McTaggart, Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic

44/John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart
its notion; and when we proceed to a criticism or judgment of the object,
we are not performing a subjective act, and merely ascribing this or that
predicate to the object. We are, on the contrary, observing the object in
the specific character imposed by its notion.”
This analogy may illustrate the view which we have been considering.
In the growth of a tree the positive element is in the seed only. The
air, earth, and water, although they are necessary to the development of
the tree, do not play a positive part in its growth. It is the nature of the
seed alone which determines that a plant shall be produced, and what
sort of plant it shall be. But the surrounding conditions, of suitable soil
and so on, are conditions without which the seed cannot realise the end
of its nature. In this analogy, the seed will correspond to the category of
Being, the completely mature plant to the Absolute Idea, and the air,
earth, and water, to the matter of intuition. If we look more closely, the
resemblance to actual plant life is not perfect, since different amounts of
light, heat, and manure will change the size and colour, though not the
species of the flower, which gives to these surroundings a more active
part than Hegel allows to the matter of intuition. But since Hegel says,
without restriction, that the germ of the plant contains its particulars, he
must be supposed to ignore the amount of quantitative change which
depends on the circumstances in which the plant is placed, and in this
case the analogy is exact.
The point of the comparison, if the above explanation is correct,
lies in the fact that the growth of the plant has certain conditions which
do not determine the nature of the development, though without their
presence the development could not exist at all. That this is the point
which Hegel wished to make is rendered probable by his having taken
as his example a case of organic life. For in organic life we are able to
distinguish between the cause of growth and the essential conditions of
it in a way that would be impossible if we were considering an event
governed only by mechanical laws. In the latter case we can only say
that the cause is the sum of all the necessary conditions, and we are
unable to consider any one of them as more fundamental than the others.
But with organic life we have introduced the idea of a final cause,
and we are thus enabled to distinguish between the positive cause and
the conditions which are necessary but not positive. Hegel’s declaration
that the growth of the notion must be judged by the principles of organic
growth, enables us to make this distinction, without which we should be
unable to understand that the relation held by the data of sense to the