an abstract account of what reality is in its essence.

The equation of the real and the rational, or the discovery of one
significant process underlying both life and reason, led Hegel to
proclaim a new kind of logic, so well characterized by Professor Royce
as the "logic of passion." To repeat what has been said above, this
means that categories are related to one another as historical epochs,
as religious processes, as social and moral institutions, nay, as human
passions, wills, and deeds are related to one another. Mutual conflict
and contradiction appear as their sole constant factor amid all their
variable conditions. The introduction of contradiction into logical
concepts as their _sine qua non_ meant indeed a revolutionary departure
from traditional logic. Prior to Hegel, logical reasoning was reasoning
in accordance with the law of contradiction, i. e., with the assumption
that nothing can have at the same time and at the same place
contradictory and inconsistent qualities or elements. For Hegel, on the
contrary, contradiction is the very moving principle of the world, the
pulse of its life. _Alle Dinge sind an sich selbst widersprechend_, as
he drastically says. The deeper reason why Hegel invests contradiction
with a positive value lies in the fact that, since the nature of
everything involves the union of discrepant elements, nothing can bear
isolation and independence. Terms, processes, epochs, institutions,
depend upon one another for their meaning, expression, and existence; it
is impossible to take anything in isolation. But this is just what one
does in dealing with the world in art or in science, in religion or in
business; one is always dealing with error and contradiction, because
one is dealing with fragments or bits of life and experience. Hence--and
this is Hegel's crowning thought--anything short of the whole universe
is inevitably contradictory. In brief, contradiction has the same sting
for Hegel as it has for any one else. Without losing its nature of