, Not-being, existence, essence, notion, and the like challenged
and defined. For if Hegel introduces a great many distinctions, he
obliterates a great many others by the help of the universal solvent 'is
not,' which appears to be the simplest of negations, and yet admits
of several meanings. Neither are we able to follow him in the play of
metaphysical fancy which conducts him from one determination of thought
to another. But we begin to suspect that this vast system is not God
within us, or God immanent in the world, and may be only the invention
of an individual brain. The 'beyond' is always coming back upon us
however often we expel it. We do not easily believe that we have within
the compass of the mind the form of universal knowledge. We rather
incline to think that the method of knowledge is inseparable from actual
knowledge, and wait to see what new forms may be developed out of
our increasing experience and observation of man and nature. We are
conscious of a Being who is without us as well as within us. Even
if inclined to Pantheism we are unwilling to imagine that the meagre
categories of the understanding, however ingeniously arranged or
displayed, are the image of God;--that what all religions were seeking
after from the beginning was the Hegelian philosophy which has been
revealed in the latter days. The great metaphysician, like a prophet of
old, was naturally inclined to believe that his own thoughts were divine
realities. We may almost say that whatever came into his head seemed
to him to be a necessary truth. He never appears to have criticized
himself, or to have subjected his own ideas to the process of analysis
which he applies to every other philosopher.

Hegel would have insisted that his philosophy should be accepted as a
whole or not at all. He would have urged that the parts derived their
meaning from one another and from the whole. He thought that he had
supplied an outline large enough to contain all future knowledge, and a
method to which all future philosophies must conform. His metaphysical
genius is especially shown in the construction of the categories--a work
which was only begun by Kant, and elaborated to the utmost by himself.
But is it really true that the part has no meaning when separated from
the whole, or that knowledge to be knowledge at all must be universal?
Do all abstractions shine only by the reflected light of other
abstractions? May they not also find a nearer explanation