Reason and Redemption [pp. 409-437]

424 REASON AND REDEMPTION. [July,
Is now one of thesis, now of antithesis, and now of synthesis.
In "the infinite regress" (or remove backward), the whole is
reducible to zero. According to this sc/~erna, the Absolute
comes to consciousness in humanity. Creation and Providence
are but chapters in the philosophy of history. Individual souls
differ from one another, only as the leaves of the forest or the
waves of the sea —and the leaves and the waves are not true
entities, but only thoughts, that alike have their ground in the
Absolute Reason.
It is important to observe here that the three German philosophers were alike in identifying the subject and the object,
the ideal and the real, thought and existence.* The only difference between them in this particular was in the central point
of view, in the stress with which they insisted on this identificatioi~, and the logical audacity and coherence with which they
pushed the argument to its ultimate issue.
As Schelling claimed to do no more than carry out the inevitable tendencies of Fichte, so Hegel pretended at first to
nothing higher than a formal and logical elaboration of the
tenets of Schelling, settling them upon a purely ratio~al basis,
as opposed to a partially mystical basis, proving Schelling's
improved assumptions on grounds of dialectical reasoning, and
urging the logical inferences to the point of Absolute Idealism,
to which the mind was necessarily conducted, but to which
Schelling himself was unwilling to go. At a late period, it is
true, Hegel's tone toward his former guide became more hostile. Hegel's attempted proof of the proposition, that thought
and being are equivalents, is sophistical and nugatory. It is
none the less certain, that the entire fabric of Gen~an pan theism involves this assumption, and that Hegelianism is the only
form in which the assumption can be logically maintained. By
consequence, Hege I has unconsciously administered the coup
de gracc to the whole system of German Idealism, by reducing
it to Nihilism, and, afortiori, to Atheism.
There is, in fact, no system of Pantheism whatever-whether
European or Asiatic-whether naturalistic or subjective-that
can escape the wrath of Hegel's dialectic; inasmuch as every
* For Fichte, see AJOJ?i!, p. 413; f~r Schelling, ibid, p. 438; for both, ibid, p.
413 M~J p. 424.