The Prolegomena which precede the translation have not been given in the hope or with the intention of expounding the Hegelian system. They merely seek to remove certain obstacles, and to render Hegel less tantalizingly hard to those who approach him for the first time. How far they will accomplish this, remains to be seen.
ANTICIPATORY SKETCH OF THE SCOPE OF PHILOSOPHY 72
THE ATTEMPT AT A CRITICAL SOLUTION: KANT 98
THE CRITICAL SOLUTION (_continued_): KANT 112
THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE AND IDEALISM 147
GENERAL LAW OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY 277
ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE: AND THE ORDINARY LOGIC 292
REASON AND THE DIALECTIC OF UNDERSTANDING 348
ABSOLUTE AND RELATIVE: OR THE CATEGORIES 383
THE LOGIC OF DESCRIPTION: NATURAL REALISM: BEING 415
THE LOGIC OF EXPLANATION AND REALISTIC METAPHYSICS:
THE LOGIC OF COMPREHENSION AND IDEALISM: THE NOTION 459
'The condemnation,' says Hegel, 'which a great man lays upon the world, is to force it to explain him[1].' The greatness of Hegel, if it be measured by this standard, must be something far above common. Interpreters of his system have contradicted each other, almost as variously as the several commentators on the Bible. He is claimed as their head by widely different schools of thought, all of which appeal to him as the original source of their line of argument. The Right wing, and the Left, as well as the Centre, profess to be the genuine descendants of the prophet, and to inherit the mantle of his inspiration. If we believe one side, Hegel is only to be rightly appreciated when we divest his teaching of every shred of religion and orthodoxy which it retains. If we believe another class of expositors, he was the champion of Christianity.
These contradictory views may be safely left to abolish each other. But diversity of opinion on such topics is neither unnatural, nor unusual. The meaning and the bearings of a great event, or a great character, or a great work of reasoned thought, will be estimated and explained in different ways, according to the effect they produce on different minds and different levels of life and society. Those effects, perhaps, will not present themselves in their true character, until long after the original excitement has passed away. To some minds, the chief value of the Hegelian system will lie in its vindication of the truths of natural and revealed religion, and in the agreement of the elaborate reasonings of the philosopher with the simple aspirations of mankind towards higher things. To others that system will have most interest as a philosophical history of thought,--an exposition of that organic development of reason, which underlies and constitutes all the varied and complex movement of the world. To a third class, again, it may seem at best an instrument or method of investigation, stating the true law by which knowledge proceeds in its endeavour to comprehend and assimilate existing nature.
