2l6 DOGMATISM AND EVOLUTION 



already expressed our reasons for the opinion, that, in spite of 

 important divergences, Hegel s epistemology is still fairly to be 

 classed as a form of rationalism. Although more to him than 

 to any other man is due the elaboration of the logical conceptions 

 which appertain to general evolutionary theory; and though he 

 applied these conceptions with wonderful insight to the study of 

 the development of thought; yet that development, as he con 

 ceived it, was a movement within a system, not of a system, for 

 the system as such was completely determined by its absolute 

 end. For this reason he could not dispense with the essentially 

 rationalistic conception of pure that is to say, a priori thought, 

 and whatever may be conceived to have been the psychological 

 history of his logic, it stands in its full rounded completeness as 

 a schema to which nature and spirit universally conform. But, 

 when the extravagances to which his absolutism led him are, as 

 well as may be set aside, and the Science of Logic is viewed as a 

 provisional solution of a problem, which, from the terms in which 

 it is stated, can never be adequately solved, it becomes a treasure- 

 house of inestimable wisdom, which the pragmatist, of all men, 

 cannot afford to despise. 



