6 ox THE RELATION OF 



could contain no real, positive knowledge. The ' Phi- 

 losophy of Identity ' ^ was bolder. It started with the 

 hypothesis that not only spiritual phenomena, but even 

 the actual world — nature, that is, and man — were the 

 result of an act of thought on the part of a creative 

 mind, similar, it was supposed, in kind to the human 

 mind. On this hypothesis it seemed competent for the 

 human mind, even without the guidance of external ex- 

 perience, to think over again the thoughts of the Creator, 

 and to rediscover them by its own inner activity. Such 

 was the view with which the ' Philosophy of Idertity ' set 

 to work to construct a priori the results of other sciences. 

 The process might be more or less successful in matters of 

 theology, law, politics, language, art, history, in short, in 

 all sciences, the subject-matter of which really grows out 

 of our moral nature, and which are therefore properly 

 classed together under the name of moral sciences. The 

 state, the church, art, and language, exist in order to 

 satisfy certain moral needs of man. Accordingly, what- 

 ever obstacles nature, or chance, or the rivalry of other 

 men may interpose, the efforts of the human mind to 

 satisfy its needs, being systematically directed to one 

 end, must eventually triumph over all such fortuitous 

 hindrances. Under these circumstances, it would not be 

 a downright impossibility for a philosopher, starting from 

 an exact knowledge of the mind, to predict the general 

 course of human development under the above-named 

 conditions, especially if he has before his eyes a basis of 

 observed facts, on which to build his abstractions. More- 

 over, Hegel was materially assisted, in his attempt to 

 solve this problem, by the profound and philosophical 

 views on historical and scientific subjects, with which the 

 writings of his immediate predecessors, both poets and 



' So called because it proclaimed the identity not only of subject and 

 object, but of contradictories, such as existence and non-existence. — Te. 



