Note 64 — Chapter VII · COMPREHENSION AND IDEA.

The word “Idea” does not have the sense here given it, except in Hegel, and in a very few translations of him. For the most part the word is used, (e. g. in Schelling’s Philosophy of Nature in this number,) as a translation for the German “Begriff,” which we call “comprehension,” adopting the term in this sense from the author of the “Letters on Faust.” It will do no harm to use so expressive a word as comprehension in an objective sense as well as in a subjective one. The thought itself is bizarre, and not merely the word; it is useless to expect to find words that are used commonly in a speculative sense. One must seek a word that has several meanings, and grasp these meanings all together in one, to have the speculative use of a word. Spirit has formed words for speculative ideas by the deepest of instincts, and these words have been unavoidably split up into different meanings by the sensuous thinking, which always loses the connecting links.