Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/162

 148 J. ELLIS MCTAGGAET: that category as inadequate will recur here. Are we to regard the individuals as possessing any element of in- dividuality which is not identical with their unity in the system ? To answer this question in the affirmative is impossible. Such an inner reality, different from the external relations of the individual, though affected by them, would take us back to the categories of Essence, which the dialectic has already been compelled to transcend. And, in particular, it would be quite incompatible with our present category. For that demands, not only that the individuals shall not be independent of their unity, but they shall have no meaning at all but their unity. And therefore there cannot be any distinct element of individu- ality. 1 On the other hand, if we answer our question in the negative, our difficulties' will be as severe as before. The individuals are now not to possess any elements of individu- ality which are not identical with their unity in the system. But this, while it is no doubt the true view, is incompatible with the conception that the unity is simply the unity of the mutual determination of the individuals. As we saw when Absolute Mechanism transformed itself into Chemism, " the whole nature of each Object lies in the relations between it and other Objects. But each of these relations does not belong exclusively, ex hypothesi, to the one Object but shares it with the others. The nature of wax consists, for example, partly in the fact that it is melted by fire. But this melting is just as much part of the nature of the fire. The fact is shared between the wax and the fire, and cannot be said to belong to one of them more than the other. It belongs to both of them jointly. . . . The only subject of which the relation can be predicated will be the system which these two Objects form. The qualities will belong to the system, and it will be the true" individual. " But again, two Objects cannot form a closed system, since all Objects in the universe are in mutual connexion. Our system of two Objects will have relations with others, and will be merged with them, in the same way that the original Objects were merged in it since the relations, which alone give individuality, are found to be common property, and so merge their parts, instead of keeping them distinct. 1 To avoid misconceptions, I will so far anticipate points which must be treated later as to remark that this does not mean that the individuality is subordinated to the unity, but that both moments are completely united in the concrete conception of reality, from which they are both abstractions.