l60 TFIE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY. 



to deal with the reahtles of Hfe, but it talks of abstract- 

 ions throughout. It pretends to explain all things, 

 and then ascribes inconvenient facts to the " con- 

 tingency of matter," i.e. it pretends to be a rational 

 explanation of the world, and then admits an element 

 of irrationality. It pretends to solve all practical 

 problems, but finally turns out to be necessarily 

 incapable of solving a single one. It professes to 

 give categorical answers to disputed questions, but 

 its most definite assertions are rendered worthless 

 by the taint of a subtle ambiguity. It seems a hard 

 saying, but it is no more than what is strictly demon- 

 strable, that Hegelianism never anywhere gets 

 within sight of a fact, or within touch of reality. 

 And the reason is simple : you cannot, without 

 paying the penalty, substitute abstractions for real- 

 ities ; the thought-symbol cannot do duty for the 

 thing symbolized ; the development of a logical 

 category is not the same as the evolution of a real 

 individual. The " dialectical process," if we admit 

 the phrase, is logical and not in Time, and has 

 nothing to do with the world process in Time. 

 Hegelianism is the greatest system of abstract meta- 

 physics, because it starts from the highest abstract- 

 ion and makes the most persistent effort to work 

 down to reality from it, because its abstractions are 

 carried out most ruthlessly, because its confusions 

 are concealed most artfully, and because it hence 

 seeins to come closer to reality than systems which 

 stopped short of such perfect illusion. 



But for these very reasons it is also the falsest of 

 abstract metaphysical systems, if degrees be admitted, 

 where all are fundamentally false. 



§ 7. For the truth is that any theory which puts 

 forward an abstraction as the ultimate explanation 



I 

 I 



