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alarmed for our formula of the Absolute, because it appears paradoxi-
cal to them. It would be in greater danger if they could fully acquiesce in
it.
With such a formula our difficulties cease. Here we have perfect
unity between subject and object, since it is in the whole object, and not
merely in some elements of it, that we find satisfaction. And, for the
same reason, the object attains its rights in the way of complete differ-
entiation, since we are able, now that we are in unity with the whole of
it, to recognize it as a true individual. Again, even unmeaning doubts of
Studies in Hegelian Cosmology/237
the completeness and security of the harmony between subject and ob-
ject must now vanish, since not even an abstraction is left over as alien,
on which scepticism could fix as a possible centre of discord.
299. There is a third line of argument which can lead us to the same
conclusion. We have seen that the nature of each individual consists in
certain relations to other individuals. This view must not be confounded
with that suggested by Green, that for the only kind of consciousness
for which there is reality, the conceived conditions are the reality. 142
For there is all the difference possible between attempting to reduce one
side of an opposition to the other, and asserting, as we have done, that
the two sides are completely fused in a unity which is more than either
of them.
Experience can be analysed into two abstract, and therefore imper-
fect, moments the immediate centres of differentiation and the rela-
tions which unite and mediate them. The extreme atomistic view takes
the immediate centres as real, and the mediating relations as unreal. The
view quoted by Green, as extreme on the other side, takes the relations
as real and the centres as unreal. The view of the dialectic, on the con-
trary, accepts both elements as real, but asserts that neither has any
separate reality, because each is only a moment of the true reality. Real-
ity consists of immediate centres which are mediated by relations. The
imperfection of language compels us to state this proposition in a form
which suggests that the immediacy and the mediation are different reali-
ties which only influence one another externally. But this is not the case.
They are only two sides of the same reality. And thus we are entitled to
say that the whole nature of the centres is to he found in their relations.
But we are none the less entitled to say that the whole nature of the
relations is to be found in the centres.
300. Now it is clear that each individual must have a separate and
unique nature of its own. If it had not, it could never be differentiated
from all the other individuals, as we know that it is differentiated. At the
same time the nature of the individuals lies wholly in their connections
with one another; it is expressed nowhere else, and there it is expressed
fully. It follows that the separate and unique nature of each individual
must be found only, and te found fully, in its connections with other
individuals in the fact, that is, that all the other individuals are for it.
This must not be taken to mean that the connection is the logical
prius of the individual nature that the latter is in any sense the conse-
quent or the result of the former. Nor does it mean that the individual
238/John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart
natures could be explained or deduced from the fact of connection. Such
views would be quite contrary to Hegel s principles. His position is
essentially that reality is a differentiated unity, and that either the differ-
entiation or the unity by itself is a mere abstraction. And it would be
contrary to all the lessons of the dialectic if we supposed that one mo-
ment of a concrete whole could be either caused or explained by the
other moment. It is the concrete reality which must be alike the ground
and the explanation of its moments.
What we have to maintain here is not that the characters of the
individuals are dependent on their connections, but, on the contrary,
that the characters and the connections are completely united. The char-
acter of the individual is expressed completely in its connections with
others, and exists nowhere else. On the other hand the connections are
to be found in the nature of the individuals they connect, and nowhere
else, and not merely in the common nature which the individuals share,
but in that special and unique nature which distinguishes one individual
from another.
This completes our definition of the Absolute Idea. Not only has the
nature of each individual to be found in the fact that all the rest are for
it, but the nature which is to be found in this recognition must be some-
thing unique and distinguishing for each individual. The whole differ-
ence of each individual from the others has to be contained in its har-
mony with the others.
We need not be alarmed at the apparently paradoxical appearance
of this definition. For all through the doctrine of the Notion, and espe-
cially in the Idea, our categories have been paradoxical to the ordinary
understanding. Even if we could find nothing in experience which ex-
plicitly embodied this category, we should not have any right, on that
ground, to doubt its validity. If the arguments which have conducted us
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