LATER GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 12/ 



transmission, and consciousness, while remaining 

 self-converse, becomes self-converse in wJiicJi the pro- 

 cess of the ivorld is reenacted} 



Not only do we reach in this way the reality of 

 knowledge, but we discover at the same time the 

 ground for the occurrence of contradictions in it, 

 and the principles of a dialectic that will solve 

 them. This Natural Dialectic, proceeds Diihring 

 in his treatise with that title, moves in the follow- 

 ing manner. Knowledge, though identical with the 

 Actual in contents, differs from it in form ; it is, 

 in fact, just the translation of these contents from 

 the form of object into that of subject, from the 

 form of being into that of knowing. Now, a lead- 

 ing trait of this subjectivity is its sense of possi- 

 bility — of the power to use the active synthesis 

 that works in Nature, and that now in mind works 

 as the secret of its thinking, with an indefinite 

 freedom. In short, it possesses imagination. As 

 a consequence, it falls under the illusion of the 

 false-infinite (Spinoza's infinitum intaginationis), and 

 assumes that the principles of its logical synthesis 

 — space, time, and causation — are as infinite in the 

 object-world as they ever appear to be in itself. 

 But to suppose causation, time, and space to be 

 really infinite would strip the Actual of the quality 

 of an absolute, and thus annul reality altogether. 



1 Notice the reminiscence here of Leibnitz's monadology. 



