Page "Johann Friedrich Herbart" Paragraph 7

But how are we to set about this task?

We have given to us a conception A uniting among its constituent marks two that prove to be contradictory, say M and N ; and we can neither deny the unity nor reject one of the contradictory members.

For to do either is forbidden by experience ; and yet to do nothing is forbidden by logic.

We are thus driven to the assumption that the conception is contradictory because incomplete ; but how are we to supplement it?

What we have must point the way to what we want, or our procedure will be arbitrary.

Experience asserts that M is the same ( i. e. a mark of the same concept ) as N, while logic denies it ; and so it being impossible for one and the same M to sustain these contradictory positions there is but one way open to us ; we must posit several Ms.

But even now we cannot say one of these Ms is the same as N, another is not ; for every M must be both thinkable and valid.

We may, however, take the Ms not singly but together ; and again, no other course being open to us, this is what we must do ; we must assume that N results from a combination of Ms.

This is Herbart's method of relations, the counterpart in his system of the Hegelian dialectic.