being. Each idea leads to its own negative, because it reveals itself as limited and to that extent untrue. Negation then brings a new concept into existence. But since this one is likewise determined by the first, the necessity of a higher unity is evident, a unity within which both find their explanation, because they are "annulled" in a twofold significance,—namely, negated in their isolation and at the same time affirmed as moments of the higher unity. Hence, according to the dialectical method, thought proceeds in triads, and the system of all these triads constitutes truth. Truth can never be particular, but must always be totality.
The fact that dialectic constitutes the process of being is revealed by the fact that every phenomenon of nature and of history leads beyond itself and exists only as an element of a totality. It is evident that Hegel here construes all being after the analogy of consciousness; the things which constitute the universe are supposed to sustain the same relations among themselves as ideas sustain in our minds. But he likewise makes use of other analogies. The effects of contrast show how the antitheses may oscillate from one to the other. And organic growth shows how it is possible for the earlier stages to determine the later and to continue their existence in them. Hegel constructs his theory of universal dialectic upon such analogies without being clearly conscious of the fact himself. Everything perishes and yet there is nothing lost. The memory of the universal mind preserves everything. And it is because of its inherent identity with the universal mind that the human intellect is capable of evolving the pure forms of the universal dialectic. Kant's doctrine of the categories is transformed into a world-system (Wissenschaft der Logik, 1812-1816).
