Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel's Philosophy, and Especially of His Logic
Georg Hegel · en
But they do not destroy personality and individuality: they only
transform it and made it a more adequate and consistent representation
of reality, by giving in it a place to factors or 'moments' which,
though always effective, were not recognised as constitutive elements,
and treated only as externally interfering agencies. It may be a
question, of course, how far it is wise to retain the term after
its meaning has thus been altered by expansion and redistribution
of elements. On the whole it seems impracticable--and it would be
undesirable, perhaps, even if it were more feasible--to be too hard
and fast in our use of denotations. It is hardly the province of
philosophy to coin new terms in which to deposit the results of her
researches. A term no doubt--particularly if, as the phrase runs, it be
luckily discovered, or judiciously selected--may save the expenditure
of thought. But it is hardly the business of philosophy to encourage
economy in this direction. Much more is it the perpetual task of
philosophy to counteract the ossification that sets in in terms,--to
reinterpret the meaning which is absorbed in these 'counters of
thought,' and make them once more sterling money for the market of
life. What, for instance, is the work of Aristotle's Ethics, but to
set free the genii which the black magic of every-day intercourse has
incarcerated in the non-significant Greek term Εὐδαιμονία? Like our own
Happiness, it flits from lip to lip, little better than a mere name,
which is still prized, but--except for a few synonyms that are equally
vague with itself--is attached to things which a little reflection
shows it cannot truly denote. Aristotle seeks--we may say--to define
it. But the phrase 'definition' seems barely applicable to the complex
process thus implied,--a process of which definition, as ordinarily
understood, is only one small portion. For to define happiness, is to
reconstruct the conception. Or, to be more accurate, it is really to
construct it or reproduce in consciousness its construction. As it
stands, the thing to be defined is a name and a thing, of which certain
relations to other things soon begin to show themselves, which is more
or less similar to one thing, and more or less to be distinguished from
another. To mark it off from these co-terminous things, and to show how
they are related to it on different sides,--this would be what we may
perhaps call strict, or formal, or nominal, or _mere_ definition.