SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE METHODS 



a witticism has been made at his expense. But 

 the unintelligibleness of Hegel does not result 

 from indistinctness of thought or slovenliness 

 of expression. On the contrary, it seems to 

 me that his thoughts — or rather, perhaps, the 

 symbols of his thoughts — are very distinct, 

 and that his style of expression is remarkably 

 simple, clear, and direct. When by chance he 

 treats of sublunary topics, his style is often as 

 pithy and lucid as M. Taine's. And had the 

 contents of his thinking consisted of proposi- 

 tions formed from the colligation of sensible 

 experiences, instead of propositions built up of 

 empty verbal symbols, he would no doubt 

 have taken rank among the greatest of the 

 teachers of mankind. The world-wide differ- 

 ence between Hegel and Mr. Spencer, for ex- 

 ample, does not consist chiefly in the fact that 

 the latter is a clearer, more patient, and more 

 logical reasoner ; it consists chiefly in the fact 

 that the symbols with which Mr. Spencer does 

 his thinking are translatable in terms of sen- 

 sible experience, while the symbols employed 

 by Hegel are not thus translatable. The dif- 

 ference is, in the main, a difference of method. 

 Indeed, when a man of HegeFs vast ability 

 gives to the world, as the result of a whole 



alas, God alone understands it ! " A myth, no doubt, but 

 crudely characteristic, like most myths. 



177 



