Hegel’s Logic: An Essay in Interpretation. John Grier Hibben 1902
Hegel’s doctrine of the thing unites two seemingly contradictory points of view. On the one hand, a thing may be regarded as that which is one and individual, as we would say, a single thing. On the other, however, a thing may be regarded equally well as the summation of its many parts and properties, coexisting and correlated in one and the same unified system. The thing is thus both the one and the many, the unitary ground and the varied manifestation. Thus a plant is a single thing, but at the same time it is a complex of manifold elements, for into its composition are brought together light, heat, water, ammonia, potash, starch, and an indefinite number of material elements which are completely coordinated in the single system which constitutes the essential being and life of the plant. Such an assemblage of these various elements which compose the properties of the plant in their concrete manifestation, is the shining forth of the inner essence which is centred in the one ground which forms their underlying unity. This shining forth of the inner nature in its outer manifestation Hegel calls die Erscheinung. It is the actual revelation of the essence of a thing. The sum of such manifestations gives us the world of phenomena. It is the world of scientific description and interpretation; it is the world of inductive investigation, of observation and experiment; it is the world of exact measurement and of computation, the world of relations and coordinations, the world of uniformity and of law.
The essence, according to Hegel, is constituted by its two principal moments or factors. The one is a reflection in itself (Reflexion in sich), and the other is a reflection in something else (Reflexion in Anderes).
The one represents the central core and organizing principle of being; the other, all the correlated elements associated essentially with it. The reflection in itself refers, therefore, to that which constitutes the essence of a thing; for example, in the case of a plant, it is that which constitutes the plant a single thing, its central, unifying ground and architectonic principle. The reflection in something else refers to all the elements which contribute to the being and life of the plant, and to all its several parts and its distinctive properties. It is this second moment of essence, the reflection or shining forth in something else, which constitutes its phenomenal manifestation.
It is to be observed, however, that there can be no real separation between the essence and external appearance, between the ground and the manifestation, between the noumenon and the phenomenon. Hegel defines the Erscheinung, therefore, as the essential manifestation. It is not the mere show (der Schein), as distinguished from the substance; it is not an unreality as distinguished from reality; but it is the complete revelation of all that is essentially immanent within. it is wholly misleading, therefore, to speak of mere phenomena as though phenomena were only the passing shadow with no corresponding substance underlying them. It will be seen in the subsequent development of the dialectic that every phenomenon in the universe represents an underlying reality, and so the category of phenomenal appearance (die Erscheinung), as will be seen, must lead of necessity to that of actuality (die Wirklicihkeit), which forms the third stage in the development of the category of essence; they are treated separately for convenience of exposition, but not in reality or in thought. Hegel’s position in this connection is directly opposed to that of Kant. The latter insists that the phenomenal has a subjective significance merely, and be postulates an abstract something lying behind phenomena and beyond the range of our cognition, the indefinite Ding an sich. Hegel, on the contrary, maintains most stoutly that all phenomena of the universe are so bound up with their immanent essences, that in knowing the outer manifestation we must know also the essential ground. We cannot separate one from the other, and therefore to state that we know only phenomena does violence to the essential nature of the phenomena themselves.
The doctrine of the phenomenal as developed by Hegel may be presented in several pairs of correlative terms. It is due to the fundamental principle of reflection which lies at the base of the category of essence, that its phenomenal manifestations should fall together in pairs, representing each characteristic in its own light and also in the light reflected upon it by that with which it stands in essential relation as its other.
These pairs of correlatives are as follows: –
(1) Form and Content. (Inhalt und Form.)
(2) The Whole and its Parts. (Das Ganze und die Theile.)
(3) Force and its Phenomenal Manifestation (Die Kraft und die Aeusserung.)
(4) Inner and Outer. (Das Innerliche und das Aeusserliche.)
As to the relation of form to content, while we may refer all phenomena to the underlying material elements as the ground of their subsistence, yet a deeper insight recognizes a formative principle immanent in the matter, so that at the last analysis the phenomena of the world must be referred to the activity of the inner constructive principle resident within the material substratum of the phenomena themselves. It must be remembered that while this inner principle may be called simply the form of phenomena, it means that which produces the form rather than merely the form which is produced. We must not lose sight of Hegel’s conception of the essence of phenomena, – that is, an active principle fundamentally dynamic in its nature. There are two senses, however, in which form is used according to Hegel, and which it is necessary to keep distinct in our minds. It is used in the sense already noted as an immanent constructive principle such as the architectonic principle which fashions the plant after its kind. Form in this sense is synonymous with the phrase “the law of phenomena.” It is used also in a different sense, however, as signifying that which in a negative manner determines from without the bounds of phenomenal manifestation, by assigning to them definite limits, such as the form, for instance, which is given to a casting by its enveloping mould.
It is in the former of these two senses, that of a dynamic constructive principle, that the term form must be conceived if it is to be regarded as one with the content. For instance, that which makes the plant what it is, the sum of its elements and its properties, its content in fact, cannot be separated from the immanent architectonic principle which forms and coordinates these elements into one complex whole. Phenomena are what they are by virtue of the inner working of the fundamental laws of their being. The form, therefore, is the content, and the content is the form. Separate them, and unrelated they lose their significance.
Form without content is empty. Content without form is so indeterminate that it cannot be grasped as an object of knowledge. A true work of art is one in which form and content are identical. ‘The style is the man.’
The Iliad has no poetic content, Hegel insists, if we regard it apart from its form. This is true of all great literary creations. A further illustration may be drawn from the present-day discussion in reference to the relation between formal and material logic, – that is, between the form which our judgments and inferences may take, and their significance as determined in the light of actual experience. Form in this connection, without material significance, is barren and without value. In logic the form gives significance to the content, and the content in turn determines the form. There can there- fore be no real distinction between formal and material fallacies. They must be regarded at the last analysis, and apart from verbal and superficial distinctions, as one and the same.
But the content must be conceived not only as form which has developed from within, but also as that which has been determined to a certain extent externally by other forms with which it stands in some essential relations. Accordingly a phenomenon may be regarded as composed of externally related parts, each having its peculiar form, and yet all parts co-ordinated by means of a common bond which constitutes an underlying unity. This conception leads us to the second pair of correlatives, – the relation of the whole to its parts.
The concept of that which we call the whole of anything has its significance in the relation which the parts sustain one to another, and each to the combined aggregation. The whole disappears when we divide it into its component parts. This is especially true of organic life. A living body cannot be divided into its separate parts, and restored at will to its original form and functions. It is only the dead body that admits of dissection. The significance of all the parts lies in their inherence in one and the same organism and their coordinated functions in reference to each other and to the whole. The eye is an eye so long as it is a member of the body. An organ severed from its organism becomes at once a meaningless and worthless thing.
Hegel draws attention to the fact also that psychologists often speak erroneously of the parts of the soul, or the parts of the mind, as though endowing such parts with a quasi independence. It is of interest to note that he is here emphasizing by way of protest a truth which modern psychology has most fully endorsed, – namely, that psychical phenomena must be regarded as a unity, complex in the variety of functional manifestation, it is true, but nevertheless one and not many. The traditional theory of separate psychological faculties is here discarded by Hegel. He protests that there is not any separate faculty of memory, or of reason, or of imagination, any more than there is a separate organ of the body whose life and function are independent of the other members, and of the organism as the central unity of them all.
It may be said in general, therefore, that the form, or formative principle, is essentially a principle of organization, uniting the many into one and producing a symmetry of parts, a harmony of functions, and a congruence of relations, so that the world of phenomena, whether of nature or of mind, may be conceived by us as a world of order and of law.
Hegel’s conception of form, being essentially dynamic, the bond of unity which underlies the relation of the whole to its parts must be conceived as a formative principle, also dynamic. The relation of the several parts in any complex system one to another, and all to the whole, must therefore be mediated – that is, brought about – by the outputting of some energy. This dynamic element Hegel calls force (die Kraft); its outputting is called its external manifestation (die Aeusserung). This pair of correlatives will be found necessary to complete the idea of an underlying dynamic basis. Any phenomenon whatsoever from the standpoint of its reflection in itself, – that is, regarded simply in its own light, – presents as its most evident characteristic a central and essential unity.
The phenomenon appears, therefore, as an undivided whole. But from a different standpoint, and one that we dare not overlook, the phenomenon appears immediately to break up into a diversity of interrelated and coordinated parts. This is the standpoint of a reflection into something else, or the illumination of the central unity by the light reflected from each of its component parts and their several functions. Consequently, that by which the one breaks up into the many and the many in turn become unified in the one, must be referred to some underlying force which produces the specification of parts, and at the same time holds them together in an all-embracing unity within one common system.
Thus the separate organs of an animal are developed through successive differentiations and integrations, separated into many, yet combined as one, and this is attained by the concerted action of the vital forces which are constantly operative in the organism, and which constitute it what it essentially is.
Force, conceived of as mere force, and without the additional considerations which will be advanced later under the category of the notion, must be regarded merely as a blind force working without purpose or intelligence. As thus conceived, it would require for its activity, according to Hegel, a special vehicle, as magnetic force seemed to require the presence of iron; it would, moreover, be brought into activity only by some special solicitation, such as the presence of some other force upon which it is dependent. Thus, every force would seem to be dependent upon some other, and so on ad infinitum. Thus, force from this point of view must be regarded as essentially finite, because it is necessarily dependent and restricted.
To speak, therefore, of God as force merely, though it may be writ large, Force, is nevertheless an extremely impoverished conception of the fulness of the divine attributes. This was the fundamental error in Herder’s general conception of God. For the category of force must be complemented by the category of a final cause, thus introducing the conception of an activity that is self-determining and purposeful.
Moreover, Hegel insists with characteristic consistency as regards his method and general point of view that the idea of force must not be divorced in our thoughts from its outer manifestation. It is of the very essence of force to manifest itself. Force and its manifestation are one and the same. It is misleading, therefore, to state that force in itself is unknowable. It is knowable, but only in its manifestation; but the manifestation is the essential expression of what the force itself really is.
The final relation, that of the inner to the outer, is a relation which follows logically from that of force and its manifestation. Force in its essential nature represents the inner, and its manifestation of course represents the outer. The two are essentially identical. Mere externality or mere internality are expressions which represent an empty and meaningless abstraction, and nothing more.
It is customary to regard the essence of a thing as merely that which is inward. It must be remembered, however, that it is of the inherent nature of the essence to reveal itself in some form of external manifestation.
As an illustration of this erroneous point of view, Hegel cites the poet Haller. The lines of Haller, which, by the way, Hegel quotes incorrectly, are –
“Ins Innere der Natur
Dringt kein erschaffener Geist
Zu glücklich wann sie noch die äussere Schale weist."[16]
With these words of Haller there may be compared the indignant comment of Goethe, which runs as follows: –
“’Ins Innere der Natur’ O du Phulister! – ‘Dringt kein erschaffener Geist.’
Mich und Geschwister Mögt ihr an soiches Wort Nur nicht erinnern;
Wir denken: Ort für Ort Sind wir im Innern.
’Glückselig wem sie nur Die aussere Schale weist!’
Das hore ich sechzig Jahre wiederholen Ich fluche darauf, aber verstoblen.
Sage mir tausend tausend Male: Alles giebt ale reichuich und gern;
Natur hat weder Kern Noch Schale, Alles ist sie mit ejuem Male;
Dich prufe du nur allermeist Oh du Kern oder Schale seist."[17]
Thus, as a man seems to be outwardly, so is he inwardly. What a man is, he does; and what he does, manifests what he is. If his morality, Hegel insists, is a matter of inner intention merely, and if it never bears fruit in any external word or deed, then the inner purpose, however noble it may be, loses its significance and worth. It is the understanding again which seeks to separate the inner from the outer. Thus conceived, they become merely empty abstractions.
Hegel draws attention in this connection to a tendency which seems to operate in ignoble minds to decry and belittle the great and heroic deeds of history by insinuating that the external action may not have a corresponding motive of nobility within. “If the heroes of history,” says Hegel, “had been actuated by subjective and formal interests alone, they never would have accomplished what they have. And if we have due regard to the unity between the inner and the outer, we must own that great men purposed to do what they did, and that they did what they purposed."[18] From any point which we may choose to view it, the distinction between inner and outer is resolved in a higher unity into which they are merged as one and the same. it is through the manifestation of force that every inner is necessarily constrained (gesetzt) to show itself as outer.
Their distinction is to be regarded only as a necessary moment in the expression of their absolute identity. We speak of the relation of inner to outer as though they were contrasted terms of a ratio. Their relation is, however, that of a unity, in which the seemingly contrasted terms merge into one. Their distinction merely serves to emphasize the dynamic process, by which the manifestation of the essence is mediated, and yet this is in no wise contradictory to their underlying unity as embraced in one and the same system.
The identity of inner and outer, of force and its manifestation, constitutes the category of actuality (die Wirklichkeit). This brings us to the final and most complete expression of the nature of essence; and this will be discussed in the following chapter.