GEORGE WILHELM FRIEDRICH, was born at Stuttgart, on the 27th of August 1770. At the age of eighteen he entered the University of Tübingen. During his philosophical and theological curriculum he was the chosen friend of Schelling, who, though his junior, at this time far outshone his destined rival. He took his degree in 1793; and for the following eight years was engaged as a private tutor, partly in Berne, and partly in Frankfurt-on-the-Main. During this period he entered deeply into those theological, historical, and political studies, the results of which in after-life gave so much lustre to his peculiar system. But his mind was already becoming more and more exclusively bent towards philosophy. The death of his father in 1799 having left him in possession of some property, he gave up private teaching, and in 1801 went to the University of Jena with the view of qualifying as an academical lecturer. At this time his earliest publications were issued (Jena, 1801), viz., his Habilitations-Schrift, De Orbitis Planetarum; and an essay—Ueber die Differenz des Fichte'schen und Schelling'schen Systems. Soon after he embarked, along with Schelling, in the publication of the *Critische Journal der Philosophie*. During the six following years he was engaged in the preparation of the earliest of his larger works, the *Phenomenologie des Geistes* (Bamb. 1807). In 1806 he was made professor of philosophy at Jena. But the disastrous campaign of that year drove him to Bamberg, where for two years he was editor of a political journal. In 1808 he became rector of the Academy of Nuremberg. During the last four years of his residence there he issued the second of his great works—*Wissenschaft der Logik* (Nurem. 1812–16). In 1816 he was removed to a chair of philosophy at Heidelberg. Here he published his *Encyclopaedie der Philosophischen Wissenschaften* (Heidel. 1817). In 1818 he at last reached a position where his genius found full scope and appreciation. He was called to Berlin, to fill the chair of Fichte; and here he remained till his death, the acknowledged chief of the German philosophers. Men of all ranks and professions, even from foreign countries, flocked to his lectures. A school of zealous disciples formed around him. In 1827 a review (*Jahrbücher für Wissenschaftliche Critik*) was established as the organ and advocate of his doctrines; and through the influence of the minister Von Altenstein, his scholars came to occupy many of the professorial chairs in the Prussian universities. Thus honoured and rewarded, Hegel survived till 1831, when he was cut off by cholera (14th November), in the sixty-first year of his age. During this period he had published his *Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts* (Berlin, 1821). Soon after his death a complete edition of his works was commenced by a number of his scholars. Besides those published in his lifetime, this issue included his lectures on the *Philosophy of Religion*, on *Esthetics*, on the *Philosophy of History*, and on the *History of Philosophy*; and also a copious *Life of Hegel* by Rosenkranz, forming the last volume of the series. It was completed in 1844, in 18 vols. octavo.

Hegel did not stand alone; he stood at the culminating point of German philosophy, towards which there had been a continuous progress ever since the days of Kant. That great thinker, in opposition to the reigning sensationalism of his time, had chiefly devoted himself to the investigation and vindication of our *a priori* principles of knowledge—of those principles, regulative and constitutive, *analytic* and *synthetic*, which depend upon experience only (as the spark in the flintstone depends upon the steel) as the occasion of eliciting them into conscious recognition, and which, moreover, being prior to experience in the order of thought and of nature, though posterior to it in the order of time, are necessary in order to the possibility of experience itself. But while vindicating, with a hitherto unequalled power and success, the independence of our *a priori* knowledge to experience, Kant left experience itself and its *a posteriori* products on a very unsatisfactory footing. He held that the *data* of the sensory, of perception internal and external, must be recognized as valid for practical purposes; but he refused to recognize their truth and validity within the sphere of speculation. As he was thus confessedly unable to bridge over the gulf between the internal and the external, the ideal and the real, his system was one of virtual idealism. The Gordian knot which Kant thus failed to untie was boldly cut by the subjective idealism of Fichte. Beginning with the admitted impossibility of establishing the existence of an external world, Fichte carried it out to this conclusion, that for man there is no external world; that as no other thing is known to him, so in fact no other thing exists for him, but his own mind; that self, or the "ego," is the universe. The objective idealism of Schelling was an attempt to deliver the human spirit from the prison-house of the ego in which it had been thus pent up by Fichte. The question was, how to find a way out of it to the knowledge of something beyond. The good old way of common sense, external perception, was not to be thought of. Accordingly, Schelling hit upon the old Platonic figment of *intellectual intuition*—*Anschauung*—a state of cognition in which the soul transcends the ordinary conditions of thought and limitations of being, and gazes directly upon the unconditioned, the self-existent, the absolute. This absolute, the object of intuition, has a real existence beyond the knowing subject. At the same time subject and object, ideal and real, though diverse, are identical; they are but opposite poles of the same universal subject, of the one, true, indivisible, absolute object—the living soul of the universe. Thus the solid footing which Kant had failed to find for metaphysics was sought by Fichte and Schelling in the knowledge of the absolute. Fichte assumed this transcendent reality as existing in man himself; Schelling, as—phenomenally, at least—manifesting itself *ab extra*.

Only one step further remained to be taken; that step was taken by Hegel. He, too, seeks to solve the same problem by an assumed knowledge of the absolute. But this absolute with him is not a universal substance, as with Spinoza; or *self*, as with Fichte; or a universal *mind* or *subject*, as with Schelling. Hegel's absolute is neither matter nor mind, neither a substance nor a subject, external nor internal; but a *process*, even the process of thought itself. The constitutive principle of his system is the identity of thought and existence. And it is not merely that the ideal and the real are identical, as in the system of Schelling; it is this *relation* of identity that is the sole reality—the absolute itself. And again, it is not merely that the absolute may be recognized, as by Schelling's *Anschauung*, as uniting in itself the subject and object; it is this recognition that constitutes the absolute, because it is only in this conscious recognition that the unity is realized or brought into being. Thus, the process of apprehending, and the object apprehended, the absolute thought and the absolute existence, are one; all being is represented by the term absolute idea; this process, thought, or idea, is the ground of all existence, embracing in its bosom, as its possible developments, God, the universe, and man.

Having thus indicated the marvellous results, let us now revert to the method by which they have been reached. This is the more necessary in the present case, because it is its method, or dialectic, which forms the distinctive peculiarity of the Hegelian system. In fact, Hegel's aim at first was, not so much to establish a new system, as to give scientific form and method to the somewhat loose materials thrown out by Schelling. Hegel's genius was severely systematic; and the *Anschauung* which his illustrious friend had invented as an organ of constructive thinking, was to him only a stumbling-block. It grieved him to see the absolute arrived at in this arbitrary way—"shot," as he himself expressed it, "out of a pistol." So, in place of this intuition, he resolved to substitute a rigidly dialectic method.

With this view, he first of all (in his *Phaenomenologie*) instituted an inquiry into the process by which, in point of fact, man does arrive at the knowledge of the absolute. This process, both in the individual mind and in that of the race, he found to embrace three distinct epochs—three successive, progressive, and mutually connected stages of intelligence. The first is that of pure and simple sensational intuition; in which the subject is barely conscious, being aware of no object, but merely of a "here" and a "now." The second is that of perception or understanding; in which the subject and object appear as diverse and contrasted; in which they are regarded only as opposites or contraries; in which the thinker regards the objects of his thought as having an independent existence, and forming a world distinct from the thought itself. The third, last, and highest, is that of absolute thought. Here the point of view is reached from which man attains to the knowledge of the absolute. The multiplicity of the second epoch or stage now disap- pearls, by being brought back into a unity—a unity which consists in the recognized identity of the seemingly contrasted opposites. But this recognition is now no longer, as in the first epoch, a mere undeveloped sensation; it is an act of thought, carrying along with it a distinct consciousness of the seeming or phenomenal diversity of the things thus brought into one.

But we have not merely thus reached the point of view from which the absolute is described, or, in other words, that absolute thought in which the absolute consists. In so doing we have also discovered the regulative principle—that of the identity of contraries—which has presided over its genetic development. This principle or law is the immanent fate or inborn necessity of thought. By the force of this law the subject in its first stage is eternally constrained to project itself into an object; and the contrast thus produced gives birth to the second stage. But by the same law the thinker or thought is made to seek for the recognition of the unity of these apparent contraries; and in seeking and finding their unity the last and highest stage of thought is reached. Further, in thus discovering the development of thought, we have also found the law of the history of being. For thought and existence are identical. And therefore the principle of the identity of contraries, in being the law of thought, is also the law of things; and thus we have the materials, not only of a logic, but also of a metaphysics; the faithful application of this one law will enable us to deduce, from the bare idea of being, a true history of actual things, a complete system of the universe.

This, in fact, is what Hegel professes to have accomplished. His only postulates are, the identity of thought and existence as a constitutive, and the identity of contraries as a regulative principle. This regulative principle guides him through all the departments of human knowledge, in all their details and ramifications. Everywhere he finds the same rhythm endlessly repeated, the one unvaried trilogy of, first, the idea simply; then, the idea of opposites as contrasted; and then, the contraries returning into a recognized unity. In thus following out his principle to its results he has shown wonderful dialectic skill, and at the same time lighted incidentally upon many views of real value to true philosophy. Let us illustrate his principle by its application. By his self-imposed limitation, he feels compelled to begin with the barren, empty idea of being, eviscerated of all contents, and in fact equal to nothing; and from this Sein = nichts develop the universe in the following manner:—1st. We have pre-supposed the bare idea, being, or thought (for they are identical), as yet undeveloped, and recognizing nothing beyond itself. 2nd. The immanent necessity of its own law causes thought to project itself into externality or objectivity; and thus gives us nature, and the philosophy of nature. 3rd. Under the impulse of the same necessity, the thought, or idea, or being, is carried to its completed evolution, by a regression to the primitive unity, but now a unity that is consciously recognized; and this self-consciousness gives mind, and the philosophy of mind. Thus the universe is produced; and by the same method we arrive at all its varied details.

Speculations so shadowy, unsubstantial, and wildly remote from men's living sympathies and interests, might safely be allowed to pass away unrecorded into their native dreamland, if it were not that certain of their practical consequences, or rather of their practical aspects, invest them with a deep, and even a tragic interest. We might perhaps be disposed to recoil from the view which this system gives us even of what we are accustomed to speak of as the material world; for surely to describe nature as being merely one of the manifestations of thought, is not to explain nature, but to substitute a shadow in its place. This, however, might be tolerated, side by side with the ingenious speculations of our own Berkeley. It is only when we look upon the great realities of the spirit-world in the light of the Hegelian pantheistic idealism, that its frightful consequences fully unfold themselves to our view. In reviewing Hegel's deduction of the universe from the abstract idea (or being = nothing), we naturally inquire, Where is God to find a place in this system? In answer to this, we are told that he is in the universe, as the soul is in the body, "all in the whole, and all in every part." The absolute thought or existence itself is God; who, therefore, reaches self-consciousness and personality only in the person and consciousness of man. This is, in effect, to affirm that there is no God—i.e., that there is no personal, supreme, intelligent being, distinct from and presiding over the universe; that creation and providence are not the actions of a free agent, but the mechanical operation of a nothing, obeying the constraining power of the law of the identity of contraries. To say that though God is not a person, yet he is personality realizing itself in man, is only to say that the only vestige of divinity in the universe is an attribute of what we are accustomed to regard as one of God's imperfect creatures. And while man is thus seemingly elevated with one hand into a god, with the other he is reduced to a phantom. For man is thus not a separate, independent person, endowed with a free will, and responsible for his actions; he is but the absolute thought in its highest manifestation, ever moved only by the power of the supreme regulative principle of all existence. Human history is not the progression of the free, but the necessary evolution of thought, according to the same all-pervading law of the identity of opposites. And not only is man thus stripped of his distinctive attribute, that of freedom and responsibility, he is at the same time robbed of his distinctive hope, that of immortality. There is, no doubt, a verbal admission of man's immortality, as there is also of God's personality. For, it is said, as God finds his personality in man (by being degraded into the finite), so man finds his immortality in God, by having his being absorbed in the infinite, by sinking back into unconsciousness. Thus man finds immortality by ceasing to be, by losing his personality; even as God, in order to begin to be, in order to find personality, has to lose his infinity by becoming identified with evanescent humanity. God is but a shoreless, soulless, thoughtless ocean of being, ever striving to come into personal existence in the consciousness of men. The generations of men, past, present, and future, are but the separate waves, or rather, the froth on the crest of the waves of the endlessly evolving tide, destined, each one in succession, to pass away into oblivion and nonentity, as they sink back and are absorbed in the ocean whose heavings gave them a momentary and phantastic existence. Having thus bereft humanity of its three grand moving powers—a personal God, a free will, and a real immortality—it only remained that Hegelianism should extend its baleful influence into the sphere of revelation. And this has not been left undone. While preserving the terminology of orthodox Christianity, and even while professing to be a devout adherent of the Lutheran Church, Hegel contrived to torture the Bible itself until it became a witness for his absolute idealism. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity is that of absolute thought, developing itself in the three-fold movement prescribed by the law of contraries. The fall of man is simply a departure of the absolute idea into a state of objectivity or externality; redemption is a method of restoring the unity thus lost between the soul and God—i.e., between the phenomenal opposites; and the church and its ordinances are the means by which their reunion is symbolized and realized.

The followers of Hegel have been divided into three parties. The "extreme right" endeavour to harmonize the speculations of the Hegelian philosophy with the doctrines of Christianity, to philosophize with their master, and believe with the orthodox Christian. How this can be effected, or even attempted by a sane mind, it is hard for a British intellect to fathom. The "centre" party, again, hold by the principles of Hegel, and deduce from them their legitimate logical results—among other things, the subversion of the historical truth of Christianity. But even here we find evidence of that strange obliquity of intellectual and moral vision which, in those of the "extreme right" we might regard as a misfortune arising from their false position. One of the "centre" (Strauss), avowedly in application of the Hegelian principles, has made a formal attempt to overthrow the authority of the gospels, and reduce their contents to the rank of mythic fables. Thus far might have been expected. But what we cannot reconcile with the supposition of his possessing the feeblest sense of moral distinction is, that this coryphaeus of infidelity was a doctor in divinity! A third party, the "extreme left," though not shining among the great lights of philosophy, is yet important because of its extended ramifications in Germany, in France, and even in Britain. But while this party have adopted the negative and destructive results of Hegelianism, they have departed altogether from its real principles, spirit, and method. Hegel himself would be the last to recognize as his legitimate offspring the spurious brood of gross materialistic atheism and red republicanism which has assumed his name.

The fomal error, from which consequences so disastrous have flowed, is found in Kant's refusal to hold as valid for speculation the products of experience, the data of the sensory, of perception and reflection. This refusal was grounded upon the fact that these a posteriori judgments are not, like the a priori, possessed of the qualities of universality and necessity. While the German philosophers, down to Hegel, were unfolding the results of this one-sided system, another, and a wiser, though a humbler philosophy, in Scotland, while vindicating as vigorously as they against sensationalism, the idealistic, or a priori portion of our knowledge, was no less firmly contending for the reality and validity of the a posteriori or contingent elements given in perception and reflection. It was asserted that the only authority, that of consciousness, which we possess for the truth of the a priori, speaks no less emphatically for the truth of the a posteriori; and that, therefore, if upon that authority we accept the one as true, we must also accept the other; if we reject either, we must reject both.

But while a direct refutation of the Kantian error was thus being prepared in Scotland, an indirect, and perhaps a more effective one, was being prepared in Germany itself. In the hands of its own adherents the principle that would reject our experience, in being carried out to its full legitimate results, found a reductio ad absurdum. Their fundamental principle, that nought is to be held as valid for metaphysics which does not possess the criterion of necessity and universality, renders metaphysic impossible. For metaphysics is the science of being; and being can be made known to us only as contingent. All being, all actual concrete existence—God, the world, man, personality, identity, freedom, responsibility—is made known to us, and can be made known to us, only as logically contingent; as something that is; as a matter of fact or history. Being, therefore, can be revealed to us only a posteriori through experience—i.e., through the medium of external and internal perception. And thus, in rejecting experience as a source of knowledge, Kant deprived metaphysics of all its possible materials. That which remains, the law of contradiction and the causal judgment, is purely formal. These a priori principles may themselves be elaborated into the formal sciences of logic and induction; they may give form to matter obtained through experience; but they can never themselves give to us any knowledge of existing things—of an object or objects to be constructed into a science of the actual. Thus we are shut up to a philosophical rationalism, compelled to find in our discursive reason itself, not only the principles, but also the constituent elements of our knowledge. It is vain with Fichte and Schelling, after having dethroned intuitive reason in its normal exercise of perception and reflection, to seek for the lost materials of knowledge by such expedients as the "Anschauung"—i.e., the same intuition, but now, in an arbitrary acception; and a confessedly abnormal exercise—the same mind, but now raised to a supernatural and extranatural elevation, to which, although the ascent were possible, no mortal could be known to ascend, nor would be able to bring down the results of his ecstatic vision so as to render them intelligible to the world below. Hegel clearly saw that this Anschauung was but a makeshift. He carried out the rejection of experience to its legitimate results. In his system alone can rationalism be consistent with itself. It is only where thought is existence, where logic is metaphysics, that metaphysics not based on experience can exist. But as soon as it thus exists it ceases to be. For in asserting that thought is not only the organ, but also the whole material and substance of our knowledge of the actual, we are at the same moment admitting that this knowledge has no material whatever. And thus the coryphaeus of idealism is the nemesis of sensationalism; while carrying a false philosophy to its last extreme Hegel has vindicated the true; he has done modern philosophy the service of furnishing the most impressive refutation, while presenting the most completely and consistently developed exposition, of the German speculative idealism. (J. M.)