Preface to the First Edition

The complete transformation which philosophical thought has undergone in Germany during the last five-and-twenty years and the loftier outlook upon thought which self-conscious mind has attained in this period, have hitherto had but little influence on the structure of Logic.

That which before this period was called Metaphysic, has been, so to speak, extirpated root and branch, and has disappeared from the ranks of the Sciences. Where could one now catch an echo—where would any echo venture to linger—of the Ontology, the Rational Psychology, the Cosmology, or even the Natural Theology, of former times? Where, for instance, would investigations concerning the Immateriality of the Soul, or Efficient and Final Causes—where would these now arouse any interest? And the other proofs of the existence of God are now brought forward only from an historical standpoint, or with a view to edification and spiritual uplifting. It is the fact that men have lost interest partly in the content of the old Metaphysic, partly in its form—and partly in both content and form. If it is a remarkable thing when a nation finds that its Constitutional Theory, its customary ways of thinking and feeling, its ethical habits and traditional virtues, have become inapplicable, it is certainly not less remarkable when a nation loses its Metaphysic, when the intellect occupying itself with its own pure essence, has no longer any real existence in the thought of the nation.

The exoteric doctrine of Kantian Philosophy that Understanding cannot go beyond Experience, because if so the faculty of cognition would be a merely theoretical intelligence which could by itself produce nothing but idle fancies of the brain—this doctrine has given a scientific justification to the renunciation of Speculative Thought. This popular doctrine was supported by the cry of modern educationalists, voicing the needs of the hard times, which draw men’s attention to immediate requirements; it was clamoured that as for knowledge experience is the starting point, so for ability in public and in private life, theoretical insight is actually injurious, while it is practice and technical education which are above all essential, and alone lead to better things. Philosophy and crude Common Sense playing thus into each other’s hands for the downfall of Metaphysic, there was presented the strange spectacle of a cultured people having no Metaphysic—as it were a temple, in all other respects richly ornamented, but lacking its Holy of Holies.—Theology, which in earlier times had been the guardian of speculative mysteries, and of a Metaphysic subordinate to itself, had given up this science in exchange for emotions, for popular practicality, and learned historicity. On the other hand, in correspondence with this change, those lonely souls who were sacrificed by their fellows, and isolated from the world, to the end that contemplation of the eternal and a life dedicated thereto should be maintained—the life and the contemplation being for the sake of an ideal and not of a practical Good—these devotees passed out of existence;—and their passing away may, from another point of view, be regarded as essentially one with the phenomenon of which we have already spoken. And so, when such metaphysical shadows, and such colourless self-concentration of the introspective spirit, had been brushed aside, existence seemed to be transformed into the sunny land of flowers—and, as we know, no flowers are black.

It did not fare quite so ill with Logic as with Metaphysic. The view that by Logic one would learn how to think (the usefulness and hence the purpose of Logic being supposed to consist in this)—which was just as though one were to expect to learn how to digest and how to move, by the study of anatomy and physiology—this prejudice has long ago been exploded, and the spirit of practicality probably intended for Logic a fate no better than that which had fallen to the lot of the sister Science. In spite of this, however, and probably on account of some formal utility, a place among the Sciences was left to Logic, and it was even retained as a subject of public instruction. But this better fate concerned only externals, for the form and content of Logic had remained the same that it had inherited by long tradition—a tradition which in being handed down had become ever more meagre and attenuated; there are no traces in Logic of the new spirit which has arisen both in Learning and in Life. It is, however (let us say it once for all), quite vain to try to retain the forms of an earlier stage of development when the inner structure of spirit has become transformed; these earlier forms are like withered leaves which are pushed off by the new buds already being generated at the roots.

But even in the scientific sphere this ignoring of the universal change is beginning to fail. Imperceptibly the new ideas became familiar even to their opposers, who appropriated them and—though persistently slighting and gainsaying the sources and principles of these ideas—yet had to accept their results, and were unable to evade their influence. The only way in which opposers could give content and positive value to their negative attitude (which was getting to be of ever less and less importance) was by giving in their adherence to the new ways of thinking.

On the other hand, the period of fermentation with which a new creation begins seems to be past. At its first appearance such a period generally wears an aspect of fanatical hostility towards the prevalent systematization of the older principle; it is also, partly, fearful of losing itself in the wilderness of particulars while it shuns the labour required for scientific development, and in its need of such a development grasps, at first, at an empty formalism. The demand for the digestion and development of the material now becomes so much the more pressing. This is a period in the development of an age, as in the development of an individual, when the chief business is to acquire and maintain the principle in its undeveloped intensity. But the higher requirement is that the principle should be elaborated into systematized knowledge.

Still, whatever may have been already done for the cause and for the form of philosophy in other respects, the logical science which is the true content of genuine Metaphysic or pure speculative philosophy has heretofore been very much neglected. What I more exactly understand by this Logic and its standpoint I have set forth provisionally in the Introduction. The necessity of once more beginning this science from the very beginning, the nature of the subject itself, and the absence of previous work which could be used in the projected transformation, should all be taken into account by fair and reasonable judges—even though the labour of many years has not been able to secure for this attempt a nearer approach to perfection. The essential point of view is, that we have to do, altogether, with a new concept of philosophical method. As I have elsewhere recalled Philosophy, since it is to be Ordered Knowledge, cannot borrow its Method from a subordinate science, such as Mathematics, any more than it can rest satisfied with categorical assertions of pure intuition, or use reasonings based on external reflection. But it is the nature of the content and that alone which lives and stirs in philosophic cognition, while it is this very reflection of the content which itself originates and determines the nature of philosophy.

Understanding makes determinations and maintains them. Reason is negative and dialectical because it dissolves into nothing the determinations of Understanding; Reason is positive because it is the source of the Universal in which the Particular is comprehended. Just as Understanding is commonly held to be something separate from Reason regarded generally, so dialectical Reason is held to be something separate from positive Reason. But in its real truth Reason is Mind—Mind which is higher than either Reason which understands, or Understanding which reasons. Mind is the negative, it is that which constitutes the quality alike of dialectical Reason and of Understanding; it negates the simple and thus posits that determinate distinction which is the work of Understanding, and just as truly it resolves this distinction, and is thus dialectical. Yet it does not abide in the negation which thus results, but is therein just as much positive,—thus it has thereby established the first Simple, but so that the Simple is also a Universal which is in itself concrete; under this universal a given Particular is not subsumed; but, in that determination, and in the solution thereof, the Particular has already been coincidently determined. This movement of Mind, which in its simplicity gives itself its determinateness and hence self-equality, and which thus is the immanent development of the Notion—this movement is the Absolute Method of knowledge, and at the same time the immanent soul of the Content of knowledge.—It is, I maintain, along this path of self-construction alone that Philosophy can become objective and demonstrated science.—It is after this fashion that I have tried to present consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit. Consciousness is Spirit as knowing which is concrete and engrossed in externality; but the schema of movement of this concrete knowing (like the development of all physical and intellectual life) depends entirely on the nature of the pure essentialities which make up the content of Logic. Consciousness, as manifested Spirit which as it develops frees itself from its immediacy and external concretions, becomes Pure Knowing, which takes as object of its knowing those pure essentialities as they are in and for themselves. They are pure thought. Spirit thinking its own essence. Their spontaneous movement is their spiritual life: by this movement philosophy constitutes itself; and philosophy is just the exhibition of this movement.

I have thus indicated the relation to Logic of the science which I call Phenomenology of Spirit. With regard to the external arrangement, it was intended that the first part of the System of Knowledge which contains the Phenomenology, should be followed by a second part which should contain Logic and the two concrete Philosophical Sciences, the Philosophy of Nature and the Philosophy of Spirit, thus completing the System of Knowledge. But the extensive elaboration demanded by Logic has caused me to allow this portion to be published separately; thus, in an enlarged scheme, Logic constitutes the first sequel to the Phenomenology of Spirit. I shall work out later the two concrete Philosophical Sciences already spoken of.—The First Book of this first volume of the Logic is The Doctrine of Being; the Second Book contains The Doctrine of Essence, which is the second division of the first volume; the second volume will contain Subjective Logic, or The Doctrine of the Notion.

Nürnberg, 22nd March 1812.