PREFACE. Vll 



ered as the physical universe. The system of Hegel 

 has been named: Absolute Idealism. Mr. Spencer calls 

 his own system: Transfigured Realism. The latter 

 begins with the external and simpler forms of Reality 

 and traces them through their relations to their ulti- 

 mate source to which indeed he would evidently find 

 satisfaction in applying the term : Absolute Being, 

 though he refrains from using any more definitely de- 

 scriptive name than : Persistent Force. Hegel begins 

 with the simplest, most abstract concept which it is 

 possible to form, and names that concept "Being." 

 And this name, it is all-important to notice, is the name 

 of a concept only; that is, the name of a concept cor- 

 responding to which there is no reality other than the 

 concept itself. But to become aware of the fact that 

 there is no outer reality corresponding to the inner real 

 concept of mere pure being, that is to form in the mind 

 another concept with reference to this outer no-reality. 

 And it is a fact sufficiently familiar to all that to this 

 other concept the term Nothing is applied. It turns out, 

 then, that the term nothing, equally with the term being, 

 represents a real concept, while yet in each case there 

 is equally no objective reality to which the concept or 

 its corresponding category can apply. Hence the often 

 repeated and seldom understood expression of Hegel 

 that " Being and nothing are the same." 



But in these barren concepts it is impossible for 

 thought to rest. On the contrary, it is driven onward 

 by its own nature to more and more concrete concepts 



