PROP. XXI.————
The relation of non-contradictories and the relation of contradictories.11. The relations of which we usually speak, and which come before us in physical science, and in ordinary life, are relations between non-contradictories. Thus, for example, the relation which subsists between an acid and an alkali, between a father and a son, between the earth and the moon, are relations of non-contradictories, because each of these things is conceivable out of as well as in relation to the other. But the relationship of subject and object—of me and things, or thoughts, is a relationship of contradictories, because each term can be conceived only in relation to the other. A thing or thought with no "me" known or thought of in connection with it, is an expression of nonsense; and "me," with no thing or thought present to me, is equally an expression of nonsense. The known Absolute is thus a synthesis of two contradictories, and not of two non-contradictories. This should be particularly borne in mind. Psychology never gets beyond the position that the synthesis of subject plus object is the union of two non-contradictories, and thus sticks at the pons asinorum of speculation which demands, as the condition of all further progress and enlightenment, an insight into the truth that the fusion of two contradictories—that is, of two elements which are necessarily unknowable singulatim—is the genesis of absolute cognition.
