There also exists another meaning of the word "feeling," of which, at present at any rate, we do not take account. This appears when the word is used to designate _the state_ of the spirit or of one of the special forms of the spirit; we should indeed term these more correctly the _states,_ since the spirit in this case, as is known, is polarized in two opposite terms, usually denominated _pleasure and pain._ Indubitably these two terms can also be taken as psychological (and are thus included in the preceding case). Hence it results that pleasure and pain are represented by psychologists as the two extremes of a continuous series, in which there is a passage from the one to the other term by insensible increases and gradations. But we must also recognize that this psychological representation is not the only one possible, and indeed is not truly the real one, and that the two terms have their place and their proper meaning in the philosophy of the spirit. They are, as has been said, _opposites;_ and are differentiated, not only by a more and a less, by a greatest and a least, but also by the special character of distinction that opposites possess. The doctrine of opposites and of opposites in the practical activity of the spirit does not, however, appertain to this part of our exposition. In denying feeling, we do not here deny the doctrine of opposites, and that psychology of the _states_ of the spirit which is founded upon it, but the doctrine of feeling considered as a particular _form_ of _activity._ [Sidenote: _Function of the concept of feeling in the History of philosophy; the indeterminate._] The conception of feeling as a spiritual activity has answered to a want of research, which may be described as _provisional excogitation._ Whenever thought has found itself face to face with a form or subform of spiritual activity, which it was not possible either to eliminate or to absorb in forms already recognized, the problem to be solved has been endorsed with that word "feeling." With many this has passed for a solution. Feeling, in fact, has been the indeterminate in the history of philosophy, or rather the not yet fully determined, the _half-determined._ Hence its great importance as an expedient for the indication of new territories to conquer, and as a stimulus against remaining obstinately shut up in old and insufficient formulæ. But hence also its fate: the problem must not be exchanged for its solution, the indeterminate or semi-determinate must be determined. Whenever the determination of the forms and sub-forms of the spirit has not been given in a complete manner, the category of feeling will reappear (and it will be beneficial); but at the same time will reappear the duty of exploring it and of understanding what is concealed beneath it, or at least what unsolved difficulty has caused it to reappear afresh.