It has been shown above in reference to the existence of Mind, that its Being is its activity. Nature, on the contrary, is, as it is; its changes are thus only repetitions, and its movements take the form of a circle merely. To express this better, the activity of Mind is to know itself. I am, immediately, but this I am only as a living organism; as Mind I am only in so far as I know myself. _Γνῶθι σεαυτόν_, Know thyself, the inscription over the temple of the oracle at Delphi, is the absolute command which is expressed by Mind in its essential character. But consciousness really implies that for myself, I am object to myself. In forming this absolute division between what is mine and myself, Mind constitutes its existence and establishes itself as external to itself. It postulates itself in the externality which is just the universal and the distinctive form of existence in Nature. But one of the forms of externality is Time, and this form requires to be further examined both in the Philosophy of Nature and the finite Mind.
This Being in existence and therefore Being in time is a moment not only of the individual consciousness, which as such is essentially finite, but also of the development of the philosophical Idea in the element of Thought. For the Idea, thought of as being at rest, is, indeed, not in Time. To think of it as at rest, and to preserve it in the form of immediacy is equivalent to its inward perception. But the Idea as concrete, is, as has been shown, the unity of differences; it is not really rest, and its existence is not really sense-perception, but as differentiation within itself and therefore as development, it comes into existent Being and into externality in the element of Thought, and thus pure Philosophy appears in thought as a progressive existence in time. But this element of Thought is itself abstract and is the activity of a single consciousness. Mind is, however, not only to be considered as individual, finite consciousness, but as that Mind which is universal and concrete within itself; this concrete universality, however, comprehends all the various sides and modes evolved in which it is and becomes object to the Idea. Thus Mind’s thinking comprehension of self is at the same time the progression of the total actuality evolved. This progression is not one which takes its course through the thought of an individual and exhibits itself in a single consciousness, for it shows itself to be universal Mind presenting itself in the history of the world in all the richness of its form. The result of this development is that one form, one stage in the Idea comes to consciousness in one particular race, so that this race and this time expresses only this particular form, within which it constructs its universe and works out its conditions. The higher stage, on the other hand, centuries later reveals itself in another race of people.
Now if we thus grasp the principles of the Concrete and of Development, the nature of the manifold obtains quite another signification, and what is said of the diversity in philosophies as if the manifold were fixed and stationary and composed of what is mutually exclusive, is at once refuted and relegated to its proper place. Such talk is that in which those who despise Philosophy think they possess an invincible weapon against it, and in their truly beggarly pride in their pitiful representations of it, they are in perfect ignorance even of what they have and what they have to know in any meagre ideas attained, such as in that of the manifold and diverse. Yet this category is one which anybody can understand; no difficulty is made in regard to it, for it is thoroughly known, and those who use it think they can do so as being entirely comprehensible—as a matter of course they understand what it is. But those who believe the principle of diversity to be one absolutely fixed, do not know its nature, or its dialectic; the manifold or diverse is in a state of flux; it must really be conceived of as in the process of development, and as but a passing moment. Philosophy in its concrete Idea is the activity of development in revealing the differences which it contains within itself; these differences are thoughts, for we are now speaking of development in Thought. In the first place, the differences which rest in the Idea are manifested as thoughts. Secondly, these distinctions must come into existence, one here and the other there; and in order that they may do this, they must be complete, that is, they must contain within themselves the Idea in its totality. The concrete alone as including and supporting the distinctions, is the actual; it is thus, and thus alone, that the differences are in their form entire.
A complete form of thought such as is here presented, is a Philosophy. But the Idea contains the distinctions in a peculiar form. It may be said that the form is indifferent, and that the content, the Idea, is the main consideration; and people think themselves quite moderate and reasonable when they state that the different philosophies all contain the Idea, though in different forms, understanding by this that these forms are contingent. But everything hangs on this: these forms are nothing else than the original distinctions in the Idea itself, which is what it is only in them. They are in this way essential to, and constitute the content of the Idea, which in thus sundering itself, attains to form. The manifold character of the principles which appear, is, however, not accidental, but necessary: the different forms constitute an integral part of the whole form. They are the determinations of the original Idea, which together constitute the whole; but as being outside of one another, their union does not take place in them, but in us, the observers. Each system is determined as one, but it is not a permanent condition that the differences are thus mutually exclusive. The inevitable fate of these determinations must follow, and that is that they shall be drawn together and reduced to elements or moments. The independent attitude taken up by each moment is again laid aside. After expansion, contraction follows—the unity out of which they first emerged. This third may itself be but the beginning of a further development. It may seem as if this progression were to go on into infinitude, but it has an absolute end in view, which we shall know better later on; many turnings are necessary, however, before Mind frees itself in coming to consciousness.
The temple of self-conscious reason is to be considered from this the point of view alone worthy of the history of Philosophy. It is hence rationally built by an inward master worker, and not in Solomon’s method, as freemasons build. The great assumption that what has taken place on this side, in the world, has also done so in conformity with reason—which is what first gives the history of Philosophy its true interest—is nothing else than trust in Providence, only in another form. As the best of what is in the world is that which Thought produces, it is unreasonable to believe that reason only is in Nature, and not in Mind. That man who believes that what, like the philosophies, belongs to the region of mind must be merely contingent, is insincere in his belief in divine rule, and what he says of it is but empty talk.
A long time is undoubtedly required by Mind in working out Philosophy, and when one first reflects on it, the length of the time may seem astonishing, like the immensity of the space spoken of in astronomy. But it must be considered in regard to the slow progress of the world-spirit, that there is no need for it to hasten:—“A thousand years are in Thy sight as one day.” It has time enough just because it is itself outside of time, because it is eternal. The fleeting events of the day pass so quickly that there is not time enough for all that has to be done. Who is there who does not die before he has achieved his aims? The world-spirit has time enough, but that is not all. It is not time alone which has to be made use of in the acquisition of a conception; much else is required. The fact that so many races and generations are devoted to these operations of its consciousness by Mind, and that the appearance is so perpetually presented of rising up and passing away, concern it not at all; it is rich enough for such displays, it pursues its work on the largest possible scale, and has nations and individuals enough and to spare. The saying that Nature arrives at its end in the shortest possible way, and that this is right, is a trivial one. The way shown by mind is indirect, and accommodates itself to circumstances. Considerations of finite life, such as time, trouble, and cost, have no place here. We ought, too, to feel no disappointment that particular kinds of knowledge cannot yet be attained, or that this or that is still absent. In the history of the world progression is slow.
b. _The application of the foregoing to the treatment of Philosophy._ The first result which follows from what has been said, is that the whole of the history of Philosophy is a progression impelled by an inherent necessity, and one which is implicitly rational and _à priori_ determined through its Idea; and this the history of Philosophy has to exemplify. Contingency must vanish on the appearance of Philosophy. Its history is just as absolutely determined as the development of Notions, and the impelling force is the inner dialectic of the forms. The finite is not true, nor is it what it is to be—its determinate nature is bound up with its existence. But the inward Idea abolishes these finite forms: a philosophy which has not the absolute form identical with the content, must pass away because its form is not that of truth.
What follows, secondly from what we have said, is that every philosophy has been and still is necessary. Thus none have passed away, but all are affirmatively contained as elements in a whole. But we must distinguish between the particular principle of these philosophies as particular, and the realization of this principle throughout the whole compass of the world. The principles are retained, the most recent philosophy being the result of all preceding, and hence no philosophy has ever been refuted. What has been refuted is not the principle of this philosophy, but merely the fact that this principle should be considered final and absolute in character. The atomic philosophy, for example, has arrived at the affirmation that the atom is the absolute existence, that it is the indivisible unit which is also the individual or subject; seeing, then, that the bare unit also is the abstract being-for-self, the Absolute would be grasped as infinitely many units. The atomic theory has been refuted, and we are atomists no longer. Mind is certainly explicitly existent as a unit or atom, but that is to attribute to it a barren character and qualities incapable of expressing anything of its depth. The principle is indeed retained, although it is not the absolute in its entirety. This same contradiction appears in all development. The development of the tree is the negation of the germ, and the blossom that of the leaves, in so far as that they show that these do not form the highest and truest existence of the tree. Last of all, the blossom finds its negation in the fruit. Yet none of them can come into actual existence excepting as preceded by all the earlier stages. Our attitude to a philosophy must thus contain an affirmative side and a negative; when we take both of these into consideration, we do justice to a philosophy for the first time. We get to know the affirmative side later on both in life and in science; thus we find it easier to refute than to justify.
In the third place, we shall limit ourselves to the particular consideration of the principle itself. Each principle has reigned for a certain time, and when the whole system of the world has been explained from this special form, it is called a philosophical system. Its whole theory has certainly to be learned, but as long as the principle is abstract it is not sufficient to embrace the forms belonging to our conception of the world. The Cartesian principles, for instance, are very suitable for application to mechanism, but for nothing further; their representation of other manifestations in the world, such as those of vegetable and animal nature, are insufficient, and hence uninteresting. Therefore we take into consideration the principles of these philosophies only, but in dealing with concrete philosophies we must also regard the chief forms of their development and their applications. The subordinate philosophies are inconsistent; they have had bright glimpses of the truth, which are, however, independent of their principles. This is exemplified in the Timæus of Plato, a philosophy of nature, the working out of which is empirically very barren because its principle does not as yet extend far enough, and it is not to its principle that we owe the deep gleams of thought there contained.
In the fourth place it follows that we must not regard the history of Philosophy as dealing with the past, even though it is history. The scientific products of reason form the content of this history, and these are not past. What is obtained in this field of labour is the True, and, as such, the Eternal; it is not what exists now, and not then; it is true not only to-day or to-morrow, but beyond all time, and in as far as it is in time, it is true always and for every time. The bodily forms of those great minds who are the heroes of this history, the temporal existence and outward lives of the philosophers, are, indeed, no more, but their works and thoughts have not followed suit, for they neither conceived nor dreamt of the rational import of their works. Philosophy is not somnambulism, but is developed consciousness; and what these heroes have done is to bring that which is implicitly rational out of the depths of Mind, where it is found at first as substance only, or as inwardly existent, into the light of day, and to advance it into consciousness and knowledge. This forms a continuous awakening. Such work is not only deposited in the temple of Memory as forms of times gone by, but is just as present and as living now as at the time of its production. The effects produced and work performed are not again destroyed or interrupted by what succeeds, for they are such that we must ourselves be present in them. They have as medium neither canvas, paper, marble, nor representation or memorial to preserve them. These mediums are themselves transient, or else form a basis for what is such. But they do have Thought, Notion, and the eternal Being of Mind, which moths cannot corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. The conquests made by Thought when constituted into Thought form the very Being of Mind. Such knowledge is thus not learning merely, or a knowledge of what is dead, buried and corrupt: the history of Philosophy has not to do with what is gone, but with the living present.
c. _Further comparison between the History of Philosophy and Philosophy itself._ We may appropriate to ourselves the whole of the riches apportioned out in time: it must be shown from the succession in philosophies how that succession is the systematization of the science of Philosophy itself. But a distinction is to be noted here: that which first commences is implicit, immediate, abstract, general—it is what has not yet advanced; the more concrete and richer comes later, and the first is poorer in determinations. This may appear contrary to one’s first impressions, but philosophic ideas are often enough directly opposed to ordinary ideas, and what is generally supposed, is not found to be the case. It may be thought that what comes first must be the concrete. The child, for instance, as still in the original totality of his nature, is thought to be more concrete than the man, hence we imagine the latter to be more limited, no longer forming a totality, but living an abstract life. Certainly the man acts in accordance with definite ends, not bringing his whole soul and mind into a subject, but splitting his life into a number of abstract unities. The child and the youth, on the contrary, act straight from the fulness of the heart. Feeling and sense-perception come first, thought last, and thus feeling appears to us to be more concrete than thought, or the activity of abstraction and of the universal. In reality, it is just the other way. The sensuous consciousness is certainly the more concrete, and if poorer in thought, at least richer in content. We must thus distinguish the naturally concrete from the concrete of thought, which on its side, again, is wanting in sensuous matter. The child is also the most abstract and the poorest in thought: as to what pertains to nature, the man is abstract, but in thought he is more concrete than the child. Man’s ends and objects are undoubtedly abstract in general affairs, such as in maintaining his family or performing his business duties, but he contributes to a great objective organic whole, whose progress he advances and directs. In the acts of a child, on the other hand, only a childish and, indeed, momentary “I,” and in those of the youth the subjective constitution or the random aim, form the principle of action. It is in this way that science is more concrete than sense-perception.
In applying this to the different forms of Philosophy, it follows in the first place, that the earliest philosophies are the poorest and the most abstract. In them the Idea is least determined; they keep merely to generalities not yet realized. This must be known in order that we may not seek behind the old philosophies for more than we are entitled to find; thus we need not require from them determinations proceeding from a deeper consciousness. For instance, it has been asked whether the philosophy of Thales is, properly speaking, Theism or Atheism,[5] whether he asserted a personal God or merely an impersonal, universal existence. The question here regards the attribution of subjectivity to the highest Idea, the conception of the Personality of God. Such subjectivity as we comprehend it, is a much richer, more concentrated, and therefore much later conception, which need not be sought for in distant ages. The Greek gods had, indeed, personality in imagination and idea like the one God of the Jewish religion, but to know what is the mere picture of fancy, and what the insight of pure Thought and Notion, is quite another thing. If we take as basis our own ideas judged by these deeper conceptions, an ancient Philosophy may undoubtedly be spoken of as Atheism. But this expression would at the same time be false, for the thoughts as thoughts in beginning, could not have arrived at the development which we have reached.
From this it follows—since the progress of development is equivalent to further determination, and this means further immersion in and a fuller grasp of the Idea itself—that the latest, most modern and newest philosophy is the most developed, richest and deepest. In that philosophy everything which at first seems to be past and gone must be preserved and retained, and it must itself be a mirror of the whole history. The original philosophy is the most abstract, because it is the original and has not as yet made any movement forward; the last, which proceeds from this forward and impelling influence, is the most concrete. This, as may at once be remarked, is no mere pride in the philosophy of our time, because it is in the nature of the whole process that the more developed philosophy of a later time is really the result of the previous operations of the thinking mind; and that it, pressed forwards and onwards from the earlier standpoints, has not grown up on its own account or in a state of isolation.
It must also be recollected that we must not hesitate to say, what is naturally implied, that the Idea, as comprehended and shown forth in the latest and newest philosophy, is the most developed, the richest and deepest. I call this to remembrance because the designation, new or newest of all in reference to Philosophy, has become a very common by-word. Those who think they express anything by using such terms might quite easily render thanks respecting any number of philosophies just as fast as their inclination directs, regarding either every shooting-star and even every candle-gleam in the light of a sun, or else calling every popular cry a philosophy, and adducing as proof that at any rate there are so many philosophies that every day one displaces another. Thus they have the category in which they can place any apparently significant philosophy, and through which they may at the same time set it aside; this they call a fashion-philosophy.
“Scoffer, thou call’st this but a fleeting phase When the Spirit of Man once again and anew, Strives earnestly on, towards forms that are higher.”
A second consequence has regard to the treatment of the older philosophies. Such insight also prevents us from ascribing any blame to the philosophies when we miss determinations in them which were not yet present to their culture, and similarly it prevents our burdening them with deductions and assertions which were neither made nor thought of by them, though they might correctly enough allow themselves to be derived from the thought of such a philosophy. It is necessary to set to work on an historical basis, and to ascribe to Philosophy what is immediately given to us, and that alone. Errors crop up here in most histories of Philosophy, since we may see in them a number of metaphysical propositions ascribed to a philosopher and given out as an historical statement of the views which he has propounded, of which he neither thought nor knew a word, and of which there is not the slightest trace found in history. Thus in Brucker’s great History of Philosophy (Pt. I. pp. 465-478 seq.) a list of thirty, forty, or a hundred theorems are quoted from Thales and others, no idea of which can be traced in history as having been present to these philosophers. There are also propositions in support of them and citations taken from discussions of a similar kind with which we may occupy ourselves long enough. Brucker’s method is to endow the single theorem of an ancient philosopher with all the consequences and premises which must, according to the idea of the Wolffian Metaphysics, be the premises and conclusions of that theorem, and thus easily to produce a simple, naked fiction as if it were an actual historical fact. Thus, according to Brucker, Thales said, _Ex nihilo fit nihil_, since he said that water was eternal. Thus, too, he was to be counted amongst the philosophers who deny creation out of nothing; and of this, historically at least, Thales was ignorant. Professor Ritter, too, whose history of Ionic Philosophy is carefully written, and who on the whole is cautious not to introduce foreign matter, has very possibly ascribed to Thales more than is found in history. He says (pp. 12, 13), “Hence we must regard the view of nature which we find in Thales as dynamic in principle. He regarded the world as the all-embracing, living animal which has developed from a germ like every other animal, and this germ, like that of all other animals, is either damp or water. Thus the fundamental idea of Thales is that the world is a living whole which has developed from a germ and carries on its life as does an animal, by means of nourishment suitable to its nature” (cf. p. 16). This is quite a different account from that of Aristotle, and none of it is communicated by the ancients regarding Thales. The sequence of thought is evident, but historically it is not justified. We ought not by such deductions to make an ancient philosophy into something quite different from what it originally was.
We are too apt to mould the ancient philosophers into our own forms of thought, but this is just to constitute the progress of development; the difference in times, in culture and in philosophies, depends on whether certain reflections, certain thought determinations, and certain stages in the Notion have come to consciousness, whether a consciousness has been developed to a particular point or not. The history of Philosophy has simply to deal with this development and bringing forth of thought. The determinations involved certainly follow from a proposition, but whether they are put forth as yet or not is quite another thing, and the bringing forth of the inner content is the only matter of importance. We must therefore only make use of the words which are actually literal, for to use further thought determinations which do not yet belong to the consciousness of the philosopher in question, is to carry on development. Thus Aristotle states that Thales has defined the principle (_ἀρχή_) of every thing to be water. But Anaximander first made use of _ἀρχή_, and Thales thus did not possess this determination of thought at all; he recognized _ἀρχή_ as commencement in time, but not as the fundamental principle. Thales did not once introduce the determination of cause into his philosophy, and first cause is a further determination still. There are whole nations which have not this conception at all; indeed it involves a great step forward in development. And seeing that difference in culture on the whole depends on difference in the thought determinations which are manifested, this must be so still more with respect to philosophies.
Now, as in the logical system of thought each of its forms has its own place in which alone it suffices, and this form becomes, by means of ever-progressing development, reduced to a subordinate element, each philosophy is, in the third place, a particular stage in the development of the whole process and has its definite place where it finds its true value and significance. Its special character is really to be conceived of in accordance with this determination, and it is to be considered with respect to this position in order that full justice may be done to it. On this account nothing more must be demanded or expected from it than what it actually gives, and the satisfaction is not to be sought for in it, which can only be found in a fuller development of knowledge. We must not expect to find the questions of our consciousness and the interest of the present world responded to by the ancients; such questions presuppose a certain development in thought. Therefore every philosophy belongs to its own time and is restricted by its own limitations, just because it is the manifestation of a particular stage in development. The individual is the offspring of his people, of his world, whose constitution and attributes are alone manifested in his form; he may spread himself out as he will, he cannot escape out of his time any more than out of his skin, for he belongs to the one universal Mind which is his substance and his own existence. How should he escape from this? It is the same universal Mind that is embraced by thinking Philosophy; that Philosophy is Mind’s thought of itself and therefore its determinate and substantial content. Every philosophy is the philosophy of its own day, a link in the whole chain of spiritual development, and thus it can only find satisfaction for the interests belonging to its own particular time.
On this account an earlier philosophy does not give satisfaction to the mind in which a deeper conception reigns. What Mind seeks for in Philosophy is this conception which already constitutes its inward determination and the root of its existence conceived of as object to thought; Mind demands a knowledge of itself. But in the earlier philosophy the Idea is not yet present in this determinate character. Hence the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, and indeed all philosophies, ever live and are present in their principles, but Philosophy no longer has the particular form and aspect possessed by that of Plato and of Aristotle. We cannot rest content with them, and they cannot be revived; hence there can be no Platonists, Aristotelians, Stoics, or Epicureans to-day. To re-awaken them would be to try to bring back to an earlier stage the Mind of a deeper culture and self-penetration. But this cannot be the case; it would be an impossibility and as great a folly as were a man to wish to expend his energies in attaining the standpoint of the youth, the youth in endeavouring to be the boy or child again; whereas the man, the youth, and the child, are all one and the same individual. The period of revival in the sciences, the new epoch in learning which took place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, began not only with the revived study of, but also with the re-animation of the old philosophies. Marsilius Ficinus was a Platonist; an Academy of Platonic philosophy