Opposite or contrary concepts.
By what has been said, we have made sufficiently clear the nature of distinct concepts, that is to say, unity in distinction and distinction in unity, and we have left no doubt as to the kind of unity which the concept affirms, that it is not in spite of but by means of distinction. But another difficulty seems to arise, due to another order of concepts, which are called opposites or contraries.
Their difference from distincts.
It is indubitable that opposite concepts neither are nor can be reduced to distincts; and this becomes evident so soon as instances of both are recalled to mind. In the system of the spirit, for instance, the practical activity will be distinct from the theoretic, and within the practical activity the utilitarian and ethical activities will be distinct. But the contrary of the practical activity is practical inactivity, the contrary of utility, harmfulness, the contrary of morality, immorality. Beauty, truth, utility, moral good are distinct concepts; but it is easy to see that ugliness, falsehood, uselessness, evil cannot be added to or inserted among them. Nor is this all: upon closer inspection we perceive that the second series cannot be added to or mingled with the first, because each of the contrary terms is already inherent in its contrary, or accompanies it, as shadow accompanies light. Beauty is such, because it denies ugliness; good, because it denies evil, and so on. The opposite is not positive, but negative, and as such is accompanied by the positive.
Confirmation of this given by the Logic of empiria.
This difference of nature between opposite concepts and distinct concepts is also reflected in empirical Logic, that is, in the theory of pseudoconcepts; because this Logic, while it reduces the distinct concepts to species, refuses to treat the opposites in like manner. Hence one does not say that the genus dog is divided into the species live dogs and dead dogs; or that the genus moral man is divided into the species moral and immoral man; and if such has sometimes been affirmed, an impropriety—even for this kind of Logic—has been committed, since the species can never be the negation of the genus. So this empirical Logic confirms in its own way that opposite concepts are different from distinct.
Difficulty arising from the double type of concepts, opposites, and distincts.
It is, however, equally evident that we cannot content ourselves with enumerating the opposite, side by side with the distinct concepts; because we should thus be adopting non-philosophical methods in place of philosophical, and in the philosophical theory of Logic should be lapsing into illogicality or empiricism. If the unity of the concept be at the same time its self-distinction, how can that same unity have another parallel sort of division or self-distinction, which is self-opposition! If it is inconceivable to resolve the one into the other, and to make of the opposites distinct concepts, or of the distincts opposite concepts, then it is not less inconceivable to leave both distincts and opposites within the unity of the concept unmediated and unexplained.
Nature of the opposites; and their identity with the distincts when distinguished from them.