103. SAIVA BASIS OF ABHINAVA'S ÆSTHETICS 117

SAIVA BASIS OF ABHINAVA'S ÆSTHETICS 117

soul. It arises from realising by the soul of distinction between itself as such and what belongs to its environment and regarding the content as not something alien to itself but itself. The soul, therefore, according to Hegel, in its immediacy, is a mere blank, an undifferentiated homogeneous univers- ality. The question, therefore, of plurality in regard to it cannot arise. As such it is the same in all without any distinction. The apparent plurality of souls is due to the coalescence or identification of the blank with the limiting conditions.

INCONSISTENCY OF HEGEL.

Hegel seems to be inconsistent in his conception of the first stage of the soul. On the one hand he speaks of it as immediate and, therefore, having no characteristic except that of being; having no distinction within it; not mediated by anything outside it and, therefore, free from all relations. On the other hand, he talks of it as blank and empty. "Being" and "Blank" or "empty" are ideas of the opposite nature. "Being" is positivity; blank or empty is negation. The former is immediacy, The latter is media- tion. Negation without reference to something negated is meaningless and inconceivable. Negation has both a substratum and a positive counterpart which is negated. Further, if the natural soul be immediate, how can it be distinguished from the Absolute ? And if it be non- different from the Absolute, how can the various modes in which it is affected by its environment, appear in it as qualities which it has ? How can there be the awareness of distinction of one mode of environmental affection from another, so that at a subsequent moment there be the