HKB
Verb Substantive = Prothesis, as expressing the identity or coinherence of Act and Being.
Substantive = Thesis, expressing Being. 3. Verb = Antithesis, expressing, Act. 4. Infinite = Mesothesis, as being either Substantive or Verb, or both at once, only in different relations. 5. Participle = Synthesis. Thus in Chemistry Sulphuretted Hydrogen is an Acid relatively to the more powerful Alkalis, and an Alkali relatively to a powerful Acid. Yet one other remark, and I pass to the question. In order to render the constructions of pure Mathematics applicable to Philosophy, the Pythagoreans, I imagine, represented the Line as generated, or, as it were, radiated, by a Point not contained in the Line but independent, and (in the language of that School) transcendent to all production, which it caused but did not partake in. Facit, non patitur. This was the punctum invisible, et presuppositum: and in this way the Pythagoreans guarded against the error of Pantheism, into which the later schools fell. The assumption of this Point I call the logical PROTHESIS. We have now therefore four Relations of Thought expressed: 1. Prothesis, or the Identity of T and A, which is neither, because in it, as the transcendent of both, both are contained and exist as one. Taken absolutely, this finds its application in the Supreme Being alone, the Pythagorean TETRACTYS; the INEFFABLE NAME, to which no Image can be attached; the Point, which has no (real) Opposite or Counter-point. But relatively taken and inadequately, the germinal power of every seed[79] might be generalized under the relation of Identity. 2. Thesis, or position. 3. Antithesis, or Opposition. 4. Indifference. To which when we add the Synthesis or Composition, in its several forms of Equilibrium, as in quiescent Electricity; of Neutralization, as of Oxygen and Hydrogen in water; and of Predominance, as of Hydrogen and Carbon with Hydrogen, predominant, in pure alcohol; or of Carbon and Hydrogen, with the comparative predominance of the Carbon, in Oil; we complete the five most general Forms or Preconceptions of Constructive Logic.
And now for the answer to the question. What is an IDEA, if it mean neither an Impression on the Senses, nor a definite Conception, nor an abstract Notion? (And if it does mean either of these, the word is superfluous: and while it remains undetermined which of these is meant by the word, or whether it is not which you please, it is worse than superfluous. See the 'Statesman's Manual,' Appendix ad finem.) But supposing the word to have a meaning of its own, what does it mean?--What is an IDEA?--In answer to this I commence with the absolutely Real as the PROTHESIS; the subjectively Real as the THESIS; the objectively Real as the ANTITHESIS: and I affirm, that Idea is the INDIFFERENCE of the two--so namely, that if it be conceived as in the Subject, the Idea is an Object, and possesses Objective Truth; but if in an Object, it is then a Subject and is necessarily thought of as exercising the powers of a Subject. Thus an IDEA conceived as subsisting in an Object becomes a LAW; and a Law contemplated subjectively (in a mind) is an Idea.
[78] See the 'Selection from Mr. Coleridge's Literary Correspondence' in Blackwood's Magazine, 1821, Letter II.--ED.
[79] See Comment on Moral and Religious Aphorism VI., p. 40.--ED.