The universal must limit itself, must take on the forms of finitude, and preserve that finitude even while going beyond it. We shall see later how the self, which is the actual embodiment of the notion, denies itself and goes forth into its other, into a world which is the not-self. The outgoing moment is essential and in the spiritual life it involves strenuous effort and bitter sacrifice; indeed the concreteness of the identity of the whole depends on the stress of the outward process. There is not full joy in the harmony of thought if in its nature it has not gone into a far country. To minimize the reality of the alienation is to diminish the fullness of the union, and to translate an identity of opposites into a bare tautology.[1]
We cannot trace in detail Hegel’s analysis of the sphere of the notion; but it is necessary to note one distinction. The description we have given is that of the character of the whole of the third division of the logic, which is called in general the doctrine of the notion. But the sphere comprises a number of categories of differing grades. The name, ‘notion’, is given by Hegel to the first of these as well as to the whole; and the last one, the only adequate and complete principle of thought, is called the ‘idea’. It is perhaps enough for our purposes to say that the notion, in the narrow sense, is the principle of such a system capable of complete articulation but as yet undeveloped. The ‘idea’ is the complete system actually seen to be the concretion of the simple immanent principle. The notion involves the ‘idea’, and is the bud of which the latter is the fruit. The former is inward, immanent, undeveloped: the latter is always an inward principle which expresses itself outwardly and has actually mastered the external. The ‘idea’ is the truth of the notion, the full self into which the notion develops itself. In the sequel, unless the context forbids, it is to be assumed that the term, notion, is used to indicate the narrow category rather than the whole sphere, for the distinction between the principle and the concrete achievement is of great importance. But we cannot dwell longer on the point in its bare logical form, and can characterize it further only in more concrete embodiments.
By way of transition to this more concrete realm we may discuss a possible misconception of the meaning of Hegel’s
- ↑ Cf. Phenomenology, WW. II. pp. 15-16.
