SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE METHODS 



of Hegel and Plato ; since Plato's absurdities are 

 less in conflict with the scientific knowledge df 

 the times in which they were conceived, and He- 

 gel's are veiled by the dense obscurity of a pom- 

 pous metaphysical terminology. When Hegel 

 tells us that " Seyn ist Seyn^ und nicht Anders : 

 Anders ist Anders, und nicht Seyn " (Being is 

 Being, and not Otherwise : Otherwise is Other- 

 wise, and not Being), we are overawed perhaps, 

 but not immediately disgusted. There is an air 

 of excessive profundity about the oracular dic- 

 tum, and for a moment we think there may 

 perhaps be something in it which does not ap- 

 pear on the surface — some occult verity which, 

 as Hegelians tell us, fifty years more of enlight- 

 enment may enable us to realize. But Comte's 

 thoughts are presented, not in the muddiest 

 technical German, but in the clearest idiomatic 

 French : when he makes the earth a fetish, 

 and talks about a dance of the planets, the idea 

 stands out in all its naked absurdity. In spite 

 of all this, however, I am inclined to believe 

 that Comte sounded a deeper depth of extrava- 

 gance than either Plato or Hegel. Insanity is, 

 after all, only the excessive lack of correspond- 

 ence between the order of conceptions and the 

 order of phenomena. That is what we mean 

 when we characterize it as delusion or hallucina- 

 tion. And when we avowedly employ a method 

 which never deigns to adapt the internal order 



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