If Logic then deals with form, it deals with a form of forms—the form of the world, of life, and of reality. It is a form, which is a unity in diversity, an organism,—a form which is infinitely manifold, and yet in all its multiplicity one. Logic is the morphology of thought,—of that thought which in Nature is concealed under the variety and divisions of things, and which in the theory of mental and spiritual life is resumed into a complete biology of the world-organism. The problem of Logic then demands an abstraction—an effort of self-concentration—an effort by which the whole machinery of the sensible universe shall be left behind, and the accustomed clothing of our thoughts be removed. To move in this ether of pure thought is clearly one of the hardest of problems.
Like Plato, we may occasionally feel that we have caught a glimpse of the super-sensible world unveiled; but it disappears as the senses regain their hold. We can probably fix a firm eye on one term of reason, and criticise its value: but it is less easy to survey the Bacchic dance from term to term[7], and allow them to criticise themselves. The distracting influence of our associations, or of outside things, is always leading us astray. Either we incline to treat thoughts as psychological products or species, the outcome of a mental process, which are (a) given to us from the beginning, and so a priori or innate, or which (b) spring up in the course of experience by mutual friction between our mind and the outside world, and so are a posteriori or derivative. Or disregarding the subjective side of thoughts, we act as if they were more correctly called things: we speak of relations between phenomena: we suppose things, and causes, and quantities to form part of the so-called external universe, which science explores. The one estimate of thought, like the other, keeps in view, though at some distance, and so as not to interfere with their practical discussions, the separate and equal existence of thoughts and things. The psychologists or subjectivists of logic scrutinise the world within us first of all, and purpose to accomplish what can be done for the mind as possessing a faculty of thought, before they turn to the world of things. The realists or objectivists of logic think it better for practical work to allow thought only the formal or outside labour of surveying and analysing the laws of phenomena out of the phenomena which contain them. Neither of them examines thought—'the original synthetic unity'—in its own integrity as a movement in its own self, an inner organisation, of which subject and object, the mind and the things called external, are the vehicles, or, in logical language, the accidents.
If it is possible to treat the history of the English Constitution as an object of inquiry in itself and for its own sake, without reference to the individuals who in course of time marred and mended it, or to the setting of events in which its advance is exhibited, why not treat the thought, which is the universal element of all things, of English Constitution, and Italian Art, and Greek Philosophy, in the same way,—absolutely, i. e. in itself and for its own sake? When that is done, distinctions rigidly sustained between a priori and a posteriori become meaningless because now seen to belong to a distinction of earlier and later in the history of the individual consciousness. There is at best only a modified justification for such mottoes and cries, as 'Art for Art's sake,' or 'Science must be left free and unchecked,' or 'The rights of the religious conscience ought always to be respected': but there can be no demur or limitation to the cry that Thought must be studied in Thought by Thought and for the sake of Thought. For Art, and Science, and Religion are specialised modes in which the totality or truth of things presents itself to mankind, and none of them can claim an unconditioned sway: their claims clash, and each must be admitted to be after all a partial interpretation, a more or less one-sided interpretation of the true reality of the world. Thought on the other hand is unlimited: for it exists not merely in its own abstract modes, but interpenetrates and rules all the other concrete forms of experience, manifesting itself in Art and Religion, not less than in Science. And thus when we study Thought, we study that which is in itself and for itself,—we study Absolute Being. On the other side it must be noted that in Logic it is Absolute Being, only when and as it is thought, which we study. The two sides, Being and Thought, must both come forward: and come in unity, although in some phases of the Idea the thought-element, in others the being-element is more pronounced.
Thought, too, is Being. An old distinction of the Stoics, which not inaptly represents popular views on this matter, set on one side ὄντα, existences (which were always corporeal, whether they were the things we touch and feel, or the words and breathings by which we utter them), and on the other side the meanings or thoughts proper or σημαινόμενα (which were incorporeal). These λεκτά, as they were otherwise called, were to the Stoics the proper sphere of Logic. In the sense therefore which the Stoics and popular consciousness give to being, the object of logic does not possess being. It is not corporeal. It cannot however be said to be in the sphere of non-being. It is rather a part of reality—of concrete being—which can be considered apart, as if it stood alone. Alone it does not stand. And yet it holds a position so fundamental,—is the same theme again and again repeated under endless variations,—is so obviously the universal of things—that it may properly form the subject of independent study.
It is, moreover, a part of Reality, which may well claim to stand for the whole. It is, so to say, the score of the musical composition, rolled up in its bare, silent, unadorned lineaments; the articulated theme, besides, and not the mere germinal concept, of all the variety of melody. But it is only laid up there in abstracto, because in the soul of the composer it had already taken concrete form, due to his capacity and training, his mental force, his art and science. It is there that the score has its source. But secondly, the musical work exists in the performance of the orchestra: in the manipulations of the several instruments, in the notes of the singers, in all the diversity of parts which make up the mechanism for unfolding the meaning or theme—that unreality, that mere thought, which to the stricter Stoic might be said to have no ὔπαρξις, or bodily subsistence. And there are still people who will be disposed to assert that it is only in the multitude of notes of violin, trombone, flute, &c., that the music is real:—though perhaps these hardy realists do not quite mean what they say. For what they probably mean, and what is the fact, is that the music exists as a complete reality in those who have ears and minds capable of comprehending and enjoying it: in those who can reunite meaning and theme to execution and orchestration: and we may even add that it is more and more real, in proportion to the greater power with which they can bring these two into one.
We shall rather say then that thought points to reality, and that mere nature seeks for interpretation: that mere thought and mere being both seek for reunion. Yet if in the complete reality we thus distinguish two elements, we may follow Hegel in setting the pure Idea first. It is no doubt in a way true that, as has been said, Hegel may be often read most easily if we first begin with his concluding paragraphs. In psychology and ethics the fundamental principles have assumed a more imposing, a larger, a more humanly-interesting shape, than they bear in the intangible outlines of Logic. There they are written in blacker ink and broader lines than in the grey on grey. But after all, it is only for those who have grasped the faint—yet fixed—outlines that the full-contoured figure speaks its amplest truth. The true sculptor must begin with a thorough study of anatomy. For those therefore who do not care merely for results, it is indispensable to begin—or at least to turn back to the beginning—to the Logic. No doubt the full tones of the heard and sounded harmony are the true and adequate presentation of the composer's purpose: but they will be best comprehended and appreciated by those who have thoroughly grasped the score.
In Logic, so regarded, thought is no longer merely our thought. It is the constructive, relational, unifying element of reality. Without it reality would not articulately be anything for us: and such thoughts seem to be its net extract, its quintessence, its concentrated meaning. But really they are only the potent form of reality. Or, more exactly, in its limits, under its phases, must come all reality if it is to be part and parcel of our intelligent possession, our certified property. Such a thought is the frame-work, the shape-giver of our world, of our communicable experience. It is the formative principle of our intelligent life, as it is the principle through which things have meaning for us, and we have meaning for and fellowship with others. It is not so rich as religion and art, perhaps it does not have the intensity of feeling and faith: but it is at the very basis of all of these, or it is the concentrated essence of what in them is explicated and developed. Humanity in these its highest energies is more than mere thought—more than mere logic: but it is still at the root thought, and it is still governed by the laws and movement of this higher logic. For this is a logic which is no mere instrument of technical reasoning, for proof or disproof: no mere code of rules for the evaluation of testimony. It is a logic which deals with a thought—or an Idea in thought-form—which is the principle of all life and reality: the way of self-criticism which leads to truth: a thought which is at home in all the phases and provinces of experience.
Under the same name, Logic, therefore, we find something quite different from what the example of Aristotle and his ancient and modern followers had accustomed us to.[8] Under the auspices of Kant and his 'Transcendental logic' there has emerged the need of something more corresponding to the title. For the word itself was not used either by Aristotle or the Stoics. Neither the Analytics and Topics of the one, nor the Dialectic of the other, exhaust the conception of the science, or, to put it more accurately, they are only inceptions of a science, the fulfilment of which was reserved for a later time. Bacon and Locke, Descartes and Spinoza, all the thinkers of modern Europe call for a deeper probing of the logical problem: for a grasp of it which shall be more worthy of its conventional name, Logic, the theory of Reason. And we may even say that what is wanted is a unification of the problem of the Organon with that of the first philosophy, a unification of Logic with Metaphysics: a recognition that the problem of reason is not merely the method of reasoning, but the whole theory as to the correlations of perception and conception, of thinking and reality.
This conception of Logic as the self-developing system of Thought pure and entire, is the distinctive achievement of Hegel. 'I cannot imagine,' he says, 'that the method which I have followed in this system of Logic, or rather the method which this system follows in its own self, is otherwise than susceptible of much improvement, and many completions of detail: but I know at the same time that it is the only genuine method. This is evident from the circumstance that it is nothing distinct from its object and subject-matter: for it is the subject-matter within itself, or its inherent dialectic, which moves it along.'[9]
But how is this universe of thought to be discovered, and its law of movement to be described? From times beyond the reach of history, from nations and tribes of which we know only by tradition and vague conjectures, in all levels of social life and action, the synthetic energy of thought has been productive, and its evolution in the field of time has been going on. For thousands of years the intellectual city has been rearing its walls: and much of the process of its formation lies beyond the scope of observation. But fortunately there is a help at hand, which will enable us to discover at least the main outlines in the system of thought.