The other of the two pillars of Hegelianism is his so-called philosophy of identity. It is, in its turn, an application of dialectics. I do not intend to waste the reader’s time by attempting to make sense of it, especially since I have tried to do so elsewhere34; for in the main, the philosophy of identity is nothing but shameless equivocation, and, to use Hegel’s own words, it consists of nothing but ‘fancies, even imbecile fancies’. It is a maze in which are caught the shadows and echoes of past philosophies, of Heraclitus, Plato, and Aristotle, as well as of Rousseau and Kant,