From the PREFACE.
The present volume of Prolegomena completes the second edition of my "Logic Of Hegel" which originally appeared in 1874. The translation, which was issued as a separate volume in the autumn of 1892, had been subjected to revision throughout: such faults as I could detect had been amended, and many changes made in the form of expression with the hope of rendering the interpretation clearer and more adequate. But, with a subject so abstruse and complicated as Hegel's Logic, and a style so abrupt and condensed as that adopted in his "Encyclopedia," a satisfactory translation can hardly fall within the range of possibilities. Only the enthusiasm of youth could have thrown itself upon such an enterprise; and later years have but to do what they may to fulfill the obligations of a task whose difficulties have come to seem nearly insuperable. The translation volume was introduced by a sketch of the growth of the "Encyclopedia" through the three editions published in its author's lifetime: and an appendix of notes supplied some literary and historical elucidations of the text, with quotations bearing on the philosophical development between Kant and Hegel.
The Prolegomena, which have grown to more than twice their original extent, are two-thirds of them new matter. The lapse of twenty years could not but involve a change in the writer's attitude, at least in details, towards both facts and problems. The general purpose of the work, however, still remains the same, to supply an introduction to the study of Hegel, especially his Logic, and to philosophy in general. But, in the work of altering and inserting, I can hardly imagine that I have succeeded in adjusting the additions to the older work with that artful juncture which would simulate the continuity of organic growth. - To perform that feat would require a master who surveyed from an imperial outlook the whole system of Hegelianism in its history and meaning; and I at least do not profess such a mastery. Probably therefore a critical review will discern inequalities in the ground, and even discrepancies in the statement, of the several chapters. To remove these strains of inconsistency would in any case have been a work of time and trouble: and, after all, mere differences in depth or breadth of view may have their uses. The writer cannot always compel the reader to understand him, as he himself has not always the same faculty to penetrate and comprehend the problems he deals with. In these arduous paths of research it may well happen that the clearest and truest perceptions are not always those which communicate themselves with fullest persuasion and gift of insight. Schopenhauer has somewhere compared the structure of his philosophical work to the hundred-gated Thebes: so many, he says, are the points of access it offers for the pilgrims after truth to reach its central dogma. So—if one may parallel little things with his adventurous quest—even the less speculative chapters, and the less consecutive discourse, of these Prolegomena may prove helpful to some individual mood or phase of mind. If—as I suspect—the Second Book should elicit the complaint that the reader has been kept wandering too long and too deviously in the "Porches of Philosophy," I will hope that sometimes in the course of these rovings he may come across a wicket-gate where he can enter, and—which is the main thing—gather truth fresh and fruitful for himself....
