Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/188

172 J. ELLIS MCTAGGABT : state is largely determined by his relations positive and? negative to worms and to cats, although their resemblance- to him is not close. Both these connexions have to be worked out further. This the dialectic proceeds to do. It first takes up the relation of similarity, and works it out through the course of the Subjective Notion. Then, in the Objective Notion, it proceeds to work out the relation of determination not going back arbitrarily to pick it up, but led on to it again by dialectical necessity, since the Subjective Notion, when fully worked out, shows itself to have a defect which can only be remedied by the further development of the idea of determination. Finally, the two are united in the synthesis which Hegel calls the Idea. I am aware that this is not the way in which Hegel himself makes the transition. 1 But it seems to me to be a valid way of making it, and I cannot see any other. It may, however, possibly be objected that, whether this result be true or not, it breaks down all dialectic process, in the sense in which dialectic is understood by Hegel. The dialectic is unquestionably continuous. Each result must come from the one before it. And here, the critic might say, we have dropped the result gained in Reciprocity, put it aside till we come to the Objective Notion, and, in order to get started in the Subjective Notion, gone back to a result which had been gained at the very beginning of the Doctrine of Essence. This, however, is a mistake. For if, in one sense, we start here with the idea gained in Likeness and Unlikeness,. that idea has been transformed, or we could not start with it. And it only can be transformed by the application of the conception of complete determination, which came for the first time with the category of Reciprocity. Thus both accusations of want of continuity are answered. We have not gone back to take up a long past result, but are taking it the moment it becomes available for our purpose. We have not dropped our result last obtained, since it is through this alone that the previous conclusions have enabled us to take the next step. The fact that, at the beginning of the Objective Notion, the idea of reciprocal determination comes again into prominence, is by no means unsuited to the dialectic process. We have seen that, in the synthesis of Reciprocity, the two sides of qualities similar and dissimilar, and of reciprocal deter- 1 See Note A.