Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/57

HEGEL'S TREATMENT OF THE OBJECTIVE NOTION. 4$ the aid of the Greater Logic, however, it is possible to catch the meaning of the category. The outer relations and the inner nature influence one another, and the significance of the name appears to be that one Object is no longer as suitable as another to enter into any particular relations. Since the inner nature has some influence on the outer relations, it is only those Objects whose inner nature is of a particular kind which are capable of entering into particular relations. To this category, Hegel says (Werke, vol. v., p. 192), belongs the idea of Fate a blind Fate, conceived as crushing and ignoring the individuals who are in its power. This con- ception of the sacrifice of the individual to the order of things outside him could not have arisen in the category of Formal Mechanism, since there the interior of any Object was quite untouched by, and could not be sacrificed to, external circumstances. And in the next category, that of Absolute Mechanism, the opposition between inner and outer is replaced by the perception of their unity, and with it goes the idea of Fate as an alien and crushing power to return again, on a higher level, in the category of Life, but. to be again transcended by the category of Cognition. But, between Formal and Absolute Mechanism, our present cate- gory is precisely the proper sphere of Fate. For outside and inside are connected just so much that the former may act on the latter, just so little that there is no harmony between them. Fate has the individual Objects in its power,. " subjectos tanquam SILOS, viles tanquam alienos ". The Stoicism which is the characteristic moral of Formal Mechanism necessarily leads on, if we do not refuse to look facts in the face, to the Fatalism which is characteristic of Mechanism with Affinity. It is all very well to say that every man has the power to be free, virtuous and happy under any circumstances. But the circumstances may in- clude a badly trapped sewer which sends him out of the world, or a blow on the head which sends him into an asylum, or an education which leaves him with a complete ignorance of virtue, or a lively distaste for it. It is useless trying to escape from our circumstances. Such an " escape from Fate is itself the most unhappy of all Fates," as Hegel says. For the attempt at escape deprives us of our power over them, while it by no means deprives them of their power over us. Fortunately this rather depressing category passes like the rest. If we consider more closely, we shall see that it is really impossible for the inner nature of an Object to be crushed. If we call this inner nature xyz, then one of two