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PROLEGOMENA

TO THE STUDY OF

HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY

AND

_ESPECIALLY OF HIS LOGIC_

BY

WILLIAM WALLACE, M.A., LL.D.

FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE

AND WHYTE'S PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND AUGMENTED

OXFORD

AT THE CLARENDON PRESS

1894




IN REMEMBRANCE OF

B. JOWETT

LATE REGIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK

AND

MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE

OXFORD




PREFACE


The present volume of Prolegomena completes the second edition of my
LOGIC OF HEGEL which originally appeared in 1874. The translation,
which was issued as a separate volume in the autumn of 1892, had been
subjected to revision throughout: such faults as I could detect had
been amended, and many changes made in the form of expression with the
hope of rendering the interpretation clearer and more adequate. But,
with a subject so abstruse and complicated as Hegel's Logic, and a
style so abrupt and condensed as that adopted in his _Encyclopaedia_,
a satisfactory translation can hardly fall within the range of
possibilities. Only the enthusiasm of youth could have thrown itself
upon such an enterprise; and later years have but to do what they may
to fulfil the obligations of a task whose difficulties have come to
seem nearly insuperable. The translation volume was introduced by a
sketch of the growth of the _Encyclopaedia_ through the three editions
published in its author's lifetime: and an appendix of notes supplied
some literary and historical elucidations of the text, with quotations
bearing on the philosophical development between Kant and Hegel.

The Prolegomena, which have grown to more than twice their original
extent, are two-thirds of them new matter. The lapse of twenty years
could not but involve a change in the writer's attitude, at least in
details, towards both facts and problems. The general purpose of the
work, however, still remains the same, to supply an introduction to the
study of Hegel, especially his _Logic,_ and to philosophy in general.
But, in the work of altering and inserting, I can hardly imagine that
I have succeeded in adjusting the additions to the older work with
that artful juncture which would simulate the continuity of organic
growth. To perform that feat would require a master who surveyed from
an imperial outlook the whole system of Hegelianism in its history
and meaning; and I at least do not profess such a mastery. Probably
therefore a critical review will discern inequalities in the ground,
and even discrepancies in the statement, of the several chapters. To
remove these strains of inconsistency would in any case have been a
work of time and trouble: and, after all, mere differences in depth
or breadth of view may have their uses. The writer cannot always
compel the reader to understand him, as he himself has not always
the same faculty to penetrate and comprehend the problems he deals
with. In these arduous paths of research it may well happen that the
clearest and truest perceptions are not always those which communicate
themselves with fullest persuasion and gift of insight. Schopenhauer
has somewhere compared the structure of his philosophical work to the
hundred-gated Thebes: so many, he says, are the points of access it
offers for the pilgrims after truth to reach its central dogma. So--if
one may parallel little things with his adventurous quest--even the
less speculative chapters, and the less consecutive discourse, of
these Prolegomena may prove helpful to some individual mood or phase
of mind. If--as I suspect--the Second Book should elicit the complaint
that the reader has been kept wandering too long and too deviously in
the _Porches of Philosophy_, I will hope that sometimes in the course
of these rovings he may come across a wicket-gate where he can enter,
and--which is the main thing--gather truth fresh and fruitful for
himself.

Fourteen chapters, viz. II, XXIV, and the group from VII to XVIII
inclusive, are in this edition almost entirely new. Three chapters of
the first edition, numbered XIX, XXII, XXIII, have been dropped. For
the rest, Chaps. III-VI in the present correspond to Chaps. II-V in
the first edition: Chap. XIX to parts of VII, VIII: Chaps. XX-XXIII to
Chaps. IX-XII: Chaps. XXV-XXX to Chaps. XIII-XVIII: and Chaps. XXXI,
XXXII to Chaps. XX, XXI. But some of those nominally retained have been
largely rewritten.

The new chapters present, amongst other things, a synopsis of the
progress of thought in Germany during the half-century