Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/366

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

350 J. ELLIS MCTAGGART : might have presented itself at any point in the Judgment of Necessity. For as soon as it was realised that the connexion between the two terms in the Judgment was asserted as necessary, the question as to the ground of that connexion will require an answer. It becomes however more imperative when the Judgment of Necessity has completed its develop- ment, and assumed the form of the Disjunctive Judgment. For when we find that B is, in some cases A, in some C, and in some D, the need for a cause of these varied relations be- comes more obvious, though not more real, than when we affirmed the uniform relation All A is B. Now, if we try to answer this question by inserting a middle term between the two Universals, this middle term must either be another Universal or else one or more Individuals. There is no other alternative. As we have already established the fact that there is some connexion between Universals, it will be natural to try and avail our- selves of this as the middle term. We connect A with M, and M with B. In this way we should assert that the manner in which Universals were connected was expressed by the ordinary Syllogisms of deductive formal logic. The simplest examples of these are to be found in the mood Barbara for example, " All men are mortal, all philosophers are men, therefore all philosophers are mortal ". Hegel calls the middle term of the Qualitative Syllogism Particularity. l This does not appear to have any very definite connexion with the Particular Notion, as it was described previously. What it seems to signify is that the Universal does not here manifest its true nature (which will become evident in the last subdivision of all), by which it is inherently and ultimately connected with other Universals, but is, on the contrary, regarded as a hard and fast unit, which can only be connected with anything else by external links. But why this should be called Particularity is not obvious. 2 SYLLOGISM OF EEFLEXION. To connect two Universals by means of another is often a perfectly legitimate and indispensable process. But if we take this method of connexion as a category, and so claim for it universal validity, we find that it is contradictory. The problem, to solve which it arose, was How can two 1 Enc., section 182. 2 Hegel divides the Qualitative Syllogism into the First, Second, and Third figures. But this seems to me to be indefensible (see Note D).