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42 j. ELLIS MCTAGGAET: outer side, or part of its outer side. The category of Formal Mechanism, therefore, demands an Outer which has no re- lation to the Inner. And this is just what was proved in the Doctrine of Essence to be impossible. If we wish to look at the question in a more concrete way, we may ask ourselves how much knowledge of the inner nature of an Object would be left us if we abstracted all knowledge of the effects which it produced on other Objects, and of the reactions by which it responded to the influences exerted on it from outside. The answer would certainly be that all knowledge of the inner nature would have vanished,, and the conclusion to be drawn is that it is impossible to separate inner nature and outer relations. 1 Or, looking at the other side, we may ask what meaning could be given to the statement that a relation x was a relation of A and B, if it did not affect the inner nature of either, and therefore made no difference to either of them. Why in this case should we call x a relation of A and B rather than of C and D ? As Lotze points out (Logic r section 338) a relation of things cannot be merely between them. It is in them, or it is nowhere. If then the outer relations and inner nature of the object are not absolutely independent, how do they stand to one another? The primd facie assumption, since they at any rate profess to be different, is that they are two separate realities, acting on one another. The arguments given above,, indeed, suggest that the connexion is closer than this, but Hegel prefers to approach the truth gradually, by stating and transcending this view of the interaction of separate realities. This forms the second subdivision of Mechanism,, and he entitles it : MECHANISM WITH AFFINITY. This is a somewhat perplexing title, nor is the original (Differenter Mechanismus) much clearer. The Smaller Logic is scarcely of any use here, owing to the very condensed way in which Hegel treats the subdivisions of Mechanism. By 1 It may be objected that it is possible to form an idea of the inner nature of the universe, although it has nothing outside it with which it can enter into relations. But the universe is not a single Object, but a differentiated unity of parts, each of which is to be regarded as a centre of reality. It is the relations between these which constitute the inner nature of the universe. But the Objects which we are now considering are not systems of centres. They are single centres, and, except for their external relations, would be blank unities, and therefore non- entities.