Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/63

 HEGEL'S TREATMENT OF THE OBJECTIVE NOTION. 49 Absolute Mechanism ? There was nothing in that transition to abolish differentiation. The various relations in which the differentiation consists, were by no means destroyed. All that was done was that they were lumped together, and attributed to a single logical subject the system instead of to the plurality of Objects which had been previously their logical subjects. This will not give us a neutral object, such as Hegel requires here. (6) In the second place, if such a neutral object was reached, it would not split up into extremes, as Hegel wants it to do, but would vanish altogether. Such a neutral object could have nothing outside it, for it is to be coextensive with a mechanical system, and we have seen that every mechanical system is coextensive with the universe. And, again, the neutral object, being undifferentiated, could have nothing inside it. It would have therefore to be an abso- lutely blank reality. And the very first step in the Logic taught us that an absolutely blank reality was equivalent to absolute nothing. Consequently, even if the dialectic did get to the neutral object, it would never be able to pass from that to the connected extremes. (c) But even supposing that this could be done, and the perpetual oscillation between neutral and extremes could be established, where is the contradiction in this that could take us on to the next category ? It may be said that this continual oscillation is a False Infinite, and that a False Infinite is in itself a contradiction. But this, I think, is a mistake. There is nothing contradictory about a False Infinite except in those cases where the completion of the series is required when of course there is an obvious con- tradiction. It was for this reason that the False Infinite involved a contradiction in the category of Being-for-another. A, by the hypothesis, was determined. But it was deter- mined by B. So it could not be determined till B was determined. B was determined by C. Therefore, till C was determined, B could not be determined, nor, as a con- sequence, A. But C was determined by D, and so on ad infinitum. A, therefore, could not be determined till an end- less series was ended. Therefore it could not be determined gives a contradiction. Here, however, the infinite series is not wanted to deter- mine its first members. It can never be completed, but there is no contradiction if it is never completed. And therefore there is no ground for the transition to the next category. 4
 * it all. But, by the hypothesis, it was determined, which