OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 645 



the further thesis : the Absolute is not a transcendent, 

 it is an immanent principle, it manifests itself in the 

 existing world, it is realised in nature and especially in 

 human history. It is not a substance, in the sense of 

 Spinoza, but an activity, a process ; it is not stationary, 

 an unchangeable reality, but development. In the two 

 theses, that the Absolute is Spirit and that it is develop- 

 ment, is to be found, as Kuno Fischer has said, the whole 

 of Hegel's philosophy. 



I have on a former occasion pointed out that the 

 word which Hegel uses to denote this fundamental 

 principle, the German word Geist, has for an English 

 reader a double meaning — for it means " mind " as well 

 as " spirit." This is unfortunate for the real compre- 

 hension of Hegel's philosophy, and much ambiguity, a 

 whole host of controversies and misunderstandings, 

 would have been avoided had the different meanings of 

 the word been kept separate or sufficiently explained. 

 The fact that Hegel, following Fichte and Schelling in 

 this respect, frequently identities the Absolute with the 

 Divine principle, with the God of Eeligion, suggests 

 to his readers that he conceives it to be a personal 

 mind or spirit, a personality. On the other side, 

 the fact that he also calls it the Subject, leads one to 

 think that he is speaking of the human mind, of the 

 Self of Fichte and Schelling, as differentiated from the 

 not-self. And again, his use of the term " objective 

 mind " leads one to infer that the principle of philosophy 

 may be conceived as a thought, as an idea, intelligible to 

 the human mind, and which is at work in the world 

 of nature, and especially in the world of history and 



