192.] The syllogism has been taken conformably to the distinctions
which it contains; and the general result of the course of their
evolution has been to show that these differences work out their own
abolition and destroy the notion's outwardness to its own self. And,
as we see, in the first place, (1) each of the dynamic elements has
proved itself the systematic whole of these elements, in short a whole
syllogism,--they are consequently implicitly identical. In the second
place, (2) the negation of their distinctions and of the mediation of
one through another constitutes independency; so that it is one and
the same universal which is in these forms, and which is in this way
also explicitly put as their identity. In this ideality of its dynamic
elements, the syllogistic process may be described as essentially
involving the negation of the characters through which its course runs,
as being a mediative process through the suspension of mediation,--as
coupling the subject not with another, but with a suspended other, in
one word, with itself.
* * * * *
In the common logic, the doctrine of syllogism is supposed to conclude
the first part, or what is called the 'elementary' theory. It is
followed by the second part, the doctrine of Method, which proposes
to show how a body of scientific knowledge is created by applying to
existing objects the forms of thought discussed in the elementary part.
Whence these objects originate, and what the thought of objectivity
generally speaking implies, are questions to which the Logic of
Understanding vouchsafes no further answer. It believes thought to
be a mere subjective and formal activity, and the objective fact,
which confronts thought, to have a separate and permanent being. But
this dualism is a half-truth: and there is a want of intelligence in
the procedure which at once accepts, without inquiring into their
origin, the categories of subjectivity and objectivity. Both of them,
subjectivity as well as objectivity, are certainly thoughts--even
specific thoughts: which must show themselves founded on the universal
and self-determining thought. This has here been done--at least for
subjectivity. We have recognised it, or the notion subjective (which
includes the notion proper, the judgment, and the syllogism) as the
dialectical result of the first two main stages of the Logical Idea,
Being and Essence. To say that the notion is subjective and subjective
only, is so far quite correct: for the notion certainly is subjectivity
itself. Not less subjective than the notion are also the judgment and
syllogism: and these forms, together with the so-called Laws of Thought
(the Laws of Identity, Difference, and Sufficient Ground), make up the
contents of what is called the 'Elements' in the common logic. But we
may go a step further. This subjectivity, with its functions of notion,
judgment, and syllogism, is not like a set of empty compartments which
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