Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/54

40 J. ELLIS MCTAGGAET : a matter of indifference to their outer relations. They could not, for example, repel one another, except by some property of impenetrability. But it has been asserted that a change in their outer relations makes no change in their inner nature, and that the inner nature, on the other hand, has no in- fluence in deciding which, of various possible relations, should be the one into which they actually should enter. Hegel says in the Greater Logic (Werke, vol. v., p. 183) that this is the standpoint of Determinism. The name does not, at first sight, seem very appropriate, since one of the chief characteristics of the category is that the inner nature of the thing is not determined by its outer relations. But it is the determination of the outer relations to which Hegel refers here, and the significance of the name is negative. It refers to the absence of any self-determination on the part of the Object. If we ask why it is determined in this way rather than that, we can only attribute it to determination by another Object, which, in its turn, must be determined by a third, and so on indefinitely. In no case can the Object be self-determined, because in no case can the inner nature of the Object have anything to do with its determinations. Such a determinism would lead to a morality not unlike that of the Stoics. For morality is in the long run con- cerned only with the inner states of people though not of course only with the inner state of the individual moral agent. If every one was good and happy in himself, all external relations would be quite indifferent to morality, which only cares for external things in so far as they affect goodness or happiness. And if the inner nature of man, as of all other Objects, was independent of his external relations, then, whatever his circumstances, it would be in each man's power to be free, virtuous and happy. Such a view would of course tend to produce absolute indifference to the affairs of the outside world, and forms a striking contrast to the despair- ing Fatalism, which we shall see to be the ethical correlate of Mechanism with Affinity. How does this category demonstrate its insufficiency? The important point for this is the fact that each of these Objects, which are only externally related, has not only an inner nature, but an inner nature determined in the way expounded in the Subjective Notion. It is this which breaks down the category and carries us on to the next, and I should like to call attention to this as an incidental confirmation of my view as to the relation of the Subjective and Objective Notions. For it fully explains and justifies the postponement of the consideration of connexion by determination until connexion