which
possibly might have been where it now is, and the better is that which
absolutely might be where it absolutely is not. In the universe of
Hegel--the absolute block whose parts have no loose play, the pure
plethora of necessary being with the oxygen of possibility all
suffocated out of its lungs--there can be neither good nor bad, but one
dead level of mere fate.

But I have tired the reader out. The worst of criticising Hegel is
that the very arguments we use against him give forth strange and
hollow sounds that make them seem almost as fantastic as the errors to
which they are addressed. The sense of a universal mirage, of a
ghostly unreality, steals over us, which is the very moonlit atmosphere
of Hegelism itself. What wonder then if, instead of {293} converting,
our words do but rejoice and delight, those already baptized in the
faith of confusion? To their charmed senses we all seem children of
Hegel together, only some of us have not the wit to know our own
father. Just as Romanists are sure to inform us that our reasons
against Papal Christianity unconsciously breathe the purest spirit of
Catholicism, so Hegelism benignantly smiles at our exertions, and
murmurs, "If the red slayer think he slays;" "When me they fly, I am
the wings," etc.

To forefend this unwelcome adoption, let me recapitulate in a few
propositions the reasons why I am not an hegelian.

1. We cannot eat our cake and have it; that is, the only real
contradiction there can be between thoughts is where one is true, the
other false. When this happens, one must go forever; nor is there any
'higher synthesis' in which both can wholly revive.

2. A chasm is not a bridge in any utilizable sense; that is, no mere
negation can be the instrument of a positive advance in thought.

3. The continua, time, space, and the ego, are bridges, because they
are without chasm.

4. But they bridge over the chasms between represented qualities only
partially.

5. This partial bridging, however, makes the qualities share in a
common world.

6. The other characteristics of the qualities are separate facts.

7. But the same quality appears in many times and spaces. Generic
sameness of the quality wherever found becomes thus a further means by
which the jolts are reduced.

8. What between different qualities jolts remain. {294} Each, as far
as the other is concerned, is an absolutely separate and contingent
being.

9. The moral judgment may le