thers, such as 'cause' and
'effect,' are but slightly considered. All abstractions are supposed by
Hegel to derive their meaning from one another. This is true of some,
but not of all, and in different degrees. There is an explanation of
abstractions by the phenomena which they represent, as well as by their
relation to other abstractions. If the knowledge of all were necessary
to the knowledge of any one of them, the mind would sink under the load
of thought. Again, in every process of reflection we seem to require
a standing ground, and in the attempt to obtain a complete analysis we
lose all fixedness. If, for example, the mind is viewed as the complex
of ideas, or the difference between things and persons denied, such an
analysis may be justified from the point of view of Hegel: but we shall
find that in the attempt to criticize thought we have lost the power of
thinking, and, like the Heracliteans of old, have no words in which
our meaning can be expressed. Such an analysis may be of value as a
corrective of popular language or thought, but should still allow us to
retain the fundamental distinctions of philosophy.

In the Hegelian system ideas supersede persons. The world of thought,
though sometimes described as Spirit or 'Geist,' is really impersonal.
The minds of men are to be regarded as one mind, or more correctly as
a succession of ideas. Any comprehensive view of the world must
necessarily be general, and there may be a use with a view to
comprehensiveness in dropping individuals and their lives and actions.
In all things, if we leave out details, a certain degree of order
begins to appear; at any rate we can make an order which, with a little
exaggeration or disproportion in some of the parts, will cover the whole
field of philosophy. But are we therefore justified in saying that
ideas are the causes of the great movement of the world rather than the
personalities which conceived them? The great man is the expression of
his time, and there may be peculiar difficulties in his age which he
cannot overcome. He may be out of harmony with his circumstances, too
early or too late, and then all his thoughts perish; his genius passes
away unknown. But not therefore is he to be regarded as a mere waif
or stray in human history, any more than he is the mere creature or
expression of the age in which he lives. His ideas are inseparable from
himself, and would have been nothing without him. Through a thousand
personal