitly dealt with, or they are ineptitudes without any sort of interest.