LATER GERMAN PHILOSOPHY 1 39 



principle in Hartmann's theory — the undertaking 

 to construe the absolute with the categories of the 

 relative, to think the eternal in relations of time and 

 space and motion. 



It is a notable merit in Duhring that he himself, 

 and with no light emphasis, lays down the principle 

 here implied ; but his conception of absolute being 

 forces him fatally to contradict it. He will have 

 the chain of causation once on a time begin. But 

 a beginning is necessarily a point in time, and a 

 point in time is necessarily related to a before as 

 well as to an after. Duhring consequently finds it 

 impossible even to state his beginning of change 

 without referring it to a supposed rest preceding 

 it ; in no other way can he make room for a con- 

 tinuous mechanical nexus in the whole of his Actual. 

 The Actual is thus necessarily brought zvholly under 

 time ; time and causation are carried back, whether 

 or no, into " Being and identity," and Duhring is 

 asserting in one breath that the absolute is not 

 subject to relative categories, and yet is so. After 

 his scruples about time and causation, it is remarka- 

 ble that he manifests no hesitancy in applying space 

 to his absolute. He maintains real space to be 

 finite, and thus annuls his absolute once more. 

 For so, his total Actual has a limited extent ; but 

 an extent, like a beginning, must be defined by 

 something other than itself, is unthinkable except 



