At this point we will pause, in order to call attention to a vital misapprehension of the signification of Being, as we used the term. If Being were the abstraction corresponding to the concrete term, "whose extension is unlimited and whose comprehension is null," Being would then signify existence (not the German "Seyn," but "Daseyn," sometimes called extant Being),i.e. it would signify determined Being, and not pure Being. If Being is taken in this sense, it is not equivalent to Nought, and there is no support given to such an absurdity in any system of Philosophy with which we are acquainted. Therefore, whatever is based on this assumption falls to the ground. But the question may be asked, "If the abstraction corresponding to the most general predicate of individual things is existence, by what process of abstraction do you get beyond this most general of predicates to a category transcending it?" We answer, by the simple process of analysis; let us try: in the most general predicate, which is determined Being, or existence--for all things in the Universe are determined beings--we have an evident two-foldness (a composite nature), which allows of a further analysis into pure Being and determination. Now, pure Being, considered apart from all determination, does not correspond to any concrete term, for the reason that determination, which alone renders such correspondence possible, has been separated from it by the analysis.

As regards the point (c), it is sufficient to remark that we did not use the term "Nothing" for nothingness, in the place referred to, but used the term "Nought," so as to avoid the ambiguity in the term Nothing, to-wit: the confusion arising from its being taken in the sense of no thing, as well as in the sense of the pure void. In analyzing "determined Being," we have two factors: one reduces to pure being, which is the pure void, while the other reduces to pure negation, which is likewise the pure void. Determination is negation, and if determination is isolated it has no substrate; while on the other hand all substrates, or substrate in general when isolated from determination, becomes pure vacuity.

Hence it seems to us that the process of analysis which reflection initiates, does not stop until it comes to the pure simple, which is the turning point where analysis becomes synthesis. Let us see how this synthesis manifests itself: our ultimate abstraction, the pure simple, has two forms, pure Being and pure negation; they coincide, in that they are the pure void. Neither can be determined, and hence neither can possess a distinction from the other. Analytic thought, which sunders the concrete, and never takes note of the link which binds, must always arrive at the abstract simple as the net result of its dualizing process. But arrived at this point it is obliged to consider the tertium quid, the genetic universal, which it has neglected. For it has arrived at that which is self-contradictory. To seize the pure simple in thought is to cancel it; for by seizing it in thought, we seize it as the negation of the determined, and by so doing we place it in opposition, and thereby determine it. Moreover, it would, objectively considered, involve the same contradiction, for its distinction from existing things determines it likewise. Therefore, the simple, which is the limit of analysis, is only a point at which synthesis begins, and hence is a moment of a process of self-repulsion, or self-related negation. So long as analysis persists in disregarding the mediation here involved, it can set up this pure immediate for the ultimatum. But so soon as it takes it in its truth it allows its mediation to appear, and we learn the synthetic result, which, in its most abstract form, is "the becoming." This we shall also find in another mode of consideration: differentiation and distinguishing are forms of mediation; the simple is the limit at which mediation begins; it (mediation) cancels this limit by beginning; but all mediated somewhats imply, likewise, the simple as the ultimate element upon which determination takes effect. Thus we cannot deny the simple utterly, nor can we posit it affirmatively by itself; it is no sooner reached by analysis than it passes into synthesis. Again we see the same doctrine verified by seizing the two factors of our analysis in their reflective form, i.e. in their mediation: Being, as the substrate, is the form of identity or self-relation, which, when isolated, becomes empty self-relation, or self-relation in which the negativity of the relation has been left out; this gives a form that collapses into a void. Determination, as the other factor, is the relation to a beyond, or what we call the relative proper; it is the self-transcending element, and when isolated so that its relation remains within itself, it falls into the form of the self-related, which is that of substrate, or the form of Being, and this collapses still further into the void, when we continue our demand for the simple; this void (or "hunger," as Boehme called it) is the same relativity that we found determination to be, when isolated, and thus we may follow these abstractions round and round until we find that they are organic phases of ONE PROCESS. Then we have found our synthesis, and have left those abstractions behind us.

We do not pretend to speak for "Hegelians"; we do not know that they would endorse our position. We give this as our own view, merely.

The first query which our interrogator offers contains the following points:

(a) Abstract terms are devices for expressing the meaning of concrete terms.

(b) Difference between a hundred dollars in his pocket being and not being (i.e. that the existence of a hundred dollars in his pocket makes a difference to his wealth) granted, it follows that what is and what is not are mutually exclusive, and not coëxtensive.

(c) The assertion of the identity of Being and Nothing [nought?] and the simultaneous denial of it indicates some other meaning given to abstract terms than the one he finds.

With regard to the first point, (a), we are ready to say at once, that we could not hold such a doctrine and lay any claim to be speculative philosophers. Nor, indeed, could we consistently hold it and join the class of thinkers which belong to the stage of Reflection--such as the Positivists, the Kantists, the Hamiltonians, &c., &c.,--who agree that we know only phenomena, and hence agree that the immediate world is untrue in itself, and exists only through mediation. For it is evident that the doctrine enunciated by our querist implies that general terms as well as abstract terms are only "flatus vocis"--in short, that individual things compose the universe, and that these are valid and true in themselves. On the contrary, we must hold that true actualities must be self-determining totalities, and not mere things, for these are always dependent somewhats, and are separated from their true selves. (See chapter VIII of our "Introduction to Philosophy," and, also, chapter X on The Universal.) That which abides in the process of origination and decay, which things are always undergoing, is the generic; the generic is the total comprehension, the true actuality, or the Universal, and its identity is always preserved, while the mere "thing," which is not self-contained, loses its identity perpetually. The loss of the identity of the thing, is the very process that manifests the identity of the total.

Hence, to pre-suppose such a doctrine as formal logic pre-supposes, is to set up the doctrine of immediateness as the only true.

The "hundred dollar" illustration does not relate to the discussion, for the reason, that the question is not that of the identity of existence and non-existence, but of pure Being and Nought, as before explained.]

2. You say, in effect,