18.] As the whole science, and only the whole, can exhibit what the
Idea or system of reason is, it is impossible to give in a preliminary
way a general impression of a philosophy. Nor can a division of
philosophy into its parts be intelligible, except in connexion with the
system. A preliminary division, like the limited conception from which
it comes, can only be an anticipation. Here however it is premised that
the Idea turns out to be the thought which is completely identical
with itself, and not identical simply in the abstract, but also in its
action of setting itself over against itself, so as to gain a being of
its own, and yet of being in full possession of itself while it is in
this other. Thus philosophy is subdivided into three parts:
I. Logic, the science of the Idea in and for itself.
II. The Philosophy of Nature: the science of the Idea in its otherness.
III. The Philosophy of Mind: the science of the Idea come back to
itself out of that otherness.
As observed in § 15, the differences between the several philosophical
sciences are only aspects or specialisations of the one Idea or system
of reason, which and which alone is alike exhibited in these different
media. In Nature nothing else would have to be discerned, except the
Idea: but the Idea has here divested itself of its proper being. In
Mind, again, the Idea has asserted a being of its own, and is on the
way to become absolute. Every such form in which the Idea is expressed,
is at the same time a passing or fleeting stage: and hence each of
these subdivisions has not only to know its contents as an object which
has being for the time, but also in the same act to expound how these
contents pass into their higher circle. To represent the relation
between them as a division, therefore, leads to misconception; for it
co-ordinates the several parts or sciences one beside another, as if
they had no innate development, but were, like so many species, really
and radically distinct.
[1] The journal, too, edited by Thomson is called 'Annals of
Philosophy; or, Magazine of Chemistry, Mineralogy, Mechanics, Natural
History, Agriculture, and Arts.' We can easily guess from the title
what sort of subjects are here to be understood under the term
'philosophy.' Among the advertisements of books just published, I
lately found the following notice in an English newspaper: 'The Art of
Preserving the Hair, on Philosophical Principles, neatly printed in
post 8vo, price seven shillings.' By philosophical principles for the
preservation of the hair are probably meant chemical or physiological
principles.
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