always something non-representative, however much he may be involved in sensible representation, and placed upon Sinai or Olympus. He is the idea of personal divinity, the idea of Jehovah or of Jove. The philosophy which is called idealist in the strict sense of the word (it would be better called activist or finalist or absolute spiritualism), strives to prove that, for instance, cause, matter, nature, number, water, Jehovah, Jove and the like, are not thinkable as pure concepts and as such imply contradictions, and that therefore such philosophies are insufficient. This means that it holds the _idealism_ of those philosophies _insufficient,_ that they are not equal to themselves and are inadequate to the assumption on which they rest; but it does not imply that this assumption is not idealistic. Were it not idealistic, it would not be philosophical, and so it would not be possible to submit it to criticism from the philosophical point of view. [Sidenote: _Systematic character of philosophy._] From the identity of philosophy with the pure concept can be also deduced its necessarily _systematic_ character. To think any pure concept means to think it in its relation of unity and distinction with all the others. Thus, in reality, what is thought is never _a_ concept, but _the_ concept, the _system_ of concepts. On the other hand, to think the concept in general is only possible by arbitrary abstraction. To think it truly in general, means to think it also as particular and singular, and so to think the whole system of distinct concepts. Those who wish to think an isolated concept philosophically without paying attention to the others, are like doctors who wish to cure an organ without paying attention to the organism. Such a mode of treatment may cure the organ, but the organism dies and with it dies the healed organ a moment after. The true philosopher, when he makes even the smallest modification in a concept, has his eye on the whole system, for he knows that this modification, however small it may seem, modifies to some extent the whole. [Sidenote: _Philosophic and literary significance of system._]