THINKING IN A VACUUM original: "THINKING IN VACUO"; Latin for "in a vacuum" or "in empty space."

Perhaps the main hindrance to seeing clearly is the contrast between Hegelian philosophy and our ordinary mental habits. Generally speaking, we are satisfied if we can get reasonably close to our subject and form a general mental picture of it. It might almost be said that we have never really learned how to be serious with either our words or our thoughts. We develop a way of speaking with a vague range of meaning, leaving much to the empathy original: "fellow-feeling" of our listeners, who are expected to fill in the gaps of our speech.

For most of us, exact thought is replaced by metaphors and pictures, by mental images and figures generalized from our physical senses. Because of this, when we encounter a single precise and definite statement—one that says exactly what it means, no more and no less—we are thrown off balance. Our imagination and memory have nothing left to do. Since imagination and memory make up the bulk of what we loosely call "thought," our thinking process seems to come to a standstill.

Those who desire smooth reading or easy writing—something within the boundaries original: "pale" of our usual mental habits—are more likely to find what they want in the partially correct and approximate language commonly used to express a truth, rather than in a single, accurate statement of the thought. We prefer a familiar name and a common image for our minds to work on. But in the atmosphere of Hegelian thought, we feel as if we have been lifted into a vacuum where we cannot breathe, and which is a fit habitation only for unrecognizable ghosts.

To read Hegel reminds us of the process we have to go through when trying to solve a riddle. All the terms of the problem are given to us, and the features of the object may be fully described; yet, somehow, we cannot immediately tell what it is all about, or add up the total of all these parts original: "add up the sum of which we have the several items". We are waiting to learn the subject of the proposition, of which all these statements...