Hegel, then, solved the problem of Metaphysics by turning it into Logic. The same principle, Thought, appeared in both: in the former as a fixed and passive result, showing no traces of spontaneity,—in the latter as an activity, with a mere power of passing from object to object, discovering and establishing connexions and relations. The two sciences were fragments, unintelligible and untenable, when taken in abstract isolation. This is the justification, if justification be required, for Hegel's unification of Logic and Metaphysics. The Hegelian Logic falls into three parts: the theory of Transitory Being: the theory of Relative Being: and the theory of the Notion. The first and second of these in his Science of Logic are called Objective Logic; they also might be described as Metaphysics. The third part is more strictly on Logical ground. Or perhaps it is best to describe the whole as the Metaphysics of Logic.
The Logic of Hegel is the Science of Thought as an organic system of its characteristic forms, which in their entirety constitute the Idea. These forms or types of thought, the moulds in which the Idea confines itself in its evolution, are not unlike what have been otherwise called the Categories. (Of course the foreign word 'Categories' does not commend itself to Hegel).[5] They are the modifications or definite forms, the articulated and distinct shapes, in which the process of Thought ever and anon culminates in the course of its movement. The Infinite and Absolute at these points conditions itself, and as so conditioned or differentiated is apprehended and stamped with a name. They specify the unspecified, and give utterance to the ineffable. They are the names by which reason grasps the totality of things,—the names by which the truth (or God) reveals itself, however inadequately. From one point of view they constitute a series, each evolved from the other, a more completely detailed term or utterance of thought resulting by innate contradiction from a less detailed. From another point of view the total remains perpetually the same; and the change seems only on the surface. The one aspect of the movement conceals the Absolute: the other puts the Relative into the background.
What then are the Categories? We may answer: They are the ways in which expression is given to the unifying influence of thought: and we have to consider them as points or stations in the progress of this unification, and in the light of this influence. These Categories are the typical structures marking the definite grades in the growth of thought,—the moulds or forms which thought assumes and places itself in,—those instants when the process of thought takes a determinate form, and admits of being grasped. The growth of thought, like other growths, is often imperceptible and impalpable. And then, unexpectedly, a condensation takes place, a form is precipitated out of the transparent medium. A new concept, a new grasp of reality, emerges from the solution of elements: and a name is created to realise the new shade of the Idea. These thought-terms are the world of Platonic forms, if we consider his 'form of Good' as corresponding to the 'Idea' of Hegel. For if we look carefully into this mystic word 'Good' which plays so brilliant a part in ancient philosophy, we shall see that it only expresses in a more concrete and less analytic form, as ancient thought often does, the same thing as so many moderns love to speak of as Relativity, and which is also implied in Aristotle's conception of an End. To see things sub specie boni—which Plato describes as the supreme quality of the truth-seeker who is to guide men into uprightness, or into conformity with the true nature of things,—is to see them elevated above their partial self-subsistence into the harmony and totality of that which is always and unvaryingly its real self. The Good is the sun-light in which things lose their earlier character (which they had in the days of our bondage and ignorance) of mysterious and perplexing spectres of the night. In the light of the Good, things are shorn of their false pretence of self-subsistence and substantiality, deposed by comparison with the perfect and unspotted, and as it were stung into seeking a higher form of being by struggle. And this is the abstract moral way of looking. But to see them in the form of Good means also that they are seen to be more and better than we thought, that they are not condemned to inadequacy, but bear in them the witness and revelation of infinity and absoluteness. And this is rather the faith of religion and the vision of art. And the 'form of Good' is only a brief and undeveloped vision of an Absolute, which is the 'form of Relativity,'—Relativity elevated into an Absolute.
A Category is often spoken of as if it were the highest extreme of generalisation, the most abstract and most widely applicable term possible. If we climb sufficiently far and high up the Porphyry's tree of thought, we may expect, thought the old logicians, to reach the 'summa genera' or highest species of human thought. Nor have modern logicians always refrained from this byway. But these quantitative distinctions of greater and less, in which the Formal Logic revels, are not very suitable to any of the terms or processes of thought, and they certainly give an imperfect description of the Categories. The essential function which the Categories perform in the fabric of thought and language is, in the first place, to combine, affirm, demonstrate, relate, and unify,—and not to generalise.[6] Their action may be better compared to that fulfilled by those symbols in an algebraical expression, which like plus and minus denote an operation to be performed in the way of combining or relating, than to the office of the symbols which in these expressions denote the magnitudes themselves.
To the student of language the Categories sometimes present themselves as pronominal, or formal roots,—those roots which, as it is said, do not denote things, but relations between things. He meets them in the inflections of nouns and verbs; in the signs of number, gender, case, and person: but, as thus presented, their influence is subordinate to the things of which they are, as it were, the accidents. He meets them in a more independent and tangible shape in the articles, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, and numerals, and in what are called the auxiliary verbs. In these apparently trifling, and in some languages almost non-existent words or parts of words, we have the symbols of relations,—the means of connexion between single words,—the cement which binds significant speech together. There are languages, such as the older and classical forms of Chinese, where these categorising terms are, as it were, in the air: where they are only felt in accent and position, and have no separate existence of their own. But in the languages of the Indo-European family they gradually appear, at first in combination, perhaps, with the more material roots, and only in the course of time asserting an independent form. Originally they appear to denote the relations of space and time,—the generalised or typical links between the parts of our sense-perceptions: but from there they are afterwards, and in a little while, transferred into the service of intellect. These little words are the very life-blood of a language,—its spirit and force. It is in these categories, as they show themselves in the different linguistic families, that a nation betrays its mode and tone of thought. The language of the Altaic races, e. g., expresses activity only as a piece of property, an appropriation of a substance, and knows no true distinction of noun and verb: the Semitic Tongues in their tense-system perhaps betray the intense inwardness of the race: whereas the immense inflectionalism of the Indo-European seems not unconnected with his greater versatility and energy. Complete mastery in the manipulation of these particles and forms is what makes an idiomatic knowledge of a language, as distinct from a mere remembrance of the vocabulary. And philosophy is the recognition of their import and significance. Thus in Greek philosophy the central questions turn upon such words as Being and not-Being: Becoming: that out of which: that for the sake of which: the what-was-being: the what is: the other: the one: the great and small: that which is upon the whole: what is according to each: this somewhat: &c.[7] And again in Modern Philosophy, how often has the battle raged about the meaning of such words as I: will: can: must: because: same and different: self: &c.!
[1] Cf. Herbart's maxim, 'Wie viel Schein, so viel Hindeutung auf Sein.' (Hauptpunkte der Metaphysik.)
[2] Die Natur (1780): 'Sie lebt in lauter Kindern: und die Mutter, wo ist sie?.... Sie ist ganz und doch immer unvollendet.... Sie verbirgt sich in tausend Namen und Termen, und ist immer dieselbe.'
[3] Logic (Encyclop.) §§ 85, 87, 112, 194, &c.
[4] Metaphysic is, in Kant's usage, ambiguous. It means (a) a supposed science of the supersensible or unconditioned reality; (b) a study of the conditions or presuppositions—the Kantian a priori—of some aspect of Experience, e. g. a Metaphysic of Moral rules.