Hegel's Idea of Philosophy, and: Logic and System, and: Logique et Dialectique, and: De Hegel à Marx (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 125 gious principle" of human nature. A truly enlightened philosopher should know that among primitive religions, among classical religions, as well as in modern times men had vainly sought to free themselves from the burdens of guilt by elaborate sacrifices, and that God himself had finally revealed the only successful, "natural.... system of grace" through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The power of Christianity to free men from guilt is the real truth, which reasonable men should know. To be "awakened" to the Divine Grace was a sign of genuine enlightenment. However mysterious this power may be, a philosopher or natural scientist in morals should accept this power as revealed, miraculous, and natural. But other reasonable men might not be satisfied unless they could prove that the origins of this Grace were historical, as reported in the Gospels. Williams therefore went to long, pathetic arguments to prove that the Gospels were well-authenticated history. However, he repeated that to an enlightened reason the truth of the Christian System of Grace depended not on its origin, but on its success in saving men from guilt. These were extraordinary lectures, and this book is a rare document, worthy of publication and careful reading. I-IEI~E~T W. Scrlr,mlDER Claremont, Cali]ornia Hegel's Idea o/Philosophy. By Quentin Lauer, S. J. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1971. Pp. x+159. $7.00) Logic and System. By Malcolm Clark. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1971. Pp. xiii+213. Paper $10.00) Logique et Dialectique. By Dominique Dubarle and Andr6 Doz. (Paris: Librairie Larousse, 1972. Pp. ix+246.) De Hegel ~ Marx. By Jacques d'Hondt. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972. Pp. 231.) Professor Lauer's book gives us both a new translation of Hegel's extensive Introduction to the History o[ Philosophy and a comprehensive commentary on the Introduction ; and it is valuable on both counts. Until 1940, Hegel's Lectures on the History o/ Philosophy were available only in the compilation of various texts edited by Michelet in 1836. It is this text which Haldane translated into English. In 1940, Hoffmeister published a version of those Lectures put together from notes taken when Hegel delivered the lectures in I825-1826. This edition was revised by Nicolin in 1959. According to Lauer, "it is at once the simplest and clearest and the most comprehensive" version of Hegel's Lectures; and it is this version which Professor Lauer has translated. He thus gives us not simply a retranslation of an older version but a translation of a text apparently not available to Michelet. Because of the role which the History o[ Philosophy plays within the Hegelian system, this Introduction is of special significance; and Lauer's commentary (pp. 1-66) is a helpful elucidation of the text. Dr. Clark's book (his doctoral dissertation) presents a novel approach to the question , What is the place of the Logic in the Hegelian system? This question, so the author holds, goes directly to the basic paradox of Hegel's system: "Logical thought is at once the whole of philosophy and but a part of it" (xi). After showing briefly that Hyppolite sees the fundamental Hegelian problem as that of the passage from Phenomenology to Logic; that Litt sees it as the transition from a Philosophy of Spirit to Nature and Logic; and that Mure sees the value and the limits 126 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of the dialectical method in the development of a critical interpretation of human experience in the self-man.station of absolute experience; Clark sets forth the thesis that Hegel's concern is the transition from Vorstellung to thought, and that he claims, in the Logic. to have arrived at the timeless development of thought itself. It is in the third book of the Logic, Clark maintains, that Hegel developed the final form of his system. Seen in this perspective, Clark argues, "the Phenomenology of Spirit is, and must remain, an enigma of Hegel's development" (p. 143); and the enigma of the Phenomenology is "the enigma of the system itself" (p. 144). Philosophical thought is seen to be a dual movement from the immediacies of experience to the resultant...