Thought and Reality in Hegel's System

Thought and Reality in Hegel’s System/33process as one of simple negation, which passes from content to contentwithout being any the richer for its wanderings; it forever pursues a goalwhich eternally lies beyond its grasp. Hegel, on the contrary, views theprocess, not as one of mere negation, but as one of determinate negation;one which “holds fast the positive in the negative,” includes itscontent within itself, and passes by means of the negative into a highersynthesis in which is preserved the truth of the mediated factors. 84And this brings us to a consideration of negation, that aspect ofthought which gives it its possibility as a mediating activity. I think itmay be justly said that an understanding of this Hegelian conception isabsolutely essential to a correct appreciation of the system. As the authorhimself says more than once, it is the very soul and vitality of thedialectic; it is that by virtue of which the dialectic leads us to the concretefullness of the Absolute Idea itself. Let us first try to grasp itssignificance, and we shall then be in a position to see how it has beenmisunderstood. It has been said that in order to understand Hegel properlyone must read him backwards. This is nowhere more imperativethan in an attempt to see what he means by the negative in thought. Hetells us in the Logic, “To mediate is to take something as a beginningand to go onward to a second thing: so that the existence of this secondthing depends on our having reached it from something elsecontradistinguished from it.” 85 But this is by no means all there is to theprocess as Hegel defines it. He maintains further that this “developmentof one thing out of another means that what appears as sequel and derivativeis rather the absolute prius of what it appears to be mediatedby.” 86 In this statement we find set forth, it would seem, the fundamentalaspect of the dialectical method: at any rate, here we find given usthe right point of view for regarding the process. That which comes firstfinds its explanation in what follows; what seems to be product is reallyground; truth is a last result and not a first principle. Mediation is thusa passage from one object to another which takes place by simply makingexplicit the inner connection and the essential oneness of the objects.This point we have already dwelt upon above.Assuming now this point of view, we are in a position to see whatHegel means by the significance and power of the negative in thought.Simple relation to another is, for Hegel, negation: in so far as an objectrefers beyond itself it involves negation. From this it follows that everythinginvolves negation, that is, every finite object; for by its very natureevery finite object refers beyond itself. Hence the potency of negation in