That this Relationship of Antithesis and Rank existed, as between the Constituents of some Thoughts or Things, was known from the earliest times, and gave rise to the terms _Positive_ and _Negative_, expressive of it. But Hegel was the first--of modern Philosophers, at least--to point out its necessarily _Universal_ and fundamental character, and to assume it as the starting-point in the development of all Philosophy and Science. So far as concerns the investigation of the Universe from the _Philosophical_ point of view (which is the less precise and definite aspect), Hegel is right in affirming that the first discrimination of all Thought and Being is that between _Something_ and _Nothing_. But he is wrong in regarding the starting-point or first differentiation of _Science_, as being identical with that of _Philosophy_. Science considers, primarily and predominantly, the more exact and rigorous relations of Phenomena; and the existence of an _exact_ and _definite_ point of departure in Thought and Being, more fundamental, from the Scientific or rigorously precise point of view, than that of Hegel, is the initiatory proposition of UNIVERSOLOGY. A full explanation of the nature of this Starting-point is not, however, in place here. And as the discrimination into _Something_ and _Nothing_ serves all the purposes of our present inquiry, a single word respecting the character of the Universological Point of Departure in question is all that it is now necessary to say concerning it.