94 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



various classes of citizens rich and poor, educated and illiterate, 

 men of various parties and sympathies play distinctive parts. 

 That is to say, in his view the differences between American 

 citizens are quite as essential to an understanding of the concep 

 tion as are their likenesses. To know the American citizen is 

 to know the United States of America. Even so, to express the 

 meaning of tissues of the human body no mere definition will 

 suffice, but only an account of the various tissues in their complex 

 interrelations. A further point of great importance must be 

 noted. If we consider a series of abstract universals, related as 

 species and genera of increasing extent, the thought-content 

 steadily diminishes; whereas in the case of concrete universals 

 the wider the extent the richer the content. So that the limit of 

 explanation is not to be found in a set of simple ideas, or summa 

 genera, of maximum extent and minimum content, but is a 

 summum genus which contains, as well as subsumes, all its 

 species, and whose meaning exhausts all possible meaning. 1 



It is true that, upon reflection, the organism show s itself to be, 

 after all, an imperfect illustration of actuality. The meaning of 

 its component elements is not sufficiently shown by their mutual 

 relations alone. There is an environment also to be considered, 

 and upon this environment every part of the organism stands in 

 absolute dependence. Strictly speaking, there can be but a single 

 actuality. 



But that the analogy may lead us as far as possible, it must 

 not be supposed that in his conception of the organism Hegel 

 confines his view to a single stage in its life-history. 2 As far as 

 the reciprocal dependence extends, so far the concept of the 

 organism extends. The true organism embraces the entire de- 



1 A resemblance to mysticism lies upon the surface, but its importance is easily 

 exaggerated. 



2 As will be seen in the sequel, however, the maturity of an organism is not to be 

 regarded as simply one stage among others in its development. It is that n \vh ; ch 

 the whole development is contained its end, and at the same time, its principle. 

 And the eternity of the actual, of which we immediately speak, does not mean 

 simply the inclusion of temporal change. It means the incorporation (Aufhebung) 

 of all stages of the universal evolution in its consummation God. 



