232 THE WORLD-ENERGY 



its objective phases. The "Logic"* of Hegel, it is not too 

 much to say, is the most thorough-going, consistent and 

 adequate presentation of the fundamental categories of 

 thought in their vital, organic relations that has yet been 

 given to the world. Nor is it likely to be surpassed for, 

 it may be, centuries to come. In any case, it must prove 

 increasingly indispensable to thinkers from generation to 

 generation as a fundamental link in the historical devel- 

 opment of human reason. 



Its method is already working into the thought of the 

 time, though it be silently or with but guarded acknowl- 

 edgment in perhaps the greater part as yet, and is 

 destined to exert a more and more profound influence as 

 time goes on. That it is a book exceedingly difficult to 

 really read there can be no question. For impatient, 

 flippant people, doubtless the only practicable way to 

 dispose of the work must ever remain the one usually 

 adopted by them in disposing of any and every really 

 serious book, namely, that of casting it aside with the 

 contemptuous air of one who has already grown too wise 

 to spend time over such vagaries. 



For really serious students, however, the work must 

 become increasingly accessible through the gradual in- 

 crease in familiarity with its method that must follow 

 upon the multiplication of works imbued with its spirit. 

 Even works only superficially Hegelian must conduce 

 to this end. And the "evolution philosophy" itself, 

 with whatever of self-contradictory one-sidedness and 

 materialistic tendencies, giving it the appearance of irre- 

 concilable antagonism to the "absolute idealism" of 



*The " LogM" of Hegel, as the reader may know, is in three volumes. 

 The Logic of the " Encyclopedia" is a compendium of the larger work, 

 and is now well known through Professor Wallace's excellent translation. 



