The principle of Hegelianism is the principle of Development, the principle of the Notion--but a Notion which is objective as well as subjective--the Idea. That principle then determines the beginning of Logic. We must know the whole course of growth and history before we can say where is the true commencement. It must be that out of which the end can obviously and spontaneously issue. In a sense, it must implicitly contain the end. It must show us the very beginning of thought, before it has yet come to the full consciousness of itself,--when the truth of what it is still lurks in the background and has to be developed. We must see thought in its first and fundamental calling. As the biologist, when he describes the structure of a plant, rests upon the assumption of a previous development of parts, in an existing plant, which has resulted in a seed,--but begins with the seed from which the plant is derived: so the logician must begin with a point which in a way presupposes the system to which it leads. But in its beginning this presupposition is not apparent: and in fact, the presupposition will only appear when the development of the system is complete. The first step in a process, just because it is a step, may be said to presuppose the completed process. Thus the beginning of Logic presumes the fullest realisation of Mind, as the beginning of botany can only be told by one who knows the whole story of the plant. It is from this circumstance that Hegel describes philosophy as a circle rounded in itself, where the end meets with the beginning, or says that philosophy has to grasp its original grasp or conceive its concept. In other words, it is not till we reach the conclusion that we see, in the light thus shed upon the beginning, what that beginning really was. From the general analogy of the sciences we should not expect that the beginning of thought would be full-grown thought, or indeed seem to the undiscerning eye to be thought at all. In many cases, the embryonic organism shows but little similarity to the adult, and occasionally a violent abruptness seems, on cursory glance, to mark off one stage of a creation's growth from the next. Who that knew not the result could in the seed prefigure to himself the tree? The beginning is not usually identifiable with the final issue, except by some effort to trace the process of connexion. The object of science only appears in its truth when the science has done its work.