Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/65

HEGEL'S TREATMENT OF THE OBJECTIVE NOTION. 51 The undifferentiated unity of the base of the relations can thus no longer be maintained. At the same time, it is im- possible to get rid of it by simply taking this base as plural. For then we should be back in the category of Absolute Mechanism, and this we have already seen to be unsatisfac- tory. It is clear that we can only get out of the difficulty by finding a new category which shall synthesise Mechanism and Chemism, and remove the defects of both. This is the argument I should propose to substitute for Hegel's treatment of Chemism. It so far resembles his that the abstract and excessive plurality in Mechanism is re- placed here by an equally abstract and excessive unity. But it is by no means the same category. It is true that there seems another resemblance in the way in which, in each case, the argument ends with an oscillation in Hegel's view be- tween the neutral object and the extremes, in my view, between the standpoints of Absolute Mechanism and Chem- ism. But this resemblance is deceptive, for there is a vital difference between an alternation of categories and a category of alternation. Now Hegel's view, as I said before, is a category of alternation if we look at things by his category of Chemism we regard the things themselves as oscillating between different states. The alternation, in my view, on the contrary, is nothing but that state of perplexity and contradiction which always arises when a Thesis and Anti- thesis, which are contrary to one another, have been de- veloped to their full extent, and the Synthesis, at the same time, has not yet presented itself for their reconciliation. 1 Each category, because of its inherent contradiction, leads to its contrary, and rest can only be found in the Synthesis. With this change there disappears whatever appropriate- ness the name of Chemism originally possessed. Indeed, it seems probable to me that the associations of this name are responsible for Hegel's own unsatisfactory treatment of the category. Since the category before it was most appropri- ately named after Mechanics, and its successor was closely connected with the idea of End, it was tempting to carry the analogy one step farther, and name the middle category from Chemistry. And, having done this, Hegel, I venture to think, for once distorted the category to suit the name. The conceptions of the neutral object, and of the oscillation between the neutral object and the connected extremes, have 1 Of course it is not the case that every Antithesis stands to its Thesis in the relation of a direct contrary. Indeed, a triad of this type is seldom found so near the end of the dialectic.