CHAPTER XXVII.

ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE: OR THE CATEGORIES.

According to the strict reasonings of Kant in his _Criticism of Pure Reason_, and the somewhat looser discussions of Mr. Spencer in his _First Principles_ a science of Metaphysics or theory of the Infinite, Absolute, or Unconditioned is impossible. As a result of the criticism by Kant, Jacobi claimed the Absolute for Faith: and Spencer banishes the Absolute or Unknowable to the sphere of Religion to be worshipped or ignored, but in either case blindly. As we have already seen, Hegel does not accept this distribution of provinces between religion and philosophy. There is only one world, one reality: but it is known more or less fully, more or less truly and adequately. It is presented in one way to the sensuous imagination: in another to the scientific analyst: in a third to the philosopher. To the first it is a mere succession or expanse of pictures, facts, appearances: and outside it--somewhere, but not here,--there is a land, a being of perfect wholeness and harmony. To the second it is an unending chain of causes and effects, of one thing simplified by being referred to another till at last a mighty all-explaining nullity, called an 'Ultimate Cause,' is presumed to linger, eternally unperceived at the infinitely-distant end of the series. To the third everything is seen in connexion, but not a mere uni-linear connexion: each, when studied, more and more completes itself by including those relations which seemed to stand outside: each fully realised, or completely invested with its ideal implications, is seen no longer to be an incident or isolated fact, but an implicit infinite, and a vice-gerent of the eternal. Philosophy thus releases both ordinary and scientific knowledge from their limitations; it shows the finite passing into the infinite. And Hegel, accordingly, purposes to show that this unfathomable Absolute is very near us, and at our very door: in our hands, as it were, and especially present in our every-day language. If we are ever to gain the Absolute, we must be careful not to lose one jot or tittle of the Relative[1]. The Absolute--this term, which is to some so offensive and to others so precious--always presents itself to us in Relatives: and when we have persistently traced the Proteus through all its manifestations,--when we have, so to speak, seen the Absolute Relativity of Relation, there is very little more needed in order to apprehend the Absolute pure and entire. One may say of the Absolute what Goethe[2] says of Nature: 'She lives entirely in her children: and the mother, where is she?'

It is a great step, when we have detected the Relativity of what had hitherto seemed Absolute,--when a new aspect of the infinite fullness of the world, the truth of things, dawns upon us. But it is even a greater step when we see that the Relativity which we have thus discovered is itself Relative. And this is one advantage of first studying the value of the categories of ethics and physics on Logical ground. On the concreter region of Nature and Mind, the several grades and species into which reality is divided have a portentous firmness and grandeur about them, and the intrinsic dialectic seems scarcely adequate to shaking the foundations of their stability. They severally stand as independent self-sustaining entities, separate from each other, and stereotyped in their several formations. But in the ether of abstract Idea, in the fluid and transparent form of mere thoughts, the several stages in the development of the Absolute, the various grades of category, clearly betray their Relativity, and by the negation of this Relativity lead on to a higher Absolute.

To the practical man,--so long as his reflection does not go deep,--the concepts on which his knowledge and faith are built seem eternal, unshifting rock, parts of the inmost fabric of things. He accepts them as ultimate validities. To him matter and force, cause and effect, distinctions between form and content, whole and part, quantity and quality, belong to the final constitution of the world. (And so, in a sense, they do.) If he ever overcome the absoluteness which popular thought attributes to the individual things of sense and imagination, and show their relativity, he does so only to fall under the glamour of a new deception. Causes and matters, forces and atoms, become new ultimates, new absolutes, of another order. Fictions or postulates of the understanding take the place of the figments of imagination. The ordinary scientific man labours especially under the 'metaphysical' fallacy: he realises abstractions in their abstractness. As against this it is the business of the logician to show how such terms are to be interpreted as steps in a process of interpretation--containing so much that others of simpler structure have handed on, and themselves presupposing by implication a great deal they fail properly to explicate. Thus, the logician evinces at one blow the relativity of each term in its mereness, abstractness, or false absoluteness, and the ideal absoluteness which always carries it beyond itself, and makes it mean more than it says.

The natural mind always hastens to substantiate the terms it employs. It makes them a fixed, solid foundation, an hypostasis, on which further building may be raised. If such pseudo-absolutising of concepts is to be called metaphysics, then logic has to free us from the illusions of metaphysics, to de-absolutise them, to disabuse us of a false Absolute. The false Absolute is what Hegel calls the Abstract: it is the part which, because it succeeded in losing sight of its dependence, had believed itself to be a whole. Logic shows--in the phrase of Hegel--that each such term or concept is only an attempt to express, explicate, or define the Absolute[3]: a predicate of the Absolute, but falling short of its subject, or only uttering part of the whole truth of reality. But while Logic shows it only to be an attempt, and therefore in an aspect relative, it equally shows its ingrained tendency to complete itself, to carry out to realisation its ideal implication,--shows, in short, that e. g. force is more than _mere_ force, that thing-in-itself is not properly even a thing; that a veritable notion (_Begriff_) or grasp of a thing is more than a _mere_ (subjective) notion, &c. Thus the true Absolute is not the emptiest and most meagre of abstractions,--what is left as a residual after the relative in all its breadth and length has been cut out of it; it is the concretest of all being, the whole which includes without destroying all partial aspects. Yet as it includes them, it shows itself their master and more than master: making each lose and win in the other, till all are satisfied in unity, and no shade of individuality is utterly lost in the totality of the Universal.

Accordingly, Metaphysics and Logic tend to form one body. For the distant and transcendent Absolute, which was the object of older Metaphysics, was substituted an Absolute, self-revealing in the terms of thought. Being is deposed from its absoluteness, and made the first postulate of thought. Former Metaphysics had dashed itself in vain against the reefs that girdle the island of the supersensible and noümenal, the supposed world of true Being: and the struggle at last grew so disastrous that Kant gave the signal to retreat, and to leave the world of true Being, the impregnable Thing-in-itself, to its repose. His advice to metaphysicians[4] was that, while scientific research continued to concentrate the attack of analysis upon single experiences conforming to certain conditions, they should investigate these' conditions of possible experience or foundations of objectivity. In other words, he turned observation to what he called Transcendental Logic. It was by means of this suggestion, understood in the widest sense, that Hegel was led to treat Logic as the science of ultimate reality. He had to show how these conditions when carried out in full gave the Unconditioned. He attacked the Absolute, if we may say so, in detail. The Absolute, as the totality, universe or system of Relativity, lays itself open to observation by deposing itself to a Relative. It possesses the differentiating power of separating itself as an object in passivity, from itself as a subject in action,--of deposing itself to appearance, of being _for_ itself, and also _in_ and _for_ itself. And thus Thought is the active universal,--which actualises itself more and more out of abstraction into concreteness.

Hegel, then, solved the problem of Metaphysics by turning it into Logic. The same principle, Thought, appeared in both: in the former as a fixed and passive result, showing no traces of spontaneity,--in the latter as an activity, with a mere power of passing from object to object, discovering and establishing connexions and relations. The two sciences were fragments, unintelligible and untenable, when taken in abstract isolation. This is the justification, if justification be required, for Hegel's unification of Logic and Metaphysics. The Hegelian Logic falls into three parts: the theory of Transitory Being: the theory of Relative Being: and the theory of the Notion. The first and second of these in his Science of Logic are called Objective Logic; they also might be described as Metaphysics. The third part is more strictly on Logical ground. Or perhaps it is best to describe the whole as the Metaphysics of Logic.

The Logic of Hegel is the Science of Thought as an organic system of its characteristic forms, which in their entirety constitute the Idea. These forms or types of thought, the moulds in which the Idea confines itself in its evolution, are not unlike what have been otherwise called the Categories. (Of course the foreign word 'Categories' does not commend itself to Hegel).[5] They are the modifications or definite forms, the articulated and distinct shapes, in which the process of Thought ever and anon culminates in the course of its movement. The Infinite and Absolute at these points conditions itself, and as so conditioned or differentiated is apprehended and stamped with a name. They specify the unspecified, and give utterance to the ineffable. They are the names by which reason grasps the totality of things,--the names by which the truth (or God) reveals itself, however inadequately. From one point of view they constitute a series, each evolved from the other, a more completely detailed term or utterance of thought resulting by innate contradiction from a less detailed. From another point of view the total remains perpetually the same; and the change seems only on the surface. The one aspect of the movement conceals the Absolute: the other puts the Relative into the background.

What then are the Categories? We may answer: They are the ways in which expression is given to the unifying influence of thought: and we have to consider them as points or stations in the progress of this unification, and in the light of this influence. These Categories are the typical structures marking the definite grades in the growth of thought,--the moulds or forms which thought assumes and places itself in,--those instants when the process of thought takes a determinate form, and admits of being grasped. The growth of thought, like other growths, is often imperceptible and impalpable. And then, unexpectedly, a condensation takes place, a form is precipitated out of the transparent medium. A new concept, a new grasp of reality, emerges from the solution of elements: and a name is created to realise the new shade of the Idea. These thought-terms are the world of Platonic forms, if we consider his 'form of Good' as corresponding to the 'Idea' of Hegel. For if we look carefully into this mystic word 'Good' which plays so brilliant a part in ancient philosophy, we shall see that it only expresses in a more concrete and less analytic form, as ancient thought often does, the same thing as so many moderns love to speak of as Relativity, and which is also implied in Aristotle's conception of an End. To see things _sub specie boni_--which Plato describes as the supreme quality of the truth-seeker who is to guide men into uprightness, or into conformity with the true nature of things,--is to see them elevated above their partial self-subsistence into the harmony and totality of that which is always and unvaryingly its real self. The Good is the sun-light in which things lose their earlier character (which they had in the days of our bondage and ignorance) of mysterious and perplexing spectres of the night. In the light of the Good, things are shorn of their false pretence of self-subsistence and substantiality, deposed by comparison with the perfect and unspotted, and as it were stung into seeking a higher form of being by struggle. And this is the abstract moral way of looking. But to see them in the form of Good means also that they are seen to be more and better than we thought, that they are not condemned to inadequacy, but bear in them the witness and revelation of infinity and absoluteness. And this is rather the faith of religion and the vision of art. And the 'form of Good' is only a brief and undeveloped vision of an Absolute, which is the 'form of Relativity,'--Relativity elevated into an Absolute.

A Category is often spoken of as if it were the highest extreme of generalisation, the most abstract and most widely applicable term possible. If we climb sufficiently far and high up the Porphyry's tree of thought, we may expect, thought the old logicians, to reach the '_summa genera_' or highest species of human thought. Nor have modern logicians always refrained from this byway. But these quantitative distinctions of greater and less, in which the Formal Logic revels, are not very suitable to any of the terms or processes of thought, and they certainly give an imperfect description of the Categories. The essential function which the Categories perform in the fabric of thought and language is, in the first place, to combine, affirm, demonstrate, relate, and unify,--and _not_ to generalise.[6] Their action may be better compared to that fulfilled by those symbols in an algebraical expression, which like _plus_ and _minus_ denote an operation to be performed in the way of combining or relating, than to the office of the symbols which in these expressions denote the magnitudes themselves.

To the student of language the Categories sometimes present themselves as pronominal, or formal roots,--those roots which, as it is said, do not denote things, but relations between things. He meets them in the inflections of nouns and verbs; in the signs of number, gender, case, and person: but, as thus presented, their influence is subordinate to the things of which they are, as it were, the accidents. He meets them in a more independent and tangible shape in the articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and numerals, and in what are called the auxiliary verbs. In these apparently trifling, and in some languages almost non-existent words or parts of words, we have the symbols of relations,--the means of connexion between single words,--the cement which binds significant speech together. There are languages, such as the older and classical forms of Chinese, where these categorising terms are, as it were, in the air: where they are only felt in accent and position, and have no separate existence of their own. But in the languages of the Indo-European family they gradually appear, at first in combination, perhaps, with the more material roots, and only in the course of time asserting an independent form. Originally they appear to denote the relations of space and time,--the generalised or typical links between the parts of our sense-perceptions: but from there they are afterwards, and in a little while, transferred into the service of intellect. These little words are the very life-blood of a language,--its spirit and force. It is in these categories, as they show themselves in the different linguistic families, that a nation betrays its mode and tone of thought. The language of the Altaic races, e. g., expresses activity only as a piece of property, an appropriation of a substance, and knows no true distinction of noun and verb: the Semitic Tongues in their tense-system perhaps betray the intense inwardness of the race: whereas the immense inflectionalism of the Indo-European seems not unconnected with his greater versatility and energy. Complete mastery in the manipulation of these particles and forms is what makes an idiomatic knowledge of a language, as distinct from a mere remembrance of the vocabulary. And philosophy is the recognition of their import and significance. Thus in Greek philosophy the central questions turn upon such words as Being and not-Being: Becoming: that out of which: that for the sake of which: the what-was-being: the what is: the other: the one: the great and small: that which is upon the whole: what is according to each: this somewhat: &c.[7] And again in Modern Philosophy, how often has the battle raged about the meaning of such words as I: will: can: must: because: same and different: self: &c.!

[Footnote 1: Cf. Herbart's maxim, 'Wie viel Schein, so viel Hindeutung auf Sein.' (_Hauptpunkte der Metaphysik._)]

[Footnote 2: _Die Natur_ (1780): 'Sie lebt in lauter Kindern: und die Mutter, wo ist sie?.... Sie ist ganz und doch immer unvollendet.... Sie verbirgt sich in tausend Namen und Termen, und ist immer dieselbe.']

[Footnote 3: _Logic (Encyclop.)_ §§ 85, 87, 112, 194, &c.]

[Footnote 4: Metaphysic is, in Kant's usage, ambiguous. It means (_a_) a supposed science of the supersensible or unconditioned reality; (_b_) a study of the conditions or presuppositions--the Kantian _a priori_--of some aspect of Experience, e. g. a Metaphysic of Moral rules.]

[Footnote 5: His usual term is _Denkbestimmungen,_ the several expressions or specific forms of the unification which thought is. The term Categories has been identified by Kant with his list of _Stammbegriffe._ and by Mill with his classes of nameable things,--with some critical remarks on Aristotle's use of the word. That use--to denote the elements of predicable reality, what Grote called _ens_--is probably not so 'rhapsodical' as Kant, with his new-born zeal for the contrast of sensibility and intellect, was inclined to suppose. A real history of the Category-theory would be almost a history of philosophy. Perhaps the name might be more sparingly used.]

[Footnote 6: Generalisation is only one small aspect of thought, with specialisation as its, at least as important, pendant. To read certain logics, one might think the all-comprehensive virtue of truths were to be general,--not to be true.]

[Footnote 7: ὅν and μὴ ὅν: τὸ γιγνόμενον: τὸ ἐξ οὗ: τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα: τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι: τὸ τί ἐστι: θάτερον: ἕν: τὸ μέγα καὶ τὸ μικρόν: τὸ καθ' ὅλου: τὸ καθ' ἔκαστον: τόδε τί.]