The form of law given to the concept of the concept has led to this confusion; for it is an improper form, all saturated with empirical usage. Given the law of identity and contradiction, and given side by side with it that of opposition or dialectic, there inevitably arises a seeming duality; whereas the two laws are nothing but two inopportune forms of expressing the unique nature of the concept, or, rather, of reality itself. The peculiar nature of the concept may rather be said to be expressed in another law or principle, namely that of sufficient reason. This principle is ordinarily used as referring to the concept of cause, or to the pseudoconcepts, but (both in its peculiar tendency and in its historical origin) it truly belonged to the concept of end or reason. That is to say, it was desired to establish that things cannot be said to be known, when any sort of cause for them is adduced, but on the contrary, that cause must be adduced, which is also the end, and which is, therefore, the sufficient reason. But what else does seeking the sufficient reason of things mean but thinking them in their truth, conceiving them in their universality, and stating their concept? This is logical thought, as distinct from representation or intuition, which offers things but not reasons, individuality but not universality.
It is not worth while talking about the other so-called logical principles; because, either they have been already implicitly dealt with, or they are ineptitudes without any sort of interest.
[SECOND SECTION]
THE INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT
I.
THE CONCEPT AND VERBAL FORM. THE DEFINITIVE JUDGMENT
Relation of the logical with the Æsthetic form.
With the ascent from the intuition-expression to the concept, and with the concentration upon it of our attention, we have risen from the purely imaginative to the purely logical form of the spirit. We must now, so to speak, begin the descent; or rather consider in greater detail the position that has been reached, in order to understand it in all its conditions and circumstances. Were we not to do this, we should have given a concept of the concept, which would err by abstraction.