“Zero is in itself nothing.  Mathematics is based upon nothing, and, consequently, arises out of nothing.

“Out of nothing, therefore, it is possible for something to arise; for mathematics, consisting of propositions, is something, in relation to 0.”

By such “consequentlys” and “therefores” it is, that men philosophise when they “re-think the great thought of Creation.”  By dogmas that pretend to be reasons, nothing is made to generate mathematics; and by clothing mathematics with matter, we have the universe!  If now we deny, as we do deny, that the highest mathematical idea is the zero;—­if, on the other hand, we assert, as we do assert, that the fundamental idea underlying all mathematics, is that of equality; the whole of Oken’s cosmogony disappears.  And here, indeed, we may see illustrated, the distinctive peculiarity of the German method of procedure in these matters—­the bastard a priori method, as it may be termed.  The legitimate a priori method sets out with propositions of which the negation is inconceivable; the a priori method as illegitimately applied, sets out either with propositions of which the negation is not inconceivable, or with propositions like Oken’s, of which the affirmation is inconceivable.

It is needless to proceed further with the analysis; else might we detail the steps by which Oken arrives at the conclusions that “the planets are coagulated colours, for they are coagulated light; that the sphere is the expanded nothing;” that gravity is “a weighty nothing, a heavy essence, striving towards a centre;” that “the earth is the identical, water the indifferent, air the different; or the first the centre, the second the radius, the last the periphery of the general globe or of fire.”  To comment on them would be nearly as absurd as are the propositions themselves.  Let us pass on to another of the German systems of knowledge—­that of Hegel.

The simple fact that Hegel puts Jacob Boehme on a par with Bacon, suffices alone to show that his standpoint is far remote from the one usually regarded as scientific:  so far remote, indeed, that it is not easy to find any common basis on which to found a criticism.  Those who hold that the mind is moulded into conformity with surrounding things by the agency of surrounding things, are necessarily at a loss how to deal with those, who, like Schelling and Hegel, assert that surrounding things are solidified mind—­that Nature is “petrified intelligence.”  However, let us briefly glance at Hegel’s classification.  He divides philosophy into three parts:—­

1. Logic, or the science of the idea in itself, the pure idea.

2. The Philosophy of Nature, or the science of the idea considered under its other form—­of the idea as Nature.

3. The Philosophy of the Mind, or the science of the idea in its return to itself.