HEGEL'S TREATMENT OF THE CATEGORIES OF THE IDEA. 177 sidered as perfect, would give 8uch an example, and we should thus find additional support for the conclusion which we reached when we were considering the Transition to the Absolute Idea that in emotion, if anywhere, we can find a revelation of absolute reality. It is clear, in the first place, that our example must be some form of consciousness. For the nature of the indi- vidual is still to have all reality for it, and of this idea, as we have seen, we can imagine no embodiment but conscious- ness. Knowledge, however, will not be what is required. We want a state such that the individuals' recognition of their harmony with one another shall itself constitute the separate nature of each individual. In knowledge the individual recognises his harmony with others, but this is not sufficient to constitute his separate nature. It is true that knowledge not only permits, but requires, the differentiation of indi- viduals. Nothing but an individual can have knowledge, and if the individuals were merged in an undifferentiated whole, the knowledge would vanish. Moreover, in propor- tion as the knowledge of a knowing being becomes wider and deeper, and links him more closely to the rest of reality, so does his individuality become greater. But although the individuality and the knowledge are so closely linked, they are not identical. The individuality cannot lie in the know- ledge. Men may, no doubt, be distinguished from one another by what they know and how they know it. But such distinctions depend on the limitations and imperfections of knowledge. A knows X, and B knows Y. Or else A believes X : to be the truth, while B believes it to be X 2 . But for an example of a category of the Idea we should have, as we have seen above, to take perfect cognition. Now if A and B both knew X as it really is, this would give no sepa- rate nature to A and B. And if we took, as we must, X to stand for all reality, and so came to the conclusion that the nature of A and B lay in knowing the same subject-matter, knowing it perfectly, and, therefore, knowing it in exactly the same way, we should have failed to find that separate nature for A and B which we have seen to be necessary. Nor can our example be found in volition. Perfect volition would mean perfect acquiescence in everything. Now men can be easily differentiated by the fact that they acquiesce in different things. So they can be differentiated by the fact that they acquiesce in different sides of the same thing in other words, approve of the same thing for different reasons. Thus one man may approve of an auto da fe on 12
