P. 202, § 108. The antinomy of measure. These logical puzzles are the so-called fallacy of Sorites (a different thing from the chain-syllogism of the logic-books); cf. Cic. Acad. ii. 28, 29; De Divin. ii. 4—and the φαλακρός cf. Horace, Epist. ii. 1-45.
CHAPTER VIII.
P. [211], § 113. Self-relation—(sich) auf sich beziehen.
P. 213, § 115. The 'laws of thought' is the magniloquent title given in the Formal Logic since Kant's day to the principles or maxims (principia, Grundsätze) which Kant himself described as 'general and formal criteria of truth.' They include the so-called principle of contradiction, with its developments, the principle of identity and excluded middle: to which, with a desire for completeness, eclectic logicians have added the Leibnizian principle of the reason. Hegel has probably an eye to Krug and Fries in some of his remarks. The three laws may be compared and contrasted with the three principles, —homogeneity, specification, and continuity of forms, in Kant's Kritik d. r. Vern. p. 686.
P. [217], § 117. Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais, Liv. ii. ch. 27, § 3 (ed. Erdmann, p. 273: cf. fourth Letter to Clarke). Il n'y a point deux individus indiscernables. Un gentilhomme d'esprit de mes amis, en parlant avec moi en présence de Madame l'Electrice dans le jardin de Herrenhausen, crut qu'il trouverait bien deux feuilles entièrement semblables. Madame l'Electrice l'en défia, et il courut longtems en vain pour en chercher.
The principle of individuation or indiscernibility is: 'If two individuals were perfectly alike and equal and, in a word, indistinguishable by themselves, there would be no principle of individuation: (Leibniz, ed. Erdm. p. 277) Poser deux choses indiscernables est poser la même chose sous deux noms (p. 756). Principium individuationis idem est quod absolutae specificationis quâ res ita sit determinata, ut ab aliis omnibus distingui possit.
P. [221], § 119. Polarity. Schelling, ii. 489. 'The law of Polarity is a universal law of nature'; cf. ii. 459: 'It is a first principle of a philosophic theory of nature to have a view (in the whole of nature), on polarity and dualism.' But he adds (476), 'It is time to define more accurately the concept of polarity.' So Oken, Naturphilosophie: §76: 'A force consisting of two principles is called Polarity.' § 77: 'Polarity is the first force which makes its appearance in the world.' § 81: 'The original movement is a result of the original polarity.'
P. [223], § 119. Cf. Fichte, ii. 53. 'To everything but this the logically trained thinker can rise. He is on his guard against contradiction. But, in that case, how about the possibility of the maxim of his own logic that we can think no contradiction. In some way he must have got hold of contradiction and thought it, or he could make no communications about it. Had such people only once regularly asked themselves how they came to think the merely possible or contingent (the not-necessary), and how they actually do so! Evidently they here leap through a not-being, not-thinking, &c., into the utterly unmediated, self-initiating, free,—into beënt non-being,—in short, the above contradiction, as it was laid down. With consistent thinkers the result of this incapacity is nothing but the utter abolition of freedom,—the most absolute fatalism and Spinozism.
P. [227], §121. Leibniz (ed. Erdmann, p. 515). 'The principle of la raison déterminante is that nothing ever occurs without there being a cause for it, or at least a determinant reason, i.e. something which may serve to render a reason à priori why that is existent rather than in any other way. This great principle holds good in all events.' Cf. p. 707. 'The principle of "sufficient reason" is that in virtue of which we consider that no fact could be found true or consistent, no enunciation truthful, without there being a sufficient reason why it is so and not otherwise.... When a truth is necessary, we can find the reason of it by analysis, resolving it into simpler ideas and truths, until we come to primitive ideas.... But the sufficient reason ought also to be found in contingent truths or truths of fact, i.e. in the series of things spread through the universe of creatures, or the resolution into particular reasons might go into a limitless detail: ... and as all this detail embraces only other antecedent, or more detailed contingencies, ... the sufficient or final (dernière) reason must be outside the succession or series of this detail of contingencies, however infinite it might be. And it is thus that the final reason of things must be in a "necessary substance," in which the detail of the changes exists only eminenter, as in the source,—and it is what we call God.' (Monadology §§ 32-38.)
Hence the supremacy of final causes. Thus Opp. ed. Erdmann, p. 678: Ita fit ut efficientes causae pendeant a finalibus, et spiritualia sint natura priora materialibus. Accordingly he urges, p. 155, that final cause has not merely a moral and religious value in ethics and theology, but is useful even in physics for the detection of deep-laid truths. Cf. p. 106: C'est sanctifier la Philosophie que de faire couler ses ruisseaux de la fontaine des attributs de Dieu. Bien loin d'exclure les causes finales et la considération d'un être agissant avec sagesse, c'est de là qu'il faut tout déduire en Physique. Cf. also Principes de la Nature (Leibn. ed. Erdm. p. 716): 'It is surprising that by the sole consideration of efficient causes or of matter, we could not render a reason for those laws of movement discovered in our time. Il y faut recourir aux causes finales.'