PHILOSOPHERS' STONE.PART 122

this process he called dialectical process.When the Eleatics had proposed a claim,Hegel regarded the standpoint a thesis and then the rise of contradictory thought to oppose that claim,he called it negation.Herarclitus for instance and he wasthe negation of eleatic philosophy.Now the tension between these contradictory thoughts with the emergence of empedocles who argued both were partly right and partly wrong.The standpoint of the Empedocles was what he called negation of the negation.Thenhe called the three stages of dialectical process mainly thesis,antithesis and synthesis.For instance,Descartes'rationalism was contradicted by Hume's empirical antithesis and eventually resolved by the synthesis of kant.Dont forget that new synthesis would also be contradicted by new antithesis and this suggests that the growth of world spirit is fundamentallynurtured by the interactive forces of dialectical process.With this formula,he believed he had uncovered basic law for the development of human reason or world soul.