Thought and Reality in Hegel's System

Thought and Reality in Hegel’s System/49shut in in the form of externality; but the motion of the form of thisobject, as the development of all natural and spiritual life, rests onlyupon the nature of the pure essences that constitute the content of theLogic. As phenomenal Spirit, which in its own manner frees itself fromits immediacy and external concretion, consciousness develops into pureknowledge which appropriates as its subject matter those pure essencesas they are in and for themselves . . . Thus is given the relation of thescience that I have called the Phenomenology of Spirit to the Logic.” 125To sum up briefly, our conclusion so far is this. The Logic has as itspresupposition the whole development of the Phenomenology of Spirit.The Phenomenology, as we have already seen, asserts the inseparabilityof thought and reality and attempts to define for us the true nature ofthought. The Logic presupposes this conclusion, taking for granted thatthought is really as it is here defined; and in the light of this presuppositionits aim is to give a more detailed account of the nature of thought, towork out the organic unity which exists among the several categories ofthought. 126Such, then, being the relation between the Logic and the Phenomenology,we pass on to ask concerning the relation between the Logicand the other parts of the Encyclopaedia. This is a much debated problemin connection with Hegel’s philosophy, and upon its solution dependsthe integrity of the system as a system. In accordance with ourdetermination not to anticipate the following discussion, we shall hereconfine ourselves to the formal aspect of the problem: as little as possiblewill be said concerning the real ontological significance of theLogic. The question now before us is: As regards the systematic arrangementof the Encyclopaedia, what is the relation of the Logic to thePhilosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Mind?If at this juncture we turn to Hegel for light on the problem, we aresadly disappointed; very little light is vouchsafed us. His statements onthe point are few, and those few are couched in such metaphorical termsit is almost impossible to attach a definite meaning to them. But one factseems indisputable, the fact, namely, that Hegel believed necessary andactually tried to make some kind of transition from one part of theEncyclopaedia to another. Let us see what he has to say about thistransition.In the second edition of his Hegelianism and Personality 127 ProfessorPringle-Pattison has summarized Hegel’s account of the transitionas follows: “The Absolute Idea, Hegel says in the larger ‘Logic,’ 128 is